Hey There Little Red... 1/?
Jun. 23rd, 2012 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
1lostoneTitle: Hey There Little Red...
Fandom: Teenwolf (shame. I have none.)
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 3972, this chapter.WIP
Warnings: *highlight for spoilers: H/C, Angst, POSSIBLE spoilers for upcoming episodes, rimming, first-time, knotting, possessive behavior... and uh, yeah. Underage. I don't know how old Stiles is in the show, but for my peace of mind he's going to be seventeen.
Summary: (Post ep for S2e04) Stiles knew that agreeing to meet Lydia in the middle of the damn woods, in the middle of the damn night wasn't one of his best ideas. Really. He did.
A/N This is my first fic in this fandom. I blame Tyler Hoechlin. Oh, and Dylan O'Brien. And whoever the fucking genius was that decided that they should both be soaking wet in a pool together. *blink* *dopey grin* Wait. What was I saying? Oh yeah. My first fic. So...here you go! Thanks to Jen and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jihime47 for taking a look at this for me, but all mistakes are mine.
It wasn’t so much that Stiles wanted to be lost in the middle of the fucking woods in the middle of the goddamn night. Things just sort of happened that way.
Stiles shook his head, pausing to breathe against the tree. This wasn’t quite as bad as running interference between Scott and Allison. He didn’t feel like he needed to snort his inhaler, anyway. But he’d been walking for what seemed like hours. Habit made him check his phone, only to remember that it was still at the bottom of the damn pool.
“Stupid werewolf politics,” Stiles muttered, allowing himself a couple of steps of truly spectacular stomping before sighing again and pausing to rest against the tree. Was that the same knot from earlier? He peered at it, wishing for a little more moonlight.
What the actual fuck.
It wasn’t like he was a boy scout. He’d tried, but the den mother had kicked him out when he had a few little questions about the necessity of identifying edible sub-tropic plants in the wild. They lived in northern California, for Christ’s sakes.
The only thing Stiles knew about palm fronds was what he’d seen on CSI: Miami, like most normal kids. Stiles shook his head. He paused a moment, pressing his hand to his side. He cinched his red hoodie up over his head and tried not to feel pathetic and stupid.
Which was doubly difficult considering he was both pathetic and stupid.
Lydia had told him where to meet. She’d seemed distraught. Upset again. Seeing her cry in the parking lot had really hurt. Ditching her to go canoodle in the pool with Derek for two hours had hurt quite a bit more.
Stiles let his head thunk against the tree.
So okay. Maybe he had questioned his .. priorities.
For three hours.
After Derek had stormed off, Stiles hadn’t missed the snotty little look Erica had given him. Yeah whatever. Big, bad werewolf got the shit kicked out of her by the Creepy Lizard Thing, and she was all busy being knocked out while he had kept Derek from drowning.
But did he get a thank you?
Nope.
A ‘great job, Stiles!’
Nope.
Scott had disappeared to go pick up his mom, and Stiles was left in the parking lot, twiddling his thumbs because all of his asshole friends had just taken off, leaving him dripping wet and sans phone. Yeah. Okay so it had been a long walk home. And cold. Let’s not forget cold. His muscles had practically trembled as he pulled himself up the stairs. It had been a relief to strip down and fall face-first into his bed. When he heard his email notification he had kind of whined a little, then forced himself up and over to his computer.
Lydia.
Begging to meet him. Saying something about needing to talk to him, but not feeling safe at her house. Stiles had been dressed and following her directions in minutes. Lydia had asked that he bring a change of clothes, some water, and something to eat. Stiles had been a little freaked out to be honest, but he’d dutifully packed his backpack and gone to meet her. Hell. If Derek could sneak in his window, Stiles sure as hell could sneak out. Naturally, he had gotten lost. Then he had gotten even more lost. In the woods. That were dark. And creepy. And dark.
And frankly, until he heard the footstep behind him as he rested against the tree in the woods, he hadn’t thought to wonder why exactly Lydia had emailed him instead of calling him.
Stiles didn’t even have time to squeak in fright before he was being slammed back into the tree, the flash of red giving him seconds to realize just who had attacked him.
“What are you doing here?” Derek only had two types of growls: ‘I’m going to rip out your throat, prepare to die.’ and ‘Stiles you’re an idiot and I’m going to rip out your idiot throat. Prepare to die.’ Neither were particularly comforting.
“I could- ask--” Stiles wheezed. Derek let up on his windpipe a fraction and he gasped out the rest of his sentence. “--you the same thing.” Stiles tried to keep his body from touching Derek’s but it was hard with the way the werewolf held him pinned to the tree, right forearm across Stiles’ windpipe, left hand braced against the bark. Derek shifted so that his leg was between Stiles’, pushing him so that Stiles was off-balance, on his tippy toes, keeping him completely immobile.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t easy to shove yourself into tree bark. Ms. Jenkins was always going on about ‘becoming one with nature’ but Stiles didn’t think this was quite what she meant.
“Why. Are. You. Here?”
Stiles felt his heart jump into his throat as he watched Derek’s eyes bleed fully to red.
“My! What big eyes you have!”
Here was the thing. Stiles had... issues with speaking before he thought things all the way through. It had happened once or twice in his life (and truly, he understood that this was a shock to some people) where he had gone and blurted something out without thinking about the repercussions.
Making a Little Red Riding Hood allusion to a pissed-off, grouchy Alpha werewolf could possibly be one of those times.
Derek emitted a sound that Stiles would have called a bark in less deathly-serious choke-hold against-the-tree circumstances and shifted back, his lip twitching, grip relaxing as he moved. Stiles sucked in a lungful of air and warily peered at the older man, slumping back to his feet. He bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t say something else completely idiotic.
Stiles watched as Derek slid his forearm across his throat, moving it so that he was bracing himself with both hands against the bark, Stiles on the inside.
“Do you know...,” Derek sounded completely conversational, “that I can hear your heartbeat when you’re afraid of me?” Stiles’ eyes almost bugged out of his head as Derek’s fingers brushed lightly against his ear, the fingernails sliding lightly down his jaw, over his bulging Adam’s apple, and down over his sternum. Stiles knew that he was wearing two layers of clothing, but he could easily imagine that he could feel the heat of Derek’s fingers against his heart.
Every thought in Stiles’ head completely left his brain. He was completely mortified to feel his dick twitch in his jeans, and for a second was sure that Derek would somehow know. Instead, Stiles jerked away, ducking under Derek’s arm and putting some distance between them.
“Um. Okay. Sure, that wasn’t creepy at all.” Stiles forced a laugh. Derek seemed to shake himself, and Stiles could see exactly when he remembered that he was pissed off. Or maybe he was always pissed off, and this was just a new way to fuck with him. Maybe he was just constipated. Who knew? Before Derek could roar at him, Stiles blurted out his reasons for being deep in the dark woods. “For your information, I was meeting a girl here. I didn’t know that I needed permission.”
Derek just glared, his eyes glinting in the darkness. Stiles swallowed hard (for an entirely different reason) and eased away from the trunk, thinking furiously for something to fill the silence. It was crazy; like even the wildlife knew he was here with a predator.
“You didn’t have any after-effects from that lizard juice? It made my own hands really numb. Of course, that was when I was trying to call 911 while staring at Godzilla goober all over my upholstery. I was totally watching that poor mechanic get...”
“Wait.” Derek tensed looking like he was going to take another step forward. Stiles compensated by taking another step backwards, trying not to be obvious about looking around for escape. “You never said that the creature was in your jeep.”
Stiles rolled his eyes hard enough to sprain them. “Of course I did. The problem is that you’re always too busy to listen to the dumb human. I mean, I know I’m not,” Stiles wiggled his fingers around to encompass having werewolf powers, “full of the kickass wolfy mojo, but I do have an occasional good idea once in awhile. If you guys would bother to freaking list--”
“Shut up!”
“-en and don’t you dare tell me to shut up! That’s exactly what I mean! You think that--”
“Stiles!” Derek growled, wolfing out and lunging.
Stiles backpedaled, tripping over a root and landing hard on his ass. His teeth clicked together around his tongue and the bright burst of pain was so shocking that he actually shut up. Derek whirled mid-leap, and there was a scream of anger that Stiles recognized from the pool area. He saw something out of the corner of his eyes, but his own reflexes weren’t anything close to moving him in time. The pain from his bitten tongue was nothing. It was like his brain, which usually focused on things so quickly that his mouth couldn’t keep up with what he was thinking about could only process incrementally, as though looking through the shutter of a camera:
-A claw, flashing white in the muted light of the moon.
-Derek’s growl of pure rage as he lept.
-His eye, ohmygodohmygodhisfucking eye!
-Darkness. Nothing.
Panic was like bile in his throat. He couldn’t see! He could only hear in fragments, just as confusing as everything else. He might have passed out. He was blind; he couldn’t hear over the frantic pounding of his heart. He had no idea how long he was cocooned in non-sensation.
Stiles was so lost in the loop of panic that he didn’t realize that he could see and hear until he saw Derek, in his human form bent over him.
“Stiles!”
Funny. Derek actually sounded concerned. Stiles tried to snort, then realized he couldn’t. His range of vision teetered, as though a camera had been joggled, but he couldn’t do much to change that either. Derek was muttering under his breath. Stiles watched as he bent down over Stiles’ face, brushing his fingers over his range of vision.
It hit Stiles then just why he couldn’t feel anything. Of course. The lizard’s venom. He was paralyzed. ... His life. Really. What the fuck?
Derek was as close to losing his shit as Stiles had ever seen him, including when he’d killed his uncle. Stiles concentrated on calming his heartbeat, knowing that Derek would hear it. Eventually. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that he could blink, and tried blinking his eyelids at different rates, trying not to think about the fact that it looked like he was fluttering his eyelashes at Derek freaking Hale.
It was extremely confusing to see Derek’s panic slowly revert to his normal stoic self. Stiles took a deep breath, then another, only realizing quite suddenly that he could hear- as though someone had unmuted the television.
“--fell. Good thing you shut your eyes, or you probably would have scratched your eyeball. I think I got all of the gunk out of your ears, but you’re filthy. Shit. Shit. Stiles. Stiles, would you just stop for a second?”
Stiles hoped that he managed to give Derek the appropriate withering look, given that he could only move about three muscles in his entire face.
Derek managed to look a tiny bit abashed, belatedly realizing what he’d said. He cleared his throat. “I mean, you can understand me. Blink once for yes. Twice for no.”
Stiles blinked once, wishing he knew morse code for asshole.
“Is everything numb?”
One blink.
Derek let out a sigh that seemed as though it came from his toes. He leaned back for a second, and Stiles realized that he was lying on Derek’s lap, as Derek kneeled on the forest floor. If he could, his jaw would have fallen open in utter shock. Derek caught him as he slipped, snarling down at his phone.
“Naturally. No signal. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that if I take you to your father like this, he’ll have me in handcuffs before I can blink.”
One blink.
Derek frowned down at him. He’d spent so much time frowning that it looked pretty normal on him. Still, Stiles knew his dad, and ‘overprotective’ was practically a job description. He was completely confused when his point of view jiggled, then he was suddenly a lot closer to Derek than he’d anticipated. He could smell aftershave, and laundry detergent and the faint scent of clean sweat, and Stiles was pretty damn glad that Derek had thought to close his mouth. He was horrifically reminded of the way he’d reacted when Derek had gone all creeperwolf on him.
All he could see was the curve of Derek’s shoulder. His brain was kind of on pause as he stared, then jump started again. What if this was permanent. What if his lungs stopped working? What if he had peed himself? What if his dad found out?
Why did Derek smell so good?
Thinking of Derek was a mistake. Stiles thought he had done a pretty stellar job of keeping his brain out of Derek’s pants. Given that there wasn’t exactly a manual for the how and the why of when it was appropriate to perv over the town’s resident badass, Stiles was pretty sure that realizing his tiny, little crush wasn’t exactly tiny nor little while trying to keep Derek afloat wasn’t exactly appropriate either.
It had hurt- Derek telling Stiles that he didn’t trust him. Stiles was used to it, but still... it had been a jolt. He’d been so pissed at what Derek said, that he’d stubbornly thought that he could definitely make it to the phone and back. It had been weird, treading water. The pool water had been warmer than outside, so between that and Derek’s ridiculous body heat, he’d been certain that he was going to overheat. Stiles hadn’t even known you could sweat while in a giant pool of water. It had been terrifying to see that lizard creature stalking them, had been terrifying to be in such close approximation to Derek... had just been terrifying.
Stiles’ vision jolted again, and he could see more light now. Glimpses of a moon about to set. He could smell burnt wood and wet dog, and both scents gave him a sense of place. Hale House. Derek went through his door and into a front room, bypassing what looked like a huge hole in the middle of the floor and going to the back of the house.
Stiles couldn’t see much, now that they were in the dark house, but he blinked rapidly when Derek lit a hurricane lamp. From his perspective he could see that he was lying down on a bed. Stiles could smell Derek everywhere, and he was a little alarmed to realize that his mouth was watering.
Derek was crouched by his bed. Stiles heard the tapping and realized that he was probably texting someone. He cursed when his phone rang.“What? No. Tell him that he’s spending the night at your house. No. No, it should wear off soon enough. He’s safe here.”
There was a high-pitched squawk from the phone that even Stiles could hear. Derek growled. Stiles could only see the top of the ceiling, and not Derek’s face, but he’d heard that particular tone on more than one occasion. “No, No. Enough, Scott.” Derek sounded like he was about to reach through the receiver and strangle him. He jabbed the end call button with a little more force than was necessary, and tossed his cell onto the mattress.
Derek moved off and Stiles blinked up at the ceiling. This was so frustrating! He was not used to being inside his own head this much. Looking like an idiot in front of Derek wasn’t exactly new, but why oh why--...
He was jolted out of his thoughts by Derek leaning over him. His eyes caught the reflection of the hurricane lamp, reflecting with a cold glint.
“Here.”
Stiles blinked rapidly when he saw the washcloth out of the corner of his eye. He had the weird sensation of knowing that Derek was wiping his face, but being unable to actually feel it. Just the fact that Derek was doing it at all was seriously fucking with Stiles’ worldview.
“You cut your face. And your eye- it’s pretty beat up.”
Stiles’ panic escalated. Was there damage? Could he see? He shut one eye, then the other to test, but didn’t seem to have any difficulty, other than Derek looking like he was moving slightly closer then slightly further away.
He heard Derek’s snort. “Scott is covering for you. Better not send you back to your dad while you’re like this.”
It was weird. Normally Derek was a man (a wolf?) of few words. But, since Stiles was unable to respond, Derek was forced to uphold the conversation by himself. Stiles didn’t really know why he was even talking in the first place. It was like when he’d seen Lydia crying in the car. Circumstances had forced these people into associating with Stiles- which why they had to be forced was beyond him because clearly he was completely awesome and it was their loss- Lydia.
Lydia! She was supposed to have met him in the woods. What if Godzilla had found her first?
Derek froze, his eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring slightly. Stiles knew he could scent Stiles’ sudden fear, and he started blinking rapidly, wishing more than ever that he could speak.
“What?” Derek leaned down slightly, adopting his what the hell face.
Stiles had a weird memory of looking down at Derek while he was on the floor of the vet’s office, pale and close to death. The flash made him remember Lydia, and the snarl of the lizard monster jumping at him; Derek changing and responding to the threat.
Protecting him.
“Christ, Stiles. Calm down.” Stiles could see Derek's hands as he brought them down to cup his face, saw Derek’s eyes, looking clear in the faint light. “Your heart. Calm. Down.” Derek’s face grew closer, closer.... ho-ohmigod is he going to kiss me?! before Derek rested his forehead against Stiles’. Derek’s beard stubble made a low, dark sound as Derek rubbed his cheek against stiles’ forehead, down over his cheekbone, the side of his face.
Derek kept his gaze on Stiles’. If they could, his eyeballs would be bugging out of his head. Yet whatever it was that Derek was doing worked. It calmed him. Maybe it was Derek’s proximity, or the utter and complete weirdness, but Stiles could feel himself relaxing, his heartbeat slowing.
“You’re almost panicked. What is it? Your dad?”
Two blinks.
“Scott?”
Two blinks.
Derek’s lips tightened. “Is it important enough that we need to chase it down?”
One blink. Lydia could be dead! God, this was so frustrating!
“Fuck. I hate twenty-questions.” Derek moved so that he wasn’t quite so close, his voice low. “Okay, so you were in the woods. Meeting someone. A girlfriend.”
Stiles almost felt his eye twitch. Lydia was most definitely not his girlfriend, but he was meeting someone. He blinked once.
“I was following the scent of that...'" Derek's hand jerked through the air. That Lizard-creature. I heard you walking around, making more noise than a bunch of damn puppies.” Derek tapped his finger against Stiles’ lips. "You will attend the next pack meeting for lessons on moving silently.”
Stiles wanted to roll his eyes. Damn bossy-ass werewolf.
“That... thing attacked. It must have been stalking you--” Derek’s phone rang. He popped out of Stiles line of sight, and he heard his gruff, “What?”
Stiles had a very weird thought.
Last night, the lizard had been in his jeep. Today, Lydia had been bawling in her car. Stiles had said he would talk to her (watching a girl cry was just about the worst thing in the world) then the lizard showed up in the pool room. Lydia had emailed him to meet her... and the lizard showed up to attack. Could it... No. No way. Well, stranger things had happened. Like Beacon Hills being the California chapter of the lost puppies club. Like Derek Hale taking care of him. Like the most popular girl in the school being a crazed paralysis-inducing Godzilla reject.
“-then get it.” Stiles blinked, realizing that Derek had hung up.
“Scott covered it. His mother is apparently working a double. Something’s up; he’s refusing to leave the hospital. He wouldn’t tell me. Damn it!”
Stiles would have winced if he could. He knew if he wasn’t here, Derek would be chasing down what mattered most to him- his pack. Guilt was sour bile in his throat. But... Lydia. Stiles had jumped from idea to idea before and been dead wrong. He didn’t think he could handle it if he was wrong again. He and Lydia weren’t close- not by any stretch of the imagination, but he did care about her. Hell, he’d been in love with her since before he’d known how to write his name in cursive.
Derek huffed out a determined breath. His face appeared over Stiles’ again, in his line of sight. “You were meeting a girl. So it’s either Allison or that redhead. The one my uncle attacked. You don’t know any other girls.”
Derek wasn’t trying to be hateful, but god, that sounded pathetic. And creepy. How the hell did Derek know that? Okay, sure it was one thing for the morons at Beacon Hills High to know that Stiles was a complete reject with girls, but for Derek to just throw it out there? Fact or Fiction? Not cool. Even more uncool was the fact that he was right.
“Linda. No... Lydia. You were meeting her in the woods?” There was a flash of something that Stiles couldn’t quite identify, then Derek’s eyebrows rose as he smirked. “Niiice, kid. So, am I right?”
Stiles blinked really hard, as though the ‘fuck you’ was as obvious.
“Well, I didn’t scent anything else out there. The creature ran off when I attacked it. I was distracted by you getting swiped, and it got away.” Derek shrugged. “Don’t worry. It won’t hide from me again.”
The relief of knowing that she wasn’t hurt was absolute. Derek would have ever left a human kill in the woods, no matter what. Keeping his pack safe was paramount to him. Stiles closed his eyes, listening to his own heartbeat, focusing on it like he used to do when he had jumped off a diving board and crashed underwater, when everything else but the sound of his blood in his ears was muted. Distant.
“Hey. Look. It took a little over two hours for it to wear off for me. You got hit by it in the garage, but it didn’t get into your bloodstream. I’m guessing that you’ll be out for at least eight hours. Maybe longer. You can stay here. Sleep here in my bed. I have some stuff to take care of, but I won’t be far. I won’t let anything happen to you Stiles.” Derek’s lips twisted in a small smirk. “You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
Stiles’ eyes popped open.
It took a long time for him to fall asleep.
Next
(I will stick to weekly updates, but the idea for this fic literally hit me the day after watching, and I can't write fast enough!)
Fandom: Teenwolf (shame. I have none.)
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: Adult
Word Count: 3972, this chapter.
Warnings: *highlight for spoilers: H/C, Angst, POSSIBLE spoilers for upcoming episodes, rimming, first-time, knotting, possessive behavior... and uh, yeah. Underage. I don't know how old Stiles is in the show, but for my peace of mind he's going to be seventeen.
Summary: (Post ep for S2e04) Stiles knew that agreeing to meet Lydia in the middle of the damn woods, in the middle of the damn night wasn't one of his best ideas. Really. He did.
A/N This is my first fic in this fandom. I blame Tyler Hoechlin. Oh, and Dylan O'Brien. And whoever the fucking genius was that decided that they should both be soaking wet in a pool together. *blink* *dopey grin* Wait. What was I saying? Oh yeah. My first fic. So...here you go! Thanks to Jen and
jihime47 for taking a look at this for me, but all mistakes are mine.
Cover art my mari-mcsly. <3.
It wasn’t so much that Stiles wanted to be lost in the middle of the fucking woods in the middle of the goddamn night. Things just sort of happened that way.
Stiles shook his head, pausing to breathe against the tree. This wasn’t quite as bad as running interference between Scott and Allison. He didn’t feel like he needed to snort his inhaler, anyway. But he’d been walking for what seemed like hours. Habit made him check his phone, only to remember that it was still at the bottom of the damn pool.
“Stupid werewolf politics,” Stiles muttered, allowing himself a couple of steps of truly spectacular stomping before sighing again and pausing to rest against the tree. Was that the same knot from earlier? He peered at it, wishing for a little more moonlight.
What the actual fuck.
It wasn’t like he was a boy scout. He’d tried, but the den mother had kicked him out when he had a few little questions about the necessity of identifying edible sub-tropic plants in the wild. They lived in northern California, for Christ’s sakes.
The only thing Stiles knew about palm fronds was what he’d seen on CSI: Miami, like most normal kids. Stiles shook his head. He paused a moment, pressing his hand to his side. He cinched his red hoodie up over his head and tried not to feel pathetic and stupid.
Which was doubly difficult considering he was both pathetic and stupid.
Lydia had told him where to meet. She’d seemed distraught. Upset again. Seeing her cry in the parking lot had really hurt. Ditching her to go canoodle in the pool with Derek for two hours had hurt quite a bit more.
Stiles let his head thunk against the tree.
So okay. Maybe he had questioned his .. priorities.
For three hours.
After Derek had stormed off, Stiles hadn’t missed the snotty little look Erica had given him. Yeah whatever. Big, bad werewolf got the shit kicked out of her by the Creepy Lizard Thing, and she was all busy being knocked out while he had kept Derek from drowning.
But did he get a thank you?
Nope.
A ‘great job, Stiles!’
Nope.
Scott had disappeared to go pick up his mom, and Stiles was left in the parking lot, twiddling his thumbs because all of his asshole friends had just taken off, leaving him dripping wet and sans phone. Yeah. Okay so it had been a long walk home. And cold. Let’s not forget cold. His muscles had practically trembled as he pulled himself up the stairs. It had been a relief to strip down and fall face-first into his bed. When he heard his email notification he had kind of whined a little, then forced himself up and over to his computer.
Lydia.
Begging to meet him. Saying something about needing to talk to him, but not feeling safe at her house. Stiles had been dressed and following her directions in minutes. Lydia had asked that he bring a change of clothes, some water, and something to eat. Stiles had been a little freaked out to be honest, but he’d dutifully packed his backpack and gone to meet her. Hell. If Derek could sneak in his window, Stiles sure as hell could sneak out. Naturally, he had gotten lost. Then he had gotten even more lost. In the woods. That were dark. And creepy. And dark.
And frankly, until he heard the footstep behind him as he rested against the tree in the woods, he hadn’t thought to wonder why exactly Lydia had emailed him instead of calling him.
Stiles didn’t even have time to squeak in fright before he was being slammed back into the tree, the flash of red giving him seconds to realize just who had attacked him.
“What are you doing here?” Derek only had two types of growls: ‘I’m going to rip out your throat, prepare to die.’ and ‘Stiles you’re an idiot and I’m going to rip out your idiot throat. Prepare to die.’ Neither were particularly comforting.
“I could- ask--” Stiles wheezed. Derek let up on his windpipe a fraction and he gasped out the rest of his sentence. “--you the same thing.” Stiles tried to keep his body from touching Derek’s but it was hard with the way the werewolf held him pinned to the tree, right forearm across Stiles’ windpipe, left hand braced against the bark. Derek shifted so that his leg was between Stiles’, pushing him so that Stiles was off-balance, on his tippy toes, keeping him completely immobile.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t easy to shove yourself into tree bark. Ms. Jenkins was always going on about ‘becoming one with nature’ but Stiles didn’t think this was quite what she meant.
“Why. Are. You. Here?”
Stiles felt his heart jump into his throat as he watched Derek’s eyes bleed fully to red.
“My! What big eyes you have!”
Here was the thing. Stiles had... issues with speaking before he thought things all the way through. It had happened once or twice in his life (and truly, he understood that this was a shock to some people) where he had gone and blurted something out without thinking about the repercussions.
Making a Little Red Riding Hood allusion to a pissed-off, grouchy Alpha werewolf could possibly be one of those times.
Derek emitted a sound that Stiles would have called a bark in less deathly-serious choke-hold against-the-tree circumstances and shifted back, his lip twitching, grip relaxing as he moved. Stiles sucked in a lungful of air and warily peered at the older man, slumping back to his feet. He bit his tongue so that he wouldn’t say something else completely idiotic.
Stiles watched as Derek slid his forearm across his throat, moving it so that he was bracing himself with both hands against the bark, Stiles on the inside.
“Do you know...,” Derek sounded completely conversational, “that I can hear your heartbeat when you’re afraid of me?” Stiles’ eyes almost bugged out of his head as Derek’s fingers brushed lightly against his ear, the fingernails sliding lightly down his jaw, over his bulging Adam’s apple, and down over his sternum. Stiles knew that he was wearing two layers of clothing, but he could easily imagine that he could feel the heat of Derek’s fingers against his heart.
Every thought in Stiles’ head completely left his brain. He was completely mortified to feel his dick twitch in his jeans, and for a second was sure that Derek would somehow know. Instead, Stiles jerked away, ducking under Derek’s arm and putting some distance between them.
“Um. Okay. Sure, that wasn’t creepy at all.” Stiles forced a laugh. Derek seemed to shake himself, and Stiles could see exactly when he remembered that he was pissed off. Or maybe he was always pissed off, and this was just a new way to fuck with him. Maybe he was just constipated. Who knew? Before Derek could roar at him, Stiles blurted out his reasons for being deep in the dark woods. “For your information, I was meeting a girl here. I didn’t know that I needed permission.”
Derek just glared, his eyes glinting in the darkness. Stiles swallowed hard (for an entirely different reason) and eased away from the trunk, thinking furiously for something to fill the silence. It was crazy; like even the wildlife knew he was here with a predator.
“You didn’t have any after-effects from that lizard juice? It made my own hands really numb. Of course, that was when I was trying to call 911 while staring at Godzilla goober all over my upholstery. I was totally watching that poor mechanic get...”
“Wait.” Derek tensed looking like he was going to take another step forward. Stiles compensated by taking another step backwards, trying not to be obvious about looking around for escape. “You never said that the creature was in your jeep.”
Stiles rolled his eyes hard enough to sprain them. “Of course I did. The problem is that you’re always too busy to listen to the dumb human. I mean, I know I’m not,” Stiles wiggled his fingers around to encompass having werewolf powers, “full of the kickass wolfy mojo, but I do have an occasional good idea once in awhile. If you guys would bother to freaking list--”
“Shut up!”
“-en and don’t you dare tell me to shut up! That’s exactly what I mean! You think that--”
“Stiles!” Derek growled, wolfing out and lunging.
Stiles backpedaled, tripping over a root and landing hard on his ass. His teeth clicked together around his tongue and the bright burst of pain was so shocking that he actually shut up. Derek whirled mid-leap, and there was a scream of anger that Stiles recognized from the pool area. He saw something out of the corner of his eyes, but his own reflexes weren’t anything close to moving him in time. The pain from his bitten tongue was nothing. It was like his brain, which usually focused on things so quickly that his mouth couldn’t keep up with what he was thinking about could only process incrementally, as though looking through the shutter of a camera:
-A claw, flashing white in the muted light of the moon.
-Derek’s growl of pure rage as he lept.
-His eye, ohmygodohmygodhisfucking eye!
-Darkness. Nothing.
Panic was like bile in his throat. He couldn’t see! He could only hear in fragments, just as confusing as everything else. He might have passed out. He was blind; he couldn’t hear over the frantic pounding of his heart. He had no idea how long he was cocooned in non-sensation.
Stiles was so lost in the loop of panic that he didn’t realize that he could see and hear until he saw Derek, in his human form bent over him.
“Stiles!”
Funny. Derek actually sounded concerned. Stiles tried to snort, then realized he couldn’t. His range of vision teetered, as though a camera had been joggled, but he couldn’t do much to change that either. Derek was muttering under his breath. Stiles watched as he bent down over Stiles’ face, brushing his fingers over his range of vision.
It hit Stiles then just why he couldn’t feel anything. Of course. The lizard’s venom. He was paralyzed. ... His life. Really. What the fuck?
Derek was as close to losing his shit as Stiles had ever seen him, including when he’d killed his uncle. Stiles concentrated on calming his heartbeat, knowing that Derek would hear it. Eventually. He was pleasantly surprised to find out that he could blink, and tried blinking his eyelids at different rates, trying not to think about the fact that it looked like he was fluttering his eyelashes at Derek freaking Hale.
It was extremely confusing to see Derek’s panic slowly revert to his normal stoic self. Stiles took a deep breath, then another, only realizing quite suddenly that he could hear- as though someone had unmuted the television.
“--fell. Good thing you shut your eyes, or you probably would have scratched your eyeball. I think I got all of the gunk out of your ears, but you’re filthy. Shit. Shit. Stiles. Stiles, would you just stop for a second?”
Stiles hoped that he managed to give Derek the appropriate withering look, given that he could only move about three muscles in his entire face.
Derek managed to look a tiny bit abashed, belatedly realizing what he’d said. He cleared his throat. “I mean, you can understand me. Blink once for yes. Twice for no.”
Stiles blinked once, wishing he knew morse code for asshole.
“Is everything numb?”
One blink.
Derek let out a sigh that seemed as though it came from his toes. He leaned back for a second, and Stiles realized that he was lying on Derek’s lap, as Derek kneeled on the forest floor. If he could, his jaw would have fallen open in utter shock. Derek caught him as he slipped, snarling down at his phone.
“Naturally. No signal. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that if I take you to your father like this, he’ll have me in handcuffs before I can blink.”
One blink.
Derek frowned down at him. He’d spent so much time frowning that it looked pretty normal on him. Still, Stiles knew his dad, and ‘overprotective’ was practically a job description. He was completely confused when his point of view jiggled, then he was suddenly a lot closer to Derek than he’d anticipated. He could smell aftershave, and laundry detergent and the faint scent of clean sweat, and Stiles was pretty damn glad that Derek had thought to close his mouth. He was horrifically reminded of the way he’d reacted when Derek had gone all creeperwolf on him.
All he could see was the curve of Derek’s shoulder. His brain was kind of on pause as he stared, then jump started again. What if this was permanent. What if his lungs stopped working? What if he had peed himself? What if his dad found out?
Why did Derek smell so good?
Thinking of Derek was a mistake. Stiles thought he had done a pretty stellar job of keeping his brain out of Derek’s pants. Given that there wasn’t exactly a manual for the how and the why of when it was appropriate to perv over the town’s resident badass, Stiles was pretty sure that realizing his tiny, little crush wasn’t exactly tiny nor little while trying to keep Derek afloat wasn’t exactly appropriate either.
It had hurt- Derek telling Stiles that he didn’t trust him. Stiles was used to it, but still... it had been a jolt. He’d been so pissed at what Derek said, that he’d stubbornly thought that he could definitely make it to the phone and back. It had been weird, treading water. The pool water had been warmer than outside, so between that and Derek’s ridiculous body heat, he’d been certain that he was going to overheat. Stiles hadn’t even known you could sweat while in a giant pool of water. It had been terrifying to see that lizard creature stalking them, had been terrifying to be in such close approximation to Derek... had just been terrifying.
Stiles’ vision jolted again, and he could see more light now. Glimpses of a moon about to set. He could smell burnt wood and wet dog, and both scents gave him a sense of place. Hale House. Derek went through his door and into a front room, bypassing what looked like a huge hole in the middle of the floor and going to the back of the house.
Stiles couldn’t see much, now that they were in the dark house, but he blinked rapidly when Derek lit a hurricane lamp. From his perspective he could see that he was lying down on a bed. Stiles could smell Derek everywhere, and he was a little alarmed to realize that his mouth was watering.
Derek was crouched by his bed. Stiles heard the tapping and realized that he was probably texting someone. He cursed when his phone rang.“What? No. Tell him that he’s spending the night at your house. No. No, it should wear off soon enough. He’s safe here.”
There was a high-pitched squawk from the phone that even Stiles could hear. Derek growled. Stiles could only see the top of the ceiling, and not Derek’s face, but he’d heard that particular tone on more than one occasion. “No, No. Enough, Scott.” Derek sounded like he was about to reach through the receiver and strangle him. He jabbed the end call button with a little more force than was necessary, and tossed his cell onto the mattress.
Derek moved off and Stiles blinked up at the ceiling. This was so frustrating! He was not used to being inside his own head this much. Looking like an idiot in front of Derek wasn’t exactly new, but why oh why--...
He was jolted out of his thoughts by Derek leaning over him. His eyes caught the reflection of the hurricane lamp, reflecting with a cold glint.
“Here.”
Stiles blinked rapidly when he saw the washcloth out of the corner of his eye. He had the weird sensation of knowing that Derek was wiping his face, but being unable to actually feel it. Just the fact that Derek was doing it at all was seriously fucking with Stiles’ worldview.
“You cut your face. And your eye- it’s pretty beat up.”
Stiles’ panic escalated. Was there damage? Could he see? He shut one eye, then the other to test, but didn’t seem to have any difficulty, other than Derek looking like he was moving slightly closer then slightly further away.
He heard Derek’s snort. “Scott is covering for you. Better not send you back to your dad while you’re like this.”
It was weird. Normally Derek was a man (a wolf?) of few words. But, since Stiles was unable to respond, Derek was forced to uphold the conversation by himself. Stiles didn’t really know why he was even talking in the first place. It was like when he’d seen Lydia crying in the car. Circumstances had forced these people into associating with Stiles- which why they had to be forced was beyond him because clearly he was completely awesome and it was their loss- Lydia.
Lydia! She was supposed to have met him in the woods. What if Godzilla had found her first?
Derek froze, his eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring slightly. Stiles knew he could scent Stiles’ sudden fear, and he started blinking rapidly, wishing more than ever that he could speak.
“What?” Derek leaned down slightly, adopting his what the hell face.
Stiles had a weird memory of looking down at Derek while he was on the floor of the vet’s office, pale and close to death. The flash made him remember Lydia, and the snarl of the lizard monster jumping at him; Derek changing and responding to the threat.
Protecting him.
“Christ, Stiles. Calm down.” Stiles could see Derek's hands as he brought them down to cup his face, saw Derek’s eyes, looking clear in the faint light. “Your heart. Calm. Down.” Derek’s face grew closer, closer.... ho-ohmigod is he going to kiss me?! before Derek rested his forehead against Stiles’. Derek’s beard stubble made a low, dark sound as Derek rubbed his cheek against stiles’ forehead, down over his cheekbone, the side of his face.
Derek kept his gaze on Stiles’. If they could, his eyeballs would be bugging out of his head. Yet whatever it was that Derek was doing worked. It calmed him. Maybe it was Derek’s proximity, or the utter and complete weirdness, but Stiles could feel himself relaxing, his heartbeat slowing.
“You’re almost panicked. What is it? Your dad?”
Two blinks.
“Scott?”
Two blinks.
Derek’s lips tightened. “Is it important enough that we need to chase it down?”
One blink. Lydia could be dead! God, this was so frustrating!
“Fuck. I hate twenty-questions.” Derek moved so that he wasn’t quite so close, his voice low. “Okay, so you were in the woods. Meeting someone. A girlfriend.”
Stiles almost felt his eye twitch. Lydia was most definitely not his girlfriend, but he was meeting someone. He blinked once.
“I was following the scent of that...'" Derek's hand jerked through the air. That Lizard-creature. I heard you walking around, making more noise than a bunch of damn puppies.” Derek tapped his finger against Stiles’ lips. "You will attend the next pack meeting for lessons on moving silently.”
Stiles wanted to roll his eyes. Damn bossy-ass werewolf.
“That... thing attacked. It must have been stalking you--” Derek’s phone rang. He popped out of Stiles line of sight, and he heard his gruff, “What?”
Stiles had a very weird thought.
Last night, the lizard had been in his jeep. Today, Lydia had been bawling in her car. Stiles had said he would talk to her (watching a girl cry was just about the worst thing in the world) then the lizard showed up in the pool room. Lydia had emailed him to meet her... and the lizard showed up to attack. Could it... No. No way. Well, stranger things had happened. Like Beacon Hills being the California chapter of the lost puppies club. Like Derek Hale taking care of him. Like the most popular girl in the school being a crazed paralysis-inducing Godzilla reject.
“-then get it.” Stiles blinked, realizing that Derek had hung up.
“Scott covered it. His mother is apparently working a double. Something’s up; he’s refusing to leave the hospital. He wouldn’t tell me. Damn it!”
Stiles would have winced if he could. He knew if he wasn’t here, Derek would be chasing down what mattered most to him- his pack. Guilt was sour bile in his throat. But... Lydia. Stiles had jumped from idea to idea before and been dead wrong. He didn’t think he could handle it if he was wrong again. He and Lydia weren’t close- not by any stretch of the imagination, but he did care about her. Hell, he’d been in love with her since before he’d known how to write his name in cursive.
Derek huffed out a determined breath. His face appeared over Stiles’ again, in his line of sight. “You were meeting a girl. So it’s either Allison or that redhead. The one my uncle attacked. You don’t know any other girls.”
Derek wasn’t trying to be hateful, but god, that sounded pathetic. And creepy. How the hell did Derek know that? Okay, sure it was one thing for the morons at Beacon Hills High to know that Stiles was a complete reject with girls, but for Derek to just throw it out there? Fact or Fiction? Not cool. Even more uncool was the fact that he was right.
“Linda. No... Lydia. You were meeting her in the woods?” There was a flash of something that Stiles couldn’t quite identify, then Derek’s eyebrows rose as he smirked. “Niiice, kid. So, am I right?”
Stiles blinked really hard, as though the ‘fuck you’ was as obvious.
“Well, I didn’t scent anything else out there. The creature ran off when I attacked it. I was distracted by you getting swiped, and it got away.” Derek shrugged. “Don’t worry. It won’t hide from me again.”
The relief of knowing that she wasn’t hurt was absolute. Derek would have ever left a human kill in the woods, no matter what. Keeping his pack safe was paramount to him. Stiles closed his eyes, listening to his own heartbeat, focusing on it like he used to do when he had jumped off a diving board and crashed underwater, when everything else but the sound of his blood in his ears was muted. Distant.
“Hey. Look. It took a little over two hours for it to wear off for me. You got hit by it in the garage, but it didn’t get into your bloodstream. I’m guessing that you’ll be out for at least eight hours. Maybe longer. You can stay here. Sleep here in my bed. I have some stuff to take care of, but I won’t be far. I won’t let anything happen to you Stiles.” Derek’s lips twisted in a small smirk. “You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
Stiles’ eyes popped open.
It took a long time for him to fall asleep.
Next
(I will stick to weekly updates, but the idea for this fic literally hit me the day after watching, and I can't write fast enough!)
