Chapter Text
The longer Derek stared at the letter in hand, the more he desperately wished that he was dreaming. However, Derek was pretty sure his subconscious couldn’t create the intricate coils and symbols that made up the crest of the Turner pack, nor would it be so cruel as to torture him with the words within the letter. Dread and horror settled heavier and heavier in his gut with every sentence that his eyes glossed over. He hadn’t actually thought they’d follow through with their claims of enacting an old treaty betrothal between the Hale and Turner pack that had been drawn up years ago, especially since he was well over the age of eighteen by now.
This was over his head. Even six years of being the alpha hadn’t prepared him to deal with pack politics that nobody had ever really taught him about. Derek had been taking a shot in the dark when he’d responded to their initial letter (found in an old P.O. box Laura had set up a dozen years ago after the fire) stating that their delay in calling upon the treaty had rendered it void. He’d even been sure to mention having already found a significant other--one that happened to not actually exist--so that they might change their minds. Derek had really been hoping they wouldn’t call his bluff…but all his hopes had been in vain.
Not only had they called his bluff, but according to the letter, Derek had less than a week to find himself a fiancé because the Turner pack was coming down to ‘officially’ break the treaty and give Derek and his nonexistent mate their blessing. Derek knew for a fact that turning them down could probably end in a lot of hell and maybe even bloodshed if they discovered that Derek had been lying to them.
He knew for a fact that they were desperate for a born werewolf to help strengthen the pack’s future bloodlines.
Derek grabbed his cell phone from the coffee table and hit Scott’s speed dial number. He wasn’t sure Scott was going to be able to help--but Derek had learned after a good handful of years that keeping something like this to himself was a far worse decision than actually calling Scott for help.
When the call went straight to voice mail, Derek sighed, hung up, and called Stiles.
“Mornin’, Starshine,” Stiles chirped when he answered, “Scott not answer?”
“No,” Derek muttered, smiling a little at the grumble he got from the other end, “can you get in contact with him? I need everyone here as soon as possible.”
Stiles let out a nervous hissing noise as he sighed through his teeth, “is this an emergency?”
“It will be.”
Judging from the thudding on the other line, Stiles had probably dropped something onto his desk in a fit of exasperated dramatics. “Define ‘will be’,” he snapped, “because the last time you said that, Erica’s hair got set on fire and I needed three new tires for the jeep.”
Derek wasn’t going to take the bait this time--because Stiles loved baiting him and Derek maybe had a terrible habit of letting Stiles get his way sometimes. If this were any less serious, Derek was pretty sure they’d be bickering about the schematics on who was to blame for the destruction of the jeep’s tires and Erica’s goldilock curls.
“How much is there about arranged marriages in that book you got from Deaton?”
Stiles released a strangled garble of noises that usually meant he was in the process of reacting to whatever question had been thrown his way. It took a second, but Derek soon heard the shifting of paper as Stiles started to flip through the book. “Uh,” Stiles grunted, muttering to himself for a second and then going silent to blurt, “wait, are you engaged?”
“Possibly,” Derek admitted wearily.
Another, longer silence happened, and then Stiles let out a dramatic and pained sigh of the greatest suffering. “I’ll get the pack together.”
Even if Derek was going to entertain the thought of thanking Stiles, it was pointless because he hung up right after he’d finished talking. Derek and the other werewolves weren’t the only ones who had changed and matured over the years. Stiles had gotten the brunt of a lot of their issues, and it made him tougher and sharper than the sixteen year old kid Derek had met in the woods so long ago.
It came with a price, though, and no matter how many times Stiles claimed that his injuries were worth it, Derek still felt miserable on the few times that Stiles walked a little slower or spaced out more than usual. Despite the bad days, Stiles was resilient, adaptable, and the most stubborn and irreplaceable human that Derek had met in his entire life.
Derek looked around his apartment, realizing with a pang of sorrow that he was going to have to clean before the pack showed up. Everyone had been busy for most of the week, which meant that Derek had kind of let things get out of hand with no one to impress. He started with the living room, grabbing a trash bag and getting to work.
Stiles let himself in while Derek was pulling his first load of clothes out of the dryer. He was one of the few pack members with a key--other than Isaac and Scott--and was always happy to use his key even when he knew Derek was home. Derek popped his head out of the tiny laundry room, calling out so Stiles could figure out where he was.
“Need help?” was the first thing Stiles asked, grinning crookedly. Derek grunted, lifting up the basket and gesturing for the couch.
“If you like folding socks.”
“Sure,” Stiles brought his cane up, giving Derek half a second to see the runes carved into the dark oak before he poked Derek harshly in the stomach, “since you decided to let me call everyone instead of doing it yourself, nobody is going to be here for another hour.” Derek cringed, feeling the sharp flare of pressure that came with that particular protection symbol.
“They listen to you,” Derek pointed out, “you’re more annoying.”
Stiles wielded his cane, shaking it menacingly, “watch it, buddy,” he warned, but with no actual malice in his words.
They sat on the couch, Derek pressing up against Stiles’ right side and making sure that his thigh was touching Stiles’ bad leg as he started to pull clothes out of the basket. Stiles was loathe to admit, but having werewolves who could ease his pain a little always put him in a better mood. It had been overcast since the night before, which meant that Derek was sure Stiles’ leg was bothering him more than usual.
Derek put up with the dull throb in his leg that came from taking some of Stiles’ pain while they folded his laundry in silence. It was one of the many ways Derek had learned to show his gratitude for all the hell that Stiles had gone through for the pack. Stiles was having one of those days where he wasn’t particularly talkative either, his fingers nimble as he paired off sock after sock and hummed an old rock song under his breath.
By the time everyone finally showed up, the entire apartment was starting to feel cramped.
“So wait,” Scott threw a hand out, looking just as confused as everyone else after Derek‘s explanation, “are you engaged or not?”
“I was,” Derek tried again, “before my family died, I was supposed to marry the daughter of the alpha when I turned eighteen. After the fire, Laura and I moved away and the Turner pack lost contact with us…”
Derek pressed his fingertips together, and then brought them to his temples to rub absently. “The terms of engagement were for a born werewolf from the Hale pack of Beacon Hills. Two werewolves isn’t a pack…not one that’s worth marrying into.”
Stiles crossed his arms, bouncing his leg in his usual fidget. “So, what? Now that you’ve got this big bad pack, they think they can just be like, ‘oh hey by the way you were supposed to marry our daughter ten years ago,’ and think it will work?”
Derek shrugged, “pretty much. Only now I’m the alpha, and there’s enough of us that we could double the strength of their pack if they married us in.”
“Us?” Scott echoed, “what do we have to do with it? Do you mean if you marry this chick that we have to join their pack?”
“Dude,” Stiles piped up, “that’s lame.”
“So why tell them you’re already engaged?” Boyd asked from where he was lounging in the recliner. “Is it some kind of loophole?”
Derek scrubbed at his face, shrugging and trying to ignore the urge to cry in frustration. “They waited ten years to enact the betrothal. By right, if I’m married or going to be married in that time, the treaty is void. The problem is that now they want to come here to meet my mate and bless the marriage and I have no way of stopping them.”
“You’re engaged?” Stiles blurted, staring at Derek like he’d eaten the very last curly fry on earth. Derek stared in disbelief and Scott let out a loud noise of understanding.
“Oh, you lied!” he exclaimed, face splitting into a knowing grin while Stiles made a few expressions before settling on a sheepish shrug.
“So what do we do?” Stiles asked, gesturing to the pack as a whole, “I’m pretty sure none of us really want to join these guys if they’re as power-hungry as you say.”
Isaac dug his hands into his pockets, “we could hire someone? Maybe get an escort to be his fiancé?” Boyd twisted his head, giving Isaac the same blank-faced stare that he’d somehow learned from Derek. Isaac ducked his head, “right, bad idea.”
“What about Danny?” Scott suggested. Derek shook his head, temporarily relieved that Jackson and Lydia were out of state for their anniversary so he didn’t have to hear the two of them reprimanding Scott for volunteering their best friend to fake-marry Derek.
“Doesn’t smell like pack,” Derek said, “just a friend of the pack.”
“I could do it?” Isaac shrugged, gnawing on the corner of his lip.
Derek thought about it, but the idea of being intimate with Isaac made something churn in his gut. “Wouldn’t work. We interact too much like alpha and beta… they’d be able to tell,” he explained, getting nothing but looks of confusion from Isaac and Scott. “We have to pass as lovers, which means you need to be my equal; and you take orders too easily.”
Isaac nodded slowly, making a sound of understanding just as Allison and Erica slipped into the apartment after having run to the store to grab a few things to make for dinner.
“Besides,” Derek added, watching Erica plop herself in Boyd’s lap, “you smell like…” he gestured vaguely, hand waving over to Scott and then to Allison--because it didn’t take a genius to tell that the three of them had been experimenting for the past couple of months. There hadn’t been a reason to bring it up before now, and Derek almost regretted it as Stiles’ mouth dropped open and he gaped at Scott--who was red in the face and avoiding eye contact.
Isaac, however, just nodded understandingly, “fair enough.”
Somehow, everyone but Derek turned to look at Stiles at the exact same time. Derek, however, was trying to desperately ignore what was about to happen. He had not spent the past few years ignoring how hard he had fallen for Stiles, just to be forced to pretend they were in the relationship he’d always wanted.
“Do they have to be a werewolf?” Stiles asked, and Derek barely stopped himself from wincing when he added, “I could be your boyfr--”
“Fiancé,” Derek interrupted.
“Yeah, that.”
Grimacing, Derek brought a hand up to his face, mouthing the word, ‘fuck,’ into his palm so that no one could see it. This was going to end badly, there was no way it couldn’t.
Stiles huffed, “don’t look so offended. I’m a catch.”
Derek knew that tone of voice well. It was the same indignant pitch that Stiles always took on when he was ready to put up a fight if he didn’t get his way. Stiles had a habit of stubbornly doing things just for the sake of proving others wrong. “You have to smell more like me,” he said, hoping that would be enough to change Stiles’ mind once he realized what type of interaction this sort of ‘job’ would entail.
A scoff, “not that hard. I’m a cuddler anyway.”
“We have less than a week. How are you going to explain to your dad where you are? You need to make my apartment smell like you.”
Stiles stared and then, very slowly, said, “this isn’t high school,” because of course Derek couldn’t use Stiles’ father as an excuse anymore. The man had known about the pack for three and a half years already. Nope. Stiles had already sunk his claws in. There was no way he was going to back out now. Derek was screwed.
He must have been staring too long because Stiles clapped a hand on his good leg and grinned, “well that’s that, then. Anyone hungry?” he asked, pushing himself up into a stand, snatching his cane from the coffee table and heading for the kitchen. Derek got up, turning in time to see Stiles suddenly put his cane down and start to use it after he’d only gotten a few feet from the living room.
Everyone else resettled in the living room to discuss their weeks while Derek helped Stiles rummage around for the necessary utensils needed to make pasta. Other than needing to use the cane to get to the kitchen, Stiles seemed like he was doing better than earlier.
“If we do this, you need to be on your guard,” Derek warned, pulling out the pre-made sauce jars out of the grocery bags that Allison had left on the counter. “You’re human, and that means that they’re going to be pretty pissed when they find out they lost an alpha to what they think is a weaker race.”
Grinning and setting down the saucepan on the stove, Stiles turned and gave Derek’s shoulder a firm pat and then squeeze, “the cane isn’t just for the gimp leg, remember?” he teased. Derek frowned, and Stiles made a move to poke him with the rune-etched end that had Derek jerking away out of instinct.
“See? I can be scary,“ smugly, Stiles set the cane against the counter and went about filling a pot with water. Derek would have been more inclined to believe him, if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t know the Turners well enough to trust them not to do something that could end up with Stiles getting hurt or killed. He grabbed some basil and salt, sprinkling them into the pot when Stiles set it on the stove.
“You should probably stay tonight,” he said, “I still have some of your stuff from the wendigo last month; I washed them.”
“How sweet of you,” Stiles said dryly, grabbing the half-empty bag of garlic knots from on top of Derek’s toaster oven. Derek harrumphed, watching Stiles set a few on a pan so they could be heated up once the food was nearly finished.
“Shut up,” he sniped, filching one of the rolls and ducking Stiles’ karate-chop flail before escaping to the living room.
-
After the food had been completely destroyed by hungry werewolves and college students alike, everyone went their separate ways. Derek made sure before they left that they had all finished smoothing out their stories (which was really just a romantic version of how Derek and Stiles had actually met) for when the Turners arrived--as well as Derek telling them what he knew about this pack; which wasn’t much.
Stiles flopped back against the couch, rubbing his stomach with a contented sigh, his good leg settling on the arm of the couch. Derek watched from the kitchen as Stiles reached for his bad leg, hauling it up onto the arm with a grunt. He went back to cleaning up the mess from dinner while Stiles used his cane to drag the controller for the play station within reach. Derek was just rinsing out the saucepan when Stiles’ voice drifted from the living room.
“Derek, can you turn the TV on?”
“You have feet.” Derek shot back.
Stiles released a long, dramatic whine and then, “but you’re my fiance! You have to provide for me!” in a way that was so exaggerated Derek actually felt a little better about the entire arrangement. It meant that Stiles was going to treat this just like every other awkward situation they’d ever been forced into; with humor, and the best effort he could muster.
Drying his hands off with a paper towel, Derek left the dishes to be done later and wandered into the living room. Stiles was waving his cane around, trying to reach the remote on the recliner without falling. It was almost comical, but Derek knew no matter how much Stiles might have been playing it up, his leg was probably still bothering him.
No matter how fast a human healed, Stiles was never happy. He’d keep pushing himself until things like this happened--where he’d rather ask for help than deal with the pain and aches that came from moving around. Derek grabbed the remote, flicking on the television and then heading for the couch. He lifted up both of Stiles’ legs, sitting down and settling them onto his lap.
Stiles spent less than a second looking at Derek oddly before he shrugged and said, “if we’re gonna go all domestic, you should rub my feet. You know, for practice purposes.”
Derek had a hard time finding an argument to that when he had spent years looking for a hundred reasons to touch Stiles. It was hard to find any reason not to comply when Derek also knew for a fact that Stiles’ feet were almost always bothering him because of the way his injury forced him to walk. He fiddled with Stiles’ sneakers, pulling the laces loose and then tugging both of them off.
“Seriously?” Stiles gaped. Derek shrugged, grabbing his bad leg’s foot, and dug his thumbs right into the sole, pushing upward at the tense, sensitive muscles there. Stiles let out a choked warble of, “oh God,” head thudding back against the couch and his toes spasming. Derek snorted, massaging firmly in slow, outward circles.
“Yeah, forget buying me seat covers or something as payment… just add foot rubs to each pack meeting,“ Stiles whimpered, his foot arching just the tiniest bit when Derek hit a sensitive area, “maybe twice on Mondays.“
Derek cracked a grin, a swell of fondness overwhelming him suddenly. When Stiles had been in high school, they didn’t have this familiarity. Derek had been so alone back then; relying on a barely-there bond between himself and a bunch of teenagers, and in a constant state of waiting for something to kill him. He wasn’t really sure what he’d done right between then and now, but whatever it was that had kept everyone together, Derek was grateful for it. He was grateful to have such a closeness with Stiles--even if it was under somewhat false pretenses-- that they could joke around and Derek was able to touch him freely while leaving all awkwardness behind.
If there was one thing he’d missed about his family, it was the open affection between all of them. It had taken Derek a long time to get that with this new pack--two years before Erica would curl up next to the couch, four years until Boyd would pull him into a greeting hug, and five before he could reach out and hold Stiles without worrying about the repercussions.
It didn’t take long before Stiles was a sufficient pile of goo on the couch, the controller hanging limply in his hand while Derek rubbed at his ankles.
“Did you do your stretches?” he asked. Stiles cracked an eye open, glowering at him.
“Yes,” he muttered, “I kind of have to if I don’t want to be crippled for the rest of my life,” his tone was sharp and bitter, full of frustration that Derek knew he had trouble expressing. Derek shrugged once, because--in all honesty--he had no idea how human injuries healed. The only reason he knew so much about Stiles’ was because each trip he made to the hospital was met with Melissa McCall’s wrath and a folder full of printouts on whatever treatment required.
Derek placed his hand behind the knee of Stiles’ bad leg, pushing up and bending his leg towards his stomach. Stiles let out a loud, pained whimper, his face scrunching up.
“Breathe,” Derek reminded him, ignoring the dirty look Stiles shot his way. Stiles’ leg shook in his palms, but Derek kept gently pushing until Stiles let out a long, shuddering breath, finally relaxing enough that Derek could push just a few inches more. This wasn’t the first time Stiles had needed help with his physical therapy--there were days near the beginning where it had taken almost the entire pack to even get him out of bed.
Counting in his head, Derek finally lowered Stiles’ leg after a good minute, watching as Stiles went utterly limp again. “Do you need help getting up?”
“Nah,” Stiles sighed, pushing himself up, “I’m pretty sure I could run for a mile right now.”
Derek narrowed his eyes as Stiles laughed and stood up, stretching and groaning. “I’m kidding, dude.”
“Dude,” Derek mocked, “you’ve done it before.”
“Okay, that was one time,” Stiles sniped, standing before Derek, bouncing a little and wiggling his arms and legs to work out the kinks he’d gotten while laying down. He was moving better, knees bending together and his hips rotating the way they should have been. It made Derek feel a little better knowing that he was repaying Stiles in some way for all the things he’d gone through for the pack.
Standing, Derek reached out to scrub a hand over Stiles’ head and give it a gentle shove, “go take a shower, you’re going to have to sleep with me.”
“Huh, I guess you’re right,” Stiles hummed, punching Derek gently in the chest in retaliation for the noogie. Derek was grateful for small favors like Stiles being smart enough to catch onto why they needed to share the bed. This entire situation was awkward enough, but at least he didn’t have to go on a massive explanation about scent marking and pack territory.
While Stiles showered, Derek hurried into his room to kick the last of his dirty laundry under the bed with some of the random nick nacks that he’d never put back on the shelves. He changed the sheets with a fresh pair out of his closet and threw all his trash away, carrying out some dirty cups and dishes. He was putting them in the sink just as Stiles emerged from the hallway bathroom in a burst of steam, wearing only his boxers and the spare t-shirt that Derek had gotten out for him.
By the time Derek had showered and put on some sweatpants, Stiles was fast asleep on his bed with his mouth hanging open and his arms starfished across the mattress. Derek rolled him onto his side, pushing Stiles closer to the wall and then climbing in next to him so they were back to back. He drifted off to the sound of Stiles’ heavy breathing and the creaking of the overhead fan.
He woke up the next morning with his head on Stiles’ shoulder and Stiles’ snores softly filling the room. Stiles hadn’t always snored, but a cracked rib that punctured his lung back in his senior year had changed things. Derek sat up, eyes dragging down to the scar on Stiles’ hip that stretched all the way around from his navel.
The scar itself wasn’t anything gruesome; less than an inch thick and a puckered pink that deepened to red around the soft flesh of Stiles’ belly. It was what had caused the scar that made Derek’s chest ache with the memory. Stiles had shoved Boyd out of the way, saving him from the manticore’s sting and getting enough of the poisoned tip that he’d been left in a feverish state of near-death hallucination for days afterwards.
Derek pressed his palm against the center of the scar--where the barb had sunken the deepest--and applied just enough pressure that he could absorb the dull throb of pain he knew would be plaguing Stiles’ joints. It wasn’t the most prominent of his injuries, but the poison had damaged his nerves, leaving part of his side numb and the rest of it prone to aching first thing in the morning.
Stiles‘ breathing changed from sleeping to waking, one eye slitting open to peer down at Derek‘s palm on his side. He made a tired snuffling sound, muttering, “don’t think that was part of the agreement,” but not doing anything to stop Derek.
“Just a bonus,” Derek pointed out, sitting for a moment longer before he pulled his hand away to climb out of bed. He headed into the kitchen, puttering around for the things needed to make the both of them some breakfast. Stiles appeared a minute later, sitting at the kitchen bar and laying out a piece of blank paper.
“List time,” he announced, clicking his pen dutifully, “so what bases do we need to cover before your bride-not-to-be gets here?”
Derek cracked an egg into the pan he’d set on the stove, grabbing up the spatula to break the yolk. “If we’re going to smell like mates, I need you to be near me all the time. Werewolf mates--”
“So, why are they called mates?” Stiles interrupted. Derek paused from where he’d been throwing some seasoning onto the egg and frowned. He’d never really thought about why they used the term mates, other than the fact that it was just something his family had always done.
“I…don’t know.”
Stiles made an unimpressed sound in the back of his throat, pursing his lips in a frown and bobbing his head, “alrighty then. So let’s just stick to boyfriends…”
Derek flipped the egg over, “this is a little more serious than boyfriends.”
“Husbands? Lovers? Betrothed?”
“How are those any better?” Derek asked dryly.
“Well they don’t sound like you’re going to beat me over the head with a rock and drag me back to your man cave and have your wolfy way with me,” Stiles pointed out, clicking his pen dramatically with the words, ‘wolfy way’.
Looking over his shoulder at Stiles, Derek made sure to raise one eyebrow slowly. It was a lot easier than telling Stiles all the ways he was utterly ridiculous, at least.
Stiles shrugged, eyebrows bobbing, and he slouched in his seat to scribble an angry penguin in the corner of his paper. “So, let’s just stick with fiance, then.”
“Fine,” Derek muttered, feeling just the tiniest bit miffed. His parents had always called one another their mates, but it made sense that the term was a little too clichéd for Stiles’ taste. The more he thought about it, the less inclined Derek was to use it. “So do you want me to just list the stuff we should do before the Turner pack gets here?”
“That’s the plan.”
Derek slid the egg onto a slice of toast, tossing some cheese on it and adding a swipe of mayo to another slice of toast. He cracked a second egg onto the pan, heading for the coffee maker to pour himself and Stiles’ a cup now that it was done brewing. Stiles hadn’t always needed lists, not in the very beginning. Now, though, with all the head injuries Stiles had sustained over the years and times their plans had gone entirely fubar, a list was pretty much mandatory.
“Touching,” Derek muttered, “a lot of it. It has to be natural, what couples do.”
“Cuddling? That, I can do.” Stiles scribbled it down, nodding to himself.
Derek made a face, sticking the finished egg sandwich in the microwave to keep it out of the way. He handed Stiles his coffee--now with a dash of vanilla creamer. “Kissing; we can’t just wait until they get here. I’ve never kissed you before--I have no idea how you kiss and they’d be able to see that right away,” it didn’t help that Derek wanted to kiss Stiles. It was going to be torture to have him and not be with him. Derek was willing to deal with it, though, because this was for the pack just as much as it was for himself.
Stiles frowned, sipping his coffee and clicking his pen, “like, French kissing?”
“Uh,” Derek panicked, because he actually had no clue, “are we going to use tongue in front of the Turner pack?”
“Okay, straight up puritan style, then.”
Snorting, Derek flipped his egg over, adding some extra pepper. “I don’t think they’ll buy the puritan lifestyle of abstinence until marriage, though,” he pointed out, stomach rolling with the realization that he and Stiles would have to, at some point, be sexual enough that the scent lingered heavily on their skin when the Turners showed up.
“Spunk exchange?” Stiles blurted disbelievingly, “you’re kidding.”
Twisting around, Derek grabbed his coffee mug and quirked an eyebrow. Stiles groaned loudly, which was only a little hurtful to Derek’s self esteem, and wrote it down on the list.
“Sharing beds, check,” Stiles muttered, “should we do laundry together? That sounds pretty domestic-y.”
“Sounds good,” Derek agreed, putting his egg onto some toast and warming up the one in the microwave for Stiles for a few seconds. “That’s pretty much it. The biggest issue is making sure we’re used to being together enough that it seems natural when the Turner pack gets here,” he explained, setting Stiles’ plate down in front of him and grabbing his coffee.
Stiles put his pen down, “okay, let’s get this over with. Come here, clam lips.”
Derek froze, halfway to sitting down next to Stiles, and stared.
Gesturing for Derek to come in close, Stiles grinned in amusement, “well you’re not gonna open them for just anyone, are you?” Stiles puckered his lips, making loud, exaggerated kissing noises. Despite his joking, Derek could hear the way Stiles’ heart sped up. It didn‘t take a genius to realize that he was nervous. Stiles hadn’t really had many successful relationships and it was likely that he had little to no experience with kissing.
Even though this entire relationship was supposed to be fake, Derek decided that their first kiss would be one that neither of them would forget. Maybe in a few years, when Stiles met the love of his life, they’d have to live up to Derek’s skill. Setting his mug down, and feeling desperate to make this work--to make some sort of lasting impression--Derek cupped Stiles’ face. Stiles’ breath hitched, heart pounding as Derek leaned in. He didn’t just kiss Stiles; he ducked forward, nipping at Stiles’ bottom lip and then pressing their mouths together slow and firm.
The sound of Stiles’ pen clattering to the counter was enough encouragement for Derek to shuffle closer. He dragged one hand across the back of Stiles’ head, fingers rubbing the scar at the base of his scalp, tracing where it had been stitched up after a witch had hit him with her staff. Stiles was shadowing the movement of Derek’s lips, breath coming in stuttered, sharp pants through his nose.
It drove Derek wild, made him want to try harder, to make Stiles love this so much that he’d never kiss anyone else without thinking of Derek first. It was selfish and Derek didn’t care because this felt like the most important thing in the world to him in that moment.
Stiles was gasping by the time Derek finally mustered the self control to pull back. A single glance down at Stiles’ dazed face had him swooping in and kissing at the red, wet corner of Stiles’ mouth with a lingering press of lips. This time, Derek pulled away completely, bringing his mug up to sip at it idly--trying to hide the way his heart was thundering in his chest and his skin felt like it was on fire.
“Oo-okay,” Stiles breathed, licking his lips and turning back to his paper, “so…uh,” he swallowed, “wow. I can say we really nailed that part of the list,” his voice cracked at the end and Stiles quickly cleared his throat. Derek couldn’t help the smug feeling from rising up inside of him, hiding his grin behind the rim of his coffee mug.
“if we’re going to make it realistic when the pack comes, might as well start now,” he pointed out.
“Uh,” Stiles stared down at the paper, finger hovering over his hasty scrawl of ‘spunk exchange’. Derek knew his imagination was going wild, and he couldn’t help but tease Stiles just the tiniest bit. Standing, Derek rested his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, squeezing firmly and then heading into the kitchen to refill his coffee.
While they ate, Stiles started up a game of Twenty Questions with the intention of having them learn stupid, useless information about one another that they didn’t already know. By the time Derek had finished his sandwich, he was pretty sure he was in love with Stiles even more now that he knew Stiles hated left-hand turns and that his favorite animal was some extinct form of dog that could ‘unhinge it’s jaws like a snake, dude. That’s insane!’. It was the little things; the quirks that had never really found a chance to come out in regular conversation before.
When Derek reached for Stiles’ plate to bring it into the kitchen, Stiles’ hand shot out like a flash of lightening. Derek barely had a second to react before he was being dragged in and the corner of his mouth kissed.
“Thanks, honeybun,” Stiles chirped, looking rather pleased with himself for having taken Derek by surprise.
Not one to be outdone, Derek reached out, giving Stiles’ nipple a tweak through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. “Anything for my sugarplum,” he said dryly. Stiles gaped, watching Derek take the plates and deposit them into the sink.
The gaping soon turned into a wild, excited grin as Stiles sat up in his chair. “Can that be a thing? The pet names? I am so down for this--I’ll totally win.”
Derek shrugged, grabbing the coffee pot to top off Stiles’ mug. “You underestimate Erica’s influence on me,” he said seriously.
“Bring it, baby cakes,” Stiles dragged the mug towards himself, taking a long, greedy gulp of it.
Derek waited until Stiles was about to swallow before grabbing the pepper shaker from nearby and holding it out, saying, “if you’ll be Pepper, I’ll be your Tony.”
A warble escaped from Stiles as he choked on a mouthful of coffee, slamming the mug down as much as he could without sloshing it and batting Derek’s hand away. “Out of bounds!” he cried, “Totally out of bounds!”
Out of bounds, Derek knew, because nothing turned Stiles on more than geek talk.
“Come on,” Derek gestured to the sink full of dishes--some from last night, “if we’re going to act like a couple, you should do your share of the cleaning.”
Stiles glowered, “low blow,” he said, but got up and rounded the bar to help. Derek loaded the dishwasher while Stiles wiped down the counters and started to put away the pots and pans that had been hand-washed. He was bending down to stick a pan under the oven when a loud grunt escaped him. Derek turned, surprised to see Stiles’ bad leg trembling violently and Stiles resting his head on the edge of the counter.
Derek shut the sink off, quickly taking the pan from Stiles. “How long did you go jogging yesterday?” he asked softly--because the only time Stiles ever had issues with his leg this badly was when he pushed himself too hard and his body dealt with the consequences.
Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Stiles stood up and took the pan from Derek. “It’s fine. I just need to stretch it some more,” he said dismissively, taking his time in putting the pan away--leaning heavily on the counter the entire time.
He limped past Derek, using the counter for support to make his way around towards the living room. Derek came up behind him, hand reaching for Stiles’ elbow to try and help him and getting his hand smacked away for his efforts. Derek frowned, resisting the urge to glower, and stormed into the bedroom to fetch Stiles’ cane.
Stiles was almost to the couch when he came back, and he looked furious to see the cane in Derek’s hand. He snatched it from Derek, grabbing the bottom and thacking Derek hard in the thigh with the handle. Derek jerked, snatching the cane and holding it still. Stiles, pale and shaking, snarled, “if if hurts too much to walk, I’ll tell you.”
“You can barely stand,” Derek pointed out. Stiles wrenched his cane back.
“Just because I’m having issues, doesn’t mean I need you to wait on me.”
Derek’s scowl deepened and Stiles sighed, setting the cane down and using it for support as he limped around the couch. “You know, if this pack comes, and they see you taking care of me? That’s not good, dude. You know it isn’t.”
“So, what? You want me to sit and watch you be in pain? That’s not what pack does, Stiles.”
Stiles sighed, sitting down gingerly and shaking his head. “We’ll come up with some kind of code word if it’s too bad or whatever, but I am not game for being a target just because you wanted to hold my hand every time I get a flare up.”
The worst part was that it made sense. It made so much sense that it infuriated Derek. Stiles had an annoying habit of constantly being right no matter how badly Derek wanted to prove otherwise. The Turners would look for weakness in Derek’s mate, and Derek didn’t honestly know if they were above using it against him.
Huffing on a sigh, Derek clenched his teeth and turned on his heel to go and grab the muscle cream from the first aid kit under the bathroom sink. Even for werewolves, the stuff was a blessing in disguise.
Stiles was stretching his leg along the length of the couch by the time Derek came back. Even though it had been a while since he’d been hurt, Stiles was still supposed to do a little bit of physical therapy every day to keep the mobility. Derek knew that beneath Stiles’ jeans was a thick, jagged scar from his knee up to the middle of his thigh.
Given how deeply the knife had gone in, it was practically a miracle that Stiles could walk without a cane at all. His knee didn’t quite bend as well as it should, and half of Stiles’ pain was in his foot, hips, and thigh because of how he tried to distribute his weight to compensate for the lack of flexibility.
When Stiles saw Derek standing there with the muscle cream, he sighed and flopped back against the couch to take the bottle. “Sorry, man. Just… ask first before you come help? Sometimes it’s not that bad and I just need a minute.”
Derek got that, he really did. When Stiles had first gotten hurt, he was a constant ball of frustration and anger, lashing out at anyone and everything. It had gotten to a point where Derek had been terrified for months on end that Stiles was going to cut himself from the pack. Now that his leg was starting to really heal, Stiles had started to push himself more and more, always rejecting the pack’s help like it was a burden more than a blessing.
“You could let us help you,“ Derek muttered, walking around to sit on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah? And when you’re not there to help me, I won’t know how to take care of myself anymore,” Stiles snapped, wrenching the cap off of the muscle cream and sucking in a sharp breath. He shook his head, handing the bottle over to Derek and then standing. Derek watched as Stiles positioned himself on the floor next to the couch, gesturing to let Derek know he was being allowed to help. Derek stepped forward as Stiles pressed a hand to his lower back, circling his hip area and the top of his rear to let Derek know where the source of his pain was located.
“Sorry, can you just--”
“It‘s fine,” Derek interrupted, realizing that Stiles was probably cranky because he was in pain, and not because he didn’t want help. He sat on the backs of Stiles’ thighs, pulling down the elastic of his boxers enough to expose the sore part of Stiles’ hip. He squirted some of the gel onto his hand first, screwing the cap back on and then placing his hands against Stiles’ side. It didn’t take more than a few rubs before Derek found the swollen, tense area full of knots.
When Derek pushed down, Stiles let out a pained yelp, hands clawing at the ground. The more Derek massaged, the more Stiles squirmed and groaned in pain. It wasn’t the good kind of pain, either. Derek could tell that he was rubbing out deep-set knots that had swollen up over time because Stiles was probably too stubborn to ask anyone to help him weeks ago when it should have first been done.
It bothered Derek to hear the choked whimpers that came out of Stiles with each circle of his hands. Even so, he knew that when all was said and done, it would be worth it to see Stiles walking with a spring in his step and no pain in his eyes.
Once the worst of it was over and Stiles was sagged into the ground, he grumbled, “do the rest, now I’m uneven,” in a tired, irritated voice. Derek laughed, pouring more of the gel onto his hands and getting started on the rest of Stiles’ back.
“Tell me more about this pack; do you know any of them?” Stiles asked, his face smashed into the carpet.
Derek frowned, digging his knuckle into a knot just below Stiles‘ right shoulder blade and earning a jerk and yelp from Stiles. “I met Kylie when I was six.”
“…and?”
“She punched me in the face.”
Stiles laughed, bouncing Derek’s body with his cackling. “Man, you’d better hope this works out. I don’t know if I could handle seeing you whipped like that,” he wheezed.
Derek rolled his eyes, pushing a little harder than necessary at the tense bunch of muscles on Stiles’ spine. Stiles grunted as Derek said, “she’s the daughter of their alpha. My mom was the alpha. We’re both born werewolves. Our children would have come from great bloodlines.”
Silence followed, broken only by the occasional huff or squeak when Derek hit a sensitive area. Finally, Stiles asked, “do you want children?”
It was hard to answer a question like that. Derek did want children; but it was a deep-set longing inside almost all born werewolves. It was an ache for something that was missing, a need to find the missing piece. “Not with her…not with someone I didn’t trust and love.”
“Understandable,” Stiles hummed, stretching and wiggling as Derek made one final sweep along his back. He sat up, letting Stiles roll over and impulsively ducking in to steal a quick, exhilarating kiss that was more of a peck than anything.
“Better?” he asked, watching as Stiles’ startled expression melted away into a grin. He nodded, reaching out to take Derek’s offered hand as he got to his feet.
“Loads, dude. I could go wrestle a wendigo right now,” Stiles chirped, beaming when Derek rolled his eyes. He reached out, clapping Derek on the shoulder.
“I’m gonna go get dressed before everyone shows up. You, uh, might want to put a shirt on,” Stiles reached out, hands fast as ever, and pinched Derek’s nipple with a violent twist. Derek hissed, swatting Stiles’ hand away and snarling as Stiles took a step back and held his hands up.
“Hey, man, just evening the playing field. I’ll have you know these perky peppers are very sensitive,” he explained, cupping his palms over his chest gingerly, “they were violated. I had to return the favor.”
“Go get dressed,” Derek snapped, his mouth twitching not to smile a how utterly ridiculous Stiles was--and how badly he just wanted to kiss him and just beg Stiles to be with him for real.
While Stiles headed off to get changed, Derek went to wash his hands off and check through his mail again. He read over the letter from the Turner pack again, gut twisting with increasing anxiety. It was formal and distant, but biting enough that, even on paper, Derek knew that they were coming to test Derek and his pack.
There was a chance that, if they didn’t pull this off, things could go to hell. The Turner pack would be within their rights to kill Stiles if found out, but more likely they’d force Derek to take the betrothal to save the pack. The Turners were old blood, and the only reason they wanted Derek was probably because of his heritage and the heirs he could give them. He doubted it had anything to do with power that came from joining two packs.
Folding the letter, Derek hoped that being helplessly in love with Stiles would be enough to convince the Turners and keep his pack safe. If not, he had no idea how things would turn out.