#**sterek

“I hate you.”

Derek hums, not looking up from the report he’s typing with the speed of someone who has never seen a keyboard before.

“I’m never going to talk to you again.”

Derek sips on his coffee as he rereads the twelve words he’s typed in the past fifteen minutes. His brows furrow, and he sets his mug down before deleting something.

Groaning, Stiles shifts in his chair, trying to stop it from digging into his spine. His ass is going to hurt so much by the point Derek decides to let him go. He is already over sitting on this godawful chair. The police department could really invest in some cushioned ones. These are inhumane conditions. “You cannot keep me here,” Stiles sniffs, attempting to cross his arms. He’s stopped, quite rudely, one might add, by the chain linking him to Derek’s desk.

The guy should consider himself lucky he’s cute, or Stiles would move heaven and hell to get his ass fired for the audacity to lock him up in his father’s police station. How is he supposed to get through tonight? The light is going to give him a headache. The whole room smells like stale coffee, and the slow typing of the couple of deputies left behind is driving him nuts in a way he doesn’t have words for.

Stiles regrets the day he introduced the idea of Derek becoming a deputy to his father.

“You of all people know that I can,” Derek replies, sounding a little piqued that Stiles so much as dares to suggest he made a mistake.

Stiles scoffs, “on what grounds?”

“You were at an illegal underground party.” This time, Derek shoots him a tight-lipped look.

Stiles rolls his eyes, “I was on my way to an illegal underground party. So, you don’t have shit on me.” Aside from the fact that he just confessed to something, but that’s neither here nor there. “Oh, also, fuck you, Hale.”

“That tone isn’t going to get you out of these handcuffs.”

“Are the handcuffs even necessary?” He rattles them, trying to make a point. He would continuously rattle them, if not for the fact that Derek has the patience of a hundred saints after his evolution. Nothing short of throwing yourself in the line of imminent danger gets more than a mildly exasperated sigh out of him.

Derek barks out a laugh. “You?” He finally turns around completely, abandoning his report, and fully commits to being a dick. Fantastic. “I wouldn’t leave you alone handcuffed in a locked room.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You really shouldn’t.”

Stiles shoots Derek a bitter smile. He should consider himself lucky the uniform hugs his muscles perfectly right, otherwise he’d make Derek’s life so much harder. Getting out of these handcuffs would be quick and easy, but Stiles knows his dad would be pissed — not at him but at his favourite deputy for not keeping an eye on him.

Besides, his dad would be worried about where he’d ended up, and he doesn’t have the heart to worry his father for petty revenge after, well, everything.

Derek sighs into his coffee. “You’re 27, Stiles.”

Stiles grinds his teeth and turns his head away, studying Parrish’s empty desk to his left. If he even thinks about telling him to grow up, Stiles is going to leave immediately.

Well, after he left his dad a note, of course.

“You’ve got so much potential, and I get the nogitsune ruined your dreams, don’t let it ruin your life too.”

Stiles blinks, trying to get rid of the heat behind his eyes.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

For a moment, he considers saying it out loud, but it’s not like that would get him any satisfaction. Nothing about his life is satisfying him in any fucking way. Despite Raphael concocting some wild theory to exonerate him, a serial killer wore his face. Most people, unfortunately, consider that terrible for business.

First and foremost, the FBI.

Growing up, Stiles didn’t exactly expect to work the nightshift wherever the standards are low enough to employ him – and keep doing so when he looks like death warmed over. The pay is usually abysmal, so is everything else, and since ‘supernatural advisor’ isn’t actually a job, his dad could only funnel so much money into him.

It’s fine.

It’s not his dad’s fault that he’s consistently exhausted, that he sleeps in his clothes when his bones ache so much he doesn’t bother to undress before bed. It’s not his dad’s fault that Stiles screams himself raw during the nights he manages to get some sleep, or that sometimes, Stiles barely has enough energy to crawl out of bed and keep his job.

He is surviving.

And Stiles hates every second of it.

“You know,” Stiles says, sitting up straight again. “I should find someone rich.”

Derek doesn’t reply, but Stiles could’ve sworn he saw a little twitch around his mouth.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea. I totally could pull off the trophy husband shtick,” he pushes, digging his fingers in.

Again, Derek’s lips twitch then curl downward for all but a second before they part for his tongue to briefly lick his lips.

He flicks his gaze up, locks eyes with Derek.

Fuck.

“Stiles.” There it is again. More prominent this time. He’s not rolling his eyes any longer. His brows furrow, and he stares at him for so long, his name becomes a Damocles’ sword above their heads.  

Stiles forces a smirk onto his lips. “Are you implying I don’t look absolutely fuckable in a suit and tie?”

Derek opens his mouth then closes it again. For a split second, he seems to consider his reply before remembering that he is wondering if the son of his boss looks fuckable in any way. The brief moment of sheer horror washing over his face makes the whole ordeal so much more tolerable.

Stiles tries but fails at suppressing the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.  

Unfortunately, Derek knows how to get his features under control really quick. “Stiles,” he repeats then pauses, like he is looking for the right words instead of struggling to get his tone under control. “You should want more from your life.”

“Oh, don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not patronizing you!”

Who cares if Stiles finally found a way to wiggle a finger in-between the cracks of his dad’s favourite deputy’s composure, and he will abuse it – especially when he is forced to spend fuck-knows how long chained to this desk. “So, a mafia boss.”

“I’m going to ignore you now.”

“You are so boring.” He bounces his leg, shifting on his chair again.

Derek taps away on his keyboard, faster now.

Stiles wonders when he’d realize that, although he is the one chained to the desk, Derek won’t be able to go anywhere else either. The guy is not trusting anybody else here with keeping Stiles locked up for the night – especially not Daniels, who famously didn’t rat him out when Stiles had snuck out at fourteen. They are stuck with each other, and Stiles just so happens to make it his mission to push every single one of Derek’s buttons.

For research purposes, naturally, and not at all because he likes it when Derek fidgets and fumbles and abuses his keyboard.

“I’m just saying,” Stiles mutters, watching Clarke manhandle a guy twice her size down the hallway; the guy doesn’t even try to resist. “You told me to find a new dream. I found it, trophy husband.”

Derek slams his finger down on the space key like it personally offended him. “Probably better than being one of Donati’s henchmen.”

Stiles snorts out a laugh. “You really think I’d sink that low that I would sell drugs for Donovan?”

Another slam. This time, backspace. “You’re buying from Donati?” That poor keyboard isn’t going to sustain long under this supernatural abuse.

Stiles lets his gaze wander around the mostly empty police station. He fidgets with the handcuff. Even here, shadows stretch into corners when the station gets too quiet. The fluorescent light buzzes, rhythmically, like seconds ticking down until an explosion.

In Beacon County, paperwork is usually done during the day. The night doesn’t offer the opportunity.

That’s when the nightmares come, and the shadows creep in.

That’s when foxes steal dreams.

“What,” he settles his gaze back on Derek, “makes you think I’d buy drugs?”

For some reason, Derek looks murderous when he locks eyes with Stiles. His jaw is tight when he spits, “are the drugs worth it?”

Stiles sucks in a breath. His cheeks sting as if he’s been slapped. “Do you really think I’m taking drugs?”

“What else would make you keep going back to him?” Before Derek has even finished the question, he’s apparently come to his own conclusion and gets to his feet, not allowing Stiles any chance at a response. His ears turn pink. What the- “Coffee,” he utters, despite his mug being a little more than half full. It’s cold, but that doesn’t usually deter him.

Weirdo.

Derek’s knuckles are white, and it’s a miracle the mug doesn’t crack under his strength. As if stung, he hurries towards the coffee corner, failing to skip the creaking floorboard the deputies have been avoiding like the plague for at least five years.

Stiles presses his lips into a thin, bitter smile. So much for keeping an eye on him. Shaking his head, Stiles drags his gaze away from Derek pacing in front of the coffee machine. He glances at his desk, spotting an innocent paperclip glinting at him. His gaze darts back to Derek, still pacing in front of the already brewed coffee, worrying his lip between his teeth. Without a second thought, Stiles swipes it and pushes it under the cuff of his sleeve. That way, he at the very least, could escape whenever. Not that he necessarily wants to escape Derek.

But this conversation...

The floorboard creaks behind him, and the sigh following that sound gives away who is not really trying to sneak up on him. He leans his head back, body moving with him until his chair is tipping backwards. Eyebrows raised, he studies Daniels; a uniform that’s gotten slightly too big in the past few years, a grey set of messy hair. His long, thin fingers are wrapped almost protectively around his chipped green mug.

“That thing,” Stiles informs him because those crinkled eyes mean nothing but trouble, “has had a crack since I was six.”

Daniels, who has been working at the station for so long he’s basically inventory, shoots him a look only an exhausted grandfather of four toddlers could. “His heart is going to look worse than my mug if you keep going like that.”

Stiles swallows around the lump in his throat, wishing the heat creeping up his neck would disappear before anyone notices. “He has a heart?” he forces out after a pause that seemed just a little too long.

Daniels puts a hand on his shoulder. It would be patronising coming from anyone else. “I’ve changed your diapers, kid.” He squeezes his shoulder, pushing his chair back on four legs, and continues his way towards the coffee corner.

Stiles groans and stares at his feet. Being at the station is great until he doesn’t need nosy Nancies around him. If there’s gossip, trust that every single deputy will know about it before anyone else. They’re worse than nurses in this case – but the most annoying part about this whole thing is, Daniels is right.

Derek’s chair creaks softly.

Stiles closes his eyes for a moment, sucks in a breath. He fucking hates when other people are right. “You know why I go back?” Stiles stretches his legs, crossing his ankles – and stares at anything that isn’t Derek; mostly at a coffee stain Strauss probably left behind. “Because they don’t look at me weird.” The words claw their fingers into his throat. “I’m just... someone.” Another junkie. Another freak with nowhere to go.

There have been nights when the white powder called his name. When the joints and pills sang their siren song.

When Donovan whispered into his ear how he could make him forget everything.

Stiles squints at the ceiling, struggles to count the holes with blurry sight.

He’s at thirty-seven when Derek puts a hand on his arm, right above his shackled wrist, and pulls him from the edge.

Again.

Most times Derek doesn’t even know he does it. 

“You deserve better than that.” His warmth seeps through the thick fabric of Stiles’ jacket. Derek squeezes his arm. His rough thumb brushes Stiles’ exposed skin.

The touch burns an invisible mark into his skin, and Stiles’ pulse jumps violently as his body stills for the first time tonight.

At fifty-five holes, the heat behind his eyes and his pulse have gone down enough that Stiles decides to look at Derek again. “Yeah,” he breathes, hating the words before they even leave his mouth, “trophy husband. I just need to fi-”

“Stiles.” Derek’s voice is so soft, Stiles chokes up. “I mean it. You deserve friends, you have great friends.”

Stiles snorts. Right. That’s why he hangs out with Donovan now.

But Derek continues undeterred, “you have me.”

Stiles’ heart slams into his throat, where it beats and beats and beats, where it makes it impossible to breathe. It’s so easy to pretend. Sure, yes, he’s got him – as his father’s deputy, as someone he can trust in an emergency that would require the police or a werewolf.

That’s not what he needs from him.

But how is he supposed to tell Derek that he wants to push his buttons until his cheeks blush, that he wants his searing touch all over his body, that he wants to spend his miserable life with him because Derek is the only person who seems to drag him out of this nogitsune-shaped hole he can’t seem to find his way out of alone?

Stiles stares at him, listening to a chair scrape against the ground, to Daniels pouring his coffee, to someone clicking on their keyboard. There’s a phone ringing at the reception desk. It stops as someone replies.

The fluorescent light keeps buzzing.

His clothes are too warm. The breeze of the aircon makes him want to rip his skin off.

And can somebody make that buzzing go away?

He curls his hands into fists, resisting the urge to cover his ears.  

The world keeps on spinning, and Stiles wishes it would stop and give him a second to breathe.

“Listen, Derek.” Fuck, he’d rather continue talking about his very non-existing relationship with Donovan. “I don’t think we should have this conversation here.” After all, what does Daniels know? Stiles breaking Derek’s heart? Please.

For a moment, Derek squeezes his arm. “Yeah, yeah... you’re probably right.”

“Oh, my god.” Clarke’s voice carries through the entire station, it seems like, even though she must have approached her desk at one point without Stiles noticing. Fucking deputies and their nosy asses.

Daniels strolls back to his desk. “My daughters love soap operas.”

“They’re exhausting.”

“You’ll get the taste for it.” Daniels pats Stiles’ shoulder in passing once more, and he’s not entirely sure they’re just talking about soap operas.

Grimacing, Stiles looks at Derek, who is already staring back at him. He shifts on his chair, handcuffs jingling at the movement. The paperclip pokes into the ball of his hand. He could... try.

Maybe.

Stiles pushes the paperclip against the keyhole as he clears his throat. “It doesn’t have to be a mafia boss.” Why, why, does panic make him so fucking unserious? “My standards aren’t actually that high. I mean, they are, but like... only personality-wise. Then again...” Stiles trails off, grimacing once more, and trying to pretend he does not notice Derek’s eyebrow climbing higher and higher. “I should... I mean, I would like to, uh, date above my poor excuse of a standard, you know? Like...”

“Give me the paperclip.”

“Uh, what?” Stiles’ stomach drops.

Derek holds out his hand. “Paperclip.”

So much for a fast getaway. Stiles drops the clip into Derek’s waiting palm and slumps in his chair, staring at his feet.

“Your standards are abysmal, by the way.” Derek runs his left index finger along the space button, eyes locked on the cursor flashing in his report. “A deputy who’s also a landlord might fit into them.”

Stiles glances at Derek out of the corner of his eyes, a smile tugging at his mouth. His ears turn an adorable shade of pink. Stiles hasn’t known werewolves could blush. He straightens in his chair. “Sounds like an awful combination.”

“Very.” Derek briefly glances at him.

“He’s right up my alley, then.”

Derek takes a slow breath, deep and deliberate. His lips part but he hums in response, the tips of his ears turning an even darker shade of red.

Stiles runs his finger along the edge of the desk. The wood is in need of a bit of TLC.  “Where would I meet someone like that?”

“At the cliffs.” There’s no hesitation in his voice, no uncertainty. “At sundown.” But he isn’t looking at him, still too focused on the blinking cursor.

Stiles can’t help the grin spreading on his lips. “Guess I’ll see him then.”

Thump. Thump.

Danger was a matter of definition. To a mouse, a cat was a monster. To a baby, anything could be a threat to their life. Stiles was under no illusion that Peter Hale was dangerous. Not because of his lycan nature, necessarily. Stiles had long learned that humans were often far more dangerous.

Peter Hale was not dangerous because he was evil, either. It did, however, add a certain flavor—and it did make the hard part so much easier.

Peter Hale was dangerous because he was volatile.

Thump. Thump.

Something he and Stiles had in common.

Thump. Thump.

Stiles frowned. This thought used to bother him. Because having something in common with Peter Hale had been a wrong thing, a dirty thing. Because Peter Hale had tried to kill—had killed—his family. Arguably, killing your family is a bad thing, a black thing inside a black-and-white world.

Thump. Thump.

But that was a small place, a narrow one, and Stiles was living and breathing, and he learned to take up space, to carve a place for himself outside the world he’d been forced to live in. It took sweat and blood and time.

Thump. Thump.

It was worth it.

Stiles caught the rubber ball. Downstairs, a door creaked open. The sound was followed by a heavy silence like a held breath, stretching on and on and on, almost long enough for Stiles to ponder if he’d imagined it. He didn’t because his mind didn’t usually play tricks on him.

Not since the Nogitsune was gone, that is.

Stiles pushed his left hand into his jacket pocket, fingers brushing over the back of his cool phone. Help within reach and so far away. Help he wouldn’t call. Help he didn’t need.

Not anymore.

He watched the stairs. Darkness pooled around them, swallowing the steps whole where the light creeping in through the boarded-up windows couldn’t save them.

The stairs groaned one at a time, announcing the arrival of a man with a square head and a matching set of shoulders. The man, who is not really a man, was taller than Stiles and twice as wide and the purple of his eyes could be attributed to a contact lens if not for the fact that it  glowed in the dark.

Stiles threw the rubber ball at a perfect angle. It hit the ground, the wall, and returned to his hand in an arc.

Thump. Thump.

The man who was not a man stopped at the top of the stairs.

Stiles threw the ball.

Thump. Thump.

The man who was not a man chuckled. “I knew what you were from the beginning.” His vowels were round and long, his tone almost a drawl. “You were born to spill blood, boy.” He said boy like he meant to say kid but decided to swap it out at the last moment because Stiles was, no matter what the rubber ball suggested, years past being called ‘kid’.

Stiles couldn’t quite pinpoint the creature’s age. This partially had to do with the fact that he didn’t even know what he was, exactly. He also did not care, simply because the man who was no man and his former posse had feasted on Beacon Hills’ population.

Stiles didn’t appreciate that.

Shoving the rubber ball into the pocket of his jacket, Stiles uncrossed his legs and moved away from the wall. Carefully, he stepped over one body, then the other. He did manage to avoid stepping into puddles of blood so far, and he would prefer to keep it that way. He’d never get the stench out of his clothes before he saw Derek again.

“I’d thank you for coming, but you and your kind have caused me nothing but trouble.” Death. The near exposure of the supernatural. Sleepless nights of tinkering with memories. Countless arguments with Derek about needing a bodyguard.

Stiles did not need a bodyguard. He needed something to break.

A face with its body attached, preferably.

The creature cocked his head like a curious dog. “That’s what you want, is it not? Trouble.”

“You’re not the kind of trouble I’m looking for.” Stiles uttered the word trouble like he meant it - stressful, chaotic, overwhelming. Between his job and his social life, his capacity for anything else was quite limited. The only type of trouble Stiles was interested in was limited to whatever he and Derek came up with between the sheets, or on the couch, or wherever else they decided to have fun, or blow off steam, or end their arguments.

The man who was no man bared his teeth - two rows of fangs somewhere between those of a cat and those of a vampire. A bite would, most likely, be painful.

Stiles massaged his temple, let out a breath. “That’s enough of you.” A flick of his wrist, like he was shooing away a housefly.

The creature bent in on himself like he’d received a punch to the gut, but lost his footing along the way. It crashed back down the stairs, noisy enough to wake up a whole neighborhood if one existed.

It didn’t.

They were in the middle of fucking nowhere - no streetlights, no houses, and most importantly only the trees as his witnesses.

Stiles considered how to kill him. His options were, after all, endless; the benefits of making a deal with a magical tree.

A ripping sound cut through the silence. First clothes. Then skin gave way with a sound Stiles would remember later. A low sound. Someone choking on their own blood.

Great.

He curled his lips and crossed the room in three long strides. When he looked down into the darkness, two bright blue eyes were looking back at him. Fireflies. Caged. Stiles didn’t have to see the mouth to know it’s curled into a sharp-toothed grin. “That one belonged to me,” he snapped.

“You were born to spill blood,” Peter mocked.

“Shut up.” Stiles walked down the stairs, jaw tight, every step merely a whisper, soft and deliberate, refusing to allow his body to give in to the petulance. He did not have the energy to deal with Peter being a dick to him about it for the foreseeable future. “I could’ve dealt with him on my own.”

“You and the Nemeton.”

“Semantics.” Stiles waved his hand, stopping on the last step. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dark. Black pools of blood slicked the once immaculate wooden floor. Lumps of something Stiles refused to attach a name to rounded out the scene. It’s a miracle none of the limbs were torn off. “So fucking messy.”

He scrunched up his nose. He was used to the metallic scent of blood, but Peter had added the acidic stench of death thanks to his crude methods.

Peter stepped close enough for Stiles to make out his features in the darkness. The raised eyebrow conveyed skepticism. “I can smell the blood upstairs.”

“Blood does not equal messiness.” Stiles quirked a brow and crossed his arms again. “It’s not my fault they died from spontaneous bleeding from the nose and ears.”

Peter scoffed. “Right.”

Huffing, Stiles carefully stepped around the pool of blood he could make out in the dark. As much as he adored his powers, the Nemeton could’ve deigned to give him night vision. “Are you going to tell Derek about this?”

“Who do you think sent me?” A boot stepped into something with a squelch.

Stiles shuddered - not because of Derek knowing, but the thought of Peter stepping into something that sounded suspiciously like entrails didn’t sit well with his empty stomach. He hated blood. He hated anything that’s not supposed to be on the outside of a human body or any other living creature. “How’s the mood?”

“He’s pacing.” Peter said pacing like he meant brooding, but when it came to Derek it’s one and the same. A pissed-off Derek is a moving Derek, quite the opposite of Stiles, who got quieter and calmer the more his mood soured.

“And he sent you.”

“My nephew knows I’ll do what needs to be done.”

“Nothing,” Stiles shot back, “needed to be done.”

“Oh, I’m aware.” Peter was in an infuriatingly good mood. He really needed to get his schadenfreude under control. “But you know Derek.” A kid in a candy store, that’s what he sounded like.

Stiles flicked his wrist. The ground beneath his feet shuddered and cracked as a root turned into a tripping hazard.

One Peter couldn’t avoid in time.

He cussed as he picked himself up off the dirty ground. “My designer jacket.”

“It’s your own fault,” Stiles replied. “Don’t wear expensive clothes on a bloody outing.”

Peter uttered something under his breath Stiles didn’t quite catch, but he’d get his revenge in time. It would probably be a good idea not to keep his secrets close to his heart for a while. “You're lucky you’re family.” Which meant Stiles was lucky he could kill Peter without even lifting a finger.

Stiles stepped out into the fresh night air, watching his breath curl and dance in front of his face.

He smiled.