A lot of things have happened in Stiles’ life that anyone would consider unbelievable. Best friend got attacked in the woods and became a werewolf?Shut up. Childhood crush turned out to be a mythical harbinger of death? Are you high?! Japanese trickster spirit took over his body and made him go on a killing spree that he only survived because aforementioned friends managed to split his essence into two parts and murder the bad one? Alright, where are you getting this shit?
Seriously. Unbelievable. His first girlfriend spent a chunk of her life running around the woods as a coyote. His first boyfriend was thought to be the last remaining member of a protective lycanthropic dynasty that was murdered by fanatical members of a hunting family. Oh, until it turned out that he wasn’t the last - and that wasn’t even scratching the surface of the shitshow that was Derek’s life. Stiles’ almost paled in comparison.
Thing is, Stiles kind of thought there was a common denominator in all of that: Beacon Hills. It’s pretty much in the name, right? A beacon for all the most fucked up shit you can imagine (but never would), and by the time Stiles had done the college thing and got himself a shiny new degree, he was done.
It was kind of selfish, he thinks - leaving, that is. It’s not like Scott could. It’s not like Scott ever would but Stiles is sure he’d like to have a choice. Which is probably why when Stiles broke off mid-sentence as they talked, reading and re-reading the email he’d absently opened, Scott pulled the phone out of his hand, scanned the screen and smiled.
“You should go,” he’d said, like he knew Stiles needed to hear it. He did. The offer was for his dream job, in a place far away from there - but it’s not like Stiles would ever just up and leave. He needed Scott to tell him to go, because someone had to.
New York was loud and bright and vibrant, and nothing like Beacon Hills. Nobody knew anyone; nobody knew his dad was a sheriff or that he spent time in a psychiatric facility. He didn’t have to be inherently suspicious of anyone who came into his life unexpected in case they knew he was a way of getting to Scott. It was freeing. Stiles had grown up and into himself enough that he was comfortable with who he is and how people perceive him, but if he’d wanted to reinvent himself, he could have.
There was always somewhere to go, someone he hadn’t met yet, and the crimes were almost comfortingly human in a way that was refreshing. At least that’s what he thought, until a year after moving to the city, when Stiles got jumped by a thug in the alley by his apartment, and learned that bleeding out onto grimy pavement in the dead of night, calling for help, feels just as shitty no matter what species your attacker was.
Waking up in the hospital to nobody was probably the loneliest he’d ever felt. All his friends were acquaintances or work colleagues, and yeah, he might go for a couple beers with them and shoot the shit sometimes. Madison was the closest thing he had to a Scott, but it wasn’t like she was him. Arguing with someone over TV shows probably doesn’t mean they want to be your emergency contact when you’re in trouble.
It wasn’t like he was really looking for a Scott anyway. Or even a Derek.
Because yeah, turns out fire-forged relationships? Don’t tend to last past the end-credits. There’s a lot of blame being thrown around, and protection that feels like condescension. Two people who are really good at making stupid decisions that potentially sacrifice their own safety doesn’t make the best of combinations. Just because you trust someone with your very life, doesn’t mean you trust their judgement, apparently, and fantastic sex does not a stable relationship make.
He’d heard through Scott and Lydia that Derek had gotten out, too. It made Stiles proud, in a way. It can’t be good for anyone to live in a place where so much darkness and death had happened to them. He’d hoped Derek found peace, wherever he ended up. Maybe got to reinvent himself with his travelling; pretend to be someone he wanted to be.
Thoughts of home kind of took a backseat after the attack. Once his dad and his friends were thoroughly convinced that he was alright and that they didn’t need to come all the way here, he’d tried to get back to normal. Stiles should have known, though, that just because you take the boy out of Beacon Hills, didn’t mean the shitfest just stopped. Fate has a perverted sense of humor and Stiles is probably her favorite victim.
It had started with the headaches. At first, he thought it was his anxiety manifesting in a new way; that the buzzing in his ears was an offset of that. The sense of impending doom wasn’t new, but it felt like a physical thing. it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; his blood cold.
It kept him awake at night, remembering when he felt like this before. Remembering the feeling of putting a sword in his best friend’s stomach, and smiling about it.
When he’d become frustrated with a fritzing monitor at work, and smacked at it only to send it flying across the room, he’d put it down to not knowing his own strength. Maybe they designed these things to be lighter these days.
He started actively looking into it the night he’d been late to meet Madison, and almost got run over by a yellow cab as he darted across the street. He couldn’t recall the moment, only coming back to himself as he clung to a street sign.
A good twelve feet in the air.
Working in forensics gave him a little more access than the layperson, but it still took a couple weeks, a lot of lying, abuse of his lab hours and several suspicious looks from his boss. It was nothing he wasn’t used to - his high school years consisted of basically that - and Stiles was pretty sure he could sniff out a werewolf with all the training he’s had.
When Stiles found the answer, he laughed. He laughed because he almost expected something like this, but even Stiles couldn’t make this shit up.
“You’ve been busy.”
The hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck stand up, and it’s so different than the feeling he’s become accustomed to, he spins.
Derek looks the same. His hair’s a little longer, maybe - less styled - but he’s barely aged a day. Stiles never did get his answer about how werewolves have their own natural, inbuilt fountain of youth.
“You’re a long way from home,” he counters, lifting his drink. It’s his fifth and he’s barely feeling it. He finally understands Scott’s pain. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Derek watches him take a gulp, eyes automatically drawn to the hollow of Stiles throat like always, and he looks away. He sinks into the stool to Stiles’ left, signalling to the bartender for another and one for himself.
There’s a long moment of silence between them, filled only by the murmur of the bar and the music over the speakers, and Stiles’ entire body itches in a way that’s so painfully familiar he clenches his jaw.
It’s been a long time.
Their drinks are set down, and Stiles says, “Last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t old enough to be in one of these places.”
“A lot’s changed,” Derek replies. His eyes scrutinize Stiles in a way that makes him feel like he’s being pinned in place, and he’s glad for something to do with his hands. “For one of us especially.”
He sounds almost irritated, but Stiles has a still-healing cracked rib from being thrown into the side of a train today, so he’s not rising to it. He shrugs.
“That’s all you have to say?” Derek asks, and yeah, he’s definitely irritated. Stiles can almost recite the speech verbatim. Your strengths are elsewhere, can’t you understand that? I don’t get how someone so smart can be so fucking idiotic. You’re too important to be so careless about this. You’re human, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But he’s not human. Not fully, anyway. Not anymore.
“You came all the way to New York to lecture me?” Stiles snorts, because that’s so very Derek. So very them.
“I came here to talk some sense into you. Whatever this— whatever you can do now, it doesn’t mean you need to put yourself in danger. People will get by without you dying for them.”
“Wow, I forgot what a hypocrite you can be,” Stiles snarks, tipping his head back to take another swig. He glares. “You think I could do that? Just… stop when I spent my formative years watching you and Scott lay down your lives time and time again? I’m helping people, Derek. You of all people should get that.”
Derek looks down, contemplating his drink. His face is pained; lips thin, brow furrowed, and Stiles knows he’s won. It doesn’t feel like a victory. When he speaks, his voice is small.
“How did it happen?” He says it like he’s afraid to ask.
Stiles huffs sardonically. “Blood transfusion.” He looks anywhere but at Derek, playing with the edge of his glass. “I got attacked a couple months back, bled out a lot. Turns out my donor might have done his good deed before he knew his stuff was, uh, contaminated.”
Derek raises a brow. “Your donor?”
“Peter Parker. I guess the online messageboards were right.”
“So he, what, passed the torch?”
“Far as I can tell, he’s not around. Not in the city, anyway. I don’t think he’s…” Stiles swallows, eyes darting nervously to Derek and back again. “He had a lot of enemies, and then his secret got out, so..”
“So this guy got killed for doing exactly what you are? What part of this is going to convince you you’re being wreckless, Stiles?”
“I know what I’m doing, okay? And it’s— the mask isn’t about the guy, it’s about what he can do. What he makes people feel. It gives people hope, Derek. I can do that. Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
Derek looks unconvinced, a thousand arguments waiting on his lips. Stiles pounds the rest of his drink and tosses a wad of bills on the bar.
“Where are you going?” Derek asks, standing too. He eyes him accusingly, and Stiles resists the urge to roll his eyes. Derek can be such a fun-suck when he’s on a mission.
“We’re going somewhere where you can see what I can do for yourself, and then maybe you’ll stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ll break. C’mon.”
“You’re nuts,” Derek says, shaking his head.
“Dude, for someone who literally backflipped into danger, you’re one to talk.” Stiles pulls the mask down over his grin, and takes a step back.
“Where did you even get that suit?” Derek asks. His eyes track over it with something between disbelief and hunger, and neither of those are emotions he feels equipped to acknowledge.
“Showed up on my doorstep one day,” he shrugs. “Security camera showed a pretty blonde girl leaving it off. She looked… sad.”
Derek gulps, still clearly itching to say something, to get his lecture out. Stiles doesn’t want to hear it, so instead jerks out his wrist, curls his fingers in and aims.
“What are you doing?”
“Finally beating you in a race,” he replies, and steps off the ledge.
He wakes warm. He usually does, what with the heightened metabolism and all - but this warmth is different. There’s heated flesh beneath his palms, and soft, thick hair brushing his cheek. He snuggles closer, and the arm draped over him tightens in welcome.
He’s hard. Not achingly so, but it’s more than the standard morning wood. He needs friction, and heat, and his hips jerk automatically seeking it out.
There are lips on his neck, then. Framed by stubble, they’re comforting and familiar in a way that makes his insides tingle, his chest swell. Derek.
He doesn’t want to open his eyes - not yet, anyway. Truthfully, he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed this. How much he meant it when the whiskey made him yearn and he asked Derek to stay. He doesn’t remember much, but he remembers that.
Last night was the first time it felt truly fun to do what he can do. He knows it’s because of who he was sharing it with - that Derek is one of the few people in the whole world who can understand the responsibility that comes with power; the privilege of it. They’d raced through the streets, lights blurring around them, sound fading to their heartbeats. Stiles watched from above as Derek had given in to the chase, let himself free in a way Stiles has never seen anyone emulate.
Having power has never looked as good on anyone as it does on Derek Hale.
They’d ended up on the Big Rock in Central Park, Derek begrudgingly agreeing to help Stiles experimentally beat his own metabolism with a bottle of bourbon. Or three.
He knows Derek’s awake when his fingers dig in to the muscle of his back. The sleepy kisses stop, and Derek rests his forehead against his clavicle, gathering his breath. When he pulls back and blinks, Stiles sees a flash of blue, making his skin break out in goosebumps.
And then Derek is standing, too far away at the door, running his palms down his face.
“Sorry, I— Sorry.”
Stiles sits up, feeling cold. “Did it seem like I was complaining?”
Derek lets out a shaking breath and then looks at him with something like apology. “No, but you will. I can’t… Stiles, there’s a reason this didn’t work the first time. I won’t - I can’t just stop worrying about you. I never will.”
Stiles swallows, feeling the words rest over him like a warm embrace, and his face softens. “I never asked you to.”
“Then why—”
“All I wanted was for you to trust me. Trust that I can make my own choices. That I’ll ask for help when I need it. You couldn’t do that.”
Derek’s face contorts. “Yes I… Stiles, I always trusted you. It’s everyone else I couldn’t trust. All those things that came after us that threatened to take you away. ”
Stiles rises to his knees, letting the covers fall to the bed. Derek’s eyes flit down his body automatically, and his pulse quickens.
“Nobody’s going to— I’m not going anywhere. If I have you, I’ll always have something to come back to. Fight for. I can do that now - like you fought for me.”
He stands as Derek stares back at him, aching to close the distance.
“Can you trust me on that?” he asks. He hopes it comes out confident, but he doesn’t feel it. He stops in front of Derek, drinking in the green of his eyes, the crease between them. Then, so small he’d almost miss it, Derek nods.
It’s like flying after that. Derek’s kiss takes his breath away, feels like the long seconds of free-fall. Stiles gets his hands on him, re-memorizing his body like an old home. He hoists him up because he can - because he’s been fantasizing about it since the guy walked into the bar last night, if he’s honest, and Derek lets out a surprised grunt against his lips. He lets himself be carried, holding Stiles close.
It’s nerve-wracking, realizing that someone is learning your new body. Derek traces his fingers over the ridges and dips of him, pulling back from his mouth every once in a while to take in something new, or to fit his lips over freckles and beauty-marks and old, human scars.
They fuck in the warm afternoon sunlight, diagonally on the sheets, the breeze from the open window cooling down their over-heated skin. It’s like a slice of home, right there in the middle of a strange city - but home never felt as good as this.
“How did you know it was me?” Stiles asks later. Derek has one of his hands between his own, examining his fingertips with lazy curiosity. He’s probably been dying to do it since Stiles scaled the side of the apartment building to get inside.
There’s a soft huff, that he knows is accompanied by a smile, and he rolls Derek over, hovering over him. Stiles narrows his eyes.
“What?”
“The suit,” Derek shrugs with an open, happy look. “I saw you on the news, and I just knew.”
“You knew my body that well?” Stiles asks, raising a brow. Derek rubs a palm down his back, stopping to squeeze at the swell of his ass. He fights a smirk.
“Kind of. You’re different. Your body’s changed, but this?” he says, giving his butt a playful swat that makes Stiles jerk. “I’d know this anywhere.”