Chapter Text
Derek doesn’t plan on ever getting mixed up with Scott McCall and his little gang of idiot friends. In fact, if he knew to avoid it, he would, but he guesses he just isn’t smart enough. Unfortunate, considering the consequences.
It’s the night before school starts up again. It’s going to be Derek’s senior year—his final 10 months before he can get the hell out of there, out of Beacon Hills—and so he’s feeling pretty good in general about education and getting to see his friends again. That feeling changes very quickly.
It’s not even clever, TPing the high school. It’s too easy to clean up and doesn’t actually cause as much of a nuisance as these idiots obviously think it does—they’re probably juniors, he thinks; juniors all think they’re hot shit—but he’s driving past on his way home from the movie theatre where Erica works when he notices the car parked in the lot and the shadows throwing rolls of toilet paper up into trees.
This time, for this one instance of their stupidity, he just keeps driving.
He has too many things to worry about already and by the time he gets home, it’s late and almost everyone in the house is already asleep, and so he just shoves himself into bed and tries to forget about it.
He finds out in the morning that it was, like he has assumed, a couple of juniors. He can’t say with a huge amount of certainty, can’t guarantee that Scott McCall and his lackies were the ones semi-vandalizing the school, but if he had to guess, they would be at the top of the list.
He doesn’t really care, can’t pretend that after everything—everything over the summer and everything that he still doesn’t know how to process—he actually gives a shit.
All day long, people are talking about it. It’s not that impressive, though, mostly just idiotic, and so Derek strays away from the topic and mostly spends his day with Erica, avoiding confrontation at every front.
“You’re kind of a wimp, you know that, right?” she asks him while they eat lunch in an empty classroom.
He levels a glare at her. “Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, it seriously wouldn’t kill you to just say—”
“No,” Derek says plainly, and he wishes Erica were like normal people and shied away from him when he was obviously pissed. But at the same time, he’s glad she isn’t.
“Fine,” she huffs, sitting up straight and tilting her nose in the air. “But don’t think we won’t talk about this later. Because we will.”
He shrugs.
He has an excuse, though, honestly. It’s not—it’s not like he doesn’t have reasons for being bitter. This summer was…good. It was good, but only up until the end, only until it fell apart, and excuse him for needing time to adjust, to get over everything. He doesn’t expect Erica to understand. Her relationship with Boyd is practically perfect in every way.
Derek just fucking wishes things could’ve ended up differently. But he doesn’t have time to waste on thoughts like that, and he doesn’t have time to sit around daydreaming. It’s better to move on, he tells himself. It’s better to have some new things to focus on.
“You’re gonna like it,” Laura says as she turns the corner, fingers tapping away at the steering wheel. “It’s summer and you get to bond with cool kids and you get have something impressive to put on your college apps—”
“Those things don’t really go together,” Derek mutters bitterly, head tipped back.
“Hey, you were the one who asked the school counselor what kind of extracurricular stuff you could do within the next three months to stuff your app. And you were the one who decided being a camp counselor fit the bill.”
He rolls his eyes. “It’s essentially volunteer work.”
“Well, you don’t have to pay room and board, and you have a lake and a bunch of other stuff—Derek, if you didn’t want to go, you shouldn’t have signed up.” She sounds exasperated and Derek doesn’t blame her. He hasn’t exactly been a picnic on the drive up.
“Sorry,” he says through a sigh. “I—you didn’t have to drive me up here.”
“I offered. It’s weird thinking I won’t see you often this summer.”
“We’ll still have a few weeks when I get back.”
She nods idly and nudges her turn signal on as she slides into a new lane. “Camp,” she mutters, like she’s testing the word in her mouth. “You’ve never been to camp. You’ve camped, but you’ve never—”
“It can’t be that different.”
“You should be fine. You were a boy scout.”
He smirks. “But, Laura, what if the other kids don’t like me?”
“Oh, shut up.”
He doesn’t actually expect to know anyone up there, a camp at the lake, too far away from Beacon Hills for there to be much crossover—except maybe with younger kids. It’s a surprise, then, when he’s looking on a list of names for where he’ll be sleeping that he notices something familiar.
Stilinski.
Stiles Stilinski is a junior, a kid that Derek knows from lacrosse and various other extracurricular sports, and honestly Derek probably wouldn’t know him if it weren’t for the fact that he’s, uh, kind of adorable? He’s goofy and energetic and obviously makes a lot of shit up as he goes, and apparently that’s the type of person Derek likes because he’s been attracted to Stiles for quite some time now and the idea that they’ll be around each other for the next month and a half it makes his face heat and his stomach knot.
It’s dumb, he knows, a crush on a kid like him, especially when he’s obviously only interested in someone like Lydia Martin, but his crush is barely that. They shared no classes together last year, and the only reason Derek is even aware of his existence is through sports—Stiles isn’t that great at lacrosse, he normally sits on the bench a lot with McCall, but he’s great at track. Derek may or may not have gone to watch a few of his races this last year. And even if he had, it was all because of pure curiosity.
He’s not stupid enough to actually think that anything will come of any feelings he may have and he isn’t even sure that he would want anything to happen. It’s always just been the idea of Stiles, imagining him noticing that Derek scored the winning goal, imagining him picking Derek out of the crowd at a meet and waving—it’s little stuff, stuff that he doesn’t think will ever actually happen, but entertaining a crush has been good for him, he thinks, since his social life is limited to girls who want him, guys who hang out with him as acquaintances, and his only friend, Erica Reyes.
He decides that this development, however, is not going to bother him. He’s going to do his job, watch a bunch of kids, and if he happens to run into Stiles every once in a while, he’ll make the most of it without behaving like a creep.
Easier said than done. He’s only just noticed the name and shaken off the thought, finished scanning for his own name to find his cabin, and taken three steps away from the posted list when he sees him. Stiles Stilinski.
For a second, Stiles blinks at him, like he’s a little confused, and Derek is debating the ramifications of passing right by him. Stiles looks good, though, and it’s Derek’s hesitation in checking him out that gives Stiles the opportunity to close the few yards of distance between them.
“Hey,” Stiles says, “you’re a counselor.”
It takes Derek an embarrassing few seconds to find his voice. “Derek Hale,” he says, sticking out his hand.
Stiles looks down at it. “I know who you are. I mean—everyone does. At school. We go to school. Together.” All the same, he clears his throat and takes Derek’s hand. His grip is firm but uncertain. “Stiles.”
Derek doesn’t poof up at the idea that Stiles knows who he is, doesn’t even react externally, but it’s a near thing.
“I thought I was the only guy lame enough to spend their summer up here,” Stiles says with a laugh. “Guess I was wrong.”
“It’s not lame,” Derek argues, but it’s a fallen argument. “I mean—okay, it’s kind of lame. My parents, and college apps…”
“Ah.”
Derek shrugs. “It’s only for a few weeks, though, right?”
Stiles nods. “Yeah. A few weeks. C’mon, I’ll show you where your cabin is.”
He and Erica don’t end up talking about it much, actually. She’s taking some AP classes, not to mention her panic over passing her driver’s test that’s coming up, and so the few times they hang out, they mostly do homework or eat stale popcorn from the machine at the movie theatre while watching the trailers playing in the lobby.
“So, you’re a senior,” she says idly.
“I know.”
“Terrifying.”
“For you.”
She snorts. “For you,” she counters. “You’re the one leaving. What will you do without me?”
“I’ll think of something, I’m sure.”
She smiles softly and tips her head against his shoulder. “Yeah,” she says.
They sit there in silence for a little while longer, but when the door opens, Erica has to jump up and get back to work, so Derek leans back with a sigh and pulls out his phone to check the time and try to beat his high score on Tetris.
He fumbles on marathon mode, only two lines away from clearing level seven, because he hears a laugh that makes his spine stiffen and his stomach clench. He doesn’t look up, decidedly glances once at Erica, who doesn’t bother looking back at him, and then restarts the game, focused even more.
“Well, fuck,” he hears, an uttered sigh, but still, he makes no indication that he’s heard it.
“Do you wanna leave?” another voice asks.
“Fuck, no, dude. I wanna see Sandra Bullock kick some ass. Besides, he doesn’t even know we’re here.”
Derek’s thumb twitches and a piece gets locked into the wrong position. He sighs about it for two seconds before he figures out how to make it work for him, and by that time, the lobby is empty again and Erica is plopping down next to him.
“Looks like Scott knows,” are the first words out of her mouth.
“Of course he knows,” Derek says as he pauses the game. “They’re best friends.”
“Well,” Erica begins, and Derek shakes his head.
“You know I don’t want to talk about it.”
It’s a sore subject, obviously, but Erica wouldn’t be Erica if she didn’t keep pushing. “You know you’re acting like a big, stereotypical girl right now, don’t you?”
Derek nods tersely.
“Good, then my work here is done.”
At least, when she keeps pushing, she knows where the line is. Some other people don’t.
Nobody on the lacrosse team knows, nobody except Scott at least. He can’t imagine what it would be like if someone like Jackson Whittemore knew about what happened over the summer, what kind of things he would say and what kind of things Derek would do to him in retaliation. He’d have detention for the rest of his life.
Derek is happy thinking that none of the team knows, that they’re all perfectly oblivious to the tension in the room, the silence—not that Derek ever really talks in the locker room anyway, so. Still, he should’ve known better.
Derek is on his way to change for cross country practice when Isaac Lahey approaches him, still standing in the hall.
“Stiles,” he says.
Derek arches an eyebrow. “Uh, Derek.”
“You’re avoiding him,” Isaac mutters, as if Derek had never spoken, and Derek shakes his head.
“I’m not,” he argues as he grabs his Spanish book from his locker. “I just haven’t had any reason to talk to him. Why would I? It’s not like we’ve even said two words to each other before.”
Isaac heaves a sigh. “Scott told me about summer camp.”
Derek doesn’t even try not to slam his locker. Unfortunately, it doesn’t produce the result he’d been hoping for, and Isaac barely even blinks.
“You’re just gonna keep walking away?”
“He doesn’t want to talk to me either, why should I make an effort?”
“You know why.”
“None of this is my fucking fault,” he nearly spits. “He made his decision. If he’s not happy with it, he can come tell me himself.”
Isaac rolls his eyes. “Look, I don’t know you outside of lacrosse, okay? But Stiles is a good guy. Whatever you think he did—he didn’t, okay?”
“You weren’t there.”
“Yeah, well maybe you need someone who wasn’t involved in all of it to make something logical out of it.”
Derek looks over Isaac’s shoulder at the still-open door of the locker room where Finstock is standing, blowing his whistle at boys who come running towards it. “You only know one side of the story,” Derek tells him, swinging his backpack onto his shoulder.
“I know more than you might think.”
It’s over a week before it starts. See, Derek doesn’t actively avoid Stiles, not really, and as far as he can tell, Stiles doesn’t avoid him either. They run into each other a couple times a day, exchange greetings, maybe short conversations, and Derek—Derek likes that, he thinks. It’s not exactly helping the fluffy crush-from-afar feelings, though.
The first time it happens, it’s not Derek’s fault. He refuses to believe that he had anything to do with it, really. Ultimately, he’s an innocent bystander, because no one in the history of the world can truthfully say they would be completely unaffected by Stiles Stilinski in swim trunks. Worse, Stiles Stilinski in swim trunks that are clinging to his thighs as he climbs out of a lake, dripping wet. Worse, Stiles Stilinski in swim trunks that are clinging to his thighs as he climbs out of a lake, dripping wet, bathed in moonlight with no one else around.
The older counselors have a midnight curfew while the campers have to be in bed by ten. Few people take advantage of the extended curfew, Derek’s heard, but apparently one of them is Stiles.
Derek is just taking a walk. He’s already in sweatpants and a T-shirt, ready to go to bed, but he’s not ready to sleep, and so he’s strolling when he sees it—Stiles running off the dock and making a perfect dive into the lake below.
When he emerges, it’s a picture. Derek’s stomach twists into a million knots and he can’t tear his gaze away. Stiles is beautiful, all pale skin and smooth lines, muscle and grace and Derek clenches his jaw and wants to look away, wants so bad to turn and leave, but he just can’t.
“Hey,” Stiles says, lifting a hand in a wave.
Derek swallows tightly, his mouth and throat dry. “Hey,” he responds.
“Want to take a lap?”
At the lack for anything else to say, Derek feels himself stepping closer as he shakes his head. “No, thanks.”
Stiles’ eyes rake down his body. “Ready for bed?”
A million images flood Derek’s mind involving Stiles and a bed. “In theory.”
Stiles smirks. “You don’t really say much, do you?”
“I can,” Derek defends himself. “When I need to.”
With a laugh, Stiles shrugs and jogs back over onto the pier, taking another leap into the water. Derek doesn’t know if that’s a dismissal, a reason for Derek to walk away and quietly jerk off in his cabin bathroom, or an invite to stay and watch Stiles move through the water. Even if it’s the former, Derek moves forward to sit at the edge of the pier.
“Roll up your sweats if you’re gonna dunk your feet,” Stiles reminds him from where he’s treading water a few yards out.
Derek does. The water is brisk, chilled, but nothing that makes him draw his feet back towards himself. Instead, he thanks the bracing temperature for his wilting erection and sudden clarity of mind. It doesn’t last long.
Stiles swims for a little bit longer. Derek watches him. He isn’t sure if Stiles is aware of it, if Stiles is really paying him much attention at all, but it doesn’t particularly matter, because he doesn’t think he could stop even if Stiles was.
Derek’s phone says it’s a quarter past eleven when Stiles pushes himself out of the water and sits beside Derek for a full second before he flops onto his back. “I wanted us to have a swim team, you know? At school. But Coach is the head of the athletics department and apparently putting money into lacrosse is more important than using it to form a whole new team.”
“You run cross country too, don’t you?”
“And track.” He sits up then, still leaning back on his hands against the planks of the dock. “I like swimming more, though.”
“You’re good at it.”
“It doesn’t take much to be very good at swimming—the proper muscle use and concentration, sure, but it’s no different from any other sport.”
Derek shrugs. “I’m good at lacrosse, but my swimming makes me look like a drowning cat.”
Stiles laughs. “I’m looking forward to an example.”
“Maybe you’ll get one.” When Derek looks over at him after saying that, he finds Stiles looking right back at him.
It’s all Stiles’ fault. He looks so fucking good, his skin and his smile and his eyes and those moles, and it isn’t within Derek’s power to just walk away. It’s isn’t within Derek power to resist kissing him, and so all he can do is lean in and shut his eyes and feel Stiles’ mouth under his, opening, soft lips, his tongue—
Derek is almost so shocked by Stiles’ receptiveness to the kiss that it makes him move away, but as soon as he starts to jerk back, Stiles grabs him, pulls him back in and kisses him even deeper. It’s so good, that kiss, and Derek wraps his arms around Stiles’ middle, desperately trying to get closer. Stiles’ hands go to his hair, fingers running through it, latching on and tugging. He feels so good, so right, and Derek is only a teenager, only so controlled, and his body is screaming for more.
“Sorry,” Derek mutters when Stiles pulls back to breathe.
“What—why the fuck would—you’re sorry?”
Derek blinks at Stiles’ swollen lips. “I—I didn’t ask.”
It takes Stiles a moment. “You didn’t…ask.”
“If I could kiss you.”
“Well, I obviously don’t mind.” He has one hand on Derek’s cheek. He strokes his thumb across Derek’s face, his cheekbone and lower to his jaw, shifts the weight of his hand to be able to pull his thumb across Derek’s lips. “Uh, do you want me to ask? If I can kiss you?”
Derek’s smirk isn’t one of ego. Rather, it’s relief, embarrassment, and fear, and he pushes his forehead against Stiles’. “You can kiss me,” he says softly, and Stiles does.
Stiles kisses him eagerly, hard, and Derek’s hands immediately go to his hips.
“Is it okay?” Stiles whispers.
Derek nods, eyes still caught on Stiles’ lips.
“Cool.”
They sit like that for a long time—he isn’t sure how long—and just kiss with their bodies twisted to face each other, hands moving idly, and Derek isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or grateful that Stiles doesn’t move to try to get closer.
“It’s almost curfew,” Stiles tells him, trailing his mouth along Derek’s jaw. “Fuck, if we get caught, my dad might actually ground me for life.”
Fear grips Derek’s heart. “Because…?”
Stiles leans back, looking him in the eyes, and he frowns. “What? Oh! Oh, no, he’s not—I mean, he’s cool with it. I mean, he would be. If he knew that I was into guys. He’s, like, super chill.”
“So—”
“So, he’s more worried about curfew than he is about the idea of me getting caught making out with some ridiculously hot senior.” Stiles’ cheeks color and Derek smiles at him, pleased. “So.”
Derek nods. “I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to.”
He shrugs. “I know.”
It’s not as easy as one might think, avoiding someone in high school. It’s made easier by the fact that he and Stiles don’t have any classes together and even though he leaves one class just as Derek enters it, it’s rare that they actually see each other, Stiles having left minutes before Derek arrives.
The few times they actually can’t avoid each other occur in the locker room, during lacrosse practice, and in the parking lot. Derek is dead silent during those times, however, and they make it through relatively unscathed, never exchanging a word. Scott will sometimes look at him for too long, hesitating like he wants to say something, but he never does.
Even though Stiles runs drills at practice, mostly he just sits on the bench with some of the others, so when Derek is focused, he doesn’t have to worry about engaging with him at all. Derek is very rarely unfocused. Practice goes smoothly, slowly, and he trudges back to the locker room with intent to shower away his long day and go home, but when he notices Stiles stripping off his shirt, his heart tugs him in the opposite direction and he decides he’ll shower at home.
If he strips down too quickly and jerks off in the shower to a memory of Stiles and skin, it’s not his fault. He can’t really control the way his brain works when he’s too turned on the function, can’t censor his mind away from images that make everything in him hurt, and so he just uses it to his advantage and comes, shaking against the spray of the shower and leaning against the tile.
He spares two more seconds to thought of Stiles, wonders briefly if Stiles still thinks of him, and then shoves it away because he can’t waste his time thinking things like that, especially when he knows it’s an idiotic fantasy. So instead of wasting precious thoughts on dumb things like boys with moles, he does his homework, helps his mom make dinner, and manages to fall asleep early that night.
He needs as much sleep as he can get if he has to keep putting up with Stiles Stilinski every day.
They end up making out against the rickety wall of the changing rooms near the lake the afternoon after their first kiss, Stiles pressing him against them, trapping him, and Derek just rolls with it. Their kids are taking turns diving off the pier and swimming laps around the deepest portions that they’re allowed to venture towards, and Derek only glances over at them once before letting Stiles hide them on the opposite side in the shadows.
“I didn’t see you at lunch,” Stiles whispers against his mouth, licking at his teeth.
“One of my kids had an emergency, but, uh, Heather helped her take care of it.”
Stiles chuckles, tips his forehead against Derek’s shoulder so he can nibble at Derek’s throat. “Don’t tell me.”
“It’s exactly what you think.”
“Sounds stressful.”
“More for her than for me. Can we maybe not talk about eleven-year-olds getting their period while we’re making out?”
“Mm, ruining the mood?”
“Just a bit.”
They stay hidden away there for another ten minutes before Derek panics, the idea of one lifeguard for however many dozen kids out there and responsibility tearing him away from Stiles’ mouth. He kisses Stiles one final time and straightens his T-shirt.
“You go first,” Derek mutters, and Stiles sucks on his bottom lip before he goes.
Derek thinks he’s going to die.
For some reason, and Derek wonders why this is, he seems to always stumble upon the resident idiots of Beacon Hills at their worst.
His family lives near the preserve, a big house with generations inside, and so he—he leaves. It’s not a matter of privacy or noise, it’s simply a preference, being alone, and he takes walks a lot, when he can, in attempts to clear his mind.
He finds Scott and three others at a picnic table by the trail, obviously drunk, all of them loud and laughing and it’s not a problem because there’s no one around them, but Derek huffs and rolls his eyes because he can’t actually believe they could be so stupid.
“There are rangers out here at night sometimes,” he tells them as he approaches. “You guys probably wanna clear away before they come by.”
Stiles is the first one to look up at him, eyes wide and mouth open, and he looks away a split second later, hand twisting around Isaac’s jacket. “C’mon,” he mutters, and Isaac stands with him.
The other two—Scott and his girlfriend, Allison—cling to each other. Or, more realistically, Allison clings to Scott.
“I’ll make sure they get home,” Scott tells Derek, the first words he’s ever said to him that Derek can recall. “You can leave now.”
“They’re drunk.”
Stiles trips over something and Derek doesn’t move to catch him, but it’s a near thing.
“We have a car,” Isaac slurs. “Somewhere.”
“Have you been drinking?” Derek asks Scott, hand on his chest.
“No,” he says with something of a sneer. “I’m the DD.”
“Yeah, you are, baby,” Allison says through a giggle, leaning into him. “So wonderful.” She nuzzles under his jaw and Derek looks away, stomach twisting sickly.
“Make sure you all get home safe.”
Stiles laughs, harsh and bright, and Derek doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t have to, though, because Stiles is suddenly half leaning against him, eyes dark and narrowed, and Derek isn’t sure whether to jerk away or hold him up. “You wanna drive me?” Stiles asks, something shining in his eyes that isn’t at all innocent or playful, but rather dark and ugly. “My car’s here, but it’s a stick shift. You like handling stick, right, Derek?”
Derek flushes to his ears. “Go home, Stiles.”
“Sure,” he says. “See you on Monday.”
He flips Derek off as he wraps an arm around Isaac. They support each other on their way back to the car, and Derek stands there, watching them, because he can’t help but think that things are way more fucked up than they really should be.
Because then there’s a siren, just as three wasted teenagers get into a car, and a cruiser pulls up, flashing its lights.
“Shit,” Derek hisses, running up to the cruiser. “Good evening, officer—can I help you?”
The woman looks him up and down. “I’m not here for you, Hale. The Sheriff’s kid is supposed to be at home—it’s past his curfew. His dad sent me to come get him.”
“I can assure you that he’s being taken care of, Officer.”
“Oh, yeah? You driving him home?”
Derek feels his temple throb. “Of course. He and his friends just came onto the land for some night exploring, dumb idea, I know, but they’re teenagers—what are you gonna do, right?”
She doesn’t look amused. “Look, I like you, and I like Stiles, and I don’t know what’s happening but honestly, I would rather not know. Make sure he gets home, or else his dad will suspend me.”
Derek nods. “Of course, absolutely. Have a nice evening!”
She drives away, and Scott bounds out of the driver’s seat. “That was really good of you, dude; you didn’t have to do that.”
“You’re damn right I didn’t.” He hooks a hand around Scott’s neck and pulls him just close enough to be threatening. “Make sure he gets home safely. Fucking tuck him into bed if you have to. Clear?”
Scott looks like he’s deciding whether he wants to roll his eyes or cower in fear. “Crystal.”
He looks past Scott to where Stiles is sitting in the passenger’s seat, staring at him. He feels like he might be sick, unpleasant feelings rising up in his stomach, and so he shoves Scott away and starts walking back towards his house.
“Last time I do something for you eggheads.”
They don’t talk about it. Really, the few moments they have alone together, they spend making out, but while they have conversations, they don’t talk about…them. Derek wonders, the whole time, what the point is, if Stiles just wants someone to grope or if he actually likes Derek.
Derek likes Stiles. Derek’s liked him since his junior year when Stiles, who was a sophomore, caught his attention by nearly getting in a fist fight with a jerk outside of school for things he was saying about Erica. It’s been a slow build. But he—Derek knows who he is, has watched him play lacrosse and run track, watched him bite at his gloves or at the strings of his hoodies, and Derek is fascinated. It almost makes him embarrassed to admit it, but it would be much more embarrassing if Stiles hadn’t kissed him back.
So for the next week, every chance they get, they find a way to be hidden away, and Derek has been excessively jerking off. It’s becoming a problem.
It’s recreation time and Derek is sitting in the main cabin, in the air conditioning, penning a letter to his family when the door opens and closes so quietly that Derek almost doesn’t even register it. Either way, he continues working.
“Contacting the parentals?” Stiles asks as he plops into the seat opposite Derek.
Derek glances up for barely a second, nods. “I haven’t at all, and I don’t get cell service, so.”
“Mm, good on you. My dad counts these few weeks as our time away from each other. They’re precious.” He folds his hands. “Half my kids are hanging out at the zip line and the others are going up to the snack bar. You wanna hang out?”
Derek knows what hang out means, and his body has an immediate response. Its answer is yes, a very emphatic yes.
“We could watch a movie on your computer. In my room.”
“How do you know I brought my computer?”
“You were telling Heather about your college applications,” Stiles says, and he sounds dismissive. “So, you want to?”
Derek looks over his shoulder at one of the adult counselors and then back at Stiles. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”
They don’t end up watching the movie. They decide on Raiders of the Lost Ark because it’s easy to find online and counselors get free wifi, but they’re only two minutes into it when Stiles’ hand ends up on Derek’s thigh, his shoulder drops low, and then his mouth is on Derek’s pulse point.
“Fuck,” he croaks. “Stiles—”
“I can stop.”
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
The laptop ends up somewhere, probably at the end of the bed, Derek isn’t sure, and they’re wrapped up in each other, kissing and grabbing at clothes, and when Derek pulls his own shirt off, he doesn’t miss how Stiles keens and lays his hands on the newly-revealed skin.
“You’re really hot,” Stiles tells him. “Can I say that?”
Derek nods. “Sure.”
“Cool.”
Somehow, Derek ends up on top of him. They’re both shirtless and Derek’s jeans are halfway down his thighs. Stiles’ fly is undone, his mouth is just as swollen as Derek’s feels, and the only thing he wants right now to rut down into him until he comes his brains out.
“Is it—I don’t know how far you want—can I?” Stiles’ hands are on the waistband of his boxer briefs, and Derek’s brain is far too muddled to do anything. His dick is making all the decisions.
He must nod or say something in the affirmative because then Stiles’ hand is down his underwear and wrapping around his cock. It feels fucking amazing. He’s obviously a little nervous, surprised maybe, but he jerks Derek off like he’s done it a million times before. His technique isn’t exactly the kind of thing Derek does to himself, but it’s good—it’s obvious that Stiles is a teenage boy.
Derek comes in something like a dozen messy strokes, groaning and gasping into Stiles’ mouth and nearly falling over. Instead, what he does is drop his hips, and Stiles arches into him instinctively, rubbing himself off with barely any effort. When Stiles comes, he grunts and keens and shakes, and they fall together, tangled.
For a long moment, Derek lies there with his head tucked against Stiles’ neck. His heart is beating too quickly and he can hear Stiles’ too, hammering out a tempo, and when he holds his breath he can hear Harrison Ford in the background, but he closes his eyes and pushes his face into Stiles’ skin.
“That was…really good,” Stiles tells him. He sounds like he means it.
Derek hums.
Stiles moves his hand, the one on his stomach, and laughs. “I got jizz all over me, holy crap.”
“Sorry,” Derek mumbles, nuzzling closer. “Wanna clean up?”
“Eventually. I’m still in my afterglow.”
Derek smiles. “Me too.”
Derek is standing at his locker, checking his teeth in the mirror hanging on the door—just don’t—when it slams shut. He expects it to be someone like Erica or Isaac or, potentially, Scott, but instead it’s the last person he expects.
“You saved my ass,” Stiles says, arms crossed over his chest. “Why?”
Derek arches an eyebrow. “Spur of the moment decision.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I’m well aware. You get home okay?”
“Yeah, I was fine, I wasn’t even that wasted—I had enough energy to stay up and watch a flick, avoid my homework, and puke my guts out.”
“Oh, yeah?” Derek says and he decidedly doesn’t smile. “What’d you watch?”
Stiles’ jaw clenches. “I just wanted to say thanks. You saved me a lot of trouble with my dad.”
“Don’t worry about it. Now go to class before Harris gives you detention again. Coach’ll kill you if you miss practice.”
Stiles hesitates just a second, though, and he looks Derek up and down.
“Take a picture,” Derek nearly barks. “It’ll last longer.”
Stiles snorts before turning and walking away. He doesn’t get far, though, and when Derek’s opened his locker again to get his things to take with him to study hall, Stiles is right back next to him.
“Look, I’m assuming you know about the party and so I just wanted to check if you were going.”
Derek has no idea what he’s talking about. “Hoping to avoid me?”
“Obviously.”
His stomach twists. “I’m not going to any party so don’t worry about it.”
“Great.” Stiles really does leave this time, and Derek watches him go, unashamedly staring as he continues down the hall towards his next class.
So it’s a Friday night and he thinks he’ll probably end up spending it with Erica again, gnawing on popcorn and talking trash about people like a couple of preteens, but it turns out Erica has the night off, and she wants to go to a party.
Derek closes his eyes. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
“Hey, Boyd heard about it—it’s this girl’s birthday bash, she lives like a half hour from here. We’ll be back before curfew, please?”
“I don’t wanna go to some party for a girl I don’t even know, Erica.”
“Oh, please, like she’ll know everyone there anyway.” She squeezes his arm. “Please, Derek, I’ll love you forever and ever and ever.”
He sighs heavily. “I’ll drop you off.”
“It’s not any fun unless you stay with me.”
“Isn’t Boyd going?”
“Well yes, but—”
“You’ll have plenty of fun with him.” Erica pouts. “I’m not going to a party, Erica. It’s not my idea of a fun time.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “Derek.”
“What?”
“Just stay with me for like twenty minutes and then you can go, I promise.”
“Erica.”
“Please?”
He groans dramatically. “Jesus Christ, fine, but I’m leaving after twenty minutes exactly.”
She claps her hands together. “Great.”
The party is crowded and loud and it smells like cheap alcohol and teenagers. It’s exactly like every other party Derek’s ever been to in high school. He clings to Erica the whole time, looking over his shoulder every few seconds for Stiles, and when his twenty minutes is up, he kisses Erica’s temple, says he hopes she has fun waiting around for Boyd, and books it.
He doesn’t look around the lawn as he leaves, scared that he’ll see someone he doesn’t want to, and instead just gets into his car and drives off, planning to raid the little bit of weed he has left over from a very strange night with Erica and get stoned sitting in his car.
He never gets the chance, however, because it’s been exactly an hour (and he’s got the joint in one hand, lighter in the other) when he gets the phone call.
“Motherfucking shit, Derek,” Erica hisses at him, “the cops are here and I’m so fucking drunk, you have to come get me out of here.”
Derek really, really hates his life.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“If you get pulled over for speeding, you’ll just wreck us both.”
“Twenty-five minutes,” he amends, and he hangs up.
He only speeds a little bit, not anything noticeable, and when he arrives, the place has a few cops left hanging around, but most of the party goers are gone, all except for a group of idiots standing at the curb, and if Derek slams his car door a little bit too loud because he’s annoyed, well he’s allowed.
“Can I help you?” the cop standing in front of the group asks him.
“Yeah, I came to pick up my little sister and her boyfriend,” Derek sighs. Erica looks like she could weep.
The cop eyes him. “Did you know she was attending this party tonight, young man?”
“I did, sir, but I didn’t think she would be so immature as to participate in underage drinking.” He glares, and tries not to think about the blunt still sitting in his glove compartment. “Am I allowed to take her home or are you holding her for something?”
“We don’t get a lot of incidents out here,” he says, “and we’re letting them off with a warning. Because we’re feeling gracious.”
Stiles, who of course is standing nearby, snorts. The cops glares at him.
“Also, none of them rated on the breathalyzer,” he says a little bitterly, and Derek is both thankful as fuck and intensely curious as to why that is. “Take her home, and while you’re at it, see if you can’t pack a few of her friends into your car.”
Stiles grabs onto Scott’s arm—who’s in turn holding onto Allison, and Derek is sure Isaac is around here too somewhere because it’s always fucking them—and makes to leave, but when he does, Derek notices the figure talking to the other cop on the opposite side of the lawn.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he breathes out, yanking a hand through his hair. “You went to her party?” he hisses. He isn’t aiming it at Erica, isn’t even looking at her, and so she doesn’t answer.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, because yes, he’d been the one the question had been directed at. “Why do you care?”
“Jesus fucking Christ—”
“What?” Stiles demands. “Are you jealous?”
Derek nearly growls. Instead, however, he simply gestures to the car and glares pointedly at Erica. “Go,” he says, “now.” Boyd follows her like a lost puppy, both of them climbing into the backseat, and Derek watches as the others head off towards Stiles’ car, all of them except for Stiles himself.
“What’d you do?” Derek wants to know.
“I know a lot of tricks, okay? One of them happens to be how to break a breathalyzer. It was luck that I was the first one he asked to blow it.”
Derek’s nostrils flare. “Don’t—”
“Oh, please, like I even care.” He looks over his shoulder for a second and then stomps back towards his car without a final word on the matter.
Derek doesn’t throw a fit, but it’s a near thing. He figures kicking at the curb just a little bit is enough.
Movie night, Derek thinks, must be one of the best nights at camp. According to some veteran counselors, they show something like Finding Nemo or Up, one of the cartoons that’s appropriate for all the younger kids, but then, when that’s over and it’s just the counselors around, they’ll show something like The Avengers or Harry Potter. This year, the movie is some superhero thing, that Andrew Garfield Spider-Man flick, and Derek isn’t a huge fan, but Stiles is apparently terribly excited.
He gets two buckets of popcorn, shares with Derek and even though his body is pressed up half against his for the whole film, Stiles barely glances at him. Derek spends most of the time just watching Stiles.
When the movie is over, only a few other counselors are left. Stiles squeezes Derek’s arm before he gets up. Derek counts to five and follows him.
They end up behind the shed where they keep equipment for winter activities. Not terribly romantic, Derek knows, but he doesn’t mind that much, especially when Stiles is panting in his ear and unbuttoning his jeans.
“We don’t have to,” Derek says, kissing him harder.
“Oh, God, yes—yes, we do.” Stiles shoves down his pants, underwear included, and licks his lips. It’s dark, Derek can barely see him, but Stiles looks up and says, “Don’t judge me, okay? I—I’ve never done this before so it will probably be terrible. Okay?”
Derek’s words are caught in his throat, and he can’t say anything before Stiles is on his knees, sucking Derek into his mouth. It’s sloppy, but he’s obviously eager, and he goes for it like it’s a race. It’s all spit and lips and tongue, sucking and bobbing and licking, hand around the base, and Derek slams his head back against the shed to gain some composure.
Stiles looks up at him, wipes his mouth of the sleeve of his track jacket. “You okay?” he asks.
Derek nods. “Yeah,” he says breathlessly. “Yeah, I’m—great.”
Stiles grins and goes down again.
When Derek comes, he pulls Stiles away and gets his own shirt dirty, biting on his fist to keep from screaming. Stiles looks like he might be pouting, but Derek can’t really tell because by the time he’s aware of anything, he ducks down to his knees and takes Stiles’ cock out of his pants.
“What,” Stiles says.
“Do you mind?”
“I—no. No, yeah, go—go right ahead. Do your thing.”
Derek takes his time, feeling loose and pliant and comfortable, and he kisses along the inside of Stiles’ thighs, sucks on his balls for a while before he actually sucks his cock. Stiles goes rigid, hands in Derek’s hair, back arched, and he moans softly like he just can’t hold it back but he also doesn’t want to get caught. With the movie, curfew’s going to be any minute, but Derek doesn’t want to rush.
Stiles is heavy and satisfying in his mouth, not too bitter, not unpleasant, and it doesn’t feel like a chore like he thought sucking dick would. Instead, it makes him feel powerful. It’s even better when Stiles hisses his name and comes down his throat.
They stand there together for a long time, leaning into each other, kissing the taste out of each other’s mouths, and eventually Derek puts his arms around Stiles’ shoulders and says, “We’re gonna get in trouble.”
“Nah. I’d never get you in trouble.”
After dropping Erica and Boyd off, Derek gets home twenty minutes past his curfew. His mom is waiting up, arms crossed, and Derek nods solemnly. “I know,” he says. “I screwed up. Can you lecture me about it in the morning? I’m exhausted.”
“You didn’t answer your phone, Derek. You could’ve been dead for all we knew.”
“It died, I’m really sorry, I was just—Erica was at a party and she was drunk and scared and I had to go pick her up. I couldn’t just leave her there.”
His mother sighs, eyes slipping closed. “Derek, I’m just glad you’re alright.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” He kisses her cheek and starts towards the stairs. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Derek,” she sighs.
He turns, resisting the urge to echo the hopeless sound. “Yeah, Mom?”
“We’re worried about you, your dad and I.”
“Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“You don’t seem fine, though,” she insists, and she steps forward to take his hand. “Sweetheart, you’re quiet. And we’re just worried that…” She licks her lips. “Your letters when you were at camp—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You said you met someone and—”
He squeezes her hand, leans in to hug her, and repeats, “I don’t want to talk about it,” before he heads up the stairs and doesn’t look back.
It’s not as simple as Erica or Isaac or his mom thinks. It’s not a matter of a failed attempt at a relationship or fling that ended too quickly. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to make them understand but that’s okay, because he shouldn’t have to. He should just get to be upset for a while. Everyone should be allowed that luxury after heartbreak.
He tries not to think about Stiles too much. He’s obviously still angry at Derek for thinking that whatever they were doing was more important than a potential relationship with Heather, which sucks more than anything Derek can think of, but that’s just how it worked out. He isn’t sure if he hopes they’re happy together or if he hopes they crash and burn and Stiles realizes what a colossal mistake he made. Either way, Derek knows he’s not happy yet, not quite, and he isn’t sure when he’s going to be.
Camp lasts six weeks. It’s been five—weeks of camp, only three and half weeks of fooling around—when it’s officially visitor’s day. Relatives of the campers get to come up and have dinner, hang out with them, and it’s an easy day for the counselors.
Derek spends it on the other side of the lake, in a recliner, reading Pride and Prejudice for school. He doesn’t see Stiles that day, not until the sun is already set, and he’s just putting some of the younger kids to bed and Stiles ducks his head in and says, “Hey. Wanna take a walk?”
They don’t kiss that evening, don’t end up pressed in a corner somewhere with their hands on their dicks, and Derek doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or bad a thing.
“So, did you finish your Common App?” Stiles asks as they walk around the lake.
“Uh, yeah, everything except the essay. I still have to pick a prompt.” He swallows tightly and shoves his hands in his pockets. “What about you—you’re gonna be off to college pretty soon. Any ideas where you’re gonna apply?”
“I want to stay in-state, I think, for my dad and my friends. But I’m not sure yet. Berkeley, if I can swing it, maybe UCLA.”
“That’s pretty far south.”
“Yeah, well. What about you? I mean, you said—”
“Stanford, USC, Davis, some private colleges on the east coast.” They’re already talked about this, about Derek’s college plans. It’s always seemed to be a safe topic, something everything is always asking him about.
Now that Derek thinks about it, they’ve talked a lot lately, and not only about college. He can think off the top of his head about eight different conversations they’ve had in the past three days that didn’t involve tongues or groping at all.
His heart stutters.
“What’d you do today?” Derek asks him.
“Oh, my dad came up, actually. I know visitor’s day is really only for the campers, but my dad came and we hung out a little bit. It was, uh, fun. I’d missed him. I always do.”
Derek nods. “That sounds nice.”
They walk a little farther and Derek takes his hands out of his pockets. They swing as he moves, lazy, and eventually his hand catches Stiles’. He doesn’t let go.
They walk like that for a while longer, silent, and eventually Stiles stops.
“This isn’t just sex, right?” he asks, and his voice is soft. “I mean, not that the sex isn’t great because it is. It’s—fucking phenomenal. But there are…feelings, aren’t there? I mean, when you kissed me, it certainly seemed like there were feelings.”
Derek looks down at their hands. “Yeah,” he mutters. “There are feelings.”
“You don’t sound that happy about it.”
“I like you,” Derek says. “I—I really fucking like you.”
“Okay.” Stiles squeezes his hand. “Cool.”
They’re fucking movie hopping. Derek has little against it on principle, even though it’s just kind of rude, but the movie theatre has security guards and honestly, Scott and his friends have been in there for basically the whole day—they’re going to get caught. Derek is definitely not going to be the one to help them out of it.
“Can’t you make them leave?” he asks Erica after she’s told him what they’ve been doing.
“I could,” she says with a shrug. “If I cared. You don’t own the theatre, Derek; he can hang out here too, you know.”
Derek rolls his eyes. “Whatever—when do you get off?”
“Half an hour, just in time to see that Ryan Reynolds movie. If you want.”
“I’ll go buy the tickets.”
She grins.
When they actually get into the theatre 35 minutes later, they walk in just behind the people Derek is least excited to see, so he pretends like they’re not there and drags Erica to the opposite side, avoiding them at all costs.
They’re not a problem in the actual movie, but as soon as it’s over, Derek drags Erica out, not bothering to wait through the credits, and—
“Wait just a second, son,” a voice says, and he and Erica face the security guard standing at the exit. Because of course, of fucking course, Stiles, Scott, and Isaac followed them out. They’re obviously intent on driving him insane. “Can I see your tickets for this film?” he asks, and he’s looking straight at Derek.
Derek pulls his out of his pocket immediately. He has Erica’s too, which she takes. “Is there a problem, sir?” he asks, knowing that they’re going to bust the boys next to him in an instant. He doesn’t feel the least bit of guilt for them.
“We’re just doing a check; you can go on ahead.”
Derek starts to pull Erica forward, hand on her elbow, and they’re towards the exit when she stops him. “Derek,” she mutters, “we should help them.”
“We should do no such thing,” he hisses. “Why should I care—”
She pokes his chest. “Because you’re a good person.”
He closes his eyes. Part of him wants to get out while he still can, but there’s also a bit of him that’s saying Erica is right, that even though they fucked up it’s a dumb crime anyway, and so he heaves a sigh and turns around.
“Excuse me, sir,” he says to the security guard. Stiles looks like he’s trying to talk his way out of a situation, Scott looks like he might pee himself, and Isaac looks a mix between bored and terrified. “They came in with us.”
“That’s nice, kid, but they don’t have their tickets.”
“I told you,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “We threw them away on accident with our snacks! We were leaving the theatre, we didn’t think we’d need them anymore.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Derek says, and he tries not to sound annoyed as he does. “I saw him. And Erica works here—she ripped their tickets for them earlier.”
The security guard looks at Erica and back at Stiles. “Fine, go. But don’t let me catch you sneaking into movies later, we clear?”
“Crystal clear, sir,” Stiles says over his shoulder as he books it. “Super crystal clear.”
On their way back to the car, Derek is bitter, stiff and Erica rolls her eyes at him. “You know it was a good thing to do.”
“Not my responsibility to get them out of messes. Or to get you out of messes for that matter—no more parties.”
She shrugs. “Whatever. Walking away would’ve been a mistake, Derek. You know that.”
“Why? Because Stiles wouldn’t like me?” he sneers. “He already doesn’t.”
“You’re so defensive,” she tells him, sliding into the car.
Once he’s in too, he rolls the engine over and starts up the AC, running his hand through his hair. “I’m just trying to survive long enough to get him out of my system, okay? And continually running into him and saving his ass isn’t helping.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Erica, it was—we talked about it, remember?” He pulls out of the lot, trying not to bury himself in memories that come sweeping in. “It was a good summer. But he’s with her now and I—I need to just hate him for a little while.”
“You’re an upstanding citizen, Mr. Hale.”
He snorts. “Whatever you say.”
Heather had never really been a problem. She’s a girl, Stiles’ age, and a counselor at the camp, but she doesn’t go to school with them, and since this is Derek’s first year as a counselor, he doesn’t really know her that well. She’s pretty and he can tell that she’s nice, and he likes her enough, but there’s only a week and a half before camp ends that he realizes the issue.
She’s in love with Stiles. Maybe love is a strong word, but she definitely likes him in more than a platonic way. It’s obvious, the way she looks at him, fumbles with things when he’s near and flirts with intent. She sits across from him at breakfast and wipes at a smear of butter left on his upper lip from toast with her thumb and then licks it away from her own skin—Derek can see it happen from where he is at the other end of the dining hall, and it makes his stomach twist up with jealousy.
Suddenly, as if she realizes how little time is left, she’s always around. She puts her kids with Stiles’ for activities and sits next to him at meals and Derek doesn’t see him in two full days before he gets cornered leaving the bathroom.
“Hey,” Stiles says, hand on Derek’s stomach, pushing him back towards the stall. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Derek shrugs. “You’ve been busy.”
“Not really.” He gets Derek in and latches the door shut. “My kids are taking out the canoes.”
He wonders if he should resist, if he should leave and try to accept the fact that, given the choice, Stiles will choose Heather in a heartbeat. But he can’t. He’ll never be able to resist. And so he leans in and takes Stiles’ mouth in a kiss.
He ends up lifting Stiles against the wall there a few minutes later, letting Stiles wrap his legs around Derek’s, grabbing onto his ass as he grinds their cocks together, and Stiles arches his body over and over again like he’s trying to get more, like he’s trying to feel more, and Derek gets an immediate picture of what Stiles would look like riding his cock.
He groans into Stiles’ neck and digs his fingers into his hips, trying so hard not to come. He wants Stiles to come first, wants to know that he can make Stiles feel good, that whatever happens Stiles knows that Derek was always concerned with his pleasure first.
Stiles comes with his hand around his dick, shooting up around his fist and onto his shirt. He laughs when he sees it, tilts his forehead against Derek’s cheek. “It’s okay, we’ll go swimming and I’ll take it off anyway.”
Derek swallows any words he might have wanted to say.
“Want me to get you off?” Stiles asks, wiggling his hips.
Derek licks his lips. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Would you—please—”
He shoves his pants down mid-thigh, and Stiles jerks him off efficiently, makes it good like Derek taught him, and Derek shoves his face into Stiles’ skin and breathes him in, tries not to moan his name or anything else ridiculously embarrassing, and instead when he comes, he bites down hard on Stiles’ shoulder.
A few minutes later, when they’re cleaning up at the sinks, Stiles gasps.
“Dude,” he says, hand on his neck. The bite is at the junction, right at the part where his shoulder slopes into his neck, and Derek almost smiles. The mark is red and purple, an obvious hickey, but it’s slight and it’ll disappear within a day or two.
“Sorry,” Derek says with a shrug.
Stiles rolls his eyes and smacks his shoulder. “Liar.”
Derek’s been lucky. Drunk teenagers out past curfew and at parties, idiots going to see movies without actually paying for it—it’s child’s play. It’s nothing compared to what happens next.
It’s a week before Halloween. Parties will be sprouting up all over the place, Derek and Erica will attend one or two, remain responsible adults, and when Derek goes home, Erica will go out with Boyd, because that’s the way their relationship works. Derek won’t get drunk; he doesn’t really like alcohol. He might, however, see if he can’t work on a high while he has the night to himself.
Scott approaches him three days before Halloween. “Hey.”
Derek is unlocking his car. His hand freezes and he looks over the roof at Scott. “What do you want?”
The lot is nearly empty, only a few cars belonging to teachers and lacrosse players around, but Scott still comes around the side of Derek’s to say, “I heard you’re a guy I can talk to about getting weed.”
“Jesus Christ.” He rubs at his temple. “No,” he says. “You heard wrong.”
“Aw, c’mon, dude—we’re not gonna sell it to anybody or anything, we just wanna bake it in some brownies for this party we’re going to.”
“I’m not giving you drugs.”
“What, because you’re a year older you’re so much better at handling them?”
“Scott,” Derek sighs, “your mom is a nurse. Stiles’ dad is a cop. I. Am. Not. Giving. You. Drugs.”
“I can pay you.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“C’mon, Derek, please—look, I had a way of getting some before, since it’s legal for medical purposes, but now I can’t because my mom’s cracking down on me after she found condoms in my room—it’s a long story, but it’s not like I’ve never smoked weed before, dude.”
“Edibles are different, you moron.”
Scott groans, looks around the parking lot. “What do I have to do?”
Derek’s nostrils flare. “Leave me alone for the rest of the year. You and all of your idiot friends.”
Scott hesitates. “But—”
“Take it or leave it. Leave me alone for the rest of the year, pay me fifty bucks, and you get what you want.”
It’s obvious that he isn’t sure whether he should agree, but Derek has no idea why. Finally, Scott nods. “Deal.”
Derek rolls three joints, bakes an 8x8 pan of pot brownies, and leaves enough loose in case Scott has a pipe, and that’s more than enough for 50 dollars. He can’t believe he’s doing it, though, since it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever done in his life, but if it means that he never has to run into Stiles again, he thinks it might be worth it.
They have school on Halloween, a Friday, and Derek walks up to Scott’s locker to wait for him.
“When can I give it to you?” he asks stiffly. Stiles is standing right next to his best friend, quiet.
“Come to the party tonight, I guess,” Scott says with a shrug. “Erica’s going, so.”
Derek nods. “You guys better be safe with this shit, okay?”
“We know what we’re doing.”
“I’m serious. Edibles can fuck you up—best to avoid them at all costs.”
“It’s the only way Isaac can stand to get high, and Erica doesn’t like the smoke.” Derek knows that. “It’s fine, I promise we’ll be safe.” Scott rolls his eyes and reaches into his back pocket, taking out his wallet.
“Don’t,” Derek says. “Pay me tonight.”
Everything falls apart two days before camp is over. The evening before, Stiles had found Derek in the lake with the moon already high in the sky. They’d gone skinny dipping, their first time being fully naked with each other, and Derek had reveled in it, in how they touched and kissed and spend time rocking up against each other.
At the end of the night, before they were going to get dressed again and head back to their respective cabins, Stiles had been seconds away from coming his brains out when he yanked Derek in, kissing him hard and hissing in his ear, “I want you to fuck me so hard.”
They’d both come at that and neither of them said anything about it. Derek kissed him, ran his fingers through Stiles’ longer hair, and shoved him towards his cabin, and Stiles had gone with a grin and a wave.
That’s not the problem, though. The problem is, and always will be as far as Derek is concerned, is Heather. It’s only gotten worse, really, and it makes Derek ache. Even worse than the fact that Stiles isn’t deterring her or turning her away is the knowledge that Stiles hasn’t told him anything about it, hasn’t come up and admitted that Heather has been trying to get into his pants. Derek figures he’ll just have to wait until Stiles tells him.
That doesn’t really work. They’re going to be leaving soon, and Derek suddenly finds himself in Heather’s presence during arts and crafts with the younger kids. He doesn’t mean to sit next to her and strike up a conversation, not really, but when it happens, he makes sure he isn’t scowling and unpleasant. He doesn’t want to give her any ammo to bring to Stiles about how imperfect he is.
So he’s friendly. He smiles and he helps her kids with their projects and they talk about school and life and she’s so sweet, so genuine, that it makes him feel like he’s going to be sick because she’s perfect. She’s the kind of girl that Stiles needs, that Stiles wants, and it’s not fair.
“—with Stiles’ family, so.”
Derek tunes back in, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“Oh, I was just saying that I’ve been at this camp since I was six. Stiles and I—you know, the junior counselor with the moles”—she gestures accordingly—“we’ve known each other since we were in diapers.” Her cheeks color. “But I haven’t seen him in months, you know, or I hadn’t before summer started. He’s, uh, really grown up.”
Derek resists the urge to growl. “Yes,” he agrees, “I suppose he has.”
They stray away to other topics, Derek moving the conversation back to Heather, and he’s only half listening when he becomes hyperaware of her hand on his arm. He doesn’t think twice about it, just continues listening to her, smiling calmly, and she leans in to complete a punch line before she throws her head back, laughing.
Derek doesn’t really get the joke, but he chuckles good-naturedly anyway. A split second later, the arts and crafts cabin is shaken by the slamming of the rickety door as someone with a coif of dark brown hair strides away. And Derek would recognize it anywhere.