Chapter Text
It looked like an interrogation room at Quantico with better chairs, and Derek Hale, professional Dom and owner of the BDSM club The Den, was standing on the other side of the table, suit perfectly pressed with nary a button askew, clearly expecting to play the role of interviewing Agent. This was going to be fun.
Not.
“So,” Stiles slouched in his chair, long legs sprawled in front of him. It had already been a long day, and he wasn’t in the mood for more of this Master/slave bullshit, but work was work and he’d get through it. He always did. If he happened to ignore dungeon protocol, well Hale wasn’t his Dom. “Why dids’t thou summon me, my Master?”
The attitude wasn’t really called for. He’d barely interacted with the man in charge since he’d been selected for this mission, and Hale had never been anything but professional, even when Stiles had pushed, and he had pushed. He’d wanted to see what happened when he knocked the big bad wolf—Of course he was a werewolf. It wouldn’t be Stiles’s life if it didn’t end up revolving around a fucking werewolf.—off kilter, but he hadn’t gotten much more than a hard stare and a few slightly-more-familiar-than-a-coworker chemosignal sniffs.
To be honest, Derek wasn’t at all what he’d expected when he’d gotten this assignment. He’d half expected some flabby guy with a hard-on for making twinks lick his boots or crawl around behind him on a leash to be in charge. Derek Hale, on the other hand, could easily have passed as one of the ex-Marines at Quantico. He had a certain air of authority that probably served him well in his dungeon, but that still didn’t make him Stiles’s boss. He was here to learn how the game worked, that was all, not play it.
“Have a seat.” Derek motioned to the chair that Stiles was already sitting in and lifted an eyebrow, disapproval clear on his face. Stiles had always wanted to be able to lift just one eyebrow, but no dice. Yet another way that the wolf was unfairly favored.
“Thanks, man,” he forced a laugh, knowing he’d probably pissed the other man off by not waiting for the invitation to sit, but he was tired, and Hale could deal with it. “Long freaking day, you know? But really, what’s up? I guess Lydia told you that I finished the knot tying lessons this afternoon? And I finished that course on temperature play safety yesterday with Boyd, so… I’m thinking all I need is for you to sign off on the paperwork and I can get out of your hair.”
Stiles was man enough to admit that if he’d run into Derek Hale anywhere else, he’d have tried to climb him like a tree. He was a little taller and more than a little broader than him, with black hair just long enough to pull and muscle definition that would make professional athletes jealous. Add a family fortune that had more in common with the Rockefellers than the Kardashians, and a face that wouldn’t look out of place on one of the billboards over Times Square, and he was actually, nauseatingly perfect.
“I’ve spoken to both Mistress Martin and Master Boyd . They reported that your skills were,” Hale paused, like he was considering his words, and Stiles forced himself not to fidget, “acceptable.”
He fidgeted. Just a twist of fingers and a tap on his thigh, but it was a fidget, and the moment of weakness drew Derek’s attention like a beacon. Shit.
“I’m assuming from your tone that acceptable is not what we’re aiming for here?” Stiles scrabbled back control of his movements, holding the other man’s opaline gaze. “Don’t tell me, Hale-warts requires an Exceeds Expectations before allowing someone to graduate to full-fledged Whip Wielder status?”
Derek froze, legs shoulder width apart, hands loosely clasped behind his back in a parody of parade rest and shook his head, eyes never breaking contact. “And there is the problem, Agent Stilinski.”
Stiles snorted. Like a disapproving head shake was going to change the way he acted. He may not be a hundred and forty-seven pounds of fragile bones and sarcasm anymore, but the snark he’d forged in his younger days was just as sharp as ever, and he wielded that Outstandingly. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow. I’ve done every lesson, taken every class, fulfilled every part of my contract with The Den. If your instructors had a problem, they should have said something.”
Derek just stared at him for a moment. “My instructors report to me, not you Agent, and they did say something. As a matter of fact, they said many things. Would you like to hear a few of them?”
The rumble in his voice straddled a line somewhere between conversational and Danger, Danger Will Robinson , and Stiles felt something like nerves curl in his stomach. It shouldn’t have affected him—he’d been through terrorism training that made this look like a PTA meeting—but there was just something about Derek Hale that pushed his buttons.
So, he pushed back.
“By all means, Sir ,” he said, defiance clear in the title, “I’m always open to suggestions for improvement.”
Something flashed in the wolf’s eyes. “Funny. Master Argent said something to that effect, actually. He praised your knife work and your attention to detail. Said that you were like a sponge, soaking up information.”
Stiles shifted a little, praise sitting uncomfortably after the earlier criticism. “That sounds more than adequate .”
Derek nodded. “It was. Until he followed it up with the fact that after learning the process, the minute he gave you a series of directions to follow with a sub you failed and went off on your own because you refused to follow someone else’s orders.”
Stiles huffed, “Chris clearly didn’t tell you the whole story. I was watching what the sub was…”
“Master Argent,” Derek snapped, “was the instructor. You were the student, and you failed to follow direction. End of story.”
Stiles’s jaw stuck out mutinously. “I won’t argue that he was the instructor, but...”
Derek wasn’t having it. He practically snarled.
“But you will argue everything else. Mistress Lydia had nothing but compliments for your rope skills, said you had lovely fingers and an excellent grasp of the spatial constructs required for suspension, but that you got ahead of yourself and wouldn’t listen when she tried to reel you back in. Master Boyd refused to fail you for the temperature safety class, but he said you needed something he couldn’t give you to get where you needed to be.”
Stiles thought about Boyd, a large, careful man who could read a body under his hands more clearly than many of the interrogation experts back at field headquarters. “What did he say I needed?”
His voice sounded like he’d been gargling rocks, but he forced the question out, dreading the answer.
“Would you care to guess?” Derek rested his hands on the table’s top, fingers splayed, and Stiles shrugged. He’d play along. His commanding officer was counting on him to successfully complete this training so he could proceed to the next stage of infiltrating a suspected human trafficking ring that worked out of the back of a high-end BDSM club, and the only way in, the only way to really get a feel for what was happening was to come in the front door and prove himself to be a reliable practitioner of the lifestyle. If the instructors here wouldn’t sign off on him, they’d yank him back to desk duty in a heartbeat, and he wouldn’t let that happen. The field was where he could do the most good. It was where he belonged.
“I don’t know about Boyd, but Lydia,” that got him a growl and he backed up a little, rolling his eyes, “Sorry, Mistress Lydia probably said I needed a good spanking. That sounds like something she’d say.”
Derek gave him a pitying look. “She actually suggested I throw you out. She doesn’t believe that you have it in you to even pretend to be a Dom.”
Stiles’s eyes bugged out. “Hold up now, I did everything she told me to do. I followed her directions to a T.”
The wolf walked around the end of the table and leaned against its edge a few feet away from him. “And during all that time you never once addressed her by her title or thanked her for her assistance or seemed to, in any way, appreciate her instruction.”
Heat flooded his face, and he looked away. How could he explain that he’d been fighting an unprofessional reaction the whole time he’d been handling the red silk ropes that the Shibari Mistress used for his training, trying not to lose his focus in an ADHD-complicated haze of fascination and hunger for the look of peace on her sub’s face? To not give into the urge to let the redhead use him for her suspension lessons? He couldn't, so he didn't.
“I appreciated it; I just didn’t think it necessary to thank her for doing her job. I mean, it is her job to teach this stuff, right?” He laced his answer with snark in an attempt to disguise his discomfort.
“This stuff ,” Hale snarked back, “is something she’s dedicated years of her life to and you come in and act like it’s a Boy Scout badge that means nothing more than a new way to tie your trainers when you’re headed out running.”
Stiles scrubbed his hand through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, I get that I could have been a little more respectful…”
Derek slid a little closer, frown still tight on his face. “A little more respectful, Agent? You’re expecting to walk into a professional dungeon where the members consider respect and the use of titles to be as basic a requirement as no shoes, no shirt, no service at a restaurant. You have zero understanding of what it means to be given the respect and responsibility of a Dom. You defy authority at every turn, break every rule, push every person you interact with to the edge. You’re so persistent that I’d almost think you were pushing for some specific reaction.”
Stiles’s breath caught in his chest, and he hated that the werewolf could hear his heart race. Attention . The word popped into his head as clear as day. He craved the attention . Maybe it was some sad side-effect of an absentee parent or wanting to screw the authority figure in his life for failing to support him in favor of serving the public. Maybe it was a carryover from his days where the local packs failed Scott when he’d been bitten and left him struggling as a squishy human thrown into the deep end with supernatural creatures that could eat him like a late afternoon snack. Whatever the cause, he was fed up with not being the important factor in the equation, so he broke the rules. It got him the attention he craved and it let him control the situation. But surely a Dom was someone who wanted attention and control, too. Derek certainly expected both.
“I like to be in control.” He knew the words for a lie as soon as he spoke them, and so did the wolf.
“Care to try that again, Stiles?” It was the first time the man had ever used Stiles’s name instead of his title, but Derek’s tone was painfully patronizing, and Stiles wanted nothing more than to knock the arrogant look off his face. The only thing was, he didn’t trust himself to stop at one swing if he started, and he knew that no matter how good he’d gotten at hand-to-hand over the past few years, the werewolf would still kick his ass.
Stiles glared up at him instead. “Okay, how about this, Derek ? I’ve seen too many raging incompetents in positions of control, and since I’ve learned that it’s better the idiot I know instead of the idiot I don’t, I prefer to be in control.”
The werewolf’s eyes flashed red at the blatant challenge, but Stiles didn’t flinch, instead he leaned forward into the other man’s space, putting his face close enough to the alpha's throat that his wolf would know it for the threat it was.
“So. As long as we’re sharing,” he knew he was pushing his luck, but couldn’t bring himself to care, “what do you prefer? Floggers at ten paces? Snip, snails, and cat-o-nine-tails? Or let me guess, you just stand around expecting everyone to jump when you snap your fingers because you write their checks?”
The wolf moved faster than Stiles's eyes could follow, closing the remaining distance between them. Hot breath scalded the skin of his neck, and Derek's dropped fangs poised for a long second along his jugular in a silent but flagrant show of force before withdrawing just far enough that he wouldn't draw blood when he spoke.
“I expect people to do what the experts they've hired tell them. I expect the respect that I extend to be returned, but I prefer …” long fingers hovered where his pulse hammered at the base of his throat, and Stiles could feel the sandpaper scrape of whiskers against his hypersensitive skin. Derek’s mouth lingered so close that the words vibrated against his skin as they were spoken. “Oh, I prefer putting mouthy brats like you on their knees and teaching them to stop trying to burn themselves on fire that’s too hot for them to handle.”
The werewolf’s teeth were a little too long, a little too sharp, and Stiles couldn’t deny that he wanted them longer, and sharper, and dug into the meat of his shoulder. He shuddered and forced himself not to turn his face into the wolf's neck.
“I could handle anything you could dish out.” He didn’t recognize his own voice, rough and breathless as it was in the quiet room.
Derek laughed at that, dark and suggestive. “Stiles, you still don't get it do you? I’d take you apart and scatter the pieces. Strip you down to your bones. You don’t trust anyone, and without that, a Dom would shatter you like glass. I won’t do that. I Dom because I want everything you have to give, given freely. You give nothing? You get nothing. A Dom would starve on what you offered.”
He pulled back and blatantly adjusted the hard length of his cock where it pressed against his trouser placket, eyes still bleeding red at the edges. Stiles was reluctantly impressed with his control. He didn’t feel nearly that stable.
Derek returned to the far side of the table and slid a folder across the polished surface. Stiles pulled it towards himself with a single finger, trying not to show how shaky he felt. “What’s this? Kicking me out after all?”
The wolf shook his head, as calm and collected as he’d been at the beginning. “No. Master Boyd was right. You’re smart and you've got the potential to carry this off, but you need to experience a few things before I can recommend that you be approved for the next steps.”
Stiles swallowed; his throat was tight. “And what would those things be?”
Intelligence and ADHD fueled an incredibly vivid imagination, and he could feel his heart rate speeding up again, rocketing under his breastbone so loudly that he knew the wolf could hear every flutter and kick.
Derek raised his eyes, red gone but the compelling opalescent shine commanding even more of his attention. “Nothing too strenuous. I want you to shadow one of the subs for the next week. Erica is a brat. I want you to watch how she asks for what she needs without ever actually asking. I want you to see the give and take that happens between her and her Dom. She’s a challenge, but Master Boyd has the patience of a saint, and cares for her deeply. If you can manage the week, keeping your mouth shut, respecting the process and the people, I will sign off on your paperwork. If not, I’ll contact your commanding officer and tell her to send me someone else.”
Stiles wanted to argue, wanted to lash out at this man with his I-know-better-than-you attitude, but this wasn’t a fight he could win, and honestly by fighting he would only prove the bastard’s point.
A week. He could keep his mouth shut for a week.
He met Derek’s eyes and faced the silent challenge there with an accepting nod.
“Thank you for the opportunity,” he said, rising to his full height, not trying to hide his own erection. Hale would see it as a sign of sexual immaturity to deny the reality of his body’s reactions. The wolf dropped a little fang and Stiles sucked in a tight breath at the unexpected smirk. It changed the other man’s demeanor completely.
“I look forward to seeing your success, Agent.” Derek breathed in deeply and Stiles knew he was scenting his arousal. He nodded and acknowledged to himself, whether he’d ever admit it to anyone else, that he wanted the werewolf’s approval more than was probably healthy.
“I’ll do my best not to disappoint. Sir.”
The corner of the ‘wolf’s mouth lifted in a predatory smile, and Stiles fought down a shiver. He was so fucked.