Chapter Text
"I need your sperm." Lydia announces striding into the office with flourish, and Derek spews a mouthful of his morning coffee over the papers piling on his desk.
"What the ever-living fuck, Lyds?" He wipes his chin of dripping coffee, grimacing at the stickiness in his beard.
"There aren't any fae sperm banks, and we need our kid to be fae." She brusquely plops down in one of the seats opposite him, a scone in hand, scattering crumbs all over his paperwork. "Allison and I don't want to outlive our child if it's human."
"Then post an add on Craigslist." Derek grumbles pulling tissues out of the dispenser, trying to sop up as much of the mess as he can, hoping to salvage all the work he's done.
She raises her brow disbelievingly. "You must be joking."
He just glares at her, like what do you think?
Lydia sighs, picking at the pieces of her scone until Derek feels like he pops a blood vessel glaring at it so hard, and she eventually puts it down. "I was going to ask Danny, but-"
"So ask Danny." He growls. Great, the paper's completely stained, he angrily tosses the tissues in the waste bin.
She tuts, tongue clicking. "He's already planning on starting a family with Ethan..."
"So?" Derek remarks, distracted, glancing over the paperwork, hoping no ink is blurred from the coffee.
"Sooo." Lydia plucks the papers out of his hand, tossing them back on the desk, and Derek frowns even harder. "He doesn't want to explain to his future children why aunty Ally and Lyd's kid have their adorable dimples and buggy Menehune eyes."
"You do realize this is all dependant on whether I want children too?" Derek smugly leans back in his chair, arms crossed.
Lydia snorts, raising a brow. "I know for a fact that you don't want kids."
He sighs, long and drawn out, just so Lydia knows exactly how inconvenient this is for him. "Fine. Give me whatever you need to give me, and I'll get back to you on my final decision." He doesn't want to be saddled with a child on the off chance Lydia and Allison both die. Sometimes he wouldn't mind offing his partner himself. It's no wonder Stiles calls him a bucketful of sunshine.
He has nothing against Allison, really. She's a wonderful nereid, hair tentacles and all. Lydia on the other hand... Occasionally he wonders why he thought it would be a good idea to start a law firm with her when they were still interns selling their souls, raising middle fingers behind their backs to the big man in the sky. The CEO of the biggest firm in the country, Allison's great-great-great etc. grandfather, almighty Poseidon, also known as, Gerard.
'God' of the fucking sea, a few thousand years old, douchebag extraordinaire, and yet the human name he chooses to go by is Gerard.
The Old Ones hate humans and yet they are so morbidly fascinated with them. They love using human names. In fact, he thinks Wōden goes by Tony now.
Lydia grins like Derek just signed his soul over to her. She rummages around in the massive purse she carries, pulling out a stack of papers thicker than the Oxford dictionary, and drops it on his desk with a resounding thump. Derek stares in shock at the stack, contemplating retracting his offer, but knowing he could never do something like that to her. Wonderful. His bleeding heart strikes again.
***
"Here," the nurse hands him a jar. "Do your business in this." She bodily turns him around, grips him by the shoulders, and manhandles him into the rather large and opulent room. As one of New York's premier clinics, the expensive decor makes sense, but he thinks the grinning golden cherubs decorating the fucking crown moulding should have been left out of the design plans. They have these knowing grins on their little round faces, like they know what everyone who comes into this room does. Twinkles in their eyes and all.
Derek's tempted to snap at the nurse's fingers with his sharp incisors, and would have if she wasn't very human and blissfully unaware of the fae world. The nurse sits him down in the chair, and grabs a remote from her pocket, turning on the massive flat screen television opposite his seat. It's bigger than the one he has at home which is saying something considering his house is one Erica chooses to invade every year during the Super Bowl.
"You look like a breast man." The nurse states abruptly. Smirking, her lips stretch over lipstick stained teeth, and Derek absolutely does not know how to reply to that. Well, ma'am, here's the thing, I used to be, but now I'm kind of leaning towards the penis side of things on account of my boss and my very fluid sexuality, thank you very much.
"Okay, I'll leave you to it." She pats him on the shoulder and departs, closing the door with a click, taking the fucking remote with her.
Derek's mutters very unflattering things under his breath when stereotypical porn music blares through the surround sound speakers, all boom chicka wow wow. The screen fills with a badly lit close up of fake breasts the size of watermelons, defying gravity simply by existing. He grimaces.
Derek tries to drown out the tacky music with his own thoughts, so of course they automatically drift to his favourite fantasy. He curses his errant brain, but unzips his pants regardless, pulling out his dick, wondering how Lydia managed to talk him into this. But they want a child, and he's reluctant to deny his partner anything she truly wants, so he gets down to business, thoughts full of pale, mole spotted flesh, and glowing amber eyes consuming his fantasy.
Five minutes later Derek hands the nurse the clear jar full to the brim with Derek's sharp toothed little swimmers. He's trying not to meet her wide eyes stare, but it's just his luck when they lock eyes. She looks shell shocked. He has textbook knowledge that werewolves produce more sperm than normal humans, but it shouldn't be that much more than normal. The look on her face says otherwise.
He's just glad he doesn't have to worry about DNA analysis and the like, one of Allison's cousins works in the clinic and he's handling the rest of the procedure. They don't want a human doctor freaking out after analyzing Derek's sperm, finding out he's not so human as he claims.
"Thank you, Sir." She finally stutters, and Derek winces as she gawks at the jar, holding it up to the light like inside rests fucking manna from heaven and not copious amounts of his sperm. Her eyes finally tear away from the jar, meeting his. "Would you be interested in donating for us outside of this case? I can say, with absolute certainty, that you must have an impressive sperm count."
"No." He huffs, marching over to the closet and pulling his leather jacket out, wincing at the overpowering scent of lavender and mothballs. Wonderful, now he has to make time for a trip to the cleaners.
"Sir!" Derek ignores the nurse calling for him, walking to the door. "Sir, wait!" Derek grumbles, turning around expectant, tapping his foot impatiently. She holds a clipboard and pen in her hand. "How would you rate your experience with us? From one, meaning worst? To ten, meaning best?" Derek doesn't know what he's supposed to compare it to, it's not like he's donated sperm before.
"One." He finally settles on. "The cherubs are creepy, and you need to provide a porn option for other sexualities."
He's an ass man after all.
***
"Stop staring at your client's ass." Lydia whispers in his ear, elbowing him in the side. Derek reluctantly drags his eyes away from Stiles' denim clad bottom where he's bending over, rummaging around in the filing cabinet in his office.
"Here you go." Stiles hands over a stack of applications and Derek sighs, he hates paperwork like it's an annoying mosquito buzzing around on a perfect summer's day. Don't get him wrong, he loves his career. He loves arguing law, it's why he became a lawyer in the first place. But the fucking paperwork...
Stiles leans against his desk, grinning. "So wonderful to see you again, Lydia." He winks, and Lydia rolls her eyes, but she wears a fond expression regardless.
Lydia and Stiles grew up together. Their mothers were friends, and Lydia claims Stiles used to have the biggest crush on her when they were little. He apparently grew out of it, the same time she grew out of pretending she liked dick. She likes to say Stiles annoys her, but more often than not if she doesn't have any appointments she tags along when Derek goes to Stiles' penthouse.
"I know I'm not supposed to talk about clients with anyone but Derek," Stiles whispers eagerly, "but guess who just applied for a trial session?" Derek peeks at the applications, and raises his brow at the first name he sees. "One of those politicians you hate so much."
Lydia leans forward in interest. "Really?" There's a hint of something mischievous in her eye, but Derek kicks her in the leg, dismissing whatever plans she has in store for the senator. He couldn't care less about the man, but if anything mysterious happens to him while he's in Stiles' care, Stiles is the one who will get fucked over.
Lydia is a very avid supporter of women's rights, she grew up during the Suffragette movement in the early twentieth century, and marched with those same women through the streets of New York, demanding equal voting rights, equal fucking everything. She never really got over her justified hate of misogynistic politicians. And after living through all four waves of feminism, it seems only logical.
She used to carry signs and march in protests, trying to bring awareness to the general public, and when she felt like that wasn't working as well as it should have, she went and got herself a degree in law. Derek imagines that fifty years in the future she'll get on the political gravy train and try to enact some change from within.
"Can't say who, but he's willing to give me a fucking lot of money to have unmentionable things done to him."
Lydia lets out an amused snort. "Not tax payer money I hope?"
Stiles laughs. "Nah, I had Danny check, it's as squeaky clean as the alimony he should be paying his third ex-wife." Stiles shrugs dismissively. "He smelled desperate. But I'm not taking him on, wouldn't want to inspire him to do something republican."
Lydia winks, and Stiles smiles fondly at her, before turning back to Derek, smile still curling at the edges of his mouth.
"Everything good, Der?"
Derek flips through all the applications, frowning when he sees them all marked with small red strokes at the bottom. "You're not considering any of these?" Derek glances up, gesturing at all the rejections, concerned, wondering why Stiles isn't accepting anyone.
Stiles' face clouds over for a second, before a smile wipes it all away, but it's a bit too fake in Derek's opinion. "I don't really want to take on any new clients right now."
Derek furrows his brow. "But you just dropped the Gonzalez contract-"
"Derek." Stiles interrupts, his smile strained. "Please let it go."
Derek wants to do no such thing, but he relents. "Fine." Tucking the papers into his estate bag, he rises from his seat, putting his hand out for Stiles to shake, a routine they established a few years ago when Stiles, the city's most infamous pro dom, hired Derek, a relatively unestablished lawyer to handle all his contracts.
Now, he's one of the top lawyers in the city, and it's all because Stiles gave him a chance, recommending him to friends in the higher circles he frequents when Derek pulled through for him. He owes Stiles his livelihood and they have a fulfilling professional relationship and a solid friendship. It's only recently that Derek started wanting more.
Stiles takes his hand, his skin just on the side of too cool, shaking it, long fingers lingering just a second too long on his pulse, as he meets Derek's eyes. "See you around, Derek." Stiles' eyes flash a bright amber, and he smirks, letting go, moving to pull Lydia into a hug.
Derek shows himself out of Stiles' penthouse, taking the private elevator down. He waits for Lydia on one of the opulent couches decorating the lobby of the Greenwich Village low rise Stiles has lived in as long as Derek's known him, longer than Derek's been alive. It belonged to Stiles' mother in the twenties, and Stiles once told him she used to throw the most opulent bashes, where flappers and young stylish men would come and dance the night away, and Stiles' father, a police chief, could let go, just for the night.
Derek can vividly picture a ten year old Stiles twirling around with his mother, a record playing on the gramophone in the background, while his father claps his hands to the beat, laughing along. Derek knows Stiles misses his parents, the air is almost palpable whenever he looks at the black and white photograph of them he keeps in his desk. A faint smile quirking his beautiful mouth.
Stiles claims he hasn't changed the decor much in the penthouse, except for the hundreds of paintings and prints decorating the walls, souvenirs of all the different artists he's met through the years. Some of the them he even inspired as a muse.
Stiles' leanan sídhe heritage gives artists that final kick to complete their life's work, or just create something that's been lingering on the edge of their mind for so long but never knew how to accomplish. It's why he's so picky with his clients, giving inspiration to the wrong person, is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Lydia walks out of the elevator, a smile on her face. "We're invited to a party." She waves a heavy envelope between her fingers. Derek nods to the concierge as they leave, and he smiles back, recognizing Derek from the hundreds of times he's come here on business.
"Which court?" Derek parked the Camaro a street away since all the spots in front of the building were occupied. The air's a bit chill now that it's autumn, and the wind blows through his hair, tickling a few strands along his forehead. The leaves are beginning to turn colours and before he knows it, he'll have to dust off his winter coat.
"Neutral, actually." Derek raises a brow. New York City is Seelie territory. Any fae not belonging to their court needs to present boatloads of paperwork and recommendations to the King, and even then, they're unlikely to be allowed in. The Unseelie control Las Vegas and Derek figures it's fair enough. They get slot machines and a burgeoning porn industry, he gets fucking brilliant pizza.
The party is most likely going to be held outside the city, maybe Upstate.
"It's in a mansion up in Connecticut." Lydia reads, and Derek pulls into the Holland Tunnel, crossing the Hudson into New Jersey, driving to their firm situated only a block away from Derek's house. It sits right above a fairly popular cafe, and in the morning the whole office smells like freshly baked Danishes and roasted organic coffee. Derek has no complaints.
"I'm surprised my mother hasn't sent me an invitation yet." He drums fingers against the wheel, they're caught in traffic, a hazard of living in the city.
Lydia hums thoughtfully. "Strange, considering she's the King's partner. Maybe she just didn't want you to embarrass her, it is a high class affair after all."
Derek growls in indignation. "I'm not embarrassing."
"If Stiles didn't graciously inform you about the sin of wearing brown shoes with a black suit, you'd still look like a fool."
Derek makes an offended noise. "Fashion is very complicated, and this is Stiles, okay? Have you seen the size of his closet?"
Lydia chuckles. "If given a choice you'd show up to work in a henley and full beard."
"I'm a werewolf." He declares as if that explains everything, even though his own half brother, Isaac, wears fashionable scarves like they're going out of style, and can't grow anything but a scraggly mess to save his life. "And I shaved yesterday." He self-consciously scratches the thick growth of stubble on his chin. If he doesn't shave for a week, he grows a full beard, and taking care of it quickly becomes tiresome. Derek usually lets it grow until it's long and silky before taking a razor to it.
Don't even get him started on his chest hair. In college when he just started dating Braeden he would get waxed every few weeks. For years he kept himself smooth like a swimmer, until Braeden left him the day after their honeymoon to join the Marines. He never picked up a wax strip again. He didn't see the point, she liked him smooth, and he only endured it because he loved her. And look where that got him. Manscaping is just too much trouble than it's worth. It's not like he's getting laid anyway.
"Your mother is a werewolf, I don't see her wearing plaid. You aren't all lumberjacks."
"But a significant portion of the population is."
"No it's not." Lydia scoffs. "So your species likes the fresh air? Doesn't mean you all like chopping down forests, you much prefer running amongst them."
"I can't run amongst the trees very effectively wearing a suit, we werewolves much prefer going skyclad for our full moon runs." Derek sends her a sharp grin, showing just a bit of fang. "Besides, as much as Stiles likes to pretend he only wears designer clothes, I've seen him in a pair of ratty plaid sweats."
And does Derek ever remember those sweats, specifically the way they hung off Stiles' hips, so loose, even a small tug would send them fluttering to the ground.
"Oh really?" Lydia exclaims, her voice mischievous. "And when was this?"
Derek blushes, mumbling. "He called me over when a leg on his sawhorse broke."
"He called you to fix his bondage equipment?" She raises a tiny eyebrow. "You. Not a specialized carpenter?"
Derek shrugs nonchalant, like he always does menial chores for the client he's paid to provide with legal services. "I told him I knew how to whittle."
She scoffs. "Yeah. When you were in the boy scouts, twenty or so years ago."
"Well I still fixed it..." He whines softly in protest.
"And how many hours did you spend online figuring out what a sawhorse was before you fixed it?"
Derek says nothing, he just frowns, staring out the window into traffic.
"I thought so."
Thing is, he knew what a sawhorse was long before Stiles asked him to fix his, but he doesn't want to tell Lydia that, so he lets her make her own assumptions. Derek would rather his kinks stay very far away from Lydia's devious mind, lest she do something like laugh at him.
***
When he gets home that night he calls his mother.
The phone rings for a few seconds before Talia Hale picks up with an exclaimed, "Derek, what a pleasant surprise!"
"Why didn't you tell me about the party?" He asks bluntly.
"Oh honey..."
"If you're ashamed of me, I get it. You can't have your ridiculous son embarrassing you in front of the King. But I wish you told me."
"Derek, I'm not ashamed of you." She says quietly after a long silence.
"Sure seems like you are." He grumbles, petulant.
She sighs. "Your father was invited."
Derek freezes. "And you're still going?" He gapes, falling down on the couch in shock.
"I have to, you know that."
"Mom," Derek says massaging his forehead, "he tried to kill you."
She chuckled, and he can almost picture her waving her painted manicure, like it's nothing that her mate of three hundred years tried to decapitate her when she told him she was leaving him. "That's water under the bridge, I'm sure Malcolm is over it by now."
"He tried to kill you." He repeats slowly, emphasizing the kill part.
"I'll be fine," she tries to reassure him unsuccessfully, "and if you're so worried, you can come along, I'll send you an invitation."
Derek exhales a long and frustrated breath. It seems his mother's mind is made up. "Stiles already gave one to Lydia."
Talia's voice turns sly, and Derek can almost picture her teasing grin. "Speaking of Stiles, how is your lovely leanan sídhe?"
Derek rises from the couch, pacing around the room in circles. "Well first of all, he isn't mine."
His mother snickers like the big know it all she is. "You tell yourself that, honey, especially if it makes you feel better."
Derek ignores that, fingering the soft wool of his pants, wondering just how he's supposed to address what's on his mind. "I think something is bothering him."
When Derek reached the office and Lydia left to fetch them dinner, he looked through the applications, staring shocked at them. Derek could understand why Stiles rejected some of them, but others, he couldn't even wrap his mind around. A brilliant composer from Iceland, a famous Silesian chef, and a fucking ballet choreographer. Stiles loves inspiring people in the creative field, he used to take on anyone who even expressed a hint of artists block. It's inconceivable that he would reject these people.
His mother stops laughing, and the line is silent for a few seconds. When she speaks again, her voice is serious, tinged with Alpha authority. She knows how much Stiles means to Derek, and because Derek is a member of her immediate family, Stiles' well being is something she takes seriously. "Tell me." She asks. "And I'll see if I can help."
Derek runs his hand though his hair, unable to keep his hands still, somehow Stiles' little quirks have become his own, probably because Derek spends a lot of his time looking at him, in an un-creepy way of course. "He hasn't taken on a new client in months."
"But the old ones..." Talia trails off, her voice worried.
"He's still letting them go before the madness takes hold, but he isn't replacing them." His fingers itch to hold something other than wool, something glass and smooth, something that burns as it goes down.
"Oh dear."
"And what do you mean by that?" He demands, body tense. He released his hold on the fabric and gives his body what it wants. Walking over to his liquor cabinet, he pulls out a bottle of wolfsbane bourbon and a venetian glass tumbler. Stiles bought the neon multicoloured set for him as a joke last Christmas, expecting Derek to throw out the garishly colourful tumblers. Little does he know he kept them, tucked away from prying eyes. Derek couldn't bear to get rid of them. Even if they are ugly as fuck.
"How old is Stiles?" She asks, delicately, like she's afraid of his answer.
"He's still really young." Derek holds the phone against his shoulder and ear, while pouring himself a glass, full right to the brim. He just hopes his mother assumes the pouring sound is coffee. Derek likes to call himself a functioning alcoholic, he knows his mother wouldn't agree. "Only a hundred and three. Why?"
Derek is very young compared to some fae. Births are few and far between amongst the more longed lived species. In fact, he thinks there's only been five or six births since his own. Stiles and Lydia are only a decade or so apart in age but are the only fae in the state in their early hundreds. Once, Erica thought it would be funny to order a custom cake for Lydia's birthday, wishing her a happy hundred and fifteenth making Derek pick it up. The expressions on the faces of the employees in the bakery are ones he'll never forget. One of them even asked if Lydia was his great-grandmother. Derek sometimes forgets how short the human lifespan is.
He hears his mother sigh in relief across the line. "Why? What does his age matter?" He sips the liquor, the spicy, forbidden taste of wolfsbane fleeting on his pallet contrasting with the smoky bourbon.
"It means he isn't dying of old age."
Derek coughs, liquor burning as it goes down the wrong pipe. He mutes the phone, and hacks up a lung. Clearing his throat a few times he unmutes the phone, growling. "What?"
"Stiles feeds off his clients, and if he's not feeding, he's not eating. He can't be sick, leanen sídhe don't have any natural diseases. So, if he isn't losing his desire for food because he's dying of old age or disease, what does it mean?"
"That he's starving himself." Derek breathes, shocked that he didn't see it earlier.
"Exactly."
***
Derek's curled up on his couch, wrapped in a fluffy Snuggie covered in little cartoon wolves, another gift from Stiles. This time given out of nowhere, Stiles' only reasoning being he saw it and thought of Derek. He holds the garish tumbler full of bourbon in hand, half empty bottle sitting in front of him.
He's drunk as fuck. Whatever, it's not like he can actually kill his liver.
He's a twenty-nine year old divorcee with no mortgage and limited social life. He's pretty fucking boring, and can admit to that. At least that's what Braeden said to him when she presented him with the paperwork for their divorce.
They married right after university. A big, fat American wedding. Lots of family he's never even heard of before, in-laws that would smile to his face, but then talk shit about him the moment he turned his back. Braeden hated it, and so did he, but they went through the whole fanfare because her mother wanted the sky and beyond for her daughter.
His own wedding was worst day of his life, and the day he discovered grey hair scattered among the jet black. Derek's a werewolf with greying hair before he's even reached three hundred, it's unheard of, and yet he looks in the mirror every morning and there they are, mocking him.
His love for Braeden was the only thing getting him through his wedding day, and the moment the clock struck midnight and they left the banquet hall, catching the plane to Ko Samui, so beginning the second worst day of his life. In only a few short minutes, he discovered something sure to eventually ruin his life.
He's an awful flyer. Derek spent the whole flight locked in the bathroom, and not even for the fun mile high club reason. At least the honeymoon was one of the best two weeks of his life, surpassed only by the day he realized just how deep his feelings for Stiles extended.
Derek figures it's weird he considers the day he signed his divorce papers, freeing Braeden to pursue her career in the Marines, among the good ones, not the bad. It's laughable really, the day he was divorced ranks higher on the happiness scale than the day he was married. But then again, that basically spelled out his whole relationship with Braeden.
You married too young, Laura still says whenever he's in a funk and calls her up. But, no. They didn't marry too young, they shouldn't have married, period. He shouldn't have proposed to Braeden in the first place, not when she had her big dreams to focus on. Her father was a Colonel before he retired, and she grew up wanting to be a General. Big plans.
The day the plane landed, after their honeymoon, Derek was jet lagged, and drunk on about two dozen mini champagne bottles. He's a fucking lawyer, and a damn good one, graduated top of his class, Columbia, 2010. He once talked a dragon into handing over its treasure as evidence in court. Convincing a air hostess he wasn't really drunk: small peas.
We're celebrating, he said to the hostess, swinging the bottle back, while Braeden looked on in disgust. He landed on American soil, drunk, and hanging off his new wife, begging her not to catch her next flight out to Quantico, to instead come home to the Hoboken brownstone his mother purchased for them as a wedding gift. She pushed him off in the directions of the taxis, pressed a kiss to his cheek, and walked to her next flight, not turning around even once.
Derek can count the number of weeks Braeden slept in that house on two hands in the whole three years of their marriage.
But he doesn't blame her, he doesn't blame her one bit.
He blames himself. He proposed, she had to accept. Braeden is many things; tough, sly, sexy as hell, but she's also is a nice person, and they genuinely loved each other.
Now, she's off in an undisclosed location in the middle of godfuck nowhere, and he's still in New York, unable to ever leave because he hates planes, and is never stepping foot in an airport again so long as he shall live. Which will be a fucking long time, considering werewolves have a lifespan upwards of five hundred years.
So cheers to him. He's living the fucking high life.
Derek downs the bourbon, relishing the burn as it slides down his throat. He throws his head back against the sofa, staring up at the stuccoed ceiling wondering just what he's supposed to do about the situation with Stiles. Derek's in love with him, but they don't talk about Stiles' feeding habits. He tries to avoid it, honestly, mostly because it involves Stiles having sex with other people. People who aren't Derek.
Derek feels a sharp pain on his palm, looking down, puzzled, he finds the glass tumbler cracked. A shard is wedged into his flesh, blood running down his wrist in a stream. Swearing, he slowly opens his palm. Carefully putting the tumbler down, blood smeared all over the pink glass, Derek sighs, pulling the shard out like the pain is nothing, tossing it into the remains of the tumbler with a clink. The wound heals over only a second later.
After washing the blood from his hand in the bathroom sink. Derek searches in the vanity drawers for the small tube of super glue he bought a while ago. He finds it still in its packaging. Usually when he breaks plates or mugs, he tends to toss them in the trash, it's too much of a bother to fix something he could buy from the corner bodega for a buck.
But Stiles gave him this tumbler, he can't just throw it out.
The joint is a bit crooked when he finishes, and Derek hopes it won't leak, but at least it's fixed and there aren't any sharp corners to cut a lip on. But still, he probably won't be able to drink from this one ever again.
Derek doesn't even bother walking up the steep flight of stairs to his bedroom. Wrapping the Snuggie tight around himself, he lies down on the couch. The tumbler sits in front of him on the table, streetlight flooding in from the open window, casting a blood red shadow through the glass on the table.
Derek drifts, the alcohol pushing him into a dreamless slumber.