Chapter Text
See, the thing is – the thing is, Stiles knows it isn’t Derek. He’s known this since the beginning of the weekly pack meeting, since the first easy smile, since the first laugh, since pretty much the moment he first saw whatever was using Derek’s body like a suit. But he waits, because there are too many people in the half-renovated Hale house, and this could end so, so badly. And it isn’t until everyone is gone that whoever – whatever – it is really looks at him for the first time.
“Stiles,” Derek’s mouth says.
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “That’s me. So who the hell are you?”
He doesn’t like the smile that curves Derek’s mouth. It’s a predator’s grin, and for a moment, Stiles wonders if this is what the moment before being slowly eaten feels like.
Derek’s body saunters towards him, hips swaying, thumbs hooked in the belt loops of his jeans and a bare shoulder flashing now and then from under his leather jacket. It’s deliberately, purposefully seductive, and so many kinds of wrong.
“You would notice, wouldn’t you?” he says, stopping a bare foot away. “You’re different here, but you’re kind of still just you. You still like the way people scream when you hold them down and carve their chests open?”
For a second, Stiles loses his breath.
Derek’s body laughs again, like it’s easy, and it makes Stiles’ skin crawl. “Guess not. Or maybe just not yet. You know, you only need a reason to be a killer. And even then… well, you’d be surprised, kiddo.”
Stiles swallows. “What’d you do to him?”
Derek’s body shrugs. “Nothing much. You’ll have him back in a couple days, safe and sound. I just need to lay low for a few. So Allison’s still alive here, huh? You fuck Scott yet?”
“What?”
This other Derek takes a stop closer, eyes darkening. “You used magic to hold him down the first time. Scott got bit back home, too, if you’re wondering,” he says, his voice lower than Derek’s usually is. “He seems like he’s better at controlling it here. He isn’t back home.”
Stiles shakes his head. “I don’t care.”
“Do too,” the other Derek says too gently, too softly. “You know you can’t lie to me. How’d your mom die here?”
Stiles looks away for a moment. “She got sick."
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” the stranger says, and Stiles is almost convinced for a second, for a heartbeat, that he’s telling the truth. “But back home, it didn’t go that way. Scott lost control one time. Just one time. And when he stopped, you were an orphan.”
Not-Derek closes the last of the distance between them, pressing him into the wall.
“You were… you were never quite right, baby boy,” Derek’s mouth whispers as his hand presses against Stiles’ throat. Not hard enough to bruise, not even hard enough to cut off his air. Just there, like a threat, like a promise. “So you used magic on him the first time. Bled yourself, used your blood and anger to fuel it. You took Allison away from him first, and then you found him and you used him until you collapsed. Let me watch, too.”
“That’s not me,” Stiles rasps, his throat too tight even without pressure on it.
He smiles, quick and easy. “’Course it’s not. This is an entirely different reality, after all. Your dad isn’t your world. Scott’s not crazy about Allison. Finding Nemo doesn’t make you cry and you don’t like it when I get on my knees and let you fuck my mouth.”
The Derek that isn’t his, isn’t theirs, puts his hand on Stiles’ side, runs it slowly down to the waistband of his jeans.
Then he presses his palm against the fly of Stiles’ jeans.
Stiles flinches, because this is wrong, and he shouldn’t, but he’s nineteen, and this is Derek, even if it isn’t, even if it’s very much not Derek, but Derek – this not-Derek, this person – touches like he knows Stiles’ body better than Stiles does and he’s half-hard in his jeans.
“Get your hands off me,” he hisses.
The stranger rubs his palm along the length of Stiles’ dick, hot and almost on the edge of too rough through his jeans. “Hm,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “And what if I didn’t? I know what you like, baby boy. What if I just… did it? Did what you like?” Derek – Not-Derek bends in until there’s a bare inch between his mouth and Stiles’ ear. “What if I made you come in your jeans right here and now?”
“No,” Stiles says, swallowing hard, too hard, and turns his head to look at the stranger who isn’t really a stranger, the stranger who is in all the ways that matter. “And if you don’t get your fucking hands off me right now, I’ll show you exactly what I’m capable of here.”
He smiles, slow this time, and soft, and Stiles knows that smile. That’s Derek’s proud Alpha smile, the one he gives the betas when they’ve finally gotten something they’ve been struggling to learn, when they take care of each other, when Stiles finds something they desperately needed to know.
“Kiddo, if I had more time, I would,” this Derek says, his hand sliding to cup the back of Stiles’ neck. “But my Stiles would fucking tear the dimensions apart if I didn’t come home to him when I said I would. And trust me when I say you don’t want that.”
There’s an extraordinarily fond expression on his face when he says it and Stiles – Stiles knows this particular face, okay? He’s spent his fair share of time trying to decode this particular face’s smallest changes.
And he’s not entirely sure he wants to deal with the fallout of that expression.
Other-Derek, wrong-Derek, shifts the hand on Stiles’ neck again, this time to cradle his jaw. The touch is too soft, too gentle, too much like he’s –
Then he puts his thumb against Stiles’ chin, pressing until Stiles can’t keep his mouth shut against the touch. “You smell a little different here, you know. You’re sweeter.” He raises both eyebrows. “Are you still a virgin here, baby boy?”
His face burns and what a stupid thing, to be embarrassed now of all times. “Back off.”
“You are,” this Derek says, his voice pleased. “How about that. Dunno what the hell’s wrong with me, mind you, but how about that. Nobody else, huh?”
Stiles stares over this wrong, wrong Derek’s shoulder, gives a tiny shake of his head.
“Good,” he says, and then –
And then –
And then Derek, not-Derek, Derek’s kissing him, and this isn’t what he pictured, isn’t what he wants, but it’s been Derek for years. And he’s not kissing back but he’s not sure it matters because there’s stubble scraping at his chin and cheeks, and a thumb still pressing his mouth open, and a tongue sliding inside.
The other Derek pulls away, slowly, squeezes his hand between Stiles’ legs once more, hard enough to make Stiles shudder despite himself, and steps back, grinning that too-easy smile.
“See you around, baby boy.”