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“Please,” says Derek. It’s without inflection, but not grudging.
Stiles makes a magnanimous “continue” gesture with both hands.
“Please help me learn strategy.”
“You’re serious?” asks Stiles. His face sort of sharpens and he comes a couple steps closer, his lacrosse bag hitting the side of his leg. “Oh yeah, you’re serious.” He nods approvingly. “Okay, but not here, and not tonight. I wouldn’t be able to give you much of a fight tonight.”
Derek can see where his hair is still spikey with sweat from practice.
“Meet me at that warehouse where the rave was. Tomorrow, seven. Might as well start in the deep end.”
Stiles smiles at him, and it’s a strange smile, completely assured.
Derek swallows, nods, turns and walks away.
-
“Rule number one: Don’t lose your temper,” says Stiles as he walks in and drops his lacrosse bag on the floor. Whatever is in there sounds heavy, and not at all like lacrosse equipment. Every move they make echos. It feels vast without all the bodies and music.
This whole thing has been weird, from the moment Stiles proposed strategic training right through now. Stiles has been weird. He’s still himself: a little gawky, a lot sarcastic, too smart. But he has this added layer of assuredness that Derek doesn’t know what to do with, like something shifted in him after Gerard beat him, and instead of staying beaten, it grew back in a harder shape.
“I know how to control my temper,” says Derek, impatient.
“I know,” says Stiles. “But I’m going to try and make you angry, which is pretty dangerous for me. So, you know, try really hard.”
“So you weren’t trying before?” asks Derek.
“That was just my natural ability to piss you off. Wait till you see what I can come up with when I put my back into it.”
“Okay,” says Derek. There’s a fluttering in his stomach, but he can’t decide if it’s unease or the anticipation for a challenge that isn’t part of a life or death situation. “What else?”
“Second rule: Either of us can tap out, no shame, and we’ll try again later, or try something else.”
“Got it,” says Derek. He cracks his knuckles and takes off his jacket, laying it carefully aside, to cover up how nervous he is. “How do we start?”
“So, you already know how to fight, obviously, but you need to pay more attention to your surroundings instead of your opponent.”
Stiles kneels down and unzips his bag, dragging out a crossbow. Seeing Derek’s look, he shrugs and says, “Allison let me borrow it. For verisimilitude.”
“Studying for the SATs?” Derek asks, aiming for unimpressed. Stiles just grins.
“Nah, I’ve got them in the bag.” He stands, clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “The hunters don’t have the healing and the strength, so they’re a lot smarter about this crap.”
Stiles doesn’t specify what “this crap” means, so Derek waits.
“So I did to this warehouse what I would do if I were a hunter.” He shrugs. “No wolfsbane, so you can just imagine that part, but you know, I didn’t pull any punches. You’re probably gonna get hurt, a little."
"You know I can take it," says Derek.
“Right, okay, let’s start.” Stiles slings the crossbow over one shoulder. “So, uh, turn around and count to fifty.”
Derek stares at him for a minute, to see if this is the lead-up to a joke, but Stiles bounces on his toes impatiently. So he turns around and starts counting.
“One. Two. Three. Four.” He can hear Stiles’ footsteps retreat deeper into the warehouse, and up what sounds like some stairs. He counts louder.
When he gets to fifty, he turns around and scans the warehouse with all his senses. Derek can’t tell where Stiles went. He must be staying absolutely still and using something to mask his scent, because it only takes Derek a few steps to realize he’s already lost the trail. All he can hear are the normal creeks and shiftings of the building, and the faint noise from a passing car every now and then.
He takes a few cautious steps in the direction Stiles had gone and catches the faintest whiff of - Isaac? He starts toward it. Could Stiles have co-opted Isaac into this? It leads him through a long windowless passage, with a room at the end.
It’s empty. Except. The door slams behind him. He turns in a short circle, claws extended and ears searching for the movement he knows is coming, but doesn’t.
Then he hears Stiles’ voice, metallic, over the PA system. “I’m deducting two points for just strolling into a room with no exit. Strategy, Derek. Strategy. Now you’re gonna have to find a way out.”
The door is shut and the handle has been removed, though there are scratches on the wall like something had already gotten out once. Derek remembers the night of the rave and wonders what precisely when on inside. In the corner is a chair, and draped over the chair is a sweater. Derek crosses to it and sniffs it. Isaac’s. But the chair smells like Jackson.
“Jackson was here,” says Derek out loud, not caring if Stiles can hear him or not. If Jackson got out during the rave, Derek certainly can. He scans the walls. Parts of them look patched, like they’d recently been knocked down. He sniffs one. It’s wood spray painted with metallic paint, flimsy. He knocks through it shoulder first.
“Whoops,” says Stiles, his voice warm and nearby, not through the PA system, “That was a little faster than I expected, so good job.” Derek starts toward the sound, feeling a gut-level disconnect because he still can’t smell Stiles at all.
“I mean, I knew you were strong and everything, but I thought maybe Isaac’s sweater would trip you up for a second.” Stiles is still close by, but all the sound in this building goes haywire, bouncing all over the place. Derek follows as best he can, picking his way around the hulking shapes, all low ceiling and strange edges. Some of it is faux-industrial interior design, and some of it smells old enough to actually be part of the original factory.
The sound of Stiles’ footsteps retreats further into the warehouse, and Derek follows, walking softly. The smells of fresh human sweat from the rave fade, and Derek knows they’re in an older part, disused and dusty. He hears Stiles stop, and he stops, too, listening for his breathing, for his heartbeat, which is a little quick, but not the rabbit-fast of the frightened. Derek has done his fair share of tracking and stalking and it comes easy. He can even picture Stiles, standing with his back to the far wall, poised to run.
When nothing else happens, Derek starts to carefully work his way toward Stiles, not taking the same path, but going around, trying to come at the angle he’ll least expect. He’s known from the start that this will end when he corners Stiles, and maybe he’s a little disappointed that it’s this easy.
He walks softly, and then he can see Stiles, the outline of his body, and the soft shell of one ear just barely lit up from a stray beam of street light coming in from a high window. Derek gives up the pretense of stealth and goes straight for him.
A second later he’s falling through the floor in a shower of rotted wood and dust, and landing hard. A piece of wood goes through his leg and he can’t help the sound that tears from his throat. Fuck, that hurt. He sits up, rips the giant splinter out, and grits his teeth as his leg starts to heal.
“That’s a trick hunters like to use,” says Stiles from a long way above. “I lured you right into a trap by looking like easy prey.”
“You are easy prey,” says Derek, both annoyed and gratified that this isn’t the end, that Stiles is smarter than that.
“Please,” says Stiles dismissively. “Says the man at the bottom of a big dark hole.”
“Not for long,” says Derek, already scanning the area for something to leverage him out. It won’t take much. A solid wall he can push off of, something to stand on to lift him just enough to catch the edge of the non-rotten wood.
He hears Stiles’ footsteps rapidly retreat up above, just as he spots a drain pipe he can bend and use to leverage himself out. He lands solidly on the edge of the hole he’d just fallen into, and walks in the direction where he’d last heard Stiles, more cautious this time, feeling the old wooden floor flex beneath his boots, and listening for the creak that means it’s rotted. He can see pretty well, but this area is full of old machinery and dust. He blinks it out of his eyes, trying to differentiate between the hulking shapes of dead machines, and curves that could be Stiles, standing rabbit-still somewhere.
It’s disorienting knowing something is there and not being able to smell it, like watching a silent movie, where the actors move, but you can’t hear them, and in spite of his best intentions, he feels a little fission of frustrated anger. He wonders if Stiles got this trick from Allison, too.
Then the music turns on. It’s loud and frenetic, much more discordant than what they’d played at the rave, and he can't hear Stiles' heartbeat any more.
He moves even more silently, sticking to the most shadowed places, careful every second of where he puts his feet. And then he thinks he hears it, the faint sound of Stiles’ heart, organic against the sharp music, just a fraction faster than most people’s. He can feel the rush in his blood that means he’s about to move in for the kill, and slinks right up to Stiles, the freckled back of his neck almost glowing he’s so pale.
Derek closes the gap, intending to pin him, maybe rough him up a little. Stiles whips around, startled, and stumbles back a few steps, just out of reach. Then a wide smile bursts all over his face.
“The thing about you, Derek, is that even though you’re pretty experienced and paranoid, you don’t think far enough ahead.” He has to talk loud to be heard over the music.
Derek ignores that and tries to catch Stiles by the arm, but can’t quite seem to touch him. What the fuck?
“This is the third time tonight I’ve trapped you. I mean, not for long, but long enough to shoot you full of wolfsbane if I’d wanted to.”
Stiles points at the floor and Derek glances down to see a complete circle of mountain ash around him, closed just beyond Stiles’ sneakers. He’s so surprised he has to fight back his claws.
“You’re so used to being the hunter,” Stiles continues. “Even when you’re being hunted, you think you’re the hunter. Technically, you’re the prey here.”
“I am never the prey,” he says. If anything, Stiles is the prey. He always smells like it, blood close under his skin, and whiplash emotions in a fight.
Derek still can’t smell him, but this is the first time he’s had a clear view of Stiles since they started, which is why it took so long for him to notice that Stiles is wearing one Derek’s shirts. It’s an old grey long-sleeved one that as far as Derek knew, was still lying at the bottom of his laundry pile. The jeans are his, too. They’re a little loose on Stiles and sit low on his hips. He’s still holding the crossbow, fidgeting with it, belying all the assuredness in his voice.
“You kind of are, though,” says Stiles. “Not that you should act like it, but you should realize it, because prey really only has two choices, panic or think fast. Stop assuming you’re hunting me. You’re not. You’re walking into my traps. Try again.”
Stiles walks - saunters - back into the shadows. He gives himself a nice head start before Derek feels the air shift around him just a little bit. He glances down at the broken circle, and steps forward.
He’s moving toward the far end of the warehouse when he realizes there’s someone else here, someone who isn’t masking their scent, and isn’t really trying to hide their movements as they advance toward Derek, either.
Her. Her movements. Allison. He assumes she’s part of this game, but isn’t sure what to do about her - evade or confront? He also assumes she’s armed. Stiles’ crossbow may be empty, but he doubts Allison’s is.
“Stiles asked you to come?” he asks, deciding to confront now, evade later.
“Yes,” she says, her voice flat, and he can see the outline of both her ponytail and her crossbow just before she fires it straight at him. The arrow hits him in the right shoulder and the pain blinds him for a few seconds before he can gather himself to reach up and pull it out. Then he’s moving.
His shoulder throbs painfully, but he can feel it already starting to knit together. He moves off into the deepest shadows on pure instinct, an animal going to ground.
Allison is stealthy - he can hear it in each of her light footsteps - but she’s not super humanly stealthy, and he can pinpoint her, even over the music, because she’s close, stalking after him. Stiles has gone far enough out of range that Derek can’t find him. He pauses in the dark to watch and think for a moment, even if his instincts are screaming at him to keep moving, to flank his target, rush from behind, and (if it weren’t Allison) rend her apart.
Stiles had said to stop thinking like a hunter. But prey would run away, and that was no good to him even in a training exercise, let alone in real danger. There were plenty of times that running would have just meant extending the problem. If he truly wanted to get away, he’d just shoulder through some of the corrugated metal on the outer walls and be gone before Allison could loose an arrow.
Derek tried to imagine himself small and vulnerable, what he’d do if an arrow to the heart could kill him outright. It takes some digging, hedging carefully around things he doesn’t want to think about, but that’s something he’s gotten good at. He can remember when he was a kid, playing tag with his brothers and sisters, and Peter. Peter was stronger and faster, smarter. He always knew where they were hiding. It had been fun, but the kind of fun where the scream bubbling up in his throat as he ran away was half-real and the adrenaline completely real.
His first instinct then had been to climb a tree. Peter could always come up after him, but slower, having to use his claws instead of nimbly swinging up. And sometimes Derek had even managed to stay still enough and drop down on him from low branches before he’d been found.
Higher ground is a tactic he can use whether or not he is hunting or being hunted. He looks up, aware that there is scaffolding up above. He can see some of it, better than a human could, but still not that well. Stiles is up there somewhere, he’s pretty sure, so Allison is hunting him on the ground and Stiles above.
There is a little bit of scaffolding tucked against the wall, several feet above his head. He gathers himself and leaps for it, swinging up as silently as he can, and crouching on the metal grate, searching the area around him for a hint of Stiles. He can’t hear Allison’s movements anymore over the bass of the rave music, and he suddenly feels a real wave of vulnerability. Not being able to hear is worse than not being able to see.
Again, even though he feels like he should move, should be doing something, he forces himself to stay still and wait. Think. It’s hard to imagine what else Stiles could have up his sleeve, especially if he’s not going to hurt Derek. Booby-traps? More tricks from Deaton?
“I haven’t really forgiven you,” says Allison, from startlingly nearby. “You killed my mother.”
He considers answering, but doesn’t. Prey wouldn’t give away their position, they’d go to ground and hide.
“But I like Stiles, so I agreed to help him, and I agreed not to kill you. That doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you, though.”
Derek hardly feels the urge to answer, this time, just crouches, waiting.
“You didn’t kill my aunt, but I’m still angry about that, too. I’m angry that she’s dead, and I’m angry that she killed your family. Basically, I’m so angry that I want to shoot things.”
Allison's tone of voice is still flat, like it had been under her grandfather's sway, and he feels a slight fission of real fear. He crouches and breathes, trying to get a scent from her to make doubly sure she isn't carrying wolfsbane.
"I know it wasn't all your fault," says Allison.
He feels bitterly sarcastic and wishes he could tell her 'gee, thanks, coming from a partial-psycho from a family full of psychos, that means a lot.' He keeps his mouth shut, and stays where he was, but she seems to be meandering ever closer, as if she knows where he is. All his muscles twitch in an effort to get away, but he stays still.
Then he gets a glimpse of her through the machinery. She's wearing some sort of goggles, the kind people have in military movies, and Derek guesses they're heat-sensing. Fuck, trust the Argents to collect that kind of shit. He really does have to move, now. She's covering the area in a sort of pattern, which means he has to stay behind her, and he has the thought that if there were more hunters than just Allison, one of them would be watching her back, and there wouldn't be any blind spots he could exploit. He knew, sort of, how hunters worked. Enough to spot a flash bomb, and know what things were probably laced with wolfsbane. But he'd tried to stay pretty far away from them, and the chance to observe them in a non life-or-death situation had never come up.
He shuffles sideways along the catwalk as quietly as he can, edging around behind Allison, and when he gets to the end of it, he crouches and eases himself over the edge. It's this kind of shit that makes all those pull-ups worth it, because he can lower himself so slowly that the catwalk doesn't clank or wobble. When he gets low enough, he drops to the ground, landing on the balls of his feet and instantly crouching.
He can't forget that Stiles is around here somewhere, too, probably with more of his booby traps. Satisfied that Allison is facing away from him, he walks toward the area she's already scanned, scanning himself, looking for any tiny bit of movement and straining his ears for a telltale shift of fabric against cloth, shallow breathing, anything Stiles might give himself away with.
"Anyway," Allison says abruptly, and he flinches because she is nearer to him than he'd thought. "My dad explained the code to me. Did you know there's an actual contract thing where it's written down?" She laughs, and he circles around behind her, closer.
"So I agreed to do this because it's in everybody's interest to make you a better leader."
Derek considers walking up, swift and silent, and seizing her bow. He's pretty sure he's fast enough that she couldn't turn and loose an arrow in time. Now he's starting to doubt his first thoughts, though, since they had all gone so wrong with Stiles. He keeps moving when Allison moves, staying in her blind spot, sticking to areas she's already scanned, and he gets as close as he dares. There's a long knife strapped to her thigh, and for once she's put her hair up in more than a haphazard manner. She's been learning.
"I know my mom killed herself rather than become a werewolf. You bit her," says Allison. "I can't forgive that, though maybe it's a sort of eye-for-an-eye. My aunt killed your mom, you kill my mom."
"Your mother was trying to kill Scott," says Derek. He has the satisfaction of seeing Allison startle, whipping around to face him, arrow notched and ready. Derek lets her see him, but makes sure there is a big metal pillar between him and an arrow in the chest. "She was in the process of suffocating him with wolfsbane. I saved him. I can't imagine why she would have wanted to kill Scott slowly, can you?"
"How do I know you aren't lying?" says Allison, evenly.
"Why would I lie when you can just ask him about it?"
She seems to consider that in silence, but he can hear her footsteps still moving, and now she's coming toward him again.
"Why would I trust a werewolf?" she asks.
"I think I've got just slightly more of a reason not to trust a hunter," he returns, feeling his calm fraying.
"You're a cautionary tale about trust," she says quietly.
The anger blooms bright and clean in his chest. He dodges around poles and machinery, coming toward her at angles, though she can probably see parts of him with her heat-goggles. But halfway there, he trips over something, slightly, and then a second later feels something close around his left ankle before he's hoisted abruptly toward the ceiling. All the blood rushes to his head, and he feels choked with helpless rage.
The music cuts off and the silence is startling, the rush of ambient noise feels strange.
"Thanks, Allison," says Stiles. He hears Allison un-notch her arrow, and then she and Stiles both walk so they're in Derek's line of sight. Allison gives him a hard look, but then nods at Stiles, and heads for the door without another word.
"Sorry about that one," says Stiles. "Hunters do love their banter, and you actually seem fairly decent at not being taunted into making bad tactical decisions, but you've gotta be better, mostly because you have a crapload of stuff to be taunted with."
Derek takes several deep breaths as he tries to think past the anger. Allison gets further away, but if anything, Derek gets angrier. He stares at Stiles who looks equal parts cautious and cocky, and Derek feels the anger flare higher in his chest, because it was Stiles who set him up for that. Derek isn’t sure what to say that isn’t just an angry scream.
“I didn’t crack when Kate had me, what makes you think anyone else will come close?” he manages.
He watches a flicker of distaste and maybe something else a little too close to pity chase over Stiles’ face, but if anything that only ratchets up the burning in Derek’s chest until it feels like there are hands around his throat.
“Yeah, she was kind of the worst case scenario. I can’t say I’m sorry she’s dead.”
And just like that, the anger is revealed to be only a warm blanket over the roiling mess of emotions that lie beneath. He thinks Stiles guesses that, too, though they've never talked about any of it.
"And what's your sage advice for combating this one?" asks Derek, wanting his voice to crack like a whip, but knowing the impact is lessened by the way he's strung up from the ceiling with steel around his ankle.
"Therapy," says Stiles shortly, with a sort of flat humor that lets Derek know he's not really joking.
"You want me to go to therapy," says Derek.
"Yeah, I do," says Stiles. "You should at least think about it."
For a long moment there is only the sound of their breathing.
"I'll think about it," says Derek, just before he sits up, slices through the steel cable holding him with one of his claws, and twists as he drops to land back on his feet.
He can hear the sound of Stiles swearing as he sprints away. Derek cuts the rest of the cable from his ankle and stalks after him, deliberate but quick.
He can hear Stiles' feet and his heartbeat this time, and no one can say he hasn't learned, because he definitely suspects it's a trap, but that doesn't stop him from following. Stiles is quick and knows where he's going in this weird mechanical maze, but Derek is quicker, and chasing Stiles is the most entertaining part of this game.
Stiles picks up his pace, so Derek does, too, dodging around debris and then up scaffolding, eyes sharp for more ring traps or rotting wood, and he sees at least two places where he was probably supposed to have gotten caught, but he is learning.
He doesn't have to strain to hear Stiles' breathing, now - Stiles is a little winded, and Derek is closing the distance between them fast. This time he's going to tackle him, none of this walking into a magic circle bullshit. He hears Stiles clatter up another scaffolding ladder and realizes he's just several feet behind, but Stiles must have pulled the ladder up behind him. Derek looks around for something he can jump for or off of, but then suddenly everything goes painfully bright white.
It's not a your traditional flashbomb, but Derek would never expect Stiles to do things traditionally. It's every light in the damn warehouse at once, turned on violent and exploding. After so long in the dark, his eyes actually, physically hurt and he doesn't come back to himself for several seconds, only to realize he's crouching, back in the dark. He stays where he is and looks around. Usually after a flashbomb, there's an immediate attack, or the entire distraction would be for nothing, but he heard Allison leave, and he can hear Stiles' heartbeat somewhere above him, not far away.
He stands, and something big and heavy moves in the dark behind him. He turns to face it head on, and he can feel more than see it as it rushes toward him, before hitting him square in the chest. He goes flying, feeling broken ribs try to heal in midair. When he lands, it's all he can do just to breathe, his lungs probably punctured in several places. It fucking hurts, but not being able to get a full breath of air is worse. Above him, he can see what hit him: a large mechanical object hanging from a chain, creaking gently back and forth.
Most of his chest has knitted itself back together, but he's still wheezing slightly, when Stiles drops down over him.
He stands with a foot on either side of Derek’s hips, grinning in triumph, unloaded crossbow pointing at his throat. They’re both breathing hard, and a drop of sweat rolls off Stiles’ ear and lands on Derek’s shirt. He’s not even holding the crossbow properly.
Derek could throw him halfway across the room if he wanted to, but he also knows that Stiles beat him fair and square, and as a stand-in for a hunter with a wolfsbane laced arrow pointed at his throat, Stiles is the winner.
The unsettled feeling in his stomach is back, stronger, but it’s not unpleasant exactly. It’s almost as if he likes the fact that Stiles beat him, like he’d been expecting it.
“Uncle?” Derek is pretty sure Stiles’ slant grin is at least fifty percent because knows Derek is picturing Peter.
Derek can’t say it.
Stiles nudges the crossbow gently up under Derek’s chin, and Derek’s next breath is shuddery and shallow. They watch each other for a small breathless moment that stretches weird and thin.
Then Stiles shifts the crossbow to the side and drops carefully to his knees, straddling Derek. He plants one hand on Derek’s chest, and he slides the knuckles of his other hand along Derek’s jawline.
“Are you tapping out?”
Derek gives a single short shake of his head “no.”
"Then wouldn't you agree I beat you this time? You did really well, and you learned fast," Derek feels a slow, unwilling warmth spread in him at the praise. "But you've gotta say it."
Derek has to consciously unclench his jaw, and take a quick breath before he finally says, "Fine," he pauses. "Uncle." But the tension is still there, shuddering through his body after such a long game.
Stiles' breath leaves his body in a whoosh, and some of the bravado bleeds away, but enough of it stays that when Stiles leans in to kiss him, Derek can feel his own body quiet. The firm press of Stiles' mouth to his is not a question at all, just a demand. Derek doesn't know if this is what he was expecting all along or if he should be alarmed by how easy it is to let it happen. He's gotten so used to emphatically not examining his feelings that he sometimes truly doesn't know what he's feeling.
"You did good," Stiles mutters into his mouth before kissing him again. Derek brings his own hand up, heavy and feeling foreign, to run through over the fuzz at the back of Stiles' neck.
"You did, too," Derek says, haltingly, and he can feel Stiles' smug smile against his mouth.
Stiles kisses him again, a little rougher, and a little more practiced than Derek was somehow expecting. He feels Stiles' long fingers slide into his hair and grip just tight enough to hold him in place. His crushed ribs feel back to normal again, which is good, because Stiles kind of collapses on him.
He can smell Stiles now, mingled in with Derek's clothes. He bunches his fist in the back of the shirt Stiles is wearing and breathes in hard. The world realigns itself, the weird Stiles-sized blindspot erased.
"What, I'm not that sweaty," says Stiles. He raises an arm to sniff, and Derek catches his elbow in his other hand, then draws him in so Derek can press his face into his neck. "Ohh," Stiles says, knowingly. "I get it."
Stiles gets a hand under the edge of Derek's shirt and draws it up, sure but slow, as if he's expecting Derek to stop him. Derek tries to breathe evenly and watches Stiles' face. For Stiles, the light is probably too low to to see very well, but Derek can see just fine. Stiles' face is set in concentration, focused, like he's taking a difficult test, and his eyes are following his hand.
"I'm glad that machine engine I hit you with didn't do any permanent damage." Stiles' hand skates over a ticklish spot and Derek twitches. Stiles drags the whole shirt up, and nudges Derek's arms until he raises them over his head, but he leaves it tangled around Derek's wrists, and Derek stays where he is.
Stiles leans back down and kisses Derek again, bracing himself on one hand, so he has room to move the other down Derek's chest, taking his time, like the ridges of muscle fascinate him. He tugs the button on Derek's jeans undone, peels them down, and gets a hand on Derek's dick and Derek is surprised enough that he makes a hoarse noise and bucks into Stiles' hand.
He hadn't consciously thought about this, about Stiles and his hands, but he realizes he's been anticipating something for so long, that this feels like a reward. He closes his eyes and thrusts up hard enough that he almost knocks Stiles off. He opens his eyes when Stiles sits up to see him grinning wide and pleased. Stiles thumbs open his own jeans and yanks Derek's down a little bit more, so he can take them both in hand.
He's looking down at Derek as if he likes what he sees, as if Derek amuses him. Derek feels a strange surge of annoyance and lust over that, and shakes his shirt off his arms, brings his hands to Stiles' hips so he can jerk Stiles forward. He falls and is forced to take his hands off their dicks to catch himself on the ground on either side of Derek's head. Stiles' grin is fierce, and Derek tries to give the same one back.
Stiles rolls his hips down hard and sinuous, and Derek meets him again and again, panting and sweaty. They both come like that, staring at each other like this is still part of the challenge. Derek keeps his eyes open until he can't, until orgasm rolls over him and whites out everything, eclipsing all recent events, and he barely feels Stiles shudder apart on top of him, but he’s brought back abruptly when Stiles flops boneless onto him, his muscles twitching with exertion.
When Stiles has caught his breath he sort of slides off and rolls over, but keeps their shoulders touching.
They breathe in silence for a while, and Derek can smell the sweat and come drying on both of them. He looks into the darkness of the warehouse, his mind pleasantly blank, and lets himself think through the chase Stiles had led him on, trying to map the traps in his head.
"We should do this again. I mean, with my betas." Derek isn't seeing the ceiling of the warehouse, but the faces of his pack, and how he could use them in a warehouse like this.
Stiles snorts.
"You know what I mean," says Derek. Then, gruffly, "But this, too. Alone." He feels good. Limp and cleaner some how than he was before.
"Yeah, good," says Stiles after a minute, a little groggy-sounding. "That's the idea. The alpha as the General, stronger in numbers, etcetera. I'll have to think of some new tricks."
They lay for a while longer, then Stiles sits up.
"You want to go get something to eat?"
"Yes," Derek says, decisively.