Say Something (Sterek)

Chapter 6

"We need to talk," Stiles says.

Derek stiffens where he's landed, legs still bent at the knees and arms slightly outstretched to keep his balance. He looks up at Stiles with his eyebrows raised, eyes dark. "Okay?"

"It's nothing bad, stop looking like I've kicked you."

"Okay." Derek straightens and tugs his shirt straight. His shirt, which is a problem, and his jeans, and even the socks that appear as he toes off his shoes. "So?"

"Will you please take your clothes off?"

Derek blinks at him. "What." And really that word should be a question.

"I just mean," Stiles can feel the red of a blush hitting his cheeks, because he is still five at heart. "I don't mean get naked, or whatever. I just mean, take your your jeans off and if you want you can borrow a pair of pajama pants. Or," he feels like he's offering Derek the moon or something, "you can leave some here. It's just that I really hate how you look like you're always ready to leave, even when you're asleep. Also," because Derek's opened his mouth to say something, but Stiles isn't ready to hear it yet, "it's really uncomfortable to sleep next to somebody who's wearing jeans."

Derek cocks his head at him, a small smile on his lips. "Okay," he says, and snags at the collar of his t-shirt, tugging it over his head. And yeah, that's just as nice as Stiles remembers, from the time he forced Derek to give Danny a very a stunted and PG striptease.

He feels himself moving towards Derek, and he reaches up to press his hand to Derek's collarbone. "Or, you know, maybe I did mean get naked," he says before he can even recognize the words coming out of his mouth. Derek lets out an amused laugh and leans forward to catch Stiles's lips in a kiss.

Stiles lets his hands wander over the smoothness of Derek's back, and Derek licks into his mouth as his fingers trace over the muscled edges of Derek's shoulder blades. Derek rucks Stiles's shirt up with his hot hands and moves them down and over and around the bumps of Stiles's spine. The feelings are a lot and confusing and Stiles wants even more, very badly. He wants to feel these fingers everywhere, to have this palm flat over every part of his body, and he wants to do the same to Derek, he wants to taste the inside of Derek's elbow and the bump of his ankle and bite at his hipbones and...he wants everything.

Derek pulls back, reaching up to press his fingers against the nape of Stiles's neck. "We can't, yet," he says, and Stiles knows there are reasons, and he assumes the reasons are good ones-the age difference being one, but not the only, and not the most important-and usually he's all for rational thinking but right now he just wants everything he can possibly get of Derek.

"Yet," he repeats, latching onto that word like it's a vow.

And Derek nuzzles into his neck, his lips, teeth, and tongue tugging at skin, and he murmurs, "Mine," into Stiles's collarbone and, wait.

"No." Stiles steps back, places his hands on Derek's bare shoulders and digs his fingertips in to get the alpha's attention. "Not yours."

Derek's eyes flare red for a moment before he regains control of himself. He inhales. "You don't smell of anyone but you and me," he says, like that settles it. There's a hint of a growl around the "me" and Stiles reminds himself of territory and the pack and how important belonging is. But he can be with Derek without being owned by Derek.

"Right." Stiles digs his nails in. "And I won't ever smell of anyone but you and me again." This is a forever type of thing and maybe he's stupid for saying it like that but who cares because Derek is still looking angry. "But I am in control of myself, Derek. I am. You don't own me, not at all." Because loving Derek doesn't mean that he is any less him, that he is any less his own.