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It happened again. In the way it always does, which is not actually at all. It was just a brush of his knuckle, a press of skin against skin, an invitation as much as it was a plea.
They were standing in line for tacos at Stiles’ second favorite food truck. Stiles was rattling off a list of Indian spices and their potential benefits for magic, and Derek was once again struck with that weird craving he sometimes got. That itch in the center of his palm, the flex in his fingers, a coldness in his shoulder.
He really wanted to hold Stiles’ hand.
He needed it.
The casual intimacy of holding on, of being palm to palm with someone, a subtle but affirming connection in the middle of the day.
Derek longed for the feeling of Stiles’ long, broad knuckled fingers, lined up and squeezing on the back of his hand, their wrists pressed together so their pulses throbbed in time.
Derek found himself brushing the outside curve of his pinky across the tendons rippling under Stiles’ skin, fingers drumming restlessly against his leg.
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Stiles asked, a knowing smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
“Not a word,” Derek answered straightfaced, just to see the grin spread across mole-dotted cheeks.
“You can’t veto Indian food and then not listen to all of its wonders,” Stiles said, laughing and flailing arms as they took a step forward in the line.
“Indian food makes you smell weird,” Derek said with a one-shouldered shrug, his hand clenching at the emptiness in it. “It doesn’t agree with you.”
Stiles raised a brow at him.
“If it’s butts you’re worried about, I should inform you that it will not my butt getting special attention tonight.” Derek could feel the tips of his ears going bright and hot as the elderly woman in front of them turned to give them a reproachful look. Stiles grinned at her, leaning in conspiratorially and saying in a mock-whisper: “I have plans,” with a ridiculous eyebrow wiggle. The woman huffed and quickly hobbled forward to place her order.
Derek tried very hard not to find Stiles’ antics endearing. He didn’t do well. His palms felt cold.
“I meant your smell,” he said, rolling his eyes when his partner turned to grin at him. “It doesn’t compliment your natural smell.”
“So picky,” the younger man hummed, swaying in to bump their shoulders together. Derek’s arm was halfway up, ready to wrap around his waist, pull him in, warm and close, to his side.
“Next,” came the call from the window, and Stiles was once again pulling away. Derek’s arm dropped back to his side, hand curling into an empty fist.
It would be a lot easier if he could just forget about it. Accept that casual intimacies were just not the sort of thing their relationship involved. But Derek craved it. Needed it like he needed air in his lungs, the wolf under his skin and Stiles’ dick in his ass.
He’d always had a very touch-based love language; it was part of growing up a werewolf. Everyone was scented and touched and hugged and nudged, it was as important to communication as actual words. He still remembered how much Laura had made fun of him the first time she caught him holding hands with a boy at the lunch table in middle school, subtly scenting him by stroking his thumb over his pulse point.
And with hands like Stiles’ it was a wonder he ever resisted them at all. Long and broad, callused palms and lightly furred knuckled, tendons and veins pornographically evident under the tight skin of his hands and forearms. It was honestly an Olympic demonstration of restraint that Derek wasn’t always wrapped around them.
Or demanding they be wrapped around him, touching, stroking, twisting.
Derek was a very physical person, in most areas of his life.
He liked things he could do; sports, exercise, building. He solved problems physically, too, without always thinking hard enough about the solution.
He’d gotten better though. He was slowly becoming a better Alpha, being better for his pack. A lot of that was due to their influence on him; Stiles’ and Lydia’s intellect combined with Scott’s perpetual good nature. He was learning a lot, not that he would admit to it yet.
He was far enough, though, that he could accept good things when they came to him. Or on him, in Stiles’ case.
They started like a wildfire.
Like, actually in the woods. A single, impulsive kiss in the preserve lead to the two of them rutting furiously in the leaves, which lead to a two day marathon back at the loft, stopped only by Isaac’s insistence that if they kept going without a break, they’d never be able to air the place out.
That had sounded just fine to Derek. He couldn’t think of anything he’d like more than having his whole house smell of Stiles and skin and sex, always.
Except holding his hand. Derek had a very real, very intense desire for hand holding.
It didn’t help that every time the thought crept up in Derek’s mind, he scolded himself for how juvenile it felt. To be so stuck on something so innocent and childish.
When Derek was this obsessed with Stiles’ mouth, he dealt with it. By fucking his throat until he was hoarse.
What was the throat-fucking equivalent of hand holding?
Derek thinks it might be aggressively tight cuddling. Maybe in a hammock at the beach.
The worst part is, Stiles seems completely unfazed by his subtle invitations. Which seems at odds with the amount of observation Derek knows Stiles put into all aspects of his life.
It didn’t take long for Stiles to map out every erogenous zone on the werewolf’s body. Took less than a week of practice to figure out exactly how he liked being sucked off. So Derek can’t imagine that Stiles hadn’t noticed how hard he came when Stiles’ fingers had been threaded through his own and pressed down against the pillow. He had literally roared. Stiles shot, untouched, across Derek’s chest, saying later that the look on Derek’s face was so hot it forced the orgasm out of him. Derek had smiled smugly, squeezing Stiles’ hand tightly in his own, relishing in the glow and the simple intimacy of feeling their sweat mix in their clasped palms and the softening of his dick in Stiles’ ass. That is, until Stiles pulled away to clean up, and definitely did not take Derek’s offered hand on his return as anything more than an invitation to pass on the washcloth.
Derek needed to come to terms that things between them were just physical.
Not even just physical, but purely sexual.
Stiles allowed himself to be cuddled only directly after sex or in those slow morning hours before either of them convinced themselves to join the living for the day. Any other time and the boy was never still enough for Derek to pull him in, always twitching his hands away from his welcoming brushes and hopeful nudges.
They never actually had a conversation about what they were, or if they were going anywhere. But Stiles was the talker in their pseudo-relationship, and the longer Stiles didn’t talk about it, the more it felt like something they weren’t allowed to talk about.
It seemed to start and end with sex. Derek wanted more. Derek had finally allowed himself to want something and now he wanted it all. But if that’s not what Stiles wanted, if that’s not what was being offered, than Derek would just take whatever he could get.
Holding hands was so middle school anyway. Derek didn’t need it. He’d be fine.
Derek was working on it. He stopped touching Stiles in public. He kept his arms crossed, fingers curled in against his sides at pack meetings and movie nights. Always let Stiles initiate cuddling after sex instead of octopusing all over the boy. Stopped sitting right up against him on the couch. Gave Stiles the distance he seemed to want.
The cravings weren’t getting better. Derek would wake up with one arm curled around Stiles when he stayed over, curled around a pillow when he didn’t. He got better at managing them, got better at accepting that this was just what it was.
So when, after lazy breakfast blowjobs, Stiles tagged along on errand day, Derek focused on keeping the compulsory definitely-not-banging two feet of space between them at all times. And when Wendy, the kindly nursery manager who had known his mother, patted Stiles on the straining shoulders as he helped him with fertilizer bags and asked how Derek had found such a nice young man, Derek didn’t even flinch when he said that they were just friends.
Stiles dropped the bag he was carrying, giving Derek a shocked, bordering on aghast, look.
Wendy went silent, staring at the dumbfounded look at Stiles’ face and giving Derek a disapproving glare, before turning on her heel and marching herself away to the flower section.
“Excuse me?” Stiles asked, dazed anger simmering under his pale skin. “Why did you just tell that sweet lady, who I know you secretly adore, that we were just friends?”
“Um,” Derek said intelligently, feeling as though the whole world had shifted around him, as shocked by the anger in his voice as by what provoked it.
“I mean, I know you’ve been kind of distant lately, but I hadn’t realized that that was you breaking up with me!” His arms flailed wildly through the air as his sent went sour with embarrassed sweat and budding tears. “Only you could break up with someone without actually telling them about it,” he said bitterly, stepping out from under the fertilizer bag that had been slumped against his shins.
“Stiles, no,” Derek said, grabbing his arm, holding him in place as he let his own bags slide to the ground. “I didn’t know,” he said desperately, not knowing how else to explain.
“You didn’t know,” Stiles repeats disbelievingly, shrugging out of his grip. “I had your dick in my mouth literally two hours ago.” Wendy caught Derek’s eye over a row of flowering bushes and gave him a very harsh headshake.
“Yeah, but that’s just sex,” Derek defended. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Stiles’ shoulders immediately slumped. His mouth opened and closed, his eyes going far away and looking helplessly blindsided.
“Well,” he said, turning away from whatever face Derek was making. The smell of heartbreak mixed with the roses. “Well, I didn’t know that.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Derek insisted, reaching forward again to grab at his friend’s (boyfriend’s?) arm.
“Don’t,” Stiles ordered in that dangerous voice he had that made the air crackle with ozone. “Don’t touch me.” He took a breath, pulling his shoulders back and putting on his brave face. “I’m calling Allison for a ride, I’m going to need some space, I’m sure you understand.” He made for the exit, and Wendy gave Derek a glare, forcefully gesturing that he should be chasing after the younger man.
Derek apologized gruffly for the fertilizer, three bags left abandoned in the aisle, but Wendy just waved him off, saying that he’d better buy a couple bouquets from her. Derek nodded distractedly, heading after the graphic tee hunched out by the curb. His heart was thudding in his throat, and though he was furious with himself for hurting Stiles, for fucking up this bad, he couldn’t help but feel a bubble of hope ready to burst in his chest.
“Derek,” Stiles sighed as he caught up with the teenager. His eyes were shut tightly, like looking at the wolf would hurt. It broke Derek’s heart a little.
“Stiles, I’m sorry,” he said, one hand hovering over his shoulder blade, knowing it was unwelcome but wishing so badly he could just pull him in close, say everything he needed to through touch, cuddling away the confusion, maybe sliding his palm down his arm, twining their fingers together in forgiveness.
“I’m sure you are,” Stiles said wetly, looking away from him.
“No, Stiles, listen,” Derek began, hands clenching empty and useless. “I didn’t think you wanted anything more. Than sex. I though that was it for you.” Derek looked down at the toes of his boots. There was fertilizer in the laces.
“Why would you think that?” Stiles’ voice was quiet, suppressed hope lingering under his tongue. “I made you a fucking breakfast burrito this morning.”
Derek felt his face heat with embarrassment at the words about to come out of his mouth.
“You never wanted to hold my hand,” he grumbled, arms crossed over his chest, fingers crumbling the fabric of his henley. “Unless we were…” he trailed off, cheeks hot.
Stiles took on that perfect stillness of the hopefully disbelieving.
“You thought I was only using you for sex, because that the only time we held hands.” Stiles gave a look that said with no uncertainty that Derek was the dumbest person in the world.
“Whenever I touch your hand in public, you always jerk away,” he defended, arms squeezing over his chest as if to give a reason for the feeling of tightness on the inside of his ribs.
Stiles flailed inelegantly, knocking his own beanie off his head, eyes wide and so, completely, done.
“My hands are always moving,” he shouted, decidedly too loud for a plant nursery, which is, obviously, the library of home improvement stores. “It’s my thing, it’s what I do!” Derek shrugged, conceding the point. “And it’s not like you ever said anything,” Stiles pointed out, glaring at Derek’s sheepish face.
He sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, reaching out and nudging the knuckle of his pinky against the dark hairs on the back of Stiles’ hand.
“That?” Stiles asked, eyebrows crawling up into his dovetail while his hand spasmed by his side. “That is you asking to hold hands?”
Derek nodded mutely, letting his hand sway back into his own space, still empty.
“You do that all the time.” Stiles had a strange look on his face, like he was disappointed and really surprised by it. “Like multiple times a day. For months.” Derek looked away, sucking his cheek in so he had something to do with his teeth.
“Oh my God, you big dumb idiot,” Stiles breathed, shaking his head, rubbing one hand up through his hair. “I can’t believe I’ve been rejecting your romantic overtures for months and you still let me come inside you.”
A laugh burst out of Derek and he glanced up at his maybe-boyfriend through an unfair fringe of lashes.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Stiles asked, aggressively rolling his eyes. Derek gave him the obvious-brows and Stiles huffed a begrudgingly amused laugh.
“Of course, that would require an actual conversation,” he admitted, shoving his long-fingered hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Which I supposed I should’ve known to initiate, otherwise it would never have happened. Until we reached some horrible misunderstanding and, well, here we are.”
Derek gave him one of those helpless smiles Stiles always seemed to pull from him. Stiles grinned back, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe how they’d gotten here, even though he absolutely could.
Derek looked pointedly at where his boyfriend’s hands were hiding in the pockets of his dark red jeans and then back up to his rolling eyes.
“Oh my God, you absolute man-child,” he groaned, reaching out for him. Derek met him halfway, sliding their fingers together like sliding a key into a lock, like coming home.
“You have the sappiest look on your face right now, you have no idea.”
Derek growled playfully, tugging the human in by his grip on his hand, looping his other arm up around his shoulders. He pressed his face into the corded length of his neck, scenting him.
“I can’t believe you’ve been angsting over hand-holding this entire time,” Stiles said, throat vibrating against Derek’s mouth. “You’re such a romantic, how did I not know that?”
“Dunno,” Derek offered simply, pressing a short kiss to the bit of scruff at the hinge of his jaw where he’d missed with the razor.
“C’mon, you nonverbal caveman, lets buy our damn fertilizer so I can spend the day watching you do shirtless yard work.” Stiles squeezed his hand, loving and perfectly, tugging him back to the greenhouse.
That night found Derek gasping wetly into their pillows, hands crossed at the small of his back, all ten of Stiles’ fingers twined with his own, holding him still as he rimmed him until he came. Twice.