Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Personally,” Stiles says, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m mostly pissed that we met a trickster god and he didn’t look a thing like Loki.”

Derek is the only one that laughs while the rest of the pack just glares at him. It’s been a long three days. They've been trapped together in Derek’s new house under the trickster’s spell, Stiles bearing the brunt of everyone’s frustration, because technically, it was all his fault.

In his defense, he thought it was just a description of the trickster. He didn’t now that the stupid little poem in the ancient book of lore he was cross-referencing was a summoning incantation. Sixteenth century scribes aren’t known for their clarity, you know.

The trickster appeared right after he finished reading the last line. “‘Hair dark like coal / emerald glare to your soul.’ Sounds like you, Zenwolf.” He had poked Derek, who was sitting across from him at the kitchen table reading his own book of supernatural lore. Derek grunted and opened his mouth to snark back but his reply was cut off by the a quick rush of wind and the ozone smell of magic, the trickster appearing right there at the table.

Neither one of them can remember exactly what the guy looked like – part of his magic – but Stiles knows for sure that he didn’t look a thing like Derek, the douche. They did remember that the trickster had stared at each for them for a long beat, disconcertingly long at Stiles, like he really was seeing into his soul. And if that hadn’t been creepy enough, he whispered a spell in an unrecognizable language before he grinned, winked, and disappeared.

The rest of the pack had been at the house at the time. Scott and Kira were in the basement with Liam practicing werewolfy fighting skills. Isaac, recently returned from his European sojourn, was in the living room with Lydia, disappointing her with his halting French. It didn’t take long to realize that they couldn’t leave the house, couldn’t open the doors, even with the combined strength of a true alpha, a kitsune, a perfectly functional beta, a superwolf, and a baby Jackson (Stiles didn't bother helping, choosing to offer moral support until Derek growled at him).

It really didn’t take long after that to realize whose fault it was. There was a lot of yelling and blaming of Stiles. He had thought it would help to remind them how lucky they were that it was first week of winter break and it’s not like any of them had anywhere else to be. It didn’t.

It took three days of research and failed spells to resummon the trickster – apparently the incantation in the book was a one-time-use deal – so they could pin it down and force it drink the banishing elixir Deaton had recommended. Its black nails had grown into razor-sharp claws that thrashed and slashed at Derek as he held him down, Lydia pouring the foul liquid down its throat, the thing disappearing in a wisp of green-black smoke that was still curling around the kitchen ceiling as everyone dispersed to gather their things to leave, badly in need of a break from each other.

Thank god Derek is a secret millionaire and finally bought a real house for the pack, even bigger than the old Hale place. The seven-bedroom-basically-a-mansion had made the last few days tolerable – Stiles can’t imagine what would have happened if they had all been stuck in Derek’s old creeper loft or the McCall house. It’s on the opposite side of the preserve as the Hale ruins and surrounded by forest on all sides, and fortunately more than big enough to house the pack during supernatural crises such a The Great Trickster Fiasco.

“I don’t want to see any of you for at least a week,” Lydia calls, breezing through the living room on her way out, everyone but Stiles following, the door slamming closed with a bang.

Derek falls heavily into the oversized couch that Stiles picked out, gulping gatorade. As usual, he had taken the brunt of the violence, shirt shredded and covered in already-dried blood, skin underneath new and soft-looking over hard muscle. He heals even faster now, since he found his full wolf abilities, since he evolved or leveled up or finally spanked his inner moppet.

“So what’s for dinner?” Stiles jokes, repeating his refrain from the past few nights. He joins Derek on the couch, which is big enough that they can both spread out lazily and not even come close to touching.

He knows he should leave too, but his dad is working another all-nighter and even after three days of trickster-enforced slumber parties, he still doesn’t want to be alone. Stiles has never done well with loneliness, not since he learned what it really meant when he saw the light go out of his mother's eyes all those years ago. It got worse after the sacrifice to the Nemeton, and worse still after the Nogitsune. He knows that's why he let things happen the way they did with Malia, knows that his own weakness is responsible for so much pain. At least this time it's mostly his.

It’s not out of the ordinary for Derek and Stiles to hang out just the two of them, not any more. At some point along the way, being forced to and then choosing to keep each other alive turned into trust and respect, and somehow, friendship. When Stiles ran into that temple in Mexico he was trying to save his best friend, trying to carry out Derek's dying wish, but he was also running away from the seeing the light go out in Derek's eyes. He had saved him too many times to watch him die as he stood by powerless, jealous of Braeden, even then. Stiles knew that if he stayed there, if he watched Derek die he would die too, in every way that mattered, that he might actually shatter and turn to dust with the pain. So he ran.

When they stumbled out of that place, miraculously still alive, Stiles was relieved about Scott and Kira, dazed at Malia's betrayal, and utterly dreading seeing Derek's body, would have had a panic attack if Liam hadn't been holding him up. He had never been happier when he learned about Derek's resurrection.

Then he seethed in frustration the whole drive home because he missed naked Derek.

And ever since then, he and Derek have learned to be real friends, and Stiles is grateful and tormented and happy and so hopelessly in love with the man and he doesn't know what to do. So he just works hard at being friends.

“There’s still some of that stirfry from last night,” Derek answers, startling him from his daydream. Stiles grins to himself. He was worried that Derek was going want solitude, was going to tell him to leave, or at least ask him why he was still hanging around when he wasn’t magically compelled to be there. But instead he stands and pulls off the tattered remains of his once-gray shirt. “I’m going to take a shower.” He tosses the stained shirt in Stiles’ face as he walks by, not even looking at him, but smirking.

“Asshole,” Stiles yells, mostly just to cover the sound of his rising heartbeat. All this time and he can effectively lie his ass off to any werewolf he meets, but he still can’t control his heart rate around shirtless Derek.

“Warm some food up for me too,” he answers, and Stiles smiles the whole way to the kitchen.

~*~

For a long time Stiles considered himself your average hetero male, not stridently straight like some of those no homo assholes at school, just a dude who liked ladies. And then as high school crept by, he felt something, a curiosity he couldn’t shake but tried to ignore, and then finally stopped trying to.

He hasn’t acted on his attraction with anyone, has still only been with one person, Malia, a thought that leaves his stomach sour and mouth bitter.

The only person he’s told about his bisexuality is Lydia. He hasn’t even told Scott. He’s not exactly sure why; Scott is the most open-hearted, easygoing guy in the world, even as an alpha. He would probably high-five him and then they’d order a pizza and play Skyrim. He knows his dad would be cool with it too; in fact, he can’t think of a single person who matters to him who would give a damn, in the very best way.

But he’s still hesitant to let people know, and he can’t quite figure out why. Lydia says it’s because he’s still all confused about exactly how his little revelation began to really take hold, and Stiles hates that she’s probably right.

Because as Stiles was figuring out his sexuality, Scott was becoming a fucking werewolf (why do you always have to one-up me, bro). And as if having the veil of ignorance about the supernatural world torn off wasn’t enough, Derek Hale was the first person Stiles saw once it came crashing down.

In his more maudlin moments Stiles thinks back to that day in the preserve when he first saw Derek after more than six years. The drawn, angry lines of his face were familiar, even after all that time, even though they had never actually spoken to each other, but the memory of their one interaction still burning bright in Stiles' mind as he stood there dumbfounded, completely mesmerized by his hard-edged beauty, astounded and confused by how his body was reacting.

Nearly every day since then has been an exercise in trying to control his attraction to Derek, a ridiculously impossible feat given what they’ve been through, the situations they’ve been thrust into together. He knows that Derek and the pack, with their extremely useful but incredibly fucking invasive sense of smell, have likely picked up on his attraction, but Scott told him once that lust is just lust and they can tell who it’s coming from but not who it’s directed towards, which isn’t a complete get-out-of-werewolf-induced-boner jail-free card, but it’s something.

But Stiles also knows that even without werewolf senses, a casual observer could easily see that his gaze often lingers on Derek too long, that he gravitates toward him, that he touches him often, even easily now. Either his friends are incredibly dense, or they are very kind for not calling him out on it, for pretending not to notice (except for Lydia, who Stiles can’t hide anything from). For this, Stiles is eternally grateful.

It’s not like he thinks anything could actually happen with Derek; he knows that it’s just a fantasy, and that’s okay. He’s accepted that, mostly. He’s just a little…fixated on him, that’s all. Even in the early days when they were working really hard to hate each other, Stiles still felt a little short of breath every time he was around him, a little too excited to see how his eyes would change color from one day to the next, sometimes felt like he was going insane from the near-constant thrum of Derek in his head, in his heartbeat.

Despite Stiles’ fixation, they've still managed to become something like close in the months since the weretrifecta from hell was defeated. Enlightened Derek is more open, softer around the edges, the anger that used to consume him gone. It’s not like he’s a glowing ball of sunshine or anything, but he smiles with ease and sincerity now and actually answers Stiles’ questions instead of just glaring.

Stiles marvels at all of the things he knows about Derek now. He knows that he reads voraciously and speaks half a dozen languages, that he has a double degree in History and Linguistics, and that he was applying to grad school when Laura was killed.

Stiles knows that Derek loves baseball and hates lacrosse. He knows that he drinks the world’s strongest coffee and loves sugary cereal. He knows that Derek has a soft spot for cats and that he feels rejected when they won’t go near him, something Stiles found out when Scott – with the most joy he has ever seen in his puppy eyes – discovered that werewolves can get high if the weed is strong enough.

Stiles not only knows that Derek can, in fact, laugh, but that his laugh is deep and warm, like it’s actively trying to compensate for his resting scowl face. Stiles knows that his laugh fills the expansive living room of his new house with joy the way his roar used to fill the forest with terror. Stiles knows that his laugh is utterly transformative, remaking Derek’s glowering expression into the kindest, most tender face he’s ever seen.

And the dimples. Derek has dimples, for the love of god.

Stiles has memorized the lines that form around Derek’s eyes when he laughs, the way his nose scrunches up like it’s trying to high-five his ridiculous eyebrows, and he knows that when he’s stressed, he palms his beard, and that for some reason that seems to calm him.

Even before his evolution, Stiles knew that Derek, for all his faults and mistakes, was a good man who’d been through hell way too many times and was still here, still trying, and Stiles thinks that’s admirable, thinks that takes a strength and a goodness that Derek doesn’t get enough credit for from the rest of the pack.

And he’s pretty sure Derek doesn’t like being alone either.

“Heard from Braeden lately,” Stiles asked a couple of months ago, working very hard to sound casual as he thumbed through a book, not looking up at him.

“Last I heard she was in New Orleans,” Derek answered. “But that was awhile ago.”

“Is she coming back,” he asked before he could stop himself.

“If we ever have a job for her,” Derek replied quietly, matter of fact.

Derek didn’t ask him about Malia. Stiles isn’t sure he’s ready to talk to anyone about her, but if there’s someone who would understand what it’s like to be misled and manipulated by someone you cared about and thought cared about you, it’s Derek.

Derek, who’s straight. Or so Stiles assumes. He’s only known him to be with women, but given his own situation, he can’t really use that as anything definitive, and he doesn’t really have any other way of knowing. They’ve become friends, but it’s not like they’ve ever sat around and talked sexual experiences.

Not that it matters. Because he needs to stop wanting Derek. He’s incredibly grateful for the friendship they’ve built, and he knows he should be happy with that.

He’s happy with that.

~*~

After everything with Kate and Peter and Malia, Stiles was determined not be caught off guard by the next thing to come their way, so he decided that he was going to get serious about learning everything he could about the supernatural. He took over a corner of Derek’s loft as a research area, adding his own growing collection of books to what Derek had salvaged from the Hale house and let him remove from the vault under the school. Chris Argent gave them access to his extensive records as well, and it wasn’t long before Stiles was almost as knowledgeable as Derek about this stuff, the two of them often staying up late into the night talking supernatural lore and legends. Derek had even asked Stiles to show him how to use the database he and Lydia built, and he was helping them cross-reference the Argent bestiaries.

Stiles had even called him Giles once as a joke and Derek laughed and said something about needing to drink more tea and working on his British accent. When Stiles stared at him in wide-eyed surprise, Derek had just shrugged. “Laura loved Buffy,” he explained before returning to his work, looking downright studious in the gray knit cardigan he was wearing, only missing glasses to complete the picture of a devoted scholar.

Not long after that, just before Derek moved into the new house, Stiles had tracked down some rare archaic texts at an occult bookstore in Santa Cruz that had wanted a fortune to ship them. Derek had offered to pay for it, but Stiles refused on principle, so he convinced Lydia and Kira to make the two-and-a-half drive with him. The shop was a treasure trove and Stiles easily forged Derek’s signature when he charged a small fortune to his credit card, knowing Derek would be just as excited about the purchases as he was.

He had been looking forward to organizing the new acquisitions to the Hale/McCall pack library (Stiles is still the only one that calls them that, everyone, even Derek, seemingly okay with dropping the Hale) and settling into a night of reading and cross-referencing in the warm lamplight in his corner of the loft, hopefully with Derek. But Lydia insisted on going shopping, and they didn’t get back to Beacon Hills until well into the evening, much later than they had planned.

Stiles is sure that’s why Derek assumed they weren’t coming over, which is why he must have felt perfectly comfortable walking out of his bathroom naked, dripping wet and steaming from the shower, casually drying off, just as Stiles walked in the door hauling a box of books, calling out to him.

“Hey Derek! You gotta check his out. I found this old book about shapeshifters, and there’s something in here about one of your ancestors – ”

He lost all capacity for speech when he looked up and saw him, torso rippling and glistening, for the love of god. Stiles’ eyes stuck to the dark towel in front of his groin, thankfully saving him from what he was sure would be the devastating sight of Derek’s cock. He finally tore his gaze upwards and saw that Derek was staring at him, eyes locked on his, not moving, seemingly stunned too.

Braver – and stupider – than he’s ever been, Stiles lowered his eyes again, taking in the impossibly muscled ridge of Derek’s shoulders and the long, graceful lines of his thighs before darting back up his face. His hair was standing up in a hundred different directions, wet and shiny, looking even blacker than usual, making the contrast with his jeweled eyes even sharper. Stiles was entranced, and Derek just stood there, letting him drink in the rich swell of his biceps, delighting in how they dipped and curved into the thick, corded musculature of his forearms. There was a wild thatch of dark hair peeking out from behind the towel and Stiles licked his lips, going a little light-headed from how fast the blood was rushing to his dick. Derek’s nostrils flared a bit, and fuck, Stiles was probably smothering him with the scent of his lust.

The sound of Kira and Lydia’s voices making their way up the stairs with the other books shook him out of his trance; he glanced toward the door and by the time he looked back, Derek had disappeared back into the bathroom. He told Lydia and Kira that his dad had texted him to get home as soon as possible, tossing the books onto his desk in the corner and hustling them out the door.

At the last second, he ran back in, bravery from before lingering. Derek was still nowhere to be seen, probably waiting for them to be blocks away before coming back out, something Stiles considered a great kindness. From the box of books he grabbed Campbell’s History of the Exceptional Wolf, the passage about a shapeshifting alpha named Verónique Hale who settled in this area in 1832 already marked with the sparkly howling wolf bookmark Stiles had also bought.

He left the book on Derek’s favorite reading chair, where he knew he would find it.

~*~

No one had to know that Stiles barely made it up to his bedroom before he was yanking off his pants, falling back on his bed, squeezing and stroking with uncoordinated jerks, fueled by frustration and an almost desperate need. He closed his eyes to better see, with precise clarity, every line and curve of Derek’s heartbreakingly perfect body, his breathtaking face, eyes big in surprise as he stood there, letting Stiles’ eyes rake over him. Stiles imagined himself catching a drop of cooling water dripping from his sweet earlobe, licking down Derek’s neck, rubbing his face on his chest hair, falling to his knees before pulling the towel away. He thought about Derek’s strong hands on his head, guiding him towards his cock, what the weight of him against his tongue might feel like, how he would taste, what he sounds like when he comes, clutching at Stiles’ hair, emptying himself down his throat.

Stiles finished quickly, spilling hot over his hand and belly. He had no interest in dragging it out, making it last. He was tired of having him in his mind but never for real, and this was the only way he knew to get his brain and body to shut the hell up about goddamn Derek Hale for a while.

It didn’t work for long, of course.

~*~

Thankfully, Derek never mentioned The Shower Incident, just texted him later than night to thank him for the book, things between them going on like normal ever since. And it’s a good thing, too. Stiles isn’t sure how they would have gotten through the past few days of trickster shenanigans if that had been hanging over them.

He’s just putting the first plate of food into the microwave when the doorbell rings. The pack pretty much just comes and goes as they please these days, so Stiles he’s expecting to see Chris Argent, or maybe even his dad, even though both of them have already been updated on the successful conclusion of the trickster bullshit.

But when he opens the door, he sees Derek. “Dude, I thought you were taking a shower? When did you go outside? Why did you ring the bell?”

Derek just stares at him for a second, eyes wide and a little disbelieving behind his black-rimmed glasses – wait.

Derek doesn’t wear glasses, not even when he was a real boy.

Derek’s scruff has never been that long, and yeah, he’s a hirsute sonofabitch, but there’s no way he went full beard in the few minutes since he went upstairs to take a shower.

So it’s clearly not Derek standing on the other side of the door, but it also most definitely is. Other than the glasses and the beard, it’s Derek in every way possible, right down to the uneven white teeth, copper-flecked jade eyes, and the unruly, intense eyebrows. But wait – is that – yeah, there are few strands of gray in that beard, and at his temples too. It’s Derek, but older, mid-thirties probably.

So not a long-lost twin, then. Some other relative assumed long dead or comatose?

The Hales have a knack for coming back to life, but come on.

“Who the hell –”

The question gets stuck in his throat when he sees the person standing next to not-Derek

Stiles’ mouth opens and closes in shock, face contorting in who knows how many ways, because now he’s looking at himself.

Standing next to not-Derek – whoa, holding not-Derek’s hand? – is someone who looks remarkably like Stiles. Is Stiles, a slightly-altered replica, just like this guy both is and isn't Derek.

It’s not like looking into a mirror – one, because looking into a mirror actually makes some kind of sense, and two, because not-Stiles looks older too, mid twenties maybe. And the tips of his short, spiky hair are dark purple, and he’s got a lip ring and he’s shirtless and covered in tattoos and what the holy hell?

“Time travel…” he asks, sufficiently freaked. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears his dad laughing.

“Not exactly,” not-Derek says, and shit, even his voice sounds exactly the same, disconcertingly gentle. He gestures behind him, and Stiles looks over his shoulder, where behind him, scattered across the porch and in the front yard, are more…Dereks and more Stileses.

Fourteen total, including the two at the door, he notes distantly, eyes feeling like they’re about to pop out of his head from bulging so hard.

Seven other Dereks. Seven other Stileses.

Seven Derek and Stiles pairs.

Some of them are holding hands like the ones at the door, some leaning with arms around each other and one pair – does that Stiles have the Hale triskele tattooed on his neck? – is making out against Stiles’ Jeep in the driveway.

Stiles. Himself. And Derek. Making out.

His brain shuts down for a minute, air leaving his chest in a rush of shock and want, and maybe even something like jealousy, and that’s weird, but this is by far the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him and that’s really fucking saying something, so he’s just going to give himself a free pass on weird emotions right now.

So yeah, he doesn’t actually think anything would ever happen with him and Derek, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t imagined it, often. But having imagined it doesn’t prepare him for sight of his – clone? Future self? Doppelganger? – shoving his tongue into Derek’s – a Derek’s mouth, the Derek smiling into the kiss before pulling away, whispering into his ear before turning them both to face the house.

He manages to tear his eyes away from that pair, eyes darting over the others, trying to take it all in. Like the seemingly older ones right in front of him, the other not-Stileses and not-Dereks are just different-looking enough to not be totally identical, but identical enough that they’re clearly seven copies of himself and seven copies of Derek and what the hell.

Some of them have backpacks or messenger bags, and one has a guitar case, and the Stiles with him has a beard and that just might be the weirdest thing yet.

One of the Dereks is wearing a soft hoodie and a baseball cap, the Stiles at his side wearing glasses and a sweater vest, the geek.

Two of the Dereks are rocking full tattoo sleeves, the one with the hulking muscle like Derek – the real Derek – used to have when he was an alpha – is the one that was making out with the Stiles with the Hale triskele on his neck.

The other is wearing low-slung sweats and a white tank top, the Stiles at his side looking sleepy in a red beanie and Henley that looks decidedly Derek-sized.

Another of the Dereks looks exactly like the real Derek from a couple years ago when Scott and Stiles first saw him in the preserve, right down to the scowl and leather jacket. The Stiles at his side though – he’s…unnerving. His hair is buzzed the way Stiles used to wear it, and he radiates confidence and strength and power, maybe reminding him a little just a little bit of the Nogitsune who manifested in a copy of his body.

Stiles darts his eyes away from him, doesn’t feel much better about the last pair he spots though, but for an entirely different reason. Both of them are almost naked, wearing only snug-fitting boxer briefs. The Derek is muscled like all of them, but the Stiles is pretty cut too, with like, visible abs and biceps. He’s…well, shit, he’s hot, and seriously, what the hell?

The Stileses and Dereks are all looking at each other, taking each other in, darting glances back to the house to where Stiles is backpedaling away from the door, finally finding his voice again.

“Derek!” he yells, panic rising in his voice. “Derek get your ass down here now!”

He must sound pretty terrified, because Derek’s striding down the stairs in seconds, naked except for the towel he’s wrapping around his waist because apparently the universe hasn’t done enough to totally and completely fuck with Stiles today.

But he can’t even appreciate the beauty of almost-naked Derek, because he’s watching his eyes grow wider, and then wider still as he takes in their…visitors?

Finally, he tears his eyes away from the pairs and levels a harsh glare at Stiles, the real one, sighing heavily, exasperated. “What did you do now?”

Chapter Text

"Let me get this straight,” real-Derek says, looking down at the living room floor and rubbing his jaw with his palm.

He’s interrupted by a round of snorting giggles. A Stiles – the one with tattoos and purple hair – wiggles his eyebrows at him. “Poor choice of words, dude,” he laughs, gesturing widely to the abundance of decidedly not-straight men in the room.

Stiles snorts and Derek tenses his shoulders and sighs. It’s been a chaotic din of voices for awhile now, surreal and confusing and overwhelming. He's impressed with the patience Derek is showing – patience he never would have shown before his enlightenment. The frustration he’s exhibiting now is the first sign that this all might be starting to wear on him. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly,” Derek says through gritted teeth, enunciating each word carefully, leaning against the wall next to the fireplace. He skipped his shower and threw on some pants but he’s still shirtless, lines of crusted blood streaked across his neck and chest. Stiles doesn’t stare, even though all of the other Stileses are, not even bothering to hide their appreciation, which irritates the hell out of him.

You have a Derek of your very own whenever you want, you lucky assholes.

“Each of you – each pair of you,” Derek continues, “is from a different alternate reality. Seven different alternate realities?”

“Hey,” one of the Stiles, the dorky-looking one in glasses, interjects from where’s he snuggled on the couch with the Derek in a hoodie and baseball hat. “Why are our realities the alternates,” he says, eerily-familiar rant-preparation voice starting to rise. “Because this particular reality feels pretty alternate to me. Why is your reality the norm from which all other realities deviate?”

Ugh, this guy sucks.

Derek steps towards him, crossing his arms and flaring his nostrils the way he used to when he was totally done with Stiles’ shit. “Because you’re in my house, in my reality.”

The Stiles squares his shoulders and juts his chin up toward real-Derek, defiant glint in his eyes. “And whose fault is that? I’m pretty sure your world is the one with magic and tricksters, wolfman.” He sounds like he’s arguing but he’s smiling and there’s clearly joy in his voice; he’s loving this, trying to get a rise out of Derek. He’s probably trying to see if he reacts differently to him than his own Derek. It’s what Stiles would do, after all.

Derek sighs again and crosses his arms, returning to his tired slouch against the wall. “About that,” Stiles interrupts from he’s sitting on the ottoman near him. “Each of you were visited by a man none of you can remember anything about except that he said he was trickster and that he was sending you into an alternate reality to meet other versions of yourselves?”

“Yep,” one of the other Stiles’ says. “Crazy right?”

“What else did he say,” Derek asks.

“Just that we could bring a couple things with us if we wanted, and that we’d be here for a week.” Another Stiles this time. They’ve got to figure out a way to tell these guys apart.

“A week in your reality,” a Derek adds. “But it would be like no time at all in our realities. That we won’t even remember being here when go back.”

“A week,” real-Stiles groans, looking over at Derek.

“Thank god they’re at least going back,” he replies quietly.

“Fucking trickster dick,” Stiles seethes. “Did he say what his reason was? Are you all supposed to do something why you’re here?”

“Nope,” one of the tattooed Dereks says, digging into the pocket and producing a thin, sleek black metal case. “Just that we’re all supposed to spend some time together.”

“And,” the Stiles with the triskele tattoo on his neck says from across the room in the windowseat – “that once we’re gone, he’ll leave too. He said, and I quote 'tell him this is my last favor.'”

“Favor? This asshole thinks he’s doing me a favor –” Stiles cuts off abruptly when he’s distracted by the flick of a lighter to his right. “Dude, are you lighting a joint right now,” he asks the tattooed human Derek.

The Derek glances up from where he’s most definitely lighting a joint, eyebrows raised as if to say, yeah, and you think you can stop me? Stiles looks over to real-Derek, who just shrugs.

The Stiles next to joint-smoking Derek takes it from him and pulls a powerful hit before passing it to real-Stiles. “You look like you could use this, buddy,” he croaks as he exhales a thick plume of sour-sweet smoke.

He looks up at real-Derek again, who’s looking down at his hands, concentrating as if the answer to this whole absurd mess is there. “I think you’re right,” Stiles says, taking the joint, holding it out to real-Derek after he takes a hit. “You too, big guy?”

Derek takes the joint from him and pulls hard before passing it on to another Stiles.

“Well at least stoner etiquette is the same across parallel universes,” the bearded Stiles quips, taking it from Derek, winking at him.

“Hey,” Stiles barks, cheeks growing hot. He looks down at his hands, hoping no one notices.

You have your own Derek, leave mine alone.

Mine.

“Not all of you Dereks are werewolves, right,” he asks, clearing his throat, shifting awkwardly, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“I can’t believe werewolves are real,” one of the Dereks says quietly, the slightly older one who was at the door when Stiles answered it earlier.

“Alternate realities are cool with you but werewolves are just too hard to believe huh,” his purple-haired Stiles answers, poking him playfully in the ribs.

“Just these two are wolves,” real-Derek says, ignoring the flirting, nostrils flaring as he scents the room again. He points to the Derek sitting in the windowseat, tattoo sleeve down on right arm, and then at the younger one that looks so much Derek when Scott was first bitten. “And…you too,” real-Derek adds slowly, like he can’t really believe it, pointing his finger up from the younger version of himself to the quiet, unnervingly calm Stiles who’s relaxing into one of the easy chairs, the young wolf Derek on the floor at his feet, arm wrapped possessively around his calf. Even though he’s sprawled in the chair looking casual, he still radiates a readiness and strength that Stiles is certain he’s never felt, even when the Nogitsune was possessing him. “Guilty as charged,” the Stiles says with a wicked smile, fangs sliding free. He holds his hands up too, snaps his claws out and back in a couple times, exhibiting perfect control.

“Holy shit, I’m a werewolf,” Stiles whispers, stunned, bewildered, starting to feel the pot, because damn, alternative universe weed is good shit. “This is so weird.”

Derek falls to the floor to sit cross-legged next to the ottoman, shoulders slumping. “No shit.”

~*~

“So,” Stiles says as another joint makes it way around, concentrating very hard on not looking at Derek. Any of them. “You’re all together. There are at least seven realities parallel to this one, and in all of them you’re…together.”

“Looks that way,” the nearly-naked Derek says. They found pants for him and his Stiles, the hot one, but they still haven’t bothered with shirts. This Derek has close-cropped hair, buzzed like Stiles’ used to be. It’s not as drastic a difference as the Dereks who are covered in tattoos, but for some reason it seems that way to him. He’s had many a fantasy, after all, his fingers wrapped in that gorgeous, shining hair, tugging at it to warn of Derek of his climax, spilling across his face, reaching up to smear his come into his hair to keep his scent on him.

“What about you two,” buzzcut Derek asks, startling him from his daydream.

“Us two," Stiles sputters, shifting awkwardly to hide his erection, in vain, of course. And really, why should he even bother at this point?

“How long have you been together? Did you make the first move or did he?" The Derek's eyes mossy and bright, but Stiles can't stop staring at his hand, resting high on his Stiles' thigh, thumb rolling little circles.

“What, no,” Stiles rushes out, eyes darting over to Derek, who appears to be very focused on glaring at the younger wolf version of himself. “We’re, uh, not. Just friends, packmates. Saving each others' lives when we’re not threatening to kill each other. Research buddies. That's it.”

“Huh,” the Derek says, wholly unconvinced. “Whatever you say, Stiles," saying his name with unsettling affection and love. 

“I’m serious,” Stiles continues, heart starting to rabbit a bit. “You all may come from worlds where Stiles and Derek are a thing, but in this reality – “

“Sterek,” the Stiles in glasses interrupts.

“Excuse me?” Stiles asks. “Did you say Sterek?”

Derek, who of course was listening the whole time, spins his head toward nerdy Stiles. “What the fuck's a Sterek?”

“That’s what they call us,” the Stiles explains, patting his Derek on the shoulder and leaning in to kiss his cheek.

God, that’s not going to stop hurting any time soon.

Nerdy Stiles looks to the real Derek, smiling smugly. “In our reality, Derbear here is the first – and still only – out professional baseball player,” he pats his him on the shoulder, smiling proudly. “He’s a bit of a celebrity, a gay rights hero, if you will.” His Derek rolls his eyes and blushes, and Stiles thinks he might die, because now he knows what Derek looks like when he’s embarrassed, and it's adorable.

There’s a murmur of congratulations and awe throughout the room, but Stiles watches his Derek, trying to gauge his reaction to learning that he’s a gay icon in another reality. “You play pro ball,” Derek asks his doppelself, clearly impressed. “What position?”

“Pitcher,” baseball Derek answers, relieved, clearly thankful that he doesn’t have to talk about his celebrity status.

“But don’t worry,” his Stiles chirps, “he catches, too.” He winks and the room erupts in the laughter of seven Stereks.

Now the real Derek, hisDerek, is blushing, resolutely refusing to meet Stiles’ gaze.

“So what’s Sterek,” the Derek with the guitar asks when the laughter dies down. He’s casually strumming, just a few notes here and there, stretched out on the floor with his feet in the bearded Stiles’ lap.

“There have been a few TV specials and a bunch of articles about – well, mostly about how awesome Derek is, but also about astoundingly gay we are. We’ve gained some fame as a couple. We, uh, have a bit of a fandom, and they call us Sterek. You know, Stiles and Derek. Our couple name.”

“Look at that, buddy,” Stiles says, lightly punching Derek on the shoulder, valiantly trying ignore just how awkward this is for the both of them. “We’re a portmanteau.”

Derek doesn’t look all that amused though, looks exhausted actually, like he’s just totally done with everything. “This is un-fucking-believable,” he mutters, head dropping to his hands.

~*~

The conversation drifts and splinters for a while as they all talk amongst themselves, getting to know each other. It’s an uncanny echo chamber of familiar cadences and laughter, but it doesn’t take too long before Stiles settles into it, adapting to the weird. He’s gotten quite good at that since his best friend became a werewolf.

And since he fell in love with one.

He texts Scott and Lydia, telling them the basics and asking them to come back to the house to confirm that this is actually happening, and to bring clothes and blankets because these guys are going to have to sleep somewhere.

Stiles jerks his head up when he hears the younger wolf Derek ask real-Derek a question, voice hard-edged and suspicious, scowl all too-familiar but still strange – it’s been so long since he’s seen it.

“Who’s your alpha?”

Stiles looks over at real-Derek, who turns away from his conversation with the glasses Derek to level one of his better glares back at his younger self. “Scott McCall,” he says as he stands, defiant and proud. Stiles rolls his eyes, but he still smiles.

Gentlemen, may I present to you President of the Scott McCall Fan Club, Derek Hale.

Young wolf Derek scoffs, rises from the floor quickly to step closer to real-Derek. “McCall?”

“He’s a true alpha,” Derek says, smug and smiling, crossing his arms.

“Must have been a real vacuum of power around here for that to happen,” young Derek quips right back, leaning closer to him.

Stiles jumps up to intervene. He’s seen Derek aggressively defend Scott’s good name at far less provocation. “Hey, back off,” he orders the younger Derek, pulling on his bicep.

Young Derek snatches Stiles’ wrist, not hard, but just enough to pull his hand away from him, eyes flashing blue for an instant. It’s so like the old Derek that Stiles feels a wave of déjà vu, tainted with a fear long unfelt.

Derek doesn’t seem to appreciate his doppelself’s hand on Stiles, because he’s growling, fangs snapping and eyes glowing their own bright blue, grabbing the younger Derek’s arm and pulling his hand from Stiles wrist. He elbows Stiles out of the way - handling him more roughly than younger Derek had, the weirdo - to get closer to the other Derek, whose fangs slide free as he growls back.

Stiles stumbles backwards until the back of his knees hit the ottoman, falling heavily on to it. At the same moment there’s a blur of movement and a roar loud enough to shake the walls, and the wolf Stiles is there in between them, eyes glowing red and snarling in real-Derek’s face.

Stiles stares up at the ridiculous scene before him, stunned but entranced: the ridiculous posturing between the Derek he used to know and the Derek he knows now; his own face shaped into a snarl, eyes flamed with crimson. “Holy shit,” he stutters, feeling his own eyes go huge.

Real-Derek’s surprised too, but he doesn’t back down. He snarls again, but he doesn’t seem as into it as before, like he’s more disgruntled than angry now.

“Back off,” wolf Stiles, a fucking alpha, growls, twisting his hands in Derek’s shirt.

“Come on now, guys,” Stiles says, but he’s interrupted by another flash of burning red eyes, and another rippling wall of Derek-shaped muscle stepping in front of him. It’s the tattooed wolf Derek, also an alpha, it seems. Stiles is starting to think that they should have taken a census before they let these guys in.

“Both of you stop it,” alpha Derek says, pulling Derek and the wolf Stiles apart with ease, exuding more calm strength and comfort with his power than the real Derek ever did when he was an alpha. Derek and alpha Stiles hold each others glares for a second longer before backing away from each other, returning to their seats.

The room’s silent for a moment, a little tense, seven Stereks and a Stiles and a Derek, all watching each other, trying to figure each other out.

“Dude,” Stiles says finally, smiling over at his Derek. “I’m the alpha.”

~*~

Scott and Lydia show up not long after the wolf showdown, both looking a little dazed and entirely too amused for Stiles’ liking, but taking the whole absurd situation in stride. Lydia is kind and perceptive enough to not to berate him for the trickster again; she just gives him a knowing glance after she catches him staring a little too longingly at one of the Stereks cuddling on the couch.

Stiles and Derek leave Scott and Lydia to babysit so they can talk privately in the kitchen. “Dude, what the hell,” Stiles says, collapsing into a chair at the table.

Derek sits across from him, arms crossed. “This is your fault.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. Thank you.” Stiles can’t even pretend to try and defend himself. Accident or not, he summoned the trickster, and clearly he failed at banishing him as well. “I gotta give the asshole credit though,” he sighs. “This is a pretty complicated way to fuck with us,” he ventures, trying to feel out how Derek’s reacting to all this. The most emotion he’s shown all night is when he was protecting Stiles from the young Derek, and right now he mostly just looks tired.

“Complicated is one way to put it,” Derek says.

“Weird as fuck is another.”

“Definitely.”

“I guess that’s the trick. I mean, that’s the trickster’s game? Screw with us, make us uncomfortable by forcing us hang out with all these different versions of….” Stiles was going to say us, in love but the words get caught in his throat.

“Sterek?” Derek supplies, saying the word slowly, like he still doesn’t quite believe it.

“Yeah,” Stiles nods, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Derek says quietly after a minute of silence, looking down at his arms. “It’s strange, yes, and it’s overwhelming, and I think the next week might drive us both insane, but I’m not…uncomfortable seeing…them.”

Stiles relaxes, relief releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. “Well, good. I’m not either.” He wonders if Derek can hear his lie, wonders if he has any idea why the Stereks get under his skin. “It’s just weird. A bunch of mes and a bunch of yous is crazy enough. The whole…Sterek of it all is…uh, yeah.” Fuck, he’s rambling and ridiculous and now Derek is staring at him like he’s confused. He pauses and takes a couple of shallow breaths. “How many alternate universes do you think there are? Are we in all of them? Are we…Sterek in all of them?”

Derek shrugs. “Or maybe there’s no alternate universes at all, and the trickster just conjured these guys up.”

“Huh.” Stiles hadn’t really considered that. That’s one of the things he’s come to truly appreciate about Derek, how he always sees things in ways Stiles misses, from different perspectives that he fails to recognize. It used to mean that they were always arguing, but lately it’s helped them both become better scholars, get to know each other better. “You think he has that kind of power,” he asks, intrigued. “They seem so real.”

“Would that take more or less power than interdimensional travel?”

Stiles starts bouncing in his chair a bit, rising up to tuck a leg under himself, leaning forward on the table in excitement. “That is a fascinating question. How would we even begin researching that? I guess we could start with – “

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s getting late, we’ve had an exhausting few days already and we’re definitely going to have an exhausting week. Can we just figure out what to do with these guys tonight so we can all get some sleep?”

“Oh, right. Sorry man. Okay, so I was thinking. We got to have a way to tell these guys apart and talk to them, right? So why don’t we bring in here one by one –“

“You mean two by two,” Derek reminds him, and Stiles thinks he sees a grin, but it’s too quick and shy for him to be sure.

“Bring them in here one Sterek at a time, and ask them some questions, get to know them. Figure out what to call them, because this is going to get confusing real quick if we don't. We’ll assign each pair a room and then hopefully we’ll wake up and find out this was all a very vivid, very weird dream.”

“I can’t believe they have to stay here,” Derek groans, hands covering his face again.

“Dude, where do you expect them to go? We can’t send them down the Holiday Inn. They shouldn’t even leave your property – do you want seven of your doppelgangers running around town stirring shit up while wearing your face, because I sure as hell don’t.”

“I know,” Derek says, looking tired. “It’s just, I got this house for the pack, for…not for this.”

“Technically, they are pack. They’re us, dude. Different, yeah, but apparently they’re like…who we would be if…I don’t know. If I was bitten. If you were human. If we were…” Stiles isn’t sure if he should gay or bi or queer or just together, so he settles for vaguely waving between them.

Derek shifts in his chair, rolling his shoulders, but he keeps his eyes on him, watching him closely.

Stiles holds his eyes for a second before taking a deep breath. “I’m bi,” he blurts out, heart pounding, unable to stop himself. “I don’t really know why I just told you that, I’ve only told Lydia, actually, but um, I guess it seems…relevant now?” He rubs harder at the back of his neck, feeling practically on fire with how hot he’s blushing.

“Okay,” Derek says, still not looking away, the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth that Stiles is sure he's imagining.

“Okay,” Stiles repeats, heart racing. He just came out, and fuck, it was scary but it felt good to say it out loud, which is crazy, considering the Derek of it all.

“Let’s get to talking to these guys,” Derek says, rising from his chair. “I’d like to get some sleep soon.”

Stiles stands as well. “I’d like to get home and get some sleep too.” He stretches, starting to feel as tired as Derek looks.

“Oh that’s hilarious that you think you get to leave,” Derek smiles, clapping him on the shoulder as he pushes him out of the kitchen. “If I have to stay here and deal with them, so do you.”

It’s silly, really, how happy that makes Stiles.

~*~

“Okay,” Stiles announces, brandishing the piece of paper. “If we’re going to stand any chance of getting through the next week without going insane, we need to figure out how to differentiate each other, so based on what you all just said about who you are and what you look like, I’ve assigned us all identifying names, okay?”

He and Derek have finally finished talking to each of the Stereks individually, getting enough information about them to tell them apart and name them. In the process, each and every Sterek told them how they met and got together, with Stiles growing more frustrated and jealous with each Sterek meet-cute he learned about.

They’re back in the living room now, Scott and Lydia still lounging comfortably with the Stereks. Scott seems utterly enamored with all of the Stileses and vice versa; he wonders if there's any reality where he and Scott aren't best friends. Probably not, he decides with a smile, the thought reassuring him.

Stiles points to the Stiles in glasses and sweater vest and his baseball player Derek. “You’re Nerd Stiles, and you’re Jock Derek.”

“Real creative there, genius,” Nerd Stiles says. “And Jock? Is this reality a bad eighties high school movie?”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Moving on.” Stiles points to one of the tattooed Dereks – the human one currently lighting another joint. Seriously dude? “You’re Stoner Derek, and you’re Stoner Stiles.”

“Your creativity is boundless,” Stoner Stiles says, fist bumping Nerd Stiles when he snorts a laugh.

“It’s supposed to be obvious, that's the whole point,” Derek snarls. “Please just shut up and let him finish.”

Stiles clears his throat. He never thought he’d live to see the day that Derek was telling people to shut up so he could talk. Granted, it’s other Stileses he’s telling to shut up, so it’s probably not the victory he takes it as.

He looks to the other tattooed Derek, the werewolf one. “You’re Alpha Derek, and you’re Fox Stiles,” still trying to wrap his head around the fact that in their reality, he and his Derek are mates who dreamt about each other as a fox and a wolf since childhood.

Next is the Derek with the guitar and the Stiles with the beard, which still, what. “Hipster Derek and Hipster Stiles.”

“We’re not hipsters!” Hipster Stiles objects. “He’s a very talented singer-songwriter.”

“Yeah, tell that to your beard and skinny jeans,” Stiles snaps, turning his back on him.

He doesn’t turn to see who throws the lighter at his head. Soldiering on, he points at the tattooed Stiles with the purple-tipped hair. “Punk Stiles, obviously,” he says, hopefully preventing any further insults to his intelligence. And then to Punk Stiles’ Derek, the older one with the errant strands of gray in his beard. “And you’re Writer Derek.”

“Fair enough,” Writer Derek says with a soft smile, and Stiles really wants to hug him.

He turns to the wolf Stiles, still a little freaked out by him. “Alpha Stiles, of course. And, um, Omega Derek?” He’s worried about insulting him – but both of them had used the term freely when they were speaking, and now they just smile and look at each other like they’re sharing a secret, hands intertwined.

“And finally,” Stiles announces, turning towards the shirtless pair, the one with the weirdly hot Stiles and the buzzcut Derek. “Last, but certainly not least," he says with a heavy sigh. “Porn Stiles and Porn Derek.”

The room erupts with hoots and laughs and Derek just rolls his eyes while Stiles blushes wildly; he can't believe there's a reality out there where he and Derek are freakin’ porn stars, and popular ones if what they say is true.

Porn Derek levels an all-too familiar exasperated glare at him. “I told you I’m a veterinarian,” he says, trying to sound indignant.

“Who does porn,” Stiles retorts quickly.

“He’s got a point, babe,” Porn Stiles says, elbowing him in the ribs. Porn Derek rolls his eyes and kisses him before whispering something into his ear that makes his eyes flutter and mouth hang out open in obvious lust.

Stiles looks away from them, trying to subdue the pang in his chest, trying to steady himself, hoping Derek doesn't notice how their loving flirtation affects him. Alpha Derek notices, though, eyes locked on Stiles’ with a curious crook of his stupid Dereky eyebrow.

“What about you guys,” Omega Derek asks, still looking a little murderous and pouty. “You just get to be Stiles and Derek? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Remember the part about how this is our reality,” Derek explains slowly through a clenched jaw.

“Derek is right,” Stiles interrupts. “Because this is our reality, will be going by Stiles” – he lets a hand fall to his chest with a dramatic thump, lifts the other clap Derek’s shoulder – “and Derek. Deal with it, Stereks.”

Derek rolls his eyes at him, but Stiles knows that smug, pleased smile.

~*~

They get all of the Stereks situated in their own rooms and tucked in, as Lydia and Scott keep saying, laughing with way less dignity that befits a banshee and a true alpha, in Stiles’ opinion.

Writer Derek and Punk Stiles graciously agree to take the mattress Lydia and Scott brought over, the floor in the living room the only space big enough for it. Stiles has been sleeping in one of the downstairs bedrooms for the past few nights, but he gave it up to Porn Sterek, planning to sleep on the couch...until he realizes that means sleeping mere feet from Writer and Punk Sterek, and well, uh no. The whole point of making sure each Sterek gets a bedroom is because the assholes can’t seem to keep their hands off each other and Stiles has no interest in courtside seats to a Sterek doppelfuck.

Well, no interest might be a little bit of an overstatement. It’s weird, sure, but it’s natural to be curious right? Of course he’s already considered the possibility of seeing something more than the absurdly passionate and loving kisses these jerks seem to be addicted to. Of course he wants to know what he and Derek look like when they fuck, even if it just the thought of it worsens his aching jealousy. Of course he's curious. He's just not sure he can handle that quite yet.

“I guess I’ll sleep on the floor in the kitchen,” Stiles blurts out once he realizes where his mind was going and that he’s staring directly at Writer Derek’s bulge. He starts gathering up couch cushions, averting his gaze.

“Now that doesn’t seem fair,” Fox Stiles says as he walks past, brushing his teeth.

“Is that my toothbrush,” Stiles asks, staring at him in horror.

“It is! Thanks, buddy.” He winks and walks out of the room, yelling for his Derek.

Derek can barely contain his laughter as he yanks the couch cushions from Stiles’ arms. “Are you starting to see what a pain in the ass you are?”

“You’re loving that entirely too much. Now give me back my cushions. I’m exhausted and honestly I couldn’t really care less about where I sleep at this point.”

“I’m not going to let you sleep on the kitchen floor like Cinderella, Stiles. You can share my room.”

Stiles is pretty sure he hears Writer Derek laugh, but he’s too focused on trying to figure out Derek’s expression, guarded and neutral as it is, his brain trying to process the fact that Derek just offered to share his room with him. “Um, sure, yeah, okay. I can sleep on the floor up there.”

He’s sure that Writer Derek laughs at that, and Punk Stiles too, the traitor. “Okay,” Derek says softly, helping Stiles replace the couch cushions.

~*~

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” Derek says, closing his bedroom door behind them. “The bed’s plenty big enough.”

Stiles swallows hard. “If that’s okay with you, sure. Thanks.”

Derek is right; the bed is a California king, and it’s more than adequate to comfortably sleep two adult men with no sexual intentions towards each other whatsoever.

“Do you need pajamas,” Derek asks, pulling a couple pairs of sweats from a dresser drawer.

It dawns on Stiles then that he left the old pair of Scott’s sweats that he’d been sleeping in the past few nights downstairs in the room now occupied by Porn Sterek. “Yeah, thanks dude.”

Derek grunts and tosses the sweats and a black t-shirt at him before heading to the attached master bathroom and closing the door, shower starting to run soon after.

Stiles changes quickly and waits for his turn in the bathroom, thumbing through his phone but not really paying attention to anything, focusing on calming his nerves so Derek doesn’t suffocate in the scent of his anxiety. Or his lust, because fuck, he’s going to be sharing a bed with Derek.

Derek emerges from the bathroom, hair wet, skin smelling like soap and looking delicious and adorable. Stiles goes in to brush his teeth with the spare toothbrush Derek left out for him. He tries to avoid his gaze in the mirror, doesn’t want to see how splotchy his cheeks probably are, or how dark the circles under his eyes have gotten, doesn’t want to see just what his face looks like when he’s both excited and terrified to be going to bed with Derek.

To sleep next to Derek.

The lights are off when he exits the bathroom, but there’s enough moonlight coming in from the huge skylight that he can easily find his way to the bed. Derek’s already under the dark covers, back towards him. “Thanks again,” Stiles says, sliding in next to him, lying down on his back. “This is a lot more comfortable than the floor.” The bed’s nearly big enough that Stiles could almost reach an arm across and not touch Derek’s back. Almost.

“It didn’t really seem fair that you’d be the only one without a bed,” Derek says, voice heavy with sleepiness.

“Maybe that should be my punishment for getting us into this mess.” Stiles settles into the sheets; they’re soft and smell like Derek and he can’t help but breathe in deeply, even if it does absolutely nothing to calm the growing arousal he’s feeling.

With the pack imprisonment, he didn’t get much time to take care of himself like he usually does, had been a little hesitant about jacking in a house full of beings with super hearing, so it’s been too long since his last orgasm and god, Derek smells so good.

Derek kinda laughs and starts to say something but then stops, shoulders tensing like he’s listening to something. “Of course,” he sighs, resigned.

“What?” Stiles hears it as soon as he asks, the noises growing louder, impossible not to hear. There’s the competing rhythms of several headboards steadily tapping against walls, and a chorus of muffled moans and laughter. The master bedroom is fairly secluded from all of the other rooms, but they can still hear the noise coming from all directions.

Every Derek and Stiles in the house – except for the ones lying awkwardly side-by-side in the master bedroom – are fucking each others brains out. Loudly.

He rolls away from Derek, as if that would hide the scent of his raging boner. “No, this is my punishment,” he mutters, willing himself to sleep.

~*~

Stiles watches Derek sleep for hours while he fights to not toss and turn, sleep remaining elusive despite his tiredness. Finally, somewhere around two am, he throws back the covers and stalks out of the room, fidgety and restless and frustrated.

The racket of fucking died down a while ago, the house now oddly silent for being so full. Apparently everyone is sleeping well except for him.

Stiles quietly makes his way downstairs to the kitchen for a glass a water, wandering over to stare out the sliding glass door into the dark backyard, trying to wrap his head around what’s happening. The initial shock of seeing himself repeated in so many variations has almost worn off completely now, replaced by the rising, chaotic mix of emotions stirred up by the discovery about his other selves and the other Dereks.

It should make him happy, thrill him even, that this all seems to be suggesting that he and Derek are…destined? Meant to be? But he’s not sure if he even believes in stuff like that, alternate realities and interdimensional travel notwithstanding. If anything, the arrival of the Stereks has filled him with even more longing, more frustration, more self-doubt.

If all of the Dereks in all the other realities love their Stileses, why doesn’t his Derek love him?

And make no mistake, the Stereks love each other, of that much at least, Stiles is sure. It’s not just the kissing and the affection and the good-natured teasing, voices sparkly with adoration. It’s how they look at each other; Stiles hasn’t seen such worshipful, loving gazes exchanged between two people since his mom was alive. Something else too, an aura maybe, something he used to feel when he was a kid, an energy that surrounds people in love. The air was thick with it all night.

Fucking tricksters. He always thought they were into mischief and chaos, maliciously so maybe, but he didn’t think they’d pull stunts like this, didn’t think his trick would be to show him so many possible versions of what he wants but can’t have. It seems oddly cruel.

He hears a murmur of voices from the bedroom closest to the kitchen, his former room that Porn Sterek is now occupying. Curious and shameless, he sets his empty glass on the counter and creeps silently down the hall, crouching down next to the slightly ajar door, peering in. From this angle and in the dark, he can barely make out the rough outline of two cuddling figures under the covers.

He hears Derek’s voice, words slightly muffled like his mouth is pressed against skin. “I don’t understand how they’ve known each other for almost two years and aren’t together.”

The snorting laughter Stiles hears in response is just like his own, mostly. “Just because you had my dick in your mouth an hour after we met,” Porn Stiles teases.

Stiles feels his eyes bulge, has to bite his knuckle to keep from groaning.

Why can’t he live in that reality?

“This reality’s me is an idiot for not doing the same to his Stiles,” Derek whispers. “I don’t know how he keeps his hands off him.”

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut for a second before peering back into the room.

There’s more low murmuring from both of them before he can make out Porn Derek’s voice again. “Speaking of your dick in my mouth,” he coos, playful; it makes Stiles think of his Derek, raising his eyebrows at him from across the Jeep. I’m thinking about punching you in the face.

Rustling of blankets, indistinguishable moans, laughter, loud shuddering breaths. This is weird, so weird, but fuck, it’s also so, so hot and he can’t help but palm himself through Derek’s borrowed pajama pants, cock starting to ache. He briefly wonders how wrong it is, to get off on listening to them without their knowing it, but it’s really not all that different than masturbation, if you really think about it, if you can follow his special Stiles logic (which, by definition, means the other Stiles would totally understand. See? Flawless logicking.)

The noises from the bed grow louder: wet, sloppy sucking as Porn Derek goes down on his Stiles, whose breathless exclamations are getting louder, more urgent. “Fuck, Derek, yeah…just like that…oh god, your fucking mouth.” There’s a Derek-sounding rumble, maybe a growl, even though this Derek is human. “You're so pretty with your cock in my mouth, Der, so pretty when you’re hungry for it.”

In the dark hallway, watching the bobbing outline of Derek’s head and shoulders, Stiles bites his lip hard. It doesn’t fully contain his moan, but he can’t be bothered to care too much any more. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give to be whispering that loving filth to his Derek. He’s gotten head before, and it was fun and all, but he doesn’t remember sounding like this, whimpering and wrecked and needy and loving. It sounds like his alternate self is falling to pieces under Derek's mouth and fuck, he wants to know what that’s like.

“Gonna come,” Porn Stiles huffs. “In your mouth?”

Stiles wants to know what Derek looks like when he says yes to that question. He pulls his hand from his cock, not wanting to come like this, crouched against the wall in the hallway.

He wants to hear what he sounds like when his come is being sucked out of him by Derek.

Porn Stiles moans and shudders when he comes, writhing and jerking on the bed. After a few long beats of heavy panting Stiles hears his voice again, now ragged and unfamiliar, sounding more fucked out than he's ever felt. “C’mon, get up here, kiss me.”

Stiles nearly chokes. He watches Derek’s huddled shape crawl up the bed, hears the slurping smack of spit and come, and then the Stiles’ muffled grunts, the rhythmic bouncing of the bed, Derek straddling his chest, fucking his mouth, and it’s not long before Derek is coming with long, low moans.

Stiles scrambles to his feet and strides to the bathroom down the hall, dick out of his pants before he gets the door closed. He knocks over the bottle of lotion counter in his eagerness to pump some into his palm, even though he hardly needs it, dick wet, syrupy ribbon of precome tethering him to Derek’s sweats as he shoves them roughly down his thighs.

It only takes a few rough strokes before he’s bowed over, heat crawling up his spine in bursting pulses, knees softening and buckling, forehead pressed against his arm as he leans against the mirror, back arching as he sprays hot and thick across the counter, splattering up onto the glass.

Panting and dazed, small beads of sweat on his lower back, at his temple, Stiles wipes up his mess with a wad of toilet paper, avoiding his come-speckled reflection in the mirror. He's seen enough of himself for one night.

Chapter Text

Stiles manages to fall asleep when he slinks back up to Derek’s bed after thoroughly cleaning up his mess in the bathroom. He wakes with a start near dawn, looking immediately over to Derek where he's still firmly entrenched on his side of the bed, but facing him now, still asleep. Never one to give up a chance to stare at him without having to pretend that he’s not, Stiles watches him sleep. He looks…soft. His eyebrows are even more caterpillary in repose, his wide mouth gentle and sweet. The V of the purple shirt he’s wearing is stretched by how he’s lying, revealing a generous expanse of chest hair.

If he were a different Stiles, he’d be able to scoot over to him, maybe wake him with a gentle kiss right there where the graceful arc of his collarbone hollows and dips below his muscled shoulder.

But he’s not a different Stiles. He’s the one Stiles in all the worlds who isn’t enough for his Derek.

That utterly depressing thought is going to lead directly to wallowing – wallowing in bed about Derek next Derek, ugh, no thank you – so he rolls out of from under the stupidly soft and warm down comforter, rubbing his hands through his bedhead. After using the bathroom he splashes cold water on his face and brushes his teeth, feeling slightly more awake but no less frustrated.

It’s barely six am, he realizes when he digs his cell from the pocket of his jeans after he pulls them on, grabbing a black Henley from Derek’s dresser, ignoring the little thrill it gives him to be wearing Derek’s clothes, again, still.

He has several mocking texts from Isaac and more sympathetic ones from Scott, and one from Lydia informing him that she’ll be back today with more supplies and clothes for their guests. He ignores Isaac and replies to Scott and Lydia while taking the back stairs down to the kitchen, the house quiet.

Lydia’s text reminds him that even though they lucked out with the house, they’re still unprepared for the care and feeding of seven Stereks for a week. He makes coffee, trying to be as quiet as possible so he doesn’t wake up Writer Derek and Punk Stiles in the living room. He decides that his first priority should be food, staring into the near-empty fridge that was pretty much cleaned out by the pack’s enforced stay.

“Morning,” a soft, familiar voice says behind him, close to his ear.

“Jesus, where’d you come from!” he exclaims, spinning around.

“Last I checked, an alternate reality,” Writer Derek says, eyes soft behind his glasses, hair tousled and messy just like Derek’s was when Stiles woke up next to him. “Is there coffee in this reality?” he asks, pitiful almost.

Stiles laughs, stepping away from him. He was standing…close. “Yeah, it’ll be ready in a minute,” he answers, turning his back on Writer Derek to get two mugs from the cupboard above the coffee maker. “You sleep okay,” he asks, feeling his neck redden, remembering the chorus of Stereky moans that filled the house last night.

“I don’t have trouble sleeping anymore,” Writer Derek says, leaning back against the counter. “I can sleep anywhere if Stiles is with me,” he adds, smiling.

Stiles tries not to think about how quickly Derek fell asleep last night.

“Come on,” Writer Derek says, handing him a full mug of coffee a minute later, jolting him out of his reverie.

He follows him into the living room and joins him on the couch, where it looks like he’s been sitting for a while. There’s a book, an iphone, and large black moleskine notebook and an expensive-looking pen on the cushion next to where he sits, cross-legged and clutching his mug.

It’s such an adorable and strange sight Stiles has to look away, stares hard into his own mug. He likes lots of cream and sugar in his coffee and they’re completely out both, but he drinks it anyways, needing the caffeine.

Punk Stiles is still asleep on the mattress on the floor, naked by the looks of it, blanket riding low on his hips where he’s sprawled on his back. Stiles studies his tattoos for a moment, again ponders the weirdness of seeing himself, but not himself. It’s not like when the Nogitsune was wearing his face; the demon was sucking the life of out him at the time, radiating his dark hunger like a black cloud. These other Stileses don’t feel dark or malicious. They feel comfortable, familiar, the Dereks too.

Like pack.

He shakes his head and looks away from him, back towards the pile of stuff next to Writer Derek. “You’ve been up long?”

“I’ve been writing,” he explains, gesturing towards his things. “The trickster,” – he says it with a sense of wonder, and Stiles reminds himself that he’s human – “said that we wouldn’t remember anything about being here, so I’m writing it all down.”

Stiles is intrigued. “Do you really think that will work? If he can bring you all here I’m sure he has the power to erase your journal, or destroy it, or not let you take it back with you.”

Writer Derek just shrugs and sips his coffee, smiling. “Maybe. Probably. But it’s worth a shot. I’d like to remember this.”

“Yeah well, I hope I get to forget it,” Stiles says, looking away from him.

“I don’t think you really mean that.” Writer Derek drinks his coffee, eyebrows up in a familiar look of challenge.

Stiles is about to offer an admittedly weak objection when he’s interrupted by Punk Stiles, still sleeping it seems, but talking, rolling over onto his side. “Derbabe,” he mumbles.

“He talks in his sleep,” Writer Derek says, smiling down at him with a look that can only be described as loving. Maybe adoring. “I wonder if you do too,” he muses, still watching his Stiles.

He does. Malia hated it.

“Derek, come back to bed,” Punk Stiles continues, hands grabbing at the mattress, eyes still closed. “Need more you.”

Stiles snorts into his coffee.

“Shh, sleep, babe,” Writer Derek coos, so tender it twists Stiles’ gut a bit.

“‘kay, but I still owe you that blowjob,” he murmurs before flopping over onto his stomach.

“So,” Stiles says a little too loudly, not meeting Derek’s eyes. “What’s this,” he asks, reaching for the book next to him.

“That is a copy of my new book. I had it in my bag when we…left.” His ears pink a little when he tells him, like he’s shy about Stiles reading his work. Not shy about making blowjob plans with my doppelganger right in front of me though, he thinks wryly.

“Can I?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” He drinks his coffee, eyes still on the now lightly snoring Punk Stiles.

Stiles studies the cover of the hardback – a jewel-toned, abstract drawing of two figures twisting around each other underwater – the name Derek Hale just as big as the title, Magic Bullet. It’s a gorgeous cover, and the back is covered with quotes from glowing advanced reviews, the biggest one asserting that “Magic Bullet is Hale’s best work yet – quite an accomplishment, given his previous brilliance.” Stiles looks over at him, not bothering to hide how impressed he is. Derek still looks a little embarrassed, and Stiles tries to memorize how adorable that look on that face it is before looking back down to the book.

Half of the back flap is taken up by his author photo, Writer Derek looking friendly and sweet in a loose tie, beard soft and dark, eyes big and gentle behind his glasses. In small print at the bottom, he reads the words photo by Stiles Stilinski.

“Weird,” he mutters, running his fingers over the embossed title, then Derek’s name. “Can I borrow this while you’re here? Can I read it, I mean?”

“Sure,” he says. He picks up his phone and swipes at it a few times, looking like he’s mulling something over. “Do you want to see pictures of us? Of our life?"

Stiles says yes quickly, stomach twisting a bit in anxiety-tinged anticipation. Derek passes the phone to him. “These are all from the past year or so.”

Stiles taps on the first photo in the album, bringing it up full size. It’s Writer Derek, smiling broadly with his arm around a gorgeous woman who's clearly related to him. She’s got the same night-dark hair and green eyes, hard-edged features that look to be softened a bit by her advanced pregnancy.

“Laura?” Stiles asks quietly.

“Yeah,” he answers, smiling. “She’s a veterinarian.”

 He slides to the next picture, this one of Laura in a hospital bed, looking tired but happy, clutching a dark-haired newborn to her chest.

“That’s Haven,” Derek tells him, smiling proudly. “She’s almost a year old now.”

The next picture is of Writer Derek in a rocking chair, holding the baby. He’s looking down at her, smiling, and Punk Stiles is standing next to him, his own smile just as sweet and adoring, but his gaze on Derek.

Stiles swallows and moves on to the next one, Punk Stiles, topless and sleeping on a couch, the baby in only a diaper and knitted booties sleeping on his tattooed chest. “She loves her uncle Stiles,” Derek says looking at the screen.

“Does this guy ever wear a shirt,” Stiles huffs, ignoring the way Writer Derek’s eyes crinkle even more than his Derek’s when he smiles.

“Not very often,” he answers, smile all mischief now. “It’s one of my favorite things about him.”

“Oh, god,” Stiles rolls his eyes, sipping at his coffee, finally getting used to the taste, scrolling through more pictures. Derek holding an older Haven on his shoulders, her Hale-green eyes wide, Derek laughing as her chubby hands clutch at his glasses. Stiles in his coffee shop he told them about last night, sticking his pierced tongue out at the camera. Laura and Stiles in matching sheriff’s department softball t-shirts, smiling faces streaked with dirt.

The next photo makes him sputter his coffee a bit. Laura again, but with her arm wrapped around a bearded Chris Argent, who’s holding Haven on his hip. “Chris and Laura,” Stiles asks, looking up at him.

“Yeah, they’ve been together for about six months. Laura’s really happy, and Haven loves him.”

“That’s...cool,” he mutters, wondering how Derek will react to learning that Laura is not only alive in this reality, but that she's with an Argent. He continues flipping through the photos; there are several selfies of Stiles and Derek: at the beach, at baseball games, at a book signing, snuggled together on a couch. They’re always smiling or making goofy faces, and in several, one is kissing the other on the cheek.

He pauses for a long time on one, clearly taken by Stiles, his colorfully tattooed arm stretching toward the camera. They’re in bed, Derek asleep and spooned in front of him, resting his chin on Derek’s shoulder and smiling towards the camera, looking happier than Stiles has ever felt.

Stiles puts the phone down, standing up quickly and rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve got to get to the store. I’m guessing everyone’s going to wake up hungry, and we don’t have any food.”

“You’ll need help.” Writer Derek says, standing, thankfully choosing to ignore Stiles’ sudden discomfort. “I’ll go with you.”

Stiles could use the help – he’s going to have to buy a ton of food, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t find Writer Derek’s calm, gentle presence comforting. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Do you really expect to see anyone you know at the grocery store at this hour? And I’m sure I can pass for your Derek if we do.

Stiles ignores the your and looks him over again. He’s right. The glasses are the most obvious difference, but it’s not like it would matter if anyone who knows Derek thinks he got glasses. Only people who know he’s a werewolf would think that’s weird, and they’re already apprised of their situation. The few strands of gray in his beard and at his temples can easily be explained away too, if necessary, he reasons, grinning at the thought of telling people that Derek secretly dyes his hair.

"Yeah, okay," he says.

~*~

Stiles creeps back into Derek’s room where he’s still sleeping, now sprawled out in the middle of the bed on his stomach. He ignores the weird pang in chest when he sees him like that, and focuses on locating Derek’s wallet on the dresser. He almost has his credit card in hand when a sleep-muffled voice stops him. “Stiles,” Derek growls from the bed. “What are you doing?”

“Just go back to sleep, Derek. You’re dreaming…I’m Stoner Stiles, looking for money to buy weed. Shhh.”

Derek makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, and Stiles can’t help but giggle too. “What are you doing, real Stiles,” he muffles into a pillow, sounding less grumpy.

It’s weird, how happy that makes him feel. “We don’t have any food and the kids are going to be up soon,” he quips, hoping Derek is at a place where they can joke about this.

Derek grunts and tosses a pillow at his head, but he lets Stiles take his credit card and his car keys.

~*~

Stiles would prefer to take his Jeep – would prefer to drive pretty much anything other than Derek’s heinously ugly Toyota, but he’s pretty sure everything they need to buy won’t fit in the Jeep, so he grits his teeth and forebears.

“What the hell is this thing,” Writer Derek asks, climbing in the passenger seat.

“Dude, I don’t even know,” Stiles answers, backing out of the graveled driveway.

~*~

“Should I take my glasses off?”

“No, I think it’ll be fine,” he says, glancing over to him as he drives into town, getting just a little nervous about taking one of the doppelDereks out in public. “You’re beardier than real Derek, but he’s a hairy SOB, so no one will think that’s weird. Just don’t…smile a lot, okay? And don’t laugh too much, or at all, if you can help it. And don’t like…go out of your way to be friendly to anyone.”

Writer Derek looks amused. “So you want me to be an asshole?”

“Not an asshole. Or not a total asshole. Derek’s just…a poor conversationalist. Well, not really. I mean, he seems that way at first, all abrasive and grumpy, but it’s just a defense mechanism, you know? Hell, you probably do actually know, since, you’re like, you know, him. Or you. Whatever. Anyways, he’s actually a quite good conversationalist once he gets comfortable with you, and he’s gotten a lot better recently. He’s crazy smart, and pretty funny if you pay attention."

Stiles is bouncing his fingers on the steering wheel as he talks, fully aware that’s he rambling but unable to stop. Writer Derek just looks at him, smiling like Stiles’ blabbering is the most entertaining thing in the world.

~*~

They each take a cart, and since Stiles is too overwhelmed and tired from too-little sleep, he doesn’t bother making a list or trying to plan meals, just goes with a “grab a shitload of everything” strategy. Safeway is practically empty at this hour, and it doesn’t take long before their carts are overflowing.

Derek helps him load everything onto the conveyor belt, the checkout clerk – a college-aged guy sleepy from either just starting or just ending his shift – raises his eyebrows slightly at how much they’re buying, but doesn’t ask any questions.

Derek disappears for a minute and returns looking pink-cheeked, biting his lip. “What,” Stiles asks, before looking down to what he’s adding to the pile.

Eight bottles of KY lube, the expensive kind. That gets the checkout guy’s attention.

“Seriously, dude,” Stiles hisses. Eight bottles?

“Seriously,” Derek says with a wink.

The clerk looks Stiles up and down now, assessing and appreciative, not bothering to be at all subtle about checking him out. Stiles focuses very hard on running Derek’s credit card through the machine and forging his aggressive signature. When he looks back at Writer Derek, he’s got this look on his face like he can’t decide if he wants to laugh or snarl.

It’s a look Stiles knows well.

~*~

Derek and the Stereks are awake when they get back to the house, and with their help they get all of the groceries unloaded and put away quickly, Stiles carefully not paying attention to what Writer Derek does with all the bottles of KY, choosing instead to focus very deliberately on organizing several pounds of meat in the freezer.

The pack – minus Liam, who’s grounded or something – arrives as Writer Derek, Punk Stiles, and Nerd Stiles start cooking enough bacon and eggs to feed a small army, and then all of a sudden the house is bristling with energy and laughter. Half of them are drinking coffee out of mason jars and pint glasses because Derek only has eight mugs, and Alpha Stiles and Alpha Derek are arm-wrestling on the island in the kitchen, Scott promising to take on the winner, Omega Derek refereeing. Stoner Sterek, Fox Stiles, and Lydia are passing around a joint on the back porch. Jock Derek is in the living room with Isaac and Kira, talking baseball with Stereks Hipster and Porn, Hipster Derek casually strumming a mellow tune on his guitar. It’s weird as hell, and Stiles can’t stop smiling.

“What,” Derek asks, kicking him lightly under the table. “You’re smiling.”

“Is that a problem, Grumpy Wolf?”

“No. Just want to know why. Asshole.”

“I was wondering if this is what it’s like to have a big family.” Derek looks surprised that Stiles is answering him genuinely instead of snarking back. “Even before my mom died, I didn’t have a big family, just a couple of cousins I saw once every few years. I’ve always wondered what it was like to have a house full of family.” Stiles looks away from him and drinks his coffee – thankfully fully creamed and sugared now.

“I did,” Derek replies, looking into his own mug when Stiles sneaks a glance at him. “I had a big family, I mean. Before the fire.” Stiles studies Derek’s face for a moment, appreciating how rare it is for him to willingly talk about the fire, especially his life before. “My experience,” he goes on, looking up to meet Stiles’ gaze, eyes looking extra blue today, “was more of the obnoxious sisters and weird uncle variety.” He looks over at where the two alpha versions of themselves are locked in an arm-wrestling stalemate, eyes flashing red even though they’re both smiling. “I think I would have preferred this to Peter, though.”

Their laughter mixes with the chattering and hollering and laughing of the pack plus seven other Stileses and seven other Dereks, and it sounds good, sounds right.

~*~

“Who’s Haven,” Derek asks, looking over at where Punk Stiles and Writer Derek are talking quietly to each other. They’re all gathered in the living room now, breakfast plates balanced on their laps or on the coffee table. “You said that you missed Haven,” Derek adds, looking almost embarrassed to have been listening.

“That werewolf hearing thing is weird, dude,” Punk Stiles says.

“Sorry,” Derek says. “I didn’t mean to be rude, I just-”

“He’s just giving you shit,” Writer Derek says, elbowing Punk Stiles in the ribs. “Haven is our niece. Laura’s daughter.”

Stiles keeps his eyes locked on Derek, whose shoulders tense. Hipster and Omega Dereks look over at them too, all three of them – each the brother of a different, but still dead, Laura Hale – wearing strikingly similar looks of surprise mixed with grief.

“A daughter,” Derek says finally, letting out a heavy breath. “That’s great.” Omega and Hipster give small murmurs of agreement, leaning into the comforting touches from their Stileses.

“She’s a great mom,” Writer Derek continues softly, the room quiet. “And Haven is a awesome kid. Smart and stubborn, and so damn cute.”

“She takes after her uncle,” Punk Stiles croons into his ear before kissing his cheek.

Writer Derek rolls his eyes but Stiles doesn’t miss the way he squeezes his thigh. “I was showing Stiles – your Stiles – some pictures earlier. Would you like to see her?” He looks to real Derek first, then Omega and Hipster.

“You looked at pictures?” Derek locks his gaze on him, expression unreadable.

“Yeah,” he answers, trying to keep his voice steady. “A few.”

Derek nods and takes the phone from Writer Derek. Stiles can’t see what picture Derek is looking at, but he studies it for a long time, eyes a little wider than normal but otherwise, his expression neutral. He nods jerkily and then hands the phone over to Omega Derek, the first non-scowling interaction the two of them have had.

The room fills with quiet conversation again, each of the Dereks with alive Lauras telling them all a little bit about her. She’s a veterinarian in two of their realities, a lawyer in two others, has a daughter named Haven in two. The scholar in him finds it all fascinating, but Stiles is focusing on his Derek’s face as he learns about the different versions of Laura in the parallel universes. He still looks a little shell-shocked – almost more stunned than when he first saw the Stereks – but after a minute he’s smiling softly, and even starts sharing his own stories about Laura, quietly, cautiously.

Alpha Derek, who’s sitting on the couch next to Lydia, elbows her. “You know, you’re my sister-in-law.”

“What?” Stiles exclaims, eyes bulging, twisting to stare at her. “Lydia and Laura?”

“Yeah, they got married last year,” Fox Stiles smiles at Lydia before leaning over to whisper something in Alpha Derek’s ear.

“Interesting,” Lydia purrs with a smile, manicured nails tapping lightly on her coffee mug as she sips, the perfect picture of innocence.

“Lydia, you’re with Allison in our reality,” Hipster Stiles says, thankfully distracting him from the growing ache in his chest.

“Allison?” Scott asks, looking over at Kira a little awkwardly. Stiles’ stomach twists with too-familiar guilt and regret, unable to meet Scott’s eyes. “Is she still alive in all of your realities?”

“She’s…gone here?” It’s one of the Dereks, but Stiles isn’t sure which one because he’s staring hard at his hands.

“About a year now,” Kira answers, taking Scott’s hand.

And then, like Laura, the versions of themselves lucky enough to still live in a world with an alive and well Allison Argent tell them about her. She’s an FBI agent in one reality and head of the Argent hunters, allied with Alpha Stiles’ pack, in another. She’s with Scott in some worlds, with Lydia or single in others.

“You two are engaged in our world,” Fox Stiles says to Scott and Kira, who smile shyly at each other and lean in close.

“And you just started dating in ours,” Stoner Derek adds.

“What about Erica and Boyd,” Isaac asks, Derek’s answering growl making the room go silent for a moment. Derek has opened up a couple times about the fire and his life before, but he still refuses to talk about Erica and Boyd, those wounds too fresh, even post-enlightenment. Stiles knows too well how the guilt must eat at him, how raw and achingly empty it must make him feel.

He expects Derek to leave, or maybe tell them not to talk about it, but after his first surprised growl he’s silent in his chair, rigid and tense, waiting.

“Uh,” Hipster Stiles starts, clearly nervous and having no idea why this werewolf version of his boyfriend looks like he wants to rip some throats out with his werewolf teeth. “They’re good. They’re married, talking about having kids.”

Derek nods jerkily at Hipster Stiles. “That’s…that’s great. I’m glad they’re happy.” He’s so quiet and fragile it breaks Stiles’ heart a little. He remembers with startling clarity the way Derek carried Erica’s broken body, cradling her like the child she nearly was. And Boyd. Stiles sees again the look of pained horror on Derek’s face when the alpha pack made Derek…. He remembers walking over to Derek in a daze, nauseous with fear and guilt and pain, aching to comfort him, trying to say everything he couldn’t with a hand on his shoulder.

“Boyd is my personal trainer,” Jock Derek tells them after a quiet minute. “He went pro with me. And Erica,” he smiles, looking boyish and cocky in his backwards baseball hat, “is my agent. She’s dating Lydia.”

There’s a round of whistling again, all the Stereks within teasing distance of Lydia poking and lightly punching her on the arm. “And you’re with Jackson in our world,” Writer Derek informs her.

There’s a collective groan from the Stileses at the mention of Jackson, and if they needed any more proof that these guys are for real, that would be it.

“I’m a versatile woman,” Lydia laughs, tossing her head like she’s throwing her hair over shoulder even though it’s in a messy knot on the top of her head.

“It’s interesting,” Kira muses. “All of us seem to have a couple different partners across realities, but not you guys.” She looks around the room at all the Stereks, carefully not looking at the non-Stereked Stiles and Derek.

Stiles is pretty sure he’s turning about a thousand shades of red. He can’t help but look over at his Derek, who’s very carefully studying his coffee. Isaac is snickering into his scarf and Stiles kinda wants to choke him with it. He makes the adult choice and stands up quickly, barely catching his half-eaten breakfast before it falls from his lap.

“Need more coffee,” he stammers, getting out of there as fast as he can.

~*~

Stiles doesn’t really feel like he can breathe again until he gets out to the back deck, brisk winter air clearing his lungs and his head. Well, clearing it as much as possible, given how cluttered it is with Dereks and Stereks and Derek.

He leans against the deck railing, looking down into the yard, built-in fire pit surrounded by a cobblestone patio on one side of the big backyard, a large expanse of grass and a row of raised garden beds on the other. He tries to tell himself that Kira’s observation doesn’t really mean anything. Of course Stiles and Derek are going to be together in all the realities they know about, because that’s the trickster’s game. There could be a thousand different realities and a Sterek in only seven them, meaning they’re not all that special or meant to be or whatever. Or maybe Derek was right last night. Maybe there’s no such thing as alternate realities and the trickster is just an incredibly detailed and thorough and bizarrely complex magician.

Neither explanation sounds very convincing.

“Let’s take a walk.” Stiles looks back at the house and sees Lydia closing the sliding door behind her, joining him on the deck. She hands him a hoodie and pulls on her own sweater. She gives him a knowing glance, jerking her head away from the house, knows that she wants to talk to him out of range of werewolf ears.

They hook arms and walk down the deck steps and through the yard, down to the path that leads from Derek’s backyard into the preserve proper, waiting until they’re at a safe distance before speaking. “So,” she says, brushing some leaves from a fallen log before sitting down, patting the spot next to her. “How are you doing with all this?”

He sits next her with a heavy sigh. “Well, finding out there are parallel universes with essentially identical versions of me and everyone I know is a bit jarring, but since my standard for “jarring” has been pretty fucked since my best friend became a werewolf, I’m handling it all right.”

Lydia gives him a familiar look, that pretty mix of exasperation and pity at how dense he can be. He can read her eyebrows almost as well as he can read Derek’s. “Okay,” she says patiently. “And how are you doing with the Sterek of it all?”

Stiles picks at his nails, thinks about how Derek refused to look at him, at any of them, when Kira spoke. “It’s fine,” he lies.

“It’s ‘fine’ that you’re being forced to babysit seven versions of yourself blissfully coupled up with seven versions of the guy you’ve been secretly in love with for years?”

“I’m not in love with Derek,” he mutters, not even trying to sound convincing.

Lydia rests her head over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“It’s confusing and weird and…fuck, Lyds. It’s beautiful and sweet and it’s hot, and I can’t look away from them. And I couldn’t sleep last night because I was sharing a bed with Derek and listening to them fuck.” He almost tells her about getting off outside Porn Sterek’s room, but stops himself just in time. “They make me happy and they make me want to die, because I want what they have so badly.” He lets out a huge sigh. It feels like a weight off his chest to say it out loud. “I guess that's what the trickster wants.”

“What do you mean?”

“To slowly torture me by showing me what I want but can’t have.”

Lydia looks up quizzically at him, harrumphing a little. “You don’t know for sure that you can’t have it someday.”

He gives her a good side-eye. “Derek, the real one, the one who lives in this reality, is straight, remember?”

Lydia scoffs. “So you think. Just like everyone thinks the Stiles who lives in this reality is straight, but they would be wrong about that, wouldn’t they?”

“I told him. I told Derek, last night. I came out to him. I wasn’t really planning on it, it just kinda happened, you know?”

Lydia is wide-eyed, surprised. “How did it feel to tell him?”

“Terrifying,” he admits. “But I also felt relieved.”

“That’s good.” She gives his knee a friendly squeeze. “How did he react?”

Stiles shrugs. “He was cool. It didn’t seem matter to him.”

“That’s good. You were worried it might make him not want to be alone with you, no matter how many times I told you that was ridiculous.” She elbows him lightly in the side before hooking her arm back through his.

Stiles rubs at the back of his neck, squeezing hard to try and release some of the tension there. “Yeah, it’s good. I mean. I guess…I just wanted it matter to him. In the right way, you know?”

“You mean you wanted him be really excited to hear it and to come out too and confess his undying love for you?”

Stiles laughs, knows how ridiculous he is, loves that Lydia knows him well enough to know what he’s afraid to even admit to himself. “Well, yeah. It’s not that much to ask.”

“Then why don’t you do it?” Her glare is as sharp and incisive as Derek’s, curse their beautiful green eyes that Stiles is powerless under.

“Point taken, Martin.”

“You know that even if Derek does swing that way, you can’t expect him to come out just because you did. That’s not fair. Especially with everything that’s happening.”

“I know.” He hates it when she’s right.

“I know you know. I also know that it’s probably eating away at you, that you’re probably driving yourself crazy thinking that it’s definitive proof that he’s completely straight.”

“Well, not really. Okay, maybe a little.” Stiles hadn’t wanted to dwell on it, but the thought was there, poking away at him throughout his sleepless night next to Derek.

“Well stop it. You don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling, or how all this might be affecting him. Not until you really talk to him about it, which I think you should.

“Should we have that conversation before or after another night of listening to our parallel selves fuck each other senseless?”

Lydia’s laugh echoes through the bare trees. “Oh, Stilinski, your life sucks.”

It feels good to laugh with her. “Tell me about it.”

“Maybe wait until after the Stereks are gone, then have a talk with your Derek about becoming a Sterek.”

Stiles groans. “You’re the worst.”

“You love me.”

“That I do, banshee. That I do.” Sometimes, when the pining for Derek gets to be too much, Stiles will wish that he were still in love with her. But in moments like these, when he’s being truly honest with himself, that he knows that this easy, close friendship is what they’re supposed to have.

They stand and start walking back to the house, Lydia teasing him gently until they get back into hearing range of the house. “So,” Stiles winks at her, “you and Allison in another reality, huh?”

Lydia smiles sweetly. “Not just in another reality,” she coos, winking right back.

 ~*~

They spend the rest of the day hanging out with the Stereks, sharing more stories and learning about the other realities. Scott seems overjoyed with so many Stileses, and Stiles is so happy to see him smiling like he used to before he became an alpha, before Allison died, that he doesn’t even feel jealous. Even real Derek looks relaxed and content. A couple of the Stereks grill burgers for dinner, and Scott and Isaac build a fire in the pit out back and they all stay up late into the night, roasting marshmallows, passing around joints and countless bottles of wine.

The first time Stiles sees a Derek with melted marshmallow in his beard, his Stiles sloppily wetting his thumb and rubbing at it before leaning in to lick at it, their laughing grins illuminated by the bouncing orange glow of the fire, he decides to get very, very wasted.

It’s easy, of course. Less easy, however, is controlling his hands when Derek, the last person awake with him, helps him up the stairs to their – his – bedroom. They’re walking side-by-side, arms slung across each others shoulders, Derek holding Stiles up. He’s got to lean into him because he lost track of how much pot he smoked and he knows for sure he had at least four mason jars of wine and everything is very blurry and soft.

Except for Derek, who’s muscled torso is hard against his side, his features still sharp in the dim light of the hallway as he guides him to the master bedroom. Stiles is babbling, not really sure what he’s saying but Derek is smiling, maybe even laughing, so he doesn’t care, only cares about the hot press of Derek’s side against his, the way the rough hair of his forearm scratches against the back of his neck.

That’s what distracts him from putting one foot in front of the other, and he stumbles across the threshold, falling against Derek and gripping his arms, pushing him against the wall just inside bedroom door with a loud thump. Stiles is leaning heavily against him, fingers curling of their own volition around the curves of his biceps, pinning him to the wall, which is ridiculous, because they both know he's only able to hold him there because Derek lets him.

He doesn’t move at all, doesn’t say a word. He’s not smiling anymore, just staring at him wide-eyed, letting Stiles lean against him. Derek’s pupils are big, so big, just barely ringed by a sphere of dark green. Distantly, Stiles feels surprised. He was sure Derek hadn’t smoked that much, saying that someone needed to be alert, grumpy protective stick-in-the-mud that he is.

“You okay,” Stiles mumbles. Derek’s mouth is close to his, scruffy jaw practically within licking distance.

Derek scoffs, but still doesn’t make any effort to get Stiles away from him. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you okay?” His eyes are downcast, watching Stiles’ mouth like he does sometimes, like he’s always done when he shouldn’t, always confusing the hell out of him.

If they were a different Stiles and a different Derek, he could close the distance between them and kiss those lips, run his cheek along that scruff. If he were a different Stiles, he would know what kind of noises Derek would make if he darted forward and nibbled at his neck, licked into the hollow of his throat, pulled his shirt off and dragged him to the bed. Stiles is so wasted he’s not sure he can get it up, but he doesn’t care, he’d get Derek off anyway, joyfully, lavishing his perfect body with praise, his eager tongue working hard to make it so good for him. If he were a different Stiles.

“I’m real Stiles,” he breathes against Derek’s collarbone. His voice is scratchy and he sounds a lot like he’s working hard to remind himself. “And you’re my…you’re real Derek.”

Stiles is suddenly very tired, so tired he can’t hold his head up anymore. He lets it fall to Derek’s shoulder, eyes fluttering closed. He’ll be embarrassed about it in the morning, but right now he doesn’t care because he’s pretty sure it’s the best thing he’s ever felt, resting his head against Derek’s broad strong chest, both of them already clad in their soft sweats and tank tops, bodies curved against each other like they know how this should go, like they know the way.

And then he’s being moved, carried maybe, probably, because his legs aren’t really working very well any more, weak-kneed as he always is after being pressed against Derek. He feels the comforting, familiar softness of his pillow under his cheek, smiles because his pillow is on Derek’s bed. Then the comforter is tossed lightly over him, and through the fog it makes him feel safe, cared for.

The bed shifts lightly with Derek’s weight. He hears a voice, a gentle whisper. “I’m your Derek,” it says, he thinks, but Stiles isn’t sure, because he’s already dreaming.

Chapter Text

Stiles dreams of a dozen Dereks, all lined up in his living room like they’re undergoing inspection. His mother, looking younger than he remembers her, is there too, wearing a hospital gown and ski pants, looking them over, shaking her head.

She turns to say something to him, but he jolts awake before she can open her mouth.

At first he thinks he might still be dreaming, but a new dream now, one where he feels warm and relaxed. But he knows for sure his eyes are open, early morning light, softened by gray winter clouds, spilling in from the skylight, casting the bed in a soft, cloudy aura. His head is still a little foggy from the previous night’s festivities, but the pot seems to have dulled the worst of his hangover. He only feels a little headachey and not at all nauseated. He stretches, arching against the hard body against him, smiling sleepily.

He tenses, blinking fully awake.

Fuck.

He’s pressed up against Derek, cuddling hard, latched on like a freakin’ barnacle.

Derek’s lying on his stomach, arms tucked under Stiles’ pillow, face turned towards him. Stiles is lying on his side further down the bed a bit, his face buried in Derek’s ribs, arm tossed casually across his back. Fortunately he’s managed to keep his leg from hitching over his, but he’s sure it was a close call, given how good Derek feels and how achingly hard Stiles’ cock is.

Holding his breath, he slowly shimmies back and away before lifting the blankets and rolling out from under them, tiptoeing to the bathroom and closing the door behind him softly, not looking back to see if Derek has stirred because he can’t handle looking at him right now, not when he’s so cozy and sweet-looking, so beautiful, so goddamn sexy.

The water is lukewarm when he gets in the shower, but it’ll warm up soon enough. He leans heavily against the wall, slicking his hand up with soap – Derek’s soap, fuck – before getting a grip on his dick, sighing into a groan, core clenching tight with the first waves of pleasure.

He hopes the water is loud enough to mask his sounds; he’s trying to be as quiet as he can but it’s difficult; he needs the release too badly. He manages to slow his eager strokes long enough to slick up his other hand with soap. The water’s hot now, almost scalding, steaming up the big stall. There’s a tiled bench opposite the wall with the showerhead and he lifts a foot to it, giving him easier access to his ass.

The angle is awkward, as usual, but he’s done this enough that it doesn’t take long at all to get one finger buried to the knuckle, kneading, searching for the sweet spot. It’s good, but not good enough, and he grunts with frustration and pulls out, soaps both hands up again and gets back to it, sliding a second finger in as he quickens the strokes on his cock, forehead pressed hard against the tiled wall.

He can’t think about Derek, not when he’s awoken next to him two mornings in a row now and will have to for another five days, not when Derek’s sleeping just on the other side of the bathroom door.

So he thinks about the other Dereks. Omega Derek, so like his Derek when they first met, all hard edges and postured scowling. Stiles imagines him on his knees behind him, stroking his own cock as he licks into him. Porn Derek on his knees in front of him, bristled hair tickling the insides of his thighs. Writer Derek, mouth red and raw from kissing him. It’s a little weird, but Stiles doesn’t care, doesn’t stop. It’s his fantasy and he’ll do what he wants.

He imagines Omega Derek standing behind him, whispering filthy promises as he pushes in, filling him up and rocking away with punishing thrusts. The imaginary Derek still on his knees moans on his cock, eagerly takes it as he thrusts harder into his fist, coming in a gush against the wall, body spasming with electric waves of heat, failing to bite off his stuttering groan.

He leans into the tile, panting until it gets too unbearably hot. He washes up with his soapy hands, uses Derek’s fancy shampoo, wonders what Derek will think when he smells it.

Derek is on his side, his back to him, when Stiles finally emerges from the bathroom, fully dressed. The line of his back looks a little too tense for him to be asleep, but Stiles aggressively chooses not to acknowledge that, stomach souring with embarrassment. He silently plucks his phone from where it’s charging on the nightstand and closes the bedroom door behind him.

He leaves a note on the whiteboard on the fridge – I’m not dead – but doesn’t make coffee, not wanting to risk waking anyone. Still burning with embarrassment from last night and his inability to control himself in the shower, he sneaks out the front door as quietly as he can, needing fresh air and a break from Stereks and the memory of Derek clutching at his pillow in his sleep.

Hazy memories from the evening and night before come back in bits and pieces as he drives to his favorite coffee shop, trying not thinking about a Derek of any flavor. Instead, he focuses on the memories of his conversations with the Stileses.

In four other realities, Claudia Stilinksi died when Stiles was a kid; in three others, she’s alive and well and still happily married to the sheriff.

It’s confusing and strange, makes him both incredibly happy but also deeply sad, angry even. This is how Derek must feel about Laura, he thinks, taking his coffee to go and walking across the street to Safeway, moving quickly before he changes his mind, wondering if this is something Derek would talk to him about.

The floral department at Safeway is abandoned at this early hour, and it’s the middle of December and they don’t have much of a selection, but they have what he’s looking for. He also grabs a couple of donuts from the bakery to dunk into his mocha and hopes to god he can avoid the checkout guy from yesterday with Writer Derek and the lube and the looks.

No such luck. Just like yesterday, the guy’s working the only open checkout lane. Stiles grits his teeth and pays for his stuff, trying to play it cool. “No boyfriend today,” the guy muses, eyeing him up and down again as he hands him the receipt.

“Not today,” Stiles murmurs and smiles, letting himself enjoy the lie. “He’s still in bed.”

~*~

Stiles hates the cemetery.

Has hated it ever since the day he stood next to his father, both of them wearing ill-fitting, itchy suits, clutching desperately to each other as the priest droned on. His mother had a strong wild streak, but she was raised the good Catholic girl of Polish emigrants, and she had requested a traditional Polish Catholic funeral.

Stiles hated every second it.

His dad comes here often, likes to leave flowers on holidays and her birthday, likes to talk to her. Stiles has never been able to do that, has never been able to bring himself to talk to a patch of earth and cold stone and pretend it’s anything resembling his mother. His warm, energetic, lively, gregarious mother who he misses every goddamn second of every goddamn day.

He wants to know if he can now, if his new knowledge of his mother’s continued happiness in the parallel universes – versions of his mother who have seen him grow up, have seen him fall in love with Derek – will help him talk to her.

He places the overpriced bouquet of pink roses at the base of the stone and traces his fingers lightly over her name, eyes growing hot, memories making him dizzy with loss.

I wish you were here to tell me what to do, he thinks.

"I think you’d really like him,” he says.

~*~

Dad looks surprised to see him sitting at the kitchen table when he gets home from his all-night shift. Stiles had called him a couple days ago and explained, leaving out the Sterek part of things, the situation with the trickster and the doppelgangers. He had sighed and told him to check in often, and they’ve been texting over the last couple of days, but he had told him yesterday that he wasn’t sure when he would be able to come by.

“Everything alright, son,” he asks, taking off his bulky winter uniform coat and hanging it off the back of a chair before joining Stiles at the table. “I half expected to be arresting you and your doubles for some stupid scheme, not finding you alone at the kitchen table looking sad and –” he leans a bit closer, across the table, sniffing lightly – “hungover?” Thankfully, he doesn't seem mad, just resigned.

“I went to see mom.”

Dad’s head snaps up at that, eyes searching Stiles’ face again. “That’s good,” he says finally, smiling gently. “I’m glad you did.”

“She’s alive. In some of the other realities. Some of the other Stileses…they, they still have her. You still have her.” His eyes are burning again, and he wipes angrily at them with the back of one hand while dad reaches for the other, squeezing hard.

“That’s good, too. I like to think of her happy.”

“I brought her pink roses.”

He smiles, his own eyes shining a bit, pats Stiles roughly on the shoulder and clears his throat. “I’m going to make some coffee. You look like you could use some too.”

They’re both quiet for a minute, each lost in their own thoughts. “You know the story of how your mom and I met, right,” his dad asks, carrying a mug to the table for each of them before getting the half-and-half from the fridge.

Stiles smiles when he jumps up to get the sugar from the cabinet. Mom used to love to tell that story, all of their stories. Stiles hasn’t heard any of them in years.

Dad removes his utility belt and holster, resting it on the table and leaning back in his chair, getting comfortable. His face is wistful, happiness tarnished by a deep, indeterminable sadness. His voice is soothing and Stiles hangs on every word, tries to picture it as vividly as possible.

Claudia Wojtowicz, twenty-four years old, long brown hair loose down her back, big brown eyes wild and angry, leading a small protest against a condo development company planning to bulldoze acres of old-growth forest in the coast range. Beacon County Deputy John Stilinski, just out of the Army and recently returned to his hometown, sent by Sheriff Delgado along with a couple other deputies to the small coastal hamlet just fifteen miles west of Beacon Hills to shut down the protest and arrest the agitators.

“My god, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen,” he sighs, lost in the memory. “They were gathered at a gate to the development company’s property,” he continues, blinking hard a few times. “Threatening to chain themselves trees. Your mom grew up near there – spent a lot of time in the forest with her dad, learning how to fish and track animals, just like he had with his own father back in Poland. That forest meant a lot to her.”

Stiles knows his mother had been close with her father, Szczesny Wojtowicz, the man for whom he’s named, who died when his mother was pregnant.

“Her friends – all of them but Lucy, Heather’s mom – took off not long after we showed up, but not Claudia. She was so angry, so passionate. She had a ‘fuck the police’ button on her shirt, and for some reason that just made me like her more. I didn’t want to arrest her, but she was trespassing and the jerk landowners were insisting on pressing charges, so I had to.”

“What did she call you again?” Stiles tries to drink his coffee, but he put too much cream in it and it tastes watery and weak compared to the coffee at Derek’s house.

“Among the many insults to my profession and character she hurled at me – there’s no doubt where you got your mouth – she called me a ‘corporate pig’ and a ‘tool of the establishment.’ I cuffed her and put in the back of the cruiser, but I could see how upset she was, how close to tears. You’re like her in that way too, you know. When you’re upset you’re more likely to get pissed and lash out than just let yourself be sad.

“Anyways, I felt bad for her. There was a wild rosebush near the gate, just starting to bloom pink roses. I picked a couple for her.” Dad looks down and shrugs, voice going softer. “The other deputies thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t want her to be sad anymore.”

“And,” Stiles asks, smiling, remembering this part of the story well.

“And, she refused to take them, even though she was cuffed with her hands in front of her and could have. Told me to shove them up my ass.”

It sounds good, Dad’s laughter. Stiles laughs with him, wishing he could have known her like that, wild and young.

“She didn’t say another word to me until I was booking her at the station, and that’s only because she was so shocked when I pronounced her last name correctly.”

“And then you bonded over being Polish.”

“We did. And a few days later when I picked her up for our first date, I brought her a bouquet of pink roses, and she again told me to shove them up my ass, but this time with a smile. Your smile, you know.”

They sip their coffee in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. “Did…did any of the other – other yous, did they tell you how she and I – we – how we met in their realities,” he asks haltingly, like he doesn’t really want to know.

“No, they didn’t. I can ask them, if you want. Or you can come talk to them yourself.”

“Oh no, I don’t think I’m ready for that. Werewolves are one thing, but eight Stileses in one room? That’s too much for my poor weak heart.”

“You’re hilarious. Just for that I won’t tell you about the realities where you’re married to Melissa.”

Stiles didn’t know his dad could blush, and huh, that’s interesting. He can’t ask him about it though because there’s a quick, loud knock on the door, interrupting them. Stiles clears the table of their mugs while dad goes to answer it, voice rising in surprised greeting. “Hey there, Derek. Wait – which Derek are you?”

“I’m real Derek,” Stiles hears, soft voice floating into the kitchen where he’s intently focused on scrubbing the mugs before putting them into the dishwasher when Dad returns to the kitchen with Derek in tow.

“Now, that’s just something someone who wanted me to think he was the real Derek would say,” he teases, patting Derek’s leather-clad shoulder. “How you holding up with all this, son?”

Stiles dries his hands on a dishtowel and finally turns away from the sink, stomach doing the little flippy thing it does when he sees Derek getting all buddy-buddy with his dad. “I’m fine,” Derek says evenly, looking to Stiles and smiling a small hello.

Stiles tosses the towel on the counter, lets himself enjoy the warmth that rises in his chest for a moment before talking. “Everything okay with our friends?”

Derek sighs and sits at the table. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Thought I’d come make sure you were okay. This morning…” Derek’s eyes flit over to where his dad is gathering up his gun and coat. “After you left, it smelled like…like you were anxious, sad maybe.”

“Oh…sorry. Um, weird dreams, you know. Thanks for coming to check on me.” Stiles ignores the way dad’s too-discerning gaze jumps between them.

Derek shrugs and picks at coffee stain on the formica. “Alpha and Omega Dereks wouldn’t shut the hell up about it. Said they were going to come find you if I didn’t.”

Stiles laughs, imagining Derek getting harangued by his doubles, living embodiments of versions of himself Stiles is sure he’d like to forget. “Sorry,” he mutters, wishing Derek, his Derek, had been the one who wanted to find him, the one who had wanted to make sure he was okay.

“Well, I’m exhausted and have another all-nighter ahead of me, so I’m going to let you kids get back to your hijinks,” Dad announces, leaving the kitchen. “Be careful, and call me if you need anything, alright? That goes for you too, Derek.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Hey Dad,” Stiles calls out after he’s left, drawing him back into the kitchen.

“Yeah, son?”

“In the story, about meeting Mom. I forgot to ask you – what was the first thing you said to her?” Stiles lets his eyes dart from his dad to Derek for a second, who’s watching him closely.

Dad smiles fondly. “I said ‘Miss, do you know that this is private property?’”

Derek's eyebrows go up, and Stiles just laughs, basking in the warmth in his chest again, punching Derek lightly in the stomach. "I'll tell you later, big guy."

~*~

“So, the wolfy Dereks were about to send out a search party for me, huh?” Stiles leans back, stretching, trying his best to look casual and cool. He tips the chair, scratching absently at his belly where his shirt rides up, barely catching himself before he falls backwards.

Derek’s watching him, eyes narrow and dark, but he snorts a laugh when Stiles flails. “Not just the wolves. All of the Dereks, once the wolves announced that it smelled like you had been upset when you left. They’re even more obnoxious than you are when you want something.”

Stiles’ answering laugh is big, makes him feel lighter. “Oh, man, I wish I could have been there for that. I hope one of the mes filmed them pestering you.”

Derek stands suddenly and helps himself to coffee, turning his back to him. “Are you…okay though? It did smell like you had been anxious.”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that.” Stiles rubs at the back of his neck and studies the too-perfect shoulder-to-waist ratio just mere feet in front of him, that firm expanse of his back clad in that maroon sweater with the ridiculous thumbholes. He’s wearing soft-looking jeans that still cup his ass in a way that should be criminal, and Stiles tries, and fails, to look away. “Dreams about my mom always bum me out a little,” he not-quite-lies, having long ago perfected the telling of half-truths to evade his father's lie-detector skills long before he needed them for wolfy lie detectors.

Derek returns to the table. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I hope I didn’t wake you up.” He knows his cheeks are probably reddening, because they both know damn well he’s asking if Derek heard him come his brains out in his shower.

“No, you didn’t bother me,” Derek answers evenly, sipping his coffee and grimacing a bit at it.

Stiles notices the choice of words, but doesn’t press his luck, knows Derek is giving him a pass.

“You smell like roses,” Derek blurts out quickly, like he doesn’t mean to say it.

Stiles smiles. “Yeah, I took some roses to my mom's grave before coming over here. Pink roses were her favorite,” he explains, trying to imagine what his mother had been thinking when the cop who had just arrested her, who she had just screamed obscenities at, gave her flowers.

“That’s why your Jeep smells like old lady,” Derek says thoughtfully, as if to himself.

“Excuse me? Dude, I drove your car yesterday. It smells like wet dog.” Stiles grins wide, eager for Derek’s retort. He hates dog jokes even more than Scott does.

“Because Scott and Isaac borrowed it to go surfing last week.”

They both laugh pretty good at that, Derek’s expression is open and kind, taking Stiles’ breath away. “What I meant, though,” he says, serious again, “is that your Jeep smells like old flowers. Roses. It’s faint. I couldn’t smell it when I was human. But it’s there. The Jeep was your mom’s, right?”

Stiles is staring at him, wide-eyed, cursing his roller coaster of emotions, wanting to burst into tears and crawl over the table to kiss Derek senseless. He does neither, stays frozen in his memories. Sitting in his booster seat in the back, and then in the passenger seat when he got older, watching his mom’s slender pale hand on the gearshift, preparing him for the great responsibility of one day driving her beloved Jeep, her sixteenth birthday gift from her father. “Roscoe grinds a bit in second, so remember to be gentle on the old guy,” she’d say, humming along with the radio. She always had a couple of dried pink roses tucked into the visor on the passenger side, refreshed often from the bushes in their backyard or the bouquets his dad would buy when those weren’t in bloom.

Stiles nods, eventually. “Yeah,” he chokes out. “Yeah it was hers.”

Another long silence.

Derek draws a cluster of swirls on the table with his finger, the Hale triskele. “My mom loved dahlias.”

~*~

“We should probably go check on the kids,” Stiles quips, rising, finally breaking their long silence.

“Jackass,” Derek mutters, standing up, rinsing his coffee cup and putting it in the dishwasher before he pushes Stiles towards the door with a playful shove.

~*~

Out in the driveway, Stiles looks toward the street, but he doesn’t see Derek’s car. “You didn’t drive here?”

“I ran,” Derek explains, getting into the passenger side of the Jeep. “I didn’t know where you were, so I followed your scent.”

“Oh,” Stiles answers, smiling.

It’s not until they’re almost all the way to the house that he wonders why Derek didn’t just call him.

~*~

Derek’s eyesore of a car is the only vehicle in the driveway when they get to the house, meaning the pack has left. “They left them unsupervised,” Derek groans, sounding very much like an old man who hangs out with teenagers.

“Oh, come on. How much trouble could they get into?” Stiles regrets the words as he’s saying them, even before Derek has a chance to level his best you-fucking-idiot glare. “I know, I know,” he huffs, following him inside.

There’s a loud chorus of familiar voices from the living room, all of the Stereks gathered there, having a heated debate by the look and sound of it, the conversation going on without any of the clones acknowledging their arrival.

“Let’s just put all of our dumb names in a hat and have the Stileses draw,” Omega Derek is saying. “If you get your own Derek, just draw again.”

“I think we should be more strategic about this,” Nerd Stiles responds, leaning forward from his perch on an ottoman. “It’s not like we’re ever going to be able to do this again.”

“Am I the only one who wants to see the two alphas go at it?” That’s Fox Stiles, and Stiles finally understands what’s happening and what the hell.

He hazards a look over to Derek, who’s standing stock-still next to him at the threshold of the living room, wearing a look of confused but possibly interested horror. Or maybe that’s just Stiles projecting, because that’s exactly how he feels.

Alpha Stiles, relaxing comfortably in the corner of the couch, splays his legs a bit wider and reaches up to pull off his shirt, revealing abs and arms as toned as Porn Stiles’. “Why don’t we all just get naked and see what happens?”

~*~

“Was that…” Stiles sputters as he backs the Jeep out of the driveway before Derek is even all the way inside.

“Yes, it was. Just drive,” he snarls, slamming the door shut.

~*~

It’s not even eleven am, but Stiles thinks he deserves curly fries and a milkshake after nearly interrupting what was looking to be a fourteen-person Stiles and Derek orgy.

Derek, the non-orgying one, doesn’t argue when Stiles pulls into the parking lot of the diner. Stiles has to talk, has to fill the terrible chasm of awkward silence that’s threatening to swallow them whole. He blabbers about anything and everything to keep his mind from imagining in too much detail what’s probably happening in Derek’s living room right now.

Derek seems grateful, relieved. He lets Stiles chatter at him, even responding now and then when Stiles pauses to breathe and steady his heart. It works, and by the time Stiles is slurping obnoxiously at the last dredges of his chocolate peanut butter milkshake, they’re talking normally, both of them still a little freaked, sure, but dealing with it.

“I don’t know how you can drink that,” Derek says, gulping at his boring chocolate malt, without whipped cream or a cherry, the freak. “Chocolate and peanut butter together is so overrated.”

“Dude,” Stiles yells, indignant, milkshake dribbling from his lip. “That’s sacrilegious. How can we be alternative universe OTPs if we disagree on this fundamental thing?”

“Oteepees?” Derek’s bunny teeth are even more adorable when he’s confused, when they’re sticking out of his mouth just a bit as his golden-blue eyes seem stuck on where Stiles is trying inelegantly to lick up the milkshake on his chin.

“Nevermind. Chocolate and peanut butter belong together.”

“Gross.”

Stiles kicks him in shin, slurps up the very last drop and slams the cool metal tin down on the table with a satisfied sigh. “Hey,” he says, recalling his very first memory of Derek, more than six years before he recognized him in the preserve with a newly-bitten Scott, sparking Scott’s supernatural revelation alongside Stiles’ sexual one.

He’s never mentioned that day in the waiting area of the Beacon Hills long term care unit, not even when the two of them sat outside the place trying to figure out who the alpha was and it was almost all Stiles could think about. He was sure Derek wouldn’t remember him, wouldn’t recognize the gawky, sad kid who shared his candy with him all those years ago.

“Do you remember me? From the hospital? Before all this, I mean.”

Derek holds his gaze for an impossibly long moment before answering. “Yeah, I do.” He smiles faintly. “I didn’t think you knew who I was, or that you remembered.”

“I did, I do. My mom used to take me to the high school baseball games, before she got sick, that is. That’s why I was at the hospital. I visited her every day after school. You were there visiting Peter?”

“Yeah. It was right after the fire.”

They’re both quiet for a while, watching each other carefully across the table. Stiles wishes he knew what Derek was thinking. He’s remembering the way Melissa ushered him quietly out of the room, sliding a couple of dollars in his hand, when his mom fell asleep mid conversation.

He knew his way to the vending machines without even having to look up, bought a Reese’s, number D8, and a can of Dr. Pepper, before trudging to the waiting room. After a few minutes of pretending to read, Stiles looked up to see Derek Hale and his older sister, whose name he didn’t know. Stiles recognized Derek immediately from the baseball games; he was the second baseman, and he was really good. He’d had seen him hit a home run at every game he’d gone to.

“I’m going to go talk to Peter’s doctors,” the sister said, leaving Derek to fall in an angry heap into a chair across from him.

He had heard about the fire that killed almost the entire Hale family; his dad was investigating it, and everyone in town was talking about it. Stiles remembers staring openly at Derek, scared to be close to such tragedy, but strangely calm and curious too, because Derek looked like Stiles felt: broken, lost, terrified.

Derek caught him staring, but he didn’t say anything or even move, just sat there with that vacant, aching look in his eyes, staring right back. Carefully, trembling even, Stiles ripped open his Reese’s and shook free one of the cups, rising from his chair just a bit to reach over and give the candy to Derek, who looked quizzically at him for a second before taking it from his hand.

They sat in silence, eating their peanut butter cups, grieving, alone but together.

“Why’d you eat it,” Stiles asks, shaking them both from their memories. “If you don’t like chocolate and peanut butter together, why did you eat the Reese’s I gave you?”

Derek shrugs and looks away. “You were a sad kid sharing your candy.” He reaches for his wallet and throws plenty of cash on the table, standing up fast, ending the conversation. “Come on.”

“Where are we going,” Stiles asks, scrambling out of the booth and tugging on his hoodie, nearly tripping over his feet and almost faceplanting into Derek’s ass.

Derek doesn’t answer until they’re back in the Jeep. “We need to stay away from the house for a while.”

“All day, maybe forever,” Stiles agrees.

Derek toys with a loose thread on the outer seam of his jeans. “There’s that Marvel movie marathon at the theater in Hill Valley. Weren’t you and Kira talking about maybe going?”

Stiles lights up. “Dude, yes! I forgot that was today.” The Jeep roars to life. “This is perfect.”

Derek doesn’t disagree.

~*~

It’s a half hour drive to Hill Valley, and they get there midway through the first Captain America movie and stay all day, through the end of second one, emerging from the theater after ten pm, groggy and stiff, bellies full of popcorn and candy, rubbing at their eyes.

“Dude, that was awesome,” Stiles yawns, rolling down the window of the Jeep to help him stay away as he drives them home. “Which Marvel character do you think you are?”

Derek thinks it over, rolls down his own window. “Well, as a kid, I always loved Thor.” Stiles smiles and taps the steering wheel. He sees a young Derek, teeth way too big for his face, trying to pronounce Mjolnir. “But, I think I’m probably more like Black Widow or Bucky. Tragic backstory, manipulation and violence, all that.”

He says it with enough wry humor that Stiles knows he can laugh, maybe even tease him a bit. “That could also mean you should be a supervillain.”

“That was Peter,” Derek laughs. “And hey, there’s still time. Maybe the next death or betrayal will send me over the edge.”

“It’s probably already happening in another reality.”

“Probably.”

“Do you think we’re Sterek in that one too?” Stiles doesn’t mean to say it out loud.

“All the evidence would suggest yes,” Derek sighs, resigned, slouching back in his seat and putting his head back, closing his eyes.

Stiles takes that as a sign that he’s done talking for awhile. At a stoplight he fiddles with his cheap ipod adapter and the stereo, turning the volume up.

“You have this album,” Derek asks, opening his eyes just a bit and glancing over at him.

“Yeah, dude. You’ve been listening to it nonstop for a month. It grew on me.” Stiles has been listening to the new Gaslight Anthem album since the first day he heard it at Derek’s house, but Derek doesn't have to know that.

“Love this band,” Derek mumbles, closing his eyes again. Stiles thinks that’s it, but Derek surprises him and keeps talking. “We went to one of their shows once, back in New York, when they were just starting to get more well-known. Almost missed it because my fake ID was so bad. Laura growled and flashed her red eyes at the bouncer and he let us in. Told the bartender not to charge us for our drinks either.”

Stiles takes his eyes off the road long enough to catch Derek’s soft smile, his eyes still closed. “I don’t know why she did that. She was always so worried about people finding out about what we were, even when we were kids.” There’s a hint of guilt in the way he says it that fractures Stiles’ heart a bit, makes him wish he could pull it away like the physical pain Derek is always pulling from everyone, himself included.

Instead he scoffs and punches him lightly on the arm. “Because she wanted you to be happy, dummy.”

Derek opens his eyes just enough to glare at him for a second before punching him back, hard, the jerk. “You’re the dummy, dummy.”

Stiles just snorts and turns up the music. Derek smirks like he’s won something that matters and closes his eyes again, rolls his shoulders and settles further into the seat.

Stiles works very hard on not watching him, eyes locked on the road, singing along softly with lyrics he knows by heart.

~*~

When they walk in the house this time, it’s eerily quiet and completely dark. Stiles nervously flips on a living room lamp, preparing himself for the worst, imagining all of the possible havoc a fourteen-dude orgy could wreak on a suede couch.

Everything looks normal though, no obvious stains at least. The mattress on the floor is empty, blankets rumpled. Derek is scrunching up his nose and wringing his eyebrows together, clearly smelling something. Or maybe a lot of something.

“Is it that bad?” Stiles asks, cringing, Derek’s face going from curious to confused.

“What? No.”

“Then why are you making a face?”

“I’m not making a face, you’re making a face.”

“You two are ridiculous.” They turn in unison towards the kitchen door, where Writer Derek is standing, holding two glasses of water, smirking at them.

Naked.

Naked.

Stiles fails completely at choking back his whining gasp, has to lean against the back of the couch to steady himself. He can feel every inch of his skin lighting up as he stares at him, eyes stuck open wide, falling to Writer Derek’s cock, nestled in a silky-looking thicket of dark, come-flecked hair. He’s big, foreskin hooding his wide head, balls heavy and round.

It's not his Derek’s cock, but Stiles is still devastated by its beauty, isn't even the least bit surprised at how quickly his mouth fills with saliva, at how badly he wants it. So badly he’s pretty sure he’s biting his lip, and fuck, he’s hard as a rock, tenting the front of his khakis, couldn’t be any more obvious.

Stiles tears his eyes away from Writer Derek to glance over at real Derek, who doesn’t look confused anymore. No, he’s glaring now, hard, eyes narrowed at his human counterpart. He’s still scenting the air, and Stiles closes his eyes, doesn’t want to see Derek’s face when he smells just how turned on he is.

When he opens them, he sees his own counterpart, naked as well, coming to stand behind Writer Derek, tattooed arms wrapping around his waist, chin resting on his shoulder. “Hey guys,” he calls, eyes darting between the two of them. “You missed a great day.” He waggles his eyebrows and nibbles on his Derek’s ear, making him giggle, for the love of god. “Hey, I know that look,” Punk Stiles adds, raising his eyebrows at real Derek.

“What look?” Derek asks, arms crossed.

“That look that this guy –” he plants a kiss in Writer Derek’s beard – “gets sometimes when he comes to see me at work. When some of my customers get a little too friendly for his liking.”

“I do not,” Writer Derek says, grinning and rolling his eyes, handing his Stiles one of the water glasses. “And stop teasing them.”

Stiles feels his own eyebrows come together in confusion, looking over at real Derek, who's still glaring at Writer Derek when he announces with finality, “I’m going to bed," turning on his heel and disappearing up the stairs.

They all stare after him for a second, the Sterek shaking their heads, Stiles watching Derek’s tense shoulders as he walks away. He’s pretty sure that Punk Stiles was suggesting that Derek looked like he was jealous, which doesn’t make any sense…does it?

“You need help with that?” Stiles is so focused on wrapping his head around the possibility of his Derek feeling something like jealousy at his reaction to seeing Writer Derek naked that he doesn’t notice that his own doppelganger is standing right in front of him now, smirking in a way that seems for more assured and devious than he’s ever felt, eyes that he’s used to seeing in the mirror glancing down to his obvious erection.

“What,” he manages to choke out, heart starting to pound, torn between wanting to chase after Derek and staying put, because he’s pretty damn sure he knows where this is going, and fuck, it’s weird as hell, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting it.

But the thought of Derek upstairs, possibly jealous and definitely bothered by something, centers him, lets him push Punk Stiles’ hand away from his crotch. “Dude, whoa.” He darts his gaze over to Writer Derek, whose settling into the mattress, smiling as he watches them. “Just…go to bed, okay? I gotta go talk to Derek.”

“It’s an open invitation,” Punk Stiles calls out as he hustles out the room, half-relieved, half-regretful. His mind is limber enough to call getting off with his alternate reality self extremely vivid masturbation, shameless enough that he wants to practically weep at the idea of Writer Derek watching them, joining in. But hot as that sounds, Stiles has never even kissed a guy and a threesome, no matter how hot, seems like diving into the deep end headfirst and he’s cautious enough these days to know he should slow down.

That’s what he tells himself, at least, running up the stairs to find his Derek, working hard to ignore the other reason needling at him, burning him up hotter than the lust he felt seeing the breathtaking beauty of naked Writer Derek.

It’s not disappointment really, because good god, there’s no way in hell anyone could be disappointed with that. Longing, maybe? The feeling of coming so achingly close to what he wants but falling desperately, crucially short.

Beautiful as naked Writer Derek is, and identical as all the Dereks seem to be, as interesting and weirdly hot as being with a version of himself would be, Stiles wants his first time with a guy to be with his Derek, and no one else.

He pushes that pathetic thought out of his mind when he pushes open the door to Derek’s bedroom, calling out to him. “Hey, Der? Everything okay?”

The room is dark except for the pale glow of a bedside lamp, but Stiles can still clearly see the hard lines of Derek’s shape in front of the large bay window across the room, where he’s standing, arms crossed, staring out at the moonlit forest. “It’s fine, Stiles,” he says quietly. “Don’t let me ruin your fun.” If Stiles didn’t know better, he’d think there was bitterness in his voice.

“Dude, come on. You’re pissed about something.” Derek hangs his head in resignation, his shoulders tensing when Stiles sits down on the window seat so he can look up at him.

His face is drawn tight, severe. “I’m not pissed. And really, if you want to go fool around with Writer Derek, don’t let me stop you.”

“That’s what you’re pissed about?” Stiles is confused for a moment, a futile defense mechanism probably, because when the realization of what Derek means hits him he feels sick with embarrassment and rejection. Of course Derek is uncomfortable with Stiles’ attraction to Writer Derek, now that he knows about his bisexuality. Derek’s an understanding guy, but even he must have his limits.

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly, eyes falling to his hands. “I knew I shouldn’t have come out to you. I never wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

“Stiles, what in the hell are you talking about?” Derek still sounds mad, but confused too, that exasperated tone that Stiles has come to think of as just for him.

He groans, irritated that Derek is making him spell it out when he’s the one who’s making things weird with his gay panic. “We both know how seeing Writer Derek affected me, alright? Just like that day a few months ago when I saw you almost naked. You know I’m attracted to you.” Good god, it’s terrifying to say it out loud to Derek’s stunned, beautiful face. “And now that you know I’m bi, it makes you uncomfortable. I’m sorry that I’m attracted to the other Derek. I know it upset you because we both know that it means that I’m always going to be attracted to you.” Stiles lets out a loud, tired sigh. Fuck, where is he going to sleep tonight?

Derek doesn’t say anything for a long time, too long, and Stiles wants to look up at him to try and figure out what he’s thinking but he’s too scared, doesn’t want to see Derek’s pity.

But then Derek’s moving, stepping to the side and falling, falling to his knees at Stiles’ feet, pushing himself between his splayed thighs. “Derek, what – “ his question is cut off by the groan that shakes from his chest when Derek lunges forward and nuzzles his face into his neck, inhaling sharply and rubbing his soft beard against him. Stiles’ heartbeat is roaring in his ears; it must be deafening to Derek.

Derek’s lips are soft and warm, just grazing his cheek lightly when he pulls back to look him in the eye, those big hands Stiles has fantasized about time and time again reaching up to gently cradle his jaw. “Stiles, I’m not upset that you’re attracted to me. I’m upset that you’re attracted to him. To the other Derek.”

Things are starting to make a kind of sense that Stiles likes, that just might be too good to be true. “Are you saying that you really were jealous of Writer Derek?” He’s trying to sound suspicious, cautious, but he’s pretty sure his needful hope is all that comes through.

Derek smiles, runs this thumbs over his cheekbones. The touch sends a hot shiver through his entire body, lighting him up. “I am jealous,” Derek admits. “I don’t want…I don’t want your first kiss with me to be with him.”

Stiles laughs, joy bubbling through him, making him feel light, effervescent. “It’s so weird that that sentence makes perfect sense to me.”

“It’s so weird that you make perfect sense to me,” Derek whispers, and then he’s kissing him, gently, lovingly, finally.

Chapter Text

Derek kisses him like he’s sacred, like they’re sacred, like the press of their lips together is holy, each sweep and slide of their tongues a benediction. He’s impossibly gentle, yet demanding, mouth soft but hands tight, one on the back of Stiles’ neck, thumb pressed at the hinge of his jaw, the other falling to seize his lower back, pulling him closer. Derek is still on his knees between Stiles’ legs, which are starting to spread wider in invitation. His scruff is surprisingly soft under his hands, and Stiles smiles in giddy delight when Derek sighs into his mouth as he strokes his cheeks. It urges Stiles on, makes him want to hear all of Derek’s other sighs, all of the sounds he can cull from him. It turns more urgent, tentativeness giving way as they fall easily into a perfect, passion-strewn kiss. Stiles feels disoriented, shock and joy and relief combusting with flame-hot want and need.

Derek finally pulls back, resting his forehead against his, heart thumping hard and steady under his palm. “Stiles,” he huffs against his mouth, voice husky and raw.

He runs a hand up his neck, smiling in awe at the way Derek’s whole body shivers in response, at how the skin under his fingers rises in eager goosebumps. “Derek.”

“I think you mean Sterek,” a smug voice calls out from the open bedroom door. They both turn to look, smiling, not bothering to pull away from each other. Punk Stiles is standing there, still naked, Writer Derek next to him, both of them smiling too, looking as pleased as Stiles feels.

~*~

They endure a little more teasing before Writer Derek pulls his Stiles away, closing the door with a wink and a smile.

“You still jealous of him,” Stiles asks Derek, his Derek, biting lightly at his neck.

Derek answers with a grunt and clutches him by the thighs, scooping him up and hooking his legs around his waist before standing, picking him up easily and carrying him to the bed. Hell to the yes, give me all the werewolf strength, Stiles thinks as he lands on his back with a soft thud, Derek crawling up his body and hovering over him, caging him in with his forearms on either side of his head. Derek seems bigger like this, more powerful, strong and in control, and it taps into something inside of Stiles, something new waking up, making him want more, making him want to see how just how much power Derek can have over him, what Derek might do with that power.

Stiles arches his back and cranes his neck up to kiss him, but Derek ducks away and nuzzles his neck instead, inhaling deeply. “You drive me crazy, you know that?” He murmurs into his ear before biting the lobe softly, sucking gently when Stiles shudders and whines. He closes his eyes, breathless, Derek’s hard body weighing him down, anchoring and solid. “The way you always smell like you want me.” Derek’s lips are soft, so very soft, across the curved shell of his ear, sending a pulsing buzz of electricity straight to his cock, his hips thrusting up. Derek spreads Stiles’ legs farther with a rough push of his knee before thrusting right back, biting harder into the soft spot behind his ear when their full, bulging cocks brush together through their clothes. “Do you know how hard it is to keep my hands off you when smell so good, when you look at me the way you do?”

Stiles is stunned, overwhelmed, would be drowning in disbelief at Derek’s confession if it weren’t for the Stereks, if he hadn’t seen so many Dereks gaze upon so many Stileses with blatant affection and unyielding love. He’s also incredibly nervous, he realizes, mind finally getting something like back on track after this startling, perfect turn of events. “Derek,” he mumbles into his temple, marveling at the feel of his silky hair against his mouth. “Derek, can we talk about this for a second?”

“Of course.” He pulls back and rolls off him to lay on his side, pulling Stiles towards him so they’re facing each other, mouths just inches apart, heads resting on Stiles’ pillow. Derek rests his hand on the curve of Stiles’ hip, and he reaches over up to stroke his bicep, fingers pushing up the sleeve of his shirt, smiling at how warm he is, at how his eyes are blue-green oceans, sapphires, giant, sparkling. “Are you okay?”

“That’s a hell of a question,” Stiles breathes. There are too many questions he wants to ask him, too many confessions he wants to make, is too distracted by the way Derek's eyes keep darting down to stare at his mouth.

Sensing his nervousness, smelling it for sure, Derek tries to calm him with the gentle brush of his thumb on his bony hip. “Have you ever been with a guy?”

Stiles feels his cheeks grow hot. “That…you are my first kiss, first anything, with a guy,” he admits. Derek seems pleased, smiling and leaning over to kiss him lightly on the mouth. “What about you,” he asks, not sure what he wants the answer to be.

“I’ve been with men,” Derek says quietly, eyes searching Stiles’ face. “It’s been a while though. Not since before I came back to Beacon Hills.”

“What, none of the guys around here meet your standards?" The reflex to joke away his feelings is too ingrained to stop, even now.

“Just one,” Derek whispers, kissing him again, slow and languid this time, tender.

“Why didn’t you tell me the other night,” he pants, finally breaking the kiss, dizzy with the rush of emotions. “When I told you I’m bi. Why didn’t you tell me you are too?”

Derek pets his face, smiling. “Stiles, you were coming out to me. What kind of friend would I be if I made it about me?”

Stiles marvels again at his beauty, his selflessness. “But it was,” he confesses quietly, looking down to study the sinuous curves of his full mouth. “It was about you. I’m…I’m always about you.”

~*~

Stiles lets Derek strip him, tries in vain to wish away the flush of pink that colors his skin from cheeks to chest, burning him up, Derek’s eyes on his naked body the best kind of heat. Those eyes are dark and hooded now, like he’s drunk or something, just staring, mouth hanging open a bit, on his knees between Stiles’ spread legs, shirt off but jeans still on. It’s unnerving, that gaze, and Stiles starts squirm, blush growing even hotter, feeling utterly exposed, and not just because of his nudity. “Derek, say something,” he whines, swallowing hard.

The breath is knocked out of him, a startled little puff as Derek falls heavily onto his chest in his eagerness to kiss him, lick into his mouth, urgent and greedy. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers into his cheek before kissing him again, not pulling back until Stiles’ whole face feels ravaged and beard-burned and fuck, it feels just as good as he imagined it would.

Derek sits back up then, returning to his knees, eyes tracing up and down his body again, stilling on his cock, flushed and rising against his belly. He circles Stiles’ narrow waist with his big hands, thumbs pressing into the shallow divots under his hipbones, a swooping, flipping rush of pleasure swirling in his gut and spinning up to explode behind his ribs. “You’re uncut,” Derek whispers, licking his lips.

Stiles groans, blush burning hotter. “Yeah,” he mutters. Writer Derek is most definitely uncut, Stiles remembers vividly, and he’s human. Of course wolf Derek would be too, right?

“I’m surprised,” Derek explains. “Most guys are cut. I figured you would be.”

“So you’re saying you’ve spent some time thinking about my cock?” Stiles teases, giddy, but is surely going to die soon if Derek doesn’t move, get naked too, touch him, something other than just drink him up with his too big, too perfect eyes. “You're uncut too, right?”

Derek finally moves, smiling and stepping off the bed to pull off his jeans. “Yes,” he answers, even though he’s naked now, and Stiles can see for himself.

Seeing Writer Derek naked was exciting, painfully so, but seeing the real Derek is something else entirely, a rush of sensation and feeling and a bone-deep want that would knock him flat if he weren’t already lying back. He's panting, watching him, his Derek, naked and hard, hands cupping Stiles’ calves as he settles back between his legs, on his knees again and resting back on his heels. Stiles feels molten: mouth flooding with saliva, tonguing at his lips, blood singing with heat, coursing through him, making his dick twitch and ache, precome leaking across his head, fully revealed now, just like Derek’s, which Stiles can’t take his eyes off of. He’s stunned by how big and goddamn pretty it is, thick and contoured with elegant veins that he want to press the tip of his tongue against, feel the blood that makes him hard, learn how it pulses and sings under his silken skin.

“Now you’re staring,” Derek smirks, hands tracing soft lines up the inside of Stiles’ thighs, making him shiver. He wants to say something witty and clever, something sarcastic and biting because that’s what he does, that’s what they do, but he’s having trouble thinking of anything, of forming words at all, because Derek’s fingertips are feather-light across his groin, just barely dancing over his thin, sensitive skin.

“Derek,” he does manage to choke out eventually, a whispered plea, a prayer of thanks.

“What do you want?” Derek's voice is melodic and quiet but the question still somehow echoes with years of wanting to be asked.

“You,” Stiles says, just as quiet, voice resounding with years of wanting to answer.

~*~

“I heard you, you know,” Derek whispers into his bellybutton, scruff tangling with the thick line of hair underneath, sloppy and wet from his tongue. “In the shower this morning. I heard you jacking off, heard you moan when you came.” Derek’s on his knees still, bent over him, infuriatingly patient as he’s licked and suckled and kissed his way down Stiles’ body, leaving a swath of hickied, roughed up skin in his wake.

Stiles is beyond blushing now, beyond caring about anything that isn’t every point of contact between their hot, electric bodies. “I wanted you to hear,” he admits to Derek and to himself. This seems to please Derek greatly, and he smiles when he finally wraps a hand around Stiles’ cock, laughs beautifully, joyfully, when Stiles bucks up and gasps, surprise and relief and excitement a chaotic, heady mix, and god, Derek is barely touching him and he’s already close to bursting.

“What were you thinking about, Stiles, when you were getting off in my shower, when I was in bed in the next room?” Derek’s hand is slow, like, glacially so, when he begins to stroke his cock, other hand coming up to tease the head, to tug lightly at his foreskin.

“You,” he breathes. “The Dereks,” he admits, wanting him know just how badly he wants him, loves him, any and every version of him, in this reality or any other.

Derek bites at his hipbone, those absurd front teeth nibbling, lips puckering to suck another mark. “You want that? You want all the Dereks at once, giving you the attention you deserve? I think I’d like to see that,” he muses.

“Jesus, Derek,” he whines, not recognizing his own voice or the deep, echoing need he feels at the thought of being with all the Dereks, of his Derek wanting it too, wanting to watch. He seems to take pity on him then, wrapping his smiling lips around him, looking up at him, his eyes fluttering and twitching like Stiles’ cock is the best thing he’s ever tasted. Derek’s mouth is blistering and wet, sliding down to clamp his lips around his base, moaning almost as loud as Stiles does when his head knocks against the back of his throat. Stiles gets lost in it, panting and moaning as Derek sucks and bobs. When he reaches down to twist his fingers in Derek’s soft hair, he’s not sure if he’s encouraging him or warning of his impending orgasm, but no matter, because Derek pulls off with a slurping pop before he does, a thick string of spit and precome trailing from his slit to Derek’s bottom lip.

Stiles’ legs are still spread wide, so it’s easy for Derek gently nestle his fingers in the furrow of his ass, teasing his rim. “Did you fuck yourself,” he purrs, voice raw, pulling his hand away to shove it in his mouth, slicking it up before breaching him gently with the tip of one finger. “This morning, did you fuck yourself? It feels like you did.”

Stiles nods, rocks his hips and clenches, pulling him in deeper. Derek obliges and slides the finger all the way in, crooking it up, come hither, dipping back down to take his cock back into his mouth. The last thing Stiles sees before his vision whites out are Derek’s eyes, shimmering and mischievous but also awestruck. Stiles spills into his mouth, sputtering and gasping, ass clenching around his finger, body going rigid and tense before softening, dissolving, burning right up under the flames of Derek’s mouth.

When he comes back to himself, he opens his eyes again just in time to see Derek slide off his cock and lick his hand, leaving a thick, sloppy mess of Stiles’ come and his own spit across his palm before taking his cock, flushed an angry, dark red now, into his hand. He keeps the finger of his other hand buried in Stiles’ ass as he strokes himself, hard and rough, eyes boring into his. Stiles scrambles to sit up so he can reach him better, limbs even more uncoordinated than normal, body dense and heavy, Derek moving with him to keep his finger in place. He gets a hand around Derek’s cock, slipping his fingers in between his, in the hot slick of his come and Derek’s spit, basking in how good, how right it feels to touch Derek like this. He marvels at how his balls fit so perfectly in the palm of his other hand, at how they tighten right before Derek lets out a growly moan and shoots hard, thick and scorching. Fuck, he comes and comes, empties all over Stiles’ reddened stomach, and he's not sure if it’s a werewolf thing or a Derek thing or maybe a zenwolf Derek thing – all he knows is that he fucking loves it, feels his half-hard cock twitch and throb as Derek covers him. Goddamn, he can’t wait to discover all of the other things Derek can do to make him feel this way.

Stiles has never tasted the bittersweet tang of his come on someone else’s tongue, finds that he likes that too when Derek kisses him until they’re both breathless. He falls next to him, Stiles whining involuntarily at the loss of the finger from his ass, but is placated when Derek scoops out the puddle of come from his navel and puts his finger to Stiles’ lower lip, asking permission. He opens his mouth in answer, salivating in anticipation, sticking his tongue out to lick Derek’s come from the finger he just had knuckle-deep in his ass. It’s sweet, musky, Derek’s rich scent in concentrate, and Stiles can’t help but suck greedily, eyes rolling back at how good it tastes. Derek huffs and shudders, like Stiles’ reaction is too much for him, presses closer against his side and reaches back down to gather more of his copious mess from his belly. This time he doesn’t ask, just feeds him, two fingers now, eyes flashing electric blue for an instant when Stiles, in his eagerness to suckle every last drop, accidentally bites hard at his fingertip. “Greedy,” Derek murmurs, blushing, and Stiles nods, smiles around his fingers, because he is greedy, hungry, insatiable. He wants to eat Derek up, take him in anyway he can, let Derek fill up all the dark, empty caverns inside himself that’s he afraid to look at too closely, wants to do the same for him, wants to intertwine himself so completely with him so he can never, ever lose him.

Derek gives him one more mouthful before kissing him again, before they fall asleep, naked, curved around each other, Stereked.

Chapter Text

“My mom was an anthropology major,” Stiles explains, studying the crescent-shaped shadows cast by Derek's long lashes. His eyes are downcast, focused on where his hand is pulling gently on his foreskin, teasing and stretching as his cock stiffens at his touch. He notches closer to Derek, both of them on their sides, early morning light filtering in through the windows. His voice sounds hollow when he tries to continue answering Derek’s question. “She was against circumcision of all kinds,” he huffs. “So, yeah, that’s why. I wrote about it for Finstock’s class once and he failed me because he said it didn’t have anything to do with economics, but that just means that he didn’t read past the fifth page, where I clearly began to argue that controlling sexual pleasure is a huge function of all economic systems – "

The kiss is tender but insistent, exploratory, like Derek’s still trying to learn the contours of his mouth. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been have been wanting to stop your rambles by kissing you,” Derek murmurs into his cheek when he finally pulls away, shy and quiet, hands still working steadily on Stiles’ dick.

Stiles laughs, rocks into his touch. “I would have been very okay with that, even when I was pretending I to hate you.”

“You kinda hated me for real,” Derek argues, nibbling at the hinge of his jaw.

Stiles wants to bicker back, but his words get swallowed up in the whiny little gasp he lets out when Derek rocks his hips forward and takes himself in his other hand, pressing the tips of their cocks together. “Oh my god,” he mutters into Derek’s temple, eyes rolling back at the sparks of arousal that feel like they’re pulsing straight from Derek’s dick to his, sticky slits sliding together. Derek leans back then, putting more space between their naked chests so they can both watch as he slides his thick foreskin down his shaft, revealing his beautiful cockhead completely, big, gorgeous. Stiles bites at his lip, swallowing.

He needs to taste him.

But Derek has another ideas, it seems Keeping one hand around them both, holding them together, he gently pulls on Stiles’ foreskin, laughing softly at the gasp he lets out. “This okay,” he murmurs, stretching him gently.

Stiles nods an enthusiastic yes, shuddering at the tingling heat Derek’s touch jolts through him, by the way Derek’s holding his bottom lip between his adorably uneven teeth, eyes still downcast, watching his hands work their magic. Derek takes a deep, slow breath, nostrils twitching, mouth going wide in a grin as he exhales. “You smell so good,” he mumbles. “Smell like me. Smell like us.” Derek shifts his hips slightly and takes a firmer grip around Stiles’ dick before giving his foreskin a slightly stronger tug, sliding it over his shiny head, their combined precome letting him slip around Derek easily, smoothly, making them both grunt and smile into a soft kiss, chests starting to heave a bit as Derek moves his hand faster, pulls Stiles further around his crown.

Stiles has played around with his foreskin in pretty much every way possible, but the tight grip he has around Derek’s thick head is a sensation unlike anything he’s ever felt before. Derek’s hands are working him fast, eyes still locked on where they’re joined so strangely, so intimately. It doesn’t take long before Stiles is arching his back, muttering surprised curses, nails digging into his arm, coming in throbbing bursts against the tip of Derek’s cock.

He’s still trying to catch his breath when Derek separates them and pushes him back flat, scooting down the bed to take his cock in his mouth, slowly, lovingly licking the come from his tip, fingers gentle on his sensitive foreskin, sliding it back to suckle him clean. When he’s done he looks up at him, eyes narrow with heat, wet mouth shining.

Limbs still dense with the glow of his orgasm but determined to finally get Derek's cock in his mouth, Stiles crawls awkwardly down the bed, past where Derek’s lying and licking his lips, until he slides off on to the floor, on his knees. “Get down here, sourwolf,” he orders, tugging on his ankles.

“Oh my god, sourwolf? Really Stiles? It wasn’t that clever the first time, you know.” Derek rolls to his back and scoots down, spreading his legs and letting his feet fall to the floor on either side of Stiles’ shoulders, presenting his flushed, fat cock right in Stiles’ face, head wet with his come.

“You love it and you know it.” He rubs his face on along the inside of one of Derek’s strong thighs, lashes fluttering as the rough tickle of his coarse hair scrapes his cheek. He nibbles and bites at him, watches in wonder as the graceful, powerful muscles flex and splay in response to his mouth, to his hands, heart racing with nerves and excitement.

“You don’t have to,” Derek whispers, hand running through his hair, cupping his jaw, eyebrows furrowed. “We don’t have to rush –”

Stiles silences him by wrapping his mouth around his tip, sucking experimentally, taste of his come and a musky-sweet tang that’s all Derek exploding across his tongue, making him hungry for more. “Don’t be such a sourwolf,” he teases, getting back to it.

~*~

Stiles leans back in the deck chair, relaxing in the bright December sun that makes the day feel warmer than it really is. Or maybe he’s still basking in the glow of finally, finally, being with Derek, lit up from the inside with a throbbing, exhilarating happiness that feels unlike any love he’s known before. “So tell me about it,” he asks Fox Stiles, handing over one of Stoner Derek’s superb joints. Distantly, Stiles thinks he should be concerned about getting high just after noon on a Tuesday, but it’s winter break and he’s surrounded by clones and now he knows how it feels to have Derek’s hands and mouth on him.

That’s all that matters anymore.

“Stiles,” Lydia admonishes from her own deck chair, looking up over her sunglasses from the ancient-looking book she’s reading. “If you’re going to ask about it, you should at least be able to say the word.”

“All right, fine. Tell me about the orgy.” His one night of orgasms with Derek has made him even more intensely horny; he wants to do everything all at once, wants to do nothing but learn every single combination of touches and kisses and licks and thrusts that make Derek, every version of Derek, sigh and moan and whimper and scream.

And since Derek insisted on going on a romp in the woods with a bunch of the Stereks, the human ones still dorkily excited by werewolf tricks, Stiles is left behind at the house with the others, he might as well get his information in other ways. After all, he’s got two experts on Derek’s body right here on the porch with him, Stileses Fox and Alpha. He had meant though, to start by asking them about sex with Derek, just regular ol’ one-on-one Sterek sex, so he could get an idea of what to expect – Stiles has plans for when Derek returns from supernatural show and tell.

But he also can’t stop thinking about the Sterek orgy (Storgy? No. No.)

“Lydia, are you sure you want to hear this,” Fox Stiles asks her.

She levels him with a glare. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Terrifying in all realities,” Fox grins, Alpha nodding his agreement.

“What do you want to know,” Alpha Stiles asks him, taking the joint from Fox.

God, what doesn’t he want to know? “Okay, I’ve gotten off to my fair share of group videos, but those are always like three or four guys,” Stiles says. Lydia doesn’t even bat an eye, just nods and smiles. “I’m having a hard time even really imagining more than yet. After half a dozen dudes it all just kinda turns into a tangle of cocks and limbs.”

Alpha Stiles blows a thick ribbon of smoke and laughs. “What, do you think we formed a giant mega-Sterek?”

“It was more of a collection of Stereky clusters,” Fox explains, smirking, biting his bottom lip. “Sometimes we weren’t all in the same room.”

“Sometimes we were outside.”

“Sometimes we were in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen? Dudes, come on.”

“Dude, we cleaned up. Disinfected the counters and everything.” Fox hands him the joint.

“Yeah, dad made us,” Alpha laughs, turning to where Hipster Derek is coming out the back door, guitar in hand, his Stiles trailing behind with armload of snacks.

“’Dad?’” Lydia asks.

“Writer Derek. He’s such a dad,” Fox Stiles explains, looking dreamy and spaced out.

Stiles is kinda dying to know more about that, but he presses on, still trying to understand the logistics. “So you all just…went with whatever, whoever, in varying combinations?”

“Yeah.” He smiles and shrugs. “And sometimes we’d stop to watch a few who were doing something…special.”

“Special?”

“The alphas,” Hipster Derek says, legs splayed wide in a chair, his Stiles and now Fox Stiles leaning against his calves, arms looped around them, snuggling in close.

It’s something Stiles noticed right away this morning, when he and Derek had finally come downstairs to the rowdy cheers of congratulations from a bunch of half-naked Stereks making French toast.

Standing together near the coffee pot, Porn Derek brushing a tender hand over Stoner Stiles’ lower back before taking a mug of coffee over to his Stiles, who was leaning on his elbows on the island, shoulder-to-shoulder with Jock Derek.

Casual hands across stomachs and chests they passed each other in the hallway. Rows of intertwined fingers at the kitchen table, teasing butt slaps and kisses on cheeks as the less lazy of them left for their run through the preserve. Each Stiles is still barnacled on to his one true Derek, but there’s a fluidity of movement and ease of contact amongst them now, making them seem like a giant, undifferentiated mass of Sterek love and tenderness and romance, an uncanny intimacy.

Stiles wants in on it.

“The alphas?”

Alpha Stiles smiles. “Alpha D and I put on a bit of a show for our boys.”

Stiles files that away for further, detailed consideration later, pushing on with his questions. “And it wasn’t weird? Being with different versions of your Derek? Or your Stiles,” he adds, nodding at Hipster Derek. “Or with versions of yourself?”

“What about this isn’t weird as fuck,” Hipster Derek asks, lighting another joint. “Just go with it, man. It’s worth it.” Stiles can’t help but stare at him, mesmerized, wonders if his lips will feel differently against his skin than his Derek’s.

“It’s hard to explain,” Fox Stiles, lounging on the top step, tells him. “It’s like…all of the Dereks are different, they’re unique…but they’re all still, at their core or whatever, Derek. And the same for us. We’re all just different facets of the same person. It’s weird as hell when you try to rationalize it, but it feels right. And shit, man, I shared spirit animal dreams with my soul mate for nearly my entire life before we actually met. Trust me when I say that I know when to give up reason and just go with what feels right.”

“And two Stileses fucking me at once while another sucks me off feels all kinds of right,” Hipster Derek remarks, plucking out a cheery tune on his guitar.

“Oh my fuck,” Stiles gasps, brain exploding a little bit at that mental image.

“Finally this is getting interesting,” Lydia announces, leaning forward.

~*~

Awhile later the rest of the Stereks return, laughing, a few of them giving each other piggy back rides up the path that leads from the backyard into the preserve. At first Stiles is confused because he doesn’t see his Derek, but then he spots, bringing up the rear of their rowdy group, two wolves, huge, bigger than any non-werewolf wolf, trotting up the path next to each other.

Alpha Derek is bigger, eyes glowing a soft red where real Derek’s are shining that luminescent blue Stiles loves so much, reminds him so much of his early, thrilling encounters with him. Both wolves emanate power and strength, thick black coats shining and regal.

They’re absolutely captivating, the Derek wolves, creatures of extraordinary beauty and grace.

And then Alpha Derek, tongue lolling out of his wide mouth, darts in front of real Derek, nipping at his front paw until he stumbles, barking playfully as he skitters into the grass. Derek regains his balance and yips back, catching his scruff, sending the two beasts rolling and wrestling like a couple of puppies.

“Oh my god, are you serious?” Stiles whines. He’s only see Derek go full wolf a handful of times since he leveled up, the first time just because Stiles needed to see it to believe it and each time after during a chase or a fight.

He’s never seen Derek enjoy himself as a wolf, and goddammit, it might be the sweetest thing he's ever seen.

“They’ve been doing this all morning,” Punk Stiles informs them, jumping down from Writer Derek’s back. “It’s so cute you kinda want to throw up, huh?”

The wolf Dereks tumble towards them, nipping at each other’s heels, separating to bound up the steps. Alpha slams into his Stiles hard enough to knock him flat on his back, pouncing him, licking all over his face while he squirms and squeals, which only seems to encourage Derek.

His own wolf is more reserved in his greeting, hesitant almost, like he’s not sure how Stiles will react to him (because of course, it’s not enough that they have to navigate that awkward transition from friends to more, they have deal with friends to more-plus-sometimes-one of us has four legs and a tail. This is his life now). Derek licks at his hand, sniffing, waiting for Stiles to reach up and bury his hands in his thick, soft scruff before leaning forward, headbutting him, nuzzling into his neck. “Hey there, pup,” he murmurs into his pointy ear, not sure if the little yipping noise Derek makes is one of pleasure or irritation; Stiles isn’t fluent in wolf Derek yet.

“Hey listen to this,” Lydia calls to him. “I found some more info about our trickster.”

Derek seems content to stay wolfy for the time being, and so does Alpha D, both of them settling close to their Stileses as Lydia reads, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows taking on that annoyed look of determination she gets when she’s translating Latin. “It says that the trickster – here he’s called a…well, it translates roughly to ‘giver of desire’ – when he’s summoned, he responds instinctively to the strongest will nearby – the strongest desire. He recognizes the…deepest, I think – wish in the room and…grants it. With trickery, of course. He’s a trickster, but his purpose isn’t to create chaos like other tricksters. He’s a student of human nature. Gives people what they want in unexpected ways and sees how they deal with it. And apparently…huh.” She taps a manicured nail against her chin as she reads on silently for a moment, eyes moving quickly across the weathered pages, all of them watching, waiting. “This is interesting,” She says when she speaks again. “The power of the desire generates the magic. The deeper, the…truer…the stronger the desire, the more magic he’s able to muster for his trick.”

Fox Stiles smiles at him. “Dude, your want for Derek was strong enough to power magic that literally collapsed the boundaries of eight realities." He winks, still scratching his Derek's wolf ears. "How does that feel?”

~*~

Stiles doesn’t bother getting dressed after his shower, just casually drapes the towel around his hips, wiping away the steam from the mirror to look at his reflection, to survey the purple-red marks Derek left on his neck and collarbone, pressing each one to feel the flare of sensation spike, a ghost of Derek’s mouth on his skin. After a few minutes of this, he takes a long, steady look into his eyes.

He’s about to have sex with Derek.

Like, in-the-butt-sex.

With Derek.

That’s why took a mid afternoon shower, after all, to prepare and get extra clean the way the Stileses advised (they hadn’t really told him anything he didn’t know from his own very thorough research, but it was still nice to get some supportive coaching for his first time). Derek had looked at him knowingly when he excused himself after lunch to go upstairs, had said he would follow him up soon.

And now it’s time.

To have sex. With Derek.

He can't freakin wait.

“Stiles, I can smell you freaking out. Why don’t you come talk to me about it?” Derek’s voice is gentle but insistent.

Derek’s sitting in the window seat, shirtless like he has been all afternoon since shifting back, baggy fleece sweats hanging low on his hips. “Everything okay,” he asks when Stiles opens the bathroom door and walks to him.

“Everything’s perfect,” he answers, not missing the way Derek’s eyes rake over his naked torso with obvious want. Seeing Derek so unguarded like this, how open and expressive his face can be, Stiles realizes how much effort he must have been putting into hiding his feelings all this time, just like he had been. “Is this why you’re always glaring at me,” he asks, thumbing along his jaw, gasping quietly when Derek bites playfully at it. “Didn’t want me to see you looking at me like this.”

It’s the most beautiful thing in the world, the way Derek’s looking at him.

Derek’s kiss is all the answer he needs, insistent and needy as he snaps the towel from his hips and tosses it aside, big hands drifting lightly over his ass, making him shudder as he pulls Stiles down across his lap to straddle him. “We don’t have to,” he gasps when he eventually pulls away, leaning his forehead against Stiles’ collarbone. “We don’t have to – “

“Derek, for the last time, I know I don’t have to do anything I want to do. Please trust me when I say that I want this. Want you. In every way possible. And not only do I want you, after we fuck, I want us to go downstairs and join our clone orgy, okay? That’s a thing we can do now, because I love you so damn much it tore apart realities or whatever.”

“You love me,” Derek whispers, skipping right over the orgy part, awed it seems, by Stiles’ confession, but a little scared too, like he doesn’t really believe him.

Stiles had thought he’d experienced every kind of fear by now, a fair amount of them Derek-related. But this fear – that Derek might not believe him, that despite his evolution he’s still the fragile boy who’s been manipulated more than he’s been loved – this is a new, soul-quivering fear. The fear that his love for him may be strong enough to tear apart realities but it still might not be strong enough to repair the broken, abused heart of this reality’s Derek Hale.

“I think I’ve loved you since that day in the hospital six years ago,” he admits, the truth of it steadying his rabbiting heart.

Derek’s smile sends it racing again though, bright and sweet and warm. He nuzzles into his neck, breathing him in, mouth hot against his skin. “I’m glad I didn’t rip your throat out with my teeth,” he murmurs, nibbling.

Stiles lets out a relieved laugh into Derek’s hair, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Really?” he mocks. “It wasn’t that clever the first time.” He tries to match Derek’s understated sass from this morning, but it’s hard when he’s got his mouth on the bony rise of his collarbone the way he does, dragging his lips to his shoulder, pressing his scruff into him, making his skin rise and shiver.

“That’s when I knew,” Derek goes on, quiet, contemplative, words half buried in the crook of his armpit, scenting him, eyes closed in bliss. “When you helped me when you had no reason to, when I didn’t deserve it. That’s when I knew there was something between us. When I was coming to after I blacked out, I could hear your heartbeat.” His fingertips trace over Stiles’ chest, over his heart, tapping a gentle tattoo in time with its steady beat.

“This boy is scared to death, I thought. And then I heard the way you called my name, felt your hands on my face, and I realized that you were scared for me.” Derek pulls back to look at up at him, smiling again. “And then you punched me and I woke up.”

Stiles laughs and rolls his hips, grinding down on Derek’s erection tenting his sweats. “I tried to fight it for awhile,” Derek continues, hauling Stiles up to carry him over to the bed, lying him down gently before stepping back to slide the sweats down his hips, kicking them off. “I didn’t want to have feelings for you. I didn’t want to have feelings for anyone.” Derek’s crawling over him, still speaking quietly, peppering his legs and hips with open-mouthed kisses. “But you were always there, and you kept saving me. You made me want to feel again.”

Stiles arches under his mouth, needful. “The other Stereks had much sweeter meet-cutes and falling in love stories,” he murmurs, Derek taking his pert, sensitive nipple between his lips.

“Our love story works for our world. Works for us.”

~*~

Derek readies him slowly, carefully, kneeling between his splayed thighs with one of the bottles of lube Writer Derek bought the other day, grinning mischievously at him when he pulls it from the nightstand. Stiles lies back, one arm behind his head, trying to focus on the adoring look of wonder on Derek’s face as his body gives way to his strong, deft fingers. Stunning and wondrous as his face is, eyes glittering emeralds in the golden afternoon light coming from the skylight, Stiles loses focus quickly, body and mind pulled under quickly by the waves of hot pleasure starting to pulse through him, rippling across and through his body from where Derek’s got two fingers all the way inside of him, his other hand steadily stroking Stiles’ side, drifting over his and up his waist to skirt over his ribs and back down again.

He keeps at it, easing him open with three scissoring fingers, leaning over to tongue slowly into his mouth, bite at his chest, rub his nose along the hairy ridge between his pecs, smiling. Stiles is practically shaking, cock red and leaking, when Derek finally pulls his fingers out of him, slick hand going to his own dick, sliding the foreskin up, other hand locked on Stiles’ hip.

“Can I,” he starts to ask, throaty and rough. “Fuck, Stiles, I want you your knees,” he huffs out, abashed, blushing.

It’s a miracle, really, that Stiles doesn't come right then and there.

~*~

Derek, his Derek, pushes into him with utmost care, even when Stiles begs for more, for him to go faster, harder, drowning in the new, exhilarating sensation of his body stretching wide, accommodating. When he’s buried to the hilt, both of them shaking with it, Derek works up a steady, deliberate pace, hands solid and hot, cupping his ass to spread him wider before slipping them back up to his hips, muttered words splintering over his gasping moans, Stiles and so tight and you’re taking it so good love.

After awhile his moans start to sound more like growls, and then he’s rutting faster, rhythm faltering, hands gripping tighter, nails digging half-moons into Stiles’ skin. Stiles is nearly gone himself, mind and body a buzzy blur of simmering heat, dizzy with the holy, hell, fucking divine feeling of Derek’s big beautiful cock thrusting into him, thick head catching on his tight rim before plunging deep to rock against his prostate, over and over again.

Balancing on one hand, Stiles twists back, reaching for Derek’s chest, needing to touch him, needing to see his face. “Oh my god,” he whines when he sees Derek’s eyes, irises rimmed with incandescent blue, face shining with sweat.

Stiles tangles his fingers in his chest hair, grappling, scrambling, trying to get a hold of him, aching need for more Derek possessing him powerfully, drunk on it, on him, on them. Derek obliges him, or maybe he feels the same way too, because he seizes Stiles’ hand, twisting their fingers together and wrapping both of his arms around him and falling forward, pushing him down flat, legs spread wide. Derek keeps his arms tucked under him, squeezing him tight as he lies fully across his back, hips snapping fast and hard, insistent, demanding. He’s given in completely, it seems, to his years of want, to his wolf, to Stiles, teeth rough-edged and blunt as they clamp around the juncture of his neck and shoulder, a claiming bite.

Stiles’ orgasm is explosive, dick raw and taut from rubbing against the sheets, spilling heavily, biting into the fabric under his face, body wracked with electric pleasure, clenching reflexively around Derek’s cock, spurting again as he slides through his mess when Derek whines and bites his shoulder harder.

He can actually feel Derek’s orgasm, the powerful bursts of come pulsing inside of him, making his eyes roll back at how unbelievably intimate and hot and good and right it feels to be filled up by him, growling grunts muffled into his skin. Derek’s hips surge with one last swell of power before he collapses heavily on to him, panting.

Stiles is still humming with loose-limbed heat when Derek rises up wordlessly and starts kissing slowly down his back, tongue carving sensuous paths through the sheen of sweat on his back, licking up the small pool gathered at the base of his spine, sighing like he’s tasting something particularly delicious before moving further down, burying his face in his ass, practically purring.

Stiles’ heart is racing, hands twisting in the sheets, spent cock valiantly starting to twitch again, angling his hips up on instinct. Derek makes a pleased-sounding grunt and gets his hands on his ass, spreading him apart, making his gasp. He’s seen this of course, in porn, has gotten off to it, has imagined Derek doing just this more than once, but it’s something else altogether to be here, writhing in his own come on Derek’s expensive sheets, used and tender ass exposed, Derek’s beard rough and his breath hot against his skin.

“Derek,” he whines when he starts to feel the hot, heavy drip of come start to drip out of him. Derek answers with the tip of his tongue, dragging teasing circles around his rim, lapping at him gently. Stiles keens and rocks back into his mouth when he slips his tongue into him, come pulsing out of him in a gush. Derek whimpers in delight, eating him out eagerly, shamelessly, until Stiles is a sputtering mess again, rising back up to weak knees, crying out when Derek pushes back into him.

He can’t stop panting his name, a mantra, an anchor, the only tether he has left as he dissolves into a blurred heat of need and wonder as Derek starts fucking him anew.

~*~

Derek straddles him, pulling his fingers from his lubed and stretched hole to wrap them around Stiles’ cock, guiding him up, sinking down slowly until he’s bottomed out, until his eyes flutter back in bliss and he sighs deep and low, like he’s been starving for this. Stiles is nearly out of his mind with how fucking good it feels to rock up into him, to watch Derek roll and bounce on his dick wildly, ravenously, taking what he needs with open, vulnerable want. Stiles fucks up into him, trying to give him as much as he can. Derek is relentless, unyielding, rides him hard and fast until they’re both flushed red in the chest and gasping for air when they come, crashing together in a brutal kiss, holding on to each other for dear life.

~*~

It’s dark, but not that late when they wake up, limbs tangled and sticky. Stiles kisses Derek’s eyelids before leaning back to look at him, grinning. “So,” he asks, “now that we’ve figured out that we like fucking each other…wanna go downstairs?”

~*~

They walk downstairs, hand in hand, naked, eager to join the sequel to the orgy they ran away from yesterday.

What a difference a day makes. Well, a day that includes a bunch of earth-shattering orgasms at the hands and mouth and cock of Derek.

The living room is abundant with all of the above, a plethora of naked Dereks, Stileses too, all them gathered in a splay of bare limbs and cocks across every surface. They’re in a rough circle, all turned towards the oversized square ottoman in the middle of the room where Alpha Stiles, naked and hard, is lying back casually, one hand resting behind his head, the other lazily stroking his cock, legs spread, feet planted on the floor. “You made it just in time,” he tells them, smiling happily.

Stiles is taking Fox Stiles’ advice, abandoning any attempt to rationalize or even think about the weirdness of all this, decides to just give in to the pure want and rightness he feels. Judging my the wide-eyed, dazed-but-happy look on his face, as well his swelling cock, Derek’s feeling pretty good about this too.

They settle next to each other on the floor against the couch, welcoming hands squeezing their shoulders and their necks, rubbing through their hair. Nerd Stiles slides out of Jock Derek’s lap and onto the floor, pulling real Derek in to a messy kiss. Stiles stares, mesmerized, this is what we look like together, until Jock Derek tugs on his hair and pulls his head back to give him his own kiss, tongue hot and familiar but still somehow new. “Watch,” he whispers when he breaks the kiss, gently pushing his head back, directing his gaze back towards the center of the room.

Omega Derek straddles Alpha Stiles, sliding down onto his cock just like his own Derek did not long ago, the look of eye-fluttering bliss on his face uncannily identical. He’s barely started rolling his hips when Alpha Derek, huge muscles rippling under his tattoos, walks up behind him and falls to his knees between the other alpha’s spread thighs. There’s a collective round of gasps and groans from the audience when he takes Alphas Stiles’ balls into his mouth, suckling loud and wet.

Stiles feels a hand on his cock, looks over to see Porn Derek scooting into place next to him, leaning over to work his cock while they watch, winking up at him.

Alpha Derek is licking at the base of Stiles’ dick, running his tongue up to tease at where he’s joined to the other Derek, licking around his rim, sliding his fingers and his tongue in alongside him. Omega Derek falls over to kiss his Stiles, whose hands are spread wide on his gorgeous ass, holding him wide so Alpha Derek can push into him, all three of them groaning loudly. Alpha Stiles moves his hands up to pet at his Derek’s face, encouraging. “Doing so good,” he tells him, kissing at his cheek. “Your omega ass was made to take two alphas, baby.” Both of the Dereks laugh, Alpha Derek starting to rock harder, taking control, sliding his cock along Stiles’ as they share the privilege of splitting Derek wide, making him mewl and groan and beg.

Stiles tears his eyes away from them to look at his Derek, who’s slumped back against the couch, his other tattooed double, Stoner Derek, on his knees between his legs, sucking at his cock languidly. Stiles leans over to pull him into a kiss, smiling against his mouth and biting his lip before turning back to watch the alphas and their omega, running his hands over Porn Derek’s shorn hair where his head is resting against Stiles’ chest while he strokes him.

“You want more, don’t you, Omega,” Alpha Derek is grunting, lifting one foot up to the ottoman for leverage, angling himself deeper into him.

“Fuck, yeah,” Omega Derek answers, panting and desperate.

Fox Stiles stands and steps around to the other side of the ottoman, facing the Dereks, leaning over Alpha Stiles to feed Omega Derek his cock. “Holy shit,” Stiles hears himself gasp, brain short circuiting at the sight of this Derek with two cocks in his ass and one his mouth, still whining like he's hungry for more.

The air in the room is already thick with the smell of spunk, even to human senses, growing stronger as several of them come in quick succession, the room echoing with grunts of pleasure and moans of encouragement and loving laughter. Stiles is teetering on the brink, eyes locked on where Fox Stiles unloads all over Omega Derek’s beatific face before leaning over across his sweaty back to kiss his Derek. Alpha Derek’s snapping his hips forward hard, growling, body flexing and throbbing as he pulses into the other Derek’s ass, pulling out just enough to let them all see his thick come run out of him and down Alpha Stiles’ shaft before shoving back in, making both of the men beneath him cry out in needy pleasure.

Omega Derek is still rocking steadily on the two alpha cocks, eyes hot and focused on his Stiles beneath him, grin playing at the corners of his reddened lips, licking the come from his chin. “Your turn,” he whispers. “Come for me,” and fuck, Alpha Stiles does, as if Derek’s wish or permission or command was exactly what he was waiting for, arching up hard, groaning, his thick come gushing out of Omega Derek’s stretched, twitching hole.

They fall into a heap of smiles and tender caresses, Fox Stiles following his Derek to the floor, crawling over him to lick at his shining cock while Omega Derek slides off his Stiles, rolling to his side next to him. He’s still hard, his cock an angry red, but he ignores it and looks across the room, locking his on eyes on Stiles.

“You,” he says, pointing at him and crooking his finger. “Real Stiles. Get over here.”

Porn Derek stops his ministrations on his cock, smiling up at him. “You better listen to him, big guy,” he advises, nudging his thigh. Stiles looks over to his Derek, who’s biting his lip, either at the steady, sloppy sucking of Stoner Derek or at the prospect of watching Stiles fuck Omega Derek, probably both, judging by the way he nods and smiles at him, eyes fluttering.

His legs feel loose, knees too soft, when he stands and walks over to him, squeezing the base of his cock. Omega Derek, with his tense glare and almost clean-shaven face, looks so much like his Derek from that day in the woods two years ago that changed everything in and for Stiles forever. Getting to touch him, getting to see the wondrous sight of him rolling onto his back, rocking his hips up and spreading his legs, presenting his wet, ready hole – fuck, it does something to Stiles, warms and heals that part of himself that hated Derek that day for what he made him feel, for how he unsettled him.

Omega Derek’s hot, blistering hot, velvety soft and so full of come they both choke out little grunts of pleased surprise when it slushes out as Stiles pushes into him, leaning over to lick a drop of come from his cheek before attacking his swollen mouth with his own. Stiles starts rutting hard and quick, too far gone to make it last very long, body rushing headlong towards its release. He gets one of Derek’s legs up on his shoulder, trying to get deeper into his drenched heat, mouth kneading at the inside of his knee, hand circling his leaking cock together with Alpha Stiles’, still lying next Derek, who’s panting, rocking to meet his every thrust.

Stiles tears his eyes away from him long enough to glance back over at his Derek, who, fuck, who’s watching him over Stoner Stiles’ back, because he’s riding Derek’s cock now, facing away from him and leaning over, face buried in Stoner Derek’s ass, who’s on all fours between real Derek’s splayed legs, watching them with a smile and working his hand hard and fast over his own cock.

“Holy fucking fuck,” Stiles mutters just before he comes.

~*~

It’s an intense blur for a long time after that, a mélange of Stereky combinations and positions, all of them deeply erotic and intensely passionate, but somehow loving and playful too, the house seeming to be glowing in a aura of effusive, pure, loving want.

Stoner Derek and real Derek, on their knees, tonguing filthily into each other’s mouths while they slide their cocks together, their Stileses behind each of them, mouths devouring, ravishing.

Porn Stiles lowering himself down onto two cocks, real Derek’s and Hipster’s, their legs splayed across each other in a tangle on the couch, each of them anchoring him with sturdy hands on this thighs as he bounces and rides, opening his mouth wide for the rest of them to spill into.

Alpha Derek, flat on his back, Nerd Stiles straddling his chest and fucking into his mouth, Jock Derek riding his cock while fingering his Stiles, Porn Derek crawling up behind him to lick into his ass.

Real Derek, his Derek, begging to be covered in their come, collecting puddles of it from his stomach and chest, licking it up greedily from his fingers before rolling over to present himself to Alpha Derek, whose eyes glow red when he shoves into him.

Stiles, in a daze, face pressed to the floor, ass in the air, Writer Derek holding him open for the others, so many adoring and affectionate words of praise telling him how pretty he looks all filled up with their come.

~*~

Stiles shuffles into the kitchen in search of water, rolling his shoulders and rubbing his eyes, stumbling and sex dumb.

He lost track of his Derek not too long ago, right around the time Dereks Hipster and Jock fell to their knees in front of him, pulling each other into a filthy kiss, Stiles’ cock between the wet flames of their tongues.

He finds him in the kitchen, bracing himself against the counter, two Stileses on his knees, Porn Stiles with his mouth on his cock, Hipster Stiles delving into his ass. Derek smiles when he seems him, mouth bright red and eyes soft and dreamy, reaching out to pull him in, kissing him deeply, never stilling the steady rollicking of his hips, forward to plunge his cock further into one Stiles’ mouth and then back to shove his ass into the other’s.

“I missed you,” Derek sighs, coming.

~*~

Stiles watches, rapt, body throbbing with heat, as Punk Stiles teases at Derek’s entrance with the tip of the barbell in his tongue, the unbearably erotic twitching and unfurling of his rim making both of them whine as Derek begs for more. He’s on his hands and knees in the middle of the big bed in one of the downstairs bedrooms, gorgeous and on display, Punk Stiles behind him, bent over to eat him out, Writer Derek lounging back against the headboard, idly stroking his cock.

“Come 'ere,” Punk Stiles says, smiling at him and spreading Derek wide, offering. Stiles gets his meaning immediately and falls down to lick into Derek with him, their tongues tangling together, darting in and out of him, tasting each other and Derek’s come-slick ass, intoxicating and sloppy.

Eventually Stiles pulls back, drawn by his curiosity about Punk Stiles’ pierced cock, wants to know how it feels on his tongue and against his throat before he watches him fuck Derek with it. Stiles scoots on his back underneath him, smiling when he hears Writer Derek groan in approval. He circles Stiles’ cock with his hand, so like his own but for the barbell in the tip that he takes between his lips experimentally, sucking until he hears him muffle a groan into Derek’s ass. He pulls it his between his teeth, slurping around his head before wrapping his lips around him, straining his neck up to take him down his throat as far as he can, the hot steel carving a smooth path against the roof of his mouth as Punk Stiles thrusts shallowly.

He lifts his mouth from Derek’s ass and rises up, pulling his cock from Stiles’ mouth, reaching for the bottle of lube Writer Derek hands him. Stiles shimmies around on the bed, turning and sliding underneath his Derek so they can sixty-nine while Punk Stiles fucks him. Derek’s panting lightly, but he doesn’t hesitate to take Stiles’ cock into his mouth, swallowing him down with enthusiasm. Stiles does the same from his back, hooking his arms around Derek’s thighs for leverage.

His position gives him a fucking incredible view of the studded tip of Punk Stiles’ cock teasing the puffy rim of Derek’s wet hole before breaching him, spearing him open even more, Derek’s body open and accommodating like he was made for Stiles, any Stiles.

It also puts him in prime view when Writer Derek comes around to stand at the side of the bed, his own slick fingers slipping into Punk Stiles, wasting no time pushing his cock into him, matching the pace of his strong, steady thrusts. It’s too much, too hot, too beautiful, too fucking intense, lying under them like this, watching one Derek fuck one Stiles while he fucks another Derek; it’s too perfect, and Stiles comes with a gurgling shout around his Derek’s cock, choking a bit as he spits it out, gasping, his own cock spraying against the back of his Derek’s throat.

“Fuck,” he sighs, body wracked, exhausted but insatiable. He gets an idea then, a good, one, he’s pretty proud of it in fact, grinning, extricating himself out from underneath them. He finds the bottle of lube in the sheets, almost empty, but enough to slick up his ass again before moving into position in front of his Derek.

And that’s how Stiles finds himself in the front of a two Sterek chain, combined thrusts of three men reverberating deep in his core, pushing him into new throes, new heights of blissful, rough pleasure, the slap and smack of skin echoing and spinning through the dense air with their eerily similar grunts and moans. Derek mouths at his shoulder, leaving a stripe of spit and come across his skin before biting into him, clasping on with his teeth as he comes, shuddering the way he does, arms strong and tight around Stiles’ waist.

Stiles turns his head toward the door, isn’t really surprised to see that they’ve got an audience, Stoner Sterek and Hipster, watching with heated eyes and open mouths, hands all over each other, smiling.

~*~

Stiles doesn’t remember falling asleep, doesn’t remember much of anything after the glow of satisfied pride and pleasure he felt when Derek came inside of him, Punk Stiles and Writer Derek still fucking away behind him.

It’s probably early morning, pale blue moonlight shining from the window bright enough that he can see that he’s been sleeping with his face smashed against the soft dark curls of a Dereky chest. He looks up, trailing a ribbon of drool, to see the full, soft beard of Writer Derek, who's still sleeping peacefully. That means the Dereky shape pressed against his back is his Derek. There’s a tattooed arm slung across Writer Derek’s thigh from behind him, Punk Stiles pressed up against his back.

A few days ago he was freaking out because he had to share a bed with Derek, and now here he is, naked and sticky with sweat and copious amounts of come, the center of Stereky cuddle pile.

He smiles and watches Writer Derek sleep for a minute, thinking about how, in ten years, this is what his Derek will look like, scatter of gray in his beard and at his temples, laugh lines around his eyes deeper.

If he’s lucky, Stiles will get to be there.

If he’s lucky, he’ll get to wake up next to him everyday for the next ten years and then every day after that, in this reality and every other.

Chapter Text

On the seventh day of Sterek, Stiles wakes to Derek watching him sleep, face so close to his that all he can see of him are his eyes. This close, he can see the tangles of gold around his irises, delicate ribbons of gossamer furling out into the sea foam green that’s almost transparent in the late morning light.

“Sectoral heterochromia,” Stiles mumbles, voice thick with sleep, lips brushing over Derek’s, hand reaching for his beard. “Different colors in the iris,” he explains, kissing him with purpose this time.

Derek runs a thumb across his cheekbone. “And what’s the scientific name for eyes that glow like smoky amber and haunt my dreams with their glimmering, honeyed beauty?”

“Oh my god,” Stiles laughs, tugging slightly on his hair. “Are you for real?”

Derek laughs too, a beautiful sound that nestles right into Stiles’ heart, makes him ache with how much he loves him, every version of him, in this reality and all the others. “That’s from Writer Derek’s book,” Derek admits. “One of the characters looks very much like you.”

“You’ve been reading it? I’ve been looking all over for it. I thought Lydia took it.”

Derek pushes him onto his back and scoots down the bed, trailing soft, bearded kisses down his chest, looking up at him finally when he’s eye-level with his belly button. “She did. But she also read it in a day and brought it back. Derek said we could keep it, though, when they leave.”

Yesterday afternoon, after the otherworldly, surreally beautiful orgy, Stiles woke for the second time that day with just his Derek, who was curled behind him, hand gripping his hip, black veins spidering up his forearm. Stiles hadn’t been in pain, not really – he was tender and sore, extremely well used, probably like all of the other humans in the house. But Derek was taking that soreness, leaving him sighing in loose-limbed, blissful happiness. “Thanks,” he had murmured, rolling over to kiss him. “You gonna go fix up the other guys too?”

“The alphas and Omega Derek are taking care of them.” Derek had smiled sweetly, rubbing his beard across his shoulders before they settled back into sleep, comforted by the closeness of all their many selves and the pure, sweet aura of love that filled the house.

“I’m going to miss them,” Stiles says now, quietly, tangling his hands in Derek’s hair.

Derek looks up at him, eyes big. There’s affection in his expression, but something else too, longing, maybe, that twists at Stiles’ heart bit, makes the aching love sting in a way that makes his chest flutter with concern. “Me too.”

~*~

They’re all gathered in the living room, the Stereks in the clothes they were wearing seven days ago when they showed up in the front yard to disrupt their lives in the very best way. Everyone is hugging and kissing each other goodbye; no one’s exactly sure what will happen when they hit the official one week mark, but they’re keeping a close eye on the clock, waiting for the Stereks to either disappear or for the Trickster to reappear to usher them back from whence they came.

There’s a sense of excitement, the Stereks eager to get back to their worlds and their lives, but there’s an undercurrent of sadness too that Stiles doesn't need werewolf senses to pick up on. Utterly strange as the week has been, they’ve all come to actually like each other, even his Derek and Omega D, and they all seem a little melancholy as they prepare to take their leave.

He watches their many doubles, thinking about how the boundaries between this universe’s Stiles and Derek and all the others have blurred so thoroughly, dissolving, making Stiles feel like each iteration of himself is really not so much a different person, but just a different facet of him, or who has the potential be. It’s been a crazy week, and philosophisizing about the nature of multiple selves for too long is exhausting; all he knows is that these other Stileses and these Dereks are leaving soon and he doesn’t want them to. A week ago when they first showed up he would have given anything to get rid of them, and now here they are about to leave and his eyes feel hot with tears and his chest is aching, and dammit, he loves this, watching Stoner Derek exchange hugs with Nerd Stiles. He loves being surrounded by Stereks, by so many reminders that his love for Derek is real, that maybe they’re fated or at least cosmically linked, that they have a future together beyond just Stiles and Derek, reluctant allies turned begrudging friends.

There’s fear too, fear he doesn’t want to look at too closely, doesn’t want to have confront head-on. Fear that maybe this really all is Trickster nonsense, that these other Stileses and Dereks were conjured out of thin air, that there are no alternative realities where his mom is still alive and Allison and Boyd and Erica too, where Derek didn’t lose his family and loves easily and with joy.

Fear that even if the other worlds do exist, which they’ll never really know, he supposes, that it’s no guarantee that this Derek in this world loves him, will want to continue being a Sterek when they’re not face-to-face with their many possibilities. The past few days have been incredible, extraordinary, out of this world, more than he ever could have imagined or hoped for, which is really saying a lot – but there’s this dark pit of dread in his gut that tells him something is going to go wrong, because that’s the doom and gloom of this universe, that’s this Stiles’ life. He can’t help but feel like the moment the doppelStereks disappear and they get thrust back to their normal lives the magical aura of Stereky love they’ve been living it up in is going to disappear too, and then fuck, where does that leave them?

God, how he wishes he could be going to a reality where his only concerns were his next tattoo and how many times he can make his Derek to come in one night.

“Hey,” a soft voice says to his left, Writer Derek moving in close next to him where he’s perched on the arm of the couch. “You okay?”

Stiles leans into his easy touch, looking up to memorize him, his favorite of the alternate Dereks, this gentle, wise Derek with deep laugh lines and gray in his beard, who smiles with ease and whose quiet calm has helped keep them all sane this week. “I’m going to miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” Stiles attempts to smile, the joke falling flat as his voice cracks.

“C’mere you,” Writer Derek huffs, pulling him into a tight embrace. He holds him close for a long time before stepping back to look him in the eye, big Dereky hands coming up to cradle his jaw, leaning forward to place a soft, chaste kiss on his mouth. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he whispers, sincere and honest and true, and Stiles lets himself believe him.

~*~

The house is eerily quiet, echoing with emptiness after nearly two weeks of constantly buzzing and clamoring with people.

Stiles wanders through the living room, eyes wide. One minute, they were there, in all their Stereky glory, and then…a sound only the werewolves could hear and the now-familiar spike of ozone and spice in the air and then they were just…gone.

Derek is sitting on the edge of the couch, stiff and clasping his hands together like he does when he’s anxious.

“This is weird,” Stiles says, just to fill the deafening silence. He’s not sure if he means the empty house or them, alone now for the first time since they Stereked, vigorously, returning from their alternate reality interlude and faced with the aftermath.

“It is,” Derek agrees. Stiles sits next to him on the couch, breathing a huge sigh of relief when Derek immediately moves to take his hand, intertwining their fingers. He has that look that Stiles knows well but hasn’t seen in long time, since before he leveled up, mouth tight and ridiculous big eyebrows furrowed. It’s that look frustration that he always seems to be trying to school into cool stoicism that has never fooled Stiles. It’s the look Derek gets when he’s cornered in an argument, when he has so much to say but can’t seem to find the words and he’s about to give up and either say something thoughtless and biting or go completely silent and unreachable.

“We should talk about stuff,” Stiles mumbles lamely. “But…maybe…I guess I should get going? I can’t remember the last time I slept in my own bed.”

Derek gives him another look, momentarily confused it seems, but maybe relieved too. Stiles tries not to make too much of it. Regardless of whatever they are to each other now, they’ve been shoved together for nearly two weeks and they could both probably use some space, some breathing room. “Your dad probably wants you home,” Derek says quietly, squeezing his hand tight before letting go. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”

Stiles nods and gets up to gather his things, the overwhelming quietude of the house crawling under his skin, making him itch to get out of there, away from Derek’s troubling inward turn that Stiles can see happening right before his very eyes.

He throws his stuff in the Jeep and is proud of himself for making it almost all the way home before the tears start falling.

~*~

After tossing and turning for hours – has his bed always been so small, so hard, so Derekless? – Stiles finally falls asleep only to startle awake when he feels a dense, heavy weight on the side of the bed. “Hey,” he calls gently, reaching for Derek’s hand.

Derek takes it, staring down at him, cloudy moonlight shining through the curtains falling in fan of gray-blue light across his stern features. For a moment Stiles thinks – hopes – that Derek has come to crawl into bed with him, that he missed him so much he couldn’t stand to spend a night away. But Derek doesn’t move from his perch on the edge of the mattress, and he’s fully dressed, jeans and boots and his old leather jacket that Stiles hasn’t seen him wear in a long time.

Stiles sits up, letting the blankets fall around his hips. “You’re leaving,” he says, not a question, the truth of his souring in his gut.

“Just for a few days. A week at the most. I need…,” he scoots closer, tugging lightly on his hand to pull Stiles closer to him. “I just need to take some time to think about some stuff, okay?”

“Okay,” Stiles nods, hoping that Derek can’t smell his tears starting to well up again. At least he’s saying goodbye this time, he thinks, and he’s not sure if that makes him feel better or not. “Where are you going?”

“My family’s beach house on the southern Oregon coast. Not far.” Derek stills the shaking of Stiles’ lower lip with his thumb. “I’m coming back,” he whispers, eyes imploring, voice steady and sure. “I promise.” He replaces his thumb with his mouth, pulling him into a tender kiss, hands cradling his face just like Writer Derek had before he whispered that everything was going to be okay. When he finally pulls away, he buries his face in Stiles’ neck, but not before Stiles can see that his eyes are shining too, and fuck, he doesn’t know what to make of that either.

Derek nuzzles hard into him, breathing deeply, like he’s stocking up on Stiles, and that, at least, leaves him with something like hope, a feeling that lingers even after Derek disappears.

~*~

To his surprise and relief, Derek doesn’t go completely radio silent while he’s gone like he had last time he left with Cora. The first evening he’s away, Derek snapchats him a picture of a gorgeous sunset, a rainbow of oranges and pinks over the Pacific, captioned I want to bring you here.

It’s not the confession of love Stiles is hoping for, but the flame of hope that this might actually turn out okay – better than okay – burns a little brighter. That and the fact that Derek is actually using snapchat, even though he rolled his eyes and said he never would when Stiles downloaded it to his phone.

And then, the next day, a snap of Derek’s bare toes on a wooden deck, a black cat with giant green eyes weaving between his sculpted, hairy calves. HE LOVES ME! Stiles is so happy that Derek’s finally met a cat that isn’t freaked the hell out by him that he forgets that things between are so uncertain and spend the rest of the day imagining the unbearable cuteness of Derek and cats.

A couple days later he gets another snap, this time Writer Derek’s book – which has apparently survived intact after the reorganization of the universes – propped up in Derek’s lap, big picture window with a stunning view of the ocean in the background. I think you’ll love this.

“I don’t know why you’re moping,” Lydia says, couple days after they all quietly celebrated Christmas at the McCall house, six days since Derek left. “The old Derek would have disappeared without saying goodbye. And he would have left us all wondering if he were alive or dead for months. You know where he is and he’s talking to you. Very sweetly, I may add. Why do you look so sad?”

Stiles stretches out on the couch in Lydia’s ridiculously luxurious den, clicking on the remote-control fireplace. “You’re right, I know you are. I just…wish he were here being sweet to me. Why did he have to run away? And why before we talked about what in the hell happened, before we talked about what we are now?”

“Those snaps seem pretty boyfriendy to me,” Scott chimes in, joining them from the kitchen with a couple bags of chips and an armful of soda.

“Inconclusive,” Lydia replies, reaching for a familiar-looking slim metal case on the end table. “Stoner Derek gave me a parting gift,” she smiles mischievously.

“Hell yes!” Scott yells, fishing a lighter from his pocket and tossing it to her.

Lydia lights the thick joint and passes it to him, which he accepts gratefully and then passes to Scott. “Think about it,” she goes on, exhaling elegantly – what doesn’t Lydia do elegantly? “Derek’s relationship with Paige ended tragically, and he spent a long time blaming himself, specifically the fact that he’s a werewolf, for her death. And maybe he still does.” She shrugs, eyes sharp on his. “And then the shedevil herself, Kate fucking Argent,” – they all groan at the mention of her – “did her number on him using all manner of manipulation and abuse, killed almost his entire family, and then came back to use magic to further manipulate and abuse him. And Jennifer, who used the power of virgin sacrifice to seduce him and use him for her evil revenge plans.”

Stiles stares glumly into the fire, arms feeling empty, aching to hug Derek, to kiss away every heartache, to destroy anyone who ever hurt him. Ever since his transformation to full wolf, Derek seems to have come to terms with his past, his burdens of guilt and anger lightening considerably, so much so Stiles sometimes forgets just how damaged he was before he healed himself. “So you’re saying all of his relationships end in death and pain and supernatural fuckuppery and he’s freaking out? But like, maturely?”

Lydia snorts a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”

Scott reaches for the joint. “What about Braeden? Derek didn’t freak out with her.”

“That was just sex,” Lydia answers, shrugging and settling further into the soft leather couch. “Sex doesn’t seem to be an issue for Derek,” she practically purrs, surely remember the details of their sexual exploits she got Stiles to divulge. “It’s the emotional stuff that trips him up. His emotions have been twisted, magicked, betrayed. It makes sense that he needs time to get his head on straight after what happened.”

Stiles ponders this for a few minutes, watching Scott play with Prada on the floor. “So us getting together as a result of Trickster magic was probably not the best start to a trusting, committed relationship?”

“Probably not.” Lydia admits. “But your wishes became horses and you two charged off into the sunset.”

Scott, on his back in front of the fireplace, the purse dog perched primly on his manly, wofly chest, looks up at her, all stoned puppy-eyed confusion. “Huh?”

Stiles laughs, a little mirthlessly. “She means that I fucked everything up by wanting Derek so bad and conjuring the Trickster. He grants wishes, remember? ‘Responds to the strongest will,’ or whatever.”

“I don’t think you fucked anything up,” Lydia reassures him. “Derek’s just taking time to think about things. It’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles, ripping open a bag of Doritos. “You don’t think…you don’t think Derek only wanted me because of the magic, do you,” he asks quietly, feeling a little hollow at the thought, at the possibility that it was just the Trickster’s magic that made Derek have sex with him and hold him like he was precious. That would make him hardly any different than Jennifer, he thinks, and fuck, that’s a knife to the gut.

“No way,” Scott says firmly, sitting up, still cradling the dog. “Stop smelling sad, Stiles. Derek has always wanted you, way before the Trickster."

“What?” Stiles jolts up from his slouch, arms flailing. “What do you mean?”

Scott shrugs. “He always smelled happy when you were around, even when you guys were biting each others heads off. And he’s pretty good at controlling his arousal, but there were definitely a couple times he freakin’ reeked of lust because of you. Isaac still texts me to laugh about it sometimes. That time we all got caught in the rain and you were wearing that white t-shirt?” Scott wrinkles his nose at the memory while Stiles feels his eyes go even wider, remembering that trek through the preserve to look for the fairies. “And when we couldn’t find you, during the Nogistune stuff," Scott goes on. "Derek was a damn wreck, trying so hard to hold it together, but we could all tell he was terrified. Chris Argent said he cried when they were in jail, talking about whether or not they were gonna have to kill you.”

Stiles sputters for a response, thoughts hazy and dense. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me?” He asks weakly.

“It wasn’t my place to tell. And I didn’t even know you were in to dudes, let alone Derek, remember?”

“Right,” Stiles mutters, falling back in to the couch. That’s another conversation he needs to have in the wake of the Great Sterek Fiasco, explaining to his best friend since the sandbox why he didn’t tell him he was bi years ago when he first figured it out.

“Come on,” Lydia says, patting him lightly on the thigh. “Let’s watch a movie.”

~*~

Derek texts him that night, just as he’s about to go to bed. I’m home. Come over sometime soon?

Stiles, half-undressed, texts back immediately. Is now too soon?

Now is perfect.

~*~

It’s only been six days since he was last at Derek’s house, but it still feels like a lifetime has passed since their magical interlude. He stopped knocking on Derek’s door a long time ago, long before he even had a proper door, but Stiles still feels strange letting himself in to the house, calling out an awkward hello.

He’s greeted by a black haired, green-eyed beauty of the feline variety rather than the lupine, and Stiles isn’t the least bit surprised Derek brought home the one and only cat that doesn’t hate him. The cat approaches him cautiously, slivered pupils watching his every move as he crouches down and slowly offers a hand.

“What’s his name?” he asks when Derek comes down the stairs to greet him.

“I was thinking Loki,” he smiles, scooping up the cat and pulling Stiles into the best hug of his entire life.

Derek is solid in his arms again, and it’s not until he feels that – not until his body feels him – that Stiles realizes that part of him was expecting Derek to never return. But that was the old Derek, and this is the new Derek. Transformed by his evolution, unburdened by his misplaced guilt and toxic anger, his fear, this is a new Derek who still has to retreat into solitude when overwhelmed, but who, Stiles realizes now, will always come back.

Will always come back to him.

Stiles pulls back from the hug, searches Derek’s face through tear-blurred eyes. “Are we okay?” he whispers. “Are we...a we? Are we- ”

“A Sterek?” Derek grins. "Yeah, we are. Always." He kisses him softly, patiently, because they have time, all of the time now, to take things slow, to languish in each other, to refine the hurried frenzy of chaotic and urgent love making they had last week, to take their time delighting in each other for the rest of their lives.

~*~

“I was worried,” Stiles admits, hours later when they’re bathed in moonlight, sheets of Derek’s bed tangled around their intertwined legs. Stiles is tucked into the nook of Derek’s broad chest, fingers curling in his chest hair, voice barely more than a whisper. “I thought maybe the supernatural interference bringing us together would be too much for you, after everything, or that it was just the magic.”

Derek pulls him closer with one arm, and with the other, reaches over to the nightstand for something Stiles can’t see. “It wasn’t interference,” he explains, voice just as low. “It was a supernatural kick in the ass to finally be honest about how we felt, to get over all of the reasons we created to not try to not be with each other because we were scared.” He flicks on the lamp and picks up a book, and Stiles recognizes it immediately as Writer Derek’s, the one he hasn’t had a chance to read yet but that Derek has. More than once, apparently, judging by the dog-eared pages. “When I was on the coast, I thought a lot about how even though there are so many versions of us across realities, it doesn’t feel like we’re pushed into this, anything like that, but...it still feels like fate, like we're meant to be, if that makes sense? I’ve always felt drawn to you, connected to you, Stiles, like no one else, and no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, for so many reasons, it was there, and it only got stronger with time.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Stiles murmurs, kissing his chest, just below a firm pink nipple.

“And then I read this, and…it just, made sense.” Derek scoots away from him a bit so he can hold the book up, even though it becomes abundantly clear as soon as he starts reading that he hardly needs to, that he’s near-memorized the passage. His voice is rich and low, sure and full of love, and Stiles knows, the knowledge echoing deeper with each word, just how true it is, just how true they are, and he settles against him in bliss as he reads, holding on tight to Derek, his Derek, forever.

“I didn’t fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we’d choose anyway. And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”

_______________________________

It’s the smell, moist-earth and ozone buzz of magic that wakes Derek, his eyes darting open just as his ears prick up at the faint whoosh sound that accompanies the scent, both coming from the kitchen. Stiles – his Stiles, forever – is sprawled out on his belly next to him, sleeping heavily and beautifully with a long arm toss across Derek’s stomach, warm, spiced billows of bliss unfurling from his smooth skin that smells of their combined come and sweat.

Derek’s never been happier in his life.

But he’s also pretty sure there’s a trickster in his kitchen, so he slides out from under Stiles, glancing at the clock – just past three am – and walks downstairs naked, hackles raised, ready to shift if need be.

Correction: there’s a Norse god in his kitchen. Sitting on his big kitchen table, in fact, twirling something small and shiny in his hand, green sparks of magic flying off his fingers. Loki – the movie version anyway, long, slicked back dark hair and pale skin, eerie green eyes and aggressive bone structure, the caped outfit and everything, grinning at Derek from his perch.

“Trickster,” Derek says carefully, hands curled at his sides, just in case, the scent of magic heavy in his nostrils now, as well as a peculiar sour scent that Derek thinks is the glamour that’s allowing him appear in this form.

“Hello, young wolf,” the Trickster purrs, and hell, he even sounds like Tom Hiddleston and Stiles totally needs to be awake for this.

“Stiles is going to be very upset he missed you appearing as Loki.”

He smiles, wolfish. “Derek, always thinking of others first. That seems to be a thing of yours, across realities, isn’t is? So interesting. But I digress. I’ll gladly jaunt upstairs and play superhero with young Stiles if you answer a question for me first."

Derek relaxes and leans against the counter, the tile cold against his bare skin, crossing his arms. “I thought you were done here. You told the Stereks that after you had your fun you’d leave. What, were the orgies not enough of a show for you?”

Loki – the Trickster – laughs heartily. “Well, those were extraordinary, there’s no doubt about that. And watching you two grapple the full force of your connection to each other, with how badly you want each other – truly fascinating. Some of my best wish-granting work, if I do say so myself.”

“Glad to see you’re just as modest and humble as the character you’re wearing.'

He laughs again, still deftly spinning the charm between his fingers. “Oh, I do like you so, wolf. So, come on, be a good little pup and tell me. I am oh-so curious about something.”

“And that is?”

“Are you going to tell him, wolf? Are you going to tell him that it was your will that I answered, not his?" Loki leans towards him, eyes glittering magic. "That your love for him is strong enough that I was able to collapse the boundaries between multiple realities? Both of your desires were strong, of course, given that your souls are essentially a binary star system, but it was you, Derek, it was your heart that called out the loudest and that powered my magic.”

Derek nods imperceptibly. He had suspected as much.

“Will you tell him, then? That it was your will, not his? Will you tell him just how much you love him, have always loved him?”

Derek smiles, basking in the resolute knowledge that his love for Stiles is too big for one universe to contain, too vast for one reality, too eternal for one lifetime, that loving Stiles is written into his bones and into the bones of every Derek Hale that has been and ever shall be.

“I will,” he answers, sure and strong. “Everyday for the rest of my life. In this reality and in every other.”

~*~

the end.