It had crept up on him, the wanting, mostly since it had been years since he'd felt anything close. Until suddenly it hit him like a fucking car crash, like a switch flipped inside him, because he never thought he could want something so badly that...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Derek never fucks her around the full moon.
Not like they aren't practically surgically attached every other day of the month, but it's definitely a thing. It's not like she doesn't notice. It's hard not to, when eighty percent of the people she knows turn into wild animals during the full moon. Keeping track of lunar cycles is kind of her thing now.
Even way before they started this, he avoided her. Even when he was just crawling through her window and crashing in her bedroom almost every night, when they were both trying to pretending like he didn't care about her. Like they didn't care about each other. Like he wasn't sleeping in her bed and holding her safe in his arms while she slept every night like like he might die if he didn't. When the moon was full, he'd be gone until the hours right before dawn, and then he'd slip into her room and into her bed, and she'd lie there feigning sleep while he'd curl around her back and hold her so tightly her ribs felt like they might crack. Always shaking like a leaf, but never ever saying a word. On those nights, he never touched her outside of pressing his mouth against her throat. But her sheets would be drenched from his skin that was covered in cold sweat, and she'd always wake up damp and alone in her empty bed. But when she looked into the mirror, saw those pinkish-white indents of his teeth on her neck, she'd know it was real. Irrefutable evidence that he'd been there, that it had happened. That he'd actually put his hands on her and it hadn't all been in her head, hadn't just been some dream.
Once he'd claimed her, she'd thought it might change, once he was more comfortable around her, with them, not so worried about breaking her in that way he always was afraid he might. Once they trusted each other. But it didn't, not really. Those were the few nights a month that he felt far, far away from her, even now, even still. Despite everything. Despite his mark always lingering on her skin and his ring sitting pretty on her finger. And maybe it shouldn't bother her. Maybe if she was somebody else, it wouldn't, she'd just accept it. Live with it. But she isn't. She's Stiles, and like always, she has questions.
This isn't her first rodeo, though. She's smart enough not to immediately go to Derek. She's nothing if not thorough in her research. Scott is a bust, of course. Any mention at all of her sex life, regardless of whether or not it pertained to wolf problems, sent him into a tailspin of mortification and disgust, because "Stiles, I can't imagine my sister having sex with anyone, okay? Let alone Derek." Really, there's a very small sub-sect of people she can ask, because obviously having a werewolf for a sex partner is a pretty specific situation. So, it's not her idea of a good time, going shopping for graduation dresses with Lydia and Allison, because god, boring, but she'll deal, you know, for science. At least she's getting a decent sugar rush slash caffeine buzz from the fancy blended coffee drinks that Allison'd made them stop for. Derek'll be probably annoyed later when she's bouncing off the walls, but he'll just have to deal with it. Who knows, she thinks, maybe he'll come up with some kind of extra creative way to wear her out.
God, she can only hope.
She's having a good time in her own head just imagining it, when something snaps her out of it, literally.
