I Will Run You Like A Thread (Fem!Stiles x Derek)

Sonata No.14 (Moonlight, 2nd movement)

This is what I feel like around you all the time. Derek remembers how Stiles had been floored when Derek had revealed this that night, and he understands why. She's human, and when he'd claimed her, bitten into her fragile flesh, and branded her with his teeth, their bond had flared to life, golden and warm and heavy between them — but even then, she'd really only gotten a glimpse, a mere taste of what it was really, truly like for him. That feral yearning to be close, to touch, consume almost to the point of oblivion. How sometimes it felt like it physically hurt all the way down to the bone to be separated from her.

Which, he is fully aware that if he wasn't a wolf would make him a fucking crazy person. It's not something he can really change – not when the animal is sewn right into the fabric of his skin, imprinted into his bones. Instincts he can only fight for so long because they were born in him the same as his fucking DNA.

And it's so much harder for him as the days drag by and the full moon looms. The heat makes it worse because he already feels like the closer it gets to moonrise, the more he feels like he's being boiled from the inside out, slow-cooked like a lobster in a pot. Like his brains are being deep-fried in his skull. At least that's how he'd attempted to explain it to Stiles so many months ago. Skin crawling in anticipation. Muscles tense and coiled, ready to spring.

"So, basically you get PMS every month?" Stiles asks, jabbing her big toe playfully into his chest. She's been splayed out on her back next to him on the couch, her long legs thrown over his lap.

There's something she's watching on TV that Derek doesn't care about, mostly because it just seems like a lot of explosions. Which apparently, to Stiles, is part of the appeal. Not that it really matters either way, because it had held Stiles's attention for approximately ten minutes before she started with the questions.

It used to annoy him. Exasperate him more like, because before Stiles, he didn't actually think it was possible for a human to talk that much (well, there was Cassidy, but he wasn't exactly human so perhaps he didn't count). And no matter how many questions she does ask, she never seems to run out of them. Not like it matters, because he's going to answer them anyway and they both know it. With a sigh, he abandons his battered copy of All Quiet on the Western Front on the coffee table and fixes her with a pointed glare. "I don't get PMS, Stiles."

She laughs and that's annoying too because it sounds so damn pretty it makes his heart skip. "Yeah, you don't get moody or grumpy at all around that time. I've never noticed a thing."

Derek huffs and Stiles just grins back at him. "You're really annoying, do you know that?"

"I've never heard that before in my life," Stiles says loftily, but her tongue is caught between her teeth, her lashes fluttering with deceptive innocence. "Maybe we should just call it PWS instead?"

Derek's brow arches.

"Pre-Werewolf Syndrome, duh."

"Oh, you're gonna get it now –"

Stiles beams, cackling with delight when he pins her to the couch with a throaty growl.

As much as she liked to tease him about it, Derek can appreciate that Stiles understands at least somewhat that it's difficult for him. That there are some aspects being what he is, a born wolf, that are always going to be a bit harder for him to control. The others, his betas, they can walk around wearing the skin of a human with convincing ease (they all started out that way, after all), put on the wolf like zipping up a coat and take it off once the moon fell, just like a costume.