Dudley is two and he is teething.
Petunia had fretted and fussed over him when he started to wail, stuffing bottle after bottle into his mouth and rocking him back and forth to soothe him, though he was inconsolable. After a trip to the doctor’s, she had been assured that it was all very normal, and that perhaps a few rubbery teething toys would help with the transition to teeth.
Dressed in baby blue footie pajamas and tucked into his extravagant crib, Dudley goes to sleep clutching his blanket and gnawing peacefully on a toy, eyes slowly fluttering closed while his mobile spins above him - a contrast to other child in the house.
Harry is also two - and also teething.
His bed is an old, threadbare blanket of Dudley’s, bunched up beneath him on the cold ground in the cupboard under the stairs. His toys are broken, scattered pieces around him, things that Dudley has discarded in favor for brighter, louder gadgets. Harry’s cries are mostly ignored, masked by the usual noises of the day.
At night though, the sound drifts up the stairs to Petunia and Vernon’s bedroom.
Vernon sleeps with his earplugs in, blocking out everything around him so he can rest, but Petunia hears it all. Normally she can force herself to lie still and stare blankly into the darkness of her eye mask, waiting for exhaustion to claim her but some nights Harry’s whimpering won’t leave her alone.
It’s achingly sad.
Nights like that, Petunia slides her mask from her eyes, gently slides on her slippers, and tiptoes down the stairs. She unlocks the cupboard under the stairs and scoops Harry into her arms, holding him tight as he buries his face into her shoulder, desperate for a little comfort. The slow, sad sobs begin to cease and he sighs, locking his aching gums onto her bony shoulder, soaking her silky nightgown within minutes.
She shuts her eyes and does not touch his curly, black hair. She does not look at his green eyes. She simply rocks him to sleep, and locks him back in his cupboard, ignoring the coal of warmth within her heart.
derek has not kissed anyone in a long time.
he remembers it though, the way mouths press against each other and lips touch. he remembers kisses that were dry, kisses that were wet, sweet kisses, filthy ones, chaste ones, and kisses that made him feel invincible. of course, he had been young then too, and prone to feeling invincible, with his future rolled out in front of him like an unending horizon, and a pretty girl pressing him down into his bed.
kissing came easier then. laughing, and stroking his hands along her skin, smiling at the sound of her giggles and knotting his fingers in her hair, ignoring her when she complained that he’d muss it up. he never really saw it coming, and maybe that was his greatest fault. he never suspected a thing.
for years, afterwards, he couldn’t seem to get the ashy taste out of his mouth. and even when that finally faded, he went around swallowing guilt, unable to hold a woman’s gaze for too long, unwilling to return her smile. all of them looked like her.
it’s not until he’s got some smart-mouthed, big-eyed kid by the shirt collar hauled across a vet’s surgical table, trying to intimidate him into cutting derek’s arm off with a bonesaw, that he falters and thinks - ‘i could.’
stiles mouth is wet and trembling a little from his panting breaths, but derek doesn’t want to look away, doesn’t taste ash in his mouth as he stares. he wants, and it’s a desire so instinctual and natural and yet so long-forgotten, that he nearly forgets himself and does.
but that might have been the wolfsbane, anyway.
(later on, lucid then, derek stares and tries not to stare and deliberately does not lick his lips. stiles is nothing like her. and derek wants to learn how to kiss again.)
“My, what big eyes you have,” Stiles says, skimming his finger along one of Derek’s dark, sloped eyebrows, until the tip of his finger rests at the corner of his eye.
It’s silly, this thing that they do, this game that they play. Stiles would balk at it in embarrassment, or laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, except for how his skin is tingling in anticipation, and how his heart is already beating faster from the way Derek is staring at him.
“All the better to watch you with,” Derek says, his gaze never wavering, burning right through the thin red hoodie – all that Stiles is wearing – deep down to the core of him. That stare never fails to make Stiles feel completely stripped down, no matter how many clothes he’s wearing, no matter what situation they’re in.
It has the same effect here as he straddles Derek’s thighs in bed, his own bare thighs and bare ass pressed against the thick, tense muscle. He shivers and feels completely naked already, but there was a command there, an unsubtle hint, and those big, predatory eyes are still fixed on him.
He leans away to put a little space between them, and reaches up to snag the zipper on his sweatshirt. He wants to yank it down in one fast pull, but Derek’s eyes are glittering and one hand is already hovering by Stiles’ hip, wanting to steady him, wanting to slow him. So he slows down. He drags the zipper down tooth by tooth, watching Derek’s face as he watches Stiles undress. There’s nothing underneath the sweatshirt – just skin – but Derek stares at him hungrily, and the hand that had been hovering by his hip reaches up to press proprietarily across Stiles’ chest.
His palm is warm, radiating heat like a coal warmed by fire, and it seeps into Stiles’ chest and seems to wrap around his heart. He lets the edges of his sweatshirt dangle, unzipped, as he grabs Derek’s hand in his, and pulls it up to his mouth.
“My, what big hands you have,” he observes, sliding their palms together and interlacing their fingers, his thumb stroking over the dark wisps of hair that grew in clusters on Derek’s knuckles. He wants to kiss their interlaced fingers, or nuzzle into the crease where their palms meet, but he’s shy suddenly, and looks up instead, directly into Derek’s never-ending eyes.
“All the better to stroke you with,” he growls, and he untangles his hand from Stiles’, in order to grip him by the waist and pull him closer on his lap, his fingers creeping beneath his open sweatshirt to slide up his pale back. His hands continue their path up the curve of his spine and back down, around the edges of his ribcage until they’re petting down his chest, and Derek’s fingertips – just the barest hint of claws – are scraping down his stomach, leaving faint red marks in their wake.
He doesn’t even think twice about wrapping his arms around Derek’s neck to hold him in place as those hands tease at the crease of his hips, stroking up and down the deep ‘V’s that lead down to his cock. Stiles wants to bury his face in Derek’s neck and beg, but he can’t capitulate yet, not yet.
Derek does make it more difficult for him though, when he wraps his warm, heavy hand around Stiles’ erection and jerks him, slow and firm. He can’t help but bite his lip to muffle his groan, and lets his eyes flutter shut, just for a moment, to enjoy the feeling of a hot palm on his dick.
When he opens his eyes, they’re dark and half-lidded. When he opens his mouth, it’s red-bitten and wet.
“My, what big teeth you have,” he says huskily, hissing out a breath as Derek thumbs the head of his cock, teasing the sensitive lip of it without mercy. He can see his sharp white teeth flash in a smile, and hates the way his stomach wobbles, endlessly charmed by Derek Hale’s grin.
“All the better to eat you with,” Derek answers, smug, and tips Stiles’ off his lap and backwards onto the bed, pressing him into the mattress with intent, his red hoodie splayed around him. It’s not just a phrase. It’s a promise.
Now I need a Teen Wolf AU where Derek’s family never died and then he moved away for college instead of staying close to home like they wanted him to. READY SET GO.
“Man, I will never live up to my older sister,” Derek groused to his roommate, plopping down on their shared (shitty) couch after a forty five minute call from his mother.
“Why? What does she do that’s so great?” Carlos asked through a mouthful of chips.
Well, she’s already turned three betas and has a little pack of her own now. Not to mention she’s mauled something like four hunters and survived a wolfsbane bullet, Derek thought to himself darkly.
Carlos was staring at him expectantly, one brow raised. There was no way he could tell him all that.
“Over achiever,” he grunted, and sprawled a little more in front of the television.
“Yeah and I bet she didn’t major in Art History either.” Carlos laughed and Derek shoved him, effectively spilling their bowl of tortilla chips.
He found Derek kneeling on the ground, elbows digging into his thighs and his forehead pressed into his upturned palms, almost as if he was in pain. Stiles nearly fell over his own feet as he hastened to crouch beside him, tripping on his own anxiety.
“Derek?” he asked, hesitant despite his earlier. “You, uh, you don’t look so good.”
Derek lifted his head, staring balefully at Stiles. He’d expected an exasperated, snappish reply, one of the truly catty ones that Derek usually reserved for Scott when he was being his most irritating. But instead, Derek just stared at him, looking alarming pale and feral in the waning crescent’s light. His eyes were bottomless, and Stiles felt his breath catch in his throat as he was held, enthralled, by the uncensored despair in that gaze.
what is this i don’t even
i have to, uh, fix the rest before i post it
but this is mostly an excuse to write some derek/stiles kissing/cuddling outside sort of thing. also hurt/comfort. because that’s just what i do. there’s no rhyme or reason to it though, i suck at that.
ANYWAY GOOD NIGHT. <3
sir-yessir replied to your post: i want to write something romantic
exhaustion-induced cuddles? either john/rodney or derek/stiles. so tired they can’t resist it anymore.
John woke at 0300 hours with a snap, eyes wide open and sweat beading at his brow. It was possible he’d had another nightmare - sand and dust, blood and broken machinery, the screams of his comrades still rattling between his ears - but the dream slipped too quickly from his waking mind for him to really pin the blame. He lay quietly in his narrow bed for thirty minutes, watching the play of eerie blue-green lights that always lit Atlantis from the inside out, willing himself to sleep again. It was useless though, so John sat up and swung his feet to the floor, mechanically reaching for his uniform. As long as he was awake, he might as well help patrol the hallways of the city.
As military commander of Atlantis, he had no set route. John drifted from one section of the city to another, saying nothing but nodding his head in acknowledgement at the men on duty he passed. It wasn’t long before he found himself near the labs, drawn by habit to one of his most visited locations. He checked it without thinking, scanning the room automatically.
He blinked, but the apparition of Rodney McKay hunched over a table at four in the morning, his pale, sallow skin lit by the unhealthy glow of a laptop did not disappear.
“Rodney,” he said, and was startled by how tired he sounded. “What are you doing in here?”
Rodney nearly fell out of his chair, his whole body flinching at the interruption. His hands flailed wildly as he searched for purpose, grabbing ineffectually at his laptop and clutching it close, as if it were a lifeline. When he regained his equilibrium, he glanced over his shoulder to glare hotly at John, and John could see the dark, purpling shadows under his eyes, how pale his lips seemed to be.
“These are the science labs, Major,” he sniffed arrogantly. “I’m a scientist. I’m right where I should be.” He narrowed his eyes at John. “What are you doing in here?”
John rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t really annoyed at Rodney’s vitriol. It was familiar and lacked any real heat, and sometimes he even liked it. He stepped closer to the desk where Rodney had set up shop, close enough so he could lean one bony hip against the edge and stare down at his physicist. He pursed his lip at Rodney’s haggard appearance.
“You haven’t even gone to bed yet, have you?” he accused - a rhetorical question. They both knew Rodney had been up for thirty hours, at least. “How much coffee have you had?”
Rodney squirmed and tapped out an irritated rhythm on his desk with two fingers. “The kitchens cut me off at midnight.” He flashed a defiant, angry smile at John, all bared teeth and curled lips. “I’m using pure will power to stay awake now.”
John leaned forward and frowned, and then shook his head, unaccepting. “As impressed as I am by your sudden mastery of will power McKay, I’m not going to let you make yourself sick this way. Go. To. Bed.” He commanded, pointing sternly in Rodney’s face.
Rodney scoffed, turning away from John, and back to his simulations churning away on the laptop.
“Don’t make me make you,” John warned.
Rodney flicked his pale blue gaze up to the Major, calculating the severity of the threat and the risk of denying the order again, before belligerently huffing and pretending he hadn’t heard at all.
John counted to three. Then he hauled Rodney out of his chair by the back of his shirt and started dragging him towards the civilian’s quarters. Rodney thrashed and protested the whole way, but he never broke free of John’s grasp, and became more and more agreeable the closer they got to his room.
By the time John had waved his hand over the room’s crystal locks and demanded entry, he could feel Rodney’s bone deep weariness as if it were his own. Or perhaps it was his own, exhaustion creeping into the periphery of his awareness, making everything seem a little blurrier.
“You’re a brute,” Rodney complained, but he was swaying on his feet, and the jab had less ire than it could have.
“Just lay down on the bed, McKay,” he suggested, too tired for arguments. Surprisingly, Rodney did, climbing in with only a few more grumbles, before yawning and curling into his pillow.
It looked comfortable, John thought to himself. Then he thought of the long trek to his own quarters, stationed in the military quadrant and sighed.
“Major,” Rodney mumbled. He didn’t even open his eyes, just scooted inelegantly a little bit to the left, leaving a sliver of bed to his right, just enough space for John to spoon up behind him.
John only hesitated for a minute - long enough to Rodney to let out an exasperated breath - before he lay down beside him, burying his face in the nape of Rodney’s neck and breathing in deeply.
He counted three whole breaths of nothing but warmth and comfort and contentment before he was asleep, cuddled up to Rodney’s back.
It happens too fast, the transition from girl to woman. Sebastian swears it was only yesterday that Anika followed him with doe-eyes, wide and adoring as she dogged his footsteps, giggling like a child at his exasperation. She’d been quick to smile, easy to fluster, and healed faster from heartache then. Now he looks at her and sees a more serious face, with far-away eyes. No longer does she chase his shadow, but carves a path all her own. And when her heart is hurting, she turns away from him to nurse her wounds, and does not cry into his shoulder any more.
It’s too soon, he thinks to himself, wistful and fearful. There should have been more time to linger in the sweetness of their youth - for Sebastian to use the innocence of her crush as a buffer. But girlhood melted away like the winter frost, and there is no ‘crush’ to speak of - only the chilling reality of a woman he hadn’t even realized he loved.
It’s enough to make his palms clammy and his pulse race, because he can’t read her so easily now. Her smiles used to be like the sunrise - warm and reliable, easy and taken for granted. It feels like he’s known her forever, has loved her forever, but every smile is a secret language now, one he cannot seem to learn. It’s maddening and frustrating and fascinating, learning her this way, feeling unbalanced in the wake of her words, with a simple brush of her hands against his. What happened to the poised Prince of Starkhaven and where did his nerve go?
He supposes it vanished with the innocence, his cover, his shield. Every time Anika looks at him now, he feels naked in front of her, laid bare and blushing down to his collarbones. It is in equal parts his prays she can and cannot see through him so easily - he’s not sure which fate would be more terrifying. Would it be better if she saw him and could read his helpless, hopeless feelings? Or should he hope she looks at him and sees only a man, unchanged and unreadable, unbothered by her nearness, and further away than ever before?
vaderisms replied to your post: i want to write something romantic
WRITE ME AND SEBASTIAN
It happens too fast, the transition from girl to woman. Sebastian swears it was only yesterday that Anika followed him with doe-eyes, wide and adoring as she dogged his footsteps, giggling like a child at his exasperation. She’d been quick to smile, easy to fluster, and healed faster from heartache then. Now he looks at her and sees a more serious face, with far-away eyes. No longer does she chase his shadow, but carves a path all her own. And when her heart is hurting, she turns away from him to nurse her wounds, and does not cry into his shoulder any more.
It’s too soon, he thinks to himself, wistful and fearful. There should have been more time to linger in the sweetness of their youth - for Sebastian to use the innocence of her crush as a buffer. But girlhood melted away like the winter frost, and there is no ‘crush’ to speak of - only the chilling reality of a woman he hadn’t even realized he loved.
It’s enough to make his palms clammy and his pulse race, because he can’t read her so easily now. Her smiles used to be like the sunrise - warm and reliable, easy and taken for granted. It feels like he’s known her forever, has loved her forever, but every smile is a secret language now, one he cannot seem to learn. It’s maddening and frustrating and fascinating, learning her this way, feeling unbalanced in the wake of her words, with a simple brush of her hands against his. What happened to the poised Prince of Starkhaven and where did his nerve go?
He supposes it vanished with the innocence, his cover, his shield. Every time Anika looks at him now, he feels naked in front of her, laid bare and blushing down to his collarbones. It is in equal parts his prays she can and cannot see through him so easily - he’s not sure which fate would be more terrifying. Would it be better if she saw him and could read his helpless, hopeless feelings? Or should he hope she looks at him and sees only a man, unchanged and unreadable, unbothered by her nearness, and further away than ever before?
Derek is sixteen, and he is angry.
Derek is sixteen, angry, and likes to listen to ironic indie bands that write songs about existentialism and getting high. It doesn’t take long for him to stop hanging around the lacrosse team (he quit almost six months ago, in a fit of unrepentant rage) and start huddling together with the stoners, who have all staked unmarked claim on the grungy back steps of the school.
He doesn’t smoke up with them - not at first. He just doesn’t really fit in anywhere else, unable to handle the stares and whispers, flinching away from girls with sad, pitying looks on their faces - below their empathy he can see hunger in their eyes, and it makes his blood go cold, makes him want to lash out, or run away.
Joey, Liam, and Trev don’t care though. They don’t care that he doesn’t smoke with them, they don’t care that his family died in a fire, and they don’t care that all he does when he slouches up against the back gates with them is stare at the ground and nod every now and then when Liam cracks a joke. It’s almost like he’s not there - but at least he’s not alone.
He’s been hanging around them for about two weeks when Trev smiles at him, really and truly at him, his floppy brown hair tangled around his ears, and holds up two fingers casually, offering him a joint.
“Oh, I don’t really -” Derek says, surprised into speaking, but Trev waves his hand - the hand with joint - at him dismissively.
“It’s cool, I just thought I’d offer, since you’ve never asked.” His smile is bright, quick, and he’s not looking away, and it’s making Derek feel weird, something desperate clawing at his stomach, at his chest, and inching into his throat. He’d do anything to make it go away.
“Alright,” he breathes, reaching out, hesitant. His fingers twitch, and Trev’s smile grows a little wider, handing him the rolled up joint and digging in his too-big jean’s pockets for his lighter.
He instructs Derek to put the blunt between his lips, and then Trev lights it up, laughing as Derek freezes for a minute, almost afraid to breathe before he finally inhales.
“Enjoy,” Trev says, patting him on the shoulder, the most contact Derek has had in what feels like years. He doubts his fights with Laura count.
Drugs don’t really do much for werewolves, and herbs do even less, unless it’s something like wolfsbane, or white mountain ash, something rare and stupid and dangerous. So when he drags off the joint, he knows he can’t get high. The marijuana isn’t going to do anything to him - his metabolism is way too fucked up. But it’s sort of comforting, and he can feel a buzz in his veins, maybe a dulling of his senses - it’s hard to tell. He figures he likes it, and it’s one more thing that Laura will fucking hate.
—
Laura does fucking hate it.
She blazes into his room (not his room, not any-fucking-thing like his room, this shitty apartment on the opposite side of town, far away from the comfort of the woods and the solitude) like a woman on a war path, eyes flashing red in warning. Derek smirks, flat on his back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.
He’s smoking. Of course he is.
“Derek,” Laura snaps. He can almost taste her irritation, but it’s muted under the the musky taste of green that seems to live inside his mouth these days.
“What,” he drawls back, unaffected.
“I got another call from the school,” she says, her voice icy. “Skipping? Again? Do you want to fail junior year?”
“Maybe.”
“You are impossible!” Laura snarls, and he blinks, sitting up in time to see her face morph from human to something less than human, ugly and deformed and unnatural. She shifts back soon enough, but it’s a testament to how much he’s needling her, to get her to lose control of her form like that.
He wants to blow smoke in her face, just to see how she’d react, but Laura takes three quick steps across his room and plucks the blunt from his lips, staring at it in disgust.
“You’re going to make yourself sick, idiot,” she murmurs, angry and still growling a little as she digs the lit side into her arm to watch it sizzle out, a tiny burn the size of a dime healing within seconds. She crushes the joint in her palm.
He doesn’t even care enough to be angry. Just flops back down on his bed and stares at the ceiling.
“Why are you doing this?” Laura whispers.
Derek closes his eyes and breathes, remembers what it smelled like, wood charred and burning flesh, the way Laura had sobbed, taking deep, gasping breaths against his shoulders as her eyes went from blue to green to finally settling on red, sirens all around them as the police tried to comfort them, two orphans.
“Why aren’t you?” he asks, and hates the way he sounds so broken.
(Source: hornyhoechlin, via doucheywolf)
sir-yessir replied to your post: sir-yessir replied to your post: sir-yessir…
AUGH
sir-yessir replied to your post: sir-yessir replied to your post: sir-yessir…
don’t you tease me. don’t you do that, carolyn.
“I can’t believe you thought that I - that I would be like - that I would have that.” Derek shakes his head in disbelief, reclining next to Stiles on the bed. “Don’t you know better than to believe everything you read on the internet?”
Stiles laughs nervously beside him, and Derek can see him plucking at a stray thread on his t-shirt, embarrassed. They hadn’t even gotten around to getting him naked yet, Derek thinks with a frown, and yet he is still naked - save for the sheet pulled across his waist. Stiles’ little confession had been somewhat of a mood killer.
“I just wanted to be prepared,” Stiles says, blowing out a breath.
Derek has a sudden, horrible thought. “That’s not like, your thing is it?” he asks with trepidation, feeling his body tense as images of Kate spring to his mind, Kate coaxing his body to wolf out, pinching him with her nails to see his claws come out, shocking him with a taser to watch his teeth extend, her delighted, fascinated expression forever imprinted on his mind.
“No, no!” Stiles is quick to answer, sitting up straight and glancing down worriedly at Derek, eyes huge and round and worried, like he could tell what Derek was thinking of. Maybe he could tell. Maybe it was written all over his face, the fear and uneasiness, the distrust.
He hesitates, and then Stiles sort of gently lays his hand on Derek’s forearm, staring at the place where his fingertips splay against his skin.
“My thing is you,” he says, squeezing a little. He looks up to meet Derek’s eyes, and his face is so nakedly vulnerable and embarrassed and honest that Derek feels his breath catch. “I mean, you are my thing. Whatever you are,” Stiles gesticulates to all of him, encompassing all that Derek is - lonely, orphaned, drowning, possessive, mistrustful, werewolf - “that’s my thing. I wanted it to work. I still want it to work.”
He’s blushing again, bright spots of color high on his cheeks that Derek finds impossibly endearing. Hush, he wants to tell his beating heart, but Stiles always manages to make him react, in one way or the other.
He sits up so he’s face to face with Stiles, and just stares thoughtfully at him for a few moments before cupping his face in one hand. Stiles makes a sound, just a little exhale as he relaxes into the touch, but it’s enough to make Derek’s stomach clench with warmth. He leans forward to kiss Stiles, pressing their mouths together gently as he tries to convey how much those words mean to him, how good it feels to be wanted, genuinely.
The kiss stays sweet for a minute or two, but then Stiles makes a sound in his throat like a whimper, and their lips slide together in a way that gets Derek’s blood hot in an instance, and suddenly they’re kissing fiercely, open mouthed and pushing against each other in a desperate attempt to get closer, to crawl inside each other somehow. Stiles’ hands grip tightly to his forearms, clutching to him as he fights for leverage, gasping in the moments where they break for air.
“Wait,” Derek says, interrupting their kisses as Stiles claws at him, panting for more, “wait.”
The unfocused look in Stiles’ eyes makes him want to purr proudly in satisfaction, but his mind latches onto something the boy said earlier, and he forces himself to lean away.
“What do you mean you wanted to be prepared?” he asks, searching Stiles’ face intently. “What did you do?”
“Wha-” Stiles stares blankly at him. “I just - did some research, that’s all.”
“On… on knotting?” He doesn’t know why he’s pressing this, just that he has to know.
Stiles sighs and nods. “I may have,” he colors, “I may have bought some toys.”
Derek blinks at him.
“Toys,” he repeats.
Now Stiles looks away from him, eyes downcast and shy suddenly. “Like I said, I wanted it to work. I wanted to be - to be good for you.”
It hits Derek like a punch in the chest. Suddenly he can see in his mind’s eye Stiles on his bed, working his fingers into his ass, stretching himself, breathing deep, trying to relax so he can push a toy with a knot into his ass - not because it’s his thing, but because his thing is Derek, and he wanted it to be good for Derek, and if Derek had a knot, then he was going to learn to love it because he —
“Fuck,” Derek snarls, overcome by the way this kid keeps surprising him, every way that Stiles gives and gives, letting Derek take in a way he hasn’t been allowed to take in a long, long time.
Stiles stares up at him, face caught in breathless arousal at whatever he saw written on Derek’s face.
“You need to get your clothes off right now,” Derek demands, already tugging on Stiles’ shirt and clawing at his pants in impatient demand.
