It's September 14 - exactly seven months since I was supposed to have this finished. It was a Valentine's Day present after all, but here it is finally. Luckily SpaghettiTacos has forgiven me.

A Talk We Need To Have

Stiles placed a plate of bruschetta down in front of Derek with a flourish.

Derek frowned at him. "What did you do?"

Stiles smiled. "I made dinner, there is pizza in the oven and I made eclairs for dessert."

"What did you do wrong?"

Stiles crossed his arms across his chest and looked at Derek. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You made me dinner," Derek said.

"Yes."

"And that means you've done something wrong."

"Hey," Stiles said indignantly. "I make food all the time."

"You hate uncooked tomatoes."

"But you love bruschetta."

"Exactly."

"And we've only been dating for two weeks," Stiles said, with a shrug. "We're in the honeymoon phase and I'm just trying to impress you."

Derek was not convinced but he picked up one of the pieces of bruschetta anyway. "Are you eating this too?"

Stiles shook his head. A few seconds later the buzzer went off and Stiles stood up, he came back with a plate of garlic bread and sat down across from Derek.

"See, nothing strange here," Stiles said. "I made me garlic bread and you bruschetta because I am a caring and thoughtful boyfriend and that is it."

Derek looked completely disbelieving. "I know that you're caring and thoughtful and whatever you did I'll probably forgive you. And if you are worried about impressing me then you don't need to – I came back here just for you, Stiles."

Stiles stood up and kissed Derek passionately. "What the heck did I do to get you?"

Derek kissed him, tasting garlic and Stiles, and smiled into the kiss. "You're Stiles."

"I need you to have sex with me on top of the Nemeton," Stiles blurted.

Derek huffed out a breath and smiled. The last two weeks had been everything he'd not-so-secretly been hoping for. They had slept together, Derek sleeping for over a day in Stiles' bed while the pack had apparently met in Stiles' lounge room, Stiles' dad came home and had everything explained, and Deaton checked on him while he slept. In the end, he'd woken up just as the sun was coming up a full day later, Stiles asleep on the bed next to him. Derek had snuck out of the room, leaving Stiles to sleep and then realised he didn't want to leave until he'd spoken to the other man. He had frozen on the stairs and then the Sheriff was walking down behind him, taking him into the kitchen, and making him coffee and pancakes without a single comment. Derek and Stiles had talked, about the fact that Derek had come back for Stiles, about the fact that Stiles had been going to come to South America, about the fact that Stiles wanted to date him as well. They'd spent the day together before Stiles kicked Derek out with the order to be back in an hour to take him on a proper date. He'd gone back to the house he'd bought and wrinkled his nose at the smell of off food coming from the kitchen. He threw away all of the food, taking the bag outside immediately and trying to work out what day it was and when his rubbish was going to be picked up. He'd gone up to shower and change and then stopped on the way to buy Stiles a bouquet of multi-coloured daisies and a box of chocolates. He pulled up in front of the house a little less than an hour after he'd left and realised he was nervous…and hadn't called to make a booking at any restaurant. Luckily, he'd planned out a couple…seventeen, dates for he and Stiles to have, so he didn't feel completely unprepared. Stiles had answered the door and beamed at Derek's offerings. Derek had been relieved that the other man had taken them the way they were intended. He wanted to spoil Stiles. And he wanted Stiles to relish being spoiled. Derek had suggested his top choice for a date but Stiles had shaken his head, put the flowers and chocolates away, and then slipped his arm through Derek's elbow and started walking. Stiles took Derek on a tour around town – talking about the things that had changed since Derek had last been here, and then had taken Derek to Stiles' favourite Chinese restaurant. After dinner they had walked around the preserve for half the night – before Derek walked Stiles home and kissed him on the cheek before he left. Stiles showed up at his house the next day with coffee and pastries and they hadn't spent a day without seeing one another, sharing at least one meal, since. Derek hadn't had the opportunity to use any of his pre-prepared date ideas yet.

And now, here they were, sixteen days later, and they hadn't done anything more than kiss on the couch, and Stiles was asking him to have sex with him on top of a mystical tree stump.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"So that I can seed," Stiles made a face, "the tree back to life."

"When?"

"The full moon."

"We haven't had sex before," Derek said, a sinking feeling taking over his chest. "Is that why?"

"No," Stiles stepped closer and caught Derek's wrist, stroking his thumb over Derek's pulse point. "No, that's not why at all, I would never manipulate you like that. I promise, I am not any of them, those people who used you. We haven't had sex because we, you and I, have not had sex and there is nothing wrong with that and there is no rush, and you and I get to make that choice for ourselves. Except, I hadn't told you about this but now I have to tell you about this because I kind of thought by now we would have had sex and if we had have had sex then this would be something different."

"Stiles," Derek said. "Please just tell me what is going on, explain why we need to do this."

"The Meliae demanded that I give the Nemeton new life and to do that I need to make sure the tree shoots again. To do that I need to seed the tree."

"By ejaculating on it," Derek said, trying to get to the details.

"Yes."

"Where do I come into it?" Derek asked. "Wouldn't masturbation be enough?"

"No," Stiles shook his head sadly. "I wish it would, I do not want to ask you to do something you don't want to do. And I really, really don't want to try and use us having sex for a ritual or my own power, or anything that isn't you and I wanting to have sex."

Derek could feel the pain starting to radiate from between his shoulder blades and he knew how tense he was. "Then what is enough?"

"You are the Hale," Stiles said. "I am your emissary, you and I are needed to reseed the tree."

Derek nodded.

"But I don't want to push you into anything that you don't want."

"You think I don't want to have sex with you?" Derek asked.

"I want you to have sex with me when you are ready to have sex with me."

"But we need to have sex on the Nemeton during the next full moon?"

"Yes," Stiles said. "I agr-dammit."

The buzzer on the oven was going off and Stiles looked helplessly at the kitchen. Derek stood up and walked into the other room – opening the oven and pulling out both of the pizzas.

Stiles had followed him. "I agreed because I wasn't thinking about what the repercussions were, and I wasn't thinking about the fact it would make me like them."

"You are nothing like them," Derek said, believing it with every part of his body and the tension eased between his shoulder blades.

"I agreed because I thought it would be enough if we both masturbated on the tree. But I've been looking into everything I could about the Nemeton and, well…the Meliae did show us both, together."

"It showed you us having sex?"

"To showed me what I needed to do to bring the Nemeton back to life."

"And now you are telling me," Derek said, pausing and thinking this through while he viciously cut up the pizza. "A full two weeks ahead of time, that we would need to have sex on top of the Nemeton, so that we could talk about it and decide how to move forward and that means that you are nothing like anyone else, Stiles."

"I'm sorry."

"For telling me? For not telling me before? For agreeing to something that the Meliae asked of you when I had, against your will, used you in a magical rite? For being the Emissary that I made you? What are you sorry for that you should actually be sorry for?"

Stiles made an inarticulate noise.

"Exactly," Derek turned around, and walked towards Stiles, stopping close enough that he could feel the other man's breath on his neck. "You did everything right, you don't need to apologise." Derek pulled Stiles into a chaste kiss and then pulled back, smiling at the other man. "I have wanted to have sex with you for a long time. I still want to have sex with you. I put us in this situation, and we are going to be just fine getting out of the situation."

"I agreed to the Meliae's request."

"And I made you the Emissary."

"Are you sure?" Stiles asked.

"Do you believe that I find you sexually attractive?" Stiles nodded. "Do you believe that I am in love with you?" Stiles nodded again, a slight smile in his eyes. "Do you understand that you brought this to me now, two weeks before we need to do anything, and by doing that you gave me a choice?" Stiles was still for several seconds so Derek lifted his hands, curling them around Stiles' skull and gently encouraging the other man to nod. "Then you have nothing to apologise for. Now, let's take this pizza into the other room, and you can seduce me like a good boyfriend and we can watch a movie and make out on the couch and do whatever we want to do."

"You're…you…I was so worried," Stiles admitted, voice low.

"Thank you."

Stiles frowned up at him.

"No one has ever been worried about me, like this, before."

Stiles threw his arms around Derek and pulled the werewolf into a tight, breath-stealing hug. "I wish I could go back in time and protect you from all of them."

Derek smiled into Stiles' neck and allowed himself one moment to wish for that too – it would have been a grand world but it wouldn't be right. "We can't change the past, I have had a number of therapists drill that into me, but we can change our behaviour so we don't repeat it."

"I love you," Stiles said, breathlessly. "And your therapists, and pizza. Now, you said something about kisses and cuddles on the couch."

Derek pulled back from Stiles and smiled. He grabbed the pizza and followed the other man back into the lounge room. they bypassed the table and went straight to the couch. He could still smell the nervous guilt on Stiles but he would push that out of the human's mind by the end of the night.

-)(-)(-

Derek didn't think about the conversation when they did end up having sex. It was the farthest thing from his mind. All his was thinking about was Stiles…and sometimes about himself, but he did try to keep Stiles at the front of his mind.

Days had passed since the conversation, and there were days before the full moon. It wasn't until the next morning, after Derek had made them both waffles and taken them in to Stiles…and they'd eaten them cold an hour or so later. Then Derek remembered, but he stopped himself before he could think about the night before as anything other than the next step in what they had been doing since he'd come back to Beacon Hills. When he had been travelling up, returning home, he'd thought about Stiles kissing him immediately and in at least one of the 'returning home' fantasies he'd ended up on his knees in front of Stiles, or on his back, or any of the multitude of positions he'd been thinking about. So this had nothing to do with anything other than wanting Stiles, loving Stiles.

He waited another day before he said anything. He would have waited longer, but Stiles had started twitching nervously the next night at dinner. And the human had been hesitant when Derek kissed him – making a move to repeat the previous night's activities, so he'd just dragged Stiles to bed to watch a movie and fall asleep together. The next morning, when Stiles was still twitchy, Derek realised why and walked over, kissing Stiles on the forehead, hands on either side of his neck just under the ears.

"What?" Stiles said.

"You're being twitchy," Derek told him. "Stop worrying about it. We had sex because we wanted to, right?"

Stiles immediately started nodding, Derek's hands still wrapped around his flesh. He could feel the steady beat of Stiles' heartbeat under his palms.

"Then don't worry about it, and just enjoy it, and when the full moon comes around we'll go to the Nemeton and we'll do what we need to do because it's not about having to do it – we're only doing it there because we need to, we're doing it because we want to."

Stiles flopped down a little in relief and then launched himself at Derek and they christened his kitchen floor.

The End (there will be a separate fic put up in a few days which has the ritual – I don't like changing rating in the middle of stories so you can check out Emissary Emissions if you want the Nemeton ritual sex smut)

Seriously, Emissary Emissions – I'm so proud of that title!