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“I will not kneel to a false king,” Stiles bellowed. “I kneel to no man or woman so long as there is breath in my lungs and ground beneath my feet. My father brought prosperity to this land, and I shall reclaim my birthright and drive out the usurper with you, my loyal knights by my side. For freedom and country!” He reined in his horse, leading it with a sharp nudge until he slid in beside his most loyal knights: McCall, Argent, and Hale.
“For you,” Sir Derek said in a low voice.
“For the kingdom,” Stiles agreed.
The battle was long fought, a game of strategy across a map flooded with the blood of men.
“Is this just?” Stiles asked his shadow, barest edges of his form reflected back to him from the hard-worn metal of his sword. He wasn’t sure he would recognise himself in a true mirror. Or maybe this was the true mirror, he thought. “So many have died,” he closed his eyes, hand clenching around his weapon. “They are my kinsmen on both sides of this war.”
“My King?” Derek questioned, stepping out of the shadows.
Stiles jumped, his mail making the slightest creaking sound as he turned to face Sir Hale. “I thought I was alone.”
Derek bowed slightly, loose tunic gaping at the neck. “Apologies,” he answered sardonically, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“Can you ask my squire to attend to me?” Stiles asked, eying Derek cautiously. It was one thing to verbalize his doubts to himself, but quite another to say them with an audience, especially one who worked so hard to keep him alive, to help him win. He waited for the judgmental doubt in Derek’s gaze. He waited to feel gutted by Derek’s loss of faith in him for speaking out loud so thoughtlessly.
“If they do not follow you, they are not your men. I would rather look them in the eye on the battlefield now,” Derek offered with a sincerely frightening smile, “than have their blade in your back once you are on the throne.”
“I...” Stiles started, unsure if he was being comforted or chastised. “I will not turn back now,” he said finally, chin raised and eyes glinting in the candlelight. “All your sacrifices will not be for naught.”
“I have made no sacrifices to serve by your side,” Derek said with finality, sliding the knife he had been sharpening back into his belt. “You are a good man. Your regard for your countrymen makes you a just ruler, my king.” Derek knelt to the ground, his knee digging into the damp soil beneath them. His hand found Stiles’ in the dim light, callused fingers drawing his forward.
Derek pressed his mouth above the signet ring, a heavy weight on Stiles’ finger.
“I am your liege,” Derek murmured.
Stiles allowed himself a fraction of a second to feel the words brush against his skin, appropriate but feeling so utterly, unmistakably not. Derek, Stiles knew, would follow him into the bitter depths of Hell for loyalty. He swallowed, brushing his fingers along the roughly shaved hair on Derek’s face, his cheek heated beneath Stiles’ touch.
“Thank you.” Stiles swallowed, hand brushing Derek’s soft hair, flattened from his helmet before turning and leaving Derek kneeling on the ground.
The campaign ended with a sword-tip broken off in his thigh, Derek’s body heavy on top of him, breath sharp in his ear as a volley of arrows rained down on his men.
It only took one in return, nocked by his best archer, to end the year-long battle for his throne.
x.x.x.x.x.
After a year at war, Stiles spent his days solving issues of famine and the state of the royal coffers. He returned land to the Hales, holdings to the Argents, and gifted McCall with his own title stripped from one of his uncle’s many supporters.
His uncle made many enemies, but also a few allies.
There was a sword against his neck, cold and heavy, anchored by the man holding it. “Kneel and I will spare the lives of those loyal to you.”
Stiles held his head high. “They will never kneel to you,” he spat, eyes calculating the possibilities. He was alone against two, which weren’t impossible odds, but he was weaponless and unsure whether his men even knew there was something amiss.
Derek, without any armament, slid through the open window, bare feet soundless against the wood floor. He had climbed the outside of the castle, a drop Stiles didn’t want to think of.
Stiles watched, eyes unmoving, refusing to give into the pressure of the sword and fall to the ground.
He would not yield. He would not kneel.
Derek, agile without fifty pounds of armour, slid into the rafters above their heads, completely hidden from sight in the shadows.
Stiles had to admit it made him breathe a little easier knowing that even if this took the worst possible turn, Derek was by his side.
“I will not kneel to you. You will need to kill me.”
His knees were kicked out from behind him just as Derek pounced on the warrior who had Stiles pinned in place with the sword.
They crashed to the ground together, sword between them as Stiles lashed out behind him, aiming for soft underbelly of the man behind him with the dagger from his boot. He could hear Derek still fighting for his life when he felt the give of flesh and the wet, hot viscera of blood and entrails coating his hand. It took another moment to push the man away from him, scanning the room before turning for Derek.
He was standing, each hard breath causing the muscles in his back to flex, blood running freely from a wound in his shoulder as he stood triumphant over the decapitated body of his enemy.
“You’re hurt,” Stiles observed. “We’ll get you to the physician.”
Derek shrugged. “My squire will deal it with.”
Stiles glared at him, wiping his hand clean on his pants before grabbing the enemy’s standard, already draped over the back of Stiles’ throne. He ripped a strip off it, wrapping it around the wound on Derek’s shoulder.
Derek made a sound of disbelief.
“What would you like,” Stiles asked, his forehead resting against Derek’s. “For saving my life? What you would you like? I will give it to you. I will give you anything.”
“You can’t,” Derek answered in a ragged tone. “I couldn’t request it of you. Your life is enough of a reward from my King.”
“Derek,” Stiles murmured. “There is nothing in this world I wouldn’t give you, if you’d only ask.”
x.x.x.x.
“The party from the north has returned, sire,” the boy spoke, shaking from the cold rains.
Stiles closed his eyes for a moment against the glare of the candlelight. Three weeks. Three weeks late, and no word. He hid the broken, snapped remains of the quill he had been using to write with beneath the table.
“Hale?” he asked the boy.
He froze.
Icy fingers, colder than the sleet outside, settled against his heart. “He was leader of the original scouting party.”
“He’s being seen to.”
Stiles nodded to hide the wash of relief flooding his veins. He should be standing, moving to greet his returned knights, but he found he couldn’t stand. “Direct him to my chambers when he is finished.” Finally, after the boy left, Stiles was able to get to his feet and into the courtyard, walking among his wounded men, returned from unexpected battle. The original party were in tatters, the reinforcements Stiles sent only marginally better.
If he could have been spared himself, he would have ridden with them.
Stiles walked among the returned men, but couldn’t find Derek in the wounded.
The coldness was clawing at his chest again as he strode through the castle, remembering where he requested Derek to be.
When he opened the door, Derek was on the other side, standing at attention in the center of the room with rainwater and the filth of battle dripping off him. Stiles almost sagged in visible relief before he got a closer look at Derek’s face, masked and unemotional.
Stiles feared the day Derek wouldn’t return more than he feared the day Derek realized his loyalty had limits.
“You’re wet.” Stiles frowned at him. “You could have stopped to change into dry clothes.”
Derek scowled at him. “You ordered me here.”
It was the first time Derek seemed directly displeased with him.
“And I kept you waiting,” Stiles answered with a thin press of his lips, grabbing the cold metal mail of Derek’s armour and drawing him back towards the fireplace. He took Derek’s hand in his, turning it over and loosening the bands tightened around his gauntlet and pulling it free off his hand. He repeated the process with the other hand, briefly touching his palm to chilled fingers, bruised and scratched fingers.
Stiles stepped behind Derek to get to his shoulder plating. “Report?” he prompted, carefully placing Derek’s equipment on the table near the fire. His squire would need to see to it in the morning to make sure it didn’t rust but Stiles thought, taking in the grime and wear, bloodstains caked right into the mail, that it might be beyond hope.
“We were ambushed. Five of my men died the first night. We held them off for seven days until reinforcements arrived.” Stiles already knew the number lost, and of the twenty from the original party, only four lived to return. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care of you.” Stiles rested his forehead against the back of Derek’s neck and inhaling deeply. Four. And here was Derek, sound and whole with a few bruises and cuts, exhaustion eking out of every pore, but alive to tell about it. Stiles knew Derek, knew how unlikely it was that he had sat at the sidelines when his men were being killed, and he wondered at how he was alive.
The sensation of relief and gratitude was overwhelming.
“You don’t even take care of yourself,” Derek said sharply, moving away. Stiles held him still, feeling the yield of powerful muscles beneath his grasp. “You have people for that.” He was trembling beneath Stiles’ fingers, and he lifted the sodden tunic off as well, throwing it away from him.
Derek’s skin was cold, chilled from days exposed to this weather. Stiles stepped close, wrapping his arms around Derek’s chest. He shouldn’t be so close, shouldn’t allow himself the contact, but he had been convinced Derek was lost to him for the last twenty two days.
Derek was breathing harshly.
“You’re not injured,” Stiles murmured, running his fingers through Derek’s hair, following the blood trail that had been present on his armour. There was a scabbed over knot on his head, a wound a few days old, but that wasn’t enough to cause the pained sound Derek had made when Stiles wrapped his arms around him.
Derek was still shaking in Stiles’ grasp.
Stiles ran his hand over a deep bruise on Derek’s flank, his nose pressed against the healed scar tissue on Derek’s shoulder.
“My King?” Derek questioned, muscles tensing.
“I’ve given you back the Hale land,” Stiles said, reaching for Derek’s pants, intent on getting Derek out of his wet clothes, guilt and gratitude swirling in his gut. Derek went beyond everything he expected from his loyal subjects, and he never seemed to care for what Stiles gave him in return. Making sure Derek was comfortable after losing over two thirds of the men sent on the scouting party with him was the least Stiles could do. “Rewarded you with riches. I would give you a garrison on your land, give you your life back, if you wanted it.”
“I don’t,” Derek told him firmly.
“Good,” Stiles answered fervently, the word surprising him as it exited his mouth. “I don’t want to be a selfish ruler by not being willing to send you from my side.”
Derek made a shockingly needy sound, sending a jolt through Stiles’ entire body, as Stiles slid his pants over his hips.
Derek, if possible, froze even more against Stiles’ front.
“Oh,” Stiles breathed, looking down the length of Derek’s body. “Is that what you want from me?” he asked, trailing his fingers over Derek’s hipbone, hand firmly grasping Derek’s erection. Derek rocked his hips forward against Stiles’ hand in reaction, skin heating until Stiles could feel the cold leach from the room, replaced by need.
Stiles moved around to Derek’s front, cupping his face between his palms. Derek’s usual scruff was replaced by almost a month worth of beard, thick beneath his fingers. Derek was observing him, eyes showing fear for the first time since Derek had leapt into battle in front of him, shielding him with his body. “It’s alright,” he assured Derek, fingers trailing over his chest. Stiles could identify most of the scars by touch, remember when they had been formed, and the concept that was always in the back of his head around Derek resurfaced, driving breath from Stiles’ lungs.
Derek was his, entirely.
Stiles knelt, working on the laces of Derek’s boots.
“Get up,” Derek growled.
“Is that an order?” Stiles questioned cheekily. Derek made a choked, broken sound. “If this is what you want from me,” he said, neglecting Derek’s cock so he could pull off Derek’s boots. “It is something I will give you. Gladly.”
“You kneel for no man,” Derek reminded him, hips tilted forward despite his words.
Stiles blinked, eyes closed against the flood of need, lust and affection he had for this man. “I kneel for you,” Stiles said honestly, taking the time to remove the rest of Derek’s clothing, leaving him quaking and naked in front of the fire, the flickering light hitting against strong muscles that had shielded Stiles from death time and time again. “I am your liege," Stiles murmured, lips spreading over the tip of Derek’s cock.