
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/683315.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Derek_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Stiles_Stilinski
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe, Age_Difference, Libraries, Bullying
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-01-14 Completed: 2014-12-11 Chapters: 7/7 Words: 51348
****** Multidisciplinary Studies ******
by DevilDoll
Summary
     Stiles is a slightly-older-and-very-sexy librarian and Derek has a
     thirst for knowledge.
Notes
     I've always sort of mulled around about an alternate universe where
     teenaged Derek meets Stiles first instead of Kate Argent, and things
     go a lot better for him, and that turned into Tumblr natterings which
     turned into chapters of what is shaping up to be an actual story.
     I've talked to several patiently helpful librarians about this story,
     and any mistakes you find here are purely my own, or choices I've
     purposely made for the sake of the plot. I ask your forgiveness.
***** June *****
June
If 0 < a < b < c < d < e in the equation above, then the greatest increase in S
would result from adding 1 to the value of which variable?
"You must be a Hale," the new librarian said after giving Derek a squinty once-
over. He was wearing glasses, so it was doubtful he actually needed to squint
to see.
"Yes, sir," Derek said, shifting his backpack from one shoulder to the other,
using his manners even though the guy looked like he was about Derek's age;
this was probably a summer job for him. Derek hoped he wasn't going to give him
crap about studying during the break. The PSAT was coming up fast, and Derek
had a few weak spots he wanted to work on over the summer.
"Ugh. Don't call me sir. My dad is a sir. I'm Stiles," the librarian said, and
held out his hand for Derek to shake. Derek's hand was probably hot and sweaty,
but Stiles didn't appear to notice. He didn't even wipe his own hand on his
pants after they shook. "So which one are you?"
"Derek." The quiet one, according to his father. The sensitive one, according
to his mother. The biggest dork on the planet, according to Laura.
"I went to school with Kurt," Stiles said, smiling. So he was older than Derek
thought. There was a five year gap between Kurt, the oldest, and Derek, with
Laura in between. "We were on the lacrosse team together."
Derek smiled back and nodded and tried not to look disappointed, because his
older brother's numerous athletic exploits were a tedious and inescapable topic
in this town. Before Stiles could really get started on Kurt's illustrious high
school sports career, the phone on the desk rang, and while Stiles was dealing
with that Derek escaped to his usual table way in the back by the window and
got out his computer and his study guides.
It would have been nice if a friendly, good-looking guy wanted to talk to Derek
because he was Derek, for once, instead of Kurt's younger brother. That didn't
happen a lot, though. Derek wondered when he'd get used to the disappointment,
if ever.
~*~
"Hey, Derek," Stiles said, waving, the next time Derek walked in, which
shouldn't have made him as happy as it did, that Stiles remembered him, but it
did.
Instead of heading to his usual table, Derek snagged a chair near the
periodicals, which gave him an unobstructed view of the desk, and thus an
unobstructed view of Stiles. From this vantage point he could sneak looks at
Stiles while he studied, and he used them as a reward system. Every time he
completed another page in the study guide, he got to peek at Stiles before he
moved on to the next one. Derek liked the way Stiles' arms looked when he
stretched them above his head, and the way his hair stuck up like he just got
out of bed, and the way he chewed on his lower lip when he typed on the
computer.
"PSAT, huh?" Stiles said a little later, as he wandered by with a small stack
of books cradled in his arms. He jerked his chin at the books strewn across
Derek's table, and it made his glasses slide down a little.
"Yeah," Derek said, and braced for some kind of teasing remark, but Stiles just
nodded and said, "Don't forget your calculator. I had to do all the math by
hand and it sucked."
"You forgot your calculator?" Derek asked, incredulous. He'd already typed up a
list of everything he needed to bring to the test, and hung it on the bulletin
board above his desk at home.
"And my pencil. Had to borrow one from the girl next to me," Stiles said,
grinning.
Derek couldn't bring himself to grin back. Just the thought of that
happening—on test day!—was making him nauseous. It was the stuff of nightmares.
Derek's literal nightmares; he'd had dreams just like that more than once.
"I'm sure you'll do fine," Stiles reassured him, perhaps noticing Derek's
distress.
"I hope so," Derek said, and because they were alone in the library he let his
eyes follow Stiles as he walked away, taking in the way his hair curled behind
his ears, and the flash of skin where his shirt had ridden up on the right
side.
Looking at Stiles made Derek feel overly warm and a little fidgety, and he'd
had enough crushes so far in his young life to know what that meant. But he'd
never felt quite this warm and fidgety before.
~*~
The pictures that inspired this (found on Tumblr):
[http://www.haremuniverse.com/semaphore/computercampderek.png][http://
www.haremuniverse.com/semaphore/sexylibrarianstiles.png]
***** July *****
July
A discerning publishing agent can _____ promising material from a mass of
submissions, separating the good from the bad.
 (A) supplant
(B) dramatize
(C) finagle
(D) winnow
(E) overhaul
Stiles was the noisiest librarian Derek had ever seen. He hummed and whistled
and tapped his pen, and talked to himself constantly, and often forgot to
silence the ringer on his cellphone. He muttered out loud when he reshelved
books, commenting on the condition of the bindings, the quality of the writing,
and the taste of the patrons who had checked them out. It wasn't unusual, on
the rare occasion there were other people in the library, to hear a lot of
shushing going on, but it was usually the patrons scolding the librarian
instead of the other way around.
Derek knew all of this because he was spending a lot of time at the library,
encouraged by the warm reception he got every time he showed up. And, if Derek
was being honest, he was lonely. Rebecca, his best friend since grade school,
had moved to Portland in April, after her parents took over her grandmother's
feminist book store and pottery studio. This was their first summer without
each other since they were little kids, and it kind of sucked.
It seemed a stroke of luck that Stiles was actually a little bored sometimes,
because there wasn't much work for him to do, and he obviously welcomed Derek's
company. As the weeks went on, Derek spent more and more time talking to
Stiles, and he often had to stretch his two hour block of studying to four
hours just to get the actual two hours of work in, but it was worth it. He
liked talking to Stiles, and they almost never talked about Kurt.
Derek wasn't very talkative by nature, and having to keep so many things about
himself and his family secret didn't exactly make friendly conversation a
breeze. But most of the questions Stiles asked were general enough that Derek
could answer, like what classes he was taking in the fall and which franchise
he liked better, Star Wars or Star Trek. They argued over who was the best
Robin, and whether or not Pluto was a planet, and through it all Derek secretly
hoarded a thousand bits of information about Stiles, from what kind of cheese
he liked to the way his eyes crinkled upward when he laughed.
Stiles was going to UCLA, planning on an MLIS, though he wasn't sure if he
wanted to focus on archiving or rare books. Derek was most likely going to do
something computer-related, but hadn't yet decided exactly what. He'd
originally wanted to be a vet, had wanted to be a vet ever since he was a kid
bringing home every baby bird he found on the ground. But he'd eventually had
to accept the fact that a career as a veterinarian was pretty impossible for a
werewolf, unless he was going to somehow never treat a cat or a bunny. Since
he'd hit puberty and come into his full werewolf form, a lot of animals were
instinctively terrified of him.
Stiles actually had a friend named Scott who worked for a local vet during
school breaks, and he sometimes stopped by the library to visit. Derek had
worried at first he might be Stiles' boyfriend, because they seemed really
close, and they hugged a lot, but through careful eavesdropping he figured out
that Scott had a girlfriend. He also figured out, through more careful
eavesdropping, that Stiles had at least one ex-boyfriend, but no current
boyfriend.
It wasn't like it changed anything, but it was nice to know.
~*~
"Okay, see, when you're talking about the can of lima beans, the subject is the
can, so you want the singular verb," Stiles said, leaning over Derek and
tapping his finger against the page. He'd taken to checking in on Derek's
progress now and then, and Derek was grateful for the help; he excelled at
critical reading, but his technical grammar skills and subject-verb agreement
were shaky. In the math portion he had geometry nailed, but his algebra needed
work. He was tailoring his summer study program to shore up his weaknesses, and
it seemed to be making a difference. "The can of lima beans is on the shelf,"
Stiles stressed.
"Right, got it," Derek said, and jotted a note in the margin and hoped Stiles
didn't see that his hand was shaking a little. Being this close to Stiles was a
little overwhelming. Derek could feel his body heat across his shoulder, and
smell the slightly sweet dust on his hands from the books.
"But in this other sentence it says some of the lima beans," Stiles went on,
pointing to a different example, and this time he leaned so far down his face
was practically right next to Derek's. Derek could have turned his head just
the littlest bit and kissed him, if he were capable of doing something so
outrageous. But he didn't kiss him, and Stiles continued on, oblivious: "That's
an indefinite pronoun, and lima beans are countable, so you use the plural
verb."
Derek jotted another note, feeling like his face was on fire just from thinking
about kissing Stiles, and he was so, so grateful Stiles was just an ordinary
human. Derek's pulse was probably audible to any werewolf in a ten mile radius;
he hoped there weren't any.
When Stiles finally straightened back up, he put his hand on Derek's shoulder
and gave him a brief, friendly squeeze. "You're gonna do great on the test,"
Stiles reassured him, which was what he always said when he thought Derek was
struggling or getting frustrated. It was nice, actually.
"Thanks," Derek said, and bent back to his book as Stiles disappeared into the
stacks, the smell of Stiles' hands and the books he loved clinging to Derek's
shirt. Stiles had never touched him like that before. It probably didn't mean
anything, but that didn't stop Derek from hoping maybe it did.
~*~
There's a new librarian, Derek texted to Rebecca the next day. A guy.
He cute? was her response.
I dunno. I guess. He's old, Derek said, and then felt a little mean. Kurt's
age, he added, just so she wouldn't think Stiles was some paunchy, gray-haired
old man.
He must be cute if you're mentioning him, Rebecca sent back.
Sometimes it was irritating how well she knew him.
~*~
Once he'd put in his two scheduled hours of studying, Derek was free to go
home, but there wasn't really much to do at home, honestly. And Stiles was
working, because Derek didn't even bother going to the library when he wasn't;
Derek had rearranged his entire study schedule spreadsheet once he'd figured
out Stiles' schedule. And today Stiles was wearing Derek's favorite sweater,
one that looked about two sizes too small, hugged his surprisingly round biceps
and stretched tight over his square shoulders.
Derek decided to do some recreational reading instead, so he got out his laptop
and used the library's wifi to click around on Wikipedia until he found a page
that sounded interesting. You never knew what info might come in handy on a
standardized test anyway.
"Hey, we're closing up," Stiles said, probably hours later, pulling Derek out
of the Wikipedia vortex; he'd ended up on the lamprey page.
"Already?" Derek asked, surprised, before he remembered it was Friday. The
library closed early on Fridays. When he looked at the time on his laptop
screen, it was a few minutes past five, so the library was technically closed
already. And Stiles was holding his keys in his hand, which meant he was
waiting for Derek to pack up and leave so he could go home.
"Sorry, sorry," Derek said, shoving his things into his backpack, but Stiles
just leaned patiently against the table until Derek got all zipped up and
pushed his chair back in.
They walked out together, Stiles pausing to arm the alarm system and lock the
door, and it wasn't until he stepped outside that Derek noticed it was raining.
Crap.
He was hunched over, unlocking his bike, when Stiles walked over and said, "You
rode your bike here?" He said it with a tinge of disbelief, so he probably knew
Derek's house was all the way out on the edge of town, near the nature
preserve.
"Yeah," Derek said. He and Laura had to share the Volvo, which meant he didn't
get to use it much.
"Let me give you a ride," Stiles said, looking up at the sky, and the black
clouds off in the distance but closing fast. "You're gonna get hit by lightning
or something."
"My bike…" Derek said, torn. If he left it here he'd have to walk back and get
it tomorrow, or get someone to drive him, and he had a clarinet lesson in the
morning.
"I've got room for your bike," Stiles said, and he did. He had a Jeep, which
was a lot cooler than a Volvo. They loaded Derek's bike in the back and Stiles
headed for Derek's house without any instruction.
The rain started to pound down before they got even a few blocks from the
library, and Derek was grateful for the ride, and not just because it gave him
a chance to be alone with Stiles. It would have been a miserable ride home, and
his backpack wasn't waterproof, and his laptop and all his study guides were in
it.
It was weird at first, being in Stiles' car, sitting next to him, together in a
place they usually weren't, but Stiles didn't seem fazed by it and Derek
managed to relax after a bit. He sat there with his backpack on his lap and
tried not to stare over Stiles too much. In this little enclosed space, Stiles
smelled like coffee and cinnamon gum, and he talked the whole time—no surprise
there—which left Derek free to just enjoy watching him drive, glance over at
the way his fingers gripped the stick shift, and the flex of his thigh when he
worked the clutch.
At the house, Stiles got out and helped Derek unload his bike, getting rained
on in the process. There were water droplets all over the lenses of his glasses
when he got the back of the Jeep closed up again.
"Thanks," Derek said, feeling like he was lingering awkwardly. It wasn't like
he expected a kiss on the porch, but should he invite Stiles in or...
"Anytime," Stiles said, and hopped back into the Jeep, which solved that
problem. Derek wondered if he meant it, though. Anytime?
"Who dropped you off?" his father asked, when Derek walked into the house,
shaking rainwater out of his hair. His dad was at the kitchen table, gluing the
Easy Bake oven back together. Werewolf kids were hard on toys; Derek's dad
bought tubes of Super Glue by the gross.
"A guy Kurt went to school with," Derek said, hoping an existing family
connection would deflect any suspicion away from Derek's interest in him. "He
works at the library."
"Tell Laura she's supposed to be sharing the car," his dad said, carefully
slotting two pieces of plastic together.
~*~
"You smell like...hmmm. Stilinski," Kurt said a little while later, when he sat
down next to Derek at dinner. He gave Derek a look of blatant curiosity.
"He gave me a ride home," Derek answered, concentrating on his tuna casserole.
His heart wanted to beat faster just thinking about Stiles, and then thinking
about his brother possibly figuring out what he was thinking about Stiles, but
Derek forced himself to breathe slowly and stay calm. "He's working at the
library this summer."
"Which reminds me, you're supposed to be sharing the Volvo with Derek," their
dad said, giving Laura a pointed look, and Laura got indignant because she
always thought her reasons for needing the car were more pressing than Derek's,
and everyone at the table promptly forgot about Stiles, except Derek.
~*~

 michellicopter drew this adorable picture of Derek and Stiles at the library!
     [http://www.haremuniverse.com/semaphore/stilesanddereklibrary300.png]
      [Image Description: Stiles leans over Derek at the library table.]
                       See_it_full_size_on_Tumblr_here!
***** August *****
Chapter Notes
     Thanks to Denise for answering library questions, Raster for
     answering computer nerd questions, and agentotter for catching typos
     and cheerleading. <3 <3
August
A 19-liter mixture consists by volume of 1 part juice to 18 parts water. If x
liters of juice and y liters of water are added to this mixture to make a 54-
liter mixture consisting by volume of 1 part juice to 2 parts water, what is
the value of x?
~*~
The notification from Facebook was a surprise. Derek almost never went on
there, usually forgot he was even signed up for months at a time, but he
remembered in a hurry when the little message popped up on his phone:
Stiles Stilinski wants to be friends on Facebook.
Of course Derek accepted it, right away, and then immediately checked out
Stiles' page. He had a lot of Facebook friends, over six hundred to Derek's
measly fifty-three. His relationship status was listed as single, which made
Derek do a little fist-pump even though he'd been mostly sure that was the
case.
Facebook was a treasure trove of information, and Derek threw himself headlong
into going over every detail. Most of Stiles' updates were, frankly, pointless
and not very exciting, or just song lyrics, but Derek read them all anyway. He
skipped all the way back to when Stiles first created his account, and then
methodically read forward so the updates would be in chronological order, even
though he could practically hear Laura laughing at his anal-retentive
tendencies.
He managed to scroll pretty quickly through several years, because Stiles
sometimes went weeks without posting anything, and when he did it was usually
just a short commentary on whatever he was doing at the time (FINALS. UGH.) or
who he was hanging out with, sometimes accompanied by a cellphone picture or
two. Even though most of it was unexciting or indecipherable to Derek, he
devoured every last bit of information.
For a while Stiles had dated someone named Shannon, an athletic-looking blond
guy who appeared to be intoxicated in every picture Derek found of him. They
interacted a little bit on Facebook, and every exchange made Derek's stomach
squirm just to read it, but he couldn't help himself, he looked at all of them
anyway. It had apparently gotten serious enough that Stiles had changed his
relationship status, and then not quite a year later changed it back to single,
with no indication what had happened. Shannon completely disappeared from
Stiles' Facebook page after that.
When Derek finally caught up to the current year—to this summer, specifically--
there were suddenly lots of updates. Pictures of Stiles and Scott, and of
Stiles and his dad, and of Stiles' Jeep parked at a taco stand, whatever that
meant. Then, a few weeks ago, there was one update that said, at work. bored.
Scott had commented: your favorite patron there today?
Stiles had responded: nope. he doesn't come in on thurs :(
And Derek knew-- he knew--that they were talking about him. He was Stiles'
favorite patron, he realized, grinning at the screen. And Stiles had talked
about him with Scott, and Stiles knew what days of the week Derek always came
in (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) and he was bored without Derek there, and
bummed enough over it to use a frowny face.
Feeling giddy, Derek quickly clicked through all the photo albums, too. There
were several hundred pics, going back to high school--when Stiles had sported a
buzzcut that miraculously did not detract from his attractiveness at all--and
also some pictures of Stiles as a kid that had evidently been added by an aunt
in Arizona.
There was one amazing photo, black and white, of Stiles leaning against a wall,
looking out over the water--maybe the ocean?--with the wind ruffling his hair.
It looked like he didn't even know his picture was being taken. His face was
still and unguarded, so open and beautiful, that it made Derek's heart feel
funny when he looked at it. He copied that one and saved it to his phone.
~*~
His dad's the sheriff, Derek told Rebecca, after his exhaustive dissection of
Stiles' Facebook page. He'd given up pretending he wasn't obsessing over him.
The librarian is Stiles Stilinski? Rebecca texted him. Before he could reply,
another message came through. Kendra's cousin went to the winter formal with
him and ended up in the ER!
HOLY CRAP WHY? Derek texted back, immediate visions of Stiles as an out of
control domestic abuser or unrepentant drunk driver flooding his mind. And
Derek had ridden in Stiles' car with him! Alone!
Anaphylaxis, she texted back, to Derek's instantaneous relief. She didn't know
there was strawberry sherbert in the punch.
Wow, Derek replied, which seemed an inadequate response, but what did you say
to that?
Kendra said he sat by her bed for hours until she woke up, Rebecca said, and
Derek would never, ever admit it, but it was one of the most romantic things
he'd ever heard.
~*~
At the beginning of August, Derek went to computer camp, as he had every summer
since he was nine. Derek's dad drove him and Isaac--Derek's second-closest
friend after Rebecca--down to Stanford on a breezy Sunday morning, only
grimacing a little at Derek's music selections.
Derek and Isaac had gone to the same camp together the last six years, though
every year Isaac's dad threatened to not let him go. This year he'd made Isaac
pay half the tuition, which was not an inconsiderable sum of money. Isaac had
had to work two jobs to swing it; Derek had barely seen him at all since school
let out.
When he dropped them off, Derek's dad slipped Derek a small folded stack of
bills, spending money for the duration, and then did the same for Isaac, who
looked flustered, and like he was going to hand it back, so Dad said, "You guys
have fun!" and drove off before that could happen.
Isaac had a funny, pinched look on his face, like he might cry, so Derek said,
"Hey, let's go see who else is here!" It came out a little too cheerily, but it
worked.
One of the first people they saw was Erica, who was another regular for several
years running. Erica and Derek had had a camp romance last summer, culminating
in a few pretty memorable minutes alone together in one of the computer labs,
but the spark seemed to be gone this year, and they were back to being just
friends again.
By the third day it was pretty obvious there was something brewing between her
and Vernon, who had grown about six inches since last year and started lifting
weights. It could have been awkward, but it thankfully wasn't. Maybe Derek
didn't want to kiss her anymore, but he truly liked Erica, even though she
preferred Ruby over Python--he figured a friendship that could withstand a
fundamental disagreement over programming languages was pretty solid. And Derek
and Vernon had always gotten along well enough--they'd even built an eggbot
printer together last summer as their independent research project.
So the four of them hung out together a lot, except when Erica and Vernon
wanted to be alone, and then Derek and Isaac found somewhere else to be. Which
was fine with Derek--seeing them together, holding hands and sneaking kisses,
just made him miss Stiles, and he wasn't even going to kid himself about what
that meant.
Camp was normally something Derek looked forward to, a chance to learn new
things and hang out with a lot of people who were interested in the same stuff
he was, but this year it also meant two agonizing weeks of being away from
Stiles. He tried not to spend too much time on Stiles' Facebook page, but as a
senior camper he had a lot more freedom and spare time than the younger kids,
and he used a good deal of it to think about Stiles.
And build a robotic T. rex that shot flames out of its mouth.
So all in all, a pretty productive two weeks.
~*~
Derek's dad picked them up again on the last day of camp, and even though
neither Derek nor Isaac were prone to being chatty, they managed to talk Dad's
ear off for the first part of the drive, and then through a dinner stop in
Santa Rosa. After that, Derek's father filled them in on everything they'd
missed in Beacon Hills, which included a visit from the Weinermobile.
But as they got closer to home, Derek watched Isaac get smaller and quieter in
the corner of the back seat, staring out the window and chewing on his lip.
Derek couldn't really blame him. Not only did Isaac have to go back to both his
jobs tomorrow, which left almost no time for any fun stuff, but Isaac's dad was
kind of a dick, and his mother and older brother were both dead, so that was
all the family he had. Stiles' mother was dead, too, Derek knew, and he didn't
even like to think about how awful it would be to lose his mother, or one of
his siblings. He would be devastated.
Isaac's house was dark and quiet, and Derek and his dad crept up the front walk
with him and waited while he unlocked the door and got his stuff inside.
Isaac's dad was in the house—sleeping, Derek could tell--and didn't even come
out to welcome him home. Derek was mostly relieved that he didn't have to talk
to him, but felt a little guilty about it, because it must be pretty crappy to
have your only relative not care that you were finally home after two weeks
away.
Before they left, Derek's dad pulled Isaac into a firm hug, one hand cradling
the back of his head, and Isaac curled into him like a little kid for a few
seconds. Isaac probably didn't get many hugs at all, if any. Dad hugged him
until Isaac pulled away first, sniffling a little when he turned toward Derek.
"I'll see you," Isaac whispered, quiet so he wouldn't wake his dad, and Derek
nodded, even though they both knew they probably wouldn't see each other much
at all until school started again. Then Derek hugged him, too, a little more
awkwardly than Dad had, but he couldn't be blamed for that; he didn't know how
to give dad hugs.
It was late when Derek and his father finally got home, but his mom was waiting
for them, and Laura came down to mess up Derek's hair and ask him how nerd
college was, and Derek was so glad to be home. So glad.
~*~
The little kids had already been in bed when Derek got in, which meant the
twins, who had always been more attached to Derek than any of their other
siblings, treated waking up with him in the house again like a kind of mini
Christmas morning.
Derek, though very disciplined and focused, was still a teenager, and he did
not enjoy getting up early. But the twins were ecstatic he was home, and they
burst into his room at what felt like the crack of dawn and threw themselves on
top of him, shrieking with delight when he growled his most menacing growl.
Laura could make them quail with the tiniest sound, but Derek, even at his most
fearsome, was pure entertainment for them.
Undeterred, they drummed their tiny fists on his back and legs, and grabbed at
the pillow covering his head. Derek, feeling surly, fantasized about removing
them bodily, depositing them out in the hallway, and locking the door, but then
he thought of Isaac, coming home to a dark house where no one cared he was
back, and rolled over to face the twins' excitement instead.
"How was 'puter camp?" Violet shouted in his face. She had no indoor voice
whatsoever. "We missed you!"
Henry was squirming his way under the covers, his knees steadily digging two
holes in Derek's side. "Mom made us practice the piano even though you weren't
here," he said, sounding muffled and indignant. Derek could feel Henry's hot
breath on his arm, and hoped that was all he'd feel. Henry was the family
biter.
"You smell like Skittles," Violet said suspiciously, lifting her nose in the
air. She had the same thick, dark hair as all of the rest of them, and it was
already starting to fall out of her Hello Kitty barrettes.
"Skittles?" Henry chimed in hopefully, popping his head out from under the
covers.
Derek did, in fact, have Skittles, the remains of a bag he'd picked up the
night before when they'd stopped for gas.
"You can have some, but don't tell Mom," he told them, worming his way out from
under them to grab his backpack.
The bag had just enough left in it to give each of them a fistful, which Henry
promptly crammed into his mouth all at once. Violet spread hers out on Derek's
bedspread and began sorting them by color, and then squished each one flat
between her thumb and forefinger before putting it in her mouth. While she was
distracted, Derek managed to redo her barrettes, knowing it probably wouldn't
last.
"Breakfast is in ten minutes and everyone better be dressed!" Derek's mom
yelled from downstairs. They only got to eat breakfast in their pajamas on
weekends, even in the summer.
Derek threw on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and then hustled the twins,
already vibrating from the sugar high, into their room so he could wrangle them
into their clothes.
"Can I get a piggyback ride?" Henry asked, as he squirmed around in a way that
he probably thought was helping Derek get his arms into his shirt but was in
fact having the complete opposite effect. "Kurt doesn't do it right."
"Only if you stand still and let me get this on," Derek said, and then laughed
when Henry immediately went rigid, holding his arms out stiffly like a statue,
not even blinking his eyes. "That's much better," he said, tugging Henry's
shirt down over his round little belly. "Thank you."
Meanwhile, Violet had stripped off her own shirt, claiming it was "itchy," and
then Derek had to enter into a prolonged negotiation process with her when they
realized the shirt she actually wanted to wear was in the dirty clothes hamper.
The end result was that Violet grudgingly let Derek put her second favorite
shirt on her, and it was more like fifteen minutes before they all clattered
down the stairs--Derek carrying Henry on his back, as promised--but Audrey was
having some kind of meltdown over her pet gecko that was keeping everyone
distracted, so no one noticed.
"Derek gave us Skittles!" Violet announced, racing ahead into the kitchen, and
Derek yelled, "Thanks a lot, Vi!" as Henry sank his teeth into Derek's ear.
~*~
Stiles' Jeep wasn't in its usual spot when Derek pedaled up to the library,
which was odd but not unheard of. Derek knew he'd gotten rides from his dad or
Scott a few times, when the Jeep was in the shop or something. But when he
walked into the library, Derek's worst fears were confirmed: Stiles was not at
the front desk. Instead, Derek was greeted by Madeline, the matronly librarian
who had once threatened to call his parents when she caught him furtively
reading The Joy of Sex. Seeing her always made him feel slightly embarrassed,
years later.
"Um, is Stiles here?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. He couldn't
hear him, and it was impossible for Derek to not hear Stiles when they were in
the same building together. More worryingly, there was barely any new Stiles
smell in the library at all, like he hadn't been there recently. Maybe Stiles
had quit his job while Derek was at camp.
"He's not here today," Madeline said, and though Derek couldn't bring himself
to ask if he was coming back, she'd said today which implied he'd be back
another day. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"No, thank you, ma'am," Derek said, and went and sat at his old table in the
back, the one that had been his usual spot before Stiles.
The first thing he did was check Stiles' Facebook page, but the last update,
from the day before, was apparently some kind of inside joke a few people
seemed to get, because they responded with equally obscure comments. Nothing
about being sick or on vacation or quitting his job at the library or—the
thought came to Derek like a chill wind—going back to UCLA already.
Feeling a little better, but not much, Derek paged half-heartedly though his
study guide, but his heart wasn't in it. The library was actually kind of
boring now without Stiles, and it seemed like Madeline was keeping an extra
close watch him, but that could have been residual paranoia from the sex book
incident. After less than an hour he gave up and left.
It was a hot day, unusually so for Northern California, and riding his bike in
the mercilessly bright sun sort of sucked, so halfway home Derek stopped for
ice cream. There was no rush to get back anyway. His mom and Laura had taken
the little ones to the beach, his Dad was at work, and Kurt was out hiking with
Audrey. Normally Derek would have relished a chance to have the whole house to
himself, but now it just seemed like a waste of a day he'd anticipated spending
at least partially with Stiles.
He got a double cone and hunkered gloomily on the curb, knees practically up
around his ears because he was several years past too tall to sit there
comfortably. The ice cream was good, but he wasn't really all that hungry, and
it was only doing a passable job of making him feel any less hot and sweaty. He
was contemplating tossing it out and going home anyway when he saw Stiles' Jeep
whiz by, and just as quickly slow down a little too abruptly, do a very illegal
U-turn, and come bumping into the parking lot.
The door opened before the engine even shut off completely, and Stiles
scrambled out. He was grinning, and looked incredibly pleased to see Derek. All
of Derek's broodiness evaporated instantly.
"Hey, you're back!" Stiles said as Derek got to his feet, and the next thing
Derek knew he was being hugged. A big, hearty, back-slapping hug that got some
ice cream on the back of Stiles' T-shirt, but he didn't seem to notice.
Stiles was in shorts and a T-shirt, and had a baseball hat on--backwards like
Kurt wore his. He was really sweaty and kind of dirty, and smelled so, so good;
Derek had to will himself to not close his eyes and sway toward him, just
breathe him in.
Stiles must have noticed Derek's nose twitching, because he took a step back
and plucked at his damp shirt. "A bunch of us decided to get together and play
lacrosse on the hottest day of the year," he said ruefully. "I probably stink."
"No, it's fine," Derek said, and then, because he wasn't sure he could keep
talking about how Stiles smelled without doing something embarrassing, he said,
"I was at the library, but you weren't there."
"Yeah, I worked a whole bunch of days for Madeline when her daughter got
married last week, so now she's making it up to me." His eyes snagged on
Derek's ice cream and he asked, "Hey, is that Blue Moon?"
"It's my favorite," Derek said, and on impulse proffered the rapidly melting
cone, then stood mesmerized as Stiles actually took it from him and licked a
deep stripe along the side of it, digging a furrow with his pink tongue. Derek
felt like he was never going to be able to make his throat swallow again, ever
ever ever.
"How'd your practice questions go today?" Stiles asked before he licked again,
looking up at Derek through his eyelashes as he lapped up another mouthful.
"I didn't do them," Derek admitted. He probably sounded like he was
suffocating, but Stiles didn't seem to notice. "It's algebra day…" he trailed
off, watching Stiles drag the flat of his tongue around the edge of the cone
itself to catch all the melted stuff before it dripped down his hand.
Stiles nodded as he swallowed. He knew Derek hated algebra. "You wanna come
over and run through them?" he asked, right before he closed his entire mouth
around the top scoop and sucked the point off of it, and Derek's words finally
gave out and all he could do was nod.
~*~
"I'm just gonna clean up real quick," Stiles said, after he got Derek settled
at the dining room table with a badly needed can of ice cold root beer, though
Derek wasn't sure if he should drink the soda or pour it directly into his
pants. Stiles disappeared up the stairs, and a minute later Derek heard the
shower start running. Stiles was upstairs naked and Derek was going to have a
stroke.
But before he fell down onto the Stilinski floor and died, he had to do one
thing. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket, almost dropped it, and then
tried to type on the back side of it before he flipped it around.
At Stiles house!!!!! he finally managed to text to Rebecca, because he couldn't
wait to tell her. This was a big deal, this was huge, this was more than he'd
thought possible—though not something he hadn't pictured, many times. Usually
alone at night in his room.
Doing what?!?! she texted back. Derek grinned. Rebecca almost never used extra
punctuation—she considered it plebeian—so she considered this a big deal, too.
Studying!
Right. Studying. Sure, she responded. Before Derek could answer, she sent
another text: Are you even allowed to date?
Derek sighed at the phone. Rebecca had figured out very early on that there was
something different about his family, and had once asked him, with complete
sincerity, if they belonged to a cult. When Derek had denied it, she had
extended an open-ended invitation to stay with her family if he ever needed to,
as she put it, "seek asylum."
Of course I'm allowed to date, Derek shot back, with an eye-rolling emoticon
attached. But probably not guys who are Kurt's age, he admitted. Laura's
boyfriend was older than she was, but only by two years. Five years was kind of
a lot.
Derek was so focused on alternately texting Rebecca and picturing what was
going on upstairs that it completely took him by surprise when the back door
suddenly opened and a man walked in. A man in a sheriff's uniform, which meant
he was Stiles' father. Derek bolted upright in his chair, feeling his mouth
fall open and sort of stupidly hang there, but the sheriff didn't seem
particularly surprised to see a strange kid sitting at his dining room table.
He gave Derek an eerily familiar squinty once over and said, "You must be a
Hale."
"Yes, sir," Derek said, just as Stiles came pounding down the stairs. He was
dressed in clean clothes, but his hair was wet and his feet were bare.
"Hey, Dad! This is Derek," Stiles said, with what seemed like a little too much
enthusiasm. "Derek, this is my dad."
The sheriff leaned over the table to shake Derek's hand. "I busted your brother
once. For the pigeon thing," he said.
"I remember that," Derek said. His dad had had to drive into town and pick Kurt
up at the police station. No charges had been pressed, but Kurt had been banned
from playing lacrosse for the rest of the season, and been grounded for a
month. But it was Kurt's crime, not Derek's, and it was a little refreshing to
have someone not immediately bring up Kurt's athletic accomplishments. "You
should have thrown the book at him," he told Stiles' dad.
Mr. Stilinski actually laughed at that, and Derek liked him a lot already.
"This one is much better behaved," Stiles said, and gave Derek's shoulder a
little squeeze.
"I hope so," Stiles' dad said. "Though if he's hanging around with you, I'm not
so sure how well-behaved he can be." He gave Stiles a wryly pointed look.
Stiles made a sound of outrage, and the whole exchange seemed to Derek to be
teasing but with a grain of truth on both sides. Derek had already figured out
that Stiles had a little troublemaker in him—just seeing him in the library was
enough to know that—but he had maybe underestimated that part a little bit.
"We're going over some PSAT questions," Stiles said, even though the sheriff
hadn't asked why Derek was there. "I've been helping him."
As he spoke, a sharp, acrid note hit Stiles' scent, noticeable even through the
fresh smell of soap, and Derek looked over at him, but Stiles was still smiling
like nothing was wrong. Derek recognized that smell, though: Stiles felt guilty
about something. Derek was one of six kids, which meant someone was always up
to something they weren't supposed to be; the Hale house pretty much reeked of
guilt 24/7.
The natural conclusion was that Stiles felt guilty about hanging out with him,
but Derek wasn't sure why.
~*~
"You staying for dinner, Derek?" Stiles' dad asked, sticking his head around
the door. Derek and Stiles were sitting on the same side of the table, hunched
over Derek's notebook, shoulders pressed together, and had been for a while.
Under the table, Stiles' bare ankle was hooked behind Derek's. Derek was in a
state of disbelief and triumph.
Derek darted a glance at Stiles, who smiled encouragingly. "I'll have to ask,"
he admitted, feeling about six years old. Stiles probably didn't have to ask
his dad to eat at someone else's house. He hated reminding Stiles how much
younger he was.
Dinner was…absurdly calm. Derek was used to a big family at the table, all
talking at once and squabbling over who lost the purple Wii remote or trying to
get someone to pass the butter. Derek never ate dinner at Isaac's house, but
he'd been to Rebecca's a few times, which was also a smaller crowd than he was
used to--she had only one sister, because her parents believed in zero
population growth--but her family liked to debate controversial topics over
meals, which only made Derek feel anxious and nauseated, so he had usually
tried to wiggle out of eating there. Plus, they ate a lot of kale.
Mr. Stilinski asked a lot of questions—he was a cop, Derek remembered—of both
Derek and Stiles. The questions seemed innocent enough, like what Stiles had
done with his day and how Derek was utilizing his summer vacation, but Derek
got the impression Stiles' dad was pretty good at hearing what wasn't being
said, too. He had a pleasant, lived-in face that looked like he spent a lot of
time outside, and seemed kind of tired. But he and Stiles were obviously close,
and Derek wondered a little what it was like to be an only child. He would
never trade his family for any other in the whole world—they weren't just his
family, they were his pack—but there was a certain novelty to the idea of
having a parent's undivided attention all the time.
After dinner, Derek and Stiles did the dishes while Mr. Stilinski spread some
papers out on the dining room table and put on his reading glasses and grumbled
to himself.
"We're gonna go upstairs," Stiles said, when they were done in the kitchen,
while Derek quietly had a heart attack. They were going upstairs to Stiles'
bedroom.
Stiles' dad looked at Derek over the top of his reading glasses. "You have a
curfew, Derek?"
"Yes, sir. Eleven." It seemed like he couldn't get away from constantly
reminding Stiles that he was a kid who had to follow his parents' rules.
"You certainly are polite," Mr. Stilinski said to Derek. Then, to Stiles,
"Maybe I'll keep him and send you over to the Hales instead."
"Har har har," Stiles said, and grabbed Derek by the arm and urged him toward
the stairs.
"Make sure you have him home on time, Stiles," Mr. Stilinski called after them.
"Not one minute late."
"I will, Dad. God," Stiles said, sounding more like a teenager than Derek had
ever heard, and suddenly the age difference between them didn't seem so big
after all.
"Nice meeting you, Derek," Stiles' dad called, as they escaped up the stairs,
and Derek yelled back, "You, too!"
Stiles' room wasn't really all that different from Derek's. A little messy,
with a twin bed in the corner and posters on the walls. Stiles had more sports
equipment and fewer half-finished robots, though. There were several framed
photos around, most of them of a younger Stiles with a woman who was probably
his mother. They had the same smile.
While Derek was looking around, Stiles was busy digging around in his
bookshelf, and when he finally turned back around his arms were full of
books—graphic novels and hardcover collections of comic books.
"Grab a seat," Stiles said, jerking his chin toward the bed, which was the one
thing in the room Derek had been trying not to look at. When he did, he noticed
it looked hastily made, like maybe Stiles had done it when he'd been getting
cleaned up, which meant he'd been planning to bring Derek up here.
When Derek sat, cross-legged near the foot of the bed, Stiles sat down, too,
and dumped the books in a pile between them. Derek immediately reached for
Watchmen, a book he'd always wanted to read, and then also grabbed a volume of
Sin City. He'd always been too embarrassed to check them out of the library
after the whole Joy of Sex debacle.
Stiles snagged something for himself out of the pile and then rolled onto his
stomach and opened it up, so Derek did the same. It only took him a few minutes
to decide Frank Miller wasn't for him and Alan Moore required more
concentration than he was capable of at the moment. He set them both aside and
switched to Batgirl.
Once Derek got settled, they read a little and talked a little, and at some
point all the rest of the books got moved to the floor and Stiles flipped over
and squirmed a little closer and used the back of Derek's thigh as a pillow. At
that point, even Batgirl became impossible to follow.
Actually, Derek was going a little crazy, sprawled on Stiles' bed, with Stiles
touching him a little but not nearly enough, but he couldn't figure out what to
do. He'd been hoping Stiles wanted to bring him up here to make out or
something, but Stiles seemed content to just lie on him and read Tiny Titans,
and there was no good way, in this position, for Derek to make a move.
The minutes ticked by and Stiles did nothing, and Derek started to wonder if he
was making something out of nothing. But guys usually didn't touch each other
this much unless they were interested in doing other stuff, Derek told himself.
Stiles clearly wanted to do more, but he wasn't trying to, for some reason.
Derek had finally decided he was going to have to be the bold one when Stiles
sat up and said, "I guess we should get going."
When Derek dug his phone out of his pocket he saw it was 10:30 already. He'd
waited too long, and lost his chance.
~*~
It was getting to be familiar, Stiles opening the back of the Jeep and
unloading Derek's bike. But this time there was no rain, and they could linger
a little if they wanted, for a few minutes at least. It wasn't quite 11:00 yet.
Stiles glanced at the house, where there were a few lights on, and then his
eyes dipped down to look at Derek's mouth. Derek saw it, and he knew what it
meant. Stiles was thinking about kissing him. Derek tried to make a face that
was both an indication he was open to being kissed and also not too ridiculous,
but he must have failed, because Stiles jerked his gaze away and said, "I'll
see you Wednesday, I guess?" At the library, he meant.
"Yeah, Wednesday," Derek said, trying not to sound too disappointed, but he
was.
As Stiles got back in the Jeep, waiting with the engine running until he was
sure Derek was safely in the house, Derek didn't miss the fact that Stiles
stunk of guilt again.
Maybe it was because of the age difference, or maybe it was because he thought
Derek didn't want to be kissed. Derek couldn't do anything about the first one,
but he could definitely do something about the second.
***** September *****
Chapter Notes
     Huge thanks to Otter for her assistance with this chapter! <3
September
Although some think the terms "bug" and "insect" are ____ , the former term
actually refers to _____ group of insects.
(A) parallel . . an identical
(B) precise . . an exact
(C) interchangeable . . a particular
(D) exclusive . . a separate
(E) useful . . a useless
"A bunch of us are going mini golfing Friday night. You wanna come?" Stiles
asked, leaning casually against Derek's table. He was wearing another one of
his clingy cardigans, the cuffs stretched tight where they were pushed up
around his forearms. Derek had a hard time not staring at the hair that swept
over the tops of his wrists.
"Yeah. That'd be awesome," Derek said, trying to play it cool, but he was
feeling anything but cool. This was the first time they'd seen each other since
dinner at Stiles' house on Monday, and he was already asking Derek if he wanted
to hang out again. And it was an actual social outing, with his friends and
everything. This was a big deal.
"Gimme your number," Stiles said, sliding his phone out of his pants pocket. As
soon as he was done punching the number in, he sent Derek a text message that
said, Just don't drunk dial me haha!
This was progress.
Derek grinned all the way home.
~*~
Derek appealed to his mother for permission first, because she was the one who
always talked about how important it was for Derek and his siblings to branch
out and experience new things. It was all about strategy.
She was in the kitchen when he got home, mashing an enormous pot of potatoes.
They were having his dad's pot roast for dinner, which was everyone's favorite,
but his dad's potatoes were no one's favorite. They were gluey and gross. He
wasn't allowed to make them anymore.
Derek melted the butter and then mixed it with the heated milk without being
asked, trying to sweeten his mom up a little before he made his request. Some
situations called for a complete abandonment of shame, and this was one of
them.
"With Kurt's friend?" she asked, when Derek explained, and he let that slide by
without correction. Lies of omission were pretty much the only ones that could
go undetected in this house. Derek had never actually said Stiles and Kurt were
friends, but he hadn't refuted it, either. Kurt probably would, if anyone ever
said it in front of him; they hadn't been that close in high school, as far as
Derek knew. "Who else will be there?"
"I’m not sure. A bunch of people, I guess. I don't know them." Too late, Derek
realized that might be a deal breaker. "Do you want me to find out?" he
offered, which was a testament to how badly he wanted permission. Going back to
Stiles for that information would be humiliating, but maybe he could pass it
off as his own curiosity instead of a parental demand.
His mother tasted the mashed potatoes and then dumped in some more pepper
before turning her shrewd eye on him. He must have looked especially desperate
or trustworthy or something, because she eventually said, "No. I suppose you're
old enough to choose who you spend your time with. Check with your father, too.
And make sure Stiles knows you have a curfew."
"He knows," Derek groaned, chafing under the reminder that he had to follow
rules Stiles didn't. "He drove me home last time, remember?"
"Put these on the table," she said, handing him a plate of biscuits. She wasn’t
prone to reiterating her point once she'd made it.
Derek's dad was sitting on the couch between Vi and Henry, reading aloud from a
book about penguins, and stopped just long enough to give his assent and remind
Derek of his curfew.
"Yes, I know," Derek said, eyerolling his way out of the room with the
biscuits.
Parents were so impossible.
~*~
Lulled into a false sense of security by how easily he'd gotten permission to
go, Derek was totally blindsided at dinner when his father brought it up in
front of the entire family.
"Laura, if Derek needs the car on Friday, you let him have it," Dad said, in a
tone of voice that said he would brook no arguments.
"I don't need it," Derek said hastily, partly in hopes of killing the topic
completely, but also because he was shallow, and the Jeep was way cooler than
the Volvo. Stiles had already said he was going to drive anyway.
"Where are you going?" Laura asked, zeroing in on Derek. Having a big sister
was a curse.
"Out," Derek said flatly. Laura wasn't his parent or his alpha. He didn't have
to tell her anything.
"He's going mimigolving with Stiles," Henry volunteered, cheeks bulging with
mashed potatoes. Derek briefly wondered how someone so tiny and cute could be
such an enormous traitor.
"Not with your mouth full, honey," Mom reminded Henry. "And it's 'mini
golfing.' Like what Uncle Peter does, but a little different."
"Stiles Stilinski?" Laura asked, eyebrows climbing, because of course she'd
hone right in on that part. "Isn't he Kurt's friend?"
"He's my friend, too. We've been hanging out," Derek said, feeling peeved. He
couldn't help, though, glancing up at Kurt, who was across the table from him,
being a barrier between the twins, who tended to squabble during dinner. Kurt
was giving Derek a speculative look, but remained thankfully silent.
It was all for naught, though, because nothing got past Laura.
"Derek has a cru-ush," Laura sing-songed, grinning smugly, and Derek ducked his
head and stabbed at his pot roast and said, "Shut up, Laura."
~*~
When Friday finally rolled around--after what felt like an interminable wait--
Derek went to the library as usual and got absolutely nothing done except
mooning over Stiles and talking about Ray Harryhausen movies with Stiles, and
wishing he could kiss Stiles. So not a total waste of time.
He stayed at the library until close, and then Stiles loaded Derek's bike into
the Jeep and they went to Scott's house. Derek found his excitement slowly
morphing into nervousness as they got closer to Scott's, but he told himself it
would be fine. Stiles' friends were regular people, just like Derek's friends.
There was nothing to be nervous about.
Derek had successfully convinced himself that was true by the time they pulled
up to the McCall house, but it only took him a second or two to realize his
error. He should have asked who Stiles' friends were, whether Mom wanted to
know or not, because then at least he wouldn't have been surprised to walk into
Scott's living room and see Jackson Whittemore, who Derek recognized but had
never actually talked to, and Jackson's girlfriend, who also looked familiar,
plus Scott and his girlfriend, who happened to be Allison Argent.
Allison recognized Derek immediately, and she handled it better than he did—her
smile barely even faltered before she said, "Nice to see you again, Derek." It
was a smart move, because then Derek knew they weren't going to pretend they
were meeting for the first time. When she noticed Scott and Stiles giving them
matching questioning looks, Allison explained, "Our families know each other."
Derek, and everyone else in the Hale pack, absolutely knew who the Argents
were. Almost every town with an actual pack in it had a group of hunters living
there as well; it was the natural balance of things. The Argents and the Hales
had lived side-by-side for generations, never friends but never enemies, just
something in between.
There was a truce, had been for decades, and the families weren't exactly
social, but there was a symbolic annual dinner, alternating between the Hale
and Argent houses, where they all gathered together and reaffirmed their intent
to not kill anyone. Children from both sides always attended, as a show of
trust. Derek had been going to them as long as he could remember.
Kurt had gone to school with Allison, so he was probably used to seeing her
outside of the dinners, but this was all new for Derek—there weren't any
Argents in his age group. He nodded and mumbled, "Nice to see you, too," and
then turned his attention to Jackson's girlfriend. Stiles introduced her as
Lydia, and she gave him the most patronizing smile he'd ever seen, until two
seconds later when he was introduced to Jackson.
"You didn't tell us you had to babysit tonight, Stilinski," Jackson said, to
Derek's utter embarrassment.
"Shut up, Jackson," Stiles said, in a tone of voice Derek had never heard him
use before. It made Derek tense up; he always got anxious when people around
him argued or raised their voices.
"I think he's cute," Lydia said, looking Derek up and down. "But we all know
Stiles has good taste." Everyone laughed at that except Stiles, who made a rude
gesture at her.
Derek looked from Stiles to Lydia, who was smoothing one of her shiny red curls
down the front of her shirt, and then at Stiles again, and the only logical
conclusion he could draw was that they had, at some point in the past, dated.
And then he realized where he recognized her from: Stiles' Winter Formal
pictures on Facebook. She was Kendra's infamous cousin, who had sipped the
strawberry sherbert punch. She was Stiles' literal girlfriend in a coma.
Well, that was just great. They were gonna hang out with Stiles' best friend,
Stiles' high school crush, total jerkface Jackson Whittemore, and Allison
Argent. Derek could feel his high hopes for the evening melting like a
sandcastle at high tide.
"Ignore Jackson. He doesn't know how to be a decent human being," Stiles said
to Derek. That didn't even seem to bother Jackson. If anything, he seemed
pleased to have scored a hit off Stiles by going after Derek. Kurt hadn't been
particularly fond of Jackson, Derek remembered, and interacting with him for
thirty seconds already had Derek agreeing with his brother. It was going to be
a long night.
"I guess we should get going," Scott said into the uncomfortable silence. He
smiled at Derek, and punched him lightly on the arm as he walked past him to
the door. At least one of Stiles' friends liked him.
Thankfully, Jackson's car only had room for two, so he and Lydia rode together,
leaving Stiles to ferry the rest of the group. The first minute or two of the
trip was awkwardly quiet, but then they passed a guy on a motorcycle with a dog
in the sidecar—the dog was even wearing goggles—and that was enough to get
everyone talking. From there the conversation just took off, and in no time at
all they were pulling into the parking lot at Pirate's Cove.
This wasn't Derek's first visit to the place, and it was pretty much how he
remembered it. The pirate theme meant the place had a lot of waterfalls and
little ponds, and it was down the road from a donut shop, so the whole place
always smelled like hot dough and chlorine. It was kind of a nauseating mix.
On a warm Friday night in the summer, it was swarming with teenagers. Derek
recognized some of them from school, said hi to a few, waved at a few others,
and ignored two people he didn't like. He definitely saw at least one obvious
double-take over who he was hanging out with; he tried not to visibly gloat
about it.
Stiles paid for Derek before Derek could even protest, and once they had their
putters and balls—Stiles insisted on the hot pink one—they shuffled their way
to the first hole.
Derek was actually really good a mini golf, because it was 90% geometry, and
Derek was awesome at geometry. By the fifth hole he was competing with Allison
for the lead—Allison had been regional junior archery champion, so trajectories
were her specialty. Stiles was strictly average, but constantly sabotaged his
score by setting goals for himself like, "I bet I can hit Blackbeard in the
eye!" instead of focusing on getting the ball where it was supposed to go. Poor
Lydia trailed well behind everyone else the whole time, because Jackson kept
sneaking up behind her and kissing her on the neck while she tried to hit the
ball.
Once they got into the groove of playing, whooping when they made a shot and
taking goofy pictures with their phones, Derek relaxed and started enjoying
himself. Everyone except Jackson was friendly—he never passed up a chance to
mock Scott or Stiles or Derek for missing a shot, though Derek noticed he left
the girls alone, which was probably wise. Derek knew Allison was skilled in the
use of several deadly weapons, and Lydia seemed like she could be equally as
dangerous wielding a verbal jab.
Jackson's ongoing jackassery aside, Derek was just happy to be hanging out with
Stiles. So happy that it actually took him a few holes to notice the dynamic:
Scott and Allison, a couple. Lydia and Jackson, obviously another couple--and
thank God for that, because at least it kept them occupied with each other
instead of inflicting their personalities on other, more innocent people. And
then…Stiles and Derek.
If Stiles thought it was awkward that it looked like they were on a triple
date, he gave no indication. Derek couldn't help but wonder if they were on a
triple date.
Wonder. Hope. Whatever.
~*~
They went out for Mexican food after, a place Derek had never been to but had
heard was good. The hostess led them all the way to the back, to a big round
booth set in the corner, where they squeaked their way across the red pleather
and got settled. There was more than enough room for everyone, but that didn't
stop Stiles from sliding over until his arm was pressed right up against
Derek's.
"Mexican's my favorite," Stiles said as he ignored his own menu and leaned over
to read Derek's instead, catching Derek's ankle with his foot again, like he
had that afternoon at his house. Derek could hear Stiles' heart, beating a lot
faster than usual.
Across the table, Jackson had his arm slung around Lydia's shoulders. Scott and
Allison were holding hands on top of the table while they read their menus.
Stiles' head dipped a little more, bringing his face closer to Derek's.
Feeling bold, and a little encouraged by the pitter-pat of Stiles' excited
heartbeat drumming in his ears, Derek shifted over a little so Stiles could
hold the other side of the menu, and then slid his hand along the back of the
seat, low, so he could hook it around Stiles' hip. That had the welcome result
of making Stiles lean into him even more.
Derek couldn't help himself—he did another quick check of the rest of the
table, but they were all engrossed in their own menus, and no one seemed to
notice or care what Stiles and Derek were doing. He bent his head back down
over their menu, as if it were the most fascinating thing he'd seen in ages.
His mouth was just inches away from Stiles'.
Derek's face felt like it was flushed, and he was having a hard time focusing
on anything other than every point of contact between his body and Stiles', but
when he snuck a sideways glance over at Stiles, his cheeks looked a little
pinker than usual, so at least Derek wasn't alone in getting all goofy over
some innocent touching. So goofy he could barely even read, and when the
waitress came by to take their orders, Derek had to hurriedly scan the menu for
something he wanted to eat.
As they worked their way through two baskets of chips dipped in the best salsa
Derek had ever had, he realized hanging out with people Stiles' age wasn't
actually that different, aside from the fact that some of them were drinking
alcohol instead of soda. He'd thought they'd seem older to him, like Kurt did,
but lacking the frame of reference of spending his entire life being younger
than they were made the age difference almost invisible. They were just people
who talked about what movies they'd seen, and how often they stayed up late to
finish homework, and which Pizza Pit location was the best. They threw straw
wrappers and told embarrassing stories about each other, and Derek completely
forgot about the age difference until Jackson—of course it was Jackson—threw it
in his face again.
It was just an innocent conversation about camping that started when Lydia
mentioned that another friend of theirs, Danny, was trying to decide where to
go on his next trip. Derek knew a lot about camping, because his family loved
it. He'd had taken his first steps on the grass outside the family tent on the
banks of the Rogue River in Oregon. There was video of it and everything.
"What about Big Sur?" Derek volunteered. It was one of his favorite places.
"I've been there. It's pretty cool. The hot springs—"
"No one asked you, Jailbait," Jackson cut him off, and Derek closed his mouth,
mortified. Growing up with two older siblings had left Derek with a
comparatively thick skin, but his age was the one thing he didn't want brought
up, and Jackson had honed in on it like a missile. Derek wanted to slither down
in his seat until he could hide under the table.
Next to him, he felt Stiles stiffen as he looked at Scott and said, "Dude!" and
then Scott looked at Allison and said, "Allison?" and then Allison looked at
Lydia and said, "Please?" and then Lydia looked at Jackson and said, "We all
know he's still in high school, but Stiles likes him anyway, and I know for a
fact you dated a reality TV 'star,'" –here she made little air quotes with her
fingers-- "that semester you were in London, so let's just move on, hmm?"
"You broke up with me before I left," Jackson protested, jaw clenched. It
sounded like this was a sore topic.
Lydia rolled her eyes and took a sip of her margarita. "You didn't have to give
up on having standards," she said crisply, and everyone but Jackson and Derek
laughed at that.
"So you liked Big Sur?" Scott asked Derek, bringing them back on topic now that
Jackson had been scolded.
"Yeah," Derek said, and then told a few stories about it, because screw Jackson
Whittemore.
Stiles gave Derek a lopsided, apologetic smile as his hand squeezed Derek's
knee under the table. Derek smiled back, and gave him a reassuring bump with
his shoulder, because as shitty as that whole exchange had been, Lydia had said
right in front of everyone that Stiles liked him, and Stiles hadn't even batted
an eye.
~*~
The Mexican place was near the shopping district in downtown Beacon Hills, so
they wandered around a little after dinner, looking in all the windows, giving
some money to a woman playing the saxophone near the fountain. Eventually they
found their way into the frozen yogurt place and spent an absurd amount of time
making their choices--and mocking each other's choices--before finding seats on
the edge of the fountain.
"You want a taste?" Stiles offered, holding his cup out. Derek wrinkled his
nose and shook his head; Stiles had gotten cake batter froyo as his base, which
always sounded like a great idea but inevitably tasted like chemicals and
disappointment. "Fine," Stiles harrumphed, and then scowled with mock
indignation. "I didn't want to try yours anyway."
"Of course you didn't," Derek said, laughing. Then he held out his cup, which
was filled with creamy, chocolately, peanut buttery goodness, and also little
marshmallows. Stiles didn't even hesitate before plunging his pink plastic
spoon in and taking a big bite.
In the end, Stiles ate his entire cup, and finished Derek's, and then ate the
last of Lydia's too. Derek, stuffed to the tips of his ears, was pretty
impressed that Stiles could out-eat a teenaged werewolf.
Feeling drugged on sugar, he let himself laze against Stiles' side as they sat
and people-watched for a while, listening to the saxophone lady noodle away.
Stiles chatted with Scott, arm draped casually across the back of Derek's neck.
Every once in a while he'd idly rub his thumb over the ball of Derek's
shoulder, like he didn't even realize he was doing it.
Around the time Derek was starting to think he had to either get up and move
around or risk dozing off and falling into the fountain, Stiles' phone vibrated
in his pocket. He had to let go of Derek to take it out, thumbing the screen
before giving Scott a nudge.
"I think I'm gonna call it a night," Stiles said, and Derek, still feeling a
little slow and sleepy, suddenly remembered his curfew and checked his own
phone: 10:31pm. Crap. He glanced up at Stiles, who gave him a small smile and
nodded, and Derek knew immediately what had just happened. Stiles had set the
alarm on his phone so he could get Derek home in time, and now he wasn't
mentioning exactly why they had to leave.
Derek could only smile helplessly back. Stiles was being so understanding about
the whole thing, and Derek was especially grateful for it, given the way
Jackson seemed to have honed in on his age and wouldn't let it go. It made it
slightly less humiliating. Slightly.
Jackson and Lydia parted ways with everyone first, Jackson barely glancing at
them as he twirled his car keys on his finger. Lydia hugged everyone but Derek,
but he got a pleasant enough verbal goodbye, which he returned. The rest of the
group made their way back to the Jeep through the rapidly thinning after dinner
crowd. Most of the shops were already closing up.
Stiles dropped Scott and Allison off before taking Derek home, which didn't
make much sense geographically, but Derek wasn't going to protest. It gave them
a chance to be alone at the end of the night. When they got to Derek's house,
it was the same familiar pattern, unloading Derek's bike and then standing in
the driveway staring at each other.
"Sorry about Jackson," Stiles said, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked up
at the house, then back at Derek. The porch light was on, and the light above
the sink in the kitchen was glowing softly through the curtains, but that was
it. The house was dark and quiet, at least on this side. His parents' bedroom
faced the Preserve, not the driveway. No one was watching.
"That's okay," Derek said. "I didn't expect any different. I remember Kurt
saying he was kind of a dick."
"Yeah," Stiles laughed. "He pretty much is. But he's Lydia's boyfriend, and
Lydia is Allison's friend, so we have to tolerate him. He's actually better
than he used to be, believe it or not."
"Wow," Derek said, amazed that what he'd seen tonight was "better." It was a
dismaying thought, though, that he was a regular part of Stiles' social circle,
because Derek knew that if he ever had to spend time with Jackson again, he'd
end up enduring more of the same—Jackson had figured out just where to poke,
and he was the kind of guy who would use that information every chance he got.
"If that's better, I'm kind of impressed."
"I know, right? I hope you had a good time anyway." Stiles actually looked a
little nervous that Derek hadn't, which was ridiculous.
"I did," Derek said, and he meant it. A few weeks ago he hadn't dared hope he'd
ever actually hang out with Stiles Stilinski, had basically been resigned to
pining away like a loser all summer long. Tonight had been a dream come true.
Stiles smiled crookedly at him but didn't say anything. They were standing a
little too close for guys who were just friends, and Stiles was looking at
Derek's mouth again. This was totally a date, and a date should end with a
kiss.
Screw it. Derek was just going to go for it. He leaned into Stiles' space, and
he heard Stiles suck in a shallow breath, like he was surprised, which made
Derek hesitate just long enough…
For the front door to open and Kurt to come bounding down the steps.
"Stilinski!" he said, in his big, booming jock voice, as Derek hastily took a
step back.
"Hey, Kurt!" Stiles said with what Derek thought was not-quite-sincere
happiness, as Kurt bore down on him, grinning. Stiles grinned back and they did
that dumb bro-fist bumping thing. Derek tried not to think less of Stiles
because of it, with mixed results.
"How you been, dude?" Kurt asked, and he and Stiles spent a few minutes briefly
catching up, in general terms, while Derek wondered if he should just go in the
house and let them talk.
When they were all up to date, Derek did his best to make a face that would
politely tell Kurt to scram, but Kurt didn't seem to be picking up on it.
"I'm meeting Weitzel and Bobby G for a beer, you wanna come?" Kurt asked
Stiles, and Derek wasn't proud of the jealousy he immediately felt, and
irritation at Kurt for horning in on his night with Stiles, even though Stiles
and Kurt had known each other first. But it was curfew time for Derek, his time
with Stiles was over, and even if it weren't, he couldn't go to a bar. If his
first date with Stiles ended with no kiss and Stiles going out for a beer with
Kurt afterwards, Derek was going to lock himself in his room and listen to
every depressing song on his iPod three times.
Stiles' eyes flicked to Derek, and then he shook his head and said, "Thanks,
man, maybe some other time." Derek's already substantial crush on Stiles grew
another size or so.
Even though Stiles didn't want to hang out, Kurt insisted on showing him his
stupid car, which took forever because Kurt didn't skip even the littlest
detail. A few years ago he'd entered one of those contests where a bunch of
people compete for a car by seeing who can touch it the longest, and had
actually won it. Derek couldn't imagine wanting a Camaro—or much of
anything—badly enough to stand there with one hand plastered to it for three
and a half days, but Kurt was really proud of both his accomplishment and the
car. Stiles acted suitably impressed with both.
After that Kurt wanted to exchange numbers with Stiles, so they got out their
phones and took care of that while Derek stood off to the side and rolled his
eyes dramatically at the sky. Big brothers were so terrible, maybe even worse
than big sisters.
Once that was all done, Derek hoped Stiles would hang around until his brother
took off, and then they'd maybe have another chance for a kiss, but Kurt didn't
seem inclined to leave until Stiles did, so in the end Stiles gave Derek a
rueful smile, said, "See ya later," and got in the Jeep and drove away.
"Later," Derek sighed, waving at the Jeep's taillights, and then he went
inside, stomped up the stairs and flung himself face down onto his bed.
Foiled again.
~*~
The next day, Derek had just finished his daily clarinet practice when Kurt
knocked on his bedroom door.
"Come in," Derek called as he carefully wiped off his reed and put it away.
Kurt opened the door, walked in, then closed it behind him and leaned against
it, hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. He was a big, handsome guy, who
could be kind of a jerk, but got away with it because he knew how to be
charming when the situation called for it. Derek didn't know how to be anything
but himself.
"Do I need to tell Stilinski to keep his grubby mitts off my little brother?"
Kurt asked. He was smirking, like maybe he was just teasing, but his voice was
serious.
"No," Derek said quickly, and what he meant was, Oh God, please don't. I will
die of embarrassment and you will ruin my life and any chance I have of getting
kissed by the hottest librarian in California.
Kurt pushed off the door and walked over to bellyflop on Derek's bed. He
watched Derek clean and disassemble his clarinet for a minute, then said, "Kind
of a surprise, you guys hanging out all of a sudden."
"We see each other at the library a lot," Derek shrugged. He focused intently
on his clarinet, because he was afraid he'd give too much away if he actually
looked at Kurt. "It's not a big deal."
Derek heard Kurt make a noise like he didn’t believe for a second it was no big
deal, but he didn't press the issue. Instead, he picked up Derek's latest issue
of Robot Magazine and started flipping through it. "Stilinski's an okay guy,"
he said, pausing to turn the magazine sideways like he was checking out a
Playboy centerfold. "Kind of a nerd. But so are you, so I guess that's why you
like him."
"He played lacrosse," Derek said, feeling the need to defend Stiles' honor a
little.
"Yeah, he did," Kurt agreed, brightening. He tossed the magazine aside. "That
year I got benched for the rest of the season because of the pigeons, he came
in and saved the semi-final after Jackson and Danny got hurt. I think that was
the only time he ever scored a goal, but he did it when it counted."
Derek had forgotten about that. Or, rather, he remembered hearing about it, but
he hadn't been there—one of the few Beacon Hills lacrosse games he wasn't
forced to attend during the time Kurt was on the team. Isaac's older brother
had been on the team, too, which was how he and Isaac had become friends.
Having someone to talk to had certainly made the time go faster; he'd spent
most of Laura's interminable cheerleading competitions hunched on the hard
bleacher seats reading a book or playing with his Game Boy. Life would have
been a lot easier if Isaac had had an older sister, too.
But at the time of the lacrosse semi-finals, Mom had just had the twins, and
Derek had fallen completely and totally in love with them from the moment he
saw their scrunched-up red faces, and it hadn't taken much begging to get
permission to stay home and help his mom while the rest of the family went to
the game. Now he almost regretted not being there.
Kurt loved to talk about sports, something Derek would usually rather hang
himself than listen to, but for once he was interested. "I wasn't at that
game," he said, and that was all the prompting Kurt needed. Derek sat back and
listened.
~*~
Derek didn't have the kind of job a lot of other kids his age did, working at a
fast food place or lifeguarding or whatever—he made his money with music
lessons, teaching little kids to play the piano and clarinet and assorted other
instruments. In the summer he had students three mornings a week, and was done
by noon, free to do what he wanted the rest of the day. It was a pretty sweet
deal, aside from the inevitable abuse on his ears.
One poor soul, who had almost no musical talent at all, came every Thursday
morning and sat at the piano in the Hale living room, thumping hopelessly on
the keys while his mother had coffee with Mom in the kitchen. Derek also had
one equally pitiful flute student, a middle school girl who had a really
obvious crush on him. Her face burned red for the entire thirty minutes every
week. It was embarrassing for the both of them.
Though he didn’t get paid for it, Derek was also in charge of giving piano
lessons to Henry and Violet, who were too tiny to really do much but plink away
at nursery rhymes, and their lessons lasted only a few minutes, because that
was as along as anyone—the twins or Derek—could stand.
Now, at the tail end of summer, a lot of families were out of town, taking one
last vacation before school started up again, and Derek had a light schedule.
Only two students on Saturday, plus Henry and Vi, so by late morning he was
done. He took care of the last few of his weekly chores, dutifully checking
them off on the dry erase board in the pantry, and then texted with Rebecca for
a while.
The first few minutes of their conversation involved Derek sitting patiently
through a dozen texts about her hydroponic farming club. Derek loved Rebecca
like she was one of his sisters, but he did not give a stone cold crap about
hydroponics. Plus, he had big Stiles-related developments to over-analyze.
I can't believe your brother crashed your first kiss! What an ass! she said,
when Derek finally finished giving her the details.
I knoooooow, Derek sent back, feeling forlorn all over again. He'd been so
close! He added a dozen frowny faces to convey the depth of his despair.
Buck up, little camper, she replied. It sounds like he really likes you. Maybe
he's just worried what your parents will think?
Possible, Derek agreed. Probable, even, since Derek was worried about that,
too. And Stiles' dad was the sheriff, who might be a little more sensitive than
most parents about the issue of Derek being a minor. Laura had been seventeen
when she started dating her boyfriend, who was nineteen at the time, but his
dad was a dermatologist. He was more concerned with whether or not Laura used
sunscreen than her age.
But even without a goodnight kiss, the night had still been a success in a lot
of ways. They'd cuddled, in front of Stiles' friends, at the restaurant, and
Derek had heard the uptick in Stiles' heart, seen the flush on his face. Lydia
had said right out loud that Stiles was into him. There was going to be
kissing, if Derek had to move heaven and Earth to make it happen.
He and Rebecca analyzed it a little more before Derek decided it was just
making him depressed and changed the subject. After that they talked about
Rebecca's job at the family bookstore, and what classes they were taking when
school started up again, and other general stuff. The conversation ended a few
minutes later when Rebecca had to go to her gluten-free potlunch. Derek's mom
wanted him to feed the twins, anyway.
He'd just finished making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when his phone
pinged at him again. Thinking it was Rebecca sending him a picture of gluten-
free brownies or something, he finished cutting the crusts off the twins'
sandwiches first, adding them to his own plate, and got them both settled with
sippy cups of milk--Violet was a notorious milk spiller--before he checked his
phone, only to realize it was actually Stiles.
Want to hang out tonight?
Oh my God yes, yes, yes, and yes! Derek thought. He typed out, Sure. What time?
because that sounded a little more sane.
Working right now, Stiles responded a few interminable minutes later. Pick you
up 6ish?
Sounds good. See you!
Can't wait! Stiles said back, and then presumably went back to work, because he
didn't say anything else after that.
Derek read the exchange like five times, and then took a screenshot of it and
texted it to Rebecca, who responded with Yay! and picture of gluten-free
cookies that she insisted were "amazing."
"I doubt it," Derek muttered to himself. They looked like dry lumps of mud.
When everyone had finished their sandwiches, Derek got up to put the plates in
the dishwasher and turned back around just in time to see Violet's cup roll off
the table. For a split second he congratulated himself on remembering to use
the sippy cup, and then it hit the floor and the lid cracked in half and milk
went everywhere.
"Oops," Violet said.
~*~
Having broken the seal with the mini-golf outing, getting permission to hang
out with Stiles again was a breeze. Basically all Derek had to do was tell his
parents where he was going to be that night, and neither of them even batted an
eyelash.
Derek lucked out even further when his parents took the twins and Audrey out
for a movie and pizza, and Kurt and Laura were nowhere to be found—along with
the Volvo, but Derek couldn't bring himself to care anymore. In a few weeks
Laura would leave for school and he'd have it all to himself. The upshot was he
was all alone in the house when Stiles showed up. Derek managed to preserve
some dignity and not race down the front steps and kiss him then and there, but
it was a close call.
They'd just seen each other not even twenty-four hours before, but Derek was
still bordering on overjoyed to hang out with Stiles again, and Stiles seemed
to be just as happy. They talked and talked and talked in the car, about what
they'd done that day, and if there were any movies worth seeing they hadn't
already seen. The answer to that was no, which Derek was secretly grateful for,
because he didn't want to waste his night with Stiles sitting in a public place
staring at a movie screen. He had plans.
When the Jeep finally came to a stop, Derek looked around and realized they
were at Stiles' house. Perfect.
Mr. Stilinski wasn't home—even more perfect—and this time Stiles led Derek
right up into his room. It couldn't have gone better if Derek had actually
engineered it.
Derek sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes while Stiles dumped his messenger
bag on his desk and plugged his phone into the charger. He seemed a little
nervous, running his hands through his hair and straightening his desk a little
even though it looked neat enough. Derek couldn't really judge him for it,
because his whole stomach was full of butterflies, but he was determined to
make a move. Which he couldn't do with Stiles standing over by his desk, like
he was now.
"You want a root beer?" Stiles asked him, when he finally turned around to look
at Derek. He pushed his glasses up with his thumb, which was a habit Derek
found unaccountably appealing.
"No, thanks," Derek said. He didn't want something to drink. He wanted to make
out with Stiles. He was tired of all this waiting.
"Okay," Stiles said, going over to his bookshelf. He grabbed a few of the
comics they'd read the last time Derek was over, and brought them over to the
bed, where Derek was leaning back on his arms and watching him. "You want Tiny
Titans?" he asked, sitting down cross-legged next to Derek.
Enough was enough. Derek reached out and took all the books away from Stiles
and set them down out of the way. "I don't want to read comics," he said
pointedly.
"Oh. Um," Stiles said, staring at the books. He ran his palms up and down his
thighs, like maybe they were sweaty and he was trying to dry them off. Derek
could sympathize.
But then Stiles finally looked up and his eyes zeroed in on Derek's mouth
again. Derek was feeling pretty drawn to Stiles' mouth, too, and they were all
alone in the house, so it didn't really take much to let himself sway toward
Stiles. Before he got close enough for their mouths to touch, Stiles grabbed
the front of Derek's jacket, then flattened his hand against Derek's chest
instead, like he couldn't decide if he was trying to stop Derek or encourage
him.
"We, um. Probably shouldn't do this," Stiles said, laughing nervously. "I'm a
lot older than you are."
"I know that," Derek said impatiently, because duh. Stiles had gone to high
school with Kurt. "I don't care."
"That's the thing," Stiles huffed. "We probably should care. I mean,
technically, this is illegal. And my dad's the sheriff."
"I won't tell anyone," Derek said, low and desperate. His mouth was just inches
away, and he was certain Stiles wanted to kiss him—he kept staring at Derek's
mouth, and his heart thumped every time. "No one will know." Which was almost a
lie, because Laura and Kurt both suspected, but they had no proof.
"That doesn't make me feel better. In fact, that makes me feel even more like a
dirty old--oh, God," Stiles groaned, when Derek closed his fingers around a
fold of Stiles' sweater and pulled. Gently, so he wouldn't tear it. "I’m going
to hell," Stiles said, but his eyes were drifting shut and he was the one who
closed the final inch of distance between them until their mouths touched.
It felt like falling, like the ground rushing up to meet him, and Derek's hand
tightened involuntarily on Stiles' sweater as he closed his eyes and opened his
mouth.
Derek had kissed a few people before, mostly girls, mostly at computer camp.
The majority of his kissing experience was short little awkward things, furtive
and blush-inducing and over before he really figured out what to do. And he'd
certainly never kissed anyone, not even Erica, like this, the way Stiles' mouth
slowly worked Derek's open, his hand moving to the back of Derek's neck as he
dipped inside Derek's mouth over and over with a confidence that made Derek's
whole body tighten up.
For all his protests, once they got started Stiles was all in, kissing like he
meant it, and then he curled his tongue in a way that made Derek moan into his
mouth, and it was like flipping a switch. Stiles grabbed at Derek's head,
tilting it to get a better angle and kiss him deeper, and Derek surged up into
it as Stiles shuffled up onto his knees. Stiles never stopped kissing him as he
shoved Derek's jacket off his shoulders and bore him down onto the bed,
climbing on top of him.
This was definitely something Derek had never done, and he liked it. He lost
the rhythm of the kiss as Stiles settled on him, a warm and pleasant weight,
distracting. Derek pushed up into the pressure, so good where he was already so
hard, and Stiles ground down on him, moaning. He was hard already, too, Derek
could feel it. He hooked his arms under Stiles' and grabbed onto his back,
sweater bunching in his fists, and dove for Stiles' mouth again. He couldn't
get enough.
Stiles' hands felt like they were everywhere, and Derek's whole body was
tingling with the touches, a palm cupping his face, fingers twisting in his
hair, and all the while Stiles' hips were moving in slow, firm circles, working
their dicks against each other. Derek he couldn't help the noises he made into
Stiles' mouth, or the way his hands clutched at Stiles' clothes.
"You feel so good," Stiles said into his ear, before he started working his
mouth under his chin, driving Derek crazy with hot sucking kisses on his neck.
"I wanted to do this—I wanted—"
"Me, too," Derek choked out, gratified by the way Stiles made a soft little
moan when Derek rolled his hips up to meet him.
"Oh, God. Okay, you were right, this was a good idea," Stiles mumbled as he
faceplanted into the crook of Derek's neck. His hips kept moving. "I'm a
dumbass."
Derek laughed, though it came out kind of strangled-sounding. "You're not a
dumbass," he said as he closed his teeth the rim of Stiles' ear. "I just got
tired of waiting."
"Good call," Stiles panted, lifting up enough to worm a hand between them and
cover Derek's hard dick with his palm, fingers flexing. Derek made an
involuntary noise and his hips bucked up into the touch. Wow. He'd never had
anyone else touch him when he was hard.
"You want me to do something about this?" Stiles said, kissing the corner of
Derek's mouth. When he pulled back a little, his eyes were bright and
mischievous. His glasses were a little crooked and his mouth was really red.
It seemed a really big jump to go from kissing to whatever it was Stiles was
planning to do, and Derek had been enjoying the kissing. He hesitated, just
long enough for Stiles to notice, and then panicked a little when he noticed
Stiles noticing.
"Yes," Derek said quickly, as Stiles took his hand away and said, "Maybe
another time."
Afraid he'd ruined the moment, Derek said, "Wait, I want to," but Stiles was
already sliding off of him, despite Derek grabbing on and trying to keep him
where he was. He came down on the bed next to Derek, head propped up on his
hand, but didn't stop touching him. His hand cupped Derek's hip bone through
his jeans, and Derek could feel the inside of his wrist flexing against his
erection as Stiles' thumb rubbed along the top of his jeans.
"Your body wants to," Stiles said, smiling softly at him. "But I think maybe
the rest of you needs time. I keep forgetting how young you are." He laughed a
little. "And then remembering at the most awkward times."
"I'm not that young," Derek said, stung.
"Have you done this a lot before?" Stiles asked, sounding genuinely curious,
and not like he'd make fun of Derek for answering truthfully, so that's what he
did.
"No," Derek admitted. His face felt uncomfortably hot. He was embarrassed,
feeling like a stupid kid again, but Stiles didn't seem bothered.
"That's okay," he said, giving Derek a reassuring smile. Then he reached up and
took his glasses off, and stashed them behind a book on the table next to his
bed.
Derek had never seen Stiles without his glasses before. His face looked a
little strange without them, but he had nice eyes, and long eyelashes. Derek
wanted to kiss him all over his whole face.
"Come here," Stiles said, pulling on Derek's hip until he shifted onto his side
and they could twine their legs together. "Kiss me some more."
Relieved he hadn't completely ruined everything, Derek did. They kissed a lot
more, actually, and as he relaxed Derek got a little braver. Stiles didn't make
a move to do anything but kiss him and touch him over his clothes, running his
hands over his chest, gripping the back of Derek's thigh and pulling it over
his hip, but he seemed okay with letting Derek do whatever he wanted, and was
encouraging, even.
"Mmm, feels good," Stiles breathed into Derek's neck, when Derek worked up the
nerve to slip his hand under the back of Stiles' shirt, feel the muscles in his
back shift as they moved against each other. Stiles' skin was hot and smooth,
and he smelled so good. It made Derek want to put his mouth all over him, lick
him everywhere, over and over. He settled for the hollow of his throat, and
then the soft skin behind his ear, and when he put his mouth there Stiles
arched against him and made a wonderful noise.
Later, when Stiles dropped him off at home, Laura wrinkled her nose at him as
he passed through the kitchen to grab a bottle of juice, but didn't say
anything, and Derek jerked off in his bed twice before he fell asleep, thinking
about Stiles' mouth, Stiles' hands, the way Stiles smiled at him and didn't
care that Derek wasn't ready to do more than kiss, and suck on his throat.
Was Stiles his boyfriend now? Derek wasn't sure. But he was sure he wanted him
to be.
~*~
The next few days were glorious. Derek and Stiles spent every minute they could
together, and used the time to kiss and kiss and kiss--on Stiles' bed, on
Stiles' couch, on Stiles' living room floor in front of the TV while his dad
was in the garage messing around with his power tools.
They hung out with Stiles' friends again, descending on Jackson's house to
watch a movie on the Whittemores' huge television, and when everyone snuggled
in as couples, Stiles stretched out on the couch and put his head in Derek's
lap. Derek spent the whole movie running his fingers through Stiles' hair,
making it stick up even worse. Stiles held his other hand the whole time,
rubbing his thumb over Derek's knuckles. Derek was so content that Jackson's
inevitable jabs at him barely registered.
Labor Day weekend rolled around, the official end of summer, and a bunch of
Stiles' friends had a bonfire picnic on the beach. There were a few people
there Derek had never met before, including Danny the camping guy, but they
were all friendly and nice. No one seemed to notice or care that Derek was
younger, but of course Jackson could be counted on to bring it up.
After all the hot dogs and potato chips had been consumed, Derek leaned back
against the big old log they'd dragged over by the fire, Stiles sitting between
his legs. It was perfect positioning as far as Derek was concerned, because he
could touch him and breathe in the smell of his hair, and run his fingers over
Stiles' wrists. He was so happy he barely noticed Jackson and Lydia arriving
late, squeezing into a spot on the other side of the fire. That didn't last; if
Jackson hated anything, it was not being noticed.
"Subjecting us all to your sick fascination with underage tail again,
Stilinski?" Jackson said to Stiles as he opened a beer.
"Fuck off," Stiles said, with a tone that was light, but had just the tiniest
edge to it. He had been making a practice of ignoring Jackson's bitchy remarks;
maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was just that Stiles had had enough, but he
was clearly getting fed up. Derek's stomach started to squirm. He didn't want
them to fight, and he really, really didn’t want Stiles to fight with anybody
over him.
Jackson's mouth quirked, like he was happy he'd gotten a reaction out of
Stiles. Derek had a bad feeling that was only going to encourage him. Jackson
took a drink of his beer and then pointed at Stiles with the bottle. "What's it
feel like to finally be the adult in a relationship? Must be a weird experience
for you."
"Says the guy who's still pissed Lydia went to the Winter Formal with me
instead of him in high school," Stiles shot back.
"Ooooh," somebody said under their breath. Jackson's eyes narrowed almost
imperceptibly, just enough to betray that Stiles had landed a blow.
"You were a nobody in high school," Jackson hissed. His eyes were flat and
mean. "I was captain of the lacrosse team."
"Co-captain," Derek and Scott said in unison. Derek gave Jackson a cheerless
smile when Jackson glared at him. Scott reached over and gave Derek a high
five.
"How the hell would you know?" Jackson asked, looking mortally offended Derek
had dared insert himself into the exchange, even though it had started off
about him.
"He's Kurt's brother," Stiles said, and Derek loved him for not using the
descriptor "little" in that sentence.
"I should have known," Jackson said, sounding disgusted. "You look like a
Hale."
"That's right. And I remember you," Derek said. "I remember my brother was
captain, until the pigeon thing, and then you and Scott were co-captains for
the rest of the season. And I know that Stiles saved the semi-final when you
got hurt."
Stiles immediately twisted around to look at Derek. "You know about the semi-
final?" he asked, looking pleased. Derek squeezed him and said, "Yeah. You
totally won the game."
"Damn straight I did," Stiles said smugly, settling back down.
Derek turned his attention back to Jackson, because he wasn't done with that
asshole. "You were the co-captain of a team," he said. "You didn't do it all by
yourself."
That, at least, was something Derek understood, even if he'd never been into
sports. The importance of pack and family had been drilled into him since he
was old enough to understand the words. An alpha needed a pack just as much as
a pack needed an alpha, and no one was stronger alone.
Werewolves tended to be good at team sports because team dynamics were a lot
like pack dynamics. Kurt wasn't an alpha, or even a future alpha—everyone
agreed the next one would probably be Laura or Henry—but that wasn't as
important when dealing with humans. Knowing how to use the pack mentality to
your advantage was what counted. Back in his lacrosse days, Kurt had spent a
lot of time talking to Mom about how to deal with Jackson, and how to do what
was best for the team. Derek hadn't been interested enough to recall the
specifics, but he remembered that much.
"Pretty wise words coming from someone who was probably still collecting
Pokémon cards back then," Jackson said, smirking, which…was embarrassingly
true, actually. Derek held his silence as Jackson took another swig of beer and
put his arm around Lydia's waist. Lydia looked bored to death.
"Are you done?" she asked Jackson. "Your fixation on Derek is getting a little
tedious."
Before anyone could respond to that, Danny got to his feet. "I think it's time
to bust out the marshmallows," he said, dusting sand off his butt. "And
hopefully no one will stab anyone else with the sticks."
"Seconded," Scott said immediately, while Stiles moaned, "Ooooh marshmallows."
Derek had been assigned the job of providing the S'mores supplies, so he made
Stiles get up long enough to grab the stuff from the Jeep, including actual
metal roasting sticks, with tines and everything, he'd snagged from the garage.
Derek's family had a lot of S'mores experience. It went hand-in-hand with
camping.
Even though it had been barely an hour since they finished the hot dogs,
everyone dove on the stuff like they hadn't eaten in weeks. There weren't
enough sticks to go around, but Derek was happy to take his place against the
log again and let Stiles sit between his legs and be in charge of the
marshmallow roasting with their shared stick.
Once their marshmallow was done—Stiles was absurdly picky about getting it just
right, whereas Derek didn't care if it was burned on one side--Derek introduced
Stiles to the wonder that was a S'more made with a peanut butter cup instead of
a plain slab of chocolate. Stiles—and a few other people—acted like Derek had
just revolutionized the art of junk food. Even Jackson tried one and declared
it "all right, I guess."
It certainly wasn't friendly, or even all that nice, but Derek nodded at him
anyway, choosing to believe it was an olive branch. Jackson left him alone for
the rest of the night, and when they left he said, "Later, Hale," like it was
an afterthought, but it was the first time he'd ever referred to Derek by his
actual name rather than some mean nickname.
"That was awesome," Stiles said later, when they were kissing goodbye in the
Jeep. For a second Derek thought Stiles was complimenting him on his kissing
skills, but then Stiles added, "When you got on Jackson's case. And you totally
threw my one moment of lacrosse glory right in his face. You have no idea how
freaking awesome that was."
"You're awesome," Derek said, feeling it right down to his bones. It was the
closest thing to a declaration of feelings he'd said since this whole thing
started.
He worried Stiles might think it was a dumb thing to say, but Stiles grinned
and grinned, which kind of ruined the kissing. Derek didn't mind.
~*~
School started for Derek the Tuesday after Labor Day, and that cut into his
free time pretty substantially. No more afternoons at the library, and after
school he was busy with his own extracurricular activities or music lessons at
the house. By a stroke of luck, one of his clarinet students had reached the
point where they needed an actual teacher, not just some kid from the school
band, and had moved on. It cut into Derek's income a little, but was a welcome
opening in his schedule.
Laura finally left for school, leaving Derek the sole driver of the Volvo,
which meant he got to drive to school every day as long as he had the gas
money. He picked Isaac up on the way, most days, and sometimes they had time to
swing through the drive-thru and get breakfast burritos. It was pretty awesome.
Stiles was still around, because UCLA didn't start until late September, but
that was rapidly approaching, and Derek spent every second he could spare with
him, getting increasingly sexually frustrated. Stiles seemed to be taking
Derek's initial reticence to move beyond kissing that first time a little far.
Way too far, actually. So far it could only be seen with the Hubble telescope.
Stiles' dad wasn't home much, between his job and his hobbies, which meant
Derek and Stiles had hour upon unsupervised hour together. It was time Derek
thought they could be putting to better use. All they did was make out and
grind against each other, which was enjoyable, but making Derek kind of crazy--
he hadn't masturbated this much since that memorable winter when his werewolf
puberty finally hit. Every time they hung out, he came home and jerked off at
least once afterwards, and he assumed Stiles was doing the same, and it seemed
pointlessly inefficient that they weren't doing it together.
Their last day together was a Saturday, but Derek had his music students and
Stiles had a shift at the library, which didn't leave but a few hours before
Derek's curfew kicked in. Luckily, Mr. Stilinski was out that evening with his
bowling league. It wasn't ideal, but they'd be alone the whole time, at least.
Derek arrived at the Stilinski house feeling determined, and a little
desperate.
"Whoa," Stiles said, eyes wide, when Derek tackled him onto the bed and kissed
him, worming his hands up under his ratty cardigan, and his button-down shirt,
and the T-shirt he was wearing underneath both of those. His penchant for
layers was a little annoying sometimes.
"You're wearing too many clothes," Derek said, closing his teeth on Stiles'
earlobe. Derek expected Stiles to be into it--he was always so responsive when
Derek touched him—but he went uncharacteristically still instead.
"Hey, hey," Stiles said, fingers snagging Derek's, stopping their upward creep
along his ribs. "Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this, but I'm just wondering--
do you--why do you want to do this? If it's because you feel like it's our last
chance or…?"
Derek eased back a little. "No," he said, sullen, but it was a little scary how
easily Stiles seemed to be reading his mind. He pulled his hand out of Stiles'
grip and tried not to let on how disappointed he was.
This was the last time they'd do this for months, and possibly—Derek's unspoken
fear—forever. Not all relationships survived separation, and Derek wasn't even
sure if that was what this was anyway. They'd never put a name on it.
Stiles had mentioned—casually, more than once--that he was coming back to
Beacon Hills over his school breaks, but that wasn't the problem. What Derek
didn't know was if Stiles was coming back to him. That was a big difference.
And for the last week or so it had constantly been in the back of Derek's mind
that Stiles was leaving soon, and was going to be seven hundred miles away for
months. Stiles might meet someone else while he was gone, and not be interested
in hanging out with Derek when he came back to Beacon Hills next time—this
might be the last time Derek could do anything with Stiles.
"We'll have other chances," Stiles said, like he was reading Derek's mind
again. "I'll be back in November." November seemed a lifetime away, but acting
like an immature jerk wasn't going to convince Stiles that Derek was the kind
of guy who could be a long-term thing, not just a summer fling, so Derek didn't
share that thought, just nodded.
Stiles wasn't fooled. "I mean it. I'm coming back," he whispered, running his
fingers through Derek's hair. "And then I'll be home again for Christmas. We'll
see each other a lot, I promise."
"I know," Derek said on a tight swallow. This was the first solid indication
Stiles had given that they were going to pick up where they left off when he
came home. It eased the knot Derek had been carrying around in his belly, the
one that had been twisting tighter and tighter as Stiles' day of departure got
closer, until it was nearly unbearable. "I just…"
Derek wasn't sure he wanted to share all the stuff going on in his head, so he
let the sentence die.
"It's okay. I get it," Stiles said, smiling before he leaned up to nip at
Derek's lower lip. "We should stop talking."
That was something Derek wholeheartedly agreed with, so he slipped his hand
back up under Stiles' shirts and kissed him some more. The skin over his ribs
was warm, and he was ticklish, kicking at Derek with his heels when he touched
a sensitive spot. After a few minutes, Stiles squirmed out of his sweater, and
then Derek helped him get the button-down off. The urgency of the deadline
hanging over Derek's head was gone, but the physical urgency had come back with
a vengeance. Derek really, really wanted to do something involving their dicks.
Stiles' hands kept wandering up and down Derek's back under his T-shirt,
teasing at the waistband of his pants, until Derek tugged his own shirt over
his head and tossed it away. When he came back down to kiss Stiles again,
Stiles rolled them so they were on their sides and slung his leg over Derek's
hip. It was a position Stiles seemed fond of; they'd spent a lot of time like
this, rubbing against each other. Derek had nearly come in his own pants once
just like this.
One of Stiles' hands was trapped between them, flattened against Derek's chest,
his thumb lightly teasing the edge of Derek's nipple. It felt good, and made
him want more. It made him want Stiles to touch him in a lot of places he
hadn't yet.
"Don't you want to? I really want to," Derek said, rocking his hips, nudging
Stiles with his dick. He was so hard, aching in his pants, just the feel of his
underwear rubbing the leaking head of his cock making the skin on the backs of
his legs prickle.
"I'm trying not to pressure you," Stiles groaned. His leg tightened around
Derek's ass as his hips jerked, pressing his erection against Derek's. "I—kinda
messed up. That first time."
"You're not pressuring me, I swear. I’m going crazy. I want--" Derek said into
Stiles' hot neck.
"Okay, okay," Stiles said shakily. "God, yes, you wouldn't believe how I—" He
leaned back enough to reach down between them, and Derek felt Stiles' fingers
work at the button on his pants. They fumbled a little, which made Derek feel a
little better, that Stiles was affected by this, too.
When he finally got them open, Stiles shoved Derek's pants down a little, along
with his underwear, and Derek shivered as his hot skin was exposed to the cool
air. Everything between his legs felt drawn up tight, straining against his
body, and he was dying to be touched.
Stiles didn't make him wait. His fingers skated lightly over Derek's balls,
brushing up and up his length before petting the head, a barely there touch,
spreading the wetness gathered at the tip. Derek's entire body twitched, and
his dick jumped against Stiles' fingers as Stiles teased and teased, touching
him with just two fingertips.
"Oh my God, Stiles," Derek breathed, not caring if he sounded stupid or if his
voice caught a little on Stiles' name.
He looked down and then had to squeeze his eyes shut against a wave of
dizziness at the sight of the tight pink head of his cock peeking out from the
foreskin, Stiles' fingers moving slowly over it. It felt so good, but it looked
even better. Derek sank his teeth into his lower lip and tried to keep his hips
from shoving greedily toward Stiles' hand.
"Okay, wait, I need to—" Stiles said then gave up on words as he stopped
touching Derek long enough to get his own pants open. Derek tried to focus as
he waited, watching Stiles' fingers tremble as he pulled his zipper down,
knuckles brushing against the underside of Derek's dick, making it jump.
Stiles' cock was thick and veiny, straight as an arrow. Derek liked it
immediately.
Stiles hitched forward again until they bumped against each other, and Derek
couldn't help the little sound he made at the first touch. It was heaven. Hot,
soft skin, the wet smell of the both of them, the feel of Stiles so hard and
wanting against Derek's own needy body.
"Put your hand on me," Stiles said, strained, and then he made a little moaning
sound, and said, "Fuck," when Derek did as he asked.
Derek had never touched anyone else's dick before, only his own, and Stiles'
felt different, without the extra skin, tighter and more fragile. Stiles guided
Derek's hand to wrap around them both, his longer fingers curling tight over
Derek's and moving up and down, showing him what to do. When Derek picked up a
slow, tentative rhythm, Stiles let go and watched for a minute, his mouth
hanging open, fingers digging into the meat of Derek's arm. "Fuck, that's
good," he panted.
Derek definitely agreed, but all he could manage was a breathy little pleading
sound that was almost Stiles' name. His hand faltered and he lost his
coordination, but Stiles' hand was right there again, over his, moving in
short, quick strokes.
When he was by himself, Derek liked to draw it out, make it last as long as he
could, see how much stimulation he could take, but none of that had prepared
him for how this would feel, because when he was alone he couldn't hear and see
and smell Stiles. That accelerated things dramatically.
"I can't--," he whimpered, and came all over their hands before he could even
finish the thought, pulsing against Stiles' dick, the snug circle of his
fingers.
Derek was always super sensitive after he came, and Stiles kept stroking him a
little too long, until Derek made a pitiful noise and jerked away. "Sorry,
sorry," Stiles breathed. "Can you…?" He brought Derek's hand back to his dick
and thrust into it before Derek could even close his fingers all the way.
"Fuck, I’m close."
Derek thought that was probably a good thing, because he felt sort of inept. It
wasn't like he didn't have any dick experience—he was really experienced with
his own—but he didn't know what Stiles liked, and the angle of his hand was all
different. He loosened his grip a little to slide his fist up and down, because
there wasn't enough loose skin to do it the way he liked to touch himself.
Stiles' hips rolled up into the touch, which seemed encouraging, Derek did it
again, mimicking the short, fast strokes Stiles had used before, until Stiles
gritted out, "I'm gonna come," and then did just that all over Derek's wrist.
"Oh, man. Wow," Stiles said, while Derek hummed in agreement, too blissed out
to form words. Stiles' head fell forward onto Derek's shoulder, and his hand
kept petting Derek's stomach, heedless of the mess he was spreading all over
the place. Derek twined their wet fingers together and held them against his
belly.
They laid there for a while, kissing a little, and talking about nothing, and
this was a part of it Derek hadn't thought about or known to look forward to,
this quiet closeness, rubbing skin against skin, smelling like each other.
Derek felt like his bones were melting, and he was probably being sappy with
the way he kept kissing Stiles and holding his sticky hand, but he didn't care.
There had been mutual orgasms. He was allowed to be a little clingy.
The night couldn't last forever, though, and they had to get up eventually.
Stiles used the bed sheet to wipe himself and Derek off, a clean-up method
Derek did not approve of, but it wasn't his bed so he kept that to himself.
When he got up to go to the bathroom he wiped himself down with a wet washcloth
and soaped his hands up under the running water. After that they had a chance
to cuddle on the bed a bit before it was time for Derek to go home.
Stiles held his hand as he led him back down the stairs to the front door. It
was cooler outside than Derek expected, making him hunch his shoulders when the
night air hit the damp neck of his T-shirt. Stiles darted back inside and when
he came back out he threw a sweatshirt at Derek's face. "Here," he said. "You
can keep it."
It was a red hoodie, one Derek had seen in the back of Stiles' Jeep a time or
two. Derek wasn't really that cold, but he put it on anyway. It smelled good,
like Stiles had had it a long time, and recently eaten popcorn while wearing
it. Once he got it on, Stiles huddled against him and kissed him on the mouth.
"I hate this," Derek confessed, hiding his face in Stiles' neck.
"I'll be back in two months," Stiles said, smoothing the hair above Derek's
ears with his fingers. "It's not forever. We'll text and talk every day. It'll
be fine."
"I know," Derek said, because he knew he was supposed to say that, but it
wouldn't be the same. They both knew that. There was no way around it, though.
They got caught up in a kiss again, a slow, sad one that they lingered over a
little, until Stiles said, "Okay, you really gotta go now, or you're gonna be
really, really late."
"Oh, crap," Derek said. He took his phone out of his pocket and then panicked
when he saw the time. "Crap!"
"Go. Go. Text me when you get home," Stiles said, kissing the tip of Derek's
nose before he gently shoved him away.
"I will," Derek said, and then bit his tongue on the urge to say, Text me when
you wake up tomorrow, and when you get to L.A., and every day until I see you
again.
Walking down the steps to the Volvo was harder than Derek thought it would be.
Actually, just letting go of Stiles was harder than he thought it would be,
especially when he was so warm and close. Stiles hadn't cleaned up very well—he
reeked like sex with Derek, and Derek liked it.
He let go anyway, since that was his only option. Stiles stayed on the stoop as
Derek backed the Volvo out of the driveway, and waved to him as he pulled away.
Just before he turned the corner, Derek looked in his rearview mirror. Stiles
was still standing there, watching him leave.
Derek was a little bit late getting home, but not much, and he was usually
really good about adhering to his curfew, which was probably a refreshing
change for his parents after Laura. The house stayed dark and quiet when he
crept inside, which Derek hoped meant they were going to cut him a break.
He washed again, as quickly and quietly as he could, and then shoved his
clothes in the hamper in his room, except for Stiles' sweatshirt, which he hung
over his desk chair. After he got into bed he sent Stiles the promised text
letting him know he was home.
Good night, Stiles sent back, followed quickly by a second message that said,
See you soon
You better, Derek said, and then added a winky face to make it sound a little
more funny and a little less desperate.
Stiles didn't joke back, though. I promise, he responded, and sent Derek a
picture of himself curled up on his side in bed, smiling sleepily, with his
hand pressed flat over his heart.
***** October *****
Chapter Notes
     Thanks to Otter for beta reading and encouragement.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
October
The measures of the lengths of the three sides of a triangle are prime numbers.
If two of the sides are 5 and 23, what is one possible value for the length of
the third side?
The first week or so after Stiles left was actually harder than Derek had
thought it would be, which was really saying something. Stiles was gone and it
sucked.
Intellectually, Derek knew that, but he seemed to forget it a lot at first. It
was so strange to think Stiles wasn't there, in town, and they weren't going to
see each other after school or on the weekends. Plus, forgetting Stiles wasn't
there meant constantly remembering he wasn't there all over again, which sucked
every single time.
Stiles seemed to be suffering just as much, so at least that was something. He
texted Derek pretty constantly all day, and on the second night he called, just
as Derek was getting ready for bed, and gave Derek an entertaining summary of
everything happening down in L.A.
"She must have burned six hundred pounds of incense this summer," Stiles
groused. "I knew I shouldn't have sub-let to someone whose email address is
moonmother@earthgoddess.com."
"Ew," Derek said sympathetically. He didn't like strong smells, either, but he
had a werewolf nose. Incense smelled positively vile to him.
"And she rearranged my bookcase, Derek." Stiles paused as if waiting to make
sure he had Derek's attention before delivering the most damning detail: "By
color."
Derek didn't follow. "By what?"
"She put the books in order by the color of their covers." Stiles actually
sounded more offended by that than the lingering incense stench, but he was a
librarian. "Starting with white, ending with black. ROY G BIV in between."
"What sense does that make?" Derek asked, more baffled than offended. He'd
never heard of such a thing. Derek's own bookcase was organized by subject
matter and then title. It made sense.
"Exactly!" Stiles said triumphantly. "How do you find anything that way? It
took me almost an hour to fix it."
"That was probably the first thing you did when you got there," Derek guessed,
imagining Stiles' outraged, determined face.
"Well, yeah," Stiles snorted, and Derek snuggled down further into Stiles'
sweatshirt and grinned. They'd never talked on the phone before, always in
person or via text message. He liked Stiles' phone voice.
"So how are you?" Stiles asked. "Miss me?"
"Like a rash," Derek teased, and Stiles laughed and said, "Same here."
~*~
Derek did miss him, though. Painfully.
They talked and texted when they could, but it wasn't the same. Derek checked
Stiles' Facebook more than was probably healthy, and even began actually
updating his, too, though his life wasn't all that exciting. Stiles must have
appreciated the effort, because he liked every single one of Derek's updates,
without fail, which amused Derek to no end. It was the most activity Derek's
account had ever seen; Rebecca refused to use Facebook because she claimed it
was full of racists and homophobes.
Stiles mostly seemed to study and work, from what Derek could glean from
conversations and Facebook updates. He had a full class load and a job in a
library down there, and not much time to go to tons of wild parties or
anything. Most of his social life seemed to revolve around his two roommates,
though there was the occasional carefree night with a bigger group. Photos
popped up on Facebook sometimes, other people tagging Stiles in pictures
clearly taken at restaurants or bars, everyone with drinks in their hands and
smiles on their faces, but it was rare.
Derek still had music students, and there was the Robotics Club to keep him
busy, plus his own music lessons and his responsibilities at home. With Laura
and Kurt gone there was a lot more twin wrangling to be done. Audrey was eleven
and mostly self-sufficient, but she was athletic like Kurt, and on what seemed
like six different sports teams, so she wasn't around much to help. A lot of
the stuff at home fell to Derek.
Isaac had quit two of his jobs now that school was back in session, so he
actually had more free time now. Isaac's dad would always be a controlling ass,
but Derek and Isaac were used to working around it, so they used the excuse of
studying to hang out. It usually worked.
Stiles called Derek almost every night between ten and eleven, so he got to end
the day hearing Stiles' voice, which was nice. They talked about what was going
on in their lives, and random stuff, and told funny stories from before they
knew each other. Derek looked forward to the time he spent talking to Stiles at
night, burrowed down into his bed in Stiles' hoodie, which was his new favorite
piece of clothing.
He wore it when he practiced his clarinet, when he worked on his robotics
project, when he drove Isaac home after a night of "studying" that looked a lot
like playing video games. Sometimes, when he was feeling extra lonely, he
wadded it up and used it as a pillow. It was old and a little worn, broken in
just right. One of the cuffs had a hole in it perfect for sticking your thumb
through, which Derek did often. It was comfortable, and infused with the smell
of Stiles, and Derek didn't care if it made him pathetic or weird to get so
attached to it. He was lonely.
Stiles was lonely, too. He sent Derek texts that said I miss your stupid face
and only 49 more days!, and Derek hung onto Thanksgiving like a talisman, a
longed for break from being apart.
It couldn't come soon enough. If Derek had thought he was full of sexual
frustration before, it was nothing compared to what it felt like now. Actually
having sex with Stiles had only ramped up what was already an annoying level of
wanting to do things he couldn't, because now he knew what it was like to be
touched by someone else, and he knew what Stiles looked like under his clothes,
and what his voice sounded like when he was seconds from orgasm. Derek wanted
more of it, all the time. He'd only gotten to experience it once before Stiles
left and it was maddening. Masturbating was an even poorer substitute now.
Watching porn barely took the edge off.
He missed Stiles a lot when he was alone in his bed at night, muffling his
moans in his pillow, wishing it was Stiles touching him.
~*~
Two weeks after Stiles went back to L.A., Kurt came home for the
weekend—already, even though it seemed like he'd barely been gone—and they
spent some time on Saturday playing in the yard with the twins.
"You're the bunny. You hide and we stalk you," Henry decreed, pointing an
imperious finger at Derek.
"Bunnies!" Violet screeched gleefully. "We're the wolf pack. Rowr!"
"All right," Derek said, knowing it was easier to just follow orders. This was
their favorite game, and they weren't allowed to play it in the house anymore,
ever since Mom's favorite lamp bit the dust. Even Dad's legendary repair skills
hadn't been able to save it.
"So what am I?" Kurt asked, shoving the last bite of a brownie in his mouth.
Derek sometimes suspected Kurt came home just to eat.
"You're a dead bunny," Henry decided, and then scampered off with Vi while
Derek and Kurt looked on in uncomfortable silence. Henry could be really morbid
sometimes.
Being the bunny usually meant hiding under the patio table, or in the garden
shed, but today Derek decided to mix it up. There was an old trampoline,
springs beaten to death by Kurt and Laura and Derek long before any of the
other kids came along, tipped up against the shed. Derek crawled into the
sheltered nook underneath it and hunkered down with his hands on his knees,
which was his standard bunny posture. Kurt followed, grumbling about the twins
being little dictators, and flopped down on his back, arms akimbo, since he was
supposed to be dead.
Now there wasn't anything to do but wait. The twins always made a big show of
slowly making their way toward their prey, checking every inch of the yard as
if they really were hunting—it was all part of the game. Derek and Kurt could
be here a long time.
"So. How's Stiles?" Kurt asked meaningfully, giving Derek a sly look, and Derek
grinned like an idiot before he could get control of his face. Kurt snorted and
shook his head. "You've got it bad, little brother."
"Dead bunnies don't talk!" Violet yelled from the direction of the swingset.
"I'm a ghost bunny!" Kurt yelled back, but when he spoke to Derek again he kept
his voice down to a whisper, which was probably a good thing, because it
reduced the chances Mom or Dad would hear that he asked Derek, "Is he your
boyfriend now or what?"
Derek looked down at the dirt between the toes of his sneakers and shrugged. "I
dunno. Maybe." He wasn't really sure, himself. "He's in college, so." Despite
Stiles' ongoing attentions, Derek often reminded himself that college guys
probably didn't want to tie themselves down to a high school kid back home.
He'd decided early on to be cool about it—or at least act like he was being
cool about it--and Stiles had never said anything except that they'd see each
other when he came home, and Derek didn't want to push.
"Huh," Kurt said, scratching his scruffy chin. He appeared to have given up on
shaving this semester. "Weitzel said he saw you guys at the beach, looking
pretty boyfriendy."
"The, uh, bonfire?" Derek asked darting a nervous glance at Kurt before
focusing on the ground again. There was only one other time they'd gone to the
beach together—just the two of them and a blanket—and Derek really, really
hoped that wasn't what Weitzel had seen. Derek would probably have known if
someone else was nearby, but he'd been a little…distracted.
"Yeah, why?" Kurt asked suspiciously.
Derek was saved from having to explain by the ear-shattering racket that
erupted from the other side of the yard as the twins rousted what sounded like
a squirrel. Elated to have found something besides their boring old brothers,
they shrieked with delight as they gave chase, even though there was almost no
chance they'd catch it.
Kurt rolled to a crouch and waddled over to peek around the edge of the shed,
checking to make sure they didn't follow it into the Preserve. That was how
little werewolves ended up lost and crying; Derek knew that from bitter
personal experience.
"They treed it," Kurt said. Derek could hear the squirrel somewhere up high
behind them, scolding the kids from the safety of its perch.
"That'll keep 'em busy for a while," Derek said, and it did, for about fifteen
minutes or so, while Derek and Kurt talked about American Horror Story, which
was rumored to be planning a werewolf season. They both agreed it would
probably be maddeningly inaccurate.
Henry and Violet were still focused on the squirrel when the back door opened
and Mom stepped outside. Derek could see her from his vantage point, drying her
hands on a dish towel, and could tell by her posture she knew exactly where
Derek and Kurt were, but she didn't acknowledge them.
"Lunch time!" she announced.
This immediately triggered a loud wail from Violet. "But we're hunting
bunnies!"
"That's not a bunny," Mom said, eyeing the tree. "That's a squirrel. And they
don't taste as good as tuna salad sandwiches and cookies."
"Cookies!" Henry yelled, giving a little fist pump as he dashed past her into
the house.
Violet wasn't so easily swayed, and came along more slowly, dragging her feet.
"But I wanna play," she protested.
Mom was having none of it. "You can play later. Right now you have to eat and
take a nap, or you'll be ornery all night and I'm in no mood. I made enough for
the bunnies, too," she said, glancing toward the trampoline.
"Bunnies don't like tuna salad," Kurt said under his breath, and Derek cracked
up.
"Bunnies can make their own lunch then," Mom declared, and shut the door firmly
behind her.
"Wanna see if we can find that squirrel?" Derek asked as he crawled out from
under the trampoline. It had taken the opportunity to flee, but they could
probably track it.
"Yeah, I'll pass," Kurt said , giving Derek the side-eye as he got to his feet
and brushed the dead grass out of his hair. Derek had always loved to leap out
of trees and flatten unsuspecting older siblings to the ground. Kurt wasn't a
fan. "Let's go lift some weights."
"Ugh. No thanks," Derek said. Kurt knew better than to even suggest it. "Not my
thing."
Kurt laughed and hooked his arm around Derek's neck, getting him in a headlock.
Derek didn't even try to fight back; it would only encourage him.
"Trust me," Kurt said, dragging Derek along with him toward the house. "You're
going to do the long-distance thing, you're gonna have to find something to do
to wear yourself out. The frustration will drive you nuts, otherwise."
~*~
Derek's family had a lot of exercise equipment in the corner of the basement,
where they kept all the old baby strollers and a horrible couch from the 1970s
that almost made Derek's eyes bleed to look at it. Dad was a workout fiend, and
had been as long as Derek could remember, had always had a gym membership. That
changed when Kurt suddenly became obsessed with weightlifting during his
freshman year. Unfortunately for Kurt, there was no way he could lift enough in
a public gym to actually give him a decent workout without raising suspicions.
Thus, the Hale basement became a workout room. Until now, it had mostly been
Dad and Kurt's domain, with some growing interest from Audrey as she got
involved in more and more sports.
Derek was strong and fast and coordinated, and always had been. It wasn't that
he wasn't good at sports—even a werewolf who was crappy at sports was better
than a lot of humans—but that wasn't his area of interest. He was fit, and had
some decent muscles, but it was just from being generally active. He'd never
worked at it like Kurt did.
That afternoon, Kurt showed him a few things beyond the basics Derek had
already picked up at school. Lifting weights in gym class had always been
really boring, because Derek had to act like he wasn't as strong as he was, and
it got hard to remember how much he was pretending to be able to lift. It was
mostly just a big hassle. But at home, where he didn't have to fake it, he
found it was a lot more fun, and he actually got a sense of accomplishment from
it, so they spent some time on it the next day, too, and after Kurt went back
to school Derek kept doing it on his own.
The first time Dad came downstairs and found Derek doing leg curls, he was
visibly surprised, and then visibly pleased. After that, they sometimes worked
out together in the evenings. Derek had always been kind of mama's boy—which
Laura and Kurt never tired of pointing out—and he enjoyed the novelty of having
a thing to bond over with his father. Dad knew a lot of stuff about working
out, even more than Kurt, and seemed thrilled to be able to share it with
Derek, who was eager to learn more.
And as much as Derek hated to admit it, Kurt was right—it did help. It filled
up some time, and burned off excess energy. It didn't exactly make him any less
horny and frustrated, and it certainly didn't make him miss Stiles any less,
but it tired him out, and most nights he slept like he'd been knocked
unconscious, muscles aching just enough to make him feel like he'd accomplished
something.
He gradually added more weight, added new and more difficult exercises Dad
taught him, and the muscles in his arms got bigger, and he had to stop wearing
his favorite jacket because it was too tight in the shoulders. His stomach,
flat and lightly defined to begin with, suddenly developed a few more ridges in
it. Somewhere in there he also hit a growth spurt, and all his pants were
suddenly too short, and too tight in the thighs.
"I swear, you're growing like a weed," Mom clucked as she supervised Derek's
shirt selection process in Target. "Henry, you know the rule. One hand on the
cart at all times. And don't give me that look."
"Vi doesn't have a hand on the cart!" Henry said mulishly, and kicked the
nearest wheel. Vi and Audrey had been sent off together, holding hands, to
fetch some duct tape and Gorilla Glue for Dad.
"If you don't adjust your attitude, you can ride in the cart," Mom threatened.
"I’m not a baby," Henry protested, scowling, but he put his hand on the cart.
"Derek, what about this one?" Mom asked, ignoring Henry in favor of pointing
out a stack of ringer tees. "You'll look nice in this shade of blue."
"Maybe," Derek said, not ready to commit. He unfolded one and held it up to
make sure it didn't have any weird stuff on it. He'd once bought what he'd
thought was a plain gray T-shirt that had actually had a stupid logo on it.
"They only had seven bottles of glue," Audrey said, walking up with Vi, who was
holding onto Audrey's sweatshirt because Audrey's arms were loaded down with
bottles of Gorilla Glue, and one bright orange bag that looked suspiciously
like peanut butter cups. Violet had two rolls of duct tape around each of her
wrists, like over-sized bracelets.
"I like the purple better," Derek decided, shuffling through the stack of
shirts to find a purple one in his—new, larger—size.
"Are we getting candy?" Henry asked, spying the peanut butter cups.
"Only if you keep your hand on the cart," Mom said to Henry, who promptly
plastered both hands against the side of the cart like he was about to get
frisked. "Get the purple one if you want," she told Derek.
"Or maybe the blue one," Derek said, waffling. His phone chimed and he slid it
out of his pocket right away. It was probably Stiles.
"I have to go to the bathroom!" Violet announced as Audrey took the duct tape
off her arms and put it in the cart.
"In a minute, honey," Mom said to Vi, and then to Derek, "Get whatever color
you want."
Derek nodded but didn't look up from his phone. It was Stiles, wondering,
Whatcha doin?
Family outing to Target, Derek texted back. This was the kind of breaking news
they shared with each other all day long. Other people would probably think it
was stupid and pointless, but Derek liked it. It made him feel like they were
still part of each other's daily lives. Stiles evidently liked it, too, since
he kept doing it. Buying shirts and glue.
"Are we done? We're gonna miss American Idol," Audrey said, sounding impatient.
"I want candy!" Henry wailed.
"I have to go to the bathroom!" Violet repeated, loud enough for the entire
county to hear. She threw herself dramatically against Mom's legs and clung
like a limpet.
"One hand on the cart!" Mom said firmly, nudging Violet toward it. "Derek get
off your phone and pick a shirt. We're leaving in three minutes."
"Fine," Derek huffed and grabbed the blue one, then changed his mind again and
swapped it for purple.
"Are we ready to go?" Dad asked as he walked up and set a brick of toilet paper
in the cart, along with another bag of peanut butter cups. It ran in the
family.
Whole family? Everyone? I bet that's exciting, Stiles texted back. He knew how
many siblings Derek had, and had heard stories about the twins.
"Everyone start marching now," Mom said as Derek tossed his chosen shirt in the
cart. "Time's up."
You have no idea how exciting, Derek replied a few minutes later while they
were waiting outside the restroom for Mom and Violet. Henry had his legs
wrapped around Derek's waist and was bent over backwards, dangling upside down
while he sang the song about werewolves jumping on the bed. Derek had one hand
hooked under the waistband of Henry's pants, just in case, while he texted with
the other. No idea at all.
~*~
Two days before he was scheduled to take the PSAT, Derek got a package in the
mail from Stiles. It contained a dozen pencils, all of them perfectly
sharpened, and a calculator.
There was a note inside, written on the back of a pizza menu that said Just in
case!, followed by a winking smiley face.
The calculator was a cheap one, made from pink plastic, the kind of thing you
could pick up at the drugstore--obviously not meant to be used on the test,
just as part of the joke. Derek put the pencils in his case, though, because
you could never be too prepared.
The morning of the test, he woke up early, and was too nervous to eat
breakfast, so he threw an orange in his backpack and went off to school after
checking three times to make sure he had his calculator and his pencils. At the
last second, he threw the calculator from Stiles in his backpack, too.
He was the first one in the classroom, and had just gotten all his stuff out
when he got a text from Stiles.
Good luck today. You'll do great.
Thanks, Derek texted back, and sent him a picture of all the pencils lined up
next to both calculators before he turned off his phone and put it in his
backpack.
Think I did pretty good, he told Stiles when it was over. Thanks for the
pencils.
And the "tutoring"? ;) Stiles replied.
ESPECIALLY the tutoring, Derek said. I think all that one on one attention
really helped. It was the closest thing he'd ever sent to a sext and he felt
like everyone around him knew it. He jammed his phone back into his pocket and
tried to think about gross stuff like cooked eggplant and country music.
The rest of the school day flew by, and when he got home from school, he
celebrated by skipping clarinet practice and homework, instead going straight
for the Playstation, playing right through until dinner time, which he almost
never did, and Mom let him, so she must have felt he deserved it, too. It felt
good to be done with the test, get it out of the way.
Now all he had to worry about was the SAT, but he was giving himself some time
off before he started obsessing about that.
~*~
Derek didn't hear from Stiles much the rest of the week, mostly just quick text
exchanges and one short phone call. On Friday, Isaac slept over, and they
gorged themselves on Cheetos and World of Warcraft.
They were both asleep, exhausted from too much trash talking and processed
cheese powder, when the text alert on Derek's phone woke him up. He fumbled for
it, saw it was after two in the morning, and the text was from Stiles.
Hey call me if you're up?
It was an unusual request, and at a really unusual time. Derek sat up and
checked on Isaac, who was crashed out on the floor in Laura's old Barbie
sleeping bag. He was still dead to the world, empty Cheetos bag next to his
head. Even so, Derek would have to go somewhere else to make a phone call. He
wanted to text back and ask if Stiles was okay, but then decided against it.
He'd rather be somewhere alone when he got the answer. This seemed ominous.
Trying to tell himself it was probably nothing didn't really help, and Derek's
heart was in his throat as he crept down to the TV room, which was as far away
from his parents' bedroom as he could get and still be in the house, plus it
had a comfy couch. He shoved his bare feet under a blanket and got settled.
"Hi," Stiles said, when he answered his phone. His voice was kind of flat and
tired. "Sorry if I woke you up. Or if you were busy with Isaac."
"He's asleep," Derek said, skirting around the fact that he had been, too.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Nothing," Stiles said glumly. "I couldn't sleep and I wanted to talk to you. I
had kind of a shitty week."
"Oh," Derek said. He'd imagined all kinds of nightmare scenarios that would
necessitate a 2am phone call, but he hadn't thought that Stiles just wanted to
hear his voice. That was kind of sweet, actually, though the reason wasn't.
"That sucks. I'm sorry."
"Thanks."
"Anything I can do?" He doubted there was, but it didn't hurt to ask.
"Nah."
Derek wasn't sure if he was supposed to ask, but he figured if Stiles had
called him, he probably wanted to talk about it. "Why was your week shitty?"
Stiles sighed. "It's mostly all my fault. I made a dumb mistake at work and got
in trouble, and totally blipped on an essay that was due and now the highest I
can get on it is a B because it'll be late, and then I had a fight with one of
my housemates, and then the Jeep's battery died. And I really miss you. A lot."
"I miss you, too," Derek said. "Sorry I can't be there." This was a part of
long-distance relationships he hadn't really thought about until now. He'd been
so focused on not being able to do fun things together—including fun things
that involved orgasms—that he hadn't considered sometimes you might have a bad
day and just need someone to be nice to you and kiss you and make you feel like
you weren't a total failure, but that wasn't an option because they weren't
there.
"This long-distance thing kind of sucks," Stiles said, sounding frustrated. It
was the first time he'd ever voiced that opinion. Usually Derek was the one
complaining about it, and Stiles was the one who kept insisting it was no big
deal and they'd see each other soon. Derek hadn't realized how comforting that
had been, that Stiles had been so accepting of being apart and so willing to
tolerate it. Now his whole body went cold at the thought that Stiles might
decide it wasn't worth it. That was his greatest fear.
"Hey, we'll see each other soon," he said, fighting to keep his voice calm.
That was Stiles' usual response when Derek complained.
"I know," Stiles said. Then he laughed a little. "This is a switch, isn't it?
Usually I'm the one saying that." His voice was warm, not quite so defeated
sounding, and it made Derek feel better. Maybe just a temporary blip. Didn't
mean anything.
"Yeah, it is," Derek agreed, and then talked to Stiles until they were both
about to fall asleep on their phones.
"Thanks," Stiles said before he hung up. "For talking to me."
"Any time," Derek said, and meant it. Losing a few hours of sleep was worth it.
When he got back into bed he spent a few minutes thinking about how he'd felt
when Stiles had sounded unhappy with the distance between them, and wondered if
that was how Stiles felt when Derek whined about it. He didn't act like he was
worried Derek would get so fed up he'd just call it quits—which was ludicrous,
Derek would never, but he didn't know if Stiles knew that—but that didn't mean
it didn't cross Stiles' mind sometimes.
Even the possibility that he'd been unknowingly and unintentionally stressing
Stiles out this whole time made it hard to fall asleep, and when he did, he
dreamt that he accidentally wolfed out in front of Stiles and scared him away.
Which probably wasn’t symbolic at all.
~*~
Isaac had to work the next morning, so he left right after breakfast. Derek was
tired and kind of cranky, feeling residual anxiety from his bad dream, and
still brooding a little over whether he'd been making Stiles feel bad all this
time by grousing about how inconvenient it was to be apart. Adding to his
annoyance was the fact that Laura was back for the weekend again. She and Kurt
both came home a lot more often than Stiles did, which was so unfair.
Derek usually dealt with being cranky by avoiding everyone, which was sometimes
a challenge with his family. When all else failed, he'd head into the Preserve
and climb a tree, but given the choice he preferred to sulk in the comfort of
his own home. It was a lot more comfortable, and there were potato chips
available.
Since he still had chores to do anyway, going into the Preserve wasn't an
option, so he had to hide in plain sight in the house. He managed it well
enough until Laura cornered him after lunch.
She had just finished mowing the lawn, probably the last time it'd need it
until spring. Derek was busy doing the laundry because his parents didn't
believe in girl chores and boy chores—everyone had to take turns at everything,
though the older kids were allowed to trade with each other to get out of tasks
they didn't like. Derek hated mowing, couldn't stand the unrelenting whine of
the mower, and the nasty exhaust that stunk up his clothes. He actually really
enjoyed doing the laundry, because it was quiet and soothing and he could read
while he waited. And it had taken a couple years, but now even handling bras
didn't faze him.
"Texting your boyfriend?" Laura asked, devious glint in her eyes, when she saw
the phone in Derek's hand. Derek jerked away when she reached for it, because
he actually had been texting Stiles and even though it was a purely innocent
conversation about Doctor Who, he had no desire to let Laura see it.
"None of your business," he said, which only made her grin evilly at him and
make another grab at his phone. Derek put a hand on her face and shoved her
away, which only set off a short tussle. Derek was bigger and stronger, but
Laura was agile and fought dirty, and she hopped up onto the washer and
feinted, tricking him.
She laughed as she snatched his phone from his hand, and Derek got angry, truly
angry, and snarled at her like he hadn't since they were kids fighting over the
last Kit Kat. She snarled back, quick as could be, probably not because she was
actually angry, too, but because Laura always met a challenge with another
challenge. Her eyes sparked at him, and he started to shift--
"No fangs in the house!" Mom yelled from somewhere on the second floor.
Derek retreated a little, letting himself shift back to human, and when Laura
blinked her eyes weren't glowing anymore.
"Give it back or I'm telling Mom," Derek said. He didn't care if it made him
sound five years old.
"Here you go," Laura said huffily, handing it back to him. "I wasn't going to
read your mushy text messages anyway."
He snatched it away and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans, out of
sight. "You're a jerk," he said, on principle.
Laura tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, which never, ever led to
anything good, in Derek's experience. "You really like this guy?" she asked.
There was nothing taunting about it this time. She sat down on her butt, legs
dangling off the edge of the washer, as she waited for him to answer.
There was no sense in trying to hide it from her, and for all they squabbled
and mocked, Laura could also be fiercely protective of him. One time in grade
school another kid had called Derek a bad word on the playground and Laura had
unleashed a verbal tirade on that kid so vicious he never dared to even make
eye contact with Derek again. It was probably okay to tell her. "Yes," Derek
admitted.
"I knew it!" Laura crowed.
Derek turned around and went back to folding towels so she couldn't see him
blush. Talking about Stiles with other people always made his face do stupid
stuff. "And yes, I know he's older than me," he said, because he was sure she
was going to point that out.
"You worried about that?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"Maybe. I guess. It's not a lot," Derek said stubbornly. Anyone who was the
same age as Kurt couldn't be that old, could they? It wasn't like Stiles was
thirty or anything. He turned back around, clutching Henry's Buzz Lightyear
bath towel. "Do you think Mom and Dad would…?"
He let the sentence trail off. He didn't know what he wanted to ask. Approve?
Tolerate? Flip out?
Laura appeared to actually think about it for a minute, staring at the bottles
of laundry soap and fabric softener on the shelf above Derek's head. Derek
wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.
"You know, Mom's four years older than Dad," Laura said after a bit, banging
her heels on the front of the dryer. Derek had always vaguely known his mother
was older than his father, but not by how much. And at their age what
difference did it make? They were so old anyway. "And he was still in college
when they got married," she added.
"Really? Wow," Derek said, suddenly more interested. He'd always known his
parents' marriage wasn't exactly conventional, and this only added to the
impression.
Not only was his dad younger than Mom, he was human. And he'd changed his last
name when he got married, something completely out of step with the society he
lived in, and he hadn't been able to tell anyone the truth of why, because the
fact that he was joining a werewolf pack wasn't really something he could admit
to, was it?
Laura was looking eager to dish. "Did you ever hear the story, what happened
when Dad asked her to marry him?" she asked.
"No," Derek said. And up until now he hadn't really cared. "What happened?"
"It was a huge deal," Laura said, with obvious relish. "Like, huge. Grandpa
flipped out and there was a big fight and he threatened to expel Mom from the
pack. He thought a future alpha should marry another werewolf."
"Holy shit," Derek said, hopefully low enough that his mother couldn’t hear him
over the washing machine. He didn't really remember much about Grandpa Hale,
who had died when Derek was just a kid. His memories were mostly just vague
impressions of him being big and loud and scary. There was only one picture of
Derek with his grandfather, and Derek was red-faced and bawling in it, trying
to squirm off his Grandpa's lap.
Imagining his mother defying him—her alpha!—was an incredible thought.
"Then what happened?" Derek asked, dying to know. He tossed Henry's towel aside
so he could scramble up onto the little table where he folded the clothes. He
needed to sit down for this.
Laura pulled her legs up and settled in cross-legged on the washer, elbows on
her knees. "Dad went to Grandpa and offered to take the bite."
"No way!" Derek said, in complete disbelief. Dad had always been very open
about having no desire to be a werewolf, never sugar-coated it. Both of Derek's
parents always spoke frankly about both the plusses and minuses of being a
werewolf, and for Dad the minuses—and the risk associated with taking the
bite—didn't outweigh the plusses. It was a viewpoint they'd all been taught to
respect, from the time they were little. Derek couldn’t have been more shocked
to hear his father had once agreed to be bitten. It was unthinkable.
"Yep," Laura said. "He told Grandpa flat out he didn't really want it, and knew
it could kill him, but he said if that was the only way he could marry Mom,
he'd do it in a second. And Grandpa told him that if he took the bite, he could
marry her."
Even though Derek obviously knew the ending to this story—his parents were
married, and his dad was still human—he found himself in suspense. He'd never
heard any of this, but as the possible future alpha, Laura was probably privy
to more of the family secrets than Derek was.
"Mom was so pissed," Laura said knowingly, like she'd actually been there to
witness it, which was, of course, impossible. "She argued with Grandpa and told
him not to do it, and she argued with Dad and threatened to break up with him.
But he showed up at the house for the next full moon, ready to be bitten."
She paused dramatically, letting Derek stew. When they were little she'd always
been the one to taunt him with candy held out of his reach, or toss a ball into
the tree so he'd have to climb to get it. Now she was doing the same with
information. Some things never changed.
"Oh my God, just tell me!" Derek groaned, clenching his fingers around his
knees. "Ugh."
Laura leaned back on her hands and said, "Grandpa refused to do it. He said
just by showing up Dad had proven he was serious about Mom, and he was welcome
in the pack as a human. And that was that. They got married a few months
later."
"Wow," Derek breathed.
"So, you know," Laura said, stretching her leg out to nudge his knee with her
sneaker, leaving grass clippings on his pants. "Stiles being a little older and
a human probably isn't a huge deal."
That certainly made Derek feel a little better, though he wouldn't actually
believe it until he heard those words from his actual parents. Which wasn't
going to happen any time soon, because he was not ready for them to find out.
"I didn't know any of that. I thought everyone was so boring," he marveled.
He'd had no idea his family history was so scandalous.
"Oh, that's nothing," Laura said, grinning. "Wait'll I tell you about Uncle
Peter."
~*~
Send me a picture of yourself, Stiles texted one afternoon, then, NOT NAKED.
Derek had to slap his hand over his mouth to muffle the laughter. He would
never send a naked picture of himself to anyone, but it was still funny that
Stiles had felt compelled to specify that. In all capitals, even.
He texted back Why?
Having a contest whose boyfriend is cuter. I know I can win. Send a pic! Before
Derek could respond, Stiles texted, I can't believe I don't have any. Fixing
that when I'm home.
He wasn't sure which part made him smile more—that Stiles had for the first
time referred to Derek as his boyfriend, or that he thought Derek was hot
enough to win a cute boyfriend contest.
Okay. Hang on, he sent back.
It took a little longer than he thought, as Derek soon discovered taking a
flattering selfie was a lot harder than he'd anticipated. He ducked into the
bathroom and held up his camera to the mirror and snapped a photo, and then
looked at it and was appalled by how cheesy his grin looked, so he took another
where he wasn't smiling and that was worse—he looked like he was angry. Ugh.
His smile in the third one managed to split the difference between complete
dork and anger management candidate, but when he looked a little closer he
grimaced at his hair—flattened on one side where Henry had pressed his face
during a piggyback ride—and he had a smudge of green Crayola marker on his
cheek, courtesy of Violet.
Nothing to do but start over. He washed his face and fixed his hair and managed
to smile in a way he thought was reasonably attractive, and it only took about
twenty more deleted pictures to get something he didn't hate on sight. He had
to avert his eyes to avoid lens flare issues, but that couldn't be helped.
After he sent it to Stiles he realized he was wearing his Robotics Club T-
shirt, and wished he'd thought to change it, but Stiles seemed to like that
Derek could build robots. He didn't think it was hopelessly nerdy, like some
people did. Only the top half of the logo was visible anyway--the one he'd
settled on was mostly a headshot.
Stiles responded a few minutes later: WEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!
Derek wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Thanks? Or maybe even You're
welcome? Both sounded stupid, so he went with, Great now you earwormed me.
Stiles responded with a picture of his happy, grinning face. It looked like he
was at someone's house. There was one of those big cat trees behind him, the
kind covered in carpet.
Here you go, the accompanying text said. Fair is fair. Stiles didn't know Derek
still had the black and white Facebook picture on his phone, plus a few others
he'd downloaded from Facebook since, and Derek decided to just keep that
information to himself.
He made the new picture the wallpaper on his phone.
~*~
"What about a 3D printer?" Isaac asked, when they were hanging out in Derek's
room on a Sunday, brainstorming their next project and working their way
through a box of pumpkin spice granola bars. "Then you're making something that
you can use to make other stuff. It's useful."
"That's actually a pretty good idea," Derek said, getting kind of excited about
it the more he considered it. "I could print robot parts with it!"
"I saw pictures online, some guy printed an entire Avengers-themed chess set,"
Isaac said, obviously getting into the idea now, too.
"You don't know how to play chess," Derek pointed out.
"No," Isaac said, shrugging. "But I like the Avengers."
With both them them clearly in agreement that printing whatever they wanted
would be really awesome, they dove into Google and came out an hour later with
a list of stuff they'd need, and dozens of bookmarks, mostly tutorials on how
to build the machine itself, which was going to be Derek's job. Isaac was the
digital fabrication guy, and he was already elbows deep in OpenSCAD, planning
God knew what.
Derek's phone had dinged a few times while they were researching, and now
dinged a few more. He finally picked it up and checked it.
"Is that Rebecca?" Isaac asked, frowning at his screen. "Tell her I said hi."
Derek looked at his phone. "Erm. No," he said. "It's Stiles."
"The librarian?" Isaac asked, looking up from his computer for the first time
in forever. "Why is he texting you?"
"He's sort of my boyfriend," Derek admitted, feeling a little terrified about
saying it out loud for the first time, like he might jinx it. But Stiles had
used that word first, so Derek wasn't jumping the gun.
"Since when? And what do you mean 'sort of'?" Isaac asked, eyebrows climbing.
"He is," Derek amended. "He is my boyfriend. Sorry I didn't tell you. It
happened over the summer." He hadn't seen Isaac all that much between computer
camp and the start of the school year, which was when all the getting together
stuff had taken place. By the time they were back in school, Derek had been too
anxious about the looming long-distance hurdles to really be excited about
telling anyone, even Isaac.
Isaac was a good friend, though. He looked suitably impressed. "Wow. An older
man. Way to go, Hale," he said, and raised his hand for a high five. Derek
thought high fives were kind of stupid, but he indulged him. "Wait," Isaac
said, after they slapped hands, like something was just occurring to him.
"Isn't his dad the sheriff?"
"Yep," Derek said, scrolling through the six text messages Stiles had sent him.
He was live-texting a trip to Tommy Taco for lunch, complete with pictures.
"Does he know how old you are?" Isaac wondered.
"Stiles?" Derek asked, confused. "Of course he knows."
Isaac threw a granola bar at him. It hit Derek in the nose and landed in his
lap. "No, his dad, idiot. Does his dad know how old you are?"
"I think so," Derek said. "But, um." He picked up the granola bar and opened
it, took a bite, and tossed it back to Isaac.
"But he doesn't know you're Stiles' boyfriend," Isaac guessed, before he took a
bite himself.
"No," Derek said.
"Do your parents know?" Isaac asked. He had a cheek full of granola bar, like a
chipmunk.
Isaac was really zeroing in on all the most uncomfortable questions. "No,"
Derek confessed.
"Does anyone know?" Isaac looked a little shocked that Derek was conducting a
secret romance with a hot older dude. Derek didn't really blame him; Derek was
easily just as surprised, whenever he thought about it that way.
Derek shrugged and picked at a stray thread on the cuff of Stiles' sweatshirt..
"You and Rebecca. Stiles' friends, I guess. It's not that big a deal. It's not
like he's really old. He isn't thirty or anything."
"I guess," Isaac agreed. "And lots of people at school have boyfriends and
girlfriends who are in college."
That was true, though Derek couldn't think of anyone offhand who was dealing
with such a big age difference. He supposed he and Stiles couldn't be the only
ones. It was statistically unlikely.
"Well, don't worry," Isaac said, tossing the empty wrapper off to the side
before settling back down with his laptop. "It won't cost too much to buy my
silence."
"Thanks," Derek said. "I'm touched."
~*~
Halloween came along on the heels of a cold snap, which didn't deter the twins
at all--Henry and Violet loved anything that involved candy. Last year, during
a trip to Vegas for a regional werewolf gathering, Derek's dad had taken them
to the M&M store on the Strip. Henry had taken one look at the entire wall of
M&Ms in every color of the rainbow and promptly been so overcome he'd burst
into tears.
Beacon Hills didn't have an M&M store, but every Halloween it had a haunted
house, and a spooky maze set up by a rent-a-hedge company, and people in
costumes handing out candy to anyone who wanted some. All of this took place in
the park, which was where Derek was at the moment, shepherding the twins
carefully through the crowd with their trick-or-treat bags. They'd gone through
the maze before collecting their candy, because Henry and excitement and
chocolate didn't always mix. Derek was still a little worried about the drive
home, and the integrity of the car's upholstery.
Violet was dressed as a hockey player for the second year in a row. Henry had
opted to be a velociraptor; Derek suspected mostly because he thought it gave
him an excuse to bite people, a notion Derek had disabused him of almost
immediately. They were pretty much done with everything, just killing time
while Audrey went through the haunted house with Mom and Dad. The twins were
too young for it, and Derek had willingly skipped it—most of the volunteers
were easily recognizable as kids from his school, which took a lot of the
terror out of it.
The line for the haunted house looked like it contained everyone in Beacon
Hills, so it was probably going to be a while yet, and Derek was ready to take
a break. The twins' trick-or-treat bags were bulging; Violet could barely
manage hers and her hockey stick at the same time. Derek led them over to an
empty patch of grass and got them settled, then sat down himself, leaning back
on his elbows. He liked to people watch, especially during Halloween, and the
twins were already tired of walking.
Isaac wandered up after a few minutes and took a seat on the grass next to them
and joined Derek in people watching, occasionally waving to people they knew.
Violet was methodically sorting through her loot and handing Derek anything she
didn't like, which wasn't much. Mostly Jolly Ranchers and the colored Tootsie
Rolls. Henry was sacked out across the top of his candy bag like a lion
guarding its kill.
Derek took a picture of him and texted it to Stiles, who responded right away.
Awwww. Looks like Halloween is a success. Stiles was working, and then going to
a party later. He'd bounced a few costume ideas off of Derek during their
bedtime phone calls before settling on the Eleventh Doctor. I'd rather be there
than go to this party, he added, though he'd been pretty excited about his
costume.
Right then, sitting in the park on Halloween watching Violet sort her candy
like it was a matter of national security, Derek wanted Stiles around in a
completely different way. He didn't just want him back in Beacon Hills--he
wanted Stiles here, with his family and Isaac, doing all the stuff they
normally did, but with Stiles along. Right now it was impossible for a lot of
reasons, but maybe someday they could make that happen.
I'd rather you were here, too, Derek texted back.
Soon, Stiles said.
Chapter End Notes
         * This chapter is subtitled "In which DD learns a very valuable
           lesson in the difficulty of advancing a relationship when one
           half of the couple is offscreen the entire time!"
         * Forever ago someone mentioned Stiles would probably give Derek
           a pencil for his PSAT but I can't find the comment or ask or
           whatever it was. Anyway, here you go, lovely person!
         * The song Henry sings in Target is the werewolf version of Five
           Little_Monkeys.
         * I know there was another thing but I can't remember what it
           was, so...placeholder.
***** November *****
November
The practice of storytelling for entertainment and instruction was at one time
so widespread that it was virtually ---- .
(A) rigorous
(B) universal
(C) elevating
(D) uncommon
(E) unknown
Derek's seventeenth birthday, which fell on a Friday, was something he'd been
anxiously awaiting for what felt like an eternity, because for a few short
months the age difference between him and Stiles was one year less. Derek was
still underage, and in the spring Stiles would have his own birthday and they'd
be right back where they started, but whatever. Derek was finally seventeen,
which he thought sounded a lot older than sixteen.
He woke up earlier than usual, too excited about the coming weekend to sleep,
so he was already brushing his teeth when Rebecca sent him a text message, the
first to wish him a happy birthday. There was a ThinkGeek gift certificate
waiting in his email account from her, too. The twins were next, barreling into
his room as he was getting dressed, each towing a balloon on a string and
shrieking that it was his birthday and they were having pancakes and Derek
needed to get up already because they were starving.
"Nobody gets breakfast until they're dressed," Derek reminded them, eyeing
Henry's pajamas. Violet was already in her clothes, though she was wearing two
different shoes. Henry took off like a shot. Nothing motivated him like the
threat of missing out on syrup.
"Happy birthday!" Violet shouted, proffering the balloon in her hand so
forcefully that it hit Derek in the face. "We helped Mom buy balloons!"
Once he got it far enough away from his eyes that he could actually look at it,
Derek had no doubt Violet had picked it out herself—it had a Disney princess on
it.
Stiles called while Derek was sitting patiently, letting Violet tie her balloon
around his wrist, which was taking forever and involved so many clumsy knots he
was going to have to cut it off. Stiles was waiting in line at the coffee shop
before heading to work, so he and Derek talked for a bit, until finally Violet
was satisfied with her handiwork and trotted off in pursuit of Henry and the
remaining balloon. By then the conversation had devolved into which was the
better accompaniment for pancakes--sausage or bacon--and they got so wrapped up
in debating it that they lost track of time and Stiles had to hang up before
Derek opened his gift.
"Have a good day. Don't break a hip," Stiles said. No matter how big of a rush
he was in, he always had time to be a wiseass.
"You're hilarious," Derek told him, and the last thing he heard before he hung
up was Stiles cackling like the Joker.
Derek's present from Stiles had arrived in the mail two days ago and been
sitting on his desk ever since, eliciting a lot of interest from the twins, who
couldn't understand how he could bear to leave it unopened. He almost called
them back into his room so they could help him open it, but then thought better
of it. He didn't want to end up with balloons tied to both wrists.
He used his X-Acto knife to carefully slit open the big manila envelope, and
pulled out what felt like a book, though it was covered in an almost absurd
amount of protective packaging. Derek carefully peeled off all three layers of
bubble wrap and hid it in his desk drawer—he could use it later as a good
behavior bribe for the twins. They were nuts about the stuff.
It was a book—big surprise there. A big, beautiful book on the history of
robotics.
It's awesome! Thank you! he texted, before he even cracked it open. He already
knew it was going to be perfect.
Cool. Happy birthday! Stiles texted back.
You're not supposed to be texting! Derek scolded. There was a rule.
Stiles' response was almost instantaneous: I'm hiding in the bathroom ;)
Not wanting to tempt Stiles any further into delinquency, Derek put his phone
aside and started paging through the book, but the balloon kept bopping around
and getting in the way. Finally he gave up and sprawled belly down on the bed,
letting the balloon float above him while he read. Just the chapter titles
alone were exciting.
Even better, Stiles had written an inscription on the inside flap. It said "To
the cutest nerd I know," followed by Stiles' scrawling signature and then a
heart. When he saw it, Derek's dignity instantly departed for places unknown
and he mashed his face down into his pillow and made a noise that sounded
humiliatingly close to a squeal.
He'd only been seventeen for a few hours—a lapse of maturity here and there was
to be expected.
Derek had just barely regained his composure when Isaac came wandering in from
the guest room, looking half-asleep, to wish him a happy birthday. Mr. Lahey
was elk hunting in Montana and didn't trust Isaac at home by himself, so he was
staying with Derek's family for the week. Isaac and Derek were ecstatic about
it, and it was even better that it fell over Derek's birthday. Isaac glanced at
the balloon but didn't ask; he'd spent a lot of time at Derek's house over the
years.
"Here you go," Isaac said, tossing Derek a cardboard box with the Amazon.com
logo on the side. Derek used the X-Acto to open that one, too, and found inside
a USB hub with twenty-four ports.
"Holy crap," Derek said. He'd been meaning to buy a new port hub for himself
for a few weeks, ever since his other one died, but he hadn't even dreamed of
getting such a big one. It had to cost fifty bucks, at least, and poor Isaac
had spent most of his summer working like a dog just so he could go to computer
camp. Derek felt a little guilty about being the recipient of such a pricey
gift. "You didn't have to spend so much on me," he protested.
Isaac shifted awkwardly, rubbing one bare foot on top of the other. "You drive
me to school every day and never ask for gas money," he said, shrugging. "Plus
your parents let me stay here a lot."
What he wasn't saying was that this was a place he could come to get away from
his father, but they both knew what he meant. They didn't talk about Isaac's
home situation very much, by Isaac's choice.
"It's no big deal," Derek said. Isaac was always welcome here; both Derek and
his parents felt that way. Isaac's family—what was left of it—pretty much
sucked, so Derek didn't mind sharing his. He looked down at the port hub,
turning it over in his hands. The princess balloon swayed back and forth above
his head. "Thanks for this."
"I figured you'd need it, because of all the stuff we're working on," Isaac
said, gesturing toward Derek's desk, where the printer was nearly complete. "So
it's kind of a selfish gift."
"In that case, thanks for nothing," Derek said, going along with it. "Hey, you
wanna see what Stiles sent me?" he asked, because now seemed like a really good
time to change the subject.
"Wow, cool," Isaac said, impressed, when Derek showed him the book, now open to
a page closer to the middle. "He got you a good gift." He said it like he was
surprised by that—either because Stiles was a librarian, or because he was
older—but Isaac didn't know Stiles like Derek did, so that was understandable.
"Yeah, he did," Derek said, trying not to sound too much like a lovestruck
dork. Stiles hadn't ever given him a present before, except for the stuff he'd
sent before the PSAT, which was just a joke, so Derek was thrilled both with
the book and the thought that Stiles had obviously put into it, not to mention
the inscription. Derek's boyfriend was the best boyfriend ever.
Derek looked at the book some more while Isaac showered, and then finally made
his way downstairs, the balloon trailing behind him.
Breakfast during the school year tended to be the most chaotic meal of all in
the Hale household, everyone rushing around and trying to find overdue
permission slips and misplaced text books while dealing with Violet's spilled
milk and Henry's fixation on the jam jar. This morning was no different, except
there was a single candle stuck in Derek's stack of pancakes, ringed with a
circle of whipped cream and dotted with colored sprinkles. Mom was the kind of
parent who went all-out for birthdays, not always with the desired results.
Derek still carried the emotional scars from the year the magician she hired
for Laura's party unexpectedly arrived dressed as a clown.
Also different today: Derek had the added challenge of trying to eat with a
balloon tied to his wrist.
Before he and Isaac left for school—without the balloon, which Violet was
apparently never going to forgive him for--Derek's parents gave him the best
birthday gift of all: a card with a hundred bucks inside and a note informing
him he now had an extra hour on his curfew. It didn't mean much at the moment,
since Isaac was the only person Derek hung out with regularly, and his curfew
was still 11pm, but once Stiles was back in town that extra hour would mean a
lot. He took a picture of the card and sent it to Stiles, along with a smiley
face.
Stiles' response—presumably sent from the bathroom—was a series of exclamation
points.
~*~
That night the whole family plus Isaac went out for sushi, which was Derek's
favorite thing. Afterwards, there was cake back at home, and then Derek and
Isaac went out on their own for a while to play some skeeball. With Isaac's dad
out of cellphone range and none the wiser, they got to test out Derek's new,
later curfew; they used the extra hour to get hot fudge sundaes at the diner.
All in all, a pretty good birthday, and there was still more to come the next
day.
Derek had rescheduled all his Saturday music students—Henry and Violet had been
granted a waiver—so he got to sleep in, and then laze around in his pajamas
eating leftover cake with Isaac while they watched crappy movies on cable with
all the swear words cut out. He didn't even get in the shower until almost
noon, and that was only because he had to for social reasons. Erica and
Vernon—who had recently decided he wanted to go by his last name now, which was
Boyd—were driving up from Fort Bragg for the day.
It wasn’t the first time they'd all hung out together outside of computer camp,
but it was the first time they'd been able to do so without someone's parents
playing chauffeur. Erica had her own car now, as a reward for ten consecutive
years of straight A's: a vintage red Mustang. Derek and Isaac had seen pictures
of it, and it looked pretty sweet.
Those pics were nothing compared to how it sounded, a pure muscle car rumble
that made Derek's chest vibrate as the Mustang crunched up the driveway. Kurt
would have been in heaven.
Isaac and Derek came out of the house to meet them and check out the car, but
were brought up short when they saw Erica unfold herself out of the Mustang in
a leopard print skirt and a low-cut top that—wow. Had Erica always been
that…curvy? Had her hair always looked like she belonged on the cover of a
magazine? In his peripheral vision, Derek could see Isaac's eyes darting from
Erica to Derek and back again, like Holy shit, are you seeing this?
Derek was definitely seeing it.
Boyd got out of the car looking like the smuggest bastard on the planet, and
rightfully so.
"Happy birthday, loser," Erica said, flicking Derek in the head with her finger
in lieu of a hug. "You finish that printer yet?"
They hadn't finished it, but they were really close, planning to get the rest
done and do a test print tomorrow, so after Erica showed them her car they all
tromped upstairs to see the printer. Derek also let them look at the book
Stiles had given him.
Erica was the one who spied the inscription. "Is this the guy you wouldn't shut
up about at camp?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at Derek. Derek thought that
was an unfair statement—he'd only talked about Stiles a fraction of the times
he'd thought about him that week. They'd gotten off easy.
"Oh, yeah! Derek has a boyfriend now," Isaac said, reclining on Derek's bed as
he tossed a pair of wire cutters back and forth between his hands. He seemed to
be enjoying the fact that he had inside information. "He's old."
"What, like thirty?" Boyd asked. He'd been hunched over Derek's desk, examining
the wiring on the extruder, but now he straightened up and gave Derek his full
attention.
"No," Derek scowled, trying to grab the book back from Erica, who whipped it
behind her back and smirked at him. Sometimes Derek didn't know why he bothered
having girls for friends; it was only slightly less annoying than having
sisters. "He's twenty-one. That's not that old."
"Where is he? Is he coming today?" Erica asked, looking a little too keen on
the idea for Derek's comfort.
"No," Derek said, making another half-hearted attempt to get the book back,
which she easily avoided. "He's away at school. He goes to UCLA ."
"Really," Erica said, with a definite air of skepticism. She turned her
attention on Isaac. "Do you know this guy?" she asked. When Derek reached for
the book again, she absently held it out and let him take it. Derek grabbed it
and shoved it in his desk drawer. "I’m not falling for some Canadian girlfriend
crap. Have you seen him?"
"What?" Derek asked. Canadian girlfriend?
"No," Isaac said, then, "Yeah. Sort of?"
Boyd snorted a laugh. "Which is it, Lahey?"
"He's not Canadian," Derek said, but everyone ignored him. "You guys, he's
not—"
"I know who he is, but I haven't seen him in a couple years. He went to our
high school. He was on the lacrosse team with Kurt and Camden," Isaac said.
Derek's protests died on this tongue, a victim of complete surprise. Isaac
almost never mentioned his brother.
"Huh," Erica said, giving Derek an approving look. "Way to go, Derek."
"Thanks," Derek said, uncomfortable. "We should get going." He didn't really
mind talking about Stiles, but he'd rather not do it within earshot of his
mother.
"Yeah, let's go. I'm starving," Boyd said, stretching his arms above his head
and cracking his neck. Now that Derek wasn't so distracted by how Erica looked,
he noticed that Boyd had changed, too. He'd cut off almost all his hair, and
was taller than Erica now. It was hard to believe they were the same people
Derek had seen just a few months ago at camp.
They piled into Erica's car and went out for sushi—again, because it was
Derek's birthday and he could do what he wanted—and Derek talked about Stiles a
little while they waited for their food, because Erica was curious to know how
they met and stuff. Isaac already knew some of it, but not all, so Derek told
them about the library, and some of the things they'd done with Stiles'
friends, like mini golf and the Memorial Day bonfire—with all the bits where
Jackson Whittemore had picked on him selectively edited out—and Stiles sending
him that PSAT care package.
Recapping it all, Derek realized he and Stiles already had a lot of cool
memories and inside jokes, and stupid stuff to tease each other about. They had
history. Months of it, even. It made him feel pretty good, like they really
were a couple, even though Stiles was so far away now.
"You left out the best part," Isaac said to Derek. He looked over at Erica and
Boyd. "His parents don't know."
Derek saw Boyd's eyebrows lift dramatically.
"You're sneaking around behind your parents' backs with a guy?" Erica asked,
looking at Derek like he'd just grown a second head. "Wow."
"That's what I said," Isaac told her.
Well, now it was unanimous. The fact that Stiles was older than Derek was
mildly interesting, but what really tipped it over into scandal territory was
that Derek was keeping it a secret from his parents--Derek was a known rule
follower. One time in kindergarten he'd practically had a nervous breakdown
when one of the girls who shared his table stashed a couple crayons in her
lunch box and warned Derek that he better not tell. Derek hadn't even made it
through recess before he'd tearfully confessed to the teacher what he'd
witnessed.
He'd obviously relaxed a little since then—every kid eventually realized there
was a lot of wiggle room between following the rules and following every rule
exactly—but even still, this was a pretty big departure for him.
And Derek's friends didn’t even know the half of it, because they weren't aware
of how hard it was to keep something a secret from your mother when she had a
superior sense of smell and could literally hear it when you lied. Derek felt
he deserved a lot of credit for being so stealthy, but no one would ever truly
know.
"This is actually kind of a relief," Boyd said. "Now we know he's an actual
teenager and not some creepy Stepford kid who never does anything wrong."
"I know right?" Erica agreed, grinning as she punched Boyd in the shoulder.
"I'm not that bad," Derek protested, throwing the wrapper from his chopsticks
at Boyd. He wasn't some total Goody Two-Shoes.
"You're the only person I know who actually passed that test they gave us in
grade school where the first instruction was to read all the steps before doing
anything else," Isaac said. He leaned across the table toward Erica and Boyd
and explained, "The last step was to put your pencil down and not actually do
any of the other stuff on the test. Everyone else in the class screwed it up."
Erica literally gasped. "We did that, too," she said, pointing at Isaac. "No
one in my class did it right."
"Same," Boyd said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Derek a look
that dared him to disagree with them now.
"Okay, I get it," Derek said, admitting defeat. So maybe he was a little bit of
a Goody Two-Shoes. There were worse things to be pigeon-holed as, he supposed.
Everyone had their own stuff to talk about, though, and they all had the
typical teenager attention span, so the conversation moved on really quickly
once Derek accepted his fate and stopped arguing. Boyd was on track to graduate
early, Erica had already been accepted to a month-long summer program for girls
interested in computer science, and Isaac had done some paid 3D CAD work that
looked like it might lead to more. All in all, Derek was looking like the
slacker of the group. It didn't take long for someone to point that out.
"I was busy!" Derek protested.
"Yeah, busy gettin' some at the library," Erica said gleefully.
"Hey, you can put that down as 'life experience' on your college applications,"
Boyd smirked while snatching a segment of octopus tentacle off the platter.
"'Extensive hands-on experience in the field of library science,'" Isaac said,
making air quotes with his fingers. "'Consistent record of forging strong
relationships in a work environment.'" He grinned at his own wit before
reaching for the last tempura shrimp. Derek feinted stabbing him in the hand
with his chopsticks, but Isaac didn't even flinch.
"You guys suck," Derek grumbled, but he didn't really mind the teasing. It was
always like this when they saw each other, even though that only happened a few
times a year. It didn't matter if it was days or weeks or months between, they
always picked right up where they'd left off, which usually meant merciless
ribbing.
Once they demolished all the sushi, they went to the diner with the good hot
fudge sundaes, where Derek and Boyd talked about lifting weights while Erica
and Isaac argued the pros and cons of coding with PHP. After everyone finished
their ice cream, Isaac wanted to take a selfie together, so they all crowded
into one side of the booth and Boyd, who had the longest arms out of all of
them, snapped a picture.
He sent it to everyone's phones, and then they all sat and ignored each other
while they posted it to their social media accounts. Erica and Isaac were on
just about every site, followed each other on all of them, but Derek didn't use
anything but Facebook, and he only did that because of Stiles.
"Ugh, Facebook?" Erica said, wrinkling her nose when Derek explained. "He
really is old."
~*~
The following Wednesday, Isaac and Derek stopped at a coffee shop on the way
home from school to do some more printer brainstorming—Mark I was now up and
running, but they already had ideas for how to improve it. Isaac ordered his
drink first, some kind of complicated coffee thing, and then headed for the
bathroom while Derek got an apple cider with a shot of caramel and grabbed a
table near the window. He'd just turned on his laptop and opened his file of
printer notes when someone walked up and stood across the table from him but
didn't sit, so it wasn't Isaac. When the person didn't say anything Derek
looked up, right into the face of Sheriff Stilinski.
"Hi, Derek," he said, smiling. He was holding a large coffee in his hand, and a
raspberry scone in the other. Derek knew for a fact that Stiles did not want
his dad eating raspberry scones, or any other kind of pastry. He jerked his
eyes away from it, back to Mr. Stilinski's face, and pretended he hadn't seen
it.
"Hi," Derek said, and smiled back, a little nervously.
"Mind if I sit for a minute?" Stiles' dad said, and then sat down before Derek
could answer. He stretched his legs out and took a bite of his scone, then a
sip of his coffee. "How have you been?"
"Good," Derek said. There was something off, some kind of weird vibe, and Derek
didn't know why. Mr. Stilinski was in his work uniform, but Derek had seen him
in it before, so that wasn't what was unnerving him. Maybe it was because
they'd never talked like this, just the two of them, without Stiles somewhere
in the vicinity.
"Stiles says you just had a birthday," Mr. Stilinski said, and Derek struggled
to make himself not grin dopily over the fact that Stile was talking to his dad
about him. "Happy birthday," he said, raising his coffee cup in a toast before
taking a drink.
"Thank you," Derek said.
"So how old are you now?" Stiles' dad asked casually, and suddenly every
warning system in Derek's brain lit up and started blinking DANGER DANGER
DANGER.
"I'm, um. Seventeen, sir," Derek said, resorting to formality out of pure,
unadulterated fear.
Stiles' dad nodded like he'd already known that but just wanted to hear Derek
say it out loud, then squinted at Derek as he tapped his fingers on the table
next to his scone. His body language was still completely relaxed, and when
Derek checked, his heart was steady. He wasn't angry, or even upset, but
something was not right, and Derek had a bad feeling he knew what. Every kid
knew when a parent—even if it wasn't their own parent—was about to drop the
hammer.
And drop the hammer he did.
"You know," Mr. Stilinski said, "Stiles has always thought he's getting away
with stuff, but I know more than he thinks I do. About a lot of things." He
took another sip of his coffee and stared out the window.
Derek froze like a terrified bunny. Did Mr. Stilinski know or suspect that
Stiles and Derek were more than friends? Had he known all this time and never
said anything until now when Stiles wasn't even here and Derek was left by
himself to face an adult who was someone else's parent and the sheriff? Were
they completely busted? Should Derek try to deny it?
Derek had no idea what the answers to any of those questions were, because his
brain had stopped producing any kind of helpful thought process at all. The
inside of his head was basically one long primal scream.
"The thing is, Derek, sometimes as a parent you have to pick your battles,"
Stiles' dad continued. "You have to think about the situation, and ask
yourself, who is it hurting? Is it hurting your kid? Is it hurting someone
else?"
He looked directly at Derek then, and there was no doubt at all that he knew.
He absolutely knew, and had probably known all along. Derek could only imagine
what his own face looked like. His eyes were probably as big as dinner plates.
Derek wanted to open his mouth and say he would never, ever hurt Stiles, and
Stiles would never, ever hurt him. He wanted to tell Mr. Stilinski how much he
missed Stiles every day, and how much more he'd miss him if he couldn't see him
again at all for an entire year, until he turned eighteen. The problem was, he
couldn’t seem to remember how to talk.
Over Mr. Stilinski's shoulder, Derek saw Isaac finally come out of the bathroom
and head toward the counter to get his coffee, which was already waiting for
him. He picked it up, turned around, took one look at Derek sitting with the
sheriff, then walked straight to a different table and took a seat, avoiding
Derek's eyes.
"Sometimes your kid'll do things that maybe don't seem like the best idea," Mr.
Stilinski went on. Derek jerked his attention away from Isaac. "But if people
never did anything foolish or risky in their lives, they'd never learn
anything. And it'd be a pretty boring life, besides. Sometimes risky or foolish
things are worth it."
"Yeah, they are," Derek said, having finally found his voice. Stiles was
absolutely worth it, to him. And so far he was worth it to Stiles, for which he
was grateful.
"I also know that Stiles has a good heart, and he seems pretty fond of you."
Derek nodded. Whether he was confirming or agreeing, he didn't know. It just
seemed like the thing to do. "The problem is, Derek, not all parents feel like
I do."
Derek's heart sank as realization set in. This talk wasn't about Stiles' dad.
It was about Derek's parents.
Mr. Stilinski took another bite of his scone and washed it down with some more
coffee while Derek tried not to collapse into despair.
"Now, I would say that it's not my job to get involved with how other people
raise their kids, but that wouldn't be true, because sometimes it is. Sometimes
I have to sit down with someone and tell them what their kid did. It's not a
part of my job I enjoy." His walkie talkie squawked, and he reached to turn the
volume down before he continued. "In fact, I've already done that with your
parents," he said
Derek panicked—just flat-out panicked—for a second. He imagined Stiles' dad
pulling up to the house in his official sheriff vehicle, climbing the porch in
his official sheriff boots. He imagined him knocking on the door and asking to
come inside, sitting down at the kitchen table across from Derek's parents and
breaking the news that his adult kid was boning their teenaged son. Everything
about that entire scenario was horrible. Everything.
And if that had really happened—maybe this afternoon, while Derek was at the
Robotics Club meeting—then when he got home he was going to have to face his
parents and--
Derek briefly contemplated the feasibility of living in the woods until he
turned eighteen. It was only fifty-one weeks.
"What did you, um, tell them?" Derek asked, not sure how much detail he wanted.
Mr. Stilinski lifted an eyebrow. "About your brother and those pigeons," he
said. "It was a few years ago, but I still remember what a mess that was. You
said I should have thrown the book at him, remember?"
Derek practically sagged off his chair in relief. He was talking about the
thing years ago with Kurt.
"They're nice people, and they handled it well," Stiles' dad went on, nodding
like he was satisfied with how that conversation had gone, even after all this
time. He took the final bite of his scone and washed it down with more coffee
before he went on. "They're raising good kids, all of you. But my point is this
wouldn't be the first time Stiles led one of the Hale boys astray."
"I don't—" Derek started to say, confused. What did that mean, astray? Was he
saying Stiles and Kurt had dated? Derek's stomach churned at the very thought.
"What?" he asked, feeling stupid.
"The pigeons," Stiles' dad said, sounding a little amused by Derek's inability
to parse the conversation for more than ten seconds at a time. "That was
Stiles. You didn't know that?" he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at Derek.
"No," Derek said. "But how—Kurt was the one—"
"Who got caught," Stiles' dad said. "But he didn't plan it. No offense to your
brother, but he's not nearly bright enough or sneaky enough to pull something
like that off. The planning that went into it—even just getting the pigeons--
had Stiles written all over it. And he's the one who's usually smart enough to
not get caught." He gave Derek a wry, close-lipped smile. "Believe me, I've
spent twenty-odd years trying to stay one step ahead of him."
Derek was stunned. He'd had no idea, not the slightest inkling, that Stiles had
been the mastermind behind the pigeon incident, which was still talked about at
BHHS to this day, and widely regarded as the most ingenious prank ever pulled
off in the school's history, one that would probably never be topped. All this
time Derek had thought Kurt never bragged about it because he'd gotten caught,
and had missed out on the rest of the lacrosse season because of it. He'd never
imagined it was really because it hadn't been his idea in the first place.
"I give your brother points for loyalty though," Mr. Stilinski said. "He
accepted his punishment, even though it meant losing captain, and he never
ratted any of the others out."
That part wasn't at all surprising to Derek. If anyone in the family respected
the bro code, it was Kurt.
"No one pointed so much as one finger at Stiles, but I know he was involved,"
Stiles' dad said. "That whole thing had his fingerprints all over it,
figuratively speaking, but he was cool as a cucumber, never did or said one
thing that would point towards him, never tried to take the credit for it, no
matter how hilarious it was. He thinks he got away with it, and in one sense he
did." He leaned forward a little and looked Derek straight in the eye. "But he
didn't fool me."
Derek gulped and nodded, not sure who to be more afraid of right now, Stiles or
his dad.
Mr. Stilinski slapped his hands down on the table top, making Derek jump in his
seat, and then pushed his chair back and stood up. It felt like he was towering
over Derek, even though he wasn't exceptionally tall. "My point is, sometimes
parents know more than you think they do, and everyone just pretends to be
clueless. Works for a lot of situations. But sometimes it's more pleasant for
everyone if you're honest."
He stared at Derek until Derek figured out he was waiting for a response.
"Right. Yeah," Derek said, nodding.
"You have a good day, Derek," Mr. Stilinski said, clapping Derek on the
shoulder. He smiled at him as he picked up his coffee. "Tell Stiles I said hi,
and remind him Thursday is his Great-Aunt Norma's birthday."
"Will do," Derek said weakly.
Stiles' dad looked over at Isaac, who immediately became fascinated with this
coffee cup. "You can come on over, Mr. Lahey. It's safe now." Then he turned
and walked out.
"Holy shit," Isaac hissed, sliding into the seat vacated by Mr. Stilinski. "You
looked like he was threatening to arrest you. I thought for sure he was going
to haul you out of here in handcuffs."
"Nah," Derek said, with a bravado he didn't quite feel. "It was fine. Just
talking."
"Sure," Isaac snorted. "That's why you looked thirty seconds away from peeing
your pants."
"More like ten seconds," Derek admitted, letting out a shaky breath.
~*~
As soon as Derek got home he sprinted up to his room, locked himself in, and
texted Stiles.
Call me as soon as you can, he typed out, and then nearly dropped his phone
when it rang almost immediately.
"What's wrong?" Stiles voice was hushed and worried, and Derek wondered briefly
where he was, and if he was breaking the rules by using his phone there. The
library? "Derek?"
"Your dad knows," Derek blurted. "He told me he knows."
There was nothing but utter silence on Stiles' end. Ominous, ominous silence.
"He's—he's okay with it, I think?" Derek ventured. "I mean, he gave me this
whole lecture about making mistakes and trusting you and then he said he'd see
me at Thanksgiving, so I guess that means he won't…uh."
Won't tell you not to see me anymore.
Derek couldn't even bring himself to say it out loud.
Stiles blew out a noisy breath, loud and a little painful in Derek's ear, and
then started laughing, an unflattering hoot that he was must have been trying
to muffle with his hand, which just made it sound worse.
"It's not funny!" Derek hissed. "He cornered me at Lava Java and talked to me
about being a parent, and making sensible choices, and I think there was
something in there that was supposed to be about safe sex, but I was too
mortified to absorb it all. And you weren't even there to suffer with me!"
"That's probably exactly why he did it," Stiles snickered. "He's a cop, Derek.
His psyche is a terrifying mix of benevolent father figure and manipulative
interrogator. Just imagine what's waiting for me when I get home."
Derek couldn't take any comfort in that, because he hadn't even delivered the
worst of the news yet. "He wants me to tell my parents," he told Stiles.
Stiles immediately stopped laughing. "Oh, fuckballs," he said.
"Yeah."
"Are you going to?" Stiles asked, sounding more worried than amused at this
point. Finally. Derek didn't think it was fair he was doing all the worrying.
"Do I have to?" Derek asked, trying not to whine too much. Mr. Stilinski wasn't
Derek's dad--technically, Derek didn't have to do what he said. "Will he tell
my parents if I don't?"
Stiles hummed while he thought it through. "I don't think so," he said
eventually. "But he'll make it uncomfortable for both of us. Our days of
hanging out at my house unsupervised will obviously be over."
"Well, crap," Derek said. That was certainly going to complicate things.
"But even worse," Stiles continued, "He'll be disappointed. And believe me,
Derek, you do not want to disappoint my dad. It's awful. We're talking
crippling levels of guilt, like you kicked Mister Rogers in the nads or
something."
"Oh, God," Derek moaned, tipping over onto his side on his bed and curling
around the wadded up ball of Stiles' sweatshirt. "Okay, I'll tell them."
"Listen, don't rush into it," Stiles said. "We'll talk about it tonight, okay?
Figure out the best way."
"All right," Derek said glumly.
Derek heard a voice in the background, saying Stiles' name. "I gotta go now,"
Stiles said, dropping his voice to barely a whisper. "We'll talk later. Don't
panic."
"Too late," Derek snorted. But it helped knowing that even though Stiles was so
far away he wasn't going to leave Derek to face his parents on his own, so to
speak. Moral support was better than nothing.
After they hung up, Derek remembered what else Mr. Stilinski had said. He also
said to remind you Thursday is your aunt Norma's birthday, he texted.
Aw crap! Stiles texted back a little while later.
Why is that bad? Derek asked.
She's in an assisted living place down here. I have to pick her up and take her
to Hometown Buffet for dinner. She always makes me eat her gross anise candies.
Well have fun with that, Derek said. He knew Stiles hated anything that tasted
remotely like black licorice.
Gee thanks, Stiles said, then: Whatever happens we'll deal with it so don't
worry.
Derek was a worrier by nature, so that was impossible, and the thought of this
barely tolerable two month separation turning into a year-long forced break-up
was too awful to contemplate. He buried his face in Stiles' sweatshirt and
tried not to panic.
~*~
Because Derek didn't deal well with dread, he and Stiles decided Derek should
tell his parents about them ASAP.
After two phone calls spent strategizing like they were planning to invade a
hostile country, they agreed Derek should talk to his dad first in hopes of
working the sympathy angle; if anyone was going to relate to Derek's situation,
it was Dad. Derek planned to milk that for all it was worth.
The next day at school, Derek could barely focus on anything but the documents
he'd put together in preparation for his confession. By the time he dropped
Isaac off at his after-school job and drove home, his left eyelid was twitching
and he was back to contemplating living in the woods.
Unfortunately, there was no electricity in the woods, and most of Derek's
favorite pastimes—video games, Internet porn, robots, texting with
Stiles—required electricity. Also, his mom would find him in three seconds
anyway.
He took his phone out of his pocket and flicked through all the pictures of
Stiles he had on it, and then reread their last conversation where Stiles had
patiently reassured him one more time that everything would be fine. Derek
wasn't quite as optimistic as Stiles, but there was nothing to be done. He set
his phone down on his desk and went in search of Dad.
In a house with so many kids—especially little ones--it was rare to get a
moment alone with a parent, but right when he needed it most the universe
smiled on Derek. His dad was in the garage, all by himself, just the radio and
a can of Coke keeping him company. He had a toy dump truck clamped in a vice
and was frowning down at it, a bottle of glue in his hand. There were several
other pieces of dump truck scattered on the workbench.
"Dad, I need to tell you something," Derek said gravely, hopping up on the
chest freezer next to the workbench. He knew if he stalled he'd lose his nerve.
"I already heard you gave the babies gummi bears," Dad said. He still called
the twins "the babies" and all signs indicated he was going to keep doing that
until they were old enough to vote. "It's old news."
"Um, that was a few days ago. And Mom already yelled at me for it." The little
sugar fiends were terrible at keeping secrets.
Dad finally looked up him. His eyes were the same color as Derek's, but he wore
glasses. "Well, it can't be worse than that, whatever it is, so spill." He went
back to frowning at the truck.
Derek took a deep breath. "I have a boyfriend," he said, then immediately
wished his voice hadn't sounded so shaky. He'd wanted to be mature and
confident about it, act like it was no big deal in hope his parents would also
think it was no big deal.
"Who, Stiles?" Dad asked, completely unfazed. He picked up a piece of the truck
off the bench, and applied a thin ribbon of glue to the edge. "I know."
It took a second for that to sink in, because of all the possible responses
he'd prepared himself for, Derek had somehow failed to predict that one.
"How did--did Laura tell you?" he asked, when he got his mental feet under him
again. He was already transitioning from shocked to outraged, and plotting six
different methods of revenge on his sister.
"Yes," Dad said dryly, setting the glue-coated piece of truck in place and
clamping it down. "Laura had to tell me. Because I'm deaf, dumb, and blind. And
I was also never a teenaged boy."
"Right, sorry," Derek said sheepishly. "How long have you known?" He felt a
little stupid, truth be told. Had he really been that obvious?
"That you liked him? From the first time you mentioned him," Dad said. So Derek
had been that obvious. His cheeks were starting to tingle. Ugh, he was probably
turning red. "We didn't know for sure if you were in a relationship, but your
mother was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you hadn't stolen
some poor boy's sweatshirt so you could use it as a pillow."
"Oh my God," Derek groaned, horrifically embarrassed. They knew about the
sweatshirt. He thought he'd been pretty discreet about it, never wore it to the
dinner table or anything, mostly just in his room or in the car, but he hadn't
fooled them at all.
Now his face felt like it was about to start melting off like a Nazi in an
Indiana Jones movie. He wanted to open the freezer and stick his head in it,
just to cool off a little.
Meanwhile, his dad was smiling. His dad was enjoying Derek's misery. Everything
about this was so unfair.
"You could have said something," Derek told him. It would have been preferable
to letting him squirm on the hook for months, trying to play it cool and
thinking he was getting away with it.
Dad just shrugged. "We assumed you were reluctant to tell us because he's a
boy. We didn't want to force you to talk about it until you were ready."
"Oh," Derek said, realizing he'd been looking at this from the wrong angle the
entire time.
He'd been so focused on the age difference, it hadn't occurred to him Mom and
Dad might think he was being secretive for another reason. Derek's parents had
given him several exhaustive and embarrassingly detailed birds and the bees
talks over the years that had included reassuring him that they didn't care
who—or what, because werewolves were far from the only supernatural creature
around—he ended up with, they would always love him. He'd accepted that at face
value, never doubted it. It had never entered his mind to worry about how they
would react to him dating a guy; they'd once told him they would be okay with
him dating a harpy. Bleh.
"And you don't care that he's older than me?" Derek asked, just to be sure. He
instantly regretted bringing it up when Dad gave him an appraising look.
"Should we?" He put the glue down and gave Derek his full attention, looking a
little less relaxed about the conversation than he had before. His eyebrows
were in the "concerned dad" position. Uh oh. "Has he tried to get you to do
anything you don't want to do?"
"No," Derek said hurriedly. Just the opposite, really--getting into Stiles'
pants had been like getting into Fort Knox. Which his dad didn't need to know.
"Has he offered you alcohol?" Dad asked, crossing his arms over his chest and
leaning against the workbench. His eyebrows hadn't budged.
"No." Not only had he not offered, it hadn't even occurred to Derek to ask
Stiles for something like that. He knew he couldn't get drunk. Which was why
Derek wasn't sure why it mattered, but: "And no drugs either," he added,
heading off the question he figured was coming.
"Is there another problem? Does his father not approve?" Dad asked. He said it
like he might be a little offended by someone not approving of their kid dating
Derek, which was kind of hilarious.
"No, no, he approves," Derek said quickly. "He knows that we—hang out. And
stuff. He's okay with it if you guys are."
"Your mother and I are fine with it, obviously," Dad said, looking mollified.
"Or we would have put a stop to it months ago. Yes, he's older than you are,
but we're familiar with him through Kurt, and we've met his father, who happens
to be the sheriff, several times over the years. If you were going to pick an
older boy to date, you probably couldn't have made a better choice."
Derek blinked in surprise. His dad had just quoted, nearly verbatim, several of
the items on the outline Derek had made of his "Why I Should Be Allowed to Date
Stiles Stilinski" speech. As he'd labored over it, he'd never imagined his dad
would practically make the argument for him. He could barely believe his luck.
"And Kurt says he's a nice kid," Dad added, which meant he had talked to Kurt
about Stiles, and Kurt had vouched for him. It was slowly dawning on Derek that
his entire family had probably known everything from the very beginning. Just
like Mr. Stilinski had. Derek and Stiles were a couple of idiots.
"Um, yes, he's really nice," Derek said, when he realized his dad was waiting
for some kind of response. "I really like him."
"Then that's that," Dad said, smiling. He reached behind him and grabbed an old
rag off the bench, started scrubbing at what was probably a glob of glue on his
hand. "How does it feel to finally have it out in the open?"
"Awesome," Derek said, being completely honest. He felt like a hundred pound
boulder had suddenly rolled off his back. He didn't have to deceive his parents
anymore, or worry about getting caught, and he was already picturing how much
easier things would be when Stiles came home. No more pretending to be just
friends. "I was kind of worried about what you would say," he admitted,
underplaying it a little. He'd actually been so worried he'd had a stomachache
most of the day.
"We figured," Dad said. "I want you to know that we're proud of you, and we're
glad you're finally telling us, and that you've been following the rules so
far. As long as that continues to be the case, we trust you to make good
decisions. We want you to be a normal teenager, just like we want for all of
you kids. And part of being a normal teenager is dating. Just as long as
neither of you forget that you are still a teenager, even if Stiles isn't.
Okay?"
"Okay," Derek said. "No problem. And thanks for that extra hour. On my curfew."
"You're welcome," Dad said. He paused, as if debating whether or not he wanted
to say more, then continued, "I know it's hard right now, dating someone who's
older than you are, because he doesn't have to follow the same rules, at home
and in the world in general. And he's living very different experiences than
you are, at least right now. College is very different from high school."
"Believe me, I know," Derek said glumly, thinking about Stiles having his own
place in L.A., coming and going as he pleased, playing foosball half the night
with no thought to curfew. Stiles had so much more freedom.
Dad gave him a sympathetic smile. "I know you're frustrated, kiddo. It won't
always be like that, though, and the time will go faster than you realize. I
can promise you that," he said. He was always so calm, almost never raised his
voice, but now it sounded even softer, maybe a little sad. "But more
independence also means more responsibility, and part of moving on is leaving
other things behind. Don't be in a hurry to grow up, Derek. It'll happen no
matter what."
Derek wasn't sure if it was just the words or also the way Dad said them, but
suddenly his throat felt tight. He'd spent a lot of time these last few months
pointlessly wishing he were older, thinking everything would just be so much
easier once he turned eighteen and finished high school.
But Dad was right—part of growing up would mean making his own life outside of
this house, outside of his family, his pack. He loved his family, even when
they annoyed him, and thinking about being apart from them made him feel a
little lonely and sad, even though college was still nearly two years away.
Maybe that was why Laura and Kurt came home so often.
"I won't, Dad," Derek said. "I promise." His voice cracked embarrassingly, and
he suddenly felt like hiding under his bed, like he used to do when he was
little and didn't want to deal with unpleasant things, like admitting he'd
broken a rule, or eating cauliflower.
Dad tossed the rag down on the workbench. "Come here," he said, opening his
arms, and Derek hopped down off the freezer and went willingly into a nice long
dad hug. Even with the recent growth spurt, Dad was still taller and wider than
Derek, and he practically engulfed everyone he hugged, except Kurt. "You're a
good kid, Derek," Dad said, rubbing his chin against the top of Derek's head.
"I almost feel bad sending you off to talk to your mother next. She's planning
a refresher course on condoms."
"Aw, no!" Derek whined, hiding his face in his dad's shirt as Dad laughed and
squeezed him a little tighter.
~*~
"They're okay with it," Derek told Stiles over the phone as soon as he could
get away and call him. He was lying on his bedroom floor, limp with relief.
"They already knew, too." He left out the part about the condom talk, because
he was pretending it hadn't even happened, for his own sanity. There had been a
zucchini involved.
"Hrmph," Stiles said.
"You don't sound as happy about this as I thought you'd be," Derek said,
confused. This was what they'd wanted, wasn't it?
"If I'd known nobody'd care, I'd have jumped your bones way sooner," Stiles
said grumpily. "I wasted a lot of time feeling guilty!"
"The good news is they think you're perfect boyfriend material. They're under
the impression you're a nice, responsible boy," Derek told him, grinning. They
didn't know what Derek knew about the pigeons. Stiles didn't know Derek knew,
either.
"I can be a nice, responsible boy!" Stiles said, a little indignantly. "I
respected your curfew! I kept my hands to myself for weeks!"
"Yeah, and it sucked," Derek said.
"See, this is my point," Stiles said. "All that wasted time!"
"Don't remind me," Derek groaned. If they'd gotten together earlier in the
summer, they would have had more time to put their hands all over each other
before Stiles left.
"Well," Stiles said, after a few seconds of morose silence. "At least it's all
over with."
"For me, anyway," Derek pointed out. "You still have to face your dad in person
when you come home for Thanksgiving."
"Arrgh," Stiles said, but in the end he didn't have to worry about it, because
he didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.
***** December *****
Chapter Notes
     Thanks so much to Stoney for the beta! <3
December
If m and p are positive integers and (m+p)xm is even, which of the following
must be true?
(A) If m is odd, then p is odd.
(B) If m is odd, then p is even.
(C) If m is even, then p is even.
(D) If m is even, then p is odd.
(E) m must be even.
Derek had spent two long, torturous months clinging to the hope Thanksgiving
represented, and he nearly fist-pumped with joy when he got Stiles' text on
Tuesday morning, two days before Thanksgiving proper.
Stopping for gas and then on my way!
The next text came a few hours later, and it didn't make Derek happy at all.
Jeep died on the side of the road :(
~*~
"You're just doing this so you don't have to have that talk with your dad,"
Derek jokingly accused, when Stiles called on Wednesday to deliver the news
that he wasn't going to make it home after all.
"Yeah, you're onto me," Stiles said glumly.
The Jeep needed expensive repairs, and wouldn't be ready until after the
holiday weekend. Stiles had looked at flying home, or taking the bus, but
Stiles' dad was down with a horrible case of the shingles and not feeling up to
much of anything anyway. He'd insisted that as much as he wanted to see Stiles,
any money that could be spent on a plane or bus ticket was better put toward
repairing the Jeep. Derek disagreed with this heartily, but it wasn't up to
him.
One of Stiles' roommates was kind enough to drive up to get Stiles, who had
been stranded near Bakersfield, and bring him back to L.A. That was where he
was now, instead of in Beacon Hills.
It was a miserable phone call, but eventually they both laughed about it a
little, which was better than crying, which was what Derek was almost tempted
to do. After months of being separated, they'd come so close to seeing each
other, only to lose it at the last minute.
"At least it's only a few weeks until Christmas," Stiles said, before they hung
up. "I'll be there before you know it."
Still, Derek was bummed. So, so bummed.
And he was going to be lifting a lot of weights.
There was nothing to be done about it, though Derek did briefly entertain the
thought of asking if he could take the Volvo to L.A. for the weekend. He wasn't
dumb enough to actually approach his parents with that idea. He knew there were
limits to how cool they were going to be with the whole Stiles situation, and
Derek wasn't eager to run up against one so soon after coming clean about their
relationship.
So the upshot was Derek suddenly found himself without any plans, and no real
opportunities to make new ones. Laura and Kurt were home for the holiday, but
out with their own friends a lot, and Derek had never hung out with them much
anyway. Isaac and his dad were in Oregon with his grandma. Rebecca and her
family were at an integrated energy healing retreat, whatever the hell that
was. Everyone had something to do except Derek. Stiles had been Derek's plan
for the weekend.
At least there was good food to look forward to, if nothing else. Thanksgiving
dinner was always a big deal in Derek's house--Dad was an expert turkey
roaster, and Mom made her awesome mashed potatoes. The table was always loaded
down with a lot of other delicious things, like stuffing and cornbread and
sweet potato casserole, all made from old family recipes. Even the green beans
were practically edible.
The one thing neither of Derek's parents was interested in tackling was pie,
but there was a bakery in town that made amazing ones, and every year they got
three different kinds, in quantities enough to guarantee plenty of leftovers.
There would be pie for days, until they couldn't bear to look at another piece.
So as much as it sucked that Stiles wasn't coming home, Derek woke up on
Thanksgiving morning trying to look on the bright side. The bright side
entailed eating awesome food until he could barely move. The house already
smelled wonderful.
"You can have cold cereal, or fruit with yogurt," Mom said when Derek wandered
into the kitchen. There was no cooked breakfast on Thanksgiving, as a rule.
Violet and Henry were already in place at the table, slurping up spoonfuls of
Froot Loops. Derek took a bowl out of the cupboard before he sat down at the
table with the twins, because there was no way he was eating yogurt for
breakfast. He wasn't the biggest fan of Froot Loops, but they were better than
yogurt, which was nothing but rotten milk and should be outlawed, in Derek's
opinion.
Dad and Kurt were at the kitchen sink, wrestling with the turkey, which had
spent the night brining in the fridge. Making the perfect turkey was a multi-
day process, according to Derek's dad. He took it very seriously.
"Everybody check the chore board," Mom said, as Audrey came shuffling in,
rubbing her eyes. The lead up to the Thanksgiving meal was always a study in
controlled chaos, with Derek's parents delegating stuff left and right. "And
someone go wake up Laura."
"Kurt can do it," Derek said quickly. No one wanted that job. It was akin to
poking a hibernating grizzly bear, and even more likely to result in getting
your face ripped off.
Kurt shot Derek a dirty look. "I'm busy," he said, though he really wasn't. He
was mostly just holding the brine bucket. "Audrey can go."
"I just came downstairs!" Audrey protested.
"Send the babies," Dad suggested. "Laura's less likely to skin them alive."
"Seconded," Kurt said, while Audrey nodded in agreement. The twins, so tiny and
innocent, were watching the conversation with interest, still spooning cereal
into their overflowing mouths.
Once in a while Derek thought he should be a little more worried about how
casually calculating his family was sometimes. Thankfully, those moments
usually passed pretty quickly.
Derek spent the rest of the morning in the TV room sort of watching the Macy's
parade and sort of helping the twins—who did survive waking up Laura, as Dad
had predicted--make turkey-shaped place cards for the table. It involved lots
of tracing their hands, and laborious cutting with safety scissors, and
attaching real feathers from various local birds that they'd collected in the
woods all year long for this project. Derek's main contribution was writing
everyone's names on the turkeys and keeping the glue out of Violet's hair.
He and Stiles texted each other throughout the day, which was a poor
replacement for an actual visit, but better than nothing at all. Stiles and his
roommate were going out for dinner, to a place that advertised turducken.
Stiles was a lot more enthused about it than Derek probably would have been.
For Derek, Thanksgiving dinner was enjoyable, if noisy, which was par for the
course in his family. It was a nice distraction, though, and Derek had almost
momentarily forgotten about his bum luck when Kurt mentioned he and his
girlfriend and another couple were going to a movie later, a movie Stiles and
Derek had planned to see over the weekend, too.
"You and Stiles wanna come with us?" Kurt asked, which was an astounding offer.
Kurt had always had a strict "no tag alongs" policy when it came to his younger
siblings. Apparently that didn't apply when one of those siblings was dating
someone Kurt knew.
"He's not here," Derek said, picking sadly at his sweet potatoes. "He couldn't
come home this weekend." He explained about the Jeep and about Mr. Stilinski's
shingles. His parents and Laura all made sympathetic noises at him.
"I’m sorry, honey," Mom said. "It'll be Christmas before you know it, though.
Henry, stop licking the butter knife."
"Bummer," Kurt said, grimacing. "You can still come, if you want." That was an
even more astounding offer, and Derek was grateful for it, but the thought of
being the fifth wheel did not appeal at all. Kurt didn't look surprised when
Derek declined.
After dinner, Derek was dispatched to the Stilinski house with an enormous
container of leftovers for Stiles' dad, who came to the door looking haggard
and not very sheriff-like in droopy sweatpants and an old Journey T-shirt.
"My mom sent this. Stiles said it was okay," Derek said, when he handed the
container over. "My dad made the turkey. He put extra in there for sandwiches."
"Tell them I said thank you," Mr. Stilinski said, wincing in pain as he shifted
the leftovers into his other hand. "And thank you, too, Derek. I know you boys
are disappointed Stiles didn't make it home, but it'll be Christmas before you
know it."
"I know," Derek said, though he was kind of tired of hearing that. It hadn't
helped when Stiles said, it hadn't helped when Mom said it, and it didn't help
now when Mr. Stilinski said it.
By the time Derek got back home, there was a new text from Stiles, updating him
on his evening. He and his roommate had gone to a movie—the same movie Derek
and Stiles had planned to see together. The same one Derek could have gone to
see with Kurt and his friends. There was no sugarcoating it: that made Derek
feel like crap.
Derek wasn't jealous of Stiles' roommate in a romantic sense at all, but he was
jealous that she was getting to spend time with him, do the stuff Derek wanted
to do with Stiles. And then posting about it on Facebook and tagging Stiles in
it, so Derek was forced to see it. Derek scowled as he scrolled past the grainy
cellphone picture of a ticket stub and a box of Hot Tamales, and mutinously
didn't click the like button.
When Stiles called Derek that night he was a little drunk, having just come
from the dive bar down the street from his house. Derek hadn't even known bars
were open on Thanksgiving. Derek's dad sometimes stopped for a beer after work
with his friends, but the idea of his father going out drinking on Thanksgiving
was unfathomable. Only over Mom's dead body, probably. Or, more likely, Dad's.
It sounded like there were other people in Stiles' house, voices and laughter
coming through over the connection, and twice someone came in the room and
interrupted, asking Stiles if he was ready to go. Stiles was obviously going
out again when he was done talking to Derek, while Derek sat at home, lonely
and miserable.
"I'm gonna go," Stiles finally said, after the third interruption, and Derek
reluctantly ended the call
When Stiles texted him the next morning about some funny stuff that had
happened the night before, Derek wasn't amused. He tried to reply with some
level of enthusiasm, but it just wasn't there. Now that the big holiday thing
was over, he had three aimless days stretching ahead of him, and nothing much
to look forward to--he didn't even have any music students, except the twins.
That was when it really hit home how much the whole thing sucked. That was when
he really started to hate it.
~*~
The Friday after Thanksgiving was traditionally Christmas decorating day for
the Hale household, and Derek spent most of it crawling around on the roof with
his dad and Laura, hanging Christmas lights, while Mom and Kurt and the younger
kids took care of the inside of the house—Kurt was deathly afraid of heights.
Derek didn't mind being up high, except for always having to be on the lookout
for Laura, who liked to push him off the roof into the prickly hedges under the
living room windows. On the other hand, climbing around up there was the one
physical feat Derek excelled at that Kurt didn't, and that never got old. When
Kurt came out into the yard with the twins, who were dying to see the big
plastic Santa strapped to the chimney, Derek did a backflip off the garage,
just to rub it in.
Despite how busy he was all day, when Stiles called him that night, Derek
didn't have much news. He'd done nothing much but hang lights and eat. Kurt and
Laura had both taken off with their friends as soon as the decorating was done,
and Derek had been flat-out envious.
Stiles, on the other hand, had gone to a pool party, where he'd met someone who
gave him free tickets to a basketball game next week. Now Derek was envious of
Stiles, too.
"How's the printer coming along?" Stiles asked, when Derek's account of his day
petered out right after "hung Christmas decorations." Derek and Isaac were
already on Mark III of their printer and it was better than ever, but Derek
wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about it.
"It's fine," he said, sticking his finger through a hole in the toe of his
sock. "I printed a whistle shaped like a dalek the other day."
"Cool," Stiles said, and then there was a prolonged silence when Derek didn't
provide any further details.
"Well. I guess I should get going," Stiles said eventually. "Let you sleep."
"Okay. Good night," Derek said listlessly. He didn't feel like talking, but he
didn't want to hang up, either, so it didn't really matter which one they did.
Nothing made him feel better.
In fact, every time he heard from Stiles lately, it only made him feel worse,
which was a brand new feeling for him.
~*~
Saturday was a disaster.
Laura took off in the Volvo before Derek even got out of bed, leaving him
carless for the umpteenth time. He didn't actually have any plans, but it still
ticked him off that she'd stranded him in the house again. He had his bike, and
one of his parents would probably give him a ride if he had anywhere he wanted
to go, but that wasn't the point. The point was he'd gotten used to having the
car to himself. He'd gotten used to freedom, and options. Now he felt like a
little kid again, dependent on his mom for a ride.
Stiles was working a shift he'd picked up from a co-worker who had come down
with food poisoning, Rebecca was still at the retreat, and Isaac's dad must
have confiscated his phone again, because he wasn't replying to Derek at all.
Boyd and Erica both chatted with him a bit when he texted, but they were
spending the day together, which only reminded Derek of his own pathetic
situation, so that didn't help lift his spirits any.
On Saturday mornings Derek's dad usually made French toast and bacon, but today
it was oatmeal, because Kurt had used up all the bread and bacon making BLTs
after bar close the night before. Derek hated oatmeal with a passion; there
wasn't enough brown sugar and maple syrup in the world to make it tolerable.
Derek grumped his way through breakfast, blew off Dad's attempts to interest
him in working out, and argued with his mother over whose turn it was to empty
the dishwasher. By that point both of his parents were aggravated with him, but
Derek's downward slide was unstoppable. He topped off the morning by losing his
temper with the twins during their piano lesson, which escalated into an ugly
row, and by the time his mom intervened everyone was in tears, including Derek.
The twins got five minutes in time out, but Derek got a whole hour, which he
had to spend sitting at the kitchen table by himself, his phone confiscated
until he improved his attitude.
Fat chance of that happening.
Shortly after his hour was up, Mom and Dad left for a movie with Audrey and the
twins.
"I suppose you don't want to go," Mom said, in a tone that implied it would be
just fine if Derek kept his grumpy butt home, so he didn't feel bad about
opting to do just that.
After they left, he went out into the Preserve and threw rocks at a tree stump
for a while, then spent most of the afternoon in the basement lifting weights
and doing pull-ups until his arms trembled. None of those things changed his
circumstances any, but they improved his mood enough that he was able to behave
himself through dinner and get his phone back.
Not that it mattered. When he checked it, there was nothing from Stiles, not
even one lousy text message, which sent Derek's mood plummeting right back into
Eeyore territory all over again.
Must have been pretty busy today, he sent finally, when another hour went by
with no word.
It took over half an hour for Stiles to reply. Haha sort of. Work was super
dead. We played golf with a yardstick and balls of paper. Going for dollar
margaritas now.
When he read that, Derek didn't even know why he'd been so anxious to get his
phone back. He tossed it on his desk and dug out his soldering kit. Might as
well use all his spare time to do something productive, he thought irritably.
Stiles called later than usual that night, so late Derek had given up hope he'd
hear from him and was grouchy because of it. Stiles, on the other hand, was in
good spirits, courtesy of dollar margaritas, and kept saying stupid stuff,
making jokes, trying to get Derek to lighten up, which made him retreat even
further into monosyllabism.
After a few minutes, Derek figured out that Stiles was calling him while he was
waiting for someone to come and pick him up, just like he had the other night.
He was going out again.
"Don't let me keep you," Derek said, feeling bitter, and hung up before Stiles
even said goodbye.
A text came through from Stiles almost immediately: Why are you being such a
dick??
I'm not being a dick, Derek replied, even though that was a pretty fair call.
Yes you are. When Derek didn't answer right away, another message popped up:
Are you mad at me?
Derek was, he realized. He was mad at Stiles for not coming home, even though
it wasn't his fault at all. And even more than that, he was really, really mad
at Stiles for having so much fun while Derek sat home and pined for him like a
giant loser. It wasn't fair to Stiles, but it was true.
That all seemed like a lot to say via text, and before he could even start
Stiles sent, I told you why I couldn't come. This sucks for me too.
Yeah it sounds like you're miserable, Derek sent back. Going to movies and
parties, hanging out with his friends. Sounded terrible. It was like it didn't
even matter to Stiles that they weren't together like they'd planned. He was
happy either way.
Stiles was ominously silent. For one hour, then two. Derek finally went to bed.
Before he fell asleep, he checked Stiles' Facebook page, but there was nothing
new.
He tossed and turned all night, kept waking up to check his phone, dreamt once
that he heard the text tone, but when he sat up and groped for it, there was
nothing there. In the morning he felt like hammered shit, foggy-headed and
tired in addition to still being cranky.
Sunday's breakfast was the French toast they should have had Saturday, but
Derek wasn't very hungry. There were no phones or other electronic devices
allowed at the table, so he spent the whole time fidgeting, pushing his food
around his plate, wondering if he was missing something, but of course he was
not. When he finally made it back up to his room, there was nothing at all from
Stiles, and his phone was terrifyingly quiet for the rest of the morning.
~*~
After lunch, he finally caved and sent Stiles a text, hoping it wasn't too late
and he hadn't ruined everything: I'm sorry.
He put on Stiles' sweatshirt and lay down while he waited for a response, heart
racing almost painfully fast, but long minutes ticked by and none came. Derek
had no idea what to do next. Stiles was his first official relationship, and
the little flirtations he'd had before this had never lasted long enough to
even have a fight. He didn't have a single clue how this worked.
A quick check of Stiles' Facebook showed Derek nothing but a handful of tagged
pictures from a party last night, including several of Stiles wearing a pair of
plastic New Year's Eve glasses from 2006. Shortly after Derek told his parents
about Stiles, Stiles had edited his profile to show he was in a relationship
with Derek, and that was still the case, so hopefully that was a good sign.
Derek didn't bother to save any of the party pictures. He had better ones on
his phone already.
He waited some more, mostly because he couldn't summon the ambition to do
anything else, until eventually he dozed off, his crappy night's sleep catching
up to him. He woke up to Henry's face just inches from his, chin propped on the
edge of Derek's bed. He had a telltale orange stain around his mouth that
indicated he'd gotten into Kurt's energy drinks again. Violet was next to him,
cheek resting on her folded hands as she stared at him.
"What's up, guys?" Derek asked, blinking blearily, trying to get his bearings.
His phone was still in his hand; Stiles hadn't replied to his text. When Derek
checked the time, he realized the twins had probably been sent upstairs to nap.
Dad wouldn't be far behind, coming to tuck them in and read them a story.
"You smell sad," Henry said. Violet nodded and wrinkled her nose.
"I am a little sad," Derek said. "But I'll be okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you."
He'd been feeling increasingly guilty about it ever since he'd done it, which
only added to the shitshow that was this whole godforsaken weekend.
Henry nodded, giving off an air of benevolence as he accepted Derek's apology
on behalf of himself and Violet. "Sorry we were impotent," he said solemnly.
Derek almost bit his tongue in half trying not to laugh. "Impertinent," he
corrected, when he could say it with a straight face. That must have come from
Mom when she gave them the time out.
"You need blankie time?" Violet asked. "You can share mine." She dropped out of
sight and then popped back up clutching her favorite blanket, the pale yellow
one she slept with every night.
"Mine, too," Henry volunteered. He held up a fistful of his own blanket, a
green version of Violet's. They'd definitely been sent up here to nap. "You
need a blanket for blankie time." He cast a dismissive look at Derek's
comforter, which evidently didn't meet his standards.
Blankie time was a kinder, gentler version of time out. Derek's parents used it
to give the younger kids a chance to be alone and calm down if they were
feeling overwhelmed or temperamental, which happened easily to little ones with
enhanced senses and werewolf instincts. It wasn't a punishment--it was more of
a chance to regroup. Derek had grown out of blankie time years ago, but it was
sweet that Violet and Henry were trying to help him by offering up the solution
they were familiar with.
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea, but let's go in your room," Derek said,
pushing himself up to sitting. He could get them settled and then resume
sulking once they were asleep. He took off Stiles' sweatshirt and left it on
his bed, with his phone on top of it.
They all climbed into Henry's bed, though that necessitated relocating about
twenty stuffed animals, mostly elephants—Henry had a bit of an obsession.
Finally they were all settled in, Derek clinging to the outer edge of the
mattress while the twins shared the only pillow. Violet had a naked baby doll,
and Henry had his five favorite elephants he absolutely could not sleep
without. It was a tight squeeze.
When Dad finally came up the stairs and stuck his head in, the twins were
droopy-eyed and Derek was mid-way through The Poky Little Puppy. Dad leaned
against the doorway and waited until Derek was done and the twins were dead to
the world, then he smiled at Derek and said, "Looks like I've been replaced."
"Vi thought I needed blankie time," Derek explained, carefully easing out from
under the corner of yellow blanket Violet had graciously allowed him to use. He
shoved the book back into the shelf next to the bed.
"Huh," Dad said. "Wish I'd thought of that. Did it work?"
"A little," Derek admitted.
~*~
Blankie time could only help so much, though, and Derek was anxious by nature,
which didn't help. By the time he made his way back to his room after dinner he
was unable to bear it any longer. He sent a second, more plaintive text: Please
talk to me.
He set his phone on his desk and stared at it for God knew how long, but it
stayed silent. Finally, he got up to get his clarinet—maybe to play it, maybe
to stab himself in the face with it--and that was when the phone finally rang.
He scrambled for it, and nearly sat down on the spot when the screen said it
was Stiles. Hopefully not calling to break up with Derek over the phone.
"Just so we're clear, you were out of line," Stiles said when Derek answered.
"I know," Derek said miserably. "Are you gonna break up with me now?"
"Um, no," Stiles said. He sounded surprised by the question. "We had a fight.
People have fights. What you did is not a dumpable offense."
"Okay," Derek said. He closed his eyes and flopped backward onto his bed. He
felt like crying from relief, but he had at least one tiny shred of dignity
left and managed to keep his composure.
"I was kind of a dick, too," Stiles admitted. "And I'm sorry for not responding
to your apology earlier. I shouldn't have let you stew, but I was pissed."
"I guess I deserved it," Derek admitted. His behavior this whole weekend had
been kind of rotten, and everyone around him had suffered, even the twins. "But
you were doing all that stuff and it kinda felt like you were rubbing it in my
face."
"Oh. I didn't think of it like that," Stiles said, sounding genuinely contrite.
"I'm used to telling you everything I do. I didn't think about it bothering
you."
"I tried not to let it, but I'm just so--I really, really wanted to see you,"
Derek said. "This sucks." Ever since the 2am phone call a few weeks back Derek
had been making an effort to not complain about the separation too much, but he
had to be honest.
"I really wanted to see you, too," Stiles said. His voice sounded a little raw.
"I know I'm down here doing lots of fun stuff, but I'd rather be up there,
believe me. I’m making the best of it, but it's not what I'd choose. I didn't
get to see you or my dad or Scott, and I missed out on leftover pie for
breakfast."
"We had leftover pie for dessert tonight," Derek said. He hadn't eaten any,
which seemed a bit like a wasted opportunity now.
"See? Now I'm jealous," Stiles said. "And, um, I'm sorry I didn't think—I
didn't realize how it would make you feel, hearing about what I was doing all
weekend. But I swear, Derek, I'd rather be there. It's nice having stuff to do
so I'm not sitting here moping, but I keep thinking I'd rather be there
instead."
"Okay," Derek said, feeling a little better, and also a little embarrassed by
his dramatics. He didn’t want Stiles to think he was a stupid moody teenager
but that was exactly what he'd been for the last two days. Way to act mature.
"I guess the only reasonable conclusion is that we're both dicks," Stiles said,
after a moment. "We can't break up. No one else would want us."
"I think you're right," Derek agreed, and they both laughed, and everything
seemed okay again.
"So that was our first fight," Stiles said before they hung up. "Another
milestone."
"I'm not sure I like this milestone," Derek said. He was sort of dying to know
what the other milestones were—Stiles had never mentioned any before. First
kiss, probably. First…other things. There were still a lot of those left.
Stiles' mind must have been in the same place. "And you know what the worst
part is? We can't even have make-up sex," he said, sounding forlorn.
~*~
The first two weeks of December were interminable.
For Stiles it was the lead up to exam week, followed by actual exam week, and
he was exhausted and harried and didn't have a lot of time to talk or text.
Derek tried to leave him alone, or just send simple texts and encouragements
that didn't require a reply. Stiles still called him some nights, but the
conversations were short and Stiles was usually either tired or distracted. It
was almost better when he didn't call, but Derek didn't tell him that.
Derek got his PSAT score, and it was probably good enough to qualify him to
compete for the National Merit Scholarship, which was a victory. Even if he
didn't end up getting the scholarship, it was a nice addition to his college
applications. He wouldn't get officially notified for a few months yet, but
based on previous years, he was in.
Stiles had his last exam on a Friday morning. When Derek got out of gym class
later that day, there was a text from Stiles on his phone, along with a picture
of the Jeep, packed with a jumble of books and clothes and sports equipment. On
my way! :) it said.
Still wary from Thanksgiving, Derek wasn't going to let himself relax until
Stiles was actually inside the Beacon Hills city limits. I've got everything
crossed, he texted back.
Beacon Hills High was having their winter concert that night, and since Derek
was in the band, he had to be there for the whole thing. It was already after
10pm by the time he finished up and got out of the auditorium. When he finally
dug his silenced phone out of his pocket there were three messages from Stiles
that said, in chronological order:
Made it!
Getting something to eat with my dad
Crashing. Sorry. Hope the concert was good.
Derek hadn't been holding out a lot of hope that he'd get to see Stiles that
night, what with the concert and everything, but it was still a disappointment
they wouldn't even be able to talk after so many weeks of barely being in
contact at all. He knew, though, that Stiles had been really tired before he
even started the long drive home, and he had to be exhausted. In the scheme of
things it wasn't that big a deal, Derek reminded himself. Stiles was going to
be home for three whole weeks.
He had just finished giving the twins their piano lesson the next morning when
he got a text from Stiles.
Dad went to the shooting range. Wanna come over?
He grabbed the keys to the Volvo and practically sprinted out the door.
~*~
"Holy shit," Stiles said, when he opened his front door and saw Derek. "Are you
on steroids?"
"No," Derek said, suddenly feeling bashful. Between the weightlifting and the
growth spurt, he'd had to replace a lot of his clothes since Stiles left, but
he hadn't thought the change was that dramatic. Stiles' mouth was hanging open
and his eyes kept darting back and forth from Derek's shoulders to his thighs.
"I've been lifting weights a little." The tips of his ears felt like they were
bright red. If he didn't get inside soon they were probably going to start
steaming in the chilly air.
"A little?" Stiles boggled, and then finally realized he should step back and
let Derek into the house. Derek gratefully stepped inside.
"Yeah," Derek said, anxious to get his hands on Stiles, to smell him up close,
put his mouth on him. As the door closed behind them he grabbed Stiles by the
waist and pulled him in for a hug. "I had a lot of energy to burn off."
"You still got a lot of energy?" Stiles asked, fingers stealing up into Derek's
hair. He sounded like he was grinning.
"A lot," Derek said fervently, and went for Stiles' mouth.
Eventually they made it up the stairs, though it took a while.
"I missed you," Stiles murmured against his mouth as Derek backed him up
against his bedroom door and kissed him again. "Oh my God, I think you're
taller, too."
He actually was, Derek realized, when he broke the kiss and pulled back enough
to look. They were eye to eye now.
It had only been a couple months and they'd talked almost every day, but it
really did seem like things had changed. Derek felt older, and his new body fit
differently against Stiles'. Stiles looked a little different, too. His hair
was longer than it had been over the summer, and he looked thinner, little
hollows under his cheekbones. He smelled the same, though, and tasted the same.
God, he tasted so good. As Derek stroked his tongue against Stiles', inhaled
the comforting scent of him, he missed him even more fiercely for a moment,
even ached a little with how hard it had been to be apart, and then it all
dissolved under the rush of relief at having him here again.
Derek couldn't bear to take his mouth away so he kept kissing Stiles as he
shrugged out of his jacket and tumbled him down onto the bed. He had plans,
very detailed plans. He'd been watching a lot of porn while Stiles was gone.
Lifting weights only helped so much.
But Stiles also had plans, apparently. "Take off your shirt," he urged, rolling
them so he was on top, shoving his hands under Derek's T-shirt and pushing
until Derek tugged it over his head and tossed it aside. "Goddamn," Stiles said
appreciatively as he sat up and took a look. His butt pressed down on Derek's
dick, and Derek had to suppress a whimper.
Stiles didn't seem to notice. He was busy smoothing his hands up over Derek's
chest, then back down to his stomach, fingers lingering over all the new
muscles there.
"Stability ball planks," Derek choked out, feeling flustered under Stiles'
frank attention, and a little dazed from having him here in person again,
sitting on his dick. It was a lot to take in all at once.
He levered himself up, intending to kiss him some more, and Stiles' eyes
practically bugged out of his head as he stared at Derek's stomach. "Holy fuck,
how does that even work? Do that again," he demanded, pushing Derek flat again
with both hands. "Oh my God, I'm going to pass out," Stiles breathed, when
Derek contracted his abs and pulled himself back up to sitting.
Derek grabbed Stiles' hips and held on. "If you're nice to me, I'll do a whole
set of crunches for you later," he said in Stiles' ear. This was new to him,
being marveled at and wanted, and it made him feel powerful and a little
playful.
"Nnnngh," Stiles said, dropping his head to Derek's shoulder as his hand
drifted down between them and pressed lightly against Derek's dick through his
jeans. He was already fully hard. "Can I suck you? I don't want to rush you,
but I really really—" He took a shuddery breath. "If you're not ready that's
okay."
"I've been ready for months," Derek said, mouthing Stiles' neck. Then he
thought about his plan and said, "Can I do you first? Would that be okay?"
"God, yes," Stiles said immediately, straightening back up. There was a splotch
of pink over each of his cheekbones. "You haven’t ever, right?"
"No," Derek said. It made him feel a little self-conscious to admit it, but
Stiles already knew he didn't have much experience at anything. He was probably
just double-checking. "But I really want to try it."
Stiles grinned down at him, then rolled off of Derek and onto his feet, tugging
Derek to stand next to the bed, too. "Clothes off, all of them," he said
gleefully, as he peeled his own shirts off. There was a mad scramble as they
stripped, and Derek ended up hopping around on one leg trying to get his left
sock off and not take his eyes off Stiles at the same time.
Derek had never seen him totally naked before and he couldn't tear his eyes
away. Stiles' body was long and narrow except for the surprisingly wide breadth
of his shoulders, pale in a way that made the blood-red arrow of his dick and
the bitten-red slash of his mouth look even darker. Derek wanted to eat him
alive.
Eventually Derek just gave up on the sock and grabbed at Stiles, sucking in a
breath when all that naked skin met naked skin. Stiles tipped himself backward
onto the bed, taking Derek with him, and they kissed sloppily as Derek rolled
his hips down, shuddering at the feel of their dicks rubbing together. Stiles
squeezed Derek's hips with his knees and let Derek kiss his neck, nibble on his
ears, all the while making pleased little sounds and rocking his hips to keep
that delicious friction between them going.
Stiles tasted so good, all of him, his mouth, his skin; Derek couldn't wait to
suck him. He slithered down Stiles' body, kissing his belly, biting at the line
of hair that dove down between his legs. His chin dragged against Stiles' hard
cock, making him twitch, as Derek slid down to the floor next to the bed.
Stiles' chest was heaving, his hands fluttering from Derek's head to the
blankets and back again like he couldn't settle on where to put them. Derek
grabbed Stiles under his knees and tugged him so he was closer to the edge,
Derek kneeling between his open thighs.
"Okay, not wasting any time. I like that," Stiles said shakily, lifting his
head to look at Derek before letting it thud back onto the bed.
"We've already wasted way too much time," Derek said firmly as he eased his
hands up over the tops of Stiles' thighs and just....looked. The hair around
Stiles' dick was short, like he trimmed it, and his dick was straining over his
flat belly, practically begging to be touched. It looked bigger than Derek
remembered, though maybe that was because he intended to put it in his mouth
this time.
He slowly slid his hands upward until his fingers met the crease of Stiles'
hips, his thumbs sinking inward to brush lightly against his balls. The muscles
in Stiles' thighs were jumping under Derek's hands.
"Oh my God, do something," Stiles whined, shifting restlessly like he was
searching for Derek's touch. Then he instantly shot up onto his elbows, eyes
wide, and said, very seriously, "Unless you don't want to. Don't do anything
you don't want to do. It's okay to be nervous. Not everyone likes doing it."
"I'm fine," Derek said, rubbing his fingers soothingly against Stiles'
hipbones. "Stop worrying about me." He was a little nervous, but he wasn't
fearful at all that he wouldn't like doing it. His main fear was that it
wouldn't be good for Stiles, because Derek didn't know what he was doing, had
only seen it in videos on the Internet. It was a lot of pressure, though he was
sure Stiles would be polite about it even if Derek was terrible.
"Okay," Stiles said, nodding, and gave him an encouraging, if slightly
distracted, smile. His eyes kept flicking down to Derek's hands, still not
quite touching his dick.
Derek could take a hint.
Stiles' cock jumped when Derek finally closed his hand around it, and his hips
tilted up off the bed an inch or two. He was hot to the touch, and felt good in
Derek's hand when he slowly pumped up and down. On the third stroke, Stiles'
head fell back between his shoulders, and he breathed out a quiet, "Oh, yeah."
Encouraged, Derek lifted himself up a little higher on his knees, planting his
other hand on the bed next to Stiles' hip as he continued to stroke him,
watching the way Stiles' cock slipped through his fist. Derek was definitely
ready to do more. His mouth was watering.
For a second he let his baser instincts take the lead and nosed his way up the
shaft, enjoying the heat pouring off Stiles' body, the way he smelled. The head
of Stiles' cock was shiny and wet, and Derek took it in his mouth, still
clutching the base with his hand. The taste of Stiles spread across Derek's
tongue, salty, and his own dick surged between his legs.
"Oh God, that's so good," Stiles said in a gravelly voice. "Just like that.
God, Derek."
When Derek looked up at him, still holding him in his mouth, Stiles had lifted
his head so he could watch, and his eyes were heavy-lidded. So far so good,
Derek thought, and lowered his head, taking more, then held still for a second,
getting used to the feel of Stiles on the back of his tongue, before he pulled
back up. He sucked gently, then tried working his tongue against the underside
of the head. Stiles made a punched-out sound and his knee juddered against
Derek's side, so Derek did it all again, finding his own rhythm, breathing
through his nose as he went down, came up, moved his tongue, over and over
again.
Stiles talked a lot at first, encouraging him, reminding him that he could stop
at any time, but Derek was way past that point already. He didn't need to be
coaxed along. He already knew that he liked it, and as soon as he'd put his
mouth on Stiles he knew he was going to want to do it again and again and
again. He liked how Stiles' felt, the weight and girth of him pressing against
his tongue.
There was something kind of zen about it, like Derek got into a zone, and the
feel of Stiles filling his mouth over and over, all the different ridges and
curves of him, felt good. The whole thing was easier than he'd thought, and
Stiles seemed to be loving it, his fingers dancing across Derek's shoulders,
playing with the hair at the back of his neck.
"I'm close," Stiles panted after a few minutes, and that was when Derek
faltered, unsure.
"It's okay, you don't have to," Stiles said right away, using his hand under
Derek's chin to ease him off. Derek let him, but kept his grip on his cock.
"You don't ever have to swallow, if you don't want to."
Derek looked up at Stiles. His eyes looked a little unfocused, and his heart
was pounding like crazy. He had to be really close. Derek's own dick throbbed
in sympathy.
"Like this, just do this," Stiles said tightly, closing his hand over Derek's,
guiding it up and down. His eyes drifted shut and he caught his lower lip in
his teeth, groaning softly. "I'm so close."
Derek watched Stiles' wet dick slide through his fist a few times, then took a
deep breath and ducked his head again, closing his mouth around the head and
sucking as he kept moving his hand. Stiles' whole body jerked and he made a
pained sound as his fingers pulled at Derek's hair. That was all the warning
Derek got before Stiles was coming in Derek's mouth, clutching his head and
saying, "Oh, God. Oh, my God."
In the end, Derek did swallow, because that seemed the quickest way to get it
out of his mouth. He'd tasted his own of course, and never wanted to do it
again, but that had just been licking his finger. A whole mouthful was way
worse.
Stiles was still trying to catch his breath above him when Derek pulled off and
swallowed a few more times in quick succession, feeling his whole face screw up
in disgust.
"It's an acquired taste," Stiles laughed breathlessly when he saw. He reached
for the bottle of water next to his bed.
While Derek drank, Stiles scooted back, and then drew Derek up onto the bed
when he was done with the water. He looked a little flushed and a lot happy.
Derek felt himself puff up with pride.
"Your turn," Stiles said, smirking, urging Derek down onto his back. The empty
water bottle rolled off the bed and onto the floor. Stiles wanted to squirm
between Derek's spread legs, and Derek certainly didn't mind—whatever Stiles
wanted was fine with him. He was too new at this to have many preferences.
While Stiles was getting settled between his bent knees, Derek finally managed
to get rid of his left sock.
Stiles wasn't hesitant like Derek had been, just went for it, sinking his mouth
all the way down on Derek's cock in one go, sucking greedily, moaning a little
while Derek stared wild-eyed at the ceiling and tried to remember how to
breathe. Stiles' mouth was so soft and slick inside, not like anything Derek
had felt around his dick before, and his tongue kept moving, teasing at the
head, circling, whenever he came back up.
Derek's hand found Stiles' hair and he clutched at it, trying to remind himself
to be careful, not be rude, but Stiles seemed to like having his hair tugged.
He made a happy noise and started bobbing his head up and down a little faster,
cupping Derek's balls with his palm.
Derek couldn't have said, later, how long it went on, the hot suction, and the
swirling tongue. He was dizzy with sensation, distantly aware he was making
helpless sounds. And then, suddenly, horrifyingly, Derek felt the familiar hot
prickle behind his eyes that meant they were about to flash, and he slung his
forearm over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. He hadn't had any problems
controlling his shift since puberty—a notoriously rocky time for werewolves—and
had never worried about losing control while he was messing around with Stiles,
but this was overwhelming him.
He made a frustrated sound as he fought for control, and Stiles' fingers
stroked his hip and he made a little humming noise back, like he was soothing
him. Even if Stiles didn't understand what exactly what happening, it helped,
and Derek felt the urge to shift slowly recede as he focused on the sound of
Stiles' heartbeat, much steadier than Derek's was at this point.
He kept his face hidden for a little longer, but he was dying to see, and
wanted to enjoy watching Stiles blow him, so when it felt safe he lifted his
head and opened his eyes. He needn't have worried, because Stiles wasn't
looking at him anyway, had his eyes closed over his hollowed cheeks, a blissful
look on his face as his worked his mouth up and down Derek's length.
The sight was more than enough to push Derek right over the edge. "Stiles—" he
gritted out, flailing a hand onto Stiles' shoulder and giving it a shove.
Instead of lifting off, Stiles moved faster, sucked harder, he was going to let
Derek come in his mouth, holy fucking shit—
Derek's hips lifted off the bed with the first pulse, and Stiles bore down on
him, pressed him back into the sheets as he swallowed, and the only sound that
came out of Derek's mouth was a thin little whine. He was so deep, and he could
feel Stiles swallowing, he could feel himself throbbing hard against the back
of his throat.
After the last few spasms faded away and Stiles swallowed one more time, he let
Derek go, gently easing him out of his mouth, which Derek appreciated, because
he felt like he was going to fall apart.
"Oh my God," Derek said faintly. He couldn't feel his hands. That had been
amazing. Blowjobs were amazing. Stiles was amazing.
Stiles was grinning when he wiggled his way up to lay half on top of Derek. His
face was still flushed, and his hair was damp and messy, and he looked so good
Derek had to cup his face in his hands and kiss him, deep. Stiles' mouth was
relaxed and lazy now, and layered with a new, sharper tang Derek recognized as
himself. Even better, Stiles let out a rough moan when Derek dipped deeper
inside, rubbing his thumb against the corner of his mouth.
It was a while before Derek broke the kiss, but Stiles indulged him, happy to
go along with whatever Derek wanted. When Derek finally had his fill and fell
back onto the pillow, Stiles beamed at him, and said, "Pretty good, right?"
"Yeah," Derek said. His voice came out surprisingly hoarse, but probably more
from feeling a little overwhelmed than anything else. He hadn't taken Stiles
that deep. Yet. "I think we should do that again. As soon as possible."
Stiles glanced down his own body. He was half-hard again already. "I can be
persuaded," he said, and Derek set to persuading him as thoroughly as he knew
how.
~*~
"Seriously, I can't believe you," Stiles said later, eyeing Derek while he was
pulling his shirt back on. Mr. Stilinski was gonna be home soon. "This is,
like, some magical Disney transformation shit. Everyone is going to be so
pissed at me for locking this down."
He sounded really happy about it.
~*~
Derek had another week of school left before he was on break, too, but
everyone, including the teachers, was just kind of coasting toward the finish
line and he didn't have much homework, except from Mr. Harris, who was widely
regarded as a total dick both as a person and a teacher, so that wasn't a
surprise.
Once he was cut loose for the break, Derek had a lot of free time—most parents
didn't want to deal with music lessons on top of the usual holiday scramble,
and Kurt and Laura were both back home again to help with sibling wrangling.
Stiles wasn't working at the library much, since he was only home for a few
weeks. He took a few shifts here and there, covering for people who wanted
extra time off over the holidays, but for the most part he was just as aimless
as Derek. It couldn't have worked out better, in Derek's opinion.
They spent a lot of time at the Stilinski house, where Derek got in a lot of
blowjob practice.
"It doesn't matter—oh my God—if you can take it all," Stiles panted, fingers
digging into Derek's shoulders. "You don't have to—holy shit, Derek."
Derek didn't even dignify that with an answer. He knew it didn't matter how
much of Stiles' dick he could fit in his mouth. He wanted to try, though; he'd
always been an overachiever. He worked his way down until his eyes watered,
trying for a little more each time, while Stiles gradually slid into
incoherence above him.
He managed to keep his gag reflex in check until the end, when the first hot
splash in the back of his throat made him lift his head a little before he
choked, until just the head was in his mouth. Stiles was clutching the blankets
in his fists and had his eyes squeezed shut and was too busy coming like a
freight train to notice.
"I think you might be an oral sex prodigy," Stiles said weakly, while Derek was
chugging some water. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the taste, but he'd
learned swallowing quickly helped a lot. "You're outpacing me already."
Derek didn't know how many other people Stiles had been with, only that there
were probably several, and probably both boys and girls. It felt good to be
able to wow him a little. It was doing wonders for Derek's confidence. He
grinned bashfully and squeezed Stiles' knee.
"C'mere," Stiles said, patting his belly. "I want you to come on me."
Derek didn't need to be asked twice to do that. He was already starting to ache
a little from being so hard for so long, and the idea that Stiles wanted that,
and was so blithely open about it, made him even more eager. He straddled
Stiles' stomach while Stiles busied himself squirting a bunch of lube into his
hand, biting at his bottom lip in anticipation. The first touch made Derek hiss
though his teeth, the lube icy cold on his hot skin, but Stiles picked up a
quick rhythm right away that heated everything up fast.
Derek had never used anything to jerk off before, just spit, or soap in the
shower, and now he realized he'd been missing out. It was so slippery and so
wet, and so easy to fuck into Stiles' clenched fist. He leaned back and braced
himself on Stiles' thighs, breath already starting to come in harsh pants as he
snapped his hips forward and back. It was going to be over pretty fast, and he
didn’t even care.
Stiles' other hand stole down to clutch at Derek's ass, urging him on. The
sound of what they were doing was obscene, the wet slap of skin on skin, the
creaking bed, Derek's increasingly fast breaths. The muscles in Stiles' arm
flexed as he worked, the big vein that ran up over his biceps starting to stand
out with the exertion.
"I really want—you can—do you want to fuck me sometime? I really want you to,"
Stiles stammered. He looked like he couldn't tear his eyes away from where his
hand was furiously stroking Derek's cock.
"Yes," Derek gasped, losing his rhythm a little at the thought, but Stiles'
hand was there on his hip to guide him, keep him going. "Holy shit yes."
"God, I love your dick," Stiles said fervently. "I want it in me. I want it—"
That was it, Derek was done for, the tight glide of Stiles' hand combined with
the words coming out of his mouth were just too much to handle. He tipped
forward as he came, hunching over Stiles' still moving hand as he muffled his
moans in Stiles' sweaty neck. Stiles worked him carefully through it, telling
him yes, this is perfect, come all over me, yes, like that.
Derek would have gladly fucked Stiles right then, as soon as he was able, but
there wasn’t enough time--Mr. Stilinski would be home soon. They cuddled for a
bit, bellies sticking together where they were wet, and then as soon as Derek
was able to get his feet under him they cleaned up and were sitting innocently
on the couch when Stiles' dad walked through the door. If he ever noticed that
the shower had always just been used before he got home, he never mentioned it.
"You boys have plans tonight?" he asked, when he came into the living room.
"You're lookin' at 'em," Stiles said, eyes on the TV. Derek was concentrating
on it, too. He'd always found it difficult to look Mr. Stilinski in the eye
right after they'd been messing around, and it was even worse now that he knew
Stiles' dad knew they were a couple. He would never again underestimate what
Mr. Stilinski could suss out with his combined cop/dad superpowers.
"How you feel about tacos? You fly, I buy." Mr. Stilinski was already getting
his wallet out, so he obviously knew what the answer was going to be.
"Deal," Stiles said, and clicked off the TV.
~*~
It was already the third day of Derek's winter break when it occurred to him
that not only had they not hung out with Stiles' friends at all, Stiles hadn't
even mentioned them, or spent any time with them that Derek was aware of. With
the exception of a few hours divided between the froyo place and the comic book
store with Isaac, it had just been the two of them every day. (Every single
day. It was awesome.)
"We can do something with Scott and everyone, if you want," Derek offered
hesitantly while they were finishing up their cheeseburgers at Stiles' favorite
greasy spoon. He didn't know how to say it so it sounded like he was willing to
go, but wasn't forcing Stiles to take him along.
"They went to Cancun," Stiles said, cramming a French fry in his cheek.
"They'll be back after New Year's. You gonna eat your pickle?"
It was probably a selfish thing to be happy about, that he would have Stiles
all to himself until then, but Derek couldn't help it. He handed his pickle
over, and slurped up the rest of his root beer float.
It wasn't until they were snuggled together on the Stilinski couch that Derek
put all the pieces together. If Scott and Allison went, and Lydia and Jackson
went, then Stiles must have been invited. And Stiles probably would have gone,
under normal circumstances. And probably taken whomever he was dating at the
time, if the person he was dating wasn't a high school kid who had almost no
chance of getting permission to go. So little chance Stiles hadn't even
bothered to bring it up.
"Did you want to go to Cancun with everyone else?" Derek asked, not sure he
wanted to hear the answer. Even if Stiles lied to spare Derek's feelings, Derek
would know.
"Nah," Stiles said absently, running his fingers through the hair on the back
of Derek's head. He was glued to an episode of My Strange Addiction. "Too
expensive. And this is better."
His heart was steady as a metronome. Derek smiled and fed him another Twizzler.
~*~
Derek was trying to figure out if a particular bra was his mom's or Laura's—it
was probably Laura's, bought at school, because he'd never seen it before—when
his mom came into the laundry room and surprised the hell out of him.
She set two new bottles of laundry detergent down on the shelf and then, like
it was no big deal, turned around and casually asked, "Derek, do you want to
invite Stiles and his father over for Christmas Eve?"
Derek couldn't believe his ears. "I think so?" he guessed, trying to adjust to
the idea of having Stiles and his dad here for a family holiday. Invited by his
parents, even. It seemed so…official. His parents had said they were fine with
their relationship, but this was a whole other level of acceptance entirely.
This was real.
Christmas morning was traditionally immediate family only, but Christmas Eve
was open to other people. Kurt's girlfriend, Ariana, was coming this year,
driving up from Sacramento, and Laura's boyfriend would be there for a little
bit, too. Audrey's best friend since kindergarten usually came over a while,
too, with her parents. The twins were too little to have any friends outside
the family yet.
Derek had never had anyone over before. He could have invited Rebecca when she
still lived here, but her family was all hippy Jewish atheists, and they always
went away on a meditation retreat or fasted for three days or ran a hundred
mile relay race or something else incompatible with the Hale family Christmas.
Isaac and his dad went to Oregon. Having Stiles over, and maybe his dad, too,
would be a big deal for Derek.
"My dad's going to come for an hour or two," Stiles said later, when they
talked about it on the phone. "Apparently the sheriff of Beacon Hills is a
sought-after party guest. He's got a dinner invite, plus another party to go
to. I think one of them is from a woman who has designs on his virtue."
"Scandalous," Derek said.
"It sure is," Stiles agreed.
~*~
It wasn't very cold on Christmas Eve, but Dad insisted on having a fire in the
fireplace. They had to open a window so everyone wouldn't broil, which seemed
silly, but parents couldn't always be reasoned with, so Derek didn't try.
Stiles and his father arrived at the same time but in separate cars, bearing
presents and a platter of deviled eggs. Derek's family had a serious deviled
egg addiction, which he'd mentioned to Stiles once months ago, and here he was,
smirking as he proffered the plate. Suddenly, Derek was reminded that Stiles
was the pigeon prank mastermind.
Henry was momentarily awed into shy silence by the presence of the actual
sheriff in their house, staring up at Stiles' dad mutely and looking like he
was fighting the urge to stick his thumb in his mouth. Violet, on the other
hand, marched right up to Mr. Stilinski.
"Did you bring your gun?" she asked, too loudly. She looked completely
adorable, if a little bloodthirsty, in her Christmas dress. Derek had never
been that cute as a kid. They had the pictures to prove it
Mr. Stilinski squatted down to eye level with her, and threw an exaggerated
look over his shoulder at nothing before turning back to Vi. "Why?" he asked in
a hushed voice. "You see a criminal?"
"Hi," Stiles said, squeezing Derek's arm and distracting him from whatever
Violet said next. Mr. Stilinski looked like he could handle it. Stiles was
wearing a blue argyle cardigan and looked very handsome. Derek kissed him,
quick, on the mouth.
"Yuck! Kissing!" Henry said, suddenly having found his voice at the most
inconvenient time. He was dressed up in a button down shirt and a Christmas tie
that matched Violet's dress. His hair, which had about sixteen cowlicks in it
and normally stuck up all over his head, was parted on the side and slicked
down with gel. He looked like a miniature accountant.
Derek's parents came out of the dining room with Audrey, who had declared
herself in charge of folding the cloth napkins into some elaborate shape.
"Derek's boyfriend is here and they kissed!" Violet announced, just in case
anyone in a two mile radius didn't already know. Derek slapped his hand over
his face, but Stiles just laughed.
Derek introduced everyone, nearly stumbling over it in nervousness. Derek's
parents shook hands with Mr. Stilinski, who immediately ingratiated himself to
Derek's dad by telling him how delicious his Thanksgiving turkey had been. Then
Dad shook hands with Stiles, and Mom gave him a friendly smile combined with an
assessing look, and Stiles would probably never know just how thoroughly, and
with how many senses, he was being appraised.
"It's nice to meet you, Stiles. We've heard so much about you," she said,
making Derek want to die of embarrassment.
Kurt wandered downstairs to greet Stiles and then the sheriff, and didn't seem
embarrassed at all to be spending Christmas Eve with the guy who had once
arrested him, but that was typical Kurt. He never seemed to feel self-conscious
about anything. Stiles' dad didn't seem weirded out by it either, but in a town
the size of Beacon Hills he probably spent all day running into people he'd
caught breaking the law.
Derek's dad asked Stiles' dad if he wanted a drink, which seemed to be the cue
for all the parents to disappear into the kitchen. Derek ushered Stiles into
the living room, where Laura was obsessing over the Christmas music, like she
did every year. Kurt wandered in behind them and they all grabbed a seat.
Kurt and Stiles were already friendly, and Laura remembered Stiles from the few
years they'd overlapped at high school, so they hung out in the living room and
did a quick catch up on teachers and classmates they all knew—who was retired,
who was dead, who was married, who had moved to Alaska and become a fisherman
poet.
Derek didn't know a lot of those people, but he couldn't really focus on the
conversation anyway. Even with his exceptional hearing, he couldn't catch every
word being said in the kitchen, but he'd already heard enough to know the
parents were talking about Stiles and Derek. It was rude to eavesdrop, but
Derek couldn't make himself stop. This was vital information, he reasoned,
since it was about him.
Stiles' dad brought up the age difference first, maybe trying to get it out of
the way so the adults could enjoy their evening without worrying about that
particular elephant in the room.
"I've had a talk with Stiles about the age difference," he said, and Derek
glanced over at Stiles, who was still reminiscing with Kurt and Laura,
oblivious. Stiles hadn't said a word about any talk, and Derek had been so
happily distracted since Stiles' return that he'd completely forgotten there
was supposed to be one. "He understands he has a responsibility to Derek to
respect any limits, both Derek's and yours."
Oh, God. That was totally a reference to sex in there, Derek knew it. He felt a
blush slowly crawl up his face. So. Embarrassing.
Derek's dad rumbled some kind of acknowledgement, but someone rattled a pan so
loudly Derek missed what was said, and he tuned back into the conversation to
hear his mom say, "We weren't sure how you felt, to be honest, or if you even
knew. The age gap isn't an issue for us, as long as they both understand the
difference between seventeen and twenty-one. But technically Derek is still a
minor, and with you being the sheriff…well, we didn't know if it would be a
problem for you."
Mr. Stilinski snorted. "If I arrested every college kid in this town who dated
someone who was still technically a minor, we'd have to build a new jail," he
said. "As long as it's not predatory or unhealthy, a few years at their age
isn't automatically a bad thing."
"The local taxpayers would appreciate that, I'm sure," Dad said, laughing. "And
we agree. Talia and I were actually in a similar situation ourselves when we
were in college. We've made it clear to Derek that he and Stiles have to
respect the rules, and so far it's not been a problem. Derek's always been good
about that, from the time he was little."
So even his own parents thought he was a Goody Two Shoes, Derek thought. It
worked to his advantage, but still. Ugh.
"I'll be honest," Stiles' dad said, sounding wryly amused, "Stiles had some
trouble with that when he was Derek's age, but he seems to be intent on
following the straight and narrow now, with regards to Derek. But if you start
to get uncomfortable, you call me. Anytime."
"Absolutely," Mom said. "You do the same."
Derek heard the sound of ice cubes clinking into glasses, and then something
being poured—Dad had probably busted out the good whiskey, after the compliment
on his turkey.
"Well, it's nice to be able to talk to you about it, now that the secret's
out," Mom said. Derek could practically see the air quotes around the word
"secret."
"I don't know who they thought they were fooling," Mr. Stilinski said, and
everyone laughed and Derek wanted to thump his head against the arm of the
couch.
After that they started talking about boring stuff, like the proposed repaving
of Wabash Avenue. Sure that the conversation was now suitably boring, Derek
turned his attention back to his own age group just in time for Kurt's
girlfriend Ariana to arrive. She was still taking off her coat when Roric,
Laura's boyfriend, showed up with a bag of homemade popcorn balls, which sent
the twins into spasms of delight.
While everyone was still meeting each other in the foyer, Audrey's friend
Nicole arrived with her parents, who owned a sandwich shop in town and
innocently divulged that they knew Mr. Stilinski very well; he was evidently a
devoted customer. Derek saw Stiles' eyes narrow—he had a lot of rules about
what his dad should and shouldn't eat—but Mom sidetracked the whole thing by
choosing that moment to bring out the food.
Derek's family didn't have an actual dinner on Christmas Eve--that was saved
for Christmas Day. Instead, they spent the night munching on hors d'oeuvres and
cookies. Even without a sit down meal, there was always more than enough food,
and this year was no exception. The dining room table was positively loaded
with things like Swedish meatballs, stuffed mushrooms, crab cakes, and a big
dish of hot artichoke dip. Ariana had brought pigs in a blanket, and there were
three different cheese balls for some reason. Predictably, Derek's family fell
on the platter of deviled eggs like they'd been denied food for a week. By the
time everyone had filled their plates, the entire platter was gone. Derek was
pretty sure he saw Henry shove two in his mouth at once.
"Sneaky," Derek said, when he sat down next to Stiles on the floor by the
Christmas tree. Derek's parents had a firm rule that in the event of an
overflowing crowd, adults got to sit on the furniture. "Lowering their defenses
with deviled eggs. They'll have to like you now."
Stiles grinned triumphantly at Derek and then bit into the one he'd managed to
snag for himself.
They did the gift exchanges while the ate, since Mr. Stilinski had to leave.
Derek's family gave Mr. Stilinski a bottle of booze. Derek gave him some nice
cushy socks. Mr. Stilinski gave Derek an SAT prep book, and Derek's parents a
bottle of the same booze they'd given him, which cracked everyone up. Derek
didn't really pay attention to the rest of the gifts—there was artichoke dip.
Before Derek knew it, Mr. Stilinski was saying goodbye to everyone—he even gave
Derek a hug—before he headed off to his next holiday function.
"You know," Derek said to Stiles, as they stood in the foyer watching their
dads shake hands and make plans to grab a beer sometime, "Your dad has a busier
social life than either of us."
"I know," Stiles said. "I try not to think about what he's up to when I'm at
school, because otherwise I would need to bleach my brain." He made a scrunched
up yucky face that was eerily reminiscent of Violet, then schooled it into
something more normal as his dad gave him a final wave before breezing out the
door. "Hey, you want your present?"
Stiles had already told Derek he wanted to exchange gifts in private. "How
private?" Derek had asked, nervous. What if Stiles had gotten him a sex toy or
some handcuffs or something for Christmas? They hadn't even discussed that
stuff yet! Nevertheless, Derek had cleared it with his mom, who would hopefully
run interference if anyone else got curious about them disappearing for a few
minutes.
While everyone was busy making another pass at the food table, Derek led Stiles
into the TV room, which had a small ceramic Christmas tree on a table in the
corner. It had little colored bulbs that lit up, and played "Oh Tannenbaum"
when you wound it. It seemed like a nice place to exchange their presents, so
they sat down on the floor in front of it.
Stiles insisted on opening his gift from Derek first. It was a little robot
Derek had built himself, with blinky lights and everything. Even better, it
plugged into Stiles' laptop via USB port, and danced in time to whatever song
was playing on the computer. Derek knew Stiles liked to listen to music while
he studied.
"You built this? For me?" Stiles said in amazement, after Derek explained what
it did. He skimmed a fingertip up and down its arm. "That's so cool. I can't
wait to see him shake his booty." He kissed Derek on the cheek. "Thank you," he
said softly, still staring at it.
Derek let him marvel at it for a few seconds more before he got impatient. He
was dying to know what his present was. It was something that had to be opened
when they were alone, but all Stiles had brought into the TV room with him was
an envelope.
It had a Christmas card inside, and in the card was a single sheet of paper, a
fare quote printed from a website, for a round trip airline ticket to Los
Angeles. The prices were blacked out with magic marker, but the schedule was
there, the days and times.
Derek stared at it, speechless.
"I didn’t buy it yet," Stiles said hurriedly. He linked his fingers together
and hooked both of his hands across the back of his neck. He was nervous, Derek
realized. "But I thought—if your parents says it's okay—you could—if you wanted
to, I mean. Visit. For the weekend. I'll pay for the ticket."
"You want me to visit you at school?" The two of them together in Stiles' house
for the whole weekend, no parents to answer to at all. It sounded wonderful.
Derek had no idea if his parents were going to allow him to do this, but just
the fact that Stiles wanted it was nearly enough to keep Derek happy.
"Yeah. I do," Stiles said. "I don't wanna go so long between visits again, you
know?"
Derek nodded in full agreement as he studied the numbers more closely. "In
February," he said, when it sunk in. Stiles assumed they'd still be together
two months from now—this was monumental to Derek.
"I go home after the New Year, and then spring break is in March, so I thought
that was a good time," Stiles explained. "It's right in between."
That was true, Derek thought, looking down at the paper again. But. He quirked
an eyebrow at Stiles. "Over Valentine's Day?"
"That's a coincidence," Stiles said, lopsided grin breaking across his adorable
face. Derek didn't believe that for a second. "Anyway, I thought this was a
better way to spend the money than going to Cancun. I thought this might be
nice."
Derek forgot how to talk for a moment as the implication of what Stiles had
just said sank in—Stiles had not only opted to come back to Beacon Hills for
Christmas to see Derek, he'd had the money to go but was choosing to spend it
on Derek instead.
"It's better than nice," Derek said, and kissed him. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me until your parents say yes," Stiles said, laughing.
~*~
By the time the night started winding down, Derek had decided he couldn't have
hoped for it to go any better. It wasn't really awkward at all, and everyone
got along, and no one pulled out any embarrassing pictures of Derek's
groundbreaking portrayal of a honeybee in his first grade play.
And Derek's parents loved Stiles. Loved him. Derek could tell just by looking
at his dad's eyebrows that Stiles had been deemed acceptable, which was a
relief, but it was his mom he'd worried about the most. She wasn't just his
mother, she was Derek's alpha. But she definitely liked him, too. And the
little kids were so impressed with Stiles that after a bit Derek had to
actually compete with them for his attention. Unsuccessfully.
It started with Henry wanting to show Stiles his new Batman toy, which Stiles
admired so convincingly that Henry soon retrieved one of the stickers that had
come in the package and ostentatiously placed it on the front of Stiles'
sweater. Not wanting to be left out, Violet scampered upstairs and then
reappeared with one of her stretchy plastic bracelets.
"For me? Awesome, thanks!" Stiles said happily, taking it from her as she gazed
up at him adoringly. He carefully eased the bracelet over his hand and onto his
wrist--it was stretchy, yes, but it was made for a little kid, and Stiles had
big hands. It was a little tight on his wrist, but didn't appear to be in
danger of snapping.
Stiles shoved the sleeve of his cardigan up, and then rolled up the cuff of his
button down shirt so the bracelet was in plain view, seemingly unbothered by
the fact that it was pink and made from beads shaped like butterflies. Derek
felt like his heart was going to explode.
"You wanna play bunnies?" Violet asked, when Stiles had admired the bracelet to
her satisfaction. Her eyes were huge and hopeful, like big blue sparkly
buttons, and if Stiles was anything like Derek, it was going to be hard to say
no to her. This was not going to end well.
"What's bunnies?" Stiles asked, giving Derek a quizzical look.
"We're the wolves and you're the bunny," Henry piped up. His hair had already
started to defy the gel, his tie was loosened crookedly, and one of his shirt
tails was hanging out. Now he looked like a drunken accountant. "We hunt you."
"Rowr!" both twins said in unison, making little claw hands, which was the
closest they could get to actual claws at their age.
"It's a game they're not allowed to play in the house," Derek explained
quickly. Things were skirting a little too close to family secret territory for
his comfort.
Stiles stared at Derek for moment, then his gaze turned knowing and he looked
back at the twins. "Does Derek play bunnies with you?" he asked, the jerkface.
His eyes were practically twinkling with glee.
"Derek is the best bunny," Violet divulged, heedless of Derek's reputation and
dignity.
"Oh, really?" Stiles asked, dragging out the really way longer than necessary.
"And what does that entail?"
"Mostly sitting in one place waiting to be found," Derek told him. "I play a
lot of Candy Crush."
"Huh. I think I'd rather be a wolf," Stiles decided. "Sounds more exciting."
"You can't be a wolf," Henry said, visibly scandalized.
Stiles immediately adopted a look of outrage. "Why not?" he demanded.
"You're just a boy," Violet said witheringly. Henry nodded silently along in
agreement.
"Ouch," Stiles said. He looked at Derek, grimacing comically. "No chance of
getting a big ego around this house, is there?"
"No, not really," Derek admitted. "It doesn't matter, anyway," he said to the
twins. "Because you can't play bunnies in the house and Mom'll never let you
play outside in the dark and in your nice clothes."
"If I can pretend to be a bunny, why can't I pretend to be a wolf?" Stiles
asked, hunkering down so he was face-to-face with the twins.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Derek said nervously, because the twins
were looking disturbingly intrigued by the idea.
"You could be a wolf, I guess," Violet allowed. "We could pretend this is your
territory and we want it."
"No. Bad idea," Derek said immediately, but Stiles said, "That sounds awesome."
He tipped his head back to grin up at Derek, unintentionally baring his throat,
and Derek said, "Oh, crap," because Henry had that familiar gleam in his eye,
and Stiles didn't understand what he was doing.
"Henry, no!" Derek said, but it was too late. With a ferocious little snarl,
Henry threw himself at Stiles, who fell onto his back with a surprised "Oof!"
as he was tackled to the floor. Before Derek could stop him, Henry did a
comically huge imitation of a fang-bearing face, lunged forward, and chomped
down on Stiles' neck.
He was too little to have actual fangs yet, thank God, but that didn't stop him
from gnawing wetly on Stiles' throat, his tiny growl muffled but still plainly
audible to Derek—and to the other werewolves, too. Kurt came skidding into the
room, Laura hot on his heels. Mom was sure to appear any second.
Meanwhile, Stiles laughed and tried to pry Henry off, completely unaware of
what was really happening. He just thought Henry was a weird little kid.
"Henry Hale, that is enough!" Derek said, sounding disturbingly like his mother
as he bent to pluck his little brother off of his boyfriend.
Before Derek got could do anything but grab a handful of Henry's nice Christmas
shirt, Henry sat up, still astride Stiles' belly, threw his chubby arms in the
air, and screeched, "I'm the alpha now!"
~*~
Once everyone settled down from the spectacle of Henry pretending to rip
Stiles' throat out with his teeth—Stiles thought it was hysterical, but Derek
knew Henry was going to get a stern talking to at some point in the near
future—it was time to gather around the Christmas tree and eat cookies and
drink hot chocolate.
There was a tussle over who got to share the couch with Stiles, because Stiles
only had two sides, but three people—Henry, Violet, and Derek—who wanted to sit
next to him. In the end, Stiles sat between Violet and Derek, while Derek held
Henry securely on his lap. Derek didn't trust Henry not to bite Stiles again.
It was a Hale family tradition that every Christmas Eve someone read The Night
Before Christmas out loud, and this year it was Audrey's turn. She sat on the
love seat between Mom and Dad and read aloud in her soft, lilting voice. The
twins, just now old enough to really understand the story, were rapt. Kurt and
Ariana leaned against a pile of cushions near the fireplace, while Laura and
Roric shared the other couch.
Halfway through the story, Violet crawled across Stiles' legs and joined Henry.
Derek's lap wasn't quite big enough, but he was used to it.
Just about the time Audrey got to the part where Santa started filling the
stockings, Stiles hand stole over to Derek's and folded around it. The fire
crackled, and Kurt passed the cookie plate around again, and Derek was content,
with all the people he loved most in the world, together in one room, warm and
safe and happy.
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