Title: Hurry Up and Wait
Author: uselessplayback
Rating: G
Genre and/or Pairing: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Spoilers: none
Warnings: Can I warn for lack of content?
Word Count: 700
Summary: Stiles is surprised Derek isn’t getting wet gloom all over his carpet.
Notes: Brought to you by the letter "J" and the number "8" for no discernible reason. Possibly also brought to you by viewers like you - and because: rain.
This was inevitable, really.
At Ao3 or:
In February it rains. The entire month feels like grey and rain, wet and cold. Stiles hates it because it feels like every bit of that precipitation should be snow but it isn’t-just barely warm enough, apparently. Rain is heavy on the window and it’s not even actually raining. The moisture is just sitting there in preparation for more, he guesses. He’s not even sure how it’s real-or, for that matter, why Derek is sitting there staring at it but there Derek is, staring at it.
“It’s not going to change, you know,” Stiles points out.
Derek blinks. “What?”
“Still going to be rain on the window if you look away,” Stiles says.
Derek’s sitting in the chair by the bed, a gloomy raincloud all his own, communing with his brethren. Derek could be Eeyore. He could be wandering around with a cloud hanging over him all the time and someone took his tail. Stiles is surprised Derek isn’t getting wet gloom all over his carpet.
He’s not even sure why Derek is here, actually. Derek showed up sometime during the weekend storm and just never bothered to leave, didn’t seem to want Stiles to do anything for him, didn’t even bother saying very much just-camped out. Stiles isn’t sure how to feel about it. He’d expected to have the house to himself for the weekend with this father out of town but, then: Derek.
“I wasn’t expecting it to go away,” Derek says.
“Kind of like you,” Stiles says, knocking his pen against the notebook in his lap. He’s been trying to finish his homework but it’s hard because Derek is there, a big, looming distraction like the weather and Scott’s billion texts about nothing. He wonders if he should tell Scott that Derek is here; he wonders why he hasn’t told him already.
“Like me?” Derek asks but so flatly that it might as well not be a question. It’s loaded, the way Derek talks, like he’s not really curious and not really irritated but pressing for something and Stiles doesn’t know what.
“Yes,” Stiles says, exasperated. “Like you. Showing up and clinging to my window.”
“I’m not clinging to your window, Stiles,” Derek says, definitely leaning more toward irritated.
“Really not the point I was making,” Stiles says rolling his eyes.
“If you want me to leave, I can leave,” Derek says, this time almost absently. He’s looking out the window again, or at the window.
Stiles blinks. “Really?” he asks incredulously.
“Really,” Derek says but he doesn’t move except to look at Stiles.
The pen falls out from between Stiles’ fingers and lands on the bed. Stiles ignores it, narrows his eyes.
“I could have said, ‘Derek, get the hell out of my house,’ any time this weekend and you would have listened?” Stiles asks.
“Yup,” Derek says.
Stiles doesn’t believe it because Derek has been sleeping on his floor all weekend like some overgrown guard dog, jolting awake at the smallest noise. Because Derek showed up Friday night-at the door like a normal person-looking like an extra in a zombie film and Stiles had let him in without a word, had shut the door, sat on the couch and watched terrible movies on Syfy, and Derek had fallen asleep in a chair like sleep had punched him in the face.
Stiles had stayed on the couch all night and slept better than he had in weeks until Derek woke him up the next morning by mauling Stiles’ kitchen.
It’s Sunday now and Stiles is only barely starting to feel like himself again. Derek still looks like an extra in a zombie movie.
Stiles shrugs, digs the pen out from where it’s rolled under his thigh and says, “Dad won’t be back until Monday night.”
“Okay,” Derek says like it’s a question but only just.
“Okay,” Stiles says and tries to actually retain his reading when he stares down at his chemistry book.
When he looks up twenty minutes later, Derek is slouched against the wall like he’s been thrown there, dead asleep. Stiles wonders if the sun will come out again when Derek leaves. He doubts it.