selected field observations on canis lupus irremotus

[wldnst]

part 1

When he gets back down to the station he’s hungry, and it’s dinnertime, and Stiles is there, reading while eating and apparently lost to the rest of the world until Derek slides in across from him and says, “Have a good nap?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “And I went through some of the footage afterwards.”

“Any good?” Derek asks.

“It’s a start,” Stiles says. “I mean, you have to cut a lot of stuff to get anywhere, really, and I don’t know what to cut at this point. I’m trying to create a narrative, right?” Stiles waits until Derek nods, just barely. “But I don’t know what the narrative is yet, so it’s just--going through and seeing how things might fit together. A few hours’ footage isn’t enough for anything to fit together, though--And I don’t have that perfect shot yet, either.”

“I get it,” Derek says mildly. “Sounds like research.”

“Yeah, maybe a little,” Stiles says. “Though I’m kind of counting on you and Scott to put together the smart conclusions for me. Or--Scott, mostly, since technically you aren’t participating in this project.”

“Technically?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, you’re talking to me right now,” Stiles says, tapping a finger on the table. “Willingly, I might add, astonishing as that is. Anything you say can’t and won’t be used against you in no courts of no law, but I can’t be held responsible for anything you say about the wolves coloring my thinking when I edit. A little. And you’re Scott’s advisor, so--”

“I’m pretty sure there was a double negative in that court of law bit that came back around to positive,” Derek says.

“Wouldn’t know,” Stiles says. “Grammar was never my strong suit. But my dad’s law enforcement, we could always call him and ask whether anything I’ve said is legally binding.”

Suddenly Scott appears, clapping Stiles on the shoulder before sitting down next to Stiles, Allison at his side.

“Stiles, are you trying to find excuses to phone home?” Scott asks.

“Probably not,” Stiles says. “But you know dad’s lonely without me when he’s not, you know, with your mom.”

“Don’t remind me,” Scott says, covering his face with his hands. “Please, I don’t want to think about it.”

Stiles throws an arm across Scott’s shoulders.

“We’re going to be brothers, Scott,” he says. “There are some things you eventually have to accept, and they have to do with the birds and the bees, and when a man loves a woman very, very much--”

“Please stop,” Scott says, and Allison pats him on the back and smiles cautiously at Derek, like they have some sort of solidarity here.

“Allison, I can’t believe you put up with this,” Stiles pauses and elbows Scott. “Whatever he is. From what Scott’s told me you’re far too good for him.”

“I’m sure you know Scott’s prone to exaggeration,” Allison says. “Or at least I assumed he was, after he told me you were--”

“I vote we close this line of discussion right now,” Stiles says, frowning at Scott. “Because I know Scott told you nothing good.”

Allison laughs, and Derek’s done with his dinner, so he looks up at the other three and begins to gather his tray.

“Oh--” Stiles says. “You aren’t staying?”

“I’m done,” Derek says.

“People sometimes have conversations over dinner,” Stiles says.

“I need to go into town,” Derek says. He doesn’t, really, but he thinks he could need to go into town, maybe.

“Can I come with?” Stiles asks. “I have a postcard to mail to my dad, and wanted to pick up provisions. There aren’t nearly enough cheetos in this place.”

Derek pauses and looks down at Stile’s upturned face, bright and smiling.

“Sure,” he says.

“Great,” Stiles says. “Just give me a second to go get my money, I’ll meet you at the truck.”

Derek shrugs and goes out to the truck, trying to sort through what he does need, if anything. Batteries, probably. Mostly he just--didn’t want to eat with Allison. She looks like her aunt. A little, but enough, and Derek sees them together around the station, and he wishes Kate would just--leave. Stop doing her research here. Because he certainly isn’t leaving, but her face alone is like a knife to the gut. That’s not taking into account the rest of it, the glances and the comments, the people he knows knows.

“Don’t like Allison, huh?” Stiles asks when he swings himself into the truck five minutes later. “I didn’t realize your thing was that much of a thing.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Derek says.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Then we’ll talk about something else.”

Derek looks over at him, and Stiles just shrugs.

“I’ll weasel it out of you eventually,” Stiles says. “I always do. I’m extremely good at weaseling. Persistant.”

“So your dad and Scott’s mom?” Derek asks.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “They started dating after we left for college because they were empty nester single parents. It’s weird, but that’s outweighed by how funny it is when Scott makes that disturbed little face. And ‘your mom’ jokes have just gotten, like, exponentially funnier. Which--” Stiles pauses and coughs a little. “Is fairly impressive, because they weren’t at all funny before. Because my mom’s, you know, dead.”

“Oh,” Derek says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, too quickly. “Don’t apologize. It had nothing to do with you, and it was a long time ago.”

Derek wonders why Stiles is telling him, then, and glances over at Stiles to see him looking out the window.

“I like to tell people before they ask me about my parents or what my mom does or whatever,” Stiles says. “It doesn’t need to be a big deal, but I hate carrying on like it’s a secret. I’m not ashamed of her.”

“Okay,” Derek says, but he’s still wondering why Stiles is telling him this, him specifically, as the truck rattles down gravel roads until they eventually pull out onto the highway behind some tourist’s RV, driving the speed limit, which is at least 10 kilometers per hour less than the speed they should be going.

“Road rage, dude,” Stiles says when Derek guns the engine to pass it.

“Tourists,” Derek offers by way of explanation.

“So nay on the tourists, then?” Stiles asks. “If there were a vote, yay or nay on tourists, you’d vote nay?”

“They drive like assholes,” Derek says. “And then they go off trail because they want to have an authentic Canadian wilderness experience and fuck everything up.”

“Like the ‘Into the Wild’ guy?” Stiles asks. “Or more ‘Grizzly Man’?”

“Either/or, if they go on a hunt for a wolf den and driving the pack off,” Derek says.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “So I hit a nerve, then.”

“Also I hate staring at the taillights of RVs,” Derek says, pulling ahead of another.

“If you get us killed by oncoming traffic--” Stiles starts.

“We’ll both be dead,” Derek says. “So your threat won’t hold much water.”

“My dad will dig up your corpse and riddle it with shotgun shells,” Stiles finishes.

“Okay,” Derek says. “That’s--interesting.”

“And your driving is frightening, so I guess we’re even,” Stiles says.

“My driving is fine,” Derek says.

“Whatever, dude, I’m not dead yet,” Stiles says. “But do not try to pass that semi--oh, oh, you’re passing it, great.”

They pull back into the right lane in front of the semi, Derek glances over at Stiles, who--sticks out his tongue.

“How old are you again?” Derek asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Same age as your esteemed research assistant,” Stiles says with a grin.

Stiles is quiet for a few moments before shaking his head.

“You know,” he says. “You’re not that much older than we are. It’s weird that you’ve got your shit together.”

“I really don’t,” Derek says.

“You’re a professor,” Stiles says. “Tenure track. Scott told me you’re like a freak prodigy.”

“I think I have to be about ten years younger to qualify as a prodigy,” Derek says. “I just kept myself on track.”

“Learn to take a compliment,” Stiles says. “I’m just saying--I like documentaries, and I’m lucky to have this internship, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to become a job. Tenure track professorship--that’s not just a job, that’s a career. And you like your research.”

Derek shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. The way Stiles is talking about this makes him feel uncertain in his skin, like Stiles is describing a shape Derek didn’t know he took. Not that he doesn’t want his professorship, just--it’s a relief when they pull into the grocery store parking lot and Derek can tell Stiles to meet him in an hour and go off on his own, wondering what his emotions are doing today and whether maybe he should’ve taken a nap, too, maybe also not logged into Skype, not had a conversation about Kate, not even allowed himself to be near her niece.

Derek’s almost sorted himself out by the time he reconvenes with Stiles, who’s sitting on the open tailgate of the truck with his legs dangling down. Derek swings up to join him. The sky’s overcast and grey, clouds unfolding into mountains to the west, but it doesn’t look like rain, at least not yet.

“The thing with my job,” Derek says. “That’s the only piece of my life that makes sense to me.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, trailing off uncertainly.

“So I don’t have it all together or anything,” Derek says. “Just--just that part.”

“Oh man,” Stiles says, patting Derek on the knee. “Don’t worry, I didn’t think you had it together.”

Derek has to look at him to tell if he’s joking, but Stiles’ profile is inscrutable.

“I mean,” he continues. “You obviously skipped out on a few semesters of charm school.”

“And yet here you are,” Derek says.

“I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. Patron saint of social lost causes, that’s me,” Stiles says easily.

“Social lost causes?” Derek asks, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what I am now?”

“I don’t know, dude, you tell me,” Stiles says. He starts ticking things off on his fingers. “You eat meals alone while reading diaries, you don’t like to talk to girls, or at least not Allison, who’s the only girl I’ve seen show any interest in talking to you. Obviously she and Scott are attached at the hip, but--I’m sure I could come up with more damning evidence, given time.”

“I don’t think you’ve known me long enough to come up with more,” Derek says.

“But that means there are more,” Stiles says, grinning. “Want to get ice cream?”

“Ice cream?” Derek asks.

“Or we can go back to the field station and you can hole yourself up in your room and do whatever it is you do and I’ll go to Scott’s room and watch ‘Star Wars’ on my computer until I fall asleep. So we could get ice cream. Or beer.”

“Beer,” Derek says, sliding to the ground. “You are old enough, right?”

“Oh, ha,” Stiles says. “I’m legal back in the states, which means I’m definitely legal pretty much anywhere else.”

There’s a dimly lit place on the main street with overly dark stain on the bar and animal mounts on the walls, and they go there for pints. Stiles’ chattiness wanes somewhat with a beer in front of him, and a cocktail napkin to shred between his fingers, but he was right--even when the conversation lags, it’s something other than working in his room, and Derek is kind of grateful for that. Stiles starts an argument with the aging bartender over Derek doesn’t even know what, and Derek mostly watches him instead of listening to what they’re saying. Stiles communicates with his whole body, and it’s something to watch, with just enough alcohol in Derek’s system to dampen his desire to analyze, hardly any other patrons, and a jukebox that keeps playing shit. Derek needs something to entertain himself, and Stiles is there, besides him, and entertaining. Derek orders a glass of water and wonders if he’s more drunk than he thinks he is.

It’s drizzling lightly when they leave, Stiles a bit pink around the cheeks and grinning.

“Ice cream in the rain wouldn’t have been any fun at all,” he says. “Good choice, Derek.”

He tosses an arm across Derek’s shoulders, like Derek’s seen him do with Scott. It takes Derek by surprise, but the weight of Stiles’ arm and the warm pressure of his body against Derek’s side also feels sort of comfortable. Stiles is, it seems, the kind of person who engages in casual physical contact. Derek isn’t, but he finds doesn’t mind this, though it feels a little like Stiles is trying to steer him.

“So what’s on the docket for the rest of the evening, prof?” Stiles asks.

“Sleep, I imagine,” Derek says. “Scott and I are checking camera traps tomorrow.”

“Can I come with?”

“Can you keep pace?” Derek asks.

“Probably not,” Stiles says. “Scott says you’re a drillmaster.”

“Then no,” Derek replies. “If we’re too slow and don’t get to all of them it will throw everything off.”

“What if I just went with for one trap?” Stiles asks.

“I can’t imagine it’ll make for very interesting footage,” Derek says.

“And here I thought you were warming up to me,” Stiles says.

Derek considers telling Stiles he’s warming up to Stiles, not to Stiles’ involvement with his research, but even that feels like saying too much. Somewhere in the dark reaches of his mind is pretty sure he shouldn’t be warm at all, because warm isn’t safe. He ends up kind of grunting.

Stiles is quiet on the drive back to the field station, mostly because he’s nodding off with his head lolling against the window until they park and he wakes with a start.

“Well,” he says. “We’re here! That was fun, we should do it again sometime.”

Derek makes a noncommittal noise in response, and follows Stiles out of the truck into the field station. He’s tired. He goes to sleep, and tries not to think about anything too hard.

“So, had a change of heart on those release forms, yet?” Stiles asks the next morning when he sits down across from Derek at breakfast.

“No,” Derek says.

“Worth a try,” Stiles says brightly and begins eating, only pausing when Scott and Allison join them, and then it’s only to lift a hand in greeting.

“I was hungry,” Stiles says a few minutes later, licking yogurt from the corner of his mouth. “How was I so hungry?”

“It’s not like you do anything,” Scott says. “When did you guys get back last night? Didn’t see you.”

“That’s because you don’t actually live in our room,” Stiles says. “It’s more like my room that you occasionally visit when you run out of underwear.”

“Speaking of,” Allison says, nudging Scott with her elbow.

Their conversation manages to limp along with minimal help from Derek until Scott and Derek head out to check the cameras, doing their usual circuit in the usual amount of time.

“Stiles was wondering if he could come along on one of these,” Scott says once once they’re finished and driving back to the station.

“He’d slow us down,” Derek says. “And the footage seems--non-essential.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re an expert videographer,” Scott says, fiddling with the busted radio. “Stiles got into this when we were in high school. He used to make these documentary parody things--they were awesome.”

“You have a point?” Derek asks.

“Stiles is good at what he does,” Scott says. He’s still fiddling with the radio, like he’s magically going to fix it or something.

“Based on documentary parody things?” Derek tries to make the ‘things’ as disparaging as possible. He thinks he comes close.

“They’re online,” Scott says with a shrug. “Bilinski Productions. I was in some of them. That’s how we figured out I was a terrible actor.”

“That’s what it took?” Derek asks.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Scott says. “I could’ve been a great actor, you don’t know.”

“Bilinski,” Derek repeats.

“Our high school lacrosse coach used to call him that and his dad didn’t want him to put his real name on the internet.”

“But Stiles isn’t his real name,” Derek says, statement rather than question.

“Good as,” Scott replies. “I don’t know his real name, so I’ve got nothing else to call him. Except ‘Hey you, buttface.’”

Scott chuckles to himself, and Derek pretends that this person isn’t supposed to be helping him do research. He decides that he’s not going to look up Bilinski Productions, because that name is awful and Derek doesn’t care what Stiles does, because Derek is Not Involved.

Only then Stiles comes with them on two more night surveys and eats every meal with Derek for four days running, and Stiles’ terrible jokes have made him crack a grin more times than Derek is entirely comfortable admitting, and Derek has a newfound repository of information about Stiles in some part of his brain that is apparently incapable of rejecting inconsiquential information. Derek doesn’t really know what he is to Stiles, but he is probably Involved.

So on the fifth night, Stiles is there at dinner again, in the middle of an animated conversation with Allison Argent, who is smiling. The expression--easy, open--would be foreign on her aunt’s face, and even though Derek’s been observing Allison’s relationship with Scott and has classified it as different from his relationship with Kate--Scott and Allison are the same age and at the same stage in their academic careers, for one--this is the first time he’s seen Allison herself as so clearly distinct from her relatives.

That doesn’t mean he has to like her.

Derek sits down next to Stiles, who pats him on the thigh in acknowledgement without pausing his conversation with Allison, which seems to be about Scott and the high school they both went to in California.

“You should come visit,” Stiles says earnestly. “After you and Scott are done here. It’s boring, but there’s this place with great curly fries. Though they don’t serve them with gravy.”

Allison laughs and reaches across the table to steal some grapes from Scott’s tray.

“Anything interesting on the trap circuit?” she asks.

“Bear scat,” Scott says, glancing at Derek. “No bears.”

“Nothing interesting,” Derek confirms.

“Are you trying to convince me it’s not worth filming?” Stiles asks. “Because it won’t work. I need the complete experience. For a complete narrative. Even unused footage is valuable if it gives me context.” Stiles says this like it’s something he learned in film school.

“You know they don’t usually give interns this much control over their own projects?” Scott asks, ostensibly talking to Allison but with a significant glance in Derek’s direction. Stiles throws a grape at Scott’s head.

“They don’t normally give interns any control over their own projects,” Stiles says. “But they got so sick of looking at my face that they were just glad for an excuse to ship me off to Canada when I made the proposal.”

Scott looks needlessly pleased with himself, like Stiles’ accomplishment is his doing, and Stiles chucks another grape at his head. It bounces off and rolls across the table, and Scott looks after it like he’s trying to decide whether he can reasonably eat it.

“Please don’t,” Allison says. It’s the first sensible thing Derek has heard Allison say, but it is very sensible.

Stiles reaches across the table, snake-quick, and pops the grape into his own mouth.

“The pleasures of bachelorhood,” he says. “Table grapes.”

“Stiles,” Scott says.

“I think I’m going to eat somewhere else tomorrow,” Derek says.

“I’m going to text Lydia about this, and now she’ll never date you,” Scott says somewhat triumphantly.

“She wasn’t going to date me anyway,” Stiles says, apparently undisturbed. “She and Jackson have been practically engaged since they realized they actually like each other junior year.”

“Lydia?” Allison asks.

“Girl we went to high school with,” Scott answers.

“A girl with beautiful strawberry blonde hair,” Stiles adds dreamily. It’s obviously a conversation they’ve had before, but something about it makes Derek uncomfortable. He can’t pin the emotion niggling at his chest, just knows he doesn’t want to hear this, to see Stiles slip into Scott-like oblivion. Scott’s grinning easily, and Stiles is smiling, too, like this is more about repeating familiar words than any specific girl, strawberry blonde hair or no, but still something in Derek’s chest stings.

“You never forget your first love,” Stiles continues. “Especially after she knees you in the groin and tells you that’s the only way she’s going to touch you there.” Scott just shakes his head, and Stiles laughs. “I always fall for people who are out of my league. Why do I do that?”

“I think the problem isn’t so much leagues as the fact that you always fall for people who don’t know you exist, Stiles,” Scott says. He glances over at Derek for no reason Derek can fathom while Stiles just laughs and continues talking.

“High school wasn’t all that,” Stiles says. “Though we did eat a lot of curly fries. I was telling Allison, she should come visit--though I think technically an invitation from you would count more than one from me, Scott.”

“Oh--” Scott starts, suddenly flustered, blushing and looking at his hands. “You should come visit. If you want.”

Allison smiles.

“I think I’d like that,” she says, reaching across the table to put a hand over Scott’s. Stiles smiles at them both, obviously pleased with himself.

Derek’s done eating, and he gets up to leave, nodding at the others.

“Done already?” Stiles asks. Derek shrugs.

“Yes,” he says, when Stiles is still looking at Derek like he’s expecting something, but Derek still leaves.

Derek can’t imagine Kate ever would have expressed any interest in going home with him, in meeting his family. Objectively he understands their relationship wasn’t normal, or good, or real in the way relationships are real when both parties want the same thing, when things are honest and out in the open. Kate wanted sex and research conclusions. Derek doesn’t even know what he wanted--does anyone know what they want when they’re nineteen?--but he knows, with certainty, that he didn’t get it.

It’s easy, instead of pursuing that line of questioning, to go back to his room and flip open his laptop, descend into journal articles he’s already read and the familiar cadences of scientific literature. It’s dull, it’s dry, it’s something he knows how to navigate. Three hours later, he turns off the computer, does his push-ups, goes to bed. These are the things he does, and he’s been doing them for years because these are the things he knows he can do, the things he knows he can control: his mind, his body, the ways he fills up the hours of his day. But he can’t control the uncomfortable twists he sometimes gets in his gut, can’t control the fact that other people are never as he expects them to be. He doesn’t want or expect people to be any different, really, but he also doesn’t want to deal with them. He’s trained to recognize patterns, and the ones in human behavior never make as much sense to him as the ones he finds with the wolves.

Derek’s sleep is fitful, and if anyone ever asks that’s why he wakes up at two in the morning, googles Bilinski Productions, and watches all thirteen videos, straight through. He doesn’t get back to sleep until four, when the sun is already breaching the horizon and the sky outside his window is colored pink.

Derek will just come out and admit it: Scott’s right. They’re good. It’s obvious even to Derek’s inexpert eye that the first several were made with a camera that wouldn’t even qualify as halfway decent--there’s even a short bit with Stiles on camera apologizing for it--but there’s the germ of something great buried beneath the low quality footage, in the way the shots are framed and the unruly sense of humor in the comedic pieces. It isn’t--maybe it’s just that it’s two in the morning, but Derek really likes these videos, and likes Stiles more for them.

He rolls over, buries his face in his pillow, and falls asleep by sheer force of will. It’s nice to know he can still do that when it’s four in the morning.

Stiles is there at breakfast because of course Stiles is there at breakfast, but it’s kind of a surprise to find him there before Derek with a book open on the table in front of him.

“You’re late, dude,” Stiles says, slipping a receipt into the book and closing it. “I had to pretend to be literate.”

“Overslept,” Derek says, glancing at the clock. “Where’s Scott?”

Stiles shrugs.

“Not my brother’s keeper,” he says. “But he’s probably with Allison.”

Derek sighs and shakes his head, and Stiles’ eyes thin.

“You and Allison,” he says. “Do us both a favor and just spill those beans.”

“What?” Derek asks.

“You get this weird facial tic,” Stiles says. “I’m pretty sure it’s unhealthy. And your lips get tight, and your eyebrows frown. So.”

Derek looks at him. Stiles is toying with the cover of his book with one hand and staring at Derek. There are shadows slanting across his cheekbones, and the set of his jaw is nothing short of determined.

Derek thinks about getting up and just leaving, but something stops him before he does--he feels his muscles tense as if to rise, but he doesn’t.

“Really?” he asks instead.

“Really,” Stiles says. Nothing about him belies any uncertainty.

“Why?” Derek asks, and Stiles lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

“I’m not psychologist,” Stiles says. “But I think sometimes people need to talk about shit, and you kind of obviously have a problem where you don’t.”

“I talk to my sister,” Derek says, after a moment of silence he doesn’t know how to fill.

“Good for you,” Stiles says. He looks patient, unexpectedly so. “Or good for her. I don’t know. But look--Allison doesn’t even know what’s going on. So maybe you just have a problem with Scott not being fully devoted to the research, but I kind of don’t think that’s what it is.”

“So, what, you’ve psychoanalyzed me? For Scott and Allison?” Derek asks. He doesn’t know why it makes him angry, but he can feel it rising within him like a tide. “I’m not a puzzle to be solved, Stiles.”

Stiles raises a hand to his head, running his palm across his buzzed head.

“I don’t--” he starts, then halts, pressing his hands flat against the table. “Okay. So you’re not a puzzle. Then don’t be a puzzle.”

And then Stiles is the one who leaves. Derek stares at his bowl, lifts the spoon and watches the oatmeal slide back into the bowl. He hadn’t signed the release forms for this. There were no release forms for this. He figured by not signing them he was preventing Stiles from meddling in his research, but somehow Stiles wound up meddling in his life instead, and it’s worse. And Derek--Derek knows that there’s a flaw in his logic, that there’s no document you can sign that can prevent emotional entanglement, but something inside him gets up and walks out of the room with Stiles and Derek wants it back, he doesn’t know what’s missing but he still manages to feel incomplete without it.

Because Derek didn’t get enough sleep last night to start with, he’s not going to forgo breakfast. So he finishes his oatmeal. And he ruminates. And he realizes what walked out the door with Stiles, and he fucking hates Laura, because the only word that comes to mind is possibility, the seed she planted in his head come to fruition, and he just--not here, not now, not ever.

Stiles is the first person in a long time who Derek had felt like was just there, not there for his research, not part of his family, just--a person. Who talked to Derek. For no reason Derek could fathom, and for some equally fathomless reason Derek enjoyed it.

But that was just a lie Derek told himself, right, because Stiles was there for Scott, and for his National Geographic project and release forms and wolves, Stiles wanted something just like everyone else, and Derek--Derek couldn’t. So so what if Stiles and his possibility walked out of the room, they weren’t real, anyway, and Derek and Scott needed to go check their camera traps.

“Stiles--” Scott starts when he hops in the cab of the truck.

“No,” Derek growls, and Scott shuts up. Scott shuts up for pretty much the whole day. It’s kind of remarkable, or it would be, if Derek didn’t still feel a faint, uncertain hollow in the pit of his chest. It was like getting rejected for another fellowship. It was, in some ways, worse.

If Stiles is at dinner, Derek doesn’t know, because he skips it in favor of being unable to sleep and watching all of Stiles’ videos again. He doesn’t know why he does that. About the time Scott shows up to do some of the worst acting ever committed to any record Derek suspects masochism. If it’s not that, this bears a passing resemblance to pining, and Derek--doesn’t pine. After Kate, he took up knife throwing for a period, but that was just a temporary thing. And Stiles isn’t--Derek has been in regular communication with Stiles for a matter of days.

He shuts the laptop.

Derek avoids Stiles and talking about Stiles for another full day, but that night they have a night survey, and Stiles is coming with. Derek had almost forgotten--that Stiles was coming along, not the survey, he knows his research design inside and out and upside-down--but it’s already agreed to, and Stiles is there waiting by the truck, just like he was the first night. He holds up a thermos when Derek approaches.

“Brought coffee, this time,” he says. Derek nods. Stiles doesn’t say anything else, just drops his arms to his side and drums the fingers of his free hand against his leg like they’re physically going to fly off his hand if he holds them still.

“Okay,” Derek says.

Scott sits in the middle on drive up, which probably means Stiles told him something, and Derek forces himself not to wonder what Stiles said. Their fight wasn’t a fight, really, because they weren’t friends, really, but Derek doesn’t know what else to call it or them. They were casual acquaintances, maybe. They had a falling out, a disagreement. If this were a scientific paper Derek would have to cite papers explaining the differences between those terms, perhaps complete with a history of their usage, but as it stands--he swerves to avoid a pothole.

“Fuck,” Stiles says from across the cab. “Your driving is--” Stiles pauses like he’s cutting himself off, like he’s just remembered that he and Derek are back to being less than whatever they were.

“Still shit,” he finishes anyway, quietly, a few moments later. “I fear for my life.”

“Things don’t change that fast,” Derek says.

“Really?” Stiles asks, his tone suddenly saturated in sarcasm. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Okay,” Scott says from the middle. “Guys. Seriously.”

Scott puts his arm across Derek’s chest as if to restrain him, to which all Derek can say is, “I’m driving.”

He thinks he hears Stiles try to swat Scott away, so presumably Scott is spread-eagled, as if Stiles and Derek are going to physically confront one another in the cab of a moving vehicle.

“You can drive like this,” Scott says.

“Badly,” Stiles interjects, petulant.

“He can drive like this,” Scott repeats. They careen around a turn, and the headlights illuminate an elk--and fucking elk with a massive rack--and Derek slams on the brakes.

“He cannot drive like this,” he hears Stiles say, and he sees the elk leap out of the way, but it doesn’t matter much because what he hears next is the crunch of metal, and what he sees next is the hood of the truck, crumpled into a tree.

He cuts the engine.

“What the hell was that?” he asks, turning on Scott.

“You were driving too fast on logging roads!” Scott says. “At night! We’re lucky it wasn’t a moose.”

“Your arm was across my chest,” Derek says. He may be shouting.

“Which shouldn’t impact your foot’s ability to brake,” Scott says. “This is not my fault.”

“But what exactly was your arm doing?” Derek asks. “Because excuse me if I don’t understand how that helped.”

“You,” Scott sputters. “And Stiles! Stiles!” Scott turns so he’s facing away from Derek and towards Stiles, who has been strangely silent. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m not sitting in the middle while you two have a spat.”

“That was not a spat,” Stiles says sullenly. “You don’t know spat. You wouldn’t know spat if it shat in your face.”

“Stiles do you not see the tree?” Scott asks. “People don’t crash into trees unless something’s wrong.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Derek’s driving.”

“And the elk,” Derek says. “I am not the only one who saw the elk.”

“Okay,” Scott says. “Okay. Stiles, get out. I’m going to get the radio and radio the station. And call Allison, if we have service. I am not talking to either of you.”

“You’re supposed to take my side, Scott,” Stiles says.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Scott says before shoving Stiles in the shoulder. “Get out.”

Stiles complies, but not without grumbling. Derek stays in the truck. Scott had grabbed the flashlight from the door when he got out and he flicks it on, illuminating the forest around them with bobbing LEDs. Stiles is just standing there outside the truck’s open door.

“Shut the door, bugs’ll get in,” Derek says.

Stiles slams it, then turns so he’s facing away from Derek and continues standing there. Derek is busy ignoring the back of his head when the door opens a couple of minutes later and Stiles clambers back in.

“You brought mosquitoes,” Derek says after a few minutes of heavy silence, because he can’t help himself. Stiles sighs.

“You’re not good at not being a puzzle, you know that?” Stiles says.

“Allison’s aunt slept with me when I was nineteen and then submitted my research conclusions as her own,” Derek says, staring straight ahead at the tree in front of them, the forest around it fading into shadow.

“Oh,” Stiles says. His voice is soft--not just quiet, but soft around the edges, like something worn and faded, from age or use.

“Yeah,” Derek says.

“That’s not an excuse,” Stiles says, voice softer still.

“It’s an explanation,” Derek says. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Derek feels but doesn’t see Stiles stiffen besides him before Stiles says, “No, not really.”

“For Scott and Allison?” Derek presses. “Now you know, you can tell them, you can--”

“No, I just--” Stiles interjects before pausing, the silence lingering in the air between them like a physical thing. “I thought it would be good to talk about it. For you. And I’d been talking your ear off about all this shit and all I know about you is your feelings about wolves, and--”

“Oh,” Derek says, and now he sounds small. The syllable itself is small, but he doesn’t know what else there is.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “I guess I was wrong. I’ll just--” Stiles waves a hand vaguely, and then he’s sliding off the bench seat, opening the door, getting out and going around the back to talk to Scott. Derek suspects there’s something he could say to stop him, something in the repository of words that is the English language that would make Stiles pause and turn back, and it’s not that Derek doesn’t know what it is so much as he doesn’t know what would be the right thing, the words that wouldn’t just bring Stiles back to the empty space besides Derek but would make him understand the things even Derek doesn’t understand, yet.

When Stiles and Scott climb back into the cab Scott sits in the middle, again.

“Whoever was on radio duty was asleep, but I got cell service so I called Allison,” Scott says. “She’s going to come pick us up, and we can call a tow in the morning.”

“Okay,” Derek says. That’s pretty much all he says until they get back to the field station. Stiles talks to Scott and Allison on the drive down, but even Derek can tell it’s a thin veneer of false cheerfulness over something else, and it makes Derek crack a little, because whatever the veneer is covering is his fault.

Derek follows Scott and Allison to their room when they get back to the station, because there’s something shaped like an idea in his head and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to follow through on it in the daylight.

“Scott,” he says, catching him by the elbow. “Do you have one of those release forms Stiles needed?”

Scott looks at him blankly, but Allison smiles.

“I do,” she says. “Stiles gave me one, but he doesn’t have any footage of me, so I never--” she shrugs. “Come on.”

Derek follows them down the hall, feeling about as bewildered as Scott looks, and when they get to Allison’s room she and Scott disappear inside before Allison reemerges with a sheet of paper.

“Here,” she says, thrusting it towards Derek. “Good luck.”

Derek didn’t realize there was luck involved. He takes the paper and stares at the door for a few minutes after Allison shuts it, at the paper taped to the bland wood that says ‘Allison Argent’ in Times New Roman. Argent’s just a name, he figures.

His mind is even fuzzier when he gets to the room whose door says ‘Scott McCall,’ but he has momentum, and he feels like he needs to follow it through.

He knocks.

The Stiles who answers, who is not Scott McCall, is shirtless and blinking off sleep and confusion with thick lashes.

“Derek?” he says, squinting. Derek hands him the paper, and Stiles takes it and stares at it, still squinting, before disappearing into his room and reemerging with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

“Contacts,” he says, gesturing vaguely at his face before looking down at the paper. “Derek, what is--” he trails off, though, presumably taking in the place where Derek had printed his name before signing with a flourish. “You didn’t--”

Stiles looks up at him, and Derek shrugs.

“I did,” he says. “The thing with Kate--Allison’s aunt--you aren’t her.”

“Um, no,” Stiles says. “Thanks for stating the obvious, there.”

“I’m trying,” Derek says, and Stiles reaches over to squeeze his shoulder with a small smile.

“Sorry,” he says. “I know you are.”

“I decided,” Derek says. “You aren’t going to do anything I’ll regret.”

“You decided,” Stiles repeats. “At--four in the morning, after crashing the truck into a tree.”

Derek stares at him, and Stiles takes his hand from Derek’s shoulder to rub his head.

“I just--you’ve had a rough day,” Stiles says. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret, just to apologize with some grand gesture or whatever. It’s okay, dude. Apology accepted. It really--you don’t need to be in the series, if you don’t want to.”

Stiles looks like he’s going to turn around, and Derek reaches out to catch him by the shoulder, to hold him still before he fidgets away.

“No,” Derek says, as carefully as he can. “I want to. I want--”

He stops, because he’s not sure what the second part is, what the second thing he wants is. Stiles is staring at him, his eyes wide and still. Derek’s not sure if the glasses make them larger, somehow more present, or if that’s just how Stiles eyes are, but--

“What?” Stiles asks, cautious. Too cautious.

“You,” Derek says. “How it was before.”

Stiles deflates a little when Derek finishes the statement, and it takes a moment for Derek to recognize it for what it is--but then he does, then he does.

“Or,” he says, and he can feel a grin creeping across his face, now, can see what he thinks might be the beginnings of a matching one on Stiles’, because suddenly everything has taken on a crystalline clarity and Derek knows, for once in his life, something that has nothing to do with wolves and everything to do with people, with Stiles, who is standing before him all lashes and amber eyes and soft skin on rounded shoulders, skin Derek can feel with the pads of his fingers, right now.

“Just you,” Derek says, amending, finishing, completing, doing everything that seemed so hard before, drawing Stiles in.

The release form ends up somewhere on the floor between them as Stiles reaches up with long, thin fingers to touch the corner of Derek’s mouth, like Derek isn’t real, even as Derek knows precisely how real he is, and cracked, and broken, but Stiles presses his fingers there, to the corner of Derek’s lips, and then to the center, and then he smiles, uncertainly, asymmetrically, and Derek leans forward to kiss him.

Stiles tastes like sleep and coffee, and Derek almost can’t believe how soft he is, in all the right places, like something that has been worn in to fit Derek precisely. Stiles hums against Derek’s lips before they pull apart, and when they do a smile unfurls across Stiles’ face.

“I think we should get some sleep,” Stiles says. “You especially.”

Derek is about to turn to leave when Stiles catches him.

“I have the room to myself,” he says. “Scott McCall, you know, he never sleeps here. Always with some girl.”

And Derek knows the bed’s going to be too small and probably at least one of his limbs is going to lose circulation, but he follows Stiles anyway. Stiles’ bed is still warm, the blankets rumpled and folded back, and Stiles sits on the edge for a moment before taking off his glasses and pulling Derek down.

“I didn’t really expect,” Stiles whispers into his shoulder when Derek is just on the cusp of sleep. “If you change your mind in the morning, wake me up first.”

“I’m not going to,” Derek says, and Stiles tightens his hold on Derek’s waist.

“Good,” he says, and they’re hardly words so much as breath. “I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

When Derek wakes up the bed is empty and--not cold, exactly, but colder than he suspects it should be. He gropes at the blankets for a minute before rolling over. Stiles is sitting in a chair at a desk, arms looped around one folded knee.

“Breakfast?” he asks.

“I’m not going to change me mind,” Derek says, staring at him sideways. Stiles’ smile is, if possible, brighter than it was before.

“Good,” he says. “But breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And you’re going to have oatmeal and I’m going to have something that doesn’t taste like paste.”

Derek sits up and stretches, cracking his back.

“I was thinking bacon and eggs,” he says.

“You should save the celebration for after you get laid,” Stiles says. And Derek hums a little and smiles until Stiles throws something at him--a highlighter cap, apparently.

“Your smile is starting to creep me out,” Stiles says, but he’s grinning, and it just makes Derek smile wider. “I think you’re exercising muscles you haven’t used in years.”

“You aren’t as funny as you think you are,” Derek says.

“You still laugh,” Stiles counters. “Come on, clean clothes, then breakfast.”

Derek gets up, then pauses.

“Scott and I are doing camera traps today,” he says after a moment. “Want to come?”

Stiles looks taken aback, and he’s quiet for so long that Derek feels the need to add, “You can film.”

“I--” Stiles says.

“Well, if you’re too slow we’ll need to leave you in the truck after the first circuit,” Derek says. “And we need to get the truck and find one to borrow, so maybe there’s not enough time, anyway--”

And then Stiles is on him, all arms and hands and kisses with completely rancid morning breath, and Stiles is laughing something that sounds like ‘asshole’ and Derek doesn’t even care because this--well, it’s possible.