"In the Direction of the Moon" - Derek/Stiles, PG-13
Title: In the Direction of the Moon
Pairing/Characters: Stiles/Derek
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~4400
Summary: In which Stiles cooks and takes his meals with weirdos.
Warnings/Spoilers: AU after 1.08 “Lunatic”
Notes: Third in my Wolf Parade ’verse. Title is from the Wolf Parade song of the same name. Lyrics are quoted at the beginning and end.
Also, I am so sorry that this took so long to write! Since my last update, school started, I’m running the school website, I took my preliminary SATs, I’ve been made yearbook editor, I got a new job, and I won Nanowrimo- but I digress. I figure once I’m done with this whole thing I’ll post it in its entirety on fanfiction.net, yeah? On another note, this story is turning out to be much more domestically focussed than I originally intended, but I like it.
Previous Installments:
An Animal in Your Care
I’ll Believe in Anything
I take my meals with weirdos,
And all the while you are so composed.
False bravado is a good cover for his nerves, Stiles quickly decides. He’s good at being the goofy one, the one with all the witty and sarcastic answers. It covers up the fact that his mind is reeling, moving a mile a minute, with all that Derek’s told him- and the stutters of excitement that he quickly pushes down.
They’re just going to talk about it. Stiles hasn’t agreed to anything yet- the little voice in the back of his mind assuring him that he would agree to anything Derek Hale suggested is shoved down just as fast as the aforementioned stutters. His crush on the werewolf isn’t so overpowering that he didn’t have any sense. He needs to know more about this whole “mating” deal before he jumps in with both feet. Just because Derek is, essentially, offering some things Stiles had wanted for his whole life- somewhere to belong, unconditional love- doesn’t mean he should take him up on it. Not that he’s deluded himself into thinking Derek loves him; but wolves mate for life, and he got the vibe that werewolves followed suit. So, yeah. Probably permanent.
Stiles begins pulling out the things he’ll need to make dinner, gnawing on his bottom lip in thought. Cooking usually helps to take his mind off things, but it feels almost like he hasn’t taken his medication- he can’t focus on any one thing for longer than a moment before his thought processes spin off in a different direction.
The hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck begin to prickle and stand on end just as he’s crouched down to get a pot to boil potatoes. He can sense the werewolf entering the room, can feel the tension in the air despite not hearing his footsteps- but he doesn’t react. He has no qualms about having his back turned to Derek, at least not anymore. So he’s not even startled when Derek announces himself in his usual cocky way; by patronising him.
“What’re you doing down there?”
Stiles grabs the one he wants and then stands back up, brandishing the heavy stainless steel pot at the wolf with a roll of his eyes. “Cooking,” he snorts, manoeuvring the pot under the tap and flicking it on. He turns to face Derek at the werewolf continues to stare at him. “What?”
Derek shrugs. “Got bored,” he says, his words short and clipped as always. Stiles nods and turns to turn the water off before the pot overflows.
“It’ll be a while before I’m done,” Stiles reminds his houseguest quietly, not quite comfortable with the werewolf watching him. It’s an eerie feeling, having someone watch you as closely as he can feel Derek watching him. “So unless you want to help-”
He lifts the pot again- thrice as heavy now that it’s full of water- with a grunt of effort that he’s embarrassed to make. The weight is gone from his hands before he can turn to put in on the stove, and he raises an eyebrow at Derek and sets his jaw.
“I had it,” he protests weakly, but nods towards the stove anyway with a sigh. “Put it on the big burner.”
Derek gently sets the pot down on the largest burner, looking at Stiles expectantly. Stiles rolls his eyes again and reaches past him to turn the burner on low, then goes about picking his potatoes. He picks out ten medium-sized ones from the bag he’d already taken out of hiding and drops them on the counter, yanking open a drawer and riffling through it for their peeler.
“If you’re just going to stand there,” Stiles huffs as he finds the peeler and pulls it out from under the spoons (why on earth would his dad put it there?), “At least try to make yourself useful.”
He tosses the peeler in Derek’s general direction, feeling a little spike in his own heart rate as he tells a werewolf what to do. Derek catches the utensil without any difficulty and Stiles grabs a paring knife for his own use, slamming the drawer shut and hopping up backwards to sit on the counter next to his pile of potatoes.
Stiles is already carefully peeling his second potato with the paring knife and leaving a little pile of skins on the counter beside him when Derek reaches around him to grab one. He looks extremely out of his element as he mimics Stiles’ actions, standing awkwardly in the small Stilinski kitchen adding his potato peels to the pile. Stiles deftly halves each potato with his knife and drops them into the simmering pot as he goes along, purposefully oblivious to the awkward tension in the air.
Stiles has to hop off the counter to get the organic recycle bin from under the sink, and Derek automatically backs up and out of his way, his hand clenching around the peeler and his eyes studying Stiles intently. Stiles ignores him, mostly, as he grabs what his dad has long ago dubbed the “slop bucket” from the lower cabinet and scoops the potato peels into it.
He can feel Derek's eyes on the back of his neck as he replaces the bucket and then turns up the heat on the stove to bring the pot to a boil, and it feels... Weird. Uncomfortable. Stiles turns around to chastise the wolf but stops when he sees the look on Derek’s face. He looks... fascinated.
“What?” Stiles demands, crossing his arms across his chest.
Derek’s look of fascination turns immediately to a smirk of condescension as he tosses the peeler onto the counter and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Didn’t know you could cook,” he states simply, not quite smiling as Stiles lets out an almost offended huff of breath.
“The things you learn out of necessity,” he snarks right back, rolling his eyes and uncrossing his arms. He has to step around the bulky werewolf to get to the refrigerator in the cramped kitchen, but he manages not to touch Derek as he manoeuvres through the tight space to take the chicken out. The throwback mention to Stiles’ mother’s death leaves Derek with a lump in his throat, but Stiles doesn’t even look up to see his reaction as he sets about taking the breasts out of their package.
Stiles, on the other hand, just feels insanely lucky that Derek decided to be around after literally the one time in the past few months that the Sherriff had remembered to go grocery shopping. The fridge is full of cookable foodstuffs and nothing has gone bad yet; it almost looks like a normal household. If Derek had shown up a week earlier he would have found the house empty of food except for a few boxes of Kraft Dinner, a jug of expired milk and some wilted lettuce, the kitchen table littered with take-out menus and wrappings and several notes telling Stiles to order something in since his dad would be working late.
Quickly washing three of the six chicken breasts the Sherriff had bought, Stiles doesn’t even look at Derek until he’s put them in the oven and set the timer. Work done for the time being, he turns towards Derek only to see an almost sad expression on his face. Not used to the usually sour-looking wolf showing any kind of real emotion, Stiles finds himself frowning too.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his brow furrowing.
“Nothing,” Derek replies a second later, the frown slipping off his face. Stiles doesn’t push it, but he knows it wasn’t nothing.
“Well,” Stiles says awkwardly after a moment, scratching absently behind one ear, “We have twenty minutes to kill until I have to mash the potatoes, so...” He shrugs, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. “Does my being able to cook make me an even better choice for a mate, or what?”
The bluntness of the question startles a bark of laughter from Derek, his mask of stoic boredom slipping ever so slightly.
“Yes,” he says honestly, eying Stiles appraisingly for his reaction.
“And, um...” Stiles falters, not quite expecting the honesty. “What else... does?”
Derek continues eying him assessingly as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting a little. One of his hands creeps up to rub the back of his neck, where the fine hairs are prickling uncomfortably, and he looks like he regrets asking. The tension in the air is thick as Derek seemingly considers the question, broken only when he speaks.
“Quite a few things, actually,” he says vaguely, and Stiles stops fidgeting to rolls his eyes.
“Thanks for the ambiguity,” Stiles says facetiously, following it with an unbecoming snort of indignation. “That’s exactly the answer I wanted.”
Derek almost smiles, watching Stiles’ display with thinly-veiled amusement. “Sarcasm is not one of those attributes,” he states rather bluntly, though when Stiles looks up, startled, he can see the joke in Derek’s eyes. Stiles smiles a little, and it crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Loyalty is, though.”
“Loyalty?” Stiles repeats, “I guess that makes sense. Pack dynamics, and all that shiz.”
“You are extremely loyal. Almost to a fault,” Derek continues without any acknowledgement to attest to the fact that Stiles had spoken.
Stiles almost protests, but when he thinks about it, Derek’s probably right. So instead he digs his socked toe into a divot in the linoleum floor and casts his gaze downward.
“That’s something a wolf looks for in a mate, so stop making that face,” Derek grumbles with a fairly impressive roll of his eyes. Stiles looks up, startled.
“What face?” he demands, feeling exceedingly small and foolish standing in his little alley-way kitchen with Mr. Two-Hundred-Pounds-of-Muscle.
“That one-” Derek gestures vaguely towards Stiles’ mouth. “-like I kicked your fucking puppy.”
It’s Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes- he had definitely not been making a kicked-puppy face- and cross his arms. “Whatever,” he says dismissively, his mind racing to find something intelligent or funny to add to this incredibly awkward conversation.
“Speaking of puppies-” is what he decides on, but Derek cuts him off before he can finish the thought.
“Don’t even think about it,” Derek grinds out between his teeth, and Stiles is sure he’s hit a nerve.
“Oh come on!” Stiles protests, throwing his hands up in the air. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
Derek moves like he plans to stick his hands in his pockets- though he’s still wearing the borrowed sweatpants and police t-shirt, and has none- and ends up aborting the move to put his hands behind him on the counter. “You were going to make some crack about whether or not being my mate would require you to ‘whelp my pups,’” he responds dryly, raising and eyebrow at the nervous teenager. “Correct?”
Stiles shrugs. “It’s a legitimate question.” At Derek’s murderous glare, Stiles puts his hands up defensively. “It is!” he continues objectively, “For all I know you could work some ancient werewolf voodoo and get me pregnant or something, and I think that’s something I should be informed of before we start whatever creepy courting rituals are probably coming next.”
Derek snorts; it’s the closest thing to a real laugh Stiles has gotten out of him yet, so he counts it as another win in his book.
“Werewolves don’t do voodoo,” he says almost defensively, “You’re thinking of witches, and as far as I know there aren’t any in Beacon Hills. Besides-” Stiles almost cuts Derek off to ask if he was serious about there being witches, but decides he’d rather not have his throat ripped out, thank you very much. “My courting will in no way be creepy.”
“You don’t think any of this is creepy?” Stiles asks, a look of sheer disbelief passing over his features. “It’s already creepy! You being a werewolf is creepy! You liking the way I smell is creepy! You sneaking into my room in the middle of the night is creepy!” He’s flailing his arms around like pinwheels, making all sorts of faces that Derek finds amusing. “It’s going to be creepy, even if it’s totally normal!”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Derek comments dryly, leaning back against the Stilinksis’ counter.
“Who cares?” Stiles retorts, an almost hysterical laugh escaping his lips, “Nothing about this situation makes sense! You’re supposed to hate me, I’m supposed to hate you, and no one is supposed to get mated in this situation, but apparently that’s what’s happening.” He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand across his eyes, looking tired. “Everything about this is creepy and complicated and confusing.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Derek points out, carefully taking a step closer to his potential mate, “Well, it doesn’t have to be confusing, at least. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, and then you make a decision. It’s not that complicated either.”
Stiles just sighs and throws his hands up in defeat. He mumbles something under his breath that Derek pretends not to hear and turns back to the potatoes, which have long-ago reached a boil and are probably ready to be mashed.
Stiles fishes out a colander from one of the lower cabinets and then turns off the burner, reaching around Derek to grab the household’s one and only pair of oven mitts.
“If you could just strain those for me-” he says, turning to offer the mitts to his companion. His voice falters, at a loss for words for once, as he watches Derek deftly grab the sides of the pot and tip it over the colander Stiles had placed in the sink. “Derek!”
Derek looks up from the task sharply, a question behind his eyes. Stiles holds up the oven mitts and raises his eyebrows, jabbing his chin pointedly in the direction of the scalding pot Derek is still effortlessly holding over the sink as water drains from the cooked potatoes.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Stiles asks tentatively as Derek sets the pot down again, turning his palms upwards for inspection. Red, angry lines mark where hot metal touched skin, but only for a moment. The minor burns heal before Stiles’ eyes, sealing up as though they’d never been there.
“Not really,” Derek says with a half-shrug of his shoulders. Then he smirks and Stiles groans, smacking the werewolf’s shoulder with the oven mitt still held loosely in his hand.
“Show-off,” he grumbles, tossing the mitts onto the counter and pulling open the cutlery drawer for the masher. “You did that on purpose.”
“I did not,” Derek disagrees casually, though Stiles can’t tell whether he is lying or not by either his voice or his posture.
Stiles has to step around Derek several times to get to various things around the kitchen over the next twenty minutes, wishing for the first time that they had a less compact kitchen. He’s never had anyone watch or try to help him cook before, and the extra obstacle in the already cramped kitchen makes the task take quite a bit longer. Or maybe it’s just that someone watching him is making him do everything slowly and carefully. Who knows?
Derek watches, fascinated, as Stiles dons the oven mitts to take the chicken out of the oven. Stiles almost rolls his eyes every time he sees Derek- which is every other second, practically- looking large and out-of-place in their tiny kitchen. He makes up three plates and deliberately places the extra one in the microwave to keep it hot for his dad.
He offers one of the plates to Derek, who takes it gingerly as Stiles rummages around in the drawer for the best forks and knives in their mix-match of sets. Some of them are old and even rusty, but neither Stilinski can bear to throw away the thin, flower-embellished utensils Stiles’ mother had bought just after her wedding. Stiles knows not to touch those ones, and instead grabs two sturdy, more modern forks and the matching knives for himself and Derek.
He sets Derek’s place at the small dining room table and then puts his own plate and cutlery down across from it. Derek puts his own plate down at follows Stiles with his eyes as he returns to the kitchen to grab two glasses and the milk jug.
“Milk or water?” Stiles asks awkwardly after setting the glasses down. He’s not used to entertaining company, and supernatural company is no exception. If Scott had been here they’d be sprawled out in front of the television by now scarfing their dinners down as fast as possible so they’d have their hands free to play video games.
“Milk is fine,” Derek says gruffly, though he seems to be forcing himself to be polite. Stiles figures that Derek isn’t used to being company any more than Stiles is used to having company.
With a sigh, Stiles flops into his seat and then pours himself a glass of milk, pushing it closer to Derek’s place at the table afterwards and then digging into his dinner with the usual gusto. Derek down sits across from Stiles primly, and the image is almost laughable as Derek beings to meticulously cut up his chicken and follow Stiles’ lead, though considerably neater.
“So-” Stiles says after an awkward silence, swallowing his mouthful of potatoes (which are delicious, if he does say so himself) and twirling his fork absently through the little mountain he’s shaped with them. “This mating thing. I’ve got a weird picture of what it would entail in my head, but I’m sure that it’s wrong.” The picture in Stiles’ head is, in fact, Stiles dressed up as a fifties housewife and running around making pot roasts and ironing and gardening.
“It would entail binding our souls together in miraculous contract in order to strengthen us and bring honour unto our pack,” Derek says as though reciting the definition from a book. He scrapes his knife against his plate and the noise makes Stiles wince, but he doesn’t interrupt. “There would be courting, which can be almost exactly the same as typical human dating, and then the claiming.”
“And how does that work? The claiming?” Stiles asks with an almost morbid fascination, almost forgetting about his dinner as a shiver of anticipation runs down his spine. Ideas flash in his mind in rapid succession- would Derek bite him? Turn him? Recite some sort of binding spell? Would the claiming simply involve them... consummating the relationship, or something else entirely?
Derek stares at him for a long minute and then returns to his dinner with a half-hearted shrug. “Don’t know,” he says at length.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Stiles demands, his heart suddenly racing again. “Didn’t your parents tell you?”
“Not really. They didn’t get into the details. I was still essentially a child when-” Derek blinks and then falls silent for a moment. “And they never really got around to giving me that talk. So I’m not sure. I believe I have some idea, but I could be entirely wrong.”
“If you don’t know how to do it, then how on earth would we?” Stiles asks shakily. “And why would I agree to something without knowing what I was getting into first? I want to know what I’m agreeing to before I get too invested in this.”
“I already told you, you don’t have to agree to anything yet,” Derek replies calmly, still cutting his chicken into tiny cubes of meat. “And I’m almost certain that once the time comes, the instinct will be enough to lead me through the actual process of the claiming.”
Stiles sighs, jabs his fork into his chicken and doesn’t reply. His mind is racing. He stuffs his face barbarically, and an outsider observing the meal mind entertain the idea that it is Stiles who is the beast and not the older man almost daintily consuming his dinner.
When their plates are clean Stiles drains the rest of his milk and then gathers up the vestiges of the meal to put in the sink. Derek puts the milk jug back into the refrigerator without being asked, and some of the frustration wilts out of Stiles when he turns back to him.
“Shall we continue this discussion upstairs?” Stiles asks, because he feels awfully exposed in the kitchen. Derek nods once and climbs up the stairs, Stiles following close behind.
Once the door to Stiles’ room has been closed behind them, Stiles crosses his arms. “I want to stay human,” he blurts suddenly. “I’m pretty sure I’d be cool with the rest of it, but I don’t want to be like you and Scott.”
“You don’t have to be turned to be a mate,” Derek assures Stiles quickly. “It doesn’t work like that. To turn someone, you have to bite them with the intention of turning- an accidental nip or two shouldn’t do any damage to your humanity.”
Stiles shifts a little uncomfortably under Derek’s gaze, trying to think of something else to ask that won’t sound desperate or idiotic. “You think I’m annoying,” is what he settles on. “That I talk too much. Do you even find me attractive? Because if you don’t, this isn’t going to work, like, at all.”
Derek doesn’t answer the question, but instead steps into Stiles’ personal space and backs him up against the wall. He has a predatory look in his eyes, just like the night before, and Stiles feels his pulse quicken and his breathing stutter under the gaze.
Stiles opens his mouth to ask what Derek is doing, but before he’s able to make a sound, he has been silenced by the firm pressure of Derek’s mouth closing over his own. Stiles takes a sharp breath through his nose, his eyes falling shut as he feels Derek’s hand move to his jaw and his lips moving gently.
Stiles is surprised by the gentleness as much as he is by the kiss itself. The rough feeling of Derek’s stubble against his chin as he presses closer is surprisingly awesome, and the tug of Derek’s teeth on his bottom lip is heavenly. Stiles catches himself before he moans, pulls back to avoid making an embarrassing noise.
When he opens his eyes, Derek is still close, almost too close. His eyes are hazel and surprised looking as he pulls back a little, giving Stiles room to breathe. It doesn’t help. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to breathe right again.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Stiles says breathlessly, shaking his head just the slightest bit.
“Nor do I,” Derek replies honestly, his voice rough. Stiles thinks maybe he can see an emotion there, behind the almost dazed look on his face.
Stiles is about to say something else when he sees Derek’s eyes narrow just the slightest bit. Stiles can almost imagine him as a dog, his ears pricking up at a sound in the distance. “Your father is on his way home,” he states neutrally, his stoic mask falling into place again.
“Derek-” Stiles says, but Derek is at Stiles’ bedroom window in a second, the movement so fast Stiles hardly sees it at all. “Wait.”
Derek stops with the window open in front of him, poised for flight but stopping on Stiles’ request.
“You don’t have to go,” Stiles says quickly. “My dad is totally oblivious. You can still stay here, if you want to. You’re welcome to stay.”
Derek looks conflicted for a moment, but then his intention to leave is clear again. “You have a lot to think about tonight. My being here would interfere with your judgement.”
The headlights of his father’s cruiser pull into the driveway, lighting up Derek’s face at the window. “What if I have more questions? I definitely have more questions,” Stiles protests weakly. “How will I find you?”
“I’ll be around,” Derek assures him quietly. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”
The sound of the cruiser’s door slamming punctuates the silence of the night, and then the soft beep of the Sherriff setting the car’s alarm. Derek waits a moment for the window to be out of the Sherriff’s line of sight and then leaps out of it.
Stiles runs to the window the moment Derek is out of it, his hands grabbing the sill as he sticks his head out to watch the werewolf leave.
“Stiles?” Stiles whips his head around when hears his father call his name from downstairs, the familiar sounds of his father dropping his keys on the counter and shucking his jacket loud enough to be heard through the closed door. Stiles closes the window with a sigh and crosses his room in three large steps, opening his bedroom door and stepping out onto the landing. From the top of the stairs he can see his father loosening his tie in the kitchen with one hand and rubbing at his eyes with the other.
“Dinner is in the microwave,” Stiles says quickly, and the Sherriff looks up at his son with a smile.
“Thanks, son,” he says warily opening the microwave and then sneezing violently. He grabs his allergy medication from where it is still on the counter from that morning, opening the bottle and swallowing one of the little pink pills dry. “You gotten rid of that dog yet?”
Stiles bursts out laughing. “Yeah, dad, I dealt with it,” he says when he is able, and then retreats to his bedroom. When he’s alone again, he walks to his window and looks out on the night. For a second, he thinks he sees a shadow moving across the street, but in a blink it’s gone, and he can’t be sure it was ever Derek in the first place.
I’ve been running off in the hours
between midnight and dawn, .
in the direction of the moon.
Pairing/Characters: Stiles/Derek
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~4400
Summary: In which Stiles cooks and takes his meals with weirdos.
Warnings/Spoilers: AU after 1.08 “Lunatic”
Notes: Third in my Wolf Parade ’verse. Title is from the Wolf Parade song of the same name. Lyrics are quoted at the beginning and end.
Also, I am so sorry that this took so long to write! Since my last update, school started, I’m running the school website, I took my preliminary SATs, I’ve been made yearbook editor, I got a new job, and I won Nanowrimo- but I digress. I figure once I’m done with this whole thing I’ll post it in its entirety on fanfiction.net, yeah? On another note, this story is turning out to be much more domestically focussed than I originally intended, but I like it.
Previous Installments:
An Animal in Your Care
I’ll Believe in Anything
I take my meals with weirdos,
And all the while you are so composed.
False bravado is a good cover for his nerves, Stiles quickly decides. He’s good at being the goofy one, the one with all the witty and sarcastic answers. It covers up the fact that his mind is reeling, moving a mile a minute, with all that Derek’s told him- and the stutters of excitement that he quickly pushes down.
They’re just going to talk about it. Stiles hasn’t agreed to anything yet- the little voice in the back of his mind assuring him that he would agree to anything Derek Hale suggested is shoved down just as fast as the aforementioned stutters. His crush on the werewolf isn’t so overpowering that he didn’t have any sense. He needs to know more about this whole “mating” deal before he jumps in with both feet. Just because Derek is, essentially, offering some things Stiles had wanted for his whole life- somewhere to belong, unconditional love- doesn’t mean he should take him up on it. Not that he’s deluded himself into thinking Derek loves him; but wolves mate for life, and he got the vibe that werewolves followed suit. So, yeah. Probably permanent.
Stiles begins pulling out the things he’ll need to make dinner, gnawing on his bottom lip in thought. Cooking usually helps to take his mind off things, but it feels almost like he hasn’t taken his medication- he can’t focus on any one thing for longer than a moment before his thought processes spin off in a different direction.
The hairs on the back of Stiles’ neck begin to prickle and stand on end just as he’s crouched down to get a pot to boil potatoes. He can sense the werewolf entering the room, can feel the tension in the air despite not hearing his footsteps- but he doesn’t react. He has no qualms about having his back turned to Derek, at least not anymore. So he’s not even startled when Derek announces himself in his usual cocky way; by patronising him.
“What’re you doing down there?”
Stiles grabs the one he wants and then stands back up, brandishing the heavy stainless steel pot at the wolf with a roll of his eyes. “Cooking,” he snorts, manoeuvring the pot under the tap and flicking it on. He turns to face Derek at the werewolf continues to stare at him. “What?”
Derek shrugs. “Got bored,” he says, his words short and clipped as always. Stiles nods and turns to turn the water off before the pot overflows.
“It’ll be a while before I’m done,” Stiles reminds his houseguest quietly, not quite comfortable with the werewolf watching him. It’s an eerie feeling, having someone watch you as closely as he can feel Derek watching him. “So unless you want to help-”
He lifts the pot again- thrice as heavy now that it’s full of water- with a grunt of effort that he’s embarrassed to make. The weight is gone from his hands before he can turn to put in on the stove, and he raises an eyebrow at Derek and sets his jaw.
“I had it,” he protests weakly, but nods towards the stove anyway with a sigh. “Put it on the big burner.”
Derek gently sets the pot down on the largest burner, looking at Stiles expectantly. Stiles rolls his eyes again and reaches past him to turn the burner on low, then goes about picking his potatoes. He picks out ten medium-sized ones from the bag he’d already taken out of hiding and drops them on the counter, yanking open a drawer and riffling through it for their peeler.
“If you’re just going to stand there,” Stiles huffs as he finds the peeler and pulls it out from under the spoons (why on earth would his dad put it there?), “At least try to make yourself useful.”
He tosses the peeler in Derek’s general direction, feeling a little spike in his own heart rate as he tells a werewolf what to do. Derek catches the utensil without any difficulty and Stiles grabs a paring knife for his own use, slamming the drawer shut and hopping up backwards to sit on the counter next to his pile of potatoes.
Stiles is already carefully peeling his second potato with the paring knife and leaving a little pile of skins on the counter beside him when Derek reaches around him to grab one. He looks extremely out of his element as he mimics Stiles’ actions, standing awkwardly in the small Stilinski kitchen adding his potato peels to the pile. Stiles deftly halves each potato with his knife and drops them into the simmering pot as he goes along, purposefully oblivious to the awkward tension in the air.
Stiles has to hop off the counter to get the organic recycle bin from under the sink, and Derek automatically backs up and out of his way, his hand clenching around the peeler and his eyes studying Stiles intently. Stiles ignores him, mostly, as he grabs what his dad has long ago dubbed the “slop bucket” from the lower cabinet and scoops the potato peels into it.
He can feel Derek's eyes on the back of his neck as he replaces the bucket and then turns up the heat on the stove to bring the pot to a boil, and it feels... Weird. Uncomfortable. Stiles turns around to chastise the wolf but stops when he sees the look on Derek’s face. He looks... fascinated.
“What?” Stiles demands, crossing his arms across his chest.
Derek’s look of fascination turns immediately to a smirk of condescension as he tosses the peeler onto the counter and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Didn’t know you could cook,” he states simply, not quite smiling as Stiles lets out an almost offended huff of breath.
“The things you learn out of necessity,” he snarks right back, rolling his eyes and uncrossing his arms. He has to step around the bulky werewolf to get to the refrigerator in the cramped kitchen, but he manages not to touch Derek as he manoeuvres through the tight space to take the chicken out. The throwback mention to Stiles’ mother’s death leaves Derek with a lump in his throat, but Stiles doesn’t even look up to see his reaction as he sets about taking the breasts out of their package.
Stiles, on the other hand, just feels insanely lucky that Derek decided to be around after literally the one time in the past few months that the Sherriff had remembered to go grocery shopping. The fridge is full of cookable foodstuffs and nothing has gone bad yet; it almost looks like a normal household. If Derek had shown up a week earlier he would have found the house empty of food except for a few boxes of Kraft Dinner, a jug of expired milk and some wilted lettuce, the kitchen table littered with take-out menus and wrappings and several notes telling Stiles to order something in since his dad would be working late.
Quickly washing three of the six chicken breasts the Sherriff had bought, Stiles doesn’t even look at Derek until he’s put them in the oven and set the timer. Work done for the time being, he turns towards Derek only to see an almost sad expression on his face. Not used to the usually sour-looking wolf showing any kind of real emotion, Stiles finds himself frowning too.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his brow furrowing.
“Nothing,” Derek replies a second later, the frown slipping off his face. Stiles doesn’t push it, but he knows it wasn’t nothing.
“Well,” Stiles says awkwardly after a moment, scratching absently behind one ear, “We have twenty minutes to kill until I have to mash the potatoes, so...” He shrugs, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. “Does my being able to cook make me an even better choice for a mate, or what?”
The bluntness of the question startles a bark of laughter from Derek, his mask of stoic boredom slipping ever so slightly.
“Yes,” he says honestly, eying Stiles appraisingly for his reaction.
“And, um...” Stiles falters, not quite expecting the honesty. “What else... does?”
Derek continues eying him assessingly as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting a little. One of his hands creeps up to rub the back of his neck, where the fine hairs are prickling uncomfortably, and he looks like he regrets asking. The tension in the air is thick as Derek seemingly considers the question, broken only when he speaks.
“Quite a few things, actually,” he says vaguely, and Stiles stops fidgeting to rolls his eyes.
“Thanks for the ambiguity,” Stiles says facetiously, following it with an unbecoming snort of indignation. “That’s exactly the answer I wanted.”
Derek almost smiles, watching Stiles’ display with thinly-veiled amusement. “Sarcasm is not one of those attributes,” he states rather bluntly, though when Stiles looks up, startled, he can see the joke in Derek’s eyes. Stiles smiles a little, and it crinkles the corners of his eyes. “Loyalty is, though.”
“Loyalty?” Stiles repeats, “I guess that makes sense. Pack dynamics, and all that shiz.”
“You are extremely loyal. Almost to a fault,” Derek continues without any acknowledgement to attest to the fact that Stiles had spoken.
Stiles almost protests, but when he thinks about it, Derek’s probably right. So instead he digs his socked toe into a divot in the linoleum floor and casts his gaze downward.
“That’s something a wolf looks for in a mate, so stop making that face,” Derek grumbles with a fairly impressive roll of his eyes. Stiles looks up, startled.
“What face?” he demands, feeling exceedingly small and foolish standing in his little alley-way kitchen with Mr. Two-Hundred-Pounds-of-Muscle.
“That one-” Derek gestures vaguely towards Stiles’ mouth. “-like I kicked your fucking puppy.”
It’s Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes- he had definitely not been making a kicked-puppy face- and cross his arms. “Whatever,” he says dismissively, his mind racing to find something intelligent or funny to add to this incredibly awkward conversation.
“Speaking of puppies-” is what he decides on, but Derek cuts him off before he can finish the thought.
“Don’t even think about it,” Derek grinds out between his teeth, and Stiles is sure he’s hit a nerve.
“Oh come on!” Stiles protests, throwing his hands up in the air. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
Derek moves like he plans to stick his hands in his pockets- though he’s still wearing the borrowed sweatpants and police t-shirt, and has none- and ends up aborting the move to put his hands behind him on the counter. “You were going to make some crack about whether or not being my mate would require you to ‘whelp my pups,’” he responds dryly, raising and eyebrow at the nervous teenager. “Correct?”
Stiles shrugs. “It’s a legitimate question.” At Derek’s murderous glare, Stiles puts his hands up defensively. “It is!” he continues objectively, “For all I know you could work some ancient werewolf voodoo and get me pregnant or something, and I think that’s something I should be informed of before we start whatever creepy courting rituals are probably coming next.”
Derek snorts; it’s the closest thing to a real laugh Stiles has gotten out of him yet, so he counts it as another win in his book.
“Werewolves don’t do voodoo,” he says almost defensively, “You’re thinking of witches, and as far as I know there aren’t any in Beacon Hills. Besides-” Stiles almost cuts Derek off to ask if he was serious about there being witches, but decides he’d rather not have his throat ripped out, thank you very much. “My courting will in no way be creepy.”
“You don’t think any of this is creepy?” Stiles asks, a look of sheer disbelief passing over his features. “It’s already creepy! You being a werewolf is creepy! You liking the way I smell is creepy! You sneaking into my room in the middle of the night is creepy!” He’s flailing his arms around like pinwheels, making all sorts of faces that Derek finds amusing. “It’s going to be creepy, even if it’s totally normal!”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Derek comments dryly, leaning back against the Stilinksis’ counter.
“Who cares?” Stiles retorts, an almost hysterical laugh escaping his lips, “Nothing about this situation makes sense! You’re supposed to hate me, I’m supposed to hate you, and no one is supposed to get mated in this situation, but apparently that’s what’s happening.” He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand across his eyes, looking tired. “Everything about this is creepy and complicated and confusing.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Derek points out, carefully taking a step closer to his potential mate, “Well, it doesn’t have to be confusing, at least. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, and then you make a decision. It’s not that complicated either.”
Stiles just sighs and throws his hands up in defeat. He mumbles something under his breath that Derek pretends not to hear and turns back to the potatoes, which have long-ago reached a boil and are probably ready to be mashed.
Stiles fishes out a colander from one of the lower cabinets and then turns off the burner, reaching around Derek to grab the household’s one and only pair of oven mitts.
“If you could just strain those for me-” he says, turning to offer the mitts to his companion. His voice falters, at a loss for words for once, as he watches Derek deftly grab the sides of the pot and tip it over the colander Stiles had placed in the sink. “Derek!”
Derek looks up from the task sharply, a question behind his eyes. Stiles holds up the oven mitts and raises his eyebrows, jabbing his chin pointedly in the direction of the scalding pot Derek is still effortlessly holding over the sink as water drains from the cooked potatoes.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Stiles asks tentatively as Derek sets the pot down again, turning his palms upwards for inspection. Red, angry lines mark where hot metal touched skin, but only for a moment. The minor burns heal before Stiles’ eyes, sealing up as though they’d never been there.
“Not really,” Derek says with a half-shrug of his shoulders. Then he smirks and Stiles groans, smacking the werewolf’s shoulder with the oven mitt still held loosely in his hand.
“Show-off,” he grumbles, tossing the mitts onto the counter and pulling open the cutlery drawer for the masher. “You did that on purpose.”
“I did not,” Derek disagrees casually, though Stiles can’t tell whether he is lying or not by either his voice or his posture.
Stiles has to step around Derek several times to get to various things around the kitchen over the next twenty minutes, wishing for the first time that they had a less compact kitchen. He’s never had anyone watch or try to help him cook before, and the extra obstacle in the already cramped kitchen makes the task take quite a bit longer. Or maybe it’s just that someone watching him is making him do everything slowly and carefully. Who knows?
Derek watches, fascinated, as Stiles dons the oven mitts to take the chicken out of the oven. Stiles almost rolls his eyes every time he sees Derek- which is every other second, practically- looking large and out-of-place in their tiny kitchen. He makes up three plates and deliberately places the extra one in the microwave to keep it hot for his dad.
He offers one of the plates to Derek, who takes it gingerly as Stiles rummages around in the drawer for the best forks and knives in their mix-match of sets. Some of them are old and even rusty, but neither Stilinski can bear to throw away the thin, flower-embellished utensils Stiles’ mother had bought just after her wedding. Stiles knows not to touch those ones, and instead grabs two sturdy, more modern forks and the matching knives for himself and Derek.
He sets Derek’s place at the small dining room table and then puts his own plate and cutlery down across from it. Derek puts his own plate down at follows Stiles with his eyes as he returns to the kitchen to grab two glasses and the milk jug.
“Milk or water?” Stiles asks awkwardly after setting the glasses down. He’s not used to entertaining company, and supernatural company is no exception. If Scott had been here they’d be sprawled out in front of the television by now scarfing their dinners down as fast as possible so they’d have their hands free to play video games.
“Milk is fine,” Derek says gruffly, though he seems to be forcing himself to be polite. Stiles figures that Derek isn’t used to being company any more than Stiles is used to having company.
With a sigh, Stiles flops into his seat and then pours himself a glass of milk, pushing it closer to Derek’s place at the table afterwards and then digging into his dinner with the usual gusto. Derek down sits across from Stiles primly, and the image is almost laughable as Derek beings to meticulously cut up his chicken and follow Stiles’ lead, though considerably neater.
“So-” Stiles says after an awkward silence, swallowing his mouthful of potatoes (which are delicious, if he does say so himself) and twirling his fork absently through the little mountain he’s shaped with them. “This mating thing. I’ve got a weird picture of what it would entail in my head, but I’m sure that it’s wrong.” The picture in Stiles’ head is, in fact, Stiles dressed up as a fifties housewife and running around making pot roasts and ironing and gardening.
“It would entail binding our souls together in miraculous contract in order to strengthen us and bring honour unto our pack,” Derek says as though reciting the definition from a book. He scrapes his knife against his plate and the noise makes Stiles wince, but he doesn’t interrupt. “There would be courting, which can be almost exactly the same as typical human dating, and then the claiming.”
“And how does that work? The claiming?” Stiles asks with an almost morbid fascination, almost forgetting about his dinner as a shiver of anticipation runs down his spine. Ideas flash in his mind in rapid succession- would Derek bite him? Turn him? Recite some sort of binding spell? Would the claiming simply involve them... consummating the relationship, or something else entirely?
Derek stares at him for a long minute and then returns to his dinner with a half-hearted shrug. “Don’t know,” he says at length.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Stiles demands, his heart suddenly racing again. “Didn’t your parents tell you?”
“Not really. They didn’t get into the details. I was still essentially a child when-” Derek blinks and then falls silent for a moment. “And they never really got around to giving me that talk. So I’m not sure. I believe I have some idea, but I could be entirely wrong.”
“If you don’t know how to do it, then how on earth would we?” Stiles asks shakily. “And why would I agree to something without knowing what I was getting into first? I want to know what I’m agreeing to before I get too invested in this.”
“I already told you, you don’t have to agree to anything yet,” Derek replies calmly, still cutting his chicken into tiny cubes of meat. “And I’m almost certain that once the time comes, the instinct will be enough to lead me through the actual process of the claiming.”
Stiles sighs, jabs his fork into his chicken and doesn’t reply. His mind is racing. He stuffs his face barbarically, and an outsider observing the meal mind entertain the idea that it is Stiles who is the beast and not the older man almost daintily consuming his dinner.
When their plates are clean Stiles drains the rest of his milk and then gathers up the vestiges of the meal to put in the sink. Derek puts the milk jug back into the refrigerator without being asked, and some of the frustration wilts out of Stiles when he turns back to him.
“Shall we continue this discussion upstairs?” Stiles asks, because he feels awfully exposed in the kitchen. Derek nods once and climbs up the stairs, Stiles following close behind.
Once the door to Stiles’ room has been closed behind them, Stiles crosses his arms. “I want to stay human,” he blurts suddenly. “I’m pretty sure I’d be cool with the rest of it, but I don’t want to be like you and Scott.”
“You don’t have to be turned to be a mate,” Derek assures Stiles quickly. “It doesn’t work like that. To turn someone, you have to bite them with the intention of turning- an accidental nip or two shouldn’t do any damage to your humanity.”
Stiles shifts a little uncomfortably under Derek’s gaze, trying to think of something else to ask that won’t sound desperate or idiotic. “You think I’m annoying,” is what he settles on. “That I talk too much. Do you even find me attractive? Because if you don’t, this isn’t going to work, like, at all.”
Derek doesn’t answer the question, but instead steps into Stiles’ personal space and backs him up against the wall. He has a predatory look in his eyes, just like the night before, and Stiles feels his pulse quicken and his breathing stutter under the gaze.
Stiles opens his mouth to ask what Derek is doing, but before he’s able to make a sound, he has been silenced by the firm pressure of Derek’s mouth closing over his own. Stiles takes a sharp breath through his nose, his eyes falling shut as he feels Derek’s hand move to his jaw and his lips moving gently.
Stiles is surprised by the gentleness as much as he is by the kiss itself. The rough feeling of Derek’s stubble against his chin as he presses closer is surprisingly awesome, and the tug of Derek’s teeth on his bottom lip is heavenly. Stiles catches himself before he moans, pulls back to avoid making an embarrassing noise.
When he opens his eyes, Derek is still close, almost too close. His eyes are hazel and surprised looking as he pulls back a little, giving Stiles room to breathe. It doesn’t help. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to breathe right again.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Stiles says breathlessly, shaking his head just the slightest bit.
“Nor do I,” Derek replies honestly, his voice rough. Stiles thinks maybe he can see an emotion there, behind the almost dazed look on his face.
Stiles is about to say something else when he sees Derek’s eyes narrow just the slightest bit. Stiles can almost imagine him as a dog, his ears pricking up at a sound in the distance. “Your father is on his way home,” he states neutrally, his stoic mask falling into place again.
“Derek-” Stiles says, but Derek is at Stiles’ bedroom window in a second, the movement so fast Stiles hardly sees it at all. “Wait.”
Derek stops with the window open in front of him, poised for flight but stopping on Stiles’ request.
“You don’t have to go,” Stiles says quickly. “My dad is totally oblivious. You can still stay here, if you want to. You’re welcome to stay.”
Derek looks conflicted for a moment, but then his intention to leave is clear again. “You have a lot to think about tonight. My being here would interfere with your judgement.”
The headlights of his father’s cruiser pull into the driveway, lighting up Derek’s face at the window. “What if I have more questions? I definitely have more questions,” Stiles protests weakly. “How will I find you?”
“I’ll be around,” Derek assures him quietly. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”
The sound of the cruiser’s door slamming punctuates the silence of the night, and then the soft beep of the Sherriff setting the car’s alarm. Derek waits a moment for the window to be out of the Sherriff’s line of sight and then leaps out of it.
Stiles runs to the window the moment Derek is out of it, his hands grabbing the sill as he sticks his head out to watch the werewolf leave.
“Stiles?” Stiles whips his head around when hears his father call his name from downstairs, the familiar sounds of his father dropping his keys on the counter and shucking his jacket loud enough to be heard through the closed door. Stiles closes the window with a sigh and crosses his room in three large steps, opening his bedroom door and stepping out onto the landing. From the top of the stairs he can see his father loosening his tie in the kitchen with one hand and rubbing at his eyes with the other.
“Dinner is in the microwave,” Stiles says quickly, and the Sherriff looks up at his son with a smile.
“Thanks, son,” he says warily opening the microwave and then sneezing violently. He grabs his allergy medication from where it is still on the counter from that morning, opening the bottle and swallowing one of the little pink pills dry. “You gotten rid of that dog yet?”
Stiles bursts out laughing. “Yeah, dad, I dealt with it,” he says when he is able, and then retreats to his bedroom. When he’s alone again, he walks to his window and looks out on the night. For a second, he thinks he sees a shadow moving across the street, but in a blink it’s gone, and he can’t be sure it was ever Derek in the first place.
I’ve been running off in the hours
between midnight and dawn, .
in the direction of the moon.