tricksters make this world
Hi. So I wrote more Teen Wolf. I also shamelessly recycled the premise of Mr. Eames &, so, you know, there's that. I was actually writing another premise and suddenly that one just--showed up. Thank you, kinkmeme anon, for giving me (us?) the gift that keeps on giving (in this case, I guess that would be inspiration).
Anyway, as a forewarning: I probably won't be super active over the next--month? maybe more? I still have a lot of half-finished fics in my gdocs (Inception, Suits, XMen) and I also really want to write Danny/Stiles, so I'll be back (as they say) but--life is happening, and I need to be there when it does. So it does, in some cases.
I don't actually know what I'm saying at this point, so let's get on with the show, ladies and gents. My last Teen Wolf fic disregarded the 'wolf' part of the equation, this one ages out the 'teen' bit, maybe I'll get it right someday. Oh, and for those of you who haven't succumbed to the siren call of Teen Wolf and would like to, I have useful resources! And for those of you haven't succumbed and are sick of hearing about it...I am sorry.
Oh, and spoilerwise: this doesn't really spoil anything, but it is grounded in the events of season 2 but was started before episode 10 (Fury) and doesn't account for potential repercussions of the events therin.
ETA (08/14/12): I've made some fairly minor changes to this fic in light of concerns that were brought to me about cultural appropriation. Thanks go to theaveryrule for talking through these changes with me. Apologies to anyone who was offended before the changes were made; if you have any further concerns about this (or anything else, really), feel free to comment or PM me directly and I'd be happy to discuss.
.tricksters make this world
stiles comes back to beacon hills during the new moon in april.
notes: many thanks to gollumgollum for the beta and also for answering my idiotic questions, and generally being a kind and helpful person. I take full responsibility for any remaining errors.
credit to Lewis Hyde and his truly excellent book 'Trickster Makes This World' for--as you can probably see--the title.
pg13 . 26346 words . AO3
“The first story I have to tell is not exactly true, but it isn’t exactly false, either.”
- “Trickster Makes This World,” Lewis Hyde
Stiles comes back to Beacon Hills during a new moon in the spring, when cool, moisture-laden air is coming in off the Pacific Ocean and everything smells more like itself. Stiles though--Stiles doesn’t smell like himself. The base notes of his scent remain the same, they’ve been overwritten with the scents of new places, new people. Scott’s scent is distant now, and the smell of high school locker room’s been eliminated entirely. The Sheriff’s scent is still there, less present than it once was, but there, when the pack’s scent--the pack’s scent is gone. Of course it is.
Derek sees him--smells him--at the IGA on Center Street. He pulls in because he sees the Jeep, looking slightly worse for the wear, in the parking lot and decides he needs some eggs. He probably does, anyway; they always need something. Especially eggs.
Stiles is near the butcher’s counter, looking at the depressing cuts of meat in their styrofoam trays. He’s picked up something--pork chops, pink sale sticker.
“Do you know how long those were on ice?” Derek asks, and Stiles freezes and turns around on the spot, still holding the pork chops.
“Derek,” he says, and it sounds almost cautious. “Hi.”
His eyes are the same, a clear light brown, but some of the softness in his face has been sloughed off by time, and there are angles there Derek doesn’t remember, and the slightest suggestion of wrinkles around the corners of his eyes--smile lines, laugh lines, comfortable and happy, but still age worn on his face.
“Hi,” Derek returns. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”
Stiles nods, and his eyes flicker to the left.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess you can see that. I mean--you’re in Beacon Hills, I’m in Beacon Hills, here we are, standing in the meat aisle--” Stiles huffs out a small laugh at an unspoken joke, then waves an arm at their surroundings. “By the coolers.”
“I wasn’t kidding, about those pork chops,” Derek says. He knows there are other things he’ll need to say to Stiles, if Stiles really is back, but he can’t quite bring himself to start that conversation now, in the grocery store. It’s not like Stiles will be able to hide from him.
“No,” Stiles says slowly, setting the pork chops down on top of the kielbasa. “I don’t suppose you were. See you around, Derek.”
“Sure,” Derek says, and it’s easier to say than it is to imagine: encountering Stiles around town, passing his Jeep on county roads, meeting him running in the woods. Probably because that’s not what it’ll look like: instead it will be Stiles, showing up in the middle of some pack business, inexplicably captured by some creature Derek has only heard of in passing. Derek nods. “See you around, Stiles.”
He ends up buying a package of kielbasa but forgets about the eggs. This is why Boyd says he’s supposed to make grocery lists--actually, this is why Boyd makes him grocery lists. Still, someone will be happy about the kielbasa. Probably.
Boyd works nights for the Sheriff’s department, so he’s at the house when Derek gets back, sleeping on the couch with his feet kicked up on the armrest. Derek leaves him there and goes into the kitchen to put together something that’ll pass for dinner when Erica and Isaac get back. He has potatoes, he has kielbasa, that sounds like a meal to him. He puts the potatoes in a pot of water on the stove and stares at it for a while, because everyone knows watching the pot doesn’t make a damn difference.
Derek doesn’t like not knowing things. He’s not an information junkie like Stiles, but he’s an Alpha, and absence of knowledge is the presence of threat, or can be, when he needs to protect his pack. So Stiles is back, and Stiles knows about them, and Stiles is a wild card if ever there was one, which means Derek needs to know what exactly he thinks he’s doing. And instead of asking him Derek followed him into the grocery store and accidentally bought kielbasa, which is kind of typical. Stiles always did have the ability to make Derek do things he didn’t want to do, just by virtue of being.
The water boils eventually, because the laws of physics only occasionally fail him. Derek sets the timer on the microwave and goes to check on Boyd, who is, as he expected, still asleep. Derek folds himself into one of the nearby armchairs and waits. Boyd will know what Stiles is doing back in town, or at least the party line about what Stiles is doing back in town, which will do for now.
When the alarm on the microwave goes off Boyd wakes up, cracking his neck and rolling over to look at Derek.
“Watching me sleep, boss?” he asks. “You’re getting creepier.”
“How long’s Stilinski back for?” Derek asks.
“As long as he feels like staying, I imagine,” Boyd says. “He’s writing his thesis.”
“What,” Derek says, drawing out the word over a few syllables for emphasis.
“His Master’s thesis?” Boyd says. “I told you this the last time he came back to town and you interrogated me. Man, it’s like you don’t listen at all. I should probably be offended.”
“This conversation isn’t over,” Derek says, then gets up and goes into the kitchen to take the potatoes off the stove. Boyd follows him and sits down on one of the stools along the counter.
“Stiles--name redacted--Stilinski is a Master’s candidate in folklore at UC-Berkeley. You know this.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t like that the first time I found out, either. Why’s he working on it here?”
“Beacon Hills is cheaper than Berkeley, I imagine,” Boyd says. “He’s renting a room on Oak. That’s all I’ve got for you, boss man.”
“Not living with the Sheriff?” Derek ask. “Seems like it would be the cheapest.”
“He’s giving the Sheriff and Barb space, I guess,” Boyd says. “Especially with the new kid--I mean, as far as I can tell they’re not on the outs or anything, but that house isn’t big.”
Derek nods. The Sheriff had remarried during Stiles’ senior year, and as far as Derek could tell Stiles had been comfortable with it--happy, even. The marriage, having Barb around, was what had freed Stiles to go halfway across the country for college, to some school in Ohio. What the hell Stiles wanted in Ohio Derek didn’t know; he couldn’t have imagined it had been easy, what with how close to his father Stiles was. He’d come home for Christmas, usually, but word was that he was working out there to pay off what his scholarship didn’t cover.
And then he came back to California, and now he’s back in Beacon Hills, and living on Oak Street.
“You know who will know?” Boyd asks, putting his elbows on the counter. “Scott.”
“Scott’s not here,” Derek says.
“He’s still pack. And he has a phone, you have a phone, it’s a match made in heaven.”
When Boyd gets snarky he’s worse than all the others put together. When Derek looks over him Boyd’s looking impatient, or as impatient as Boyd gets; like he’s tired of this line of discussion but is putting up with it as a favor to Derek.
“Okay,” Derek says. “We can stop talking about this.”
He gets out a pan and puts the kielbasa in it.
“When did you go to the grocery store?” Boyd asks.
“Today. On the way home.”
“Did you get eggs? Because we really--”
“No,” Derek says, and behind him Boyd lets out a low whistle.
“This is going to be even worse than I expected,” Boyd says.
“Stilinski could do at least much damage as the Argents if he wanted to,” Derek says.
“But he doesn’t, and neither do the Argents,” Boyd says. “Scott’s his best friend, and Scott’s still pack, even if he isn’t here.”
“Scott was his best friend,” Derek says. “When they were in high school.”
“They’re still friends, because phones exist, even though you don’t use them. Also the internet. Derek, just because--”
And then Isaac and Erica are back, stumbling in the door and laughing, and Boyd falls silent. Derek wonders how he was going to finish that thought--would really fucking like to know how Boyd planned to finish that thought.
“This conversation isn’t over,” he says, softly enough that only Boyd will hear, before Isaac and Erica are upon them.
“What’s for dinner?” Erica says, pushing open the kitchen door and sidling over to Derek’s side. “Oh, did you go grocery shopping? Did you get eggs? Because--”
“No,” Derek says.
“Grocery lists,” Boyd says, tapping a finger on the countertop. “They’re important.”
“I was coming back from a delivery, I didn’t plan to stop in, and the grocery list was still here on the fridge, wasn’t it?” Derek asks, and he doesn’t know why he’s getting into this argument again.
“You could’ve texted me to see if we needed anything,” Erica says. “It’s not like things at the coffee shop are so pressing.”
“That’s what you say,” Isaac says. “And then you make me a macchiato with way too much milk.”
“Are you still bitching about that?” Erica says, turning to Isaac and then back towards Derek and Boyd. “He’s still bitching about that. Too bad we can’t all teach struggling high school students shop. Guess who already has a chili pepper on RateMyTeachers.Com?”
“Just the one chili pepper?” Boyd asks. “Isaac, high schoolers these days clearly don’t appreciate your charms.”
Isaac scowls. Derek pats him on the back.
“Leave Isaac alone, you two,” he says. “We all know he never had much luck with the high school girls.”
“Oh, burn,” Erica says, laughing.
“Inappropriate,” Isaac says. “They’re my students now you guys.”
“Isaac,” Boyd says. “Chill. No one thinks you’d do anything untoward with your students. Also, you teach shop, if it’s anything like it was when we were there you have like--five girls in your class. On a good day.”
“Yes,” Erica says. “And we should all be more like Boyd. Chill.”
“Oh, are we ragging on Boyd now?” Isaac says. “Please say we are. I think he ate my Cheez-its last night.”
“I did,” Boyd says. “We’re pack. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. I just don’t have any Cheez-its.”
“That’s all I wanted in my lunchbox,” Isaac says balefully. “And you ate them.”
“I don’t think teachers are supposed to have lunchboxes,” Erica says. “Or at least call it something else, so I don’t need to be ashamed of you.”
Derek dishes up their dinners and distributes the plates, and then they all migrate to the long wood table on the far side of the room to sit down and continue bickering over dinner. Or, in Boyd’s case, breakfast.
“Stiles is back in town,” Derek says.
“Yeah,” Erica says around a mouthful of food. “We know.”
“You told them before me?” Derek asks, turning to Boyd.
“Because I knew they’d respond like reasonable adults,” Boyd says. “Unlike you. And I wanted to prepare them for the inevitability of--this.” Boyd flaps a hand.
Derek sighs and cards a hand through his hair, looking around the table. Boyd’s face is almost always inscrutable, Isaac looks distantly amused, and Erica is taking a potato apart with her fork.
“We’re going to talk about this again later,” he says. “Until then, don’t discuss any pack business with him.”
“Derek,” Erica says. “You’re being weird about this. It’s just Stiles.”
“He thinks he’s some sort of free agent,” Derek mutters.
“He didn’t join, so you don’t trust him,” Erica says, leaning forward on her elbows. “That doesn’t mean he’s going to hurt the pack.”
“He’s not pack,” Derek growls, and Erica sighs and holds up her hands, exposing her palms.
“All right,” she says, like Derek’s the unreasonable one. “Discussion: tabled.”
Everyone’s quiet for a bit, chewing and not making eye contact.
“You couldn’t have made any cabbage to go with this?” Isaac asks, stabbing at a potato with his fork.
“Cabbage,” Erica says. “Really, Isaac? What are we, orphans?”
Isaac shrugs. Derek thinks that they are kind of orphans, this is kind of an orphanage, but he doesn’t say it--it’s just a flash of a thought that leaves him feeling uncertain and a little sad,
“I just think this meal could be more well balanced,” Isaac says.
“Well, you’re cooking tomorrow,” Derek says. “We can have as much cabbage as you like.”
Erica sticks a finger down her throat and makes a retching noise.
“Seriously,” she says. “Cabbage. We’re werewolves. Do we really need to eat cabbage to get our necessary nutrients?”
“I like cabbage,” Isaac mutters in the general direction of his plate.
“No one likes cabbage,” Erica says. “You’re deluded. You were held hostage by cabbage as a child and we have a Stockholm situation on our hands.”
Derek sighs and shoves more food into his mouth. His pack, ladies and gentlemen. His pack.
He drives into town the next day, takes a left on Center and drives two blocks over to Oak. Stiles’ Jeep must be parked in a garage or something around back, or else he’s out already, but Derek tracks Stiles’ scent to number 43, a slender, three-story building, painted green, with doorbells running 1 through 6. 3 is the only one without a nameplate, so 3 is the buzzer Derek rings.
Or--ringing the buzzer might be an overstatement. Derek picks the downstairs lock and goes up the stairs to 3, where he knocks on the door.
“What the hell,” comes muffled through the door. “Is that you, Dad? Do you know what time it is? You better have donuts.”
Through the door, there’s the sound of someone approaching, barefoot, and then it opens. Stiles is standing there, shirtless, plaid pajama pants slung low on his hips.
“Oh,” he says. “So not Dad, then.”
“Not so much, no,” Derek says.
Stiles scratches the spot low on his stomach where a trail of hair disappears beneath the waistband of his pajamas, not moving from the doorway.
“What do you want?” Stiles asks. “Or did you just decide to come visit before breakfast for shits and giggles?”
“I already ate breakfast,” Derek says, even though he doesn’t want to let himself get mired in this conversation.
“But I haven’t,” Stiles says. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got bacon on the stove, and it’s the good shit, not turkey, so I don’t want to burn it.”
“What are you doing here?” Derek hisses.
“I really think I should be the one asking you that,” Stiles says, shifting slightly on his feet so his hip is pressed against the doorframe and crossing his arms. “Seeing as you’re at my apartment at eight in the morning.”
Derek shoots one hand out and grips Stiles’ shoulder. He can feel his claws extending, but he can’t find it in his power to give a shit.
“Your apartment, my territory, Stilinski,” he growls.
Stiles looks at him, narrows his eyes, then lifts a hand to grip Derek’s wrist, his fingers puny and human but still enough to make Derek loosen his grip involuntarily.
“So, what, you didn’t want to confront me at the IGA so you followed me home?” Stiles asks. “I’m not a threat to your territory, Alpha Hale.”
“Why did you come back?” Derek asks.
“My Dad’s here, for one,” Stiles says. “What, you thought because I left I’d never come back? You left Beacon Hills, you came back. People do that, it’s a thing people do. Like how Amish kids go on rumspringa. I did my rumspringa, I decided Beacon Hills was alright, I came back.”
“Stiles,” Derek says.
“Didn’t Boyd tell you?” Stiles asks. “I’m writing my thesis. Cheaper here, less distracting than Berkeley, plus I can spend time with my Dad and the new kid can get to know his uncle Stiles. There’s a whole passel of reasons for me to be here, Derek, and none of them have to do with encroaching on your territory. Which, because I’m not a werewolf, I can’t really do. From what I recall you’re not an unintelligent guy, Derek, so I don’t know why you’re insisting there’s a game afoot here.”
Nothing suggests that he’s lying, although he still doesn’t seem quite right. Derek sighs.
“We need to discuss your relationship with my pack,” he says gruffly. “We at least need a verbal treaty.”
Stiles looks up at him, angles his head and studies Derek’s face, then steps away from the door.
“I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess,” he says, pursing his lips into a small frown that suggests he still is. “But not before breakfast. Come in, then--I’ll put on more bacon. I know you’ll eat it, wolfman. Things haven’t changed that much if you’re still physically accosting me over imagined threats. It’s sort of like I never left.”
Breakfast with the pack was pathetic because they only had half a dozen eggs and had to supplement with yogurt, and Derek doesn’t like the feel of yogurt on his teeth. That will be Derek’s explanation if anyone asks why he follows Stiles inside, staring at Stiles’ pale back, at the tattoo on Stiles’ left shoulder, which is new. It’s a snake drawn in thick black strokes, curving into itself to eat its own tail, the line of its back paralleling the knobs of Stiles’ spine. Derek’s never seen it, but it’s old enough to be completely healed over. Which is not surprising, given the length of time it’s been since Derek has seen Stiles, let alone seen him without a shirt on. The last time for that may’ve been the time with the werepanther.
If Derek looks closely, he can see the scars, places where Stiles’ skin is raised and shining.
The apartment is sparsely decorated, a few posters pinned to the walls and furniture that was obviously purchased used. It doesn’t just smell used, it looks used, worn on every edge. But the rooms are clean and the light is nice; there’s a big, crystal-clean window behind the small table in the kitchen where Stiles indicates Derek should sit.
“So,” Stiles says, tipping some bacon into the pan on the stove, his back to Derek. “I imagine that means I say that I won’t use my knowledge of your pack for nefarious purposes, and you say that it’s okay for me to be in your territory again. Derek, you do realize that I’m not a wolf, I’m not a hunter--”
“Exactly,” Derek says. “You’re unaffiliated. You only look out for yourself. Push comes to shove, what do you do?”
“This is about what happened seven years ago, then,” Stiles says, retrieving a spatula from the sink and rinsing it before wiping it off with a towel hanging on the front of the oven. He sounds resigned.
“This is about the fact that you’re back now,” Derek says through gritted teeth. “Nothing else.”
“No one was hurt,” Stiles says, because he’s obviously not listening, and if he wants to think this is about seven years ago, they can talk about seven years ago.
“Leaving hurts,” Derek says.
“Scott left.” Stiles still isn’t looking at Derek. “Crispy or chewy, on the bacon?”
“Scott was a member of the pack,” Derek says. “You weren’t; you refused to be.”
“It’s that simple for you,” Stiles says, and he sounds sad, in a distant way. “You realize Isaac and Erica and Boyd are still friends with me on Facebook and you never told me how you wanted that bacon?”
He says it like that: all one sentence, like being friends on Facebook is a reasonable rebuttal and could sensibly be paired with a question about the bacon. It takes Derek a good couple seconds to untangle the question, and he kind of hates how he can’t keep up with Stiles’ stupid tangents. Either they’ve gotten more complicated or Derek has lost that particular skill, and for some reason either of those options bothers Derek.
“Chewy,” Derek says.
“Closer to raw, then?” Stiles asks, and flips the bacon onto a folded paper towel. “I guess that makes sense. You like your steak still mooing? Not worried about salmonella?”
“I like my steak still moving,” Derek says dryly, and Stiles laughs--barks, really, an acknowledgement that it’s a joke paired with the suggestion that Stiles doesn’t really think it’s funny.
“Eggs over-easy, then?” Stiles asks. “Or sunny-side-up?”
“Scrambled, if you can,” Derek replies, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Stiles reaches up to the cabinet above his head for a bowl and begins cracking eggs into it.
“Of course I can,” Stiles says. “As an aside: any chance we could stop with the baseless accusations until we finish eating?”
“Any chance you could put on a shirt?” Derek counters. He can’t believe Stiles isn’t getting spatters of bacon grease on his chest, but mostly he’s sick of staring at the tattoo on Stiles’ shoulder and resisting the urge to ask about it. Derek has a tattoo, he knows how rare it is that someone will actually want to talk about it--and here he is, staring at Stiles’ shoulder like he’s never seen ink before and contemplating asking him what it means like he’s stoned and wants to talk about the universe.
“Hey, my house, my rules,” Stiles says, whisking the eggs with some milk. “I’m pretty sure that even as Alpha you can’t force me to wear a shirt in the privacy of my own home. If you’re worried about being blinded by my pasty skin, you could always leave. Door’s open, now. Which, speaking of, should I be worried about paying Maisey--that’s my landlady, Maisey, she is exactly what you’d expect from a person named Maisey--for damage to the downstairs door?”
“I picked the lock,” Derek says.
“Cree-per,” Stiles sing-songs. “I guess I should just be glad you didn’t pick the lock on the upstairs door, too.”
Derek doesn’t bother replying. Stiles has dumped the eggs into the pan and is apparently focused on scrambling them; he doesn’t talk, either. There was a time when Stiles would’ve babbled incessantly, filling up the empty space with nervous energy, but now he seems content to let the silence lie.
Until he isn’t.
“I don’t know what I can do to convince you, Derek,” Stiles says. “I’m not the second coming of the Argents. I’m hardly even--”
“You’re training to become a folklorist,” Derek says. “Aren’t you? That’s something. You’re still involved.”
“Of course I’m still involved, just like Scott is still my best friend and called me to research shit when you guys needed help, don’t even pretend you didn’t know about that. You can’t expect me to spend my formative years marinating in this shit and then give it up altogether. But I’m not going to challenge you with my big bad thesis,” Stiles says. “Do you want to hear what it’s about? Because I have on good authority that it works as well as Tylenol P.M. Possibly better, Tylenol P.M. is kind of shit.”
“Stiles,” Derek says.
Stiles brings two plates to the table and sits down across from Derek.
“Okay,” he says, sliding a plate and a fork towards Derek. “What do you want?”
“After breakfast,” Derek says, and begins shoveling food into his mouth. Stiles does the same, but he gives Derek a strange, inscrutable look first. Derek wonders if he’s just lost the ability to read every expression that crosses Stiles’ face or if Stiles has gained the thought-to-face filter that his lack of previously made him so disconcertingly easy to read.
“What is it, then, Derek?” Stiles asks when their plates are both clean. “What do you want out of this?”
“You stay out,” Derek says, pointing at Stiles with a fork. “Don’t get involved with anything without consulting me first. Coven shows up? Tell me, don’t do anything. Shapeshifters? What the fuck ever, this is my territory, any supernatural dealings should go through me.”
Stiles sets his own fork down, but not before twirling it lazily in his long fingers.
“What if there’s a direct threat?” Stiles asks. “Should I just sit on my hands until you and the pack are ready to help?”
“How direct a threat?” Derek asks, and Stiles squints at him.
“Did you really just ask me that?” Stiles says. “How direct a threat? A direct threat is fairly--direct. That’s like you, threatening to tear my throat out with your teeth. Or a yeti dangling my new half-brother out a third story window by his ankle. Or--”
“The threat needs to be direct and immediate,” Derek says. “If there’s time to consult the pack, you will. And you won’t go around telling anyone about the pack.”
“The only person I ever told was my father,” Stiles blurts out. “Sorry I got sick of lying to my dad. Who was a huge help to you, in case you’ve forgotten. Still is, at that. Hired Boyd, furthermore.”
“You should’ve asked us first,” Derek says. “You should have at least asked Scott.”
“Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve,” Stiles says, tone suddenly light, eyes sharp. “Didn’t. Look, I don’t think that will be a problem again.”
“So you agree to the terms?” Derek asks, and Stiles shrugs.
“What will you do if I don’t?” Stiles asks. “Your threats have lost a bit of their bite over the years, Derek. You seem to lack follow through.”
Derek glowers, and Stiles shrugs.
“Sure,” he says. “Sounds fine. I only ran into a couple cave trolls and like five vampires when I was down in Ohio, so I figure I am mostly off the radar when it comes to--” Stiles waves a hand. “Whatever. And it’s been pretty quiet up here, right?”
Derek refuses to take the cave troll/vampire bait Stiles is dangling. It sounds interesting. It probably isn’t. Stiles can probably tell the story in a way that makes it interesting, though, but Derek refuses to give him the satisfaction.
“Sometimes we get delegations from other packs, or the occasional omega, but it’s mostly peaceful,” he says instead. After about five years, it’s started to feel a little less like they lived on the Hellmouth (Erica likes Buffy. A lot. And Isaac has a frankly disturbing crush on either Sarah Michelle Geller or David Boreanaz, it’s really hard to tell. Maybe both.).
“Okay,” Stiles says. “We’re okay, then? I’m not going to do anything to hurt the pack, you know--”
Derek doesn’t know that, actually--that’s why he’s here. But he knows if he says that Stiles will get defensive and he just--can’t, right now.
“We’re okay,” Derek says, and Stiles nods.
“We’ve reached an agreement and I’m not even dressed. Damn I’m good,” Stiles says.
Derek grins at him wryly, and Stiles goes into another room and emerges a couple minutes later, having traded his pajama bottoms for jeans.
“You’re still here?” he asks, tugging on a t-shirt. “Do you need me to walk you to your car, protect you from the mean streets of Beacon Hills? Oak is a particularly mean street, I hear.”
“Shut up,” Derek says, without venom.
“You didn’t even thank me for the bacon. Now seriously--” and Stiles takes a belt that’s hanging on the doorknob and pulls it on, because apparently Stiles dresses himself as aimlessly as he talks. “I have shit to do, so how about we both get on with our lives, okay?”
“I’ll do the dishes,” Derek says, collecting their plates and heading towards the sink. It seems like the least he can do, but Stiles’ lips turn down at the corners.
“You don’t need to,” he says. “I’ll get them tonight.”
“Consider it my thanks for the bacon,” Derek says. Stiles shrugs.
“Have it your way. Like Burger King.”
He disappears into what must be the bedroom, and emerges when Derek’s in the middle of drying, now wearing socks and carrying a satchel that jounces against his hip.
“Just put them in the drying rack, that’s what it’s for,” he says. “C’mon, let’s go, time’s a-wasting, daylight’s burning, etceteras, etceteras.”
Derek follows Stiles out, and Stiles locks the door behind them.
“A favor, dude,” Stiles says. “Don’t go around picking my locks.”
“What about the window?” Derek says. There’s a fire escape; he checked. Stiles physically turns around to look at Derek, furrowing his brow.
“You’re no good at jokes. You really, really aren’t,” Stiles says. “I hope you don’t need to use the window, is all I’m going to say on that point. The window’s available on a need to use basis, but if ‘need to use’ means you’re just paranoid that I’m going to undermine your special Alpha authority then please don’t show up ranting in my bedroom in the middle of the night, ‘cause I need my beauty sleep. Unlike certain other people I could name--but won’t, because I’m polite that way and my papa raised me right--I never got a super special werewolf makeover, so I take what I can.”
By the time Stiles finishes that monologue they’re out on the street, and Stiles heads towards an alley that leads to the back of the building. He lifts a hand as he turns.
“See you around, Derek,” he calls back.
“Sure,” Derek says. Just like when they were in the grocery store, then. This is how it’s going to be.
Derek drives home. Boyd’s done with work, but Derek figures he’s sleeping and immediately goes around to the back of the house.
They built the new house when it became clear the old one wouldn’t be worth salvaging, at least not as a house. Derek had the old building converted into a greenhouse; they took the top level down and inserted glass panels into the burned out hollows, and Derek brought in the plants. He got the metaphor; he really, really did. He tried not to think about it too much because it still made him wince: greenery from ash, new life from death, all paid for by life insurance. That wasn’t what this was about, not really; it was about his job, his greenhouse and his landscaping business, not some fucking metaphor. Not regrowth, just growth, financially, to sustain the pack.
He’s repotting today, moving some of the sapling fruit trees to larger containers. There’d have to be a pack discussion tonight, just to--let them know. About Stiles, and that Derek had been to see him. Luckily, Isaac was cooking, so no one would be skipping dinner.
There was a mutual, unspoken agreement that Erica would never actually have to cook. On her nights, everyone skipped dinner, or they ordered takeout--anything, really, to get out of eating pork chops cooked dry as scabs, or meat loaf that looked like vomit. How she did it Derek didn’t know, but Erica had never found a recipe she couldn’t ruin. Except dessert for dinner, but that was more of a once a month thing and didn’t involve much more than Erica buying ice cream and whipped cream in a can and magic shell at the grocery store, which didn’t really qualify as cooking, per se.
Isaac makes stuffed cabbage for dinner and glares at Erica when he brings the casserole dish to the table.
“That’s cute Isaac,” she says. “Real cute.”
“It smells good,” Boyd says.
“That’s because it is good,” Isaac says. “It’s not like I just boiled cabbage and called it a day like Derek would’ve.”
Derek would resent that, except it’s true. His default cooking setting involves putting water in a pot and boiling it, unless he’s confronted with meat.
“I went to see Stiles today,” he says.
“And he threatened the pack and laughed maniacally,” Erica says. “So now we have to kill him.”
“He’s agreed to stay out of our affairs,” Derek says. “But if you guys see him acting suspicious--Boyd, if he’s nosing around cases with the Sheriff--”
“We’ll tell you,” Erica says, rolling her eyes. “You’re kind of a freak sometimes, you know that Derek? It’s Stiles, we’re friends.”
“On Facebook?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Erica says. “But also in general.”
She meets Derek’s gaze and frowns a little.
“I’m trying to keep us safe,” he says, and it comes out--it comes out just north of pathetic.
“We know,” Boyd says evenly, and after a moment Isaac nods. Everyone falls silent, eating placidly and looking at their plates.
“Scott and Allison will be back soon,” Derek says, after they’ve been quiet for what seems like too long.
“Just like old times,” Erica says, but there’s a wry twist to her tone. “We should all break into the high school and reminisce. Isaac, you have keys. And then we can get drunk behind the bleachers--oh wait we can’t.”
“It’s no one’s fault but your own that you never took the opportunity to get drunk before Derek bit you and cured your epilepsy,” Isaac says.
“I was a law-abiding teenager,” Erica says. “Too young to drink, and then the opportunity for drunken debauchery was cruelly snatched from me. Forever. I go on dates with dudes, and no matter how many Bloody Marys they buy me, they still look as unattractive as they did when I first saw them.”
“We all feel so sorry for you,” Isaac says. “You really aren’t missing anything. And Derek’s never been drunk either.”
“You always want what you can’t have,” Erica continues balefully. They’ve all heard this monologue before, but it’s kind of comfortingly insipid.
“Sort of like how I always wanted Pop-Tarts after you broke the toaster,” Boyd mumbles.
“You can eat Pop-Tarts cold,” Erica says, and Boyd frowns at her. Derek’s heard this one before, too--it’s at the point where one of them should probably buy a new toaster--but he just tunes them out, lets the easy back and forth of their three voices become a comforting lull. If he focuses, he can hear sounds further out, in the woods--not much of anything, just the ordinary creaking of trees. They’re the noises Derek focuses on at night when he’s trying to sleep. If he can hear things when they’re far enough away--it’ll be like hearing them before they happen. Or it could be. That was a lie he told himself when he was younger, but it had always been a comforting one.
It’s strange, now, to realize that had been in his head even then--even when he believed with absolute certainty that Laura would be the Alpha, that that particular mantle would never pass to him, and so, he should’ve, by all rights, had less to worry about. It makes him wonder about his betas who are now bickering about--whether or not Erica makes a decent macchiato. Again.
“You should start giving me discounts,” Isaac says.
“I already give you discounts,” Erica says.
“Better ones,” Isaac suggests.
“Better ones would come out of my paycheck,” Erica says. “And if you really wanted more, you wouldn’t have made cabbage for dinner. That cabbage was a declaration of war, Isaac Lahey.”
“And your next move is going to be to produce more of your terrible cooking,” Isaac says. “Or takeout from Lucky Dragon without an order of egg rolls? I would be so disappointed. Distraught, even. I might cry.”
Erica sticks her tongue out at him and Isaac gives her the finger.
“The future of America’s youth,” Derek says.
“Speaking of America’s youth--” Isaac grins toothily. “Werewolves are in vogue right now. All the kids are reading these werewolf books.”
“Is this like ‘Twilight’?” Erica asks. “Ugh, remember ‘Twilight’? I even read those books. They were big right before you turned me--so inaccurate.”
Isaac shrugs.
“I’m just saying, werewolves,” Isaac says. “We should have pack book club.”
“Sure,” Derek says dryly. “Pack book club with werewolf books targeted at teenagers sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s not like we ever finished ‘Moby Dick,’” Boyd points out.
“We never started ‘Moby Dick,’” Derek says, though he realizes that was the joke. “Pack book club doesn’t exist. Because it’s a terrible idea.”
“I want to read them,” Erica says.
“Teen Wolf trilogy,” Isaac says, then takes another bite. “The first one’s called ‘Omega’.”
“Seriously?” Erica asks, looking between the other three.
“Even a blind pig finds an apple sometimes. It’s probably still inaccurate,” Derek says, then takes his plate into the kitchen. “You can buy the book, but I’m not reading it.”
“Did you seriously just say that?” Erica calls after him. “About the pig? What the hell, Derek?”
Derek helps with the dishes and then goes up to bed, falls asleep while Erica and Boyd fuck two rooms over before Boyd’s Crown Vic pulls out of the drive. He’ll just--ignore Stiles. Until things inevitably go south, and then Derek will take care of it like he takes care of everything else, now. At least Boyd will be helpful.
And he’s not going to read that book.
Derek is kind of surprised when Erica shows up with a copy the next day, because Erica only follows up on about one-ninth of the things she proposes over dinner. That might be true for the pack as a whole, actually; they tend to talk a lot of shit over dinner. It helps pass the time. But the coffee shop where Erica works is adjacent to a bookstore, and so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when she slaps not one but two copies of ‘Omega’ by N. D. Paul on the table.
“Isaac and I get them first,” she says, like Derek and Boyd are seriously going to try to stake a claim here. Derek eyes the books. There’s a silhouette of a wolf on the cover, backed by hazy blue trees.
“Inaccurate,” he says, jabbing a finger at the wolf.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Erica says.
“God Derek, have platitudes taught you nothing?” Isaac drawls in a poor imitation of the voice Erica uses when she’s deigning to bless them with her insight.
It’s a relief when Boyd comes out of the kitchen with pancakes and sets them in the middle of the table. Boyd has an inoperable condition where he only cooks breakfast food, and Derek’s going to be kind of grateful when Allison and Scott arrive so they can stop subsisting on dinners that are 25% breakfast food, 25% takeout, 25% boiled, and 25% actually okay. Maybe they should just have Isaac do all the cooking, but he’d probably pitch a fit, and if there’s one thing Derek has learned from being Alpha, it’s to pick the hill you want to die on. Derek does not want to die on the hill of making Isaac cook dinner every night. They have a system, it worked, changing it would only bring them grief.
Besides, Derek likes pancakes.
The next night Derek finds Erica sitting in the living room reading, legs slung over the side of an armchair.
“Where’s dinner?” he asks.
“I got delivery,” she says.
“No one delivers out here,” he says, because it’s true. Erica looks up at him.
“Well, now they do,” she says. “So sit tight, and our food will magically appear--” there’s the distant clatter of a car coming up the long gravel driveway. “About now.”
The sound of the wheels--the car--makes a vague connection in Derek’s head. But a lot of cars sound the same, and a lot of people have the same car, so he doesn’t push it.
“Do you have a tip for the delivery guy?” Derek asks.
“Oh, he doesn’t need one,” Erica says with a sly grin. Derek had kind of thought Erica had outgrown the phase where she seduced people for favors, but apparently not. Which, whatever, it’s her prerogative and her sex life, and Boyd doesn’t really seem to give a shit, but was it really necessary to get out of picking up the food on the way home like she usually does?
Only then Isaac gets the door, and he’s slapping the delivery guy heartily on the back, and--it’s Stiles. Of course it is. Erica’s grin broadens, and she slides out of the chair and to her feet.
“One point for me, Derek,” she says, handing him her book and sidling towards the door. “Hey Stiles, got that food?”
Stiles holds up two bags.
“Derek asked if we should tip the delivery guy,” Erica continues.
“Nah,” Stiles says, looking past Erica to meet Derek’s eyes. “Just let me eat some and we’ll call it even.”
And, okay, point for Erica, because Derek’s not going to kick Stiles out when Derek can smell the General Tso’s chicken that someone finally remembered is his favorite, and even if that someone is Stiles--it’s General Tso’s chicken, Erica hates spicy food and refuses to order it.
“Kitchen’s through there,” Derek says, pointing.
“Okay,” Stiles says, going to walk past Derek. He stops short when he sees the book Derek’s holding, and Derek can hear his heartbeat quicken. “Are you reading those?”
“Pack book club,” Erica says, throwing an arm across Stiles’ shoulders. “You read them?”
“No,” Stiles says, too quickly. Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles shrugs. “My--uh--ex. Liked them a lot. So I just--um. It was a messy break-up. I cried. My face got all splotchy. And my chin wrinkled up. He took a picture and put it on Instagram. So I associate that with those books. Um.”
Behind Stiles and Erica, Isaac raises his eyebrows at Derek, who doesn’t really know what to do that, with any of it, really. Stiles is obviously lying. About werewolf novels directed at teenagers. Derek has no idea why he would do that, especially because--his ex-boyfriend put a picture of him crying on Instagram? Really? And Stiles has boyfriends now?
“Isaac and Erica are reading them,” Derek says, setting the book gingerly on the coffee table. Stiles heartbeat slows and he starts moving towards the kitchen.
“So Isaac can better relate to his students,” Erica says. “And by relate to, I mean seduce.”
“I am not,” Isaac says, but at least he stops making faces at Derek to defend his dubious honor.
“Well, we all know you never had much luck with girls in high school,” Stiles says, moving towards the kitchen.
“Why do people keep saying that? I totally got lucky in high school. More than you, Stiles,” Isaac whines, but he follows them to the kitchen, where Boyd appears, as if summoned, and Stiles starts extracting containers of food from the bags and laying them out on the table.
“Yeah, but everyone was luckier than me in high school. That’s like saying you’re better at target shooting than a blind kid--you might be, but why are you telling anyone? But I made out with Danny once. It was hot,” Stiles says somewhat wistfully before nodding towards the bads. “I just got a bit of everything. Mostly the usual. Where are the plates? And spoons to dish up?”
Erica helps locate the plates and utensils while Stiles continues to open containers of food, and apparently he ordered one of everything on the menu, because it seems like it’s all here. Boyd and Isaac immediately begin filling plates, but Stiles stands back, waiting. Derek goes to stand next to him.
“How’d Erica find you?” he asks, and Stiles looks up.
“I went by the Java Hut to get some coffee, and she gave me sixty bucks and told me to bring you guys dinner tonight,” Stiles says. “So, you know, I guess I found her. She lured me in with caffeine.”
“And feminine wiles,” Erica chirps.
“The real question, though,” Isaac says. “Was there too much milk in your coffee?”
“No?” Stiles says. “I just got a cup of drip and added milk over at the coffee shop equivalent of a condiment bar. So I’m afraid I can’t help you with whatever argument you’re trying to win.”
Stiles pats Isaac on the shoulder, and Isaac scowls and goes to the table to sit down, leaving Derek and Stiles with the food.
“You first,” Stiles says. “Isn’t that like, a pack thing, Alpha eats first?”
“That’s lions,” Derek says flatly. “And lions live in prides, not packs.”
“Yeah, whatever, I saw ‘Lion King’ too,” Stiles says. “And ‘Lion King 2.’ And ‘Lion King 1 ½.’ In case you were wondering. And I’m going to watch them all again with Joshua, ‘cause I’m going to be the best half brother ever. And ‘Lion King’ is kind of vital.”
“Right,” Derek says. “‘Hamlet’ with lions.”
“So much more than that, dude,” Stiles says. “So much more.”
Derek goes ahead and fills a plate because Stiles is still standing there like he’s waiting, and then they, too, go to sit. Stiles takes the empty chair at the foot of the table, between Isaac and Boyd and opposite Derek, and proceeds to sustain the dinner conversation with disconnected anecdotes. Derek’s grateful that, at the very least, they aren’t rehashing the macchiato argument, or the one about Erica’s ability to get drunk, or the one about who ate the Pop-Tarts or Cheez-Its or this week’s snack food of choice.
Derek doesn’t contribute much, but listening to the other four talk--Stiles wasn’t kidding about having kept up with the rest of the pack. He knows about Isaac’s ex-girlfriend Pamela. He knows about Erica’s job, and he seems to be aware of Erica and Boyd’s strange, undiscussed relationship. It leaves Derek feeling likes his axis has been tilted, wondering why Stiles kept up with them and not with him--and then he’s wondering why that bothers him, when it shouldn’t bother him at all. He was relieved when Stiles left, because if he wasn’t going to join the pack it was easier to have him out of town. And now here Stiles is, talking with his hands, bright and engaging and grown into himself. That’s what strikes Derek the most: Stiles has grown into himself. The last time Derek saw Stiles he was eighteen, and they just passed one another at graduation; Stiles had given Derek a sort of sarcastic salute, one of the more sarcastic gestures Derek had been subjected to in his lifetime, and Derek had nodded back. But the last time they had really spoken to each other was when Stiles was seventeen, loose-limbed and uncomfortable in his skin. He had flailed around a bit, and then gone very still and told Derek that he couldn’t join the pack. Not yet, not then, not while he was the only person his father had. Scott was still his friend, he was still Stiles, but he needed to protect what he had. He couldn’t commit, because he needed space.
Stiles had actually said that, that he couldn’t commit because he needed space. And Derek had accepted it, because of the way Stiles had suddenly spoken, direct and clear, and for a moment Derek had seen him, seen this person Stiles would become and respected that. It was a fleeting moment, but it lasted long enough for Derek to say, “Okay,” and after that, when Stiles severed ties--that seemed like the right thing to do.
But here he is, now, and damn if it isn’t weird.
When Stiles leaves he grins broadly at everyone, says he’ll have to have them all over for dinner sometime, and then proceeds to offer fist-bumps all around.
“You didn’t talk much at dinner,” Boyd says when he passes Derek in the hall, on the way out to his shift.
“I never talk much,” Derek counters. It doesn’t really work, because Boyd just looks at him in this way that took all the satisfaction out of getting the last word.
part 2
Anyway, as a forewarning: I probably won't be super active over the next--month? maybe more? I still have a lot of half-finished fics in my gdocs (Inception, Suits, XMen) and I also really want to write Danny/Stiles, so I'll be back (as they say) but--life is happening, and I need to be there when it does. So it does, in some cases.
I don't actually know what I'm saying at this point, so let's get on with the show, ladies and gents. My last Teen Wolf fic disregarded the 'wolf' part of the equation, this one ages out the 'teen' bit, maybe I'll get it right someday. Oh, and for those of you who haven't succumbed to the siren call of Teen Wolf and would like to, I have useful resources! And for those of you haven't succumbed and are sick of hearing about it...I am sorry.
Oh, and spoilerwise: this doesn't really spoil anything, but it is grounded in the events of season 2 but was started before episode 10 (Fury) and doesn't account for potential repercussions of the events therin.
ETA (08/14/12): I've made some fairly minor changes to this fic in light of concerns that were brought to me about cultural appropriation. Thanks go to theaveryrule for talking through these changes with me. Apologies to anyone who was offended before the changes were made; if you have any further concerns about this (or anything else, really), feel free to comment or PM me directly and I'd be happy to discuss.
.tricksters make this world
stiles comes back to beacon hills during the new moon in april.
notes: many thanks to gollumgollum for the beta and also for answering my idiotic questions, and generally being a kind and helpful person. I take full responsibility for any remaining errors.
credit to Lewis Hyde and his truly excellent book 'Trickster Makes This World' for--as you can probably see--the title.
pg13 . 26346 words . AO3
“The first story I have to tell is not exactly true, but it isn’t exactly false, either.”
- “Trickster Makes This World,” Lewis Hyde
Stiles comes back to Beacon Hills during a new moon in the spring, when cool, moisture-laden air is coming in off the Pacific Ocean and everything smells more like itself. Stiles though--Stiles doesn’t smell like himself. The base notes of his scent remain the same, they’ve been overwritten with the scents of new places, new people. Scott’s scent is distant now, and the smell of high school locker room’s been eliminated entirely. The Sheriff’s scent is still there, less present than it once was, but there, when the pack’s scent--the pack’s scent is gone. Of course it is.
Derek sees him--smells him--at the IGA on Center Street. He pulls in because he sees the Jeep, looking slightly worse for the wear, in the parking lot and decides he needs some eggs. He probably does, anyway; they always need something. Especially eggs.
Stiles is near the butcher’s counter, looking at the depressing cuts of meat in their styrofoam trays. He’s picked up something--pork chops, pink sale sticker.
“Do you know how long those were on ice?” Derek asks, and Stiles freezes and turns around on the spot, still holding the pork chops.
“Derek,” he says, and it sounds almost cautious. “Hi.”
His eyes are the same, a clear light brown, but some of the softness in his face has been sloughed off by time, and there are angles there Derek doesn’t remember, and the slightest suggestion of wrinkles around the corners of his eyes--smile lines, laugh lines, comfortable and happy, but still age worn on his face.
“Hi,” Derek returns. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”
Stiles nods, and his eyes flicker to the left.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess you can see that. I mean--you’re in Beacon Hills, I’m in Beacon Hills, here we are, standing in the meat aisle--” Stiles huffs out a small laugh at an unspoken joke, then waves an arm at their surroundings. “By the coolers.”
“I wasn’t kidding, about those pork chops,” Derek says. He knows there are other things he’ll need to say to Stiles, if Stiles really is back, but he can’t quite bring himself to start that conversation now, in the grocery store. It’s not like Stiles will be able to hide from him.
“No,” Stiles says slowly, setting the pork chops down on top of the kielbasa. “I don’t suppose you were. See you around, Derek.”
“Sure,” Derek says, and it’s easier to say than it is to imagine: encountering Stiles around town, passing his Jeep on county roads, meeting him running in the woods. Probably because that’s not what it’ll look like: instead it will be Stiles, showing up in the middle of some pack business, inexplicably captured by some creature Derek has only heard of in passing. Derek nods. “See you around, Stiles.”
He ends up buying a package of kielbasa but forgets about the eggs. This is why Boyd says he’s supposed to make grocery lists--actually, this is why Boyd makes him grocery lists. Still, someone will be happy about the kielbasa. Probably.
Boyd works nights for the Sheriff’s department, so he’s at the house when Derek gets back, sleeping on the couch with his feet kicked up on the armrest. Derek leaves him there and goes into the kitchen to put together something that’ll pass for dinner when Erica and Isaac get back. He has potatoes, he has kielbasa, that sounds like a meal to him. He puts the potatoes in a pot of water on the stove and stares at it for a while, because everyone knows watching the pot doesn’t make a damn difference.
Derek doesn’t like not knowing things. He’s not an information junkie like Stiles, but he’s an Alpha, and absence of knowledge is the presence of threat, or can be, when he needs to protect his pack. So Stiles is back, and Stiles knows about them, and Stiles is a wild card if ever there was one, which means Derek needs to know what exactly he thinks he’s doing. And instead of asking him Derek followed him into the grocery store and accidentally bought kielbasa, which is kind of typical. Stiles always did have the ability to make Derek do things he didn’t want to do, just by virtue of being.
The water boils eventually, because the laws of physics only occasionally fail him. Derek sets the timer on the microwave and goes to check on Boyd, who is, as he expected, still asleep. Derek folds himself into one of the nearby armchairs and waits. Boyd will know what Stiles is doing back in town, or at least the party line about what Stiles is doing back in town, which will do for now.
When the alarm on the microwave goes off Boyd wakes up, cracking his neck and rolling over to look at Derek.
“Watching me sleep, boss?” he asks. “You’re getting creepier.”
“How long’s Stilinski back for?” Derek asks.
“As long as he feels like staying, I imagine,” Boyd says. “He’s writing his thesis.”
“What,” Derek says, drawing out the word over a few syllables for emphasis.
“His Master’s thesis?” Boyd says. “I told you this the last time he came back to town and you interrogated me. Man, it’s like you don’t listen at all. I should probably be offended.”
“This conversation isn’t over,” Derek says, then gets up and goes into the kitchen to take the potatoes off the stove. Boyd follows him and sits down on one of the stools along the counter.
“Stiles--name redacted--Stilinski is a Master’s candidate in folklore at UC-Berkeley. You know this.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t like that the first time I found out, either. Why’s he working on it here?”
“Beacon Hills is cheaper than Berkeley, I imagine,” Boyd says. “He’s renting a room on Oak. That’s all I’ve got for you, boss man.”
“Not living with the Sheriff?” Derek ask. “Seems like it would be the cheapest.”
“He’s giving the Sheriff and Barb space, I guess,” Boyd says. “Especially with the new kid--I mean, as far as I can tell they’re not on the outs or anything, but that house isn’t big.”
Derek nods. The Sheriff had remarried during Stiles’ senior year, and as far as Derek could tell Stiles had been comfortable with it--happy, even. The marriage, having Barb around, was what had freed Stiles to go halfway across the country for college, to some school in Ohio. What the hell Stiles wanted in Ohio Derek didn’t know; he couldn’t have imagined it had been easy, what with how close to his father Stiles was. He’d come home for Christmas, usually, but word was that he was working out there to pay off what his scholarship didn’t cover.
And then he came back to California, and now he’s back in Beacon Hills, and living on Oak Street.
“You know who will know?” Boyd asks, putting his elbows on the counter. “Scott.”
“Scott’s not here,” Derek says.
“He’s still pack. And he has a phone, you have a phone, it’s a match made in heaven.”
When Boyd gets snarky he’s worse than all the others put together. When Derek looks over him Boyd’s looking impatient, or as impatient as Boyd gets; like he’s tired of this line of discussion but is putting up with it as a favor to Derek.
“Okay,” Derek says. “We can stop talking about this.”
He gets out a pan and puts the kielbasa in it.
“When did you go to the grocery store?” Boyd asks.
“Today. On the way home.”
“Did you get eggs? Because we really--”
“No,” Derek says, and behind him Boyd lets out a low whistle.
“This is going to be even worse than I expected,” Boyd says.
“Stilinski could do at least much damage as the Argents if he wanted to,” Derek says.
“But he doesn’t, and neither do the Argents,” Boyd says. “Scott’s his best friend, and Scott’s still pack, even if he isn’t here.”
“Scott was his best friend,” Derek says. “When they were in high school.”
“They’re still friends, because phones exist, even though you don’t use them. Also the internet. Derek, just because--”
And then Isaac and Erica are back, stumbling in the door and laughing, and Boyd falls silent. Derek wonders how he was going to finish that thought--would really fucking like to know how Boyd planned to finish that thought.
“This conversation isn’t over,” he says, softly enough that only Boyd will hear, before Isaac and Erica are upon them.
“What’s for dinner?” Erica says, pushing open the kitchen door and sidling over to Derek’s side. “Oh, did you go grocery shopping? Did you get eggs? Because--”
“No,” Derek says.
“Grocery lists,” Boyd says, tapping a finger on the countertop. “They’re important.”
“I was coming back from a delivery, I didn’t plan to stop in, and the grocery list was still here on the fridge, wasn’t it?” Derek asks, and he doesn’t know why he’s getting into this argument again.
“You could’ve texted me to see if we needed anything,” Erica says. “It’s not like things at the coffee shop are so pressing.”
“That’s what you say,” Isaac says. “And then you make me a macchiato with way too much milk.”
“Are you still bitching about that?” Erica says, turning to Isaac and then back towards Derek and Boyd. “He’s still bitching about that. Too bad we can’t all teach struggling high school students shop. Guess who already has a chili pepper on RateMyTeachers.Com?”
“Just the one chili pepper?” Boyd asks. “Isaac, high schoolers these days clearly don’t appreciate your charms.”
Isaac scowls. Derek pats him on the back.
“Leave Isaac alone, you two,” he says. “We all know he never had much luck with the high school girls.”
“Oh, burn,” Erica says, laughing.
“Inappropriate,” Isaac says. “They’re my students now you guys.”
“Isaac,” Boyd says. “Chill. No one thinks you’d do anything untoward with your students. Also, you teach shop, if it’s anything like it was when we were there you have like--five girls in your class. On a good day.”
“Yes,” Erica says. “And we should all be more like Boyd. Chill.”
“Oh, are we ragging on Boyd now?” Isaac says. “Please say we are. I think he ate my Cheez-its last night.”
“I did,” Boyd says. “We’re pack. What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine. I just don’t have any Cheez-its.”
“That’s all I wanted in my lunchbox,” Isaac says balefully. “And you ate them.”
“I don’t think teachers are supposed to have lunchboxes,” Erica says. “Or at least call it something else, so I don’t need to be ashamed of you.”
Derek dishes up their dinners and distributes the plates, and then they all migrate to the long wood table on the far side of the room to sit down and continue bickering over dinner. Or, in Boyd’s case, breakfast.
“Stiles is back in town,” Derek says.
“Yeah,” Erica says around a mouthful of food. “We know.”
“You told them before me?” Derek asks, turning to Boyd.
“Because I knew they’d respond like reasonable adults,” Boyd says. “Unlike you. And I wanted to prepare them for the inevitability of--this.” Boyd flaps a hand.
Derek sighs and cards a hand through his hair, looking around the table. Boyd’s face is almost always inscrutable, Isaac looks distantly amused, and Erica is taking a potato apart with her fork.
“We’re going to talk about this again later,” he says. “Until then, don’t discuss any pack business with him.”
“Derek,” Erica says. “You’re being weird about this. It’s just Stiles.”
“He thinks he’s some sort of free agent,” Derek mutters.
“He didn’t join, so you don’t trust him,” Erica says, leaning forward on her elbows. “That doesn’t mean he’s going to hurt the pack.”
“He’s not pack,” Derek growls, and Erica sighs and holds up her hands, exposing her palms.
“All right,” she says, like Derek’s the unreasonable one. “Discussion: tabled.”
Everyone’s quiet for a bit, chewing and not making eye contact.
“You couldn’t have made any cabbage to go with this?” Isaac asks, stabbing at a potato with his fork.
“Cabbage,” Erica says. “Really, Isaac? What are we, orphans?”
Isaac shrugs. Derek thinks that they are kind of orphans, this is kind of an orphanage, but he doesn’t say it--it’s just a flash of a thought that leaves him feeling uncertain and a little sad,
“I just think this meal could be more well balanced,” Isaac says.
“Well, you’re cooking tomorrow,” Derek says. “We can have as much cabbage as you like.”
Erica sticks a finger down her throat and makes a retching noise.
“Seriously,” she says. “Cabbage. We’re werewolves. Do we really need to eat cabbage to get our necessary nutrients?”
“I like cabbage,” Isaac mutters in the general direction of his plate.
“No one likes cabbage,” Erica says. “You’re deluded. You were held hostage by cabbage as a child and we have a Stockholm situation on our hands.”
Derek sighs and shoves more food into his mouth. His pack, ladies and gentlemen. His pack.
He drives into town the next day, takes a left on Center and drives two blocks over to Oak. Stiles’ Jeep must be parked in a garage or something around back, or else he’s out already, but Derek tracks Stiles’ scent to number 43, a slender, three-story building, painted green, with doorbells running 1 through 6. 3 is the only one without a nameplate, so 3 is the buzzer Derek rings.
Or--ringing the buzzer might be an overstatement. Derek picks the downstairs lock and goes up the stairs to 3, where he knocks on the door.
“What the hell,” comes muffled through the door. “Is that you, Dad? Do you know what time it is? You better have donuts.”
Through the door, there’s the sound of someone approaching, barefoot, and then it opens. Stiles is standing there, shirtless, plaid pajama pants slung low on his hips.
“Oh,” he says. “So not Dad, then.”
“Not so much, no,” Derek says.
Stiles scratches the spot low on his stomach where a trail of hair disappears beneath the waistband of his pajamas, not moving from the doorway.
“What do you want?” Stiles asks. “Or did you just decide to come visit before breakfast for shits and giggles?”
“I already ate breakfast,” Derek says, even though he doesn’t want to let himself get mired in this conversation.
“But I haven’t,” Stiles says. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got bacon on the stove, and it’s the good shit, not turkey, so I don’t want to burn it.”
“What are you doing here?” Derek hisses.
“I really think I should be the one asking you that,” Stiles says, shifting slightly on his feet so his hip is pressed against the doorframe and crossing his arms. “Seeing as you’re at my apartment at eight in the morning.”
Derek shoots one hand out and grips Stiles’ shoulder. He can feel his claws extending, but he can’t find it in his power to give a shit.
“Your apartment, my territory, Stilinski,” he growls.
Stiles looks at him, narrows his eyes, then lifts a hand to grip Derek’s wrist, his fingers puny and human but still enough to make Derek loosen his grip involuntarily.
“So, what, you didn’t want to confront me at the IGA so you followed me home?” Stiles asks. “I’m not a threat to your territory, Alpha Hale.”
“Why did you come back?” Derek asks.
“My Dad’s here, for one,” Stiles says. “What, you thought because I left I’d never come back? You left Beacon Hills, you came back. People do that, it’s a thing people do. Like how Amish kids go on rumspringa. I did my rumspringa, I decided Beacon Hills was alright, I came back.”
“Stiles,” Derek says.
“Didn’t Boyd tell you?” Stiles asks. “I’m writing my thesis. Cheaper here, less distracting than Berkeley, plus I can spend time with my Dad and the new kid can get to know his uncle Stiles. There’s a whole passel of reasons for me to be here, Derek, and none of them have to do with encroaching on your territory. Which, because I’m not a werewolf, I can’t really do. From what I recall you’re not an unintelligent guy, Derek, so I don’t know why you’re insisting there’s a game afoot here.”
Nothing suggests that he’s lying, although he still doesn’t seem quite right. Derek sighs.
“We need to discuss your relationship with my pack,” he says gruffly. “We at least need a verbal treaty.”
Stiles looks up at him, angles his head and studies Derek’s face, then steps away from the door.
“I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess,” he says, pursing his lips into a small frown that suggests he still is. “But not before breakfast. Come in, then--I’ll put on more bacon. I know you’ll eat it, wolfman. Things haven’t changed that much if you’re still physically accosting me over imagined threats. It’s sort of like I never left.”
Breakfast with the pack was pathetic because they only had half a dozen eggs and had to supplement with yogurt, and Derek doesn’t like the feel of yogurt on his teeth. That will be Derek’s explanation if anyone asks why he follows Stiles inside, staring at Stiles’ pale back, at the tattoo on Stiles’ left shoulder, which is new. It’s a snake drawn in thick black strokes, curving into itself to eat its own tail, the line of its back paralleling the knobs of Stiles’ spine. Derek’s never seen it, but it’s old enough to be completely healed over. Which is not surprising, given the length of time it’s been since Derek has seen Stiles, let alone seen him without a shirt on. The last time for that may’ve been the time with the werepanther.
If Derek looks closely, he can see the scars, places where Stiles’ skin is raised and shining.
The apartment is sparsely decorated, a few posters pinned to the walls and furniture that was obviously purchased used. It doesn’t just smell used, it looks used, worn on every edge. But the rooms are clean and the light is nice; there’s a big, crystal-clean window behind the small table in the kitchen where Stiles indicates Derek should sit.
“So,” Stiles says, tipping some bacon into the pan on the stove, his back to Derek. “I imagine that means I say that I won’t use my knowledge of your pack for nefarious purposes, and you say that it’s okay for me to be in your territory again. Derek, you do realize that I’m not a wolf, I’m not a hunter--”
“Exactly,” Derek says. “You’re unaffiliated. You only look out for yourself. Push comes to shove, what do you do?”
“This is about what happened seven years ago, then,” Stiles says, retrieving a spatula from the sink and rinsing it before wiping it off with a towel hanging on the front of the oven. He sounds resigned.
“This is about the fact that you’re back now,” Derek says through gritted teeth. “Nothing else.”
“No one was hurt,” Stiles says, because he’s obviously not listening, and if he wants to think this is about seven years ago, they can talk about seven years ago.
“Leaving hurts,” Derek says.
“Scott left.” Stiles still isn’t looking at Derek. “Crispy or chewy, on the bacon?”
“Scott was a member of the pack,” Derek says. “You weren’t; you refused to be.”
“It’s that simple for you,” Stiles says, and he sounds sad, in a distant way. “You realize Isaac and Erica and Boyd are still friends with me on Facebook and you never told me how you wanted that bacon?”
He says it like that: all one sentence, like being friends on Facebook is a reasonable rebuttal and could sensibly be paired with a question about the bacon. It takes Derek a good couple seconds to untangle the question, and he kind of hates how he can’t keep up with Stiles’ stupid tangents. Either they’ve gotten more complicated or Derek has lost that particular skill, and for some reason either of those options bothers Derek.
“Chewy,” Derek says.
“Closer to raw, then?” Stiles asks, and flips the bacon onto a folded paper towel. “I guess that makes sense. You like your steak still mooing? Not worried about salmonella?”
“I like my steak still moving,” Derek says dryly, and Stiles laughs--barks, really, an acknowledgement that it’s a joke paired with the suggestion that Stiles doesn’t really think it’s funny.
“Eggs over-easy, then?” Stiles asks. “Or sunny-side-up?”
“Scrambled, if you can,” Derek replies, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. Stiles reaches up to the cabinet above his head for a bowl and begins cracking eggs into it.
“Of course I can,” Stiles says. “As an aside: any chance we could stop with the baseless accusations until we finish eating?”
“Any chance you could put on a shirt?” Derek counters. He can’t believe Stiles isn’t getting spatters of bacon grease on his chest, but mostly he’s sick of staring at the tattoo on Stiles’ shoulder and resisting the urge to ask about it. Derek has a tattoo, he knows how rare it is that someone will actually want to talk about it--and here he is, staring at Stiles’ shoulder like he’s never seen ink before and contemplating asking him what it means like he’s stoned and wants to talk about the universe.
“Hey, my house, my rules,” Stiles says, whisking the eggs with some milk. “I’m pretty sure that even as Alpha you can’t force me to wear a shirt in the privacy of my own home. If you’re worried about being blinded by my pasty skin, you could always leave. Door’s open, now. Which, speaking of, should I be worried about paying Maisey--that’s my landlady, Maisey, she is exactly what you’d expect from a person named Maisey--for damage to the downstairs door?”
“I picked the lock,” Derek says.
“Cree-per,” Stiles sing-songs. “I guess I should just be glad you didn’t pick the lock on the upstairs door, too.”
Derek doesn’t bother replying. Stiles has dumped the eggs into the pan and is apparently focused on scrambling them; he doesn’t talk, either. There was a time when Stiles would’ve babbled incessantly, filling up the empty space with nervous energy, but now he seems content to let the silence lie.
Until he isn’t.
“I don’t know what I can do to convince you, Derek,” Stiles says. “I’m not the second coming of the Argents. I’m hardly even--”
“You’re training to become a folklorist,” Derek says. “Aren’t you? That’s something. You’re still involved.”
“Of course I’m still involved, just like Scott is still my best friend and called me to research shit when you guys needed help, don’t even pretend you didn’t know about that. You can’t expect me to spend my formative years marinating in this shit and then give it up altogether. But I’m not going to challenge you with my big bad thesis,” Stiles says. “Do you want to hear what it’s about? Because I have on good authority that it works as well as Tylenol P.M. Possibly better, Tylenol P.M. is kind of shit.”
“Stiles,” Derek says.
Stiles brings two plates to the table and sits down across from Derek.
“Okay,” he says, sliding a plate and a fork towards Derek. “What do you want?”
“After breakfast,” Derek says, and begins shoveling food into his mouth. Stiles does the same, but he gives Derek a strange, inscrutable look first. Derek wonders if he’s just lost the ability to read every expression that crosses Stiles’ face or if Stiles has gained the thought-to-face filter that his lack of previously made him so disconcertingly easy to read.
“What is it, then, Derek?” Stiles asks when their plates are both clean. “What do you want out of this?”
“You stay out,” Derek says, pointing at Stiles with a fork. “Don’t get involved with anything without consulting me first. Coven shows up? Tell me, don’t do anything. Shapeshifters? What the fuck ever, this is my territory, any supernatural dealings should go through me.”
Stiles sets his own fork down, but not before twirling it lazily in his long fingers.
“What if there’s a direct threat?” Stiles asks. “Should I just sit on my hands until you and the pack are ready to help?”
“How direct a threat?” Derek asks, and Stiles squints at him.
“Did you really just ask me that?” Stiles says. “How direct a threat? A direct threat is fairly--direct. That’s like you, threatening to tear my throat out with your teeth. Or a yeti dangling my new half-brother out a third story window by his ankle. Or--”
“The threat needs to be direct and immediate,” Derek says. “If there’s time to consult the pack, you will. And you won’t go around telling anyone about the pack.”
“The only person I ever told was my father,” Stiles blurts out. “Sorry I got sick of lying to my dad. Who was a huge help to you, in case you’ve forgotten. Still is, at that. Hired Boyd, furthermore.”
“You should’ve asked us first,” Derek says. “You should have at least asked Scott.”
“Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve,” Stiles says, tone suddenly light, eyes sharp. “Didn’t. Look, I don’t think that will be a problem again.”
“So you agree to the terms?” Derek asks, and Stiles shrugs.
“What will you do if I don’t?” Stiles asks. “Your threats have lost a bit of their bite over the years, Derek. You seem to lack follow through.”
Derek glowers, and Stiles shrugs.
“Sure,” he says. “Sounds fine. I only ran into a couple cave trolls and like five vampires when I was down in Ohio, so I figure I am mostly off the radar when it comes to--” Stiles waves a hand. “Whatever. And it’s been pretty quiet up here, right?”
Derek refuses to take the cave troll/vampire bait Stiles is dangling. It sounds interesting. It probably isn’t. Stiles can probably tell the story in a way that makes it interesting, though, but Derek refuses to give him the satisfaction.
“Sometimes we get delegations from other packs, or the occasional omega, but it’s mostly peaceful,” he says instead. After about five years, it’s started to feel a little less like they lived on the Hellmouth (Erica likes Buffy. A lot. And Isaac has a frankly disturbing crush on either Sarah Michelle Geller or David Boreanaz, it’s really hard to tell. Maybe both.).
“Okay,” Stiles says. “We’re okay, then? I’m not going to do anything to hurt the pack, you know--”
Derek doesn’t know that, actually--that’s why he’s here. But he knows if he says that Stiles will get defensive and he just--can’t, right now.
“We’re okay,” Derek says, and Stiles nods.
“We’ve reached an agreement and I’m not even dressed. Damn I’m good,” Stiles says.
Derek grins at him wryly, and Stiles goes into another room and emerges a couple minutes later, having traded his pajama bottoms for jeans.
“You’re still here?” he asks, tugging on a t-shirt. “Do you need me to walk you to your car, protect you from the mean streets of Beacon Hills? Oak is a particularly mean street, I hear.”
“Shut up,” Derek says, without venom.
“You didn’t even thank me for the bacon. Now seriously--” and Stiles takes a belt that’s hanging on the doorknob and pulls it on, because apparently Stiles dresses himself as aimlessly as he talks. “I have shit to do, so how about we both get on with our lives, okay?”
“I’ll do the dishes,” Derek says, collecting their plates and heading towards the sink. It seems like the least he can do, but Stiles’ lips turn down at the corners.
“You don’t need to,” he says. “I’ll get them tonight.”
“Consider it my thanks for the bacon,” Derek says. Stiles shrugs.
“Have it your way. Like Burger King.”
He disappears into what must be the bedroom, and emerges when Derek’s in the middle of drying, now wearing socks and carrying a satchel that jounces against his hip.
“Just put them in the drying rack, that’s what it’s for,” he says. “C’mon, let’s go, time’s a-wasting, daylight’s burning, etceteras, etceteras.”
Derek follows Stiles out, and Stiles locks the door behind them.
“A favor, dude,” Stiles says. “Don’t go around picking my locks.”
“What about the window?” Derek says. There’s a fire escape; he checked. Stiles physically turns around to look at Derek, furrowing his brow.
“You’re no good at jokes. You really, really aren’t,” Stiles says. “I hope you don’t need to use the window, is all I’m going to say on that point. The window’s available on a need to use basis, but if ‘need to use’ means you’re just paranoid that I’m going to undermine your special Alpha authority then please don’t show up ranting in my bedroom in the middle of the night, ‘cause I need my beauty sleep. Unlike certain other people I could name--but won’t, because I’m polite that way and my papa raised me right--I never got a super special werewolf makeover, so I take what I can.”
By the time Stiles finishes that monologue they’re out on the street, and Stiles heads towards an alley that leads to the back of the building. He lifts a hand as he turns.
“See you around, Derek,” he calls back.
“Sure,” Derek says. Just like when they were in the grocery store, then. This is how it’s going to be.
Derek drives home. Boyd’s done with work, but Derek figures he’s sleeping and immediately goes around to the back of the house.
They built the new house when it became clear the old one wouldn’t be worth salvaging, at least not as a house. Derek had the old building converted into a greenhouse; they took the top level down and inserted glass panels into the burned out hollows, and Derek brought in the plants. He got the metaphor; he really, really did. He tried not to think about it too much because it still made him wince: greenery from ash, new life from death, all paid for by life insurance. That wasn’t what this was about, not really; it was about his job, his greenhouse and his landscaping business, not some fucking metaphor. Not regrowth, just growth, financially, to sustain the pack.
He’s repotting today, moving some of the sapling fruit trees to larger containers. There’d have to be a pack discussion tonight, just to--let them know. About Stiles, and that Derek had been to see him. Luckily, Isaac was cooking, so no one would be skipping dinner.
There was a mutual, unspoken agreement that Erica would never actually have to cook. On her nights, everyone skipped dinner, or they ordered takeout--anything, really, to get out of eating pork chops cooked dry as scabs, or meat loaf that looked like vomit. How she did it Derek didn’t know, but Erica had never found a recipe she couldn’t ruin. Except dessert for dinner, but that was more of a once a month thing and didn’t involve much more than Erica buying ice cream and whipped cream in a can and magic shell at the grocery store, which didn’t really qualify as cooking, per se.
Isaac makes stuffed cabbage for dinner and glares at Erica when he brings the casserole dish to the table.
“That’s cute Isaac,” she says. “Real cute.”
“It smells good,” Boyd says.
“That’s because it is good,” Isaac says. “It’s not like I just boiled cabbage and called it a day like Derek would’ve.”
Derek would resent that, except it’s true. His default cooking setting involves putting water in a pot and boiling it, unless he’s confronted with meat.
“I went to see Stiles today,” he says.
“And he threatened the pack and laughed maniacally,” Erica says. “So now we have to kill him.”
“He’s agreed to stay out of our affairs,” Derek says. “But if you guys see him acting suspicious--Boyd, if he’s nosing around cases with the Sheriff--”
“We’ll tell you,” Erica says, rolling her eyes. “You’re kind of a freak sometimes, you know that Derek? It’s Stiles, we’re friends.”
“On Facebook?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Erica says. “But also in general.”
She meets Derek’s gaze and frowns a little.
“I’m trying to keep us safe,” he says, and it comes out--it comes out just north of pathetic.
“We know,” Boyd says evenly, and after a moment Isaac nods. Everyone falls silent, eating placidly and looking at their plates.
“Scott and Allison will be back soon,” Derek says, after they’ve been quiet for what seems like too long.
“Just like old times,” Erica says, but there’s a wry twist to her tone. “We should all break into the high school and reminisce. Isaac, you have keys. And then we can get drunk behind the bleachers--oh wait we can’t.”
“It’s no one’s fault but your own that you never took the opportunity to get drunk before Derek bit you and cured your epilepsy,” Isaac says.
“I was a law-abiding teenager,” Erica says. “Too young to drink, and then the opportunity for drunken debauchery was cruelly snatched from me. Forever. I go on dates with dudes, and no matter how many Bloody Marys they buy me, they still look as unattractive as they did when I first saw them.”
“We all feel so sorry for you,” Isaac says. “You really aren’t missing anything. And Derek’s never been drunk either.”
“You always want what you can’t have,” Erica continues balefully. They’ve all heard this monologue before, but it’s kind of comfortingly insipid.
“Sort of like how I always wanted Pop-Tarts after you broke the toaster,” Boyd mumbles.
“You can eat Pop-Tarts cold,” Erica says, and Boyd frowns at her. Derek’s heard this one before, too--it’s at the point where one of them should probably buy a new toaster--but he just tunes them out, lets the easy back and forth of their three voices become a comforting lull. If he focuses, he can hear sounds further out, in the woods--not much of anything, just the ordinary creaking of trees. They’re the noises Derek focuses on at night when he’s trying to sleep. If he can hear things when they’re far enough away--it’ll be like hearing them before they happen. Or it could be. That was a lie he told himself when he was younger, but it had always been a comforting one.
It’s strange, now, to realize that had been in his head even then--even when he believed with absolute certainty that Laura would be the Alpha, that that particular mantle would never pass to him, and so, he should’ve, by all rights, had less to worry about. It makes him wonder about his betas who are now bickering about--whether or not Erica makes a decent macchiato. Again.
“You should start giving me discounts,” Isaac says.
“I already give you discounts,” Erica says.
“Better ones,” Isaac suggests.
“Better ones would come out of my paycheck,” Erica says. “And if you really wanted more, you wouldn’t have made cabbage for dinner. That cabbage was a declaration of war, Isaac Lahey.”
“And your next move is going to be to produce more of your terrible cooking,” Isaac says. “Or takeout from Lucky Dragon without an order of egg rolls? I would be so disappointed. Distraught, even. I might cry.”
Erica sticks her tongue out at him and Isaac gives her the finger.
“The future of America’s youth,” Derek says.
“Speaking of America’s youth--” Isaac grins toothily. “Werewolves are in vogue right now. All the kids are reading these werewolf books.”
“Is this like ‘Twilight’?” Erica asks. “Ugh, remember ‘Twilight’? I even read those books. They were big right before you turned me--so inaccurate.”
Isaac shrugs.
“I’m just saying, werewolves,” Isaac says. “We should have pack book club.”
“Sure,” Derek says dryly. “Pack book club with werewolf books targeted at teenagers sounds like a great idea.”
“It’s not like we ever finished ‘Moby Dick,’” Boyd points out.
“We never started ‘Moby Dick,’” Derek says, though he realizes that was the joke. “Pack book club doesn’t exist. Because it’s a terrible idea.”
“I want to read them,” Erica says.
“Teen Wolf trilogy,” Isaac says, then takes another bite. “The first one’s called ‘Omega’.”
“Seriously?” Erica asks, looking between the other three.
“Even a blind pig finds an apple sometimes. It’s probably still inaccurate,” Derek says, then takes his plate into the kitchen. “You can buy the book, but I’m not reading it.”
“Did you seriously just say that?” Erica calls after him. “About the pig? What the hell, Derek?”
Derek helps with the dishes and then goes up to bed, falls asleep while Erica and Boyd fuck two rooms over before Boyd’s Crown Vic pulls out of the drive. He’ll just--ignore Stiles. Until things inevitably go south, and then Derek will take care of it like he takes care of everything else, now. At least Boyd will be helpful.
And he’s not going to read that book.
Derek is kind of surprised when Erica shows up with a copy the next day, because Erica only follows up on about one-ninth of the things she proposes over dinner. That might be true for the pack as a whole, actually; they tend to talk a lot of shit over dinner. It helps pass the time. But the coffee shop where Erica works is adjacent to a bookstore, and so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when she slaps not one but two copies of ‘Omega’ by N. D. Paul on the table.
“Isaac and I get them first,” she says, like Derek and Boyd are seriously going to try to stake a claim here. Derek eyes the books. There’s a silhouette of a wolf on the cover, backed by hazy blue trees.
“Inaccurate,” he says, jabbing a finger at the wolf.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Erica says.
“God Derek, have platitudes taught you nothing?” Isaac drawls in a poor imitation of the voice Erica uses when she’s deigning to bless them with her insight.
It’s a relief when Boyd comes out of the kitchen with pancakes and sets them in the middle of the table. Boyd has an inoperable condition where he only cooks breakfast food, and Derek’s going to be kind of grateful when Allison and Scott arrive so they can stop subsisting on dinners that are 25% breakfast food, 25% takeout, 25% boiled, and 25% actually okay. Maybe they should just have Isaac do all the cooking, but he’d probably pitch a fit, and if there’s one thing Derek has learned from being Alpha, it’s to pick the hill you want to die on. Derek does not want to die on the hill of making Isaac cook dinner every night. They have a system, it worked, changing it would only bring them grief.
Besides, Derek likes pancakes.
The next night Derek finds Erica sitting in the living room reading, legs slung over the side of an armchair.
“Where’s dinner?” he asks.
“I got delivery,” she says.
“No one delivers out here,” he says, because it’s true. Erica looks up at him.
“Well, now they do,” she says. “So sit tight, and our food will magically appear--” there’s the distant clatter of a car coming up the long gravel driveway. “About now.”
The sound of the wheels--the car--makes a vague connection in Derek’s head. But a lot of cars sound the same, and a lot of people have the same car, so he doesn’t push it.
“Do you have a tip for the delivery guy?” Derek asks.
“Oh, he doesn’t need one,” Erica says with a sly grin. Derek had kind of thought Erica had outgrown the phase where she seduced people for favors, but apparently not. Which, whatever, it’s her prerogative and her sex life, and Boyd doesn’t really seem to give a shit, but was it really necessary to get out of picking up the food on the way home like she usually does?
Only then Isaac gets the door, and he’s slapping the delivery guy heartily on the back, and--it’s Stiles. Of course it is. Erica’s grin broadens, and she slides out of the chair and to her feet.
“One point for me, Derek,” she says, handing him her book and sidling towards the door. “Hey Stiles, got that food?”
Stiles holds up two bags.
“Derek asked if we should tip the delivery guy,” Erica continues.
“Nah,” Stiles says, looking past Erica to meet Derek’s eyes. “Just let me eat some and we’ll call it even.”
And, okay, point for Erica, because Derek’s not going to kick Stiles out when Derek can smell the General Tso’s chicken that someone finally remembered is his favorite, and even if that someone is Stiles--it’s General Tso’s chicken, Erica hates spicy food and refuses to order it.
“Kitchen’s through there,” Derek says, pointing.
“Okay,” Stiles says, going to walk past Derek. He stops short when he sees the book Derek’s holding, and Derek can hear his heartbeat quicken. “Are you reading those?”
“Pack book club,” Erica says, throwing an arm across Stiles’ shoulders. “You read them?”
“No,” Stiles says, too quickly. Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles shrugs. “My--uh--ex. Liked them a lot. So I just--um. It was a messy break-up. I cried. My face got all splotchy. And my chin wrinkled up. He took a picture and put it on Instagram. So I associate that with those books. Um.”
Behind Stiles and Erica, Isaac raises his eyebrows at Derek, who doesn’t really know what to do that, with any of it, really. Stiles is obviously lying. About werewolf novels directed at teenagers. Derek has no idea why he would do that, especially because--his ex-boyfriend put a picture of him crying on Instagram? Really? And Stiles has boyfriends now?
“Isaac and Erica are reading them,” Derek says, setting the book gingerly on the coffee table. Stiles heartbeat slows and he starts moving towards the kitchen.
“So Isaac can better relate to his students,” Erica says. “And by relate to, I mean seduce.”
“I am not,” Isaac says, but at least he stops making faces at Derek to defend his dubious honor.
“Well, we all know you never had much luck with girls in high school,” Stiles says, moving towards the kitchen.
“Why do people keep saying that? I totally got lucky in high school. More than you, Stiles,” Isaac whines, but he follows them to the kitchen, where Boyd appears, as if summoned, and Stiles starts extracting containers of food from the bags and laying them out on the table.
“Yeah, but everyone was luckier than me in high school. That’s like saying you’re better at target shooting than a blind kid--you might be, but why are you telling anyone? But I made out with Danny once. It was hot,” Stiles says somewhat wistfully before nodding towards the bads. “I just got a bit of everything. Mostly the usual. Where are the plates? And spoons to dish up?”
Erica helps locate the plates and utensils while Stiles continues to open containers of food, and apparently he ordered one of everything on the menu, because it seems like it’s all here. Boyd and Isaac immediately begin filling plates, but Stiles stands back, waiting. Derek goes to stand next to him.
“How’d Erica find you?” he asks, and Stiles looks up.
“I went by the Java Hut to get some coffee, and she gave me sixty bucks and told me to bring you guys dinner tonight,” Stiles says. “So, you know, I guess I found her. She lured me in with caffeine.”
“And feminine wiles,” Erica chirps.
“The real question, though,” Isaac says. “Was there too much milk in your coffee?”
“No?” Stiles says. “I just got a cup of drip and added milk over at the coffee shop equivalent of a condiment bar. So I’m afraid I can’t help you with whatever argument you’re trying to win.”
Stiles pats Isaac on the shoulder, and Isaac scowls and goes to the table to sit down, leaving Derek and Stiles with the food.
“You first,” Stiles says. “Isn’t that like, a pack thing, Alpha eats first?”
“That’s lions,” Derek says flatly. “And lions live in prides, not packs.”
“Yeah, whatever, I saw ‘Lion King’ too,” Stiles says. “And ‘Lion King 2.’ And ‘Lion King 1 ½.’ In case you were wondering. And I’m going to watch them all again with Joshua, ‘cause I’m going to be the best half brother ever. And ‘Lion King’ is kind of vital.”
“Right,” Derek says. “‘Hamlet’ with lions.”
“So much more than that, dude,” Stiles says. “So much more.”
Derek goes ahead and fills a plate because Stiles is still standing there like he’s waiting, and then they, too, go to sit. Stiles takes the empty chair at the foot of the table, between Isaac and Boyd and opposite Derek, and proceeds to sustain the dinner conversation with disconnected anecdotes. Derek’s grateful that, at the very least, they aren’t rehashing the macchiato argument, or the one about Erica’s ability to get drunk, or the one about who ate the Pop-Tarts or Cheez-Its or this week’s snack food of choice.
Derek doesn’t contribute much, but listening to the other four talk--Stiles wasn’t kidding about having kept up with the rest of the pack. He knows about Isaac’s ex-girlfriend Pamela. He knows about Erica’s job, and he seems to be aware of Erica and Boyd’s strange, undiscussed relationship. It leaves Derek feeling likes his axis has been tilted, wondering why Stiles kept up with them and not with him--and then he’s wondering why that bothers him, when it shouldn’t bother him at all. He was relieved when Stiles left, because if he wasn’t going to join the pack it was easier to have him out of town. And now here Stiles is, talking with his hands, bright and engaging and grown into himself. That’s what strikes Derek the most: Stiles has grown into himself. The last time Derek saw Stiles he was eighteen, and they just passed one another at graduation; Stiles had given Derek a sort of sarcastic salute, one of the more sarcastic gestures Derek had been subjected to in his lifetime, and Derek had nodded back. But the last time they had really spoken to each other was when Stiles was seventeen, loose-limbed and uncomfortable in his skin. He had flailed around a bit, and then gone very still and told Derek that he couldn’t join the pack. Not yet, not then, not while he was the only person his father had. Scott was still his friend, he was still Stiles, but he needed to protect what he had. He couldn’t commit, because he needed space.
Stiles had actually said that, that he couldn’t commit because he needed space. And Derek had accepted it, because of the way Stiles had suddenly spoken, direct and clear, and for a moment Derek had seen him, seen this person Stiles would become and respected that. It was a fleeting moment, but it lasted long enough for Derek to say, “Okay,” and after that, when Stiles severed ties--that seemed like the right thing to do.
But here he is, now, and damn if it isn’t weird.
When Stiles leaves he grins broadly at everyone, says he’ll have to have them all over for dinner sometime, and then proceeds to offer fist-bumps all around.
“You didn’t talk much at dinner,” Boyd says when he passes Derek in the hall, on the way out to his shift.
“I never talk much,” Derek counters. It doesn’t really work, because Boyd just looks at him in this way that took all the satisfaction out of getting the last word.
part 2