Chapter Text
Stiles spent half the next day hiding in the library. He wasn’t exactly proud, especially since he’d ditched all of his totally awesome friends who he hardly ever saw anymore, but he just—needed space.
He could still feel Derek’s hand moving down his back, curving to fit his spine. The worst part was, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that the whole thinking-Derek-was-hot thing wasn’t actually that new. In fact, he had traced that particular thought all the way back to the day that Derek had asked him to cut his arm off, which, what the hell was wrong with him? Or maybe even earlier. No wonder his dad had known he was bi for years, probably anybody with half a brain knew that and Stiles was just an idiot.
So, okay. He could deal with that. He thought other guys were hot. The baseball player Isaac was lusting after, for instance. Isaac was even kind of hot in an aww-let-me-pinch-your-cheeks sort of way.
But there were just too many feelings, and he didn’t want to deal with them. The feelings were annoyingly pervasive, because they popped up at inopportune moments, like when Derek smiled and he found himself thinking “oh my god, your teeth, why are they so adorable.” Nothing about Derek Hale was adorable. And what kind of person even thought that about teeth? Clearly Stiles was just going crazy.
One plus of him being a complete coward was that he was hyperproductive in the library. He’d finished almost all of his homework for the next week, which, on the one hand, meant he had a ton of free time but, on the other, meant he would probably just spend all that free time pathetically reliving Derek touching his back.
He was just putting the finishing touches on his essay about Dracula when someone slid into the chair across from him. He didn’t even have to look.
“Sorry, homework,” he said, tracing a sentence with his finger.
“Do you want us to leave?” Derek asked.
Stiles wanted to say yes, but he knew Derek would be able to tell it was a lie, and then he would probably get all smug, and really Stiles just did not need that. “No,” he said, still staring down at his keyboard. “No, I’m actually done with all my work for the week, so, no.”
“Is something wrong?” Derek said.
He finally looked up. Derek actually looked worried, which was something Stiles was used to seeing only during life-and-death situations. “Yes,” he said. Sometimes it wasn’t even worth lying. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough,” Derek said, shrugging. “You hungry?”
And suddenly Stiles realized that it was four in the afternoon and he hadn’t eaten anything other than a bag of Skittles all day.
They went to the student union, where Stiles was so distracted that he didn’t even notice Derek pay andorder for him until Derek handed him a tray with food and Stiles thought where did this come from? He felt like they should probably invite the pack along, but no, having one werewolf listening in on his heart doing a Derek-induced-tarantella was bad enough. He sure as hell didn’t need Erica making fun of him and Scott crying all over him because, really Stiles, Derek, why Derek?
“Stiles,” Derek said. Stiles blinked and his eyes took a second to refocus on Derek. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Oh yeah, totally fine, just didn’t sleep that well and then, you know, crazy overproductive library time. You spend enough time analyzing all the different fluids in Dracula, you’d feel like your brain was dribbling out your nose too,” he said, gulping down his—Coke. Derek had ordered him Coke. Because Derek was perfect and beautiful and obviously knew about Stiles and Coke.
“Yeah,” Derek said, nodding. “The whole ‘blood is milk’ thing.” He made air quotes. Derek Hale made air quotes. What.
And also, “Wait, what?” Stiles said. “The whole what?”
Derek looked embarrassed suddenly, and he shoved a few fries into his mouth. “You know. There’s that scene with Mina and the count, where she drinks the blood from his chest, which is obviously like—well, you know, what with the conflation of blood and milk and the whole reversal of gender roles—“
“Stop,” Stiles said. His left eye twitched. “I—I need you to stop. What?”
Derek actually had the gall to blush. Stiles tried really hard not to think it was kind of adorable. “I wrote a paper about it,” he said, looking down at his hands.
“About Dracula.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were researching werewolves?” Stiles said, narrowing his eyes.
“What? No, because I took a class about monsters in literature,” Derek said, like it was so totally obvious.
Stiles squinted even more. “In high school?”
“No, Stiles, not in high school,” Derek drawled. He rolled his eyes. “I took some online courses a few years back.”
Stiles chomped down on a fry. “How many?” he said.
Derek shrugged. “Enough to get a degree.”
“You have a degree?”
“Jesus, yes, why are you asking so many questions?” Derek said, his eyebrows twitching lower.
“I don’t know, maybe because I apparently don’t know anything about you?” Stiles snapped. Derek’s face lost all its expression, and he pushed his tray of food around. Stiles sighed. “Sorry,” he said. He dragged one hand over his face. “Sorry. I just—I always assumed you never finished high school, let alone college.”
“Technically, I didn’t finish high school,” Derek said, poking at his fries. “I got my GED online too.”
Stiles hummed. His face felt hot and he couldn’t seem to get his forehead to unwrinkle. He drank most of his Coke while Derek stared at him.
“Laura wanted me to,” Derek said. He picked at his sandwich. “To get a degree. When we were in New York, I got my GED and started on college. It was quick and probably isn’t worth that much, but I figure, maybe someday having a degree will come in handy.”
Stiles blinked. “Has it?”
“Not really,” Derek said, his mouth twitching. No smile this time.
“What, uh, what did you major in?” Stiles said.
The other side of Derek’s mouth started twitching, and he looked embarrassed again, but at least he was almost smiling. “English lit,” he said. “So you can probably understand why it hasn’t helped much in my line of work.”
“Dude, what are you talking about, the next time you’re fighting someone you should try analyzing some literature at them, see what happens,” Stiles said, grinning. “And if it works then I will totally help in the next fight. Deal?”
“Stiles,” Derek said. “No.”
“Oh, come on, let me dream a little.” He picked up his sandwich—was that bologna? How did Derek know he liked bologna? “So, um, why lit?”
Derek grabbed a handful of fries and munched for a bit. Finally he shrugged and said, “Well, mostly I wanted to, you know, rip out Kate’s throat with my bare hands, but—Laura wouldn’t have let me, if she’d known.” He frowned and sipped at his drink. “We used to have this great library. Hundreds of books, some first editions, rare mythologies. I’d always loved to read. And in New York, I just—it made it easier.” He twitched his mouth at Stiles and glanced around them. The union was pretty empty, probably because it was too early for dinner.
“Yeah,” Stiles said, trying not to be too obvious about staring at Derek. “I get that.”
--
Later that night, Erica, Scott, and Isaac all ran off to join the poker tournament. Isaac was wearing a blue shirt the exact same color as his eyes and shockingly tight jeans, so yeah, Stiles figured he was getting some tonight. Good for him.
Stiles was obviously not getting some. Stiles never got any. All Stiles ever got were snarky eyebrows from Derek and “bitch please” looks from Boyd. Not that he was bitter.
“Go to college, they said,” he muttered into his pillow. “It’ll be fun, they said.”
Yup, and there were the eyebrows. Boyd was probably making a face at him too, but he couldn’t actually see Boyd.
“Clearly whoever said that was not talking about you,” Derek said. He was sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the empty bed. For the last hour, he’d been reading over Stiles’ lit paper proposal, making lots of bright green notes in his chicken scratch handwriting.
“Clearly,” Stiles agreed. “I think I’m doing college wrong. I should probably be getting drunk at least three times a week. And I should start turning things in late. And half-assing everything. Maybe college will be more fun then.”
“Yes,” Derek said, drawing a big circle around something on Stiles’ proposal. “Do that.”
Stiles waved his arm at Derek, then let it flop down to hang over the bed. “You are an enabler. Stop that.”
Derek just smirked at him from the floor and then rolled onto his stomach, which was seriously not fair, because how was Stiles supposed to concentrate when Derek’s ass was in his line of vision?
“How come the kids are better at college than I am?” Stiles grumbled. “They don’t even go to this school.”
“The kids?” Derek said. He turned his head and raised one eyebrow at Stiles.
“What, I couldn’t say ‘the betas’ because Boyd is still here, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and I didn’t want to say ‘Isaac, Scott, and Erica’ because of too many syllables. Deal with it.”
Just then Boyd started snoring, which made Stiles break out in a fit of giggles, which in turn made Derek grin brilliantly at him.
“Is he—do you think he’s narcoleptic?” Stiles wheezed, annoyingly dazzled by Derek’s stupid face.
“I don’t know,” Derek said, smirking. “I think he probably can just fall asleep anywhere.”
“Oh man. Can we draw on him?”
“What? No,” Derek said. He looked comically affronted, with his face all scrunched up and Stiles’ pen settled behind his ear.
“I bet you would’ve said yes if it was Scott.”
“Well, yeah, because that’s Scott. I actually like Boyd,” Derek said, propping himself up on one elbow and giving Stiles a look that could only be described as sassy.
Stiles fake-gasped. “No, I don’t believe it. First you brush your teeth, now you like people? This is just too much for me to handle.”
Derek rolled his eyes and then flipped onto his back. The pen fell onto the ground as he tucked his arms behind his head; Stiles tried not to notice the way his shirt had ridden up a bit. “Sometimes I even like more than one person at a time,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “Three, tops. Never you.”
“I knew it,” Stiles said. “I knew you didn’t like me.”
“Can’t stand you,” Derek said, grinning.
Stiles felt his heart hiccup a little, so he rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Was that flirting? Did that count? Or was this actually an alternate universe where Derek joked all the time?
If he had to place any bets, he would probably have picked the last option. He was pretty sure he did not live in a world where Derek Hale flirted at all (unless it was to further his career as a deranged werewolf), and especially not a world in which Derek Hale flirted with him. He was still contemplating the probability of his getting stuck in an alternate reality when suddenly Derek’s face loomed above him.
He screamed and immediately flailed at Derek’s face. “Jesus Christ, give a guy some warning!” he squeaked. “You can’t just—do—that.” He made a wax on, wax off gesture at Derek.
“Is something wrong?” Derek said, squinting at him. His face was way too close.
“No,” Stiles said, scooting away and sitting up. “Everything is fine. I’m just trying to recover from the horror of having your ugly mug so close to mine.”
That earned him a double eyebrow raise and a double mouth twitch. “Really now,” Derek said.
Stiles was about to respond with something utterly brilliant and snarky when Isaac stumbled in, grinning and with stubble burn all over his face and neck.
“Wow, dude,” Stiles said. “Congrats on your everything.”
Isaac looked confused. “What?”
“You’ve, uh, got a little something.” Stiles waved his hands over his entire upper body.
“Ohhhhh,” Isaac said. He grinned again and started laughing. “Yeah. That.” He grabbed a t-shirt from his backpack and then started unbuttoning his shirt.
“Jesus, it’s everywhere,” Stiles said. He was pretty sure his eyes were about to pop out.
“I know!” Isaac said, giving an excited little wiggle. “College is great. I love college. I love your college.”
“Oh my god just put your shirt on, stop showing off,” Stiles said. “You’d think with all the werewolf healing powers that would all be gone by now.”
“Probably wasn’t enough to trigger the healing process,” Derek muttered. He was leaning against Stiles’ bed, arms crossed.
Isaac was still smiling so much that Stiles was afraid that his face was either going to break or get stuck that way. Since he was starting to look really psychotic, Stiles wasn’t sure which option would be worse.
“So does this mean you’ll come visit me more?” Stiles said.
“Maaaaybe,” Isaac said. He was definitely like two seconds away from breaking into song and dance. It was kind of creepy.
Erica burst in then, looking almost ready to bite someone’s head off. Then she took one look at Isaac and screamed, “You just had sex!” That woke up Boyd, and even Boyd glaring at everybody was not enough to curb Isaac’s horrible glee.
Scott appeared a minute later. He fist bumped Isaac and said, “Yeaaaaah, buddy.” Stiles kind of figured he’d heard Erica screaming and had come running.
“Was it the skinny jeans?” Erica said. “I bet it was the skinny jeans.”
“No, I bet it was because you were such a beast at poker, right?” Scott said.
Stiles buried his face in his hands and sighed.
“We should stop talking about this,” he said. “Let’s just—stop talking about all the people who are having sex who are not Stiles.”
“But you’re—ohhh,” Erica said, ever tactful. Stiles glared at her between his fingers.
He snuck a peek at Derek, who for some reason looked extra constipated and was also twitching slightly—not in a precursor-to-smile way, either. Weird. Derek was so weird.
“I’m gonna go shower,” Isaac practically sang as he grabbed Stiles’ towel and waltzed out.
“Wait, that’s my—“ The door slammed shut behind him. “Only towel,” Stiles muttered.
“Oh, gross,” Erica said. “I definitely used that this morning.”
Stiles gave her his best approximation of Boyd’s bitch-face. Scott said, “Um, me too.” Stiles groaned and decided that he really needed to find better friends.
--
His plans for after the pack left consisted mainly of bad movies, a can of frosting, at least three hours of minesweeper, and an economy-sized bag of Swedish fish. Sulking was in order.
But all his plans went to hell when the pack piled into the Camaro and Derek loomed over him, way too close, skimmed his hand down Stiles’ arm, and said, “See you later.”
Sometimes he was really glad he didn’t have a roommate. It might have been kind of hard to explain why he needed so much alone time.
--
A few days later, Stiles was finishing up his latest chem report—copper ions were a distracting color, who knew, he really couldn’t be blamed for the crazy high percent error—when Scott called him. He squinted at the phone and considered not answering, but Scott always got ridiculously offended when he didn’t answer, even if he had a totally legitimate excuse, like class.
He grabbed the last of his sulking Swedish fish (it had turned out to be a lot more than he’d expected, it was taking him forever) and hopped up on the bed. “Hey dude, what’s up?” he said.
“How could you not tell me?” Scott yelled.
Stiles flinched. “Um, tell you what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe that you’re dating Derek?” Scott’s voice shot hilariously into the stratosphere but Stiles was way too distracted to actually appreciate it.
“Wait, what?” Stiles said. “That’s—what?”
“I thought I was your best friend!”
“What, you are, I just—what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how you totally just forgot to tell me that you’re—“
“Okay no, just no, stop saying that, I am totally not dating him, that would be ridiculous.” He could hear Scott breathing huffily, trust Scott to get angry about something that was totally false. “Who told you that?”
Scott paused in his angry breathing and then finally said, “Isaac.”
“Okay, well, there you go, Isaac is awesome and all but—“
“And he heard it from Derek.”
“What?” Stiles squawked. “He, wait, what?”
Scott was really quiet. He only started talking when Stiles made a frustrated noise at him. “You aren’t lying,” he said. “You actually—but then—huh?”
“No, Scott, don’t do that, this is Stiles’ confusion time, not yours, stop it, just tell me what’s going on.”
“You’re sure you aren’t dating him?”
“I’m pretty sure I would know!” he yelled. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. “Sorry. Just—explain.”
“Well, Isaac just, like, told me in class today. That Derek said you guys have been dating for a couple months now—“
“A couple months?” Stiles squeaked.
“—and that you were being really weird about it.”
“Um, yeah, because we aren’t dating.” There were so many things he wanted to do, most of which involved him bashing his head against every hard, static surface in his room. “Why would he even say that?”
“I mean, I don’t know, maybe he just assumed? It’s not like you were subtle or anything, I mean, even I knew you liked him, and you’ve liked him forever, and it was just so obvious, and then he was so obvious that maybe he just figured you knew?”
“What? I—what?”
“I mean, you’ve gotta know he likes you, right? It’s—kind of gross actually but, I mean, I guess if you like him it’s—“
At least half of Stiles’ brain just gave up then, because, Derek liked him? This was clearly another case of that whole alternate reality thing, which was fine and all, could potentially be awesome, but then there was the whole problem where he definitely was not dating Derek.
“I don’t understand,” Stiles whined. “I just—we aren’t dating! We really, really aren’t.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you just didn’t notice?”
“Scott,” he said, tugging on his short hair. “I am not actually dumb enough to let something that big slip by me.”
“Um,” Scott said. “I mean, there was that whole thing where you thought you were straight even though you were totally jonesing after him, so uh, maybe you are?”
Well. He kind of had a point.
“Okay, but if we were dating, we would be going on dates. And…doing other things. Things that I definitely would have noticed happening because I would have had a heart attack from all the excitement, okay? So, yeah, definitely not—“ And then he remembered how, in the month before school started, he and Derek had watched at least three movies a week, usually accompanied by Stiles’ semi-famous homemade pancakes. Sometimes accompanied by Derek’s arm almost but not quite resting on Stiles’ shoulders. And there was that super weird text where Derek had joked about not wanting to give Stiles’ dad another reason to get out the shotgun. Derek calling him at school, asking if he could come visit. Derek telling him things, and touching him, and— “Shit, I’m dating Derek Hale.”
Scott gave him a moment before he said, “Even I’m not that dumb.”
Stiles hung up on him then because, well, just because.
Then he emptied the bag of Swedish fish into his mouth which, big mistake, those things were really hard to chew. But at least by the time he managed to get them all down, he more or less had a game plan.
So he called Derek.
Derek picked up after four rings, saying, “Hey, what’s—“
“Why didn’t you tell me we’re dating?” Stiles shouted.
Derek made a choking noise, which would probably have been kind of funny if Stiles weren’t totally freaking out. “I, what?” Derek eventually said.
“Yeah. I just found out from Scott that we’ve been dating for, like, two months. And nobody told me.”
“Um,” Derek said. “I thought you knew?”
“I mean, yeah, I was totally clued in by all the making out and, like, mindblowing sex which has not been happening. Yeah, really obvious. I didn’t even know you liked me, when did that happen?” Some small part of him was vaguely aware that he wasn’t actually handling it well at all. Unfortunately, that part was overpowered by the much larger part which was still pissed.
Derek sighed. “Okay, just—give me an hour.”
“You—what?” Definitely not the response he’d expected.
“I’m not having this conversation over the phone,” Derek said right before he hung up.
Stiles was just angry until he realized what Derek had actually been saying, which was not so much “we aren’t talking about this” as “see you in an hour so we can talk about this totally awkward thing face to face” which was so, so bad. Terrifying, actually. That was something that Stiles was not ready to deal with.
He considered going to hide in the library, but—well, he actually wanted to be dating Derek, which probably would not happen if he chickened out. So instead, he finished reading Dracula, even though he didn’t remember anything that happened. He went over his revised paper proposal—thanks, Derek—one last time. Then he had thirty minutes to while away until Derek got there—unless he sped, in which case, not even thirty minutes.
He stared at the ceiling and thought bitterly that, of course, of course his dad had actually been right about everything. Not fair.
The whole dating thing actually made sense of a lot of his interactions with Derek. For instance, the smiling—Derek definitely did not smile that much at other people, but sometimes Stiles got like seven smiles in one hour. And—oh. When Stiles had been complaining about how he never got laid, and Derek had looked mildly crazed.
After that particular realization, Stiles spent a good five minutes yelling obscenities into his pillow. Then he just lay there, hating his life. It figured that he’d been obliviously dating Derek while simultaneously spending every minute of his life angsting about how Derek was probably way too hot to ever actually like him.
Which—huh. Derek liked him. That was—well, that was basically the biggest ego boost ever.
He turned that thought over in his head for a few minutes, thinking it over so much that he almost jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock on the door. He slid off his bed and then stopped.
The way he saw it, he had two options: he could either jump Derek, or they could actually talk. As he went to the door, he still hadn’t decided which option he should take. He stood with his hand on the doorknob for a few seconds and then opened the door.
Derek made the choice for him. He was holding a giant pizza box in front of him, which would have thwarted Stiles’ jumping plans if he’d decided to go that route. “Hi,” Derek said.
“Is that cheese?” Stiles said. “Oh, I mean, hi.” He stepped back to let Derek in. Derek edged around him, keeping the pizza box between them.
“So,” Derek said. “How’re classes?” He set the pizza in the middle of the bed and absolutely did not look at Stiles.
Stiles bit back a hysterical laugh because, seriously, his life was just ridiculous. “Classes are fine. Thanks for those edits, by the way, it’s way easier to find sources now. So.” He fidgeted with the corner of the pizza box. “How’s the pack?” He jumped up on his bed, sitting on the pillow. Derek made a face and climbed onto the foot of the bed.
“Same as always,” Derek said. He shrugged and scratched at the side of his face.
“Good,” Stiles said. He opened the pizza box and grabbed a few slices. Of course Derek knew he liked cheese best. “So we’ve been dating for two months.”
Derek sighed and reached for a slice of pizza. “I really thought you knew. Sorry about that.”
For the next minute or so, Stiles ate his pizza and watched Derek, who was brooding at the pizza box. It was kind of ridiculous actually. “I’m not mad or anything,” Stiles said. “Well, not anymore.” He gnawed on his crust. “It’s just, I didn’t even know you liked me, so this is kind of—y’know, a bit of a shock.”
He glanced up and was more distracted by the string of cheese stretched between Derek’s mouth and pizza than by Derek’s confused look of surprise. After Derek had taken care of his cheese problem he said, “Really?”
Stiles blinked. “That’s all you have to say?”
“I wasn’t being subtle,” Derek said, frowning. “Even your dad knew.”
“Yeah, well,” Stiles said. “We can’t all be so observant.” He grabbed his fourth or fifth piece of pizza—he’d lost count—and picked at a bubble of burnt cheese. “Wait, so, did I ask you? The first time?”
Derek raised his eyebrows. “That’s why I figured you were okay with it.”
Stiles resisted the urge to smother himself with his pillow. Instead he settled for just stuffing half a slice of pizza in his mouth. He chewed for a minute before saying, “Were you ever—would you ever have asked me out if I hadn’t, uh, started it?”
The only sound for a few minutes was Derek’s chewing. Derek wouldn’t look at him. Finally, he said, “No.”
Stiles laughed. “So we’ve been dating for two months because I asked you out. Wow. This is a new low.”
“It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted to,” Derek said, getting a weird look on his face. His eyebrows sank and he lowered his head. “But you know, I’m not, you can do—“
“If you say something along the lines of ‘better,’ then I am going to punch you in the face,” Stiles said. “Because you are stupidly attractive and secretly a good guy and you’re the only person I’ve ever known who can fully appreciate my love of Ents, so, no, I’m actually not sure I can do much better.”
Derek narrowed his eyes. “I’m too old for you.”
“Hogwash,” Stiles said, flailing a little bit. “Age is just a number, and you’re hot so no one will care. Besides, that obviously hasn’t stopped you from dating me for the past two months.” When Derek opened his mouth, Stiles said, “No, stop, stop trying to talk me out of this relationship. My dad isn’t going to try to kill you, the distance is not an issue, Scott might cry a little but I don’t care, I’m not secretly a hunter, and I’m nineteen now so I’m extremely legal.” He raised his eyes. “Anything else?”
He almost laughed at the grudgingly amused look on Derek’s face.
“You don’t like the new trilogy,” Derek said, shrugging.
“Okay, no, the fact that you like it is your flaw, don’t even start with me,” Stiles said. “You’re allowed to like the podracing scene but not the whole trilogy.”
“You’re supposed to accept me as I am,” Derek said, picking up another slice of pizza.
“Yeah, well, I can sing Billy Joel to you if you want, but let’s be real, there are more interesting things we could be doing,” Stiles said. “Also, hey, Derek, let’s be really clear here. Do you want to go on a date with me?”
Derek squinted at him and made a face like he was trying to dig something out of his teeth. Stiles was pretty sure Derek had never let anybody else see him looking ridiculous, so that was probably a good sign.
Finally, Derek shrugged and said, “Yeah, okay.”
--
Stiles jolted awake to the sound of “Hungry Like the Wolf” blaring in his ear. The problem was, his bed was only a twin and, well, he wasn’t used to sharing it, so when he started to flail, he accidentally rolled himself out of the bed. He screamed as he fell. “Ow, fuck, ow,” he grumbled as he hauled himself to his feet. He fished under his pillow for his phone while ignoring the fact that Derek—who was in his bed—was not-so-quietly amused about it all. “I hate you,” he said right before he answered his phone. “Yeah, hi, what’s up?” he said as Derek actually snorted.
“Just thought I’d check in with you,” his dad said. “Haven’t heard from you in a while. How’re midterms?”
“Midterms are—going,” Stiles said. He scratched at his hip just under the waistband of his boxers. “How’re you?”
He never actually heard how his dad was because at that moment, Derek slid out of his bed wearing only boxers and walked across the room to the door. He turned around and smirked at Stiles before going out. It was pretty distracting. “Sorry, what?” Stiles said to his dad.
His dad sighed. “I just said, same old same old. Are you okay?”
“I, uh, well,” he said, realizing that Derek was just wandering his floor practically naked. “I’m, I’m good. So, tell me about work yesterday.”
He listened to his dad talk for a few minutes about the station, how one of his deputies had the flu, how someone had called for them to get a cat out of a tree and he’d had to transfer them to the fire department. He was complaining about people expecting him to climb trees like a monkey when Derek came back in.
And Stiles got a really dumb grin on his face because he was dating a Greek god, he was totally allowed to be smug. Derek stopped walking, confused. “Hey Dad?” Stiles said.
“Yeah,” his dad said.
“Remember how you thought I was dating Derek Hale?”
There were two beats of silence and then, “Oh god.”
“No, you’ll like him, shut up,” Stiles said. “Now you can bask in the knowledge that you were totally right about everything all along. It’ll be fun.” Derek finally shook off the confused look and walked back to the bed. He knelt down and started looking for his shirt on the floor. “Here’s a plan,” Stiles said to his dad, tracing the knobby line of Derek’s spine with his eyes. “We should invite the pack to Thanksgiving.” Derek looked up at him, one eyebrow raised.
His dad sighed. “I’m not cooking.”
“I’m totally on it,” Stiles said. “Don’t you worry. But right now I’ve kind of gotta go, I have things to do and—“
“Oh my god, just—be safe and don’t—“
“Bye, Dad!” Stiles yelled as he slammed his phone shut. He scrubbed at his face, well aware that he was blushing. When he finally felt marginally less embarrassed, he put his hands down and then squawked, because Derek was standing really close, frowning curiously at him. “Can I help you?” Stiles said.
Derek shrugged. It turned out the shrug was even more attractive with bare shoulders than with his leather jacket. “Thanksgiving,” he said. “You’re assuming we’ll still be together.”
“Um, yeah, because we’ve already lasted two months,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “And I think we’re both pretty aware of each other’s baggage, so, yeah, I think we’ll be together at Thanksgiving. I hope you like canned cranberry sauce.” He glared at Derek, whose mouth was beginning to twitch. Before Derek could break out one of his devastating smiles, Stiles grabbed his hips and kissed him.
A few minutes later, Derek pulled away, full-on grinning, and said, “Okay, I guess I can come to Thanksgiving.”
Stiles laughed and gave him a loud smacking kiss. “Awesome, I’m glad we’ve got that settled. On to more important matters. Are you hungry? Want Chinese?” He opened up his desk and rummaged through a stack of papers for the menu to the Great Wall. Derek crowded up against his back to peer over his shoulder, curling one hand around his side.
“Do they have Singapore noodles?” Derek said. His chest was really warm, so Stiles leaned back into him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, they do.”