Chapter Text
Stiles shuffled his feet uncertainly, kicking up a small dirt cloud that hovered around his worn sneakers for a moment before settling again. What was he doing hanging around his boyfriend’s house like a creepy stalker? What was he thinking coming here with the hopes of actually keeping said boyfriend after the monumental fiasco that was about to occur? What—
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked from the porch, startling the young man into jumping a step back.
“Jeez, creep much?” Stiles huffed, shoving trembling hands into the pockets of his red hoodie—the one that smelled so, so, so much like Derek for reasons that the teen hoped his parents wouldn’t discover for a very long time. Or ever. Ever sounded good, too.
Stepping down from the porch and stopping in front of Stiles so that the tips of their shoes were almost touching, Derek crossed his arms. “You’re the one that’s been out here for the last twenty minutes muttering to yourself.” His posture was stiff; probably bracing himself for what Stiles was about to throw at him.
And damn if it wasn’t the curve ball of all curve balls.
“My dads want to meet you.” The words came out rushed, and when Derek didn’t react right away, Stiles thought that maybe he hadn’t understood what had exploded from his mouth. But as the teen took a breath to try again, Derek’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched with a painful creak of his teeth.
“Why?”
Stiles shifted again, shaking his head incredulously and swallowing the hysterical laughter bubbling at the back of his throat. “Because…we’re dating?” Again, no reaction. “Sorta?” Still nothing. “Maybe?”
Shoulders slumping a fraction, Derek sighed and looked somewhere over the teen’s shoulder. “Stiles….”
“Please.”
The older man was taken aback by the amount of devastation in that one word, and as his gaze snapped back to his boyfriend’s pale face, he took in the anxious look he was getting with more than a little surprise.
“Please,” Stiles repeated, taking a shallow breath and shaking his head. “Don’t break up with me. I’ll tell them no, okay? You don’t have to, I just…They want….”
Derek rolled his eyes. “I’m not breaking up with you. Calm down.”
Stiles did. Like, literally almost sagged to the ground. His legs were Jell-O. Or maybe spaghetti noodles. Spaghetti noodle-flavored Jell-O.
Hmm…Oh, wait. Ew.
“Stiles?”
Stiles shook away the strange thoughts. “Huh?”
Derek’s eyebrows furrowed, and he uncrossed his arms to place two very large, very warm, warm, warm hands on the teen’s biceps. Whatever tension was left in Stiles’ body melted away with that warmth. “I said: ‘When do they want to meet?’ ”
“Oh.” Stiles shivered, unconsciously stepping further into Derek’s space. So warm. So, so warm. “Uh, dinner? Yeah, dinner. Tonight, 5:30.”
The older man nodded. “Okay. Do I need to…dress up, or something?”
“You have dressy clothes?”
“…No.”
Stiles laughed. “No, you don’t need to dress up. Just….” He tugged at the black T-Shirt cling-cling-clinging to a well-muscled torso. “Maybe something that’s not so…tight.”
“I thought you liked tight,” Derek teased with a smirk, pulling Stiles in so that the teen was flush against his chest.
“Yeah, well, I don’t need my dads knowing that, okay?” Stiles looked up uncertainly, his hands clenching the fabric of Derek’s shirt. “You sure? I mean, you’ll be sitting at a table with a hunter and an angel.”
“A retired hunter and a fallen angel,” Derek corrected for him. “I know who your parents are, Stiles. I think I can handle an hour or two of awkward conversation.”
“More like interrogation,” the teen sighed. “And I’ll just apologize in advance for that, if you don’t mind…Sorry.”
Derek shook his head. “I wish you’d tell them what I am.”
“My pop would freak,” Stiles said, dropping his head to rest against the older man’s shoulder as he remembered his earlier conversation with his parents….
Sometime Earlier Around the Breakfast Table:
“Stiles, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Castiel said calmly as he set plates on the table. “Would you like to invite the young man you’ve been seeing to dinner?”
Stiles dropped his jaw. Dean dropped the pancake he’d been flipping at the stove.
“What?” the teen squeaked.
“What?” Dean demanded, spatula clutched tightly in a white-knuckled fist. “Stiles, are you dating? Cas, how do you know he’s dating? He didn’t say he was dating. You—” He pointed the utensil fiercely. “—didn’t say you were dating.”
“Pop….” Stiles started, running a hand through his short hair.
“Dean, hush,” Castiel reprimanded absently, crossing the kitchen to the refrigerator and pulling out a pitcher of orange juice. “I think it’s time we met him. Is tonight acceptable, Stiles?”
“Um.” The young man floundered for words as Castiel handed him the pitcher and turned back into the kitchen. Stiles watched his dad reach for the silverware drawer, simultaneously running deft fingers over his pop’s stomach in a calming manner. Dean was still staring at Stiles with an intense, fixed gaze that made the teen’s teeth ache. “I’ll ask him. I think he’s free tonight.”
“Is it someone from school? Do we know him?” Dean asked, eyes narrowing. “It’s not that guy who lives out in the woods, is it? In that burned piece of crap?”
Shit….
“Dean,” Castiel said again, his fingers moving to curl around the ex-hunter’s side, “I’m sure this is very important to Stiles. It would be helpful if you were supportive rather than suspicious.”
“He’s been dating, Cas. Without us—me—knowing. How am I not supposed to be suspicious?” Dean turned his narrowed eyes on Castiel, leaning his head back slightly so he didn’t have to look at the other man cross-eyed. “How long have you known? And why didn’t you tell me?” Without waiting for an answer, his gaze swiveled back to Stiles, and his spatula was pointing again. “Are you being safe? Do we need to have the talk again? This guy isn’t pressuring you, is he?”
“God, Pop! No! That isn’t even an issue yet, jeez!” Well, it wasn’t an issue as long as grinding down onto Derek’s lap while they made out wasn’t really sex…It wasn’t, right? Stiles could feel his face heating up, and he looked everywhere but at his parents, the orange juice sloshing in the pitcher as he shifted his weight. “We’ve been dating for, like, a month. Give me some credit, huh?”
“We do give you credit, Stiles,” Castiel assured, returning to the table with the silverware and placing it neatly beside the plates. “I’ll plan dinner for the four of us tonight, then. Does your friend have any aversions or allergies to certain foods that I should be aware of?”
“N-No,” Stiles stuttered, allowing his dad to take the pitcher from his hands.
“Dean,” the angel said as he poured juice into the few glasses on the table, “you’ve dropped something.”
Sometime Later at the Hale House:
“Dad…Dad might actually be okay with it,” Stiles said with a small amount of hope. “And he has Pop wrapped around his little finger, so it shouldn’t be…a huge problem. I think.”
Derek nodded, ducking his head so that his stubbled cheek rested against Stiles’ temple. “I’ll be there. 5:30?”
“Yeah,” Stiles sighed with relief.
“Do I need to bring anything?”
“Besides your fangs?”
“Stiles….”
The teen swallowed. “Pop…likes pie.”
“Pie?”
“Apple,” Stiles affirmed with a nod.
“All right.”