Chapter Text
Stiles was sprawled on his bed, staring at the ceiling and hating Scott when he got the weirdest text of his life.
From: Derek
Is Star Wars good?
He stared at his phone while his brain whirred, tracing a trajectory from random, much? to what kind of person has never seen Star Wars? Sometimes he just didn’t believe that Derek was real.
To: Derek
ARE YOU REALLY ASKING ME THIS?
And then,
To: Derek
I mean. Yes. It’s good.
He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow. Friday night during the summer, and what was he doing? Making an ass of himself to Derek “I-will-rip-your-throat-out-with-my-teeth” Hale. It was all Scott’s fault. He frowned when his phone dinged, and he considered ignoring it. Curiosity won.
From: Derek
So I should watch it?
And okay, obviously Derek was not a normal person, what with the whole werewolf thing, but Stiles had adapted to that fairly quickly. Derek texting him like an actual normal person? That was just beyond weird.
To: Derek
What?! YES.
After he sent it, he realized that maybe he was being a bit harsh. It wasn’t Derek’s fault that he was pissy because Scott had ditched him for the fifth night in a row to go try and win back Allison’s heart—again—by, like, crying on her and throwing rose petals at her feet. Whatever. Stiles was so over it.
But the fact remained that he was being kind of bitchy to Derek, which was the worst way possible to reinforce this weird bout of normal person behavior. So he sent another text.
To: Derek
Okay you know what, no, you are way too old not to have seen Star Wars. We are watching it. Now.
Well, actually, that was kind of mean too, but whatever. Derek could deal. And if he came, fine, if not, his loss, because Princess Leia was really hot and Han Solo was incredibly dashing. Not that he cared if Derek actually came over, because he definitely didn’t.
He glared at his phone and typed out a new text.
To: Scott
DEAR ASSHOLE, I HATE YOU, I’VE ALWAYS HATED YOU AND NOW I’M REPLACING YOU WITH DEREK SO THERE
Immediately after sending it, he realized he was being a dick again and frantically sent another because knowing Scott, he would actually take it seriously and, like, start crying again.
To: Scott
And obviously by that I mean good luck winning your lady love but if that doesn’t work out I bet you could probably just date Isaac and be a lot happier.
Except, shit, did Scott know about the whole Isaac-liking-him thing? Was that even a thing anymore? Oh God had he just outed Isaac? So he sent yet another text.
To: Scott
SHIT AUTOCORRECT AHAHAHAAAA I totally meant that creepy Irene chick who sits behind you in calc, bow-chicka-wow-wow, you should totally go for it dude
Smooth. Very smooth.
He threw his phone on the floor and sighed into the pillow. Life was hard when you had an entire pack of werewolves telling you things you weren’t allowed to let anyone else know about. Apparently he smelled trustworthy or something, whatever, he had no idea why he was basically the official Pack Secret-Keeper.
At some point he must have fallen asleep, because when his dad yelled up the stairs, he startled awake so hard that he almost fell off the bed.
“What?” he yelled back.
“You have a visitor,” his dad called, his voice kind of strangled.
Stiles rubbed at his eyes. Visitors were never a good sign. Most of his real friends just came in through the window, and the others—well, no, Lydia always called before coming over. And Allison was really only friends with him when she was dating Scott.
With his luck it was probably a rogue hunter or, like, a vampire or something.
So when he stumbled down the stairs and saw Derek standing awkwardly in front of the door, he had to stop for a moment and just stare. Then he said, “Is everything okay?”
Derek blinked. “Yes.”
“Then why did you—“ He waved his hand at the door.
Derek’s eyebrows went up. “Good manners?” he said.
Stiles started laughing at that because, ha, manners and Derek. It was pretty funny. Not that he didn’t like the guy, but seriously—Derek was not usually big on the manners.
“So,” his dad said. Stiles jumped in surprise because he’d kind of forgotten about his dad, who was standing behind him with his arms crossed. “What’s going on?”
“Star Wars,” Derek said.
Stiles’ dad got this really weird look on his face like he couldn’t decide whether he should laugh or just be really confused. “Old or new trilogy?” he said.
“Dad,” Stiles said. “Come on. No stupid questions.”
Derek looked uncomfortable. He even shuffled back and forth on his feet. It was kind of refreshing, seeing Derek so awkward.
“Okay, my room?” Stiles said. He put one foot on the lowest stair and Derek hesitated and then stepped forward. “Hey Dad, let me know when you’re going to bed and I’ll turn it down, okay?” he called over his shoulder.
“Thanks, kiddo,” his dad said, squinting at him like he was confused or something.
Stiles ran the rest of the way up the stairs—which, Derek Hale was on his stairs, why was his life so weird—and then just went straight into his room. Derek followed and then looked at the door in confusion. “Should I—“
“Oh, yeah, close it, my dad hates when anything interrupts his sports.” He fished the first disc out of the case and popped it into his computer. “I didn’t actually think you would come,” he said. “I mean I don’t mind or anything, I just figured you had, like, pack business or something.”
Derek shrugged and said, “Not really.”
If it was possible, Derek was even less talkative than usual, which was actually impressive. Stiles suppressed an eye roll and instead said, “Okay, so I should explain a few things first. We’re going to watch the fourth movie, okay?”
“But—“ Derek started. Stiles held up one hand, cutting him off.
“Yes, I know, but it really doesn’t matter because they made the fourth movie first, right? Then the fifth, then the sixth. And then like twenty years after the series ended, they went back and made the first. Okay?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Derek said. His eyebrows did some complicated maneuver which Stiles assumed meant Derek was getting skeptical.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Also, the new trilogy isn’t so great. I mean I will totally still watch it for funsies but it’s just not as good. So, we’re gonna watch episode four. Yeah?”
“Sure.” Derek glanced around awkwardly. “So I’m gonna, um.” His eyes flicked to the bed.
“Oh, yeah, just sit on the bed. It’s cool.” Stiles unfolded the TV tray he’d stolen from his dad and stood it in front of the bed. He shoved at Derek until the guy sat down, and then he put his laptop on the tray and hopped up next to Derek, leaving a bit of space between them. “You good?”
Derek nodded. He looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. Stiles leaned forward and hit play.
“I’m gonna do my best not to, like, narrate the whole thing, but I want you to know that that’s really, really difficult for me, okay?” he said. “Unless you want me to narrate, in which case, yes, that’s awesome, I love talking during movies.”
Derek favored him with a mild glare, so he figured all the talking was a no go. He leaned back against the wall and then suddenly remembered how Luke’s aunt and uncle died. “Hey, uh, so if some of the characters were to, say, be burned to death, would you want me to tell you?”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter now because you kind of just told me,” Derek said, rolling his eyes.
“Okay, well, it happens. Just so you know.” He crossed his arms and clamped his mouth shut.
After that, he did a pretty good job of keeping his thoughts to himself, which should have definitely impressed Derek. It took a lot of effort and was a testament to how awesome a friend he was that he kept his mouth shut.
Just as the Falcon was landing on Alderaan, Stiles’ dad knocked on the door and opened it slowly. He gave Stiles a weird look and said, “I just got called in to work at seven, so I’m going to bed now.”
Stiles nodded and leaned forward to turn the volume down. “That okay?” he said to Derek, who nodded stiffly. He grinned at his dad and said, “Want me to bring you lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure,” his dad said, shrugging. “I’d better turn in now. Night.”
“Sleep tight,” Stiles said with only a touch of sarcasm. Once his dad had shut the door, he said, “Want me to run it back?”
“No,” Derek said. “I’m good.” He didn’t look bored, exactly, just—really uncomfortable. The novelty of Derek’s awkwardness had worn off, and Stiles was getting worried that he’d somehow pressured Derek into watching Star Wars, which, they were awesome movies, but Derek probably had way better things to do.
“Do you, uh, like the movie?” he said, twisting his fingers into the hem of his shirt.
“Yes,” Derek said, tapping his fingers on Stiles’ bed.
Stiles sighed and decided that, no, screw everything that had ever happened with Scott and the kanima and the Alphas—this was the weirdest night of his life.
--
Scott had been sulking for a few weeks, but ever since Stiles had sent him the text about how Derek was the new Scott, Stiles had noticed a significant increase in both the power and frequency of the sulking. It was ridiculous. Even for Scott, three full days of mega-sulking was a lot.
“Dude, I was totally joking,” he said. Scott was silent, all Stiles heard was faint static down the line. “I know that you are totally pining for me right now, don’t even pretend. You always get super clingy when Allison dumps you, so I bet you’re in, like, physical pain because your body wants to be with me but your mind is telling you to act like a five-year-old.”
“My body does not want to be with you,” Scott muttered.
“I know, I know, it only wants to be with Allison, whatever, my point is, Derek cannot replace you because Derek is not actually a person. So stop being a baby and let’s do something.” He pinched the phone between his ear and shoulder and started googling. “There’s some meteor shower tonight, wanna watch?”
“I guess,” Scott said in his most droopy voice.
Stiles rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, I’ll come over at ten?”
“Sure.” He still sounded depressed but he would get over it.
An hour later, Stiles was walking into the station with a salad and diet soda when Scott texted him saying that “ALLISON WANTS 2 TALK CANCEL EVRTHING YAAAAAAY!!!!!!! :):):):)”
Well. It wasn’t like Stiles hadn’t always known where Scott’s priorities lay.
So when he got a text from Derek asking if he wanted to watch Episode V, well…he had nothing better to do.
--
The problem was, watching Star Wars with Derek had apparently become a thing, Stiles realized after the third time. Every time, Derek came through the front door and his dad looked really confused. Derek still didn’t really talk to him much when they hung out, although at least he’d stopped answering in monosyllables and was back to his usual level of loquaciousness. It was kind of awkward but it was also definitely better than Stiles wallowing in his room for hours at a time, hating Scott for getting back with Allison (which was never going to last).
Even though it was pretty awkward for the most part, Stiles would probably never forget the startled yelp of “What?!” that had escaped Derek when he found out who Luke’s dad really was. Honestly, that kind of made up for all the awkwardness. Especially because Derek had obviously been really embarrassed about it.
He figured they were done with the whole thing when they finished the trilogy, but a few days later Derek texted him and asked if they could watch the new trilogy.
So he said yes, and Derek showed up with a brown bag full of greasy Chinese takeout, and they watched the first movie while eating on Stiles’ bed. It was all fine until Stiles glanced over during the pod race and saw Derek’s face, eyes wide and mouth slightly open like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.
And suddenly there was a tightness in his chest and he almost thought he was going to have a panic attack because of course he liked Derek, he couldn’t just have nice things in his life without something coming along and ruining it. When Derek looked at him curiously, he just shoved an entire eggroll in his mouth and decided that the best course of action was probably to ignore everything.
--
When Erica showed up at his window a few nights later, he squawked and grabbed a pillow to cover his chest. She smirked and climbed in. “So, how’s it going?” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he said, fumbling for a shirt.
“Sweetie. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” She smiled at him indulgently and threw herself down in his desk chair. “I just wanted to see how you’ve been doing. You don’t come by much anymore. When are you leaving?”
“Uh, four weeks? I think?” He finally found a shirt and wriggled into it. “You’re still doing online, right?”
She nodded.
“And Boyd?”
“Online law enforcement degree, isn’t that adorable?” she said, batting her eyelashes at him. “Next thing you know, he’ll be working for your dad, and you will never get away with anything ever again.”
“Or I will just get away with all the things because I have the entire police force in my pocket,” he said. “You’d be surprised by how many times my dad has weaseled me out of a court appearance.”
She laughed and twirled around in the chair. For a minute, Stiles thought she was going to stay quiet, but then as she spun back around, she stuck her foot out and stopped the chair so she was facing him. “So I hear you and Derek have been watching Star Wars.”
“Er,” he said, trying not to twitch. “Yes. You heard right.”
Her eyes narrowed and he was suddenly seized by the feeling that she was staring into his soul, stealing all his secrets—well, really there was just the one secret anymore, the whole Derek-Hale-induced-bisexuality thing. Or were those two secrets? No, just one, he didn’t really have any feelings about the bi thing except oh, that makes sense but he had about a million Derek-feelings, none of which he wanted Erica knowing about.
Erica grinned, like her journey into Stiles’ mind had been quite satisfactory. “You should make him watch Lord of the Rings next,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he thinks ‘hobbit’ is just a word I made up to insult Scott.”
“Okay,” he said.
“And try and get him to eat some fruit,” she said. “He won’t listen to me, and Isaac can’t always be around to sadface him into eating healthy things.”
“Okay?” Stiles said. He was definitely confused.
She waggled her eyebrows with him—Derek’s influence, obviously— and said, “Hey, can I come visit you at school? Or would that be weird?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, that’d be cool. As long as you don’t traumatize my roommate or anything. And you have to pay your way with candy.”
“Deal,” she said. She stretched her way to standing and went to the window. “I’d better go now. It was nice talking to you. Don’t forget—Lord of the Rings.” Then she jumped out the window and was gone.
At least that was normal. Which, what was his life, when that was normal? He suddenly wondered whether his friends would be able to climb in his dorm window, which was such a stupid question that he groaned and fell face first on his bed.
Then he checked his phone because it was only like eleven at night, maybe Scott had ditched Allison and—well, no, her dad was out of town, no way would Scott miss out on that. But he had other friends who might want to do things, things other than telling him to convince Derek to eat fruit.
When he saw the little envelope icon, he got excited for about two seconds before he opened it and saw it was from Derek. Movie tomorrow? it said.
He buried his face in his pillow and said every swear word he could think of before texting back, Fellowship of the Ring. Pancakes. 7:30.
--
The weird friendship thing they had going on happened at least twice a week for the rest of Stiles’ summer. He kept expecting it to get less weird, but if anything, it got more weird. If his dad was on duty they watched in the living room and Derek’s arm always ended up stretched out along the back of the sofa behind Stiles. The first time, Stiles thought his brain was going to explode. It didn’t really get much better after that.
And Derek had started smiling. Stiles was just not equipped to handle that, because Derek was already stupidly attractive all the time, but when he smiled he was, like, incandescently stupidly attractive. The first time Derek had smiled at him—over pancakes, which was also becoming a thing—he had actually forgotten what he’d been talking about and had just stared for a few minutes until his brain caught up. Derek’s smile had actually rendered him speechless. That had literally never happened before.
The last time they hung out was the night before Stiles left for college. They ate pancakes while watching Good Will Hunting and Stiles finally convinced Derek to eat an apple, because it was themed food, okay, he’d put a lot of thought into it. And Derek had rolled his eyes but he’d eaten the apple, which Stiles definitely did not watch. Not at all.
When Derek got up to go, he was suddenly holding a long paper tube, which was totally weird because where had he been hiding it the whole time? “This is for you,” Derek said.
Stiles took it and tried to smile, but he probably just managed to look constipated. “Thanks.”
Derek shrugged and opened the door. “Figured you might want it for your room.” He squinted at Stiles a bit, looking awkward. “So, uh…”
“You really didn’t have to get me anything,” Stiles said.
“I wanted to.” The corner of Derek’s mouth began to twitch. Nononono Stiles thought, not the smile oh shit just leave just—and there it was. Stupid Derek’s stupid smile, which never failed to totally melt Stiles’ brain into a pile of gelatinous goo. Every. Single. Time. “I’ll see you soon?” Derek said.
“I—yeah—uh—sure,” Stiles replied. Nice. Really smooth. Not awkward at all.
Derek grinned even wider how was that even possible and then stepped out the door. “Bye, Stiles. Let me know when you get there?”
“Nghhhhkay,” Stiles said. Well. At least he didn’t have to see Derek for a few months. Maybe Derek would forget everything by then.
And then Derek was gone, and Stiles ran up to his room and screamed into his pillow for a while.
--
His dad was driving the Jeep. His dad would be driving the Jeep back home. Stiles mentally cursed whoever had decided that freshmen should not have cars.
“I can’t believe you knew,” he muttered for like the twelfth time.
“Oh my god, are you still on that?” his dad said. “It stopped being funny about twenty minutes ago.”
Right before they’d left, he’d figured that he should probably let his dad know about the whole bi thing. Just because. It had turned into a huge fiasco because in the middle of his whole coming out spiel, there was some kind of huge miscommunication which had led to his dad asking if he was finally telling him about the werewolves. Because his dad knew. His dad had known. For like a year.
And, okay, in the same conversation, Stiles had finally managed to tell his dad about the bi thing, but whatever, that kind of paled in comparison to his dad knowing about werewolves.
Also his dad claimed to have known that Stiles was bi for at least two years, which was just not fair. Frankly, he was kind of annoyed that his dad hadn’t told him.
But that wasn’t actually the worst part. The worst part was that he’d thought Stiles and Derek were dating, which was clearly a deranged and stupid idea. So Stiles had many reasons to be annoyed, especially considering it was move in day. Obviously he should have chosen a better day to come out to his dad.
Stiles leaned his head against the window. It occurred to him that his dad knowing about the werewolf thing was probably some information that Derek should have.
He quickly typed up a text to Derek and sent it before he could over think it. Dad knows about the pack, has apparently known for like a year, is surprisingly fine with everything, also I hate my life.
Derek’s reply came surprisingly fast: Glad to hear. Don’t want to give him any more reasons to get out the shotgun.
Stiles frowned. What did that even mean?
--
From: Scott
STILES VET SCHOOL IS SO FUN OH MAAAAN
From: Erica
True love is the greatest thing in the world—except for a nice MLT — mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.
From: Derek
Erica is trying to convince me to wear sweaters. Please tell her this is a bad idea.
From: Derek
Stiles. I don’t LIKE sweaters. And these are striped. One has snowflakes.
From: Isaac
hey stils hows college i hope u like it i love vet school so far we lrned yesterday about bones n stuff
From: Erica
We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
From: Derek
Why did Erica just dump a bag of apples on me and quote that one movie?
To: Erica
Are you trying to tell me something? Because if so, I’m totally flattered but, and don’t take this the wrong way, I really don’t feel that way about you.
To: Derek
Why do you keep asking me these things like I know? Also sweaters would look really stupid on you. How do you like them apples?
From: Erica
OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO DUMB UGHHHHHH WHY ARE BOYS SO DUMBBBB
--
When Derek called him after he’d been at school for two weeks, he almost had a panic attack because Derek never called anybody unless something was horribly wrong. He stared at his phone for five seconds, and then he answered. “Is everybody okay? What’s wrong? Are you bleeding? Do I need to come back—shit, I don’t have my—it’s okay, I can take the train, just tell me what’s—“
“Uh,” Derek said. “Hi?”
“How can you say hi at a time like this?” Stiles cried, flailing even though he knew Derek couldn’t see him.
“A time like what?”
It occurred to Stiles then that maybe nobody was dying. “What’s going on?” he said.
“I—nothing?” Derek sounded confused. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Um, yes? I was just doing homework. It’s terribly exciting.” He jumped up on his bed. “So, why’re you calling?”
“I just—thought I should?”
Now Stiles knew why Derek never talked to anybody on the phone. It was because he was horrible at it. If Derek was bad at face-to-face interactions, he was somehow even worse at long-distance interactions. Everything he said was suddenly a question, which was actually kind of funny because this was Derek Hale, the guy who sometimes forgot about vocal inflection.
“Okaaaaay,” Stiles said. It was really quiet on the other end. He glanced around his room, trying to find something to talk about. His eyes went wide when he saw the poster Derek had given him—vintage Star Wars. The instant he’d unrolled it, Derek had become his new best friend, even if he didn’t know it yet. “Hey, so where did you find the poster? It’s awesome.”
“Um, an antique store?” Derek said.
The image of Derek shopping at an antique store was really just too funny. It would probably never stop being funny. He tucked it away in his brain for a rainy day.
“That’s hilarious,” he said.
Derek just made a soft noise.
Eventually Stiles took pity on him and just started rambling about school. He went on and on about how much he hated his chemistry class, even though he was really good at it—no thanks to Harris, of course—and he loved his introductory lit class, because they were reading Dracula, which he’d always kind of thought was hilariously bad. He just kept talking while Derek hmmed every once in a while. When he finally ran out of things to say about class, he said, “What about you? Enjoying your new sweaters?”
“No sweaters,” Derek said. “I refused to buy them and Erica was broke.”
“Well, that’s good. Seriously, sweaters just wouldn’t look right on you. You should try button-downs.” He realized what he’d just said and groaned internally. Derek was probably smart enough to know that meant Stiles had spent some time checking him out.
But Derek just said, “Yeah?” in a surprised voice.
“Uh, yeah?” Stiles said. He fiddled around with the hem of his t-shirt and then said, “Look, I’d probably better—“
“I was thinking about maybe, I don’t know, maybe coming up sometime?” Derek said in a rush.
Stiles pulled the phone away from his ear and just stared at it for a few seconds, blinking. Then he heard Derek saying his name, his voice tinny. “Yeah, sorry, I just—yeah, sure, that’d be—fine,” Stiles said, because his life was apparently really an episode of The Twilight Zone. “Hey, you should bring the betas, Erica owes me candy and Scott’s been crying at me all the time because he is actually incapable of being a human without me. Yeah?”
“Oh,” Derek said. “Um. Okay?”
“Cool, awesome. Yeah, you guys can just come whenever, my roommate got crazy homesick and dropped out, so—plenty of room.” He rubbed his hand over his hair and frowned again because, seriously, what was his life.
“You have a single,” Derek said, his voice flat.
“Yup, it’s totally awesome. So yeah, just, whenever you want, I’m pretty much free on the weekends.”
Derek grumbled something about having to go, and finally, thankfully, Stiles was free to freak out and flail and get none of his homework done because some things were more important than homework, things like existential crises because Derek Hale, who hated everybody, now did normal things like call people.
And Stiles was still doing that annoying thing where he apparently liked Derek, and now he’d told the guy to bring the pack over for a few days, what the hell was wrong with him? With any luck Derek would forget about it. Or maybe he’d just been saying it. Derek had a weird sense of humor, maybe it was a joke?
Stiles realized it was absolutely not a joke two days later when Scott, Isaac, and Erica tackled him to the ground in the middle of the quad while Derek and Boyd just stood there laughing. They were horrible people, really.
--
By the end of the first night, half of Stiles’ floor was madly in love with Erica because she won the entire pot at the weekly Room 412 poker tournament. Scott had gone to play too, and he ended up losing over twenty dollars (luckily for him, Erica won it, and since he was pack, she let him have it back later).
Stiles was pretty sure the guys on his floor liked his friends better than him, which was kind of troubling but whatever. His friends were totally awesome, even if some of them had ditched him for gambling. At least Isaac, Boyd, and Derek stuck close to him. It was nice to know that he still had some friends left who actually liked him. Or that’s what he told himself. He had a feeling Isaac was just sitting this round out, getting his bearings. And Boyd, even though he was huge and could probably break Stiles just by looking at him, was painfully shy sometimes.
Derek, obviously, hated everything, so of course he stayed in Stiles’ room and glared at all of Stiles’ decorations (except the poster) like they personally offended him.
“So, uh, what do you guys want to do?” Stiles said. He was sitting on his bed, actually twiddling his thumbs.
“You should teach me how to play poker,” Isaac said, lounging next to him with his head on Stiles’ thigh. “Is there another game tomorrow?”
“Well, I don’t actually know how,” Stiles said. “You should ask Erica. I think she’s still holding court down the hall.” He had a feeling Isaac’s sudden interest in poker had less to do with a desire to win money and crush souls (that was all Erica), and more to do with his desire to get with the scruffy baseball player who ran the tournament. Stiles was not blind, and Isaac was not subtle with his staring.
The worst part was, if Isaac just showed up and batted his eyelashes at the guy, it would probably work. There was just something about Isaac that made people adore him. Whereas if Stiles tried that with, say, a really hot, broody werewolf, he would probably just get a death glare.
Speaking of, Derek did not look pleased with the current whereabouts of Erica and Scott.
“What, did you expect all of us to sit around and sing campfire songs?” Stiles said. “Dude, it’s Friday night. You’re at a college. Neither of them has ever been away to college, let them live a little before you bite their heads off.”
Derek frowned and said, “I guess it could be worse.”
“What could be worse?” Scott said as he skidded in. He was all sweaty and was bouncing up and down with excitement.
“Hey Scott,” Isaac said, lifting his head a bit. “Teach me to play poker?”
Scott freaked out then because it wasn’t often that he got to be the one teaching people things. He grabbed Stiles’ card deck from the top drawer of his desk—either Stiles was predictable or Scott was psychic—and they set up camp on Stiles’ ex-roommate’s bed.
Stiles was about to say something sarcastic about werewolf bros when Boyd’s face cracked into a yawn. He looked surprised. “Uh, sorry,” he said, blinking. “Was up late.”
“Dude, don’t even worry about it,” Stiles said. “You wanna go to bed? We can totally go somewhere else and let you sleep.” Stiles raised his eyebrows and grinned when Boyd actually looked tempted. “I’m serious. We can all go hang out in the lounge or something, watch a movie. Yeah?” He glanced at Derek.
“Sure,” Derek said, shrugging. Stiles had a particular fondness for Derek shrugging in his leather jacket. It was a really stupid thing to like, but there it was.
Boyd yawned again. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
“Nah, don’t even worry about it. Take the spare bed, yeah?” He snapped his fingers at Scott and Isaac and said, “Hey, let’s take it to the lounge, Boyd needs to sleep.” They took one look at him, then grabbed the cards and ran out, giggling like idiots. “Grab my computer, would you?” he said to Derek.
As he left the room with his DVD binder, he yelled a good night over his shoulder. Boyd mumbled something back. “The door,” Stiles said to Derek. Derek glowered at him and pulled the door shut. “Thanks, man. Oh, and, sorry I don’t have like an air mattress or anything. I figure if Erica ever comes back, she can take my bed, and the rest of us can just sleep on the floor?”
“Sure,” Derek said. There was definitely something off about him, because he seemed even more cranky than usual. Impressive.
Stiles grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, dragging him to a stop. He said, “Are you okay?”
Derek raised one eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“You just seem kind of, I don’t know, like you don’t want to be here or something?”
Derek sighed and said, “That isn’t it.” When Stiles opened his mouth, he held up his hand and said, “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
They ended up watching The Pagemaster because Stiles was very persuasive (or, probably more accurately, Derek just didn’t care). The wondertwins continued to practice poker, and about halfway through the movie, Erica showed up, looking very smug and wearing a ratty green bathrobe over her own clothes.
“That stinks, get rid of it,” Derek said without looking at her.
“It was a gift, I can’t just get rid of it,” she said. She flopped down and kicked her feet onto Stiles’ lap. “The guy who gave it to me was so flattered that I was actually wearing it. So why are we out here?”
“Boyd’s sleeping,” Stiles said, absently resting one arm on her ankles.
“Gotcha. Hey, so where are the rest of us sleeping? Because I met this guy, Henry, and he has a spare bed too, one of us could—“
“Henry is really creepy,” Stiles said.
“Well, yeah, obviously, which is why I figured we could throw Scott in there,” she said.
“Hey!” Scott said, glaring at her from the floor. “I resent that. I want to share a room with a creepy guy just as little as you do.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. He could feel Derek getting tense beside him. “Guys, I totally have enough room on my floor. Erica can have my bed, yeah?”
“I just love when guys give me nice things because I’m a girl,” she said, grinning at him. “Thanks. I bet your bed is super comfy. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll just cuddle up with Boyd.” When his eyebrows shot up, she said, “Stop that. I’ll share with Boyd because he’s bound to have the funniest reaction in the morning. Also he doesn’t move at all when he sleeps. And he’s really warm.”
“Is this a wolf thing?” Stiles said. He figured it was more of an Erica-and-Boyd-are-in-love-but-are-too-stubborn-to-do-anything-about-it thing, but it was safer to play along sometimes.
“What, don’t you like to cuddle?” Erica said. She slid closer to him and nudged her head up against his shoulder.
“I really don’t have any feelings about cuddling,” Stiles said. Still, he wrapped one arm around her so she could settle in better.
All of a sudden Isaac yawned squeakily, his eyes squeezing shut. When he finished, everybody was staring at him. “Um. What?” he said.
“Oh my god, you are the most adorable person I have ever met,” Stiles said. “Just stop it. I can’t take it anymore.”
Isaac blinked at him. “Sorry?”
“It’s past Isaac’s bedtime,” Erica said, her head still on Stiles’ shoulder.
Isaac tried to glare at her, but he looked too sleepy for it to be effective.
“Do you want to go to bed, Isaac?” Stiles said. Isaac turned his puppy dog glare onto Stiles, who mostly just felt like cooing at him. “Are you sleepy? Is it time to go nigh-nigh?” That made Scott glare at him too, which was only slightly more threatening. Stiles giggled hysterically and accidentally bumped against Derek’s shoulder.
Derek groaned and put his hands over his face. “Oh my god, my life,” he muttered into his fingers. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but all of you need to go to bed. Right now.”
That made Isaac and Scott collapse on top of each other in laughter. “Okay, Dad,” Isaac choked out.
“Bed,” Derek said. “Now. There is too much laughter, I can’t handle it. Go.”
And then Erica started laughing this really weird neighing laugh, which made Stiles crack up. Within a matter of minutes, everybody except Derek was crying with laughter. Stiles accidentally caught Derek’s eye, and he was about to say something, but then the corner of Derek’s mouth started twitching. The smile knocked the breath out of Stiles, and he leaned heavily on Erica, who was wheezing out giggles still.
“Oh, I, okay,” Stiles said. “Um. Tired.” He eased himself out from under Erica’s left leg and said, “I’m gonna, uh, brush my teeth.” Then he practically ran away.
And didn’t it just figure that Derek came in as he was frantically brushing his teeth in the floor bathroom. Stiles stared at him for a good ten seconds, because that was a toothbrush, that was toothpaste, that was Derek brushing his teeth.
“Something wrong?” Derek said, spitting out white foam and making eye contact with the Stiles in the mirror.
“Uh. It’s just, you’re brushing your teeth,” he said. He barely managed to control a frantic arm-wave. “Weird. It’s weird seeing you do—normal things.”
Derek laughed at that. His eyes crinkled and he grinned. Stiles couldn’t help watching out of the corner of his eye as Derek finished with his teeth.
“I also shower,” Derek said. “And sometimes I even shave.”
“No, I don’t believe that,” Stiles said, just to have something to say. “I’m like ninety-nine percent certain your stubble’s just stuck at that length. I bet it took you forever to get it to come in evenly, and now you can’t shave it because it makes you look all rugged and masculine and wolfy.” His brain caught up with his mouth and he said, “I mean—“
But Derek was grinning at him again so he wasn’t actually sure what he did mean. He spluttered a bit and then followed Derek out of the bathroom.
“Take the bed, okay?” Derek said.
“Okay?” Stiles said, his mind still reeling from so many smiles in so little time.
Derek put a hand on his shoulder and leaned past him to open the door to Stiles’ room. Then his hand slid down Stiles’ spine to the small of his back and Stiles did his best not to have a heart attack as Derek gently pushed him into the room first.
As Stiles narrowly avoided tripping over Isaac and Scott—who were already sprawled on the floor asleep—he thought that even if Derek hadn’t known about Stiles’ little crush before, well, the way Stiles’ heart was going, he would have to be an idiot not to know now.