Work Text:
"I'm going to kill whoever did this to you."
Derek froze at the low, angry voice coming from the other side of his fence. He guessed it was his new neighbor, but Derek hadn't yet met them.
"I'm going to find them and kill them," the voice continued vehemently.
Holy shit. What the hell had happened over there?
Derek edged closer to the fence, wondering if he should call the cops, or if he should go mind his own damn business and quit eavesdropping. His neighbor sounded pissed.
"Don't you worry, baby," the voice said. "I'll kill them all. They'll die screaming. They'll regret ever having taken a bite out of you."
What.
Derek peered over the back fence with his phone in hand to call 911, half-expecting a scene of carnage to greet him.
Instead, he saw his neighbor crouching next to a tomato plant, examining the leaves. The leaves which, Derek could see, had been mauled by some insect.
"Oh!" Derek was so surprised and relieved that he spoke out loud, even though he'd had no intention of letting his neighbor know he was there. "Oh, you're talking to your plants. That's...good. That’s very good."
His neighbor's head snapped up, amber eyes widening to the size of plates, and a faint blush colored his pale cheeks. "Oh shit. I did not realize anyone else was out here."
Derek fought to hide his smirk. "Yeah, so I gathered. I couldn’t help overhearing."
His neighbor dragged a hand through his messy brown hair. "Sorry about that. I'm, uh, usually not quite that violent. At least not with non-insect things."
"I'm sure that caterpillars everywhere will be trembling in fear," Derek said.
"They'd better be," his neighbor grumbled. "These were just about ready to start producing. The bugs around here are fucking ridiculous, I swear."
Derek looked around the backyard. Unlike his previous neighbor, who hadn't done more than mow once a week, this guy already had a veritable greenhouse worth of plants in the yard. Some were in pots, some were in beds, but the yard was so full of green flowering things that Derek couldn't even see the grass.
"You have a lot of plants," he said inanely.
His neighbor's eyes lit up. "Yeah! I used to help my mom in her garden. She had so many freaking plants, it was ridiculous, so she’d grab me and my dad at like the crack of dawn every morning to help her with it. Anyway, I got super into it, especially growing anything that I could eat later, and so when I moved out on my own for college, I started my own garden and sold things at the farmer's market in the spring and summer to make some extra cash. Finally had to get a house with a bigger yard so I could get my babies the space they deserve." He winced. "And that was a ramble like I haven't gone on since high school. Sorry."
Derek smiled. "It's okay. My dad was the gardener in our family. I didn't get the green thumb gene, but I used to love sitting on the back porch and watching him work."
His neighbor returned the smile with a blinding grin. "So you kill any plant you touch?"
Derek's heart flipped. Really, that sentence didn't sound like flirting, but at the same time, it kind of did. "I do. Dad forbade me from actually working in the garden unless it was to pull weeds."
"Hm." His neighbor tapped his chin, a calculating glint in his eye. "I bet I could find a plant you couldn't kill. If, you know, you were ever interested in that kind of thing."
"I don't know," Derek said. "My dad tried for a while. I'm pretty bad."
"No disrespect to your dad, but I am very good at what I do," his neighbor said with an eyebrow waggle.
Derek should not have found that as attractive as he did. "Tell you what. If you can find a plant I can't kill, I'll buy you dinner."
His neighbor's eyebrows shot up, and for a moment, Derek panicked that he'd been too forward.
Then the calculating glint was back. "That sounds like a bet, neighbor."
"Derek," Derek corrected, and held out his hand over the fence. "Derek Hale."
"Derek." His neighbor took his hand. "I'm Stiles Stilinski."
Stiles's handshake was warm and firm, and it sent a pleasant shiver down Derek's spine.
"So, if I find a plant you can't kill, you'll buy me dinner. But, if I can't find a plant you can't kill, then I'll buy you dinner," Stiles said with a wink. "Do we have a deal?"
"Deal," Derek agreed, and shook Stiles's hand again for good measure. "You know, I should get your number so that I can collect on that dinner."
Stiles laughed out loud. "Very smooth, Derek. And yeah, you definitely should."