Chapter Text
It started when Derek showed up to his house with a car full of plants.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Stiles squinted at him in his underwear and not much else. Derek looked unperturbed.
“I’m going to use your garden,” he said, nodding his head like this was a perfectly acceptable statement to make to a man standing in front of his house in his drawers at nine in the morning.
“O...kay? What–” But as soon as Stiles had spoken, he’d turned away and started back to his car. “Hey wait!”
Derek turned back around. “Yes?”
“I…” Stiles paused, tried to collect his thoughts. “Am confused.”
“Okay?”
“I am confused why you need to use my garden.”
“To plant,” Derek said slowly.
“Plant what?” he said.
Now Derek squinted at him. “Plants.”
It was at this point that Stiles gave up and decided to just go back to bed. “Please don’t be too loud,” he said, but Derek had already stopped listening.
He was gone when Stiles woke up again, and so he put it down as a really weird, realistic dream until he went outside and saw the frankly obscene amount of plants in the front porch flower beds. They considered each other for awhile. Then Stiles, deciding life was too short to worry about werewolves, monsters, and Derek Hale, went back inside. When his dad asked about it, he waved his hand and said,
“It’s an experiment.”
“For what?” His dad wrinkled his nose. “To see if you’re good at gardening?”
A week later, his dad trudged through the door, took off his boots, and declared,
“Well, son, you suck at gardening.”
Stiles craned his neck out the kitchen window. The plants were wilting, drooping towards the ground like gravity was too much for them. He texted Derek your plants are dead . He didn’t respond.
Three days later, Stiles came back from school to him staring mournfully at his most recent failure. Stiles didn’t even think his face could do mournful; he thought it was stuck between incessant rage and standoffishness.
“They’re dead,” he said when Stiles walked up to him. At this point, they’d started shriveling, curling into themselves like sad, little children.
“Yes?” Stiles said. “You didn’t water them.” Derek turned to him like, you’re supposed to do that ? Stiles rolled his eyes, clapped him on the back. “You have to water plants, you know.”
“Oh,” Derek said. Then he left without another word. Stiles considered rolling his eyes again, but decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
Derek showed up on yet another Saturday with another car full of plants. After catching him outside his bedroom window, Stiles groaned to see that they weren’t done with this.
“What are you doing, Derek?” he said, standing once again outside wearing only his underpants.
Derek shrugged, obviously thinking that was enough of a response. Stiles rolled his eyes.
“You can’t do this anymore,” he said. “How the fuck am I going to explain to my dad that an ex-murderer is gardening in front of my house?”
“Is your dad home?”
“No but–” Stiles gave a huff, crossed his arms, and tried again. “You can’t just go around digging up a man’s garden without telling him first.”
“Fine,” Derek said, sticking out his jaw. There was a moment of silence before he jerked his thumb towards his car and said, “I do have these plants already set up…”
Stiles threw his hands in the air. “Whatever. Just. Don’t do this again.”
Derek rolled into his window late one night when Stiles was working on Chemistry problems. In a perfectly rational response, Stiles jumped out of his chair, onto his chair, and shrieked. Derek stared at him, expressionless.
“Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Stiles said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m seeing if I can look at my plants,” Derek said.
He gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
“You told me to ask you.”
“I didn’t mean at ten in the fucking night time! This is not when you’re supposed to water plants, Derek!”
Derek shrugged. Stiles was getting tired of that response.
“Is your dad home?” he asked.
“Well, no he’s on duty, but–”
“Great,” Derek interrupted before jumping back out of the window. Stiles mimed strangling someone.
Stiles came home from school to see Derek. It was almost a familiar sight.
He had his hands in his pockets, kicking the dirt around with the toe of his boot, and looking generally like a kid who’d missed the bus to responsibility town.
“Hey,” Stiles said, coming up behind him.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I watered them.”
“Yeah, but you put perennials in a spot that’s facing the sun all day,” Stiles pointed out. Derek turned to him like he was the new Jesus. “Some plants need shade,” he said defensively.
“Oh.” Derek made a face he obviously didn’t know he was making. “I thought they all just needed sunlight.”
“Some do,” Stiles acknowledged. “But not all. Others need different settings.”
“How do you know this?”
“It’s common sense.” Stiles could feel his shoulders rising to his ears. “Didn’t you read a book on gardening? Or ask the people at the store what to plant?”
Derek turned back to his plants, stuck out his lower lip just enough to be obvious.
“So that’s a no,” Stiles said. “Look, if you don’t want stuff to die, you gotta do your research. Otherwise…” He gestured to the dead flowers.
Derek just looked grumpy.
This time, Stiles tracked down Derek. He was predictably over at the Hale house, sitting on the charred porch like the cover of a bad teen, supernatural drama.
“Hey,” Stiles said. Derek didn’t say anything so Stiles just walked over to where he was sitting. “Here.”
Derek looked at him. “What is it?”
“A book, idiot,” Stiles said, moving it up and down impatiently. “Just take it.”
Derek took it.
“It’s about gardening. You know, if you ever want to start again.”
“Okay.” Derek stared at him.
“Now you say thank you, Derek.”
“Thank you,” he said, almost automatically, and then his face took on the expression of a grumpy grandpa yelling at those ‘damn kids’. Stiles laughed, felt his shoulders deflate a little.
“Okay. I’m going now,” he said. He got to his car door, looked back, and gave a little wave. “Bye, Derek.”
Against all odds, Derek gave a hesitant wave back.
When neither Stiles nor his dad were home, the flowerbeds were stuffed with plants.
“Jesus, Stiles, I thought you’d given up on this,” his dad said. “You planted damn perennials out there. I thought you knew better than that.”
Stiles just shrugged, tried not to smile. “I’d never.”
“So why the sudden interest in gardening?”
“I thought I needed more hobbies.”
“Oh yeah, you need more of them.”
“Always looking to bolster that college application.”
This time, the plants stayed amongst the living. Stiles wasn’t sure when Derek was taking care of them, but he wasn’t going to push it. At this point, he had more to worry about than Derek’s increasingly weirder habits.
Stiles enjoyed his labor day off from school by sleeping in until twelve, lurching out of bed and heading over to the living room where his dad was already merging with the armchair.
“Morning sleeping beauty,” he smirked. Stiles grunted at him, reached for the remote. His dad grabbed it first.
“Go get me the paper.”
“What do I look like, a dog?” Stiles snorted.
“You look like a thankful child.”
“That’s against child labor laws.”
“Ungrateful kid,” his dad said, standing up. “I slave for you!”
Stiles had just powered up the xbox when his dad came back.
“Stiles?” he said.
“What?” Stiles said, turning around.
He had a strange look on his face, sans paper. “Why is Derek Hale in our garden?”
The three of them sat at the living room table, silent. The Stilinskis were both staring at Derek. Derek was staring at his hands in his lap.
“I thought you had school today,” he said finally. Stiles groaned, threw his arms in the air.
“Its labor day, Derek! Labor day! And you were supposed to tell me when you were coming by.”
“You usually aren’t home at this hour,” Derek protested. “I didn’t think it was going to be an issue.”
“So you’ve been here more than once,” Stiles’ dad said.
“Don’t answer that,” Stiles said, pointing his finger at Derek. He didn’t look in any hurry to do so.
His dad huffed. “Guys, I’m not mad. Just confused on what the hell is going on.”
“Don’t answer that either.”
“ Stiles .”
“I’m sorry,” Derek said.
“What have you been doing here, Derek?” Stiles dad said.
Stiles glared at him, and shook his head slowly.
“I’ve been…planting,” he said. Stiles put his head in his hands.
“You’re the one using the flowerbeds?”
“Yes.”
The sheriff thought about that for a second. Then he said, “Why?”
“I don’t have anywhere else to plant them," he muttered.
His dad leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms. A classic, ‘this is an open space and you can tell me anything’ move. “Why can’t you use your own flower beds?”
Derek shrugged.
“Where are you living, son?”
“I’m looking for a place,” he said quietly. “I didn’t expect to stay here long.”
“And are you looking to stay here longer?”
Another shrug. Derek appeared to be gritting his teeth. Stiles’ dad studied him.
“Alright, you’ll use our guest room then.”
“What?” Stiles and Derek said at the same time. Stiles braced his hands on the table like the news was physically fighting him. Derek just looked confused.
“If you need a place, then you can use ours.” He said. “We have plenty of room.”
“Dad, he’s an ex-murderer.”
“He’s already using our flowerbeds, Stiles, I think we’ve all moved past the whole murderer thing.”
“Sir, I appreciate the offer, but-”
“No.” The sheriff put his hand out. “You’ll take the room. I don’t care if you need it for a day or a month, I won’t take any ‘buts’ for an answer.”
“Dad,” Stiles said, his head once again firmly in his hands.
“No buts from you either, Stiles,” he turned to him. “You opened the door to this mess, and now you’re going to deal with the consequences. Derek, you move in tonight. Go get your things.”
Derek didn’t have any things so he moved in after an hour. And that, it seemed, was just the way.