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Stiles wakes up at his desk, bleary, on a Thursday. There’s a Cheeto stuck to his face and he smells and his whole body hurts. When he looks in the mirror, there’s a pretty little pattern on his cheek from the spiral notebook he used as a pillow. He pulls on some pants and eats a fun size York peppermint patty, which is almost exactly the same as brushing your teeth, and has just enough time to get a coffee and make it to his last final, Calculus. Calculus started as a slow-motion fail until he pulled out of it and got his act together, stopped drinking every night and showing off his new biceps to all the boys and girls at the Berkeley Concert Committee parties. This final is less panic-inducing now than he’d have anticipated at the beginning of the drunken semester. Two hours later, he’s walking out feeling lighter than he has in months. That’s freshman year, then. He’s back in Beacon Hills by dinnertime. He hasn’t been home in four months.
Or “home,” he thinks later, and slants a glance at Scott who’s attempting to trounce Stiles at Mario Kart with two Red Vines hanging from his mouth. It’s not going to happen. Mario Kart was his study break all semester. At the exact moment of his inattention, Scott gets him with a shell and as Stiles’s Peach explodes, Scott’s whole body convulses in joy, and the Red Vines are flung from him in spastic triumph after he accidentally bites down on them.
It’s sorta the same. Scott’s here, neither of them smell great, they’re trash-talking, Scott welcomed him home with an absolutely chaotic amount of junk food. But everything feels different. His room looked the same. But a moment of cognitive dissonance when he’d finally got all of his boxes out of the Jeep and dropped his bag next to the bed: what was that smell? Had his room always smelled like this? It smelled of Doritos and boy and over it all, a weak fruity attempt at cleanliness from a Glade plug-in doing battle with the natural funk. Why hadn’t anyone told him? There was a t-shirt he didn’t recognize at all lying crumpled by the bed. When he held it up to him, it looked the right size, but this only increased his unease. Why couldn’t he remember his own clothing? His desk looked just the same, like he’d just shoved away after doing some weird pack research about the Big Bad of the week, and Stiles had felt a sharp, shaky pang of sadness slice through him. Was he this person anymore? Downstairs, the living room had been rearranged, victim to a latent feng shui impulse in his father. It looks good. But, his dad? Paying attention to furniture? There’s what appears to be a tablecloth on the kitchen table. The fridge is stocked with carrots and kale, and only one package of slightly dubiously healthy turkey bacon. It’s like he and his Dad separated from their mutually codependent adolescence and they each had the space to finally grow up a little. Stiles isn’t sure he likes it.
The pack parties are a new thing now, too, like Derek got sad that he couldn’t glower at people from the shadows anymore and invited everyone over to…glower at them in a centralized location? Stiles actually can’t picture what happens at the pack parties. Scott had described them as “nice, you know, Derek gets pizza and tells Jackson to shut up and we watch movies and play Settlers and stuff,” which does sound nice, but does not sound like their pack. Though their pack has only ever been in triage mode so Stiles supposes he doesn’t actually know what their pack does when they’re not fighting evil and getting possessed and stuff.
Apparently they play Settlers of Catan and mainline Pixie Stix and watch Harry Potter.
Scott, Stiles reflects later from underneath a pile of wolves, really undersold the amount of cuddling that happens at these parties. It’s…nice. It’s sort of nice. He can’t feel his arm. It’s humid. It smells a little intense, but it’s nice.
The touching had begun with the most demonstrative hug-and-squeal combo he’d ever received from Lydia. He had just enough time to notice she had switched her shampoo before it was over and she was five feet away, feigning indifference, drinking from the pinkest can of La Croix and flipping through a copy of International Wolf magazine, a subscription Stiles purchased for Derek on a whim one night, three beers in, cackling madly as he hit ‘purchase.’
Scott comes over then and gives him a hug, then throws him over his shoulder, Stiles squawking, and carries him to the kitchen of Derek’s new, improved loft, now with tchotchke from the pack members, who can’t seem to help themselves, bringing Derek little wolf figurines and postcards from their road trips, from their colleges.
“Aw, it’s like Derek’s the Dad,” Stiles says, surveying all the pack gifts from his perch jackknifed over Scott’s shoulder.
“Hey!” Scott says. “I’m the Alpha, shouldn’t I be the Dad?”
“Aw, it’s like the pack has two daddies!” Stiles amends, which is of course, the moment that Derek chooses to come into the kitchen, four pizzas balanced in one hand and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew in the other. Stiles takes a moment to say a mental hello to his old friends, Derek’s biceps. You look very beautiful tonight, gentlemen. Stiles says, in his mind. Glowing as if you were recently bathed in baby oil. It’s not talking to himself if it’s telekinesis. His particular brand of telekinesis only works with Derek’s biceps.
Derek looks great, obviously. Derek looks so good Stiles is having trouble looking at him directly. Peripherally speaking, Derek looks awesome. This was easier when he was around it everyday and had built up immunity, but now Derek is setting down the pizzas and the soda and he comes over to Stiles, leading with his eyebrows, and Scott drops Stiles into a bridal carry and then…presents Stiles to Derek solemnly, saying, “Our prodigal son has returned,” and because Stiles is a shit, and Derek is Derek, and his leather jacket is slung over his shoulder, and it’s leather, Stiles looks up into Derek’s face and smiles and says, “Daddy! You’re home!”
Scott starts laughing, and then he’s laughing too hard and has to put Stiles down, and this is normally where Derek says “idiot,” and stalks away, but instead Derek just looks at Stiles evenly and says, “Mieczyslaw.”
*
The touching continues apace, with bear hugs from Boyd and Erica, and even Jackson shuffles over to him finally, muttering, “shut up shut up shut up,” as he puts a hand on Stiles’s shoulder and lets out a shaky breath.
“Wolf instincts are balls, huh?” Stiles grins at him.
“You’re balls,” Jackson says, petulant, and runs away.
“You love me!” Stiles calls after him. “I bet I could take him now,” he says to Scott under his breath.
“Yeah, yeah, we all know, Stiles, your shiny new biceps are so strong, and all the emo boys and girls love your ‘lithe frame’,” Scott says, rolling his eyes.
“I emerged from my gawky cocoon and, like a beautiful butterfly, have flitted from flower to flower, sharing the bounty of my beauty,” Stiles says. There’s a crash in the kitchen.
“Gross,” Boyd mutters, and gets up to investigate.
Lydia, on her way to the bathroom, punches Stiles in the arm. “We don’t talk about our sisters that way, nerd.”
“I’m an equal opportunity pollinator, Lyds, you know that. Pollinatee, even.”
“Yeah,” Erica says, “And I don’t think you can call him a nerd anymore. His t-shirts are too tight.”
From somewhere deep in the bowels of the house where Jackson has retreated to recover from his brush with feelings, Stiles hears Jackson bellow, “I could still take your pasty ass, Stilinski.”
Derek emerges from the kitchen then, looking a little sheepish. “I broke the sugar bowl. Just. Start without me. I’ll be right…” and then he disappears back into the kitchen taking the rest of his sentence with him.
It takes a few minutes to arrange the puppy pile to all the wolves’ liking, everyone with a hand or a pinky or a nose on Stiles, and by the time Derek’s done cleaning up the broken glass they’re breathing as one organism and Stiles feels warm and sleepy and barely even notices the smell and they’re ten minutes into the first Harry Potter.
Stiles stretches, but can’t quite reach the beer just out of reach, at the very boundary of the pile.
“Scott, are you comfortable?” he says. And then, when Scott doesn’t acknowledge him, Stiles can’t help himself, he gets obnoxious. “Scott. Scott. Scott. Scotty. Scott.”
“What, dude.” Scott’s eyes are intent on the screen.
“Isn’t your arm falling asleep like that? Do you need to get a little comfier?”
“Oh my god, dude, what do you want?” Scott’s still stubbornly staring at the screen, his puppyish excitement around Stiles diminished in the face of Harry Potter.
“Nothing!” Stiles demurs. “I just want my bro to be comfy. It’s bro policy. And I feel like my bro…might be comfier if he stretched his left arm out—no dude, your other left, there you go buddy, and just, oh hey—watch out for my beer!”
Scott sighs, long-suffering, and snags the beer, handing it to Stiles. “Such a Slytherin, oh my god dude, it wouldn’t be easier to just ask?”
“Easier, yes, Scotty, obviously, but so much less fun,” Stiles grins.
All in all, it’s been a success. The banter is good. It’s safe. That’s still the same. He remembers that. The touching is weird, not bad touch weird, but just…new, the pack trying to restore equilibrium as the distance has tested and strained the bond. Everyone’s a little more affectionate, but that’s okay. Stiles has always needed a little more validation than the average bear.
Derek settles on the floor behind the pile, a cup of tea in his hand like a maiden aunt.
“The first movie is terrible,” he grouses.
Scott gasps. “Origin stories are important!”
On screen, Hagrid intones, “Yar a wizard, ‘Arry!” and Stiles feels himself about turn to Derek, like he always does, about to snark, See that’s what you say—clear, concise, to the point, you don’t just stalk out of the trees growling and throw an inhaler and yell GET OFF MY LAWN, you need to work on your initiation rituals, dude, maybe get a staff or a distinguished umbrella or something—but he’s stopped by the chime of Derek’s teacup being set on the ground, carefully, carefully, and the feeling of what can only be Derek’s hand brushing briefly through his hair, cupping his head. Normally this might send him into paroxysms of sweaty boner suppression, but as it is he’s so warm and content that he just sits there, not acknowledging it, only maybe shifting his head slightly into Derek’s touch, like a dog. The touch is so gentle and so brief that for a moment he thinks he’s hallucinated it, and then he’s asleep.
*
The next day he wakes up in his own bed, which feels slightly off, and stares at the cracks in his ceiling which seem slightly larger than they used to be. He’s still muzzy from sleep but he knows something about Derek is bothering him. The warmth behind his eyes when he said “Mieczyslaw,” pronouncing it correctly, like he’d practiced, and the way Derek had resolutely not touched him all evening, though the other wolves and even Lydia had been all over Stiles, easy and teasing. But Derek had been too careful, had waited for the dark of the movie, though Scott had said that it hurts to see a pack member after a long period of time and not touch them. For some reason, Derek had delayed touching him, and the memory of his hand skating over Stiles’ head, and the electric current that seemed to issue forth from his hand into Stiles’ body, like the transfer of some holy knowledge, that’s not just him, right? That can’t just be him.
It seems impossible, but he formulates a plan anyway.
*
The pack movie nights have become an every other day sort of thing, everyone delaying the inevitable return to real life and summer jobs, storing up as much family time as they can. Derek seems happy to host, another thing Stiles fits into the secret conspiracy theory murder board he’s building in his mind, the murder board full of red yarn and question marks, the murder board that is Derek’s hypothetical attraction to Stiles. When Stiles walks in to the showing of the third Harry Potter everyone goes very still, like a Sondheim tableau, staring into the middle distance, or taking out their phones, and Scott is all of a sudden very interested in the copies of International Wolf on Derek’s coffee table, despite the fact that Stiles knows that Scott doesn’t read if he can help it. Lydia’s banshee senses seem unaffected, though neither does her interest seem unduly strained from her position on the floor where she’s flipping through a fashion magazine and drawing beta shifts on all the models.
Derek is frozen in the center of the couch and a fine pink is spreading over his cheeks. He won’t look at Stiles.
Jackson walks in from the bathroom and sputters “Jesus Christ, Stilinski, just take your dick out in the middle of the house, why don’t you? Asshole,” and turns on his heel to head for his secret hiding place and do some processing.
“Dude, what?” Stiles yells after him.
Erica and Boyd slink away then too, making interior decorating noises, which prompts Lydia to stand with a sigh, saying, “You better hope whatever this is resolves before the pizza gets here.”
Stiles says, “Uh, guys…?” but only Scott’s left, and he puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, and staring deeply into Stiles’ eyes says, “You want me to stay, bro?” Stiles has to stifle a laugh.
“Nah, dude, I’m good,” he says, but when he looks over at Derek, Derek’s staring at his hands in his lap, and his reading glasses (old man Hale! Stiles thinks) have slipped down the bridge of his nose, and in general he looks so much like a super hot Marian the Librarian that Stiles is struggling to keep his heart rate down.
“Derek,” Stiles says, and Derek starts at his name, jumps like a bunny caught pillaging a vegetable patch. “Whoa, dude, it’s okay, it’s cool.”
“That’s my t-shirt,” Derek says.
“Oh?” Stiles says, as if he didn’t sleep curled around the t-shirt last night, as if he didn’t go for a jog in the t-shirt, as if he didn’t think special thoughts about Derek in the t-shirt and let whatever cocktail of pheromones that produces perfume the shirt. “It was in my room, and it fit,” Derek makes a strangled sort of groan, at that, but Stiles continues, “I guess I just assumed…”
“You don’t know…um,” Derek gets up and starts picking up empty water glasses and taking them to the kitchen, tidying. Stiles stays put. Derek is soon back, helpless, not sure where to put his arms or his eyes.
“What don’t I know?” Stiles says.
“What it…what that means, when you, uh, smell like that. When you wear…that.” Derek’s blushing now, and it’s truly brilliant. Stiles regrets nothing.
“What do I smell like, Derek?” Stiles says, and it’s almost a whisper.
“You smell like me,” Derek says. “You smell like longing.”
Stiles can’t believe his luck. “Holy shit,” he says. “I mean, I guess I suspected, but I wasn’t really sure, I mean—how did it go, dude? You just…did you sleep in my bed when I was gone? Like, how often? And the shirt. Did you just forget your shirt? Did you walk, shirtless, from your angst-sleep into the night with only your brooding to cover you? Or, oh my god, oh my god, did you leave the shirt there so that it would smell like both of us?” Stiles starts to giggle a little, hysteria tingeing his speech.
Derek looks panicked for a moment, but then his eyebrows assume their defensive stance.
“You knew the shirt was mine?” Derek says.
“Dude, of course I knew the shirt was yours.” How is this the pertinent information here? Stiles thinks. “I mean, I figured it out. I sleuthed. I intuited.”
“Cool, and you decided that you’d parade through the house wearing it at a pack party,” Derek growls. “Give it back.”
“What!” Stiles squeaks. Shouldn’t there be confessions happening now?
“My shirt. Give. It. Back.” Derek is glowering now, evidently having been prodded into his default sulk-and-growl mode.
Stiles is not one to back down, though, so if Derek is going to be an assface about it, that’s just fine. He stalks over to Derek and strips the shirt off, shoving it at him.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?” Stiles says, punctuating his sentence with a shove to Derek’s chest.
Derek averts his eyes from Stiles’ chest. And seems to...deflate, a little. All the fight has gone out of him and he just looks miserable now. “I know this is all very funny to you. But. You take up more space than everyone else.”
Stiles retreats to the other side of the coffee table, clutching his naked chest, trying not to shiver. This is not how he thought this would go. He’s already mentally plotting the back roads he’ll have to take if he’s navigating the Jeep home shirtless. That’s one call he does not want his Dad to get. “I get it, dude, I’m obnoxious. That’s not new information to me. Especially not from you.”
“No, idiot,” Derek says. “You left and everything left with you. Everything fun. Everything good.”
Stiles begins to shiver a little, his heart rate ticking up, despite his best efforts. “Oh.”
Derek tilts his head like he can hear it, like he can hear Stiles’ body respond to him, the way every molecule begins to hum, begging for his attention.
“Yeah. Oh.” Derek says, and crosses over to Stiles.
“My biceps take up more space too,” Stiles says, “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Derek, I know they’re nothing compared to—” but then Derek is slapping Stiles’ arms away from where they’re clutching defensively at his bare chest and he puts one hand on Stiles’ hip and the other up to his face, cupping his jaw, as if he’s cataloging Stiles’ face and pinning him in place, at once.
“I noticed. Stiles,” Derek says, and his face is more open than Stiles has ever seen it, all of the sweetness and affection he must work hard to hide behind those eyebrows, because if he didn’t, Derek’s beauty would just be far, far too much for anyone to look at and live. “Stiles,” he says again, “Tell me what you want.”
“Oh my god,” Stiles says, “You are such a Hufflepuff,” and Derek’s eyebrows raise in surprise, and that’s how Stiles kisses him, in that moment of incredulity, in the interstitial what the fuck? of Derek’s disbelief and suspicious affection.
*
“I’m still not seeing it,” Scott says later from within the puppy pile as the credits are rolling.
“Think about it dude,” Stiles says, “Total Hufflepuff: Teacups, gentle yearning, an actual sugar bowl, reading glasses, chaste longing from afar, hosting pack parties, buying everyone’s favorite snack, keeping International Wolf magazine because of secret love—”
“I like the articles,” Derek mumbles, his nose firmly planted in Stiles’ neck. “Also, I can hear you talking about me, because I’m right here.”
“Dude, Scotty, dude, he reads International Wolf for the articles, the articles!, and he’s snuggling me right now, such a Hufflepuff, oh my god.”