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It was natural, wanting to stay close to pack when something was hunting you. Derek stood in the doorway and watched as they slept, splayed out across the mattresses that they'd dragged into the McCalls' living room: Scott curled around Kira, face buried in her hair; Malia with her arms flung out over her head and Lydia tucked neatly in next to her. Even Melissa was there, spread out on the couch, wearing the scrubs she'd come home in. Derek was tired, too, and would have welcomed a pillow and one of the empty spots on the floor but he found himself resisting the idea of sleep. He could still feel that familiar tug behind his breastbone, the one that oriented him towards pack, but it seemed to be fading along with everything else. Derek didn't know if the final loss of it would feel the way it had when Laura died and he'd thought himself, essentially, an omega, or if it would be different this time.
He just knew that he didn't want to wake up suddenly and feel that the pack-sense had left him while he slept.
"There are more blankets in the hall closet if you want them," Stiles said quietly from behind him.
Derek fought not to jump in surprise. He hadn't heard Stiles' approach at all, Malia's basso snores now apparently enough to mask even Stiles' graceless footsteps from him.
"I'm okay," he said, turning to see that Stiles looked how Derek felt, muddy bruises smeared under his eyes from exhaustion, from having to fudge the truth to his father about what had happened with the two little killers. Werewolves and nogitsune were one thing, it seemed, but Stiles balked at worrying his father with news about bringing himself to the attention of sociopathic mercenaries. "I'll stay up."
Stiles peered at him for a moment, then jerked his head in the direction of the McCalls' kitchen. Derek was too tired to protest, trailing in Stiles' wake and letting Stiles push him onto one of the stools that lined the breakfast counter. Stiles started opening and closing cupboards, rummaging around like he was looking for something in particular while he cast Derek the occasional glance out of the corner of his eye. Derek had the sinking feeling that Stiles thought he was being stealthy.
"What?" Derek said eventually.
"Nothing, nothing," Stiles said. "Just, you know, thinking that if you want to talk about the whole…" He waggled his fingers.
Derek had no idea what that was supposed to mean. "The whole what?"
"Well, look, you have to admit that your body's been a bit, uh, unstable lately. I mean, still hella ripped, A+ job there, no complaints on the aesthetics front, but first you were you, then you were young you, and now you're a you who's apparently turning human? And that’s… I’m not saying that what happened with me and the nogitsune was the same kind of thing, but I know what it’s like to not feel like my body belonged to me anymore." Stiles made a face, sour, as if he’d unexpectedly bitten into something tart. "So, in like full consciousness of the fact that I am in no way a licensed therapist and also that you can tell me to fuck off if you want to, if you do want to talk about it… that’s… cool?"
"I'm fine." It wasn’t that Derek didn’t appreciate the offer. He knew Stiles didn't like talking about having been possessed; knew, in fact, that for Stiles to bring this up at all was a sign of trust that left Derek feeling a little humbled. But being a werewolf had been the one good thing Derek had had left to him when everything had gone to hell, the one constant he could trace in his life. He didn't think he had the words to talk about feeling the most important gift his mother had ever given him slowly leaching away. Certainly not when he was sitting in Scott's kitchen near midnight, his pack under threat, his shoulders hunched inside his jacket because he felt the cold so easily now.
"Huh," Stiles said, leaning in over the breakfast bar to look at Derek; his forearms flexed as he moved, broad fingers splayed wide against the countertop. "You're shivering, dude."
"I'm fine," Derek said again.
"You keep saying that word, I keep having an Inigo Montoya moment," Stiles said. "But I get it, talking's a no, so let's go with Plan B. Or actually, ha, in this case, Plan C." He went back to rummaging around the kitchen, and soon had a saucepan of milk simmering on the stove, two mugs and a large tin of cocoa powder sitting next to it.
"You're going to make me hot chocolate," Derek said, dubiously. He didn't think he'd had that since he was a kid.
"Well, for the both of us," Stiles said, hitching a shoulder. He was stirring the milk with a look of intense concentration on his face, like if he glanced away for even a moment it would explode. "Hot chocolate might not give you your wolfy powers back, but it's the best for warming you up when you're feeling down. It's been empirically proven."
Almost in spite of himself, Derek felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth. "Proven with science?"
Stiles shrugged, pouring the now-steaming milk into the mugs and whisking them until the chocolate was smooth. "You mock now, but just wait. I used to make this for my mom when, uh… when she got sick. She always said it made her feel safe, like when you curl up on the sofa with a good book when it's raining out, you know?"
Derek was still trying to think of something to say in response that didn't sound awkward or trite when his stomach gurgled loudly—even with his sense of smell weakened, there was no ignoring the milky rich scent of the drink wafting over to him. It had been a pretty long time since he'd eaten anything, he realised. He felt faintly embarrassed, but Stiles didn't comment on it, for once.
"And now for the pièce de résistance," Stiles said with an atrocious faux-French accent. He went to the cupboard over the fridge and started rummaging through it; it was so high up that even Stiles, who seemed to be going through yet another growth spurt, had to go up on tiptoes to reach the top shelf. The movement made his t-shirt ride up, exposing a strip of flat stomach. Derek hurriedly looked away; it wasn't that he never let himself look at Stiles, but it felt more dangerous than usual, when Derek had no idea what his body could betray when it was like this.
"This is Mrs McCall's cupboard o' secret treat stuff," Stiles said over his shoulder. "She thinks me and Scott don't know about it because she hides everything behind cleaning supplies, but—ha!" He snagged a package of something and a bottle and came back over to Derek. "What she doesn't know will… not hurt us so long as you don't tell her, ever."
"Marshmallows?" Derek said, arching an eyebrow as Stiles opened the packet and dumped a sizable handful of multi-coloured mini marshmallows into both mugs.
"They don't make the ho-cho any warmer, but they do make it cosier. And then for you, a little trick I learned from Grandma Stilinski, long may she reign over Silverdale Assisted Living." Stiles unscrewed the bottle cap with a twist of his long fingers and then sloshed a healthy measure into Derek's mug. "Peppermint schnapps. It definitely makes everything cosier, guaranteed to warm you from the inside out. Drink up, buddy."
Stiles was right. It was good, hot and sweet and creamy with a clean aftertaste of mint. Derek wrapped his hands around the mug, savouring the warmth and the way his shivers were slowly subsiding. After a few minutes, the feeling seemed to have worked its way right down into his bones, and Derek wondered if this was what alcohol was usually like for humans, this hazy sense of all-over well-being. He licked a smear of chocolate from his lips and said, "Thank you."
It wouldn't have been a surprise to learn that Stiles had some shapeshifter back somewhere in his ancestry, because Derek had seen few other humans able to pull faces that elastic. "Uh, excuse you, should be the other way around. You're the one who stopped me from getting gutted by a lacrosse stick tonight."
Derek huffed and then tried to not squirm when Stiles reached over and poked him in the side. At some point when Derek hadn't been paying attention, Stiles seemed to have decided that Derek was—well, maybe not pack, exactly, but something safe. Someone who wasn't going to hurt him; someone he'd risk himself for. Derek couldn't quite work up the courage to think about that too closely because maybe there was a word to put to the half-formed possibility that floated around inside his head late at night and there was too much hope in it for it to be plausible.
"You get that, right? Occasional bouts of fuckwittery on your part aside—"
Derek glared at him.
"—Okay, mutual bouts of occasional fuckwittery aside," Stiles said, head bobbing, "we've gotten pretty good at this whole looking out for one another thing. And that's… even if you end up being common-or-garden human like me and that doesn't change, you'll still be pack, Derek."
Derek startled a little, looking over at Stiles. He wasn't quite used to that yet—to seeing the expression on Stiles' face when he was trying to be kind. He shifted on his stool. "Sure."
"Yeah, that sounded sincere," Stiles said, digging another handful of marshmallows out of the bag and shoving them into his mouth. "Luckily it's true anyway. You bit it, you bought it, you're ours now, whatever. And you can go ask my first grade teacher, I have like historic issues with letting go of stuff that's mine, even if it's naptime. So shut up and drink your chocolate or I will go out there and get Scott to turn the wounded puppy dog eyes of True Alphaness on you."
"Okay," Derek said, and hoped that he could pass off the flush rising in his cheeks as a side-effect of the hot drink. It was getting harder to hear the steady thump of Stiles' heart, but maybe, maybe some things he would get to keep.