Work Text:
Quiet Perfection
Stiles drummed his perpetually moving fingers against the surface of the desk as he stared at the computer screen, scanning the email before forwarding it to Isaac in records. He wiggled his feet out of his shoes to stretch his socked toes and then sipped at the coffee the new deputy, Laura had made him on her obligatory ‘first day coffee round’.
The station was bustling with its usual life, an intimate hive of activity that always seemed to keep the world alive around him. It had been his home away from home ever since he’d lost his mom almost fourteen years ago. It felt right to be working there now, as an adult, and if he wasn’t on the frontlines like his dad, he thought he offered invaluable support behind the scenes. He’d always been good with people, with working with a team.
He gave his eyes a brief screen break by spinning on his chair, absently sipping at his coffee as he moved. He managed to slide the half-empty mug onto the desk on the fifth spin, but on the seventh he started at the sight of someone standing on the opposite side of the desk. He leapt nearly off the chair, fingers scrambling across the desk as he frantically caught himself on its surface and met the man’s bemused expression.
Stiles’s heart fluttered and he swallowed unintelligibly as he stared up at him, into eyes sparkling with amusement and a dark trimmed beard framing a twist of an infuriatingly attractive almost-smile.
He had a kind of silent strength to him, with broad shoulders and arms. Yet when he reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and drew out a little pad and pen, his hands moved with a kind of calm gentleness that at first Stiles’s eyes struggled to reconcile with someone that looked like he could break the desk with his bare hands if he so desired.
Stiles knew he was staring but it took a moment for him to register that the handsome stranger was sliding a note across the desk to him.
‘I’m here to see Deputy Hale. I’m her brother Derek.’
Blinking at the note for a moment, Stiles’s gaze whipped back up to meet Derek’s eyes and he watched as Derek brought the side of his index finger to the top of his cheek, near the topmost edge of his jaw, then drew it down in a small arc until it rested on his cheek again near the corner of his mouth.
Understanding dawned, then a frisson of startled anxiety pulsed through Stiles’s belly, tightening as he stared up into Derek’s eyes. He didn’t do him the disservice of looking away from him, even as everything screeched to a halt in his brain, because he’d been raised by a deaf mother and a hearing father well enough to know how to talk to people from both communities with respect. Except…
He swallowed thickly now, heart stuttering with apprehension because he’d stopped signing regularly when he was ten. Because he felt a rushing typhoon of guilt, disbelief and worry that he might’ve lost touch with something so important from disuse.
His hands moved almost of their own volition though, almost instinctively and he watched the slight surprise register on Derek’s face as his fingers moved. They shook just a little as he formed the open hand with the thumb against his chin, but it felt good too as his hands moved in ways they hadn’t for years.
My mom was deaf.
Derek nodded, eyebrows raising as he extended a finger slightly in Stiles’s direction before bringing it back toward his chest, then touching his cheek near his mouth.
Stiles smiled again, shaking his head slightly while making an almost pinching movement with forefinger and thumb touching near his ear. He finished the circular movement to conclude his answer. No I’m not deaf. I’m hearing.
People had always used to think it was weird, how his hands moved to express himself, how he gazed at them with intent focus when they spoke. It was the kind of expression and diligent attention perhaps only people who had lived somewhat in the deaf community could understand.
It was coming back to him a little the more he moved. “Can you read lips?” he asked aloud in his normal voice, even as he signed the question, finishing with two fingers flicking toward his own mouth.
Derek’s smile was small but warm. He nodded and made a little tapping motion with his fist.
“Awesome,” Stiles beamed. “My ASL is a little rusty these days. I’ll just grab Laura for you.”
A quick check of her desk line found it on voicemail though, so he rose from his seat, meeting Derek’s eyes at the same time. He pointed to himself then gestured his finger outward and back again as he spoke. “I’ll be right back.”
A quick peek inside the door of the bullpen saw Laura in the sheriff’s office with his dad, likely for a review of her first day. Stiles hopped back to his desk to call his dad’s line. It didn’t go to voicemail, which showed the casual nature of the meeting.
“Stiles?”
“Hey Pops, Laura’s brother is here to see her.” He looked at Derek as he spoke, so he could watch his mouth.
“She’ll be out for lunch in five,” his dad said warmly.
Stiles kept Derek’s gaze as he set the phone back in the receiver. “She’ll be out in five minutes,” he confirmed, biting his lip in thought for a moment. “Would you…like some coffee?”
Derek blinked, as if confused and Stiles wondered if he’d mumbled. He signed with two fists grinding subtly on top of each other.
Derek shook his head, tapping his index and middle finger together with his thumb. No. I understand you. He hesitated, then added, just surprised, with the accompanying facial expression a little more subtle than Stiles had learned it.
When Stiles’s mom had been alive, her hands had always been in motion, her fingers and her face always expressing something openly, always communicating. She’d always teased that his dad was the ‘quiet’ one in their family and although Stiles had been raised with ASL since birth, she’d really been the only one he’d used it to interact with, well, her and dad when they were all together as a family.
Derek was different. His expressions were understated, his fingers moving in soft, little fluid motions, sparse but not isolated. Just calm and quiet, with little shy smiles that made Stiles’s stomach flip. He had the most amazing hazel-green eyes and Stiles found his own gaze flicking down to Derek’s mouth ever so briefly as he watched his face when they communicated.
“Maybe it’s the eyebrows,” Stiles said, “they’re stern. They scare people off. Laura seems to have the same problem. Coffee-deflecting Hale scowl.”
A sharp burst of laughter ripped from Derek’s chest, surprised and free and Stiles grinned at the sound as Derek shook his head at him. His eyes sparkled in a way that Stiles thought they didn’t get to very often and he felt his own chest tighten in appreciation at the knowledge that he’d inspired it.
It was then that Laura appeared from the door behind the front desk, blinking in surprise at the sound of her brother’s laughter. She waved when she saw him and when his eyes locked on her smiling face, she signed something. It was quick and Stiles, who was still a little rusty, missed everything except ‘good’ and ‘ask’, then the unmistakeable shape of her bringing her index fingers together in the sign for ‘meet’ followed by ‘S-T-I-L-E-S’.
Derek nodded, stepping slightly sideways so he could see both her and Stiles pretty much evenly.
Laura signed something to do with ‘laugh’ that made Derek’s cheeks burn and Stiles cleared his throat awkwardly, shifting his feet. His lips parted but then he realised his eyes were down in awkwardness and quickly jerked his chin up as his words formed so that Derek wouldn’t be excluded from the conversation.
Lip reading wasn’t an exact science, his mom had told him once. Sometimes if people didn’t speak normally and maintain eye contact it was a guessing game of filling the blanks. “I offered coffee but I guess you guys are heading out?”
Laura nodded but then looked torn for some reason. “Yeah I…our parents live back in New York, but our uncle lives nearby and he’s meeting us for dinner? A sort of ‘congratulations on your first day’ thing for me.”
Stiles couldn’t help but think she looked apologetic for some reason and Derek held his gaze for a moment, looking contemplative before his hands finally moved again. He moved one palm flat across the other, then drew his two index fingers together before pointing at Stiles with a soft look of almost longing.
Nice to meet you.
Stiles felt his mouth go dry at the simple sign, but extended his thumb and pinky, curling the other fingers into his palm so his thumb was pointed toward him and his little finger toward Derek. Same, he signed, before following it up with, “And if you’re ever after a really terrible cup of coffee you know where to come to.”
Derek’s laugh was softer this time and it lit Stiles up from the inside, even as he and Laura turned and headed toward the door.
*
After their initial meeting, bumping into Derek became somewhat of a regular occurrence. It turned out that their lives were inexplicably linked. Between Derek taking up the position as the second veterinarian at Deaton’s clinic where Scott was interning, Boyd turning out to be Derek’s old friend from college and Laura starting to date Lydia, their social circles quickly merged into one.
It was all incredibly frustrating really, in the way that was sort of perfect. Because Derek’s stupid beautiful face and sharp humour and his not-quite smiles really did things to Stiles’s stomach. Tingly things. And the thing was that just about everyone seemed to know about it.
*
“Sorry I’m late,” he panted as he slid into the booth next to Scott at Erica and Boyd’s impromptu engagement dinner. It was only at the diner round the corner from the station, the place where they’d had their first date apparently, but the Jeep had failed to start so he’d had to set off on foot. Because of course his Jeep couldn’t choose to bail on him when Laura was on shift so she could’ve given him a ride.
“Last one here buys the drinks,” Lydia mused devilishly.
Any witty retort Stiles had died on his tongue when Derek nudged a tall glass and a plate toward him from across the table. A glass and plate that held his order.
Ordered for you. Hope you don’t mind? Derek signed, touching his finger to his nose and sweeping it in an arch forward and down.
Stiles blinked at him for a moment, just catching Lydia’s knowing stare out of the corner of his eye and feeling the weight of everyone else’s. Because that was his bacon double cheese with curly fries and strawberry sundae shake with extra cream.
“This is great,” he said, signing it at the same time with both palms facing Derek, because he’d been brushing up on his ASL in his own time lately but he liked to involve the others too if he could. The others only knew the bits and pieces Derek had taught them. Admittedly Boyd, as his old roommate and of course Laura knew more than the others. But it was coming back to Stiles easier than he’d first feared, like the more he practiced the more instinctive it became again, even if it wasn’t as fluent as he’d been as a kid.
It was like remembering a part of himself that his mother had inspired and nurtured, something that had been too painful to think of when he’d lost her, but now felt like the most precious gift to remember her by.
The private little smiles Derek gave him when he signed something right off the bat was almost as rewarding. Just as beautiful. And if Stiles stared at him for a few seconds longer than necessary after Scott had touched Derek’s arm to draw his attention, to ask him about some project the clinic was running, well, only everyone noticed.
Since Stiles paid for the drinks at the end of the night, as per the duty of the last to arrive, he was the last to reach the door. So he was surprised when he got there to find Derek waiting for him.
Do you need a ride? Derek asked.
Stiles grinned. Dude, yes, he signed emphatically. “You’re a lifesaver.”
But on the way to the car, they bumped into Lydia who looped her arm through Stiles’s and fell into stride beside them. “Mind giving me a lift too, Derek?” she asked when Derek met her gaze. “Laura got called in to the station.” She gave Stiles the most worryingly significant look and an arch of her perfectly shaped eyebrows. He threw her a warning glare in return because the last thing his burgeoning crush needed was a Lydia intervention.
Thankfully, in totally un-Lydia style, she kept to her knowing little eyebrow arches and side-nudges. And her probably interfering conversations with Laura, if the shit-eating grin Laura gave him every time she walked into the station after that was any indication.
*
“Peter wondered if you were available for dinner one night next week, Sheriff?” Laura asked. “He wanted to talk about organising the annual Sheriff’s office/fire department baseball game.” Laura turned her head then, as if she hadn’t seen Stiles standing at his dad’s side when she’d walked into his office. “You’re welcome too of course, Stiles.”
Then she winked at him. She winked at him.
*
“Please, Stiles?” Scott whined – honest to god whined like one of the dogs he was learning how to treat.
“Dude, I just came off my shift. Kira’s flight doesn’t land until nine. Go pick it up yourself.”
“But I Promised I’d be there when she landed. If l leave now I’ll get caught up in all the traffic leaving the airport. Please, Stiles? I left it in the office when was showing Deaton my dissertation notes.”
Stiles was the best friend ever, really, which was why after milking Scott for a little more begging, he agreed to go pick up his notebook before the clinic closed for the evening.
The bell over the clinic's front door was synced up to a light in Derek's clinic, Stiles knew. So Stiles wasn't surprised when he walked in to the chime of the bell and Derek almost immediately popped his head out of the office. What did surprise him, however was the look of pleased but confused look on Derek's face.
It was then that Stiles guessed he’d been set up. Especially when there was no notebook to be found.
“Scott is an awful friend,” he sighed when they’d finished scouring the back room and Deaton’s office, feeling awkward and a little embarrassed at inconveniencing Derek right at the end of his busy work day.
No problem, Derek signed with a soft expression. He hesitated then, looking uncertain, before asking: B-O-Y-D and me are going to a movie. You could come with us? When Stiles didn’t answer right away, he added quickly, You won’t have to wait long.
Stiles ducked his head in a small nod, bringing his hand up across his body, thumb against his chest as he wiggled his fingers with a smile. Cool.
But of course Boyd text at the last minute to cancel, so Derek and Stiles ended up seeing John Wick 3 subtitled screening on their own.
Boyd was an awful friend too, Stiles thought without any real annoyance or malice as Derek dipped his hand into their shared popcorn bucket tucked in Stiles lap. He totally didn’t deserve a friend who shared the last Twizzler and then choked on his piece in his concern for one of Halle Berry’s fictional dogs.
Stiles probably also didn’t deserve him after teasing him about it over their burgers at the In-and-Out afterward either though, even if Derek hadn’t really seemed to mind. Not if the look in his eye when he’d flipped Stiles off was anything to go by. But then Derek was pretty awesome, even if he totally underappreciated Keanu Reeves’s fighting moves.
*
It was totally nothing that Stiles’s heart-rate stuttered and rocketed skyward whenever Derek walked into the station. Of course, this time, his appearance just had to coincide with Erica stopping by to ask if Stiles wanted to get lunch with her, just because the world was an ass-hat sometimes.
“Hi,” Stiles said, his voice a little breathy as he moved his right hand in an almost salute from his forehead.
Derek reciprocated with one of those awfully gentle little smiles before moving his hands to ask, is your dad around? He asked…
Stiles’s brow furrowed at the last few signs. Face heating, Stiles put his fist near his chest and made a circular motion. Sorry, I don’t know that sign. He’d made frequent use of that sign over the last half a year, but Derek knew the score. He knew Stiles’s sign had deteriorated somewhat over disuse and was used to Stiles using a mix of signing and speech, so as ever, he eloquently waved Stiles off and drew the pad from his pocket.
‘Your dad asked me to go with him to consult on a case about police dogs.’
“Oh, sure. I mean, yes. Yes, he’s in his office. He said someone was coming in this morning. He should be waiting for you if you want to just head on through?”
Derek offered him a grateful look and touched his fingers near his lips, bringing his hand out to thank him as he headed on through.
“Soooo,” Erica began meaningfully.
“Don’t,” Stiles warned, but he could see her shark-like grin out of the corner of his eye.
Erica pulled a disgruntled face and looked at the watch on her wrist before pushing herself to her feet. “You two are like something from the shit they had us reading in AP English, you know that?” She sighed distastefully, casting her gaze through to the bullpen before she circled the desk to head toward the exit. “Just ask the guy on a date already, huh? Break that dry spell?”
Stiles' face burned and he glowered hotly at her. “It is so not like that.”
“Everyone in Beacon County knows what it's like, Stilinski,” she drawled and when Stiles opened his mouth to protest, she cut across him evenly, “even old Mrs Clayton who runs the library knows.”
With a grimace, Stiles recalled the time he’d been volunteering for the 'new library roof' fundraiser barbecue and Mrs Clayton had made a totally inappropriate comment about Derek's buns when Derek had strolled over and asked for his burger bun toasted. The mortification still hadn’t quite diminished even three months later. Although he could stand to eat cheeseburgers without an awkward tightness in his jeans again at last.
“Just take the leap, Stiles," Erica said with frustration. “Before he starts to mistake your obliviousness for disinterest.”
“He's not…” Stiles sucked in a breath through his teeth. “He's polite, and he finds me funny, I think. I’m an amusement at best.”
Erica rolled her eyes as she stepped out the door.
About a minute or so later, Derek and his dad came into the reception.
“Stiles, Derek's just going to come down to the court house with me for the Fillon case, can you grab that pass for him?"
Stiles dragged the pre-prepared consultant pass out of the drawer. He offered it up to Derek, who reached for it with his left hand, but when their fingers touched, he held Stiles’s gaze as his right palm moved outward away from his mouth in a thank you.
Stiles had been raised with this language and even if he was still a little rusty nowadays, albeit slowly improving, he knew what that simple gesture meant. But he also knew how vital expression was, when portraying the meaning of a sign, as meaningful as emphasis on spoken words. The look on Derek's face then had looked so thrillingly like affection that it made his skin prickle pleasurably.
He moistened his lips nervously, unable to avoid noticing the way Derek's eyes flicked to his mouth. Eventually, he managed to move his hand up to his forehead then down in a curving motion. You're welcome.
Derek's lashes did that thing again, heavy and considering before he turned away with that familiarly wistful almost-smile.
As Stiles’s dad turned to follow though, he raised his eyebrows in a way that made Stiles silently despair.
Even as he cringed inwardly, imagining how awkward Derek must feel with half the town effectively trying to hook him up with the ditzy sheriff's kid, he couldn't dismiss the look in Derek's eyes. Couldn't shake the possibility that maybe there was something there.
He knew he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes. He'd had boyfriends before, he'd had plenty of sex, even if he’d never really kept anyone's interest for longer than a few dates. The thing was that he was a little annoying, he gestured emphatically, always in motion and he never shut up. He was weird and a frustrating mix of independent and needy and no-one had ever really wanted to open up that can of worms.
So it wasn’t that he didn’t know he was moderately attractive, it was more that he liked Derek. He liked the little crinkles he got around his eyes and his snappy comebacks and how clever and sweet he was as well as cutting sometimes.
He supposed he knew Derek liked him, on some level. He wasn’t stupid. But he hadn’t wanted to push and force Derek to discover all his aforementioned flaws and then stop liking him. It’d been months now though and he was pretty sure Derek had seen him being a flailing, overzealous geek with a wicked streak and penchant for video games, flaws and all. He’d even seen Stiles when he’d been all gross and snotty with the flu that time and the thing was, now Stiles thought about it, he still looked at Stiles with that almost secret glimmer in his hazel-green eyes.
So…he liked Stiles then. Maybe more than Stiles had initially thought. Maybe.
*
If his once oblivious, suddenly annoyingly perceptive Scotty caught him practicing signing when he stopped by with pizza the following night, that was totally nothing to do with his possible epiphany.
*
The following few weeks were hectic with a string of burglaries that kept everyone in the Sheriff’s Office busy with the backlog. So the summer solstice bonfire that Peter Hale held on his property near the preserve was a welcome reprieve, already thrumming with people enjoying their community and the outdoors after a stressful few weeks.
Stiles’s dad had taken the short straw to tidy up some loose ends so his deputies could go out and enjoy themselves. Any disappointment that he wouldn’t get to share the night with his dad had died though when his dad had fixed him with an enquiring look when he’d headed for the door.
“Is Derek gonna be there tonight?” His dad had asked with the patented Stilinski faux innocence.
“He lives there, Dad, it’d be pretty weird if he wasn’t.”
His dad had shrugged and turned back to his paperwork. “Well you know, tell him I said hi. He’s a nice kid.”
“He’s a twenty-nine-year-old man.”
“And you’re twenty-five, so don’t feel embarrassed about telling your old man if you score a date with a good looking guy.”
“Oh my god!”
He sat on the slight incline up from the wide clearing the bonfire had been built in on the edges of the Hale property. The air was heavy with humidity and Stiles sighed as he plucked at his t-shirt where the fabric clung to him. There wasn’t even a breeze, not really. What little there was of it carried the heat of the fire.
He watched as the smoke rose from the flames, billowing up in thick curls to greet the clear night sky far above. The stars twinkled brightly even through the smoke and he stared at them as he listened to those gathered closer to the bonfire as they danced and laughed and talked.
Their elation was as vibrant as the fire, a true celebration of midsummer's night, with spirits unaffected by the humidity.
He’d glimpsed all three resident Hales at some point throughout the night but so far had only spoken to Peter. Peter who had flashed him one of those sharkish smiles that clearly said so much more when he’d said how glad Derek would be that he’d come.
He was just considering hunting down Scott and Kira again to rejoin their group attempt at dancing when he felt someone’s approach and glanced up from his place on the warm dry grass to see a glass bottle with a glorious, glossy red label. Perspiration ran down the surface, fresh from the cooler and Stiles groaned in appreciation as he took the bottle of Coca Cola and dragged the surface against the back of his neck.
“Dude, I love you,” Stiles lamented, letting the ice-cool relief of the glass fresh from the cooler soothe his heated skin, before bringing the bottle back round to sip at the contents. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Derek ducked his head a little, a small smile twitching at his lips as he dropped down beside Stiles.
Stiles shifted slightly so his body was more facing Derek, then set the bottle down between his feet. Derek’s gaze searched his face and with a warm smile, Stiles signed with his left palm up and the first two fingers of his right swaying slightly across it. No dancing?
The music was thumping rhythmically through the ground, the trees, the very air. Stiles could feel it vibrating under his feet, the deep, heavy, throbbing beat that, this close to Derek, made his insides tight and squirmy.
Derek shook his head, setting down his own bottle to reply. Danced with Laura and Erica. I’m done now. His expression was soft though, affectionate, and Stiles could sense the same contentment as those around them vibrating through him.
Stiles smirked. Do you like to dance? He asked. It always seemed to go this way. For months little snippets of themselves had darted out into their otherwise polite platitudes of conversation. Now though, after months of bumping into each other, meeting up with the same group of friends, Stiles actually thought he knew more about Derek than some of the people he’d grown up with.
He knew that Derek liked his coffee ridiculously sweet for someone built like he was. He knew that he’d been kind of weedy in high school, but that when Laura had started training for the police academy when he was a teen, he’d gone to the gym and gone running with her and they’d never stopped. He knew that Derek’s favourite movie was Man from U.N.K.L.E and that he was a favour of routine, that he and his uncle were really close, more like brothers.
He knew Derek had actually moved in with Peter first. Peter had mentioned that Deaton was looking for a new vet in their expansion when he’d visited the family in New York and Derek, with his licence under his belt, had leapt at the chance.
After being caught up in a bad case at the NYPD, Laura had followed a month or so later for a change of pace.
He knew Derek loved all kinds of books, from GR.R Martin to Charlaine Harris. He knew Derek’s mom was a teacher, that she was the reason he could read so well, despite the lack of help or understanding in the schools he’d attended. He knew that when he was born deaf she’d studied new ways to help him enjoy books in the same way his sisters did.
He knew how Derek looked when he was upset that he’d lost one of his animals at the clinic, when he came in all subdued and self-flagellating sometimes after work to head home with Laura. He knew how Derek looked dappled with sweat after a run or even drenched through from the rain. And he knew how his eyes crinkled and his lips twitched in silent laughter, when they’d all gone as a group to see the latest Fifty Shades movie together and he and Derek had sat signing together like silently giggling high school kids on the end of the row at the trashy yet intriguing absurdity of it all.
It was an intimacy and affection that had grown through little moments, swelling subtly until now. Stiles found himself staring into those eyes and feeling his throat tighten with the realisation of how, of all the people here tonight, Stiles would rather sit with him than dance all night by the fire.
Stiles raised his hand to his chest. He licked his lips, watching Derek’s eyes follow the little movement before he watched Stiles sign, I love dancing. I’m not good but I love it.
Derek smirked again, the firelight illuminating his face with a warm orange glow, along with a white-ish radiance from the solar lights Peter had staked around the clearing.
Do you want to dance? He asked, shifting his body slightly in a motion Stiles knew meant or. Derek moistened his lips absently, before adding, can you swim?
Stiles blinked, startled by the question, brain feeling foggy with the humidity. He had read that correctly, hadn’t he?
Yes, he answered with a frown.
Derek’s smile was blinding as he rose to his feet, making his hands circle round each other toward his body. Come with me.
Stiles’s legs moved almost of their own volition.
Derek lead him along an invisible trail, with the stark white full moon bathing the world around them in glorious light. They didn’t head toward the Hale house though. Instead when the trees opened up again, Stiles saw a great expanse of water, a lake so calm and still it reflected the sky above like a mirror. He stopped at the sight, even as Derek continued moving toward the jut of the small wooden dock to which a tiny row boat was moored.
This image before him, it was like something out of a dream, a vivid picture of quiet perfection so untainted by anything else that he thought it might stay in his mind forever. Then Derek half-turned, looking over his shoulder at Stiles and giving him this little smile that was hopeful and daring all at once.
Stiles wished he could take a picture with his eyes.
He started forward, jogging to Derek’s side sedately. Even out here on the dock, there was no breeze and the summer night felt muggy and tight around them, pressing them close as they stood in front of each other.
Then Derek started tugging his t-shirt off, shrugging out of his jeans and Stiles felt his heart-rate stutter and surge. Stiles couldn’t help but watch those strong, deft fingers tug the leather free even as Derek toed off his shoes. He felt something like panic and excitement ripple through his veins like the tide rising up in him. His tongue swept nervously across his dry lips as he stood there, paralysed with disbelief when Derek looked up at him expectantly.
Derek’s lips were slightly parted, his eyes almost uncertain as they searched Stiles’s face, but then he just…jumped.
Stiles watched him, stunned for a moment.
There was hardly any splash when Derek hit the water, of course, and when he resurfaced, smoothing the water back from his face, he swatted his arm across the water to send it soaring up toward Stiles.
The game was on.
Derek was a good swimmer, but Stiles was fast. He’d been on the swim team in junior high, and although his loyalties had switched to lacrosse in High school, it wasn’t something you forgot. He surged forward in the water. When Derek dodged him, Stiles carried on going, diving down and grabbing his kicking feet. They kicked and scrabbled and as Stiles’s head broke the surface, one hand still holding a frantic grasp of Derek’s left toes, he heard Derek’s laughter harsh and perfect and uninhibited echoing around them, even as he frantically tried to kick him off.
A hard slap of water startled him into loosening his grip. Even as he dashed it from his eyes, Derek was after him. Stiles couldn’t help himself, he screamed like a little kid at the devious light in Derek’s eyes and dove down, moving faster under the surface, the heat of harsh summer forgotten in the perfect biting coolness of the water.
He broke the surface with a gasp for air, one arm coming up to grasp the edge of the dock as he cast his glance back. But Derek wasn’t there. He knew the briefest moment of panic before a hand grasped his ankle and his stomach swooped as he went under.
Derek was still laughing when they clambered up onto the warm wooden dock afterward, blissfully cool in the stuffy evening air and already warming as they caught their breath.
Stiles lay star-fished as his chest heaved, staring up at the sky and flopping his arm over his eyes in relief, exhaustion and happiness that consumed everything for just that moment.
When a damp fingertip dragged along his forearm, he shifted it up, only to find Derek leaning over him. His hazel-green eyes were dark and yet shining all at once as the shape of his water-dappled shoulders eclipsed the moon.
There were many ways of attracting the attention of someone in the deaf community, but they varied depending on who you were to that person, who they were to you and Stiles remembered the way his mom had used to tickle his neck gently when she passed him or how Derek usually waved slightly at his dad or Scott or even just shifted sideways more into their line of sight.
That subtle caress to the back of his forearm had felt so intimate. It had made the little hairs there prickle with a current of interest that had swept through his whole body, all the way down to his toes.
I scared you? Derek signed with his left hand braced against the wood next to Stiles’s side, leaning just fractionally over him now.
Stiles’s eyes followed his fingers, the taut lines of the tendons in his right hand that threaded up into the hair on his forearm. He blinked, the world fuzzy and humid around them while they stayed together in the cool clarity provided by the water evaporating off their skin.
Stiles pointed at Derek. You… He hesitated, the burnished hazel-green framed by thick lashes making him swallow, even as his breathing struggled to even out. You are my favourite kind of asshole.
Derek laughed. And it was another little piece slipping into place. Because Derek was always polite with everyone but he didn’t laugh with everyone like this. He didn’t let everyone see him this close.
You have been practicing. Derek’s eyes crinkled as his hand moved, improper with just one hand and yet unconcerned, another intimate assurance that he knew Stiles both wouldn’t mind and would also know what he meant regardless.
Stiles had wondered if Derek had noticed he’d been brushing up on his ASL, but of course he had, with how rusty he’d been that first day at the station and how rarely he had to write something down or let Derek simply read his lips nowadays. It’d been because of Derek, incited by him, but it’d also been for the memory of his mom and the need to keep hold of such an important part of her that, until then, hurt had made too difficult to use.
It had been her language, the language she had taught him. Their language. Derek had given him that back.
Stiles flushed all the same at being caught out, using the excuse of pushing himself up into a seating position to divert his eyes, not enough so that Derek couldn’t communicate with him, but enough to shield his embarrassment. He suddenly felt very naked, clothed in only his wet boxers and a dappled sheen of water in the clammy evening.
But then Derek touched his fingertips to his jaw, the gentlest and briefest of touches, like he was testing the temperature of Stiles’s skin to see if he was safe to hold. The nudge drew Stiles’s gaze back to Derek’s face fully and Stiles knew he’d done it so there could be no way he would misunderstand or miss it when he asked…
For me?
Stiles licked a droplet of water from the bow of his lips. Yes and no, he replied, face pinching slightly with the ‘no’. And he did have to think for a minute. In the end he circled both index fingers loosely around each other, clapped a hand to his chest even as it tightened. Sign is my language too. But as his thumb and forefinger formed the ‘y’ for too, Derek caught his hand. His eyes were intense as he leaned in so close that Stiles could feel the heat from his body drive the scant breath from his lungs.
“You helped me remember,” Stiles said aloud. And god, he loved the way Derek’s gaze followed his mouth, no different to how any other lip-reader might and yet entirely different because this was Derek and he was so close and he took intimacies with Stiles that were everything and yet still not enough. And he looked so, so good all wet with his hair flat and water clinging to his perfect nose and lips and closely shorn beard.
Derek’s fingers were soft but firm around his, silencing him, Stiles realised and so he said nothing else. He just waited until Derek gently released him, palm coming to lay flat on Stiles’s chest, right over his frantically thudding heart.
A breath shuddered out of Stiles’s lungs, squeezed out by the pressure of that tender, fleeting touch. Derek did the same. Only his came out with an almost exasperated laugh that was smothered between them when his free hand cupped the nape of Stiles’s neck and dragged their mouths together.
Stiles felt his blood soar. His hands snapped forward, clumsily clasping Derek’s neck and jaw. His head swam with everything he wanted to say, about how he wanted to get to know him in his language, about how he’d wanted to remember something so important that he’d lost but in the end, it didn’t matter because Derek got it and he was kissing him.
His beard rasped against Stiles’s own evening shadow, mouth so wet and soft. His tongue stole in to touch Stiles’s almost shyly, then hungrily, urging Stiles’s head and body to twist to fit against him more thoroughly.
Derek’s fingers stayed between them. They moved with Stiles’s every ragged breath and heartbeat. They basked in the growing heat of Stiles’s skin as it vanished the scattered droplets clinging to him into nothingness with its intensity.
Derek was quiet, just breathing hard and making low, soft gasps into his mouth where Stiles groaned eagerly. Derek’s fingers tightened in his hair at the response to each one that vibrated against his own lips, until at last their mouths parted and their gazes met again.
Stiles watched Derek’s index and middle finger flick downward from his chin with an odd mix of affection and heat on his face.
You are so cute.
Stiles exhaled on a soft laugh this time. You are a huge dork, he teased, holding one finger out that pinched down with the rest of his fingers, before they crossed up over each other, then came down so his middle finger touched his thumb.
Derek gave a small, pleased laugh and kissed him again.
Somehow, between breathless kisses, urgent fumbling and climbing back into their clothes, they found themselves in Hale House’s kitchen. They stood either side of the breakfast bar, both of them leaning across the surface and dipping Doritos into the salsa dip that apparently Derek had made the night before.
Stiles finished chewing the one in his mouth and held his left hand palm down, raising the first two fingers of his right hand and swatting them against the back of his left. He grinned as his hands kept moving. Of course you can cook too.
Derek shrugged. It’s only D-I-P.
“Dip that us lesser mortals buy from the store,” Stiles mused, poking another chip into the dip and savouring the perfect tang. When Derek’s lips twitched in fond exasperation, Stiles dusted his hands off and asked, do I bother you? He cut his hands across each other in a gentle tap rather than a harsh one. Signing and speaking at the same time?
Derek liked him well enough, so if it did annoy him it couldn’t have done so too badly. It was just different. Stiles had grown up with only really his mom’s version of sign and he was worldly enough to know that some things she might not have minded might’ve been considered rude or even inconsiderate to others.
His mom had encouraged him to use both signed and spoken words, but he’d never thought to ask Derek if it made things harder for him.
Derek shrugged again, pointing at himself and then raising his right hand up, palm facing the floor. I grew up with both. It’s a personal choice. He hesitated then, watching Stiles carefully as he fanned each of the fingers out of his right hand, plucking at the air with forefinger and thumb distractedly for ‘choice’.
New people are hard. Talk too fast, quiet, loud. My family use sign and speech.
Stiles nodded, it made sense, he’d known Derek’s family were all hearing, after all. He grinned mischievously.
You like to watch my hands and mouth.
To his surprise, instead of being flustered by Stiles’s teasing, evidently far too used to it already, Derek simply replied by bringing his palm out, pinching middle finger and thumb together facing him as he did so. I like both. He licked his lips nervously, before bringing his hands together like claws so each fingertip touched, then drawing them outward. A lot. It’s who you are. I like it.
Stiles felt like a high school kid as he pointed at himself and turned the back of his hand to Derek, pinching middle finger and thumb together twice before pointing at Derek. I like you.
Derek ducked his head in the most adorable way to hide his smile, loading up another Dorito and Stiles wasn’t exactly sure how this had happened, how his quiet, content little life had grown so full of this blinding warmth of someone so…perfect for him.
He hadn’t realised he was leaning in until Laura swept into the room behind him, striding across the kitchen to rummage in the fridge. “Don’t put him on a pedestal to worship, Stilinski,” she said when she’d turned to face them, pouring herself a glass of water from the filtered jug she’d retrieved. “Let me tell you right now, he snores, he eats garlic bread like it’s its own food group and he never washes the toothpaste splashes out of the sink. He leaves his beard trimmings in the sink, he goes totally apeshit if I leave a cupboard door open in the kitchen and he doesn’t like lasagne.”
Stiles laughed, replying with his hands, one hand flat, palm up and the other facing outward and pointing down, as if drawing a long line across his palm. I forgive all except the last one.
Laura beamed, downing her water and winking at Derek on her way out of the kitchen. Derek rolled his eyes, watching the empty doorway she’d vanished through for moment before signing cautiously, I don’t want worship, wrapping his right hand over his closed left fist. Just you.
Stiles grinned. I can work with that.
The moment his hands finished signing, Derek covered them with his own, thumbs caressing Stiles’s skin as he drank in every inch of his face. He wore the softest, most smitten expression and Stiles’s stomach flipped and fluttered hotly.
His breath left him in a slow, shaky little rush as Derek raised a thumb to his chin. Then he flushed hotly when Derek drew the thumb back to his own mouth to lick the stray smattering of salsa off it, eyes glittering with amusement.
Because of course there had been dip on Stiles’s chin the entire time.
Even as his cheeks burned, Stiles held Derek’s gaze, pointedly grabbing the last Dorito from the bag and stuffing it into his mouth.
You are so sexy, Derek mused with a twist of his hand that ended in a ‘Y’ shape before gesturing to Stiles.
Stiles threw the empty bag of Doritos at him.