Chapter Text
February . “You left the towels on the bed again! That’s how you get molds, Derek!”
The shrill sound of their bedside alarm wakes him up like it routinely does. Derek abhors it. He slaps around the end table to slam it shut and sighs at the silence that comes after it toggles off.
He rolls over, shoving Stiles' limbs that clung onto him in their sleep off his back.
"Stiles," he drawls, shaking the younger man's hip.
This was their morning routine on Tuesdays and Fridays. The alarm Stiles sets for his 8AM class does nothing for him, but as long as it wakes Derek up, he’s got someone to make sure he gets there on time, because -
" Stiles ," Derek repeats.
Because Stiles is an asshole who doesn’t give a shit about anyone else’s sleep, that’s why. But that hasn't stopped Derek from doing this every damn day since school started up again.
Stiles eventually rouses, though it takes five more minutes of poking, prodding, and eventually kicking him out of bed. Derek sighs witheringly before getting up after him. He curses Stiles’ State Theory class for no reason at all (reason: the alternative is cursing Stiles for enrolling in an 8AM class like a fucking idiot) and slogs through making breakfast. He’s awake anyway, and Stiles tends to act like bitch and a half without his morning caffeine.
But when Stiles leaves in a rush for his morning commute, dress shirt buttoned haphazardly and eyes bright, he kisses Derek slow and sweet in that way he does before making his exit. And he says, “Thanks for breakfast, baby,” and that - that sort of makes everything okay.
. . .
Being a writer for a Fantasy series really should be easier since he’s a creature of fantasy himself.
It’s not, if you were wondering.
Miranda’s made her eighth call to him since this morning, reminding Derek that chapters 21 through 25 should have been sent to her two days ago, but two days ago Stiles had a full-on crisis about his academic standing in the department, and that just meant dropping everything to make the 20-minute trip they took to Fizz Creamery (Stiles’ favourite ice cream shop that sells Tutti Frutti as an ungodly flavour) that was a precursor to the 6-hour crisis management that followed, with Derek convincing Stiles the entire time that getting his Masters in History wasn’t a dumb idea and no, Derek’s not going to hate him for being a “waste of money”.
“It’s just so hard,” Stiles had sniffled into the older man's shirt on Wednesday, smearing his Tutti Frutti ice cream on the front of it. “And my tuition fee is directly proportionate to how dumb I am, Der!”
Which was wrong - the complete opposite, in fact - Derek had told him. He’s paying upwards of $60,000 for Stiles’ education. That meant Stiles was, he supposes, negative amounts of dumb using that logic...right?
Fuck metaphors. His brain hurts. The point is, Wednesday clearly wasn’t a good day to submit his chapters. Sue him, Miranda.
But now it’s Friday, and Derek hasn’t stepped foot out of the apartment since. Maybe he should go out and let the New York air (that smelled perpetually of dried piss and designer perfume) nourish his inspiration. He’s only 5 chapters away from closing the final installment in Galman’s End, and yet, he’s never been more lost in what the fuck his characters are planning to do to save the world. Whatever it is, he’d like to know, thank you very much, and as soon as possible before Miranda rips his balls off.
He can’t even remember how he got here. Holding down a sci-fi writing job feels downright bizarre after all the fieldwork he did as Beacon Hills’ last living Hale. He went from living the life of danger to just writing about it. Most days he’s not sure whether to like this life or to feel disgusted that writer’s block is now his biggest threat to overcome.
Stiles always says he should probably go with the former. But Stiles drools on his textbooks and keeps forgetting to check their mail for when the bills are due, so what does he know?
Derek huffs a breath through his nose and runs a hand over his face. It's 3 in the afternoon and Stiles would be coming home soon. Derek could picture it clearly: he'd flurry in like a storm, rattling on about classes and his coursemates, shedding clothes as he goes further in their home. It's a routine Derek relies on, something predictable yet so varied in the stories Stiles tells. It damn well might be the best part of his day.
He pushes off his desk and exits the study. The apartment feels cavernous when it’s not filled with Stiles’ engulfing presence - his loud chatter, the coffee cups he leaves around window sills because he keeps forgetting he’s already brewed them. Where there is Stiles, there is a mess. Though the place looks tidy, as it always is in the afternoon once Derek has it all to himself to fix up, not having the mess makes it look less inviting. It’s too big for two people, especially by New York standards. The price tag on the apartment had a disgusting amount of zeros in it, but Stiles had loved the sun room, and said the kitchen was " bitching ", and, really Derek would have gotten him the moon if he had asked him to.
So now they have a sun room. Derek still doesn’t know what it’s for. Stiles says it’s “for lazy Sunday mornings” , but then they’ve both been sleeping in on Sunday mornings well into the afternoon, so who were they kidding. So far, the room has only been vacated for nights when they liked to see the rain fall on the glass panes. They don’t get to soak up much sun in the sun room, is the point. There’s also the three and a half bathrooms they don’t know what to do with, the two guest rooms with all that space that doesn’t get taken up by anyone else, and the living room from IKEA-Hell that they had had trouble decorating just because it was so damn big. Derek regularly wonders why an apartment needed this many alcoves.
But Stiles had adored the place, and that’s the only thing that mattered at the time. Their Brooklyn apartment had somehow been shittier than the loft, a byproduct of purchasing the first rentable place they could find on craigslist while on the plane ride to JFK. So this , however grand it was to the point that Derek feels guilty for having used so much of his family’s money (and still barely, inconceivably , made a dent), this was better.
Stiles had long staked claim on the kitchen, wagging a newly-bought wooden spoon in front of Derek’s face as he proclaimed his kingdom there on their third day of settling into the place. But Stiles rarely spends any time there since his classes take up a large chunk of the day, so the wooden spoon sits in its holder, collecting dust all because Stiles forbade him from touching his mother’s cookware.
Tonight is a pasta kind of night. Derek only really knows how to cook a few things and they’re all mostly carbs like potatoes, rice, and pasta. Stiles liked carbs, at least. He rummages through the cupboards for the Italian tomato sauce they buy in jars and the butterfly pasta Stiles liked best.
So, see, sometimes Derek makes novels; tries to get his chapters submitted on time and thinks of plot holes to fill and characters to maybe kill. Sometimes he spends hours suspended in bewilderment, his instincts not quite used to being so settled. Sometimes the apartment is so big and the demands of Miranda so tall, he feels like booking it all the way back to Beacon Hills again.
But most of the time, he just makes dinner.
Not that Derek will ever admit to it.