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Derek turns up at Kira and Scott's immediately after work, just like he promised. Scott gives him a nod from the stove and Kira gives him a kiss on the cheek when he gives her the snacks she asked him to buy, then she shoos him out of the kitchen again.
”Stiles is in the livingroom,” she says, and steals a spoonful of the pasta sauce Scott's working on while following Derek towards Stiles. ”Food's almost done.”
With everyone away studying but the four of them, weekly dinners have become a thing. They keep eachother updated on both the supernatural and the rest- like last week, when the Sheriff announced his plans to sell the house.
”Still no luck?” Kira asks Stiles as she sets down the bowl on the dining table. Stiles shakes his head. He's sprawled out on the sofa, shirt riding up just enough for Derek to catch himself staring.
It's becoming a problem. He thinks Kira might suspect something. Thankfully she goes back to Scott, leaving them alone.
”Everything's either completely run down or too expensive. And it's not like I'm gonna find a roommate without putting anyone's life in danger,” he closes the computer. ”I'd rather let dad find a place of his own, you know? Being in a place with so many memories of mom can't be good for him.”
”Looking for a room or an apartment?”
”I'm looking for anything at this point,” Stiles sighs.
”You could move in with me?”
”Huh?” Stiles' head snaps up and Derek is glad the only ones capable of hearing his heartbeat isn't there to be obvious about how it's racing because he just did that. He just asked Stiles to move into the apartment he's barely even gotten his stuff into, filled with boxes and still dusty from years of disuse and-
Derek nods.
”In the loft?”
”I have an apartment. A real one.”
”And you'd actually want me as your roommate?” Stiles says in disbelief.
”Why not? I've an extra room, it's not too far form the station. We can go tomorrow, see if you like it.”
”See what?” Scott asks as he walks in, big pot of pasta in his hands.
Stiles just smiles at Scott and pats Derek's shoulders when he moves to sit down by the table.
During dinner Stiles pokes his leg with his foot several times, grinning like a madman, and Derek imagines them eating breakfast like this, arguing over lunch and maybe cooking for someone else for the first time since New York and it just feels right.
Kira just smiles into her pasta, way too knowing for Derek's comfort.
”Kitchen to your first left, livingroom to your second and bathroom straight ahead. The other two are bedrooms,” Derek says as he lets Stiles in through the door the next day. Stiles nods silently and sets his bag down on the floor.
Derek watches him toe his shoes off, then makes his way into the fridge and the bottle of orange juice he left just hours ago.
”So which bedroom is yours?” Stiles calls from the livingroom.
”They're identical, but one is still filled with boxes from New York. I've been sleeping on the sofa, I can sort them out in a day or two. What do you think?”
”You got yourself a roommate,” Stiles says with audible glee and goes to inspect the bathroom. He'll deal with Laura's things later, when Stiles has gone home and started packing.
”How come you didn't move until now?” Stiles asks. For a second there he's grateful Stiles is in the other room so he can't see him flinch. ”I mean, the loft is awesome, but so is having a fridge.”
He thinks for a long while, trying to put it into words without leaving himself too exposed. By the time he's done thinking, Stiles is leaning against the kitchen doorframe, watching him.
”Someone was always home at the house. Me and Laura were barely away from eachother before she died. Getting a permanent place of my own on my own just seemed...” Lonely. Final. Like accepting he was alone.
”Quiet?”
”Something like that,” he sighs, brushing some dust from the stove.
”Yeah,” Stiles says and doesn't push it further. ”Now you have me to talk your ears off,” he then adds, tone lighter. He smiles, and it's not his usual smirk, but something softer.
”I'm already regretting this,” Derek says, yet slides the contract across the small kitchen island along with a pen.
”I don't know what you're talking about, I'm delightful,” Stiles quips back and signs his name on the dotted line.
They stubbornly move in by themselves over the weekend. Most of the bigger things are either very light, like bedframes and bookshelves, or made to be put together at home, like everything they buy at Ikea two towns over.
So they have their first (late) dinner in the brand new sofa since Stiles vetoed the old one, surrounded by the mess they've made. There are boxes here and there, stuff that needs to be sorted and put together, but the big things like the kitchen table and the book cases Stiles' dad gave them are finished. The kitchen itself is full of boxes with plates that would only end up thrown out otherwise.
”I think this is enough for tonight,” Stiles says with a yawn when they've gotten both beds together.
They brush their teeth side by side, and something in Derek settles that he didn't even know was there.
He wakes up to his bedroom door being carefully opened only hours later. A glance at the clock tells him it's almost 3 am and even if it's a weekend, Stiles was snoring before Derek even went to his room and should still be asleep. Unless something's wrong, Derek thinks and his veins go cold.
”Stiles?” Derek whispers, not sure if he's sleepwalking or not.
Stiles just shuffles closer to Derek's bed, lays back on his back so close he can feel the heat through the covers.
”I can't sleep.” His voice is so hoarse Derek feels even worse for him.
”New place?”
Stiles shakes his head.
”Nightmares?”
”Bingo. Pathetic, isn't it? I'm about to become a cop and I'm still scared of the bogeyman.”
”You were possessed by a 900 year old trickster.”
”I don't know why that's making me feel better, but it does.”
”You're not pathetic,” Derek says quietly. ”For what it's worth, I think you're brave.”
”Are you saying this to get me to go back to my own bed?” Stiles huffs, tensing. Derek just drapes an arm around his waist and-
Oh. That's.. nice. Very nice. Stiles seems to agree, judging by the way his shoulders drop and the tension bleeding out of him.
”Stay.”
”I bought pizza,” Derek opens with when he comes home the following evening.
”Nice!” Comes the answer from Stiles' room. ”Be there in a sec!”
Stiles hands him a USB stick when he comes into the kitchen. ”Soooo I found this on the floor while unpacking. I thought it was mine, so I checked what was on it. Sorry.”
There's a VERY important scrawled on it with Laura's handwriting.
”I forgot about this,” Derek admits.
Stiles sits down next to him and pours himself a glass of Sprite.
”I have some photos,” Derek continues. ”But none of them have all of us in there. This video does. Laura had the stick in her pocket during the fire. She talked about using it as reference for a painting but she never had the time.”
”Mom was always the one holding the camera,” Stiles says with a nod. ”Dad did a collage once with all our favourite pictures of us in different combos because we barely had anything with all three.”
”That might be a good idea,” Derek agrees, and pockets the stick, then takes a slice out of the box before their night takes a sad turn. ”C'mon, let's eat.”
They fall into a rhythm, Stiles and him, and it happens quickly.
Derek wakes up first during the weeks. Stiles doesn't even stirr at the alarm even if he's slept in Derek's bed (which happens more often than not). So Derek turns the coffemaker on and goes for a run around the neighbourhood. Not too far, just enough to stretch his muscles, feel his joints come back to life from sleep and clear his head a bit. By the time he's back Stiles has, unless he's overslept, both showered and sipped his way through the minimum of two coffee cups he needs to communicate in anything other than grunts and sleepy stares, bacon is frying in the pan on the stove and so are the eggs. A few minutes into Derek's shower the door will open, he'll mutter at Stiles to stop letting the warmth out and Stiles will mutter back at Derek for forgetting to buy more toothpaste.
If it's a weekend Derek wakes up to Stiles making pancakes and dancing around in the kitchen, humming to whatever's on the radio. They'll eat in front of the TV, watch an episode or two out of whatever series they've been Netflixing lately and Derek takes care of the dishes when they're done.
They wrestle over the remote, brush their teeth while the other is showering in the morning and take Derek's car to the store, do the shopping for a week despite knowing they'll be back at least every other day because they forgot something. Kira and Scott come over for dinner Wednesdays or Thursdays, the others whenever they're home from school. Derek talks about his work at the local museum and Stiles complains about nobody taking him seriously as a deputy because they've all pretty much brought him up, but they all know he loves it.
”You're fidgeting.” Derek sends him a fond glare from where he's standing by the door, ready to head to the museum. There's a big exhibition coming up and they need to get as much work done as they can, so he's taking a few extra hours here and there.
Stiles sighs and drops his arms to his sides.
”I don't know how to put this. 'Cause we've never really talked about it. I just.. don't want to make you upset, because I know what it's like. Kind of.”
”You lost me,” Derek admits, but slows down a bit.
”I've been talking to this girl a lot lately who I worked with last summer, and I knew she was a huge comic nerd, right? But then she mentioned she was a tattoo artist and-” Stiles' eyes light up the way they always do when something has captivated him and it's so beautiful to watch despite Derek seeing everything falling apart in front of him.
”It's fine,” he gets out, finally putting a stop to Stiles talking about this girl, whoever she is.
”Really? You're not angry with me?” Stiles stops, looks at him. ”I was so scared you'd be angry with me.”
”I've never been able to,” Derek says, and even if that wasn't the case, Stiles still knows what it was like to have one-sided feelings for Lydia for years and decided to give Derek a heads up. Derek doesn't even bother to hide the resignation in his voice. ”I need to go, see you later tonight.”
Stiles slips into his room just two nights later after barely seeing eachother because of their clashing schedules, and as much as it fucking hurts, Derek can't
not
let him in. Not when he's been awake for almost half an hour, listening to Stiles toss and turn in his own bed, not when he knows how relaxed Stiles always is when he gets a good night's sleep.
Stiles lifts the covers and lies down with his back to Derek's front, gently grabbing his hand and wrapping Derek's arm around himself.
And Derek lets him.
The night before the exhibition Derek comes home expecting Stiles already asleep, just like the past week. Instead he opens the door to hushed voices and a pair of high heeled leather boots in the hall.
”Stiles?”
”In the livingroom,” Stiles answers.
There's a girl leaning against Stiles' shoulder, dark hair falling over her face. He almost mistakes her for Allison before he remembers she's still in Paris with Isaac.
”Hey,” Stiles says, and the girl moves. ”This is Deb. Deb, Derek.”
”Hi,” she says softly, lifting her head to reveal big brown eyes that are most certainly not Allison's. ”I've heard a lot of good about you.” She smiles even though she looks like she's close to falling asleep, blanket slipping off her shoulder-
And she's wearing Stiles' pyjama pants and t-shirt. Derek can even smell Stiles' shampoo on her, her hair is still wet.
”You too,” Derek forces a smile and nods to her, then makes his way into the kitchen, hoping he looks at least half as calm as he's pretty sure he doesn't.
”I'll be right back, okay?” Stiles reassures her and follows Derek.
”Hey, is it okay if she stays over? I would have asked sooner, but it was kind of unexpected and-”
”No, it's.” Derek swallows, pushes his head deeper into the fridge to avoid looking at Stiles. ”It's fine. I'll be busy all day tomorrow so I'll leave you alone.”
”You're the best.”
Stiles pats his shoulder and walks back to Deb, leaving Derek standing in the kitchen.
When he can't fall asleep he blames it on being nervous about the exhibition, not the empty space next to him.
”Hey!” Stiles greets him with a big smile when he walks through the door the next night. ”How was the exhibition?”
Derek just grunts and goes straight for the fridge in hope of something microwaveable. That he's still standing on his feet has to be because of being a werewolf, there is no way a regular human would be able to survive the 48 hours he's just been through.
”So I got you something,” Stiles says, still smiling but voice lower, meaning he's probably picked up on how tired Derek is. People being kind to him shouldn't confuse him, least of all when it's Stiles, and yet.
Stiles wraps his fingers around Derek's wrist when he doesn't move.
”Come on,” he says, tugs gently until Derek comes with him into the livingroom.
There's a painting on the wall, right next to the big cabinet they almost didn't get through the door.
”Surprise,” Stiles says, voice still hushed as if he was afraid to spook him.
It's a still from the video from Laura's stick, only in swooping brush strokes, bigger and more alive than any still he could ever have printed. The oil paint has been handled with both precision and care and he can almost see the painter drawing each brush stroke as lovingly as Laura would have, had she gotten the chance.
It's so detailed he can see his mother's freckles.
”You did this?” Derek chokes out.
”Noooo,” Stiles says a little hesitantly. ”Deb did.”
”Why would Deb do this?”
”She's the one I told you about when I asked if this was okay. The tattoo artist who specialised in portraits?”
Derek just turns around and stares at him.
”You do know which conversation I'm talking about, right?” Stiles continues. ”Like two weeks ago, I had a day off and you had to go to work and I stopped you at the door?”
”That was about this?”
”What else did you think it was about?” he frowns.
”I came home in the middle of the night and she was dressed in your pyjamas, then she slept over. What do you think I thought?”
Stiles goes quiet the way he always does when he's thinking. Derek just waits, watches the cogs turn. Then his eyes go wide.
”No. Nononoooo,” Stiles shakes his head. ”Her boyfriend, well, ex, threw paint on her, she borrowed my clothes while hers was in the washer.”
Oh. Oh.
”Oh,” Derek says dumbly. ”You were kind of vague.”
Stiles leans up and presses his lips to Derek, soft, tender and chaste and somehow still enough to make his toes curl.
”Clear enough for you?” Stiles says when he pulls back just enough to speak, hands coming up to rest on Derek's hips.
Derek just pulls him in by his shirt and kisses him again.
*
”Wait, you guys weren't together?” Scott says and gapes at Derek, pasta completely forgotten.
”You thought we were?!” Stiles looks just as confused.
”We've been having double dates once a week for months, then you moved in together!”
”I told you two bedrooms were weird,” Kira shrugs. ”No wonder you three still haven't figured out John's moving in with Melissa.”
Stiles screams, Scott calls Melissa and somehow they both end up in a pile on the floor, crying.
”I wonder if this makes us inlaws,” Kira muses calmly and tears Scott's last garlic bread in two, handing one half to a dumbstruck Derek.