Work Text:
- one -
Stiles thought getting excited for the mail was a thing of the past, he really did. He thought that, of course, until the day that his dad left a handful of very large envelopes on the kitchen table, posted to Mieczyslaw Stilinski.
Large envelopes that had college names printed all pretty on the front.
Large envelopes that made Stiles very excited and very terrified all at the same time.
He sat there at the kitchen table, staring at the envelopes for who knows how long. His brain was whirring with possibilities - were they acceptances? Rejections? He’d pretty much just thrown his application at any school that he came across, on many nights that he had trouble sleeping.
He’d probably applied to fifty schools, now that he was thinking about it. That was way too many possibilities, way too many decisions to make.
So, naturally, he left the envelopes on the table and went about his life.
The mail kept piling up.
His dad didn’t say anything to him about it, but sometimes when they were both in the kitchen, grabbing a cup of coffee or eating dinner together, Noah would give Stiles this look. A look that said You can’t keep putting it off forever .
Stiles kept putting it off.
It was finally a few weeks later, when there were no less than thirty envelopes on the table, that someone actually called him out on it.
It wasn’t his dad, though.
“What’s with the mess?” Derek asked as Stiles raided the pantry for snacks. It was the wee hours of the morning, and Derek was over because there was a (probably) ghoul on the loose and they were researching how to keep it from killing people… and additionally, how to kill it. Stiles grunted, digging in the back of the cabinets for some chips.
Derek started flipping through the mail. “Stiles, are these college acceptance letters?”
Stiles found his chips and turned, triumphant, to open them. He stuffed a handful in his mouth. “Dunno,” he answered as he chewed. ( Very attractive, Stiles .) “Haven’t opened ‘em.”
Derek squinted at him, hands full of letters, face somehow a mixture of both surprise and a complete lack of surprise. Stiles grabbed another handful of chips and stuffed his mouth - again. He could tell that Derek was reading him like a book; Derek could always tell what was going through Stiles’s mind nowadays.
“When we’re done with this ghoul,” Derek finally said, dropping the letters, “you’re going to sit here and open every last one of these. I’ll help.”
Derek looked so earnest, but right now Stiles was just relieved that Derek was letting him put it off again. He headed back for the stairs to get back to research, leaning in to smack an obnoxious, gross kiss Derek on the cheek with chip-dusted lips.
“Thanks, Sourwolf.”
- two -
The ghoul was harder to kill than it should have been. Well, that’s because it ended up being not just one ghoul, but two.
Derek had been holding the ghoul’s slimy, rotting arms behind its back, giving Stiles a chance to stuff some hamburger meat in its mouth (because apparently eating real, human food was a ghoul’s weakness - who knew?), when out of nowhere a second ghoul appeared behind Derek, startling them both.
“Scott!” Stiles screamed as Derek flailed, the second ghoul biting the meat of his bicep and causing him to release the first ghoul. “Scott! Backup, now!”
By the time Scott had rounded the corner of the alley, Derek was trying to fight off both ghouls to keep them away from Stiles. He wasn’t being terribly successful, read: both ghouls were taking substantial nibbles from Derek’s arms and torso.
At least he was being successful keeping them off of Stiles, though. Stiles’s skin wouldn’t have healed as well as Derek’s from said substantial nibbles if they were happening to him.
Stiles scrambled, trying to gather handfuls of food to stuff into their mouths to at least try to weaken them. Scott finally came headfirst into the fray, launching himself at one of the ghouls and detaching it from Derek. Luckily, that ghoul was startled enough by the surprise attack to give Stiles the chance to get some food into its mouth. It weakened almost immediately, giving Scott the advantage.
When Stiles turned back to Derek and the other ghoul, it was to see Derek being flung against the wall of the alley, his head hitting hard on the brick. He fell, knocked out.
Just before the ghoul turned on him, Stiles jumped on its back, his hand finding its mouth and pushing more hamburger meat inside. It yelled, or tried to, but then Stiles’s free hand stabbed its neck with a blade he’d stolen from Deaton and the thing collapsed.
Stiles was at Derek’s side almost immediately, hands cupping his head gently as he searched for a pulse (steady, good) and his wounds (back of the head, already healing, plus a dozen bloody toothprints up and down his arms that were definitely going to take longer to heal). He turned to see that Scott had been successful with killing the other ghoul, so Stiles was able to put down his guard and he leaned over Derek, cradling the unconscious werewolf’s head.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” Stiles whispered harshly. He raised each of Derek’s arms gently, wiping blood away from his wounds with the bottom of his shirt to get a better look. As soon as he saw the skin and muscle knitting together at each place, he kissed the wound gently, memories of his mother kissing his boo-boo’s better coming to the surface. When he had found - and kissed - all of the wounds and Derek was still unconscious, Stiles rested Derek’s head gently back on the ground and stood up once more.
“Scott! What were you doing earlier?!” Stiles fussed, deciding that being angry at Scott was better than fretting over Derek right now.
- three -
“I don’t wanna!” Stiles whined obnoxiously, fighting lamely against Derek’s grasp on his shoulders. Derek ushered Stiles into a chair, sitting at the kitchen table in front of the dreaded mail.
“You’re worse than the ghouls,” Derek grumbled. Stiles scoffed, trying to look affronted.
“How dare you!” Stiles gasped. “I’d never take a bite out of an unsuspecting human.”
Derek muttered something under his breath, and Stiles would bet money it was a comment about taking a bite out of him, but he let it slide.
“I told you I’d help you open these when we were done with the ghoul,” Derek said, sitting next to Stiles, “and I will. You’ve got to get started on this, Stiles, college isn’t just going to magically appear.”
Stiles huffed, looking at the now very intimidating pile of letters. “I don’t wanna,” he repeated, but this time it was less whiny and more timid.
Derek nodded, understanding in his eyes. “We’ll do it one by one. Separate them into piles. Rejections - which there probably aren’t any of - here, then a few piles for acceptances: ones with scholarships, ones you like, ones you’re on the fence about, and ones you’ll never consider. We’ll break it all down so that it’s easier to decide, I promise.”
Stiles nodded, bracing himself. He was grateful for Derek being there right now - there was no way he was going to do any of this by himself.
He stood, though, and Derek tensed, ready to grab Stiles in case he was making a run for it. Stiles laughed, clapping Derek on the shoulders as he walked behind him.
“I’m just getting a drink,” Stiles explained, leaning in to give an affirming kiss to the top of his head and squeeze to Derek’s shoulder as he passed. “This is probably gonna take a while, do you want something?”
“Whatever you’re having,” Derek replied easily, so Stiles grabbed them a couple sodas before sitting back down, nodding to himself.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
- four -
Reading college letters was exhausting. Of course, it probably would have been even more exhausting if he wasn’t doing it alone. Really, Derek was doing the actual work here, opening the envelopes and pulling out the papers - risking papercuts, more like it. Derek would glance each letter over, checking to make sure it was an accepted , not a we regret to inform you (guess what, they had yet to come across any of those). Then he’d hand them to Stiles, who would promptly freak out.
Maybe that’s why he was so exhausted. It was exhaustion from the emotional turmoil renewed by each letter placed in his hand.
After a few seconds to a few minutes of consideration for each school (a few of which he had to google on his phone because he had absolutely no memory of applying to some of these places), he’d separate them onto the piles.
All in all, thank god that Derek was around to organize his brain and help him move along.
Finally the letters had all been opened and sorted, and while Derek was right in saying that it was much easier to be able to just - toss out some of the options right off the bat, Stiles still had a lot of thinking to do. His scholarships pile was big, plus the pile of schools he was interested was also stacked pretty high.
Google became his friend, and Stiles started making pro-con lists for each of the options. The next time he came back to his surroundings, four hours had passed and Derek had disappeared from the kitchen.
Stiles’s heart dropped for a moment when he realized Derek was gone, but then he looked across the room into the den and saw Derek passed out on the couch, mouth hanging open and drooling a tiny bit.
It was cute.
The clock read two thirty six am, so Stiles figured it was probably time for him to get some sleep as well. He left the piles of letters on the table - his dad wouldn’t touch them, not yet at least - and went into the den.
Stiles stopped next to the couch, looking fondly down at Derek, who chose that exact moment to snort and shift, smacking his lips together. Stiles stifled a giggle, reaching for the blanket draped on the back of the couch.
He laid it gently over Derek’s body, tucking him in carefully before leaning in to kiss Derek’s forehead. He had a fleeting thought that these friendly kisses were becoming a habit, but he abandoned that thought as quickly as it came - Stiles couldn’t consider that sort of habit, not right now.
With one more amused glance at the sleeping werewolf, Stiles stumbled upstairs and into his own bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
- five -
Days turned into weeks and the letters on the kitchen table were shifted around slowly, late nights of consideration becoming a habit. Derek was there sometimes for Stiles to bounce options off of, and other times Stiles chatted with his dad about schools.
Stiles’s scholarships-and-interested pile was getting smaller by the day - not because he wasn’t interested in as many schools but because he was starting to prioritize them. He even spent a couple nights logging on to some of the application websites of his no’s to decline them, making him feel even more accomplished about the whole deciding-on-college situation.
One Saturday night, Stiles found himself all alone at the kitchen table. There were only three letters left in front of him, and he’d been staring at them for just as many hours now.
But Stiles had made his decision.
There were a lot of factors: scholarship money, degree programs, location, campus life. Stiles liked all three of the options, really, but he’d finally picked one.
He pushed the other two letters to the side and pulled out his cell phone, texting Derek to come over.
Not ten minutes later, Derek was knocking on the front door. (Yes, Stiles had finally trained Derek to use the front door like a normal human being; it was a proud moment, okay?) Stiles let him in and without needing to ask, Derek went straight for the kitchen table. He looked down at the solitary letter there before turning to Stiles with a huge grin on his face.
“That’s it?” Derek asked, confirming.
Stiles nodded, a smile forming on his face as well. “That’s the one,” he said, nodding. Derek studied him for just a moment before letting out a joyous whoop. Stiles echoed him, and then they were jumping up and down in the kitchen, excited.
Stiles launched himself at Derek, letting the older man catch him in his arms. Stiles buried his face into Derek’s neck, breathing in deeply.
Derek’s scent was calming, comforting, the scent of happiness and home. Stiles couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips against the skin of Derek’s neck, right against his pulse.
Derek’s body stiffened at the feeling, making Stiles regret the action almost immediately. He shouldn’t have kissed him, especially on the neck - that was too intimate a place, especially for an Alpha Werewolf.
- +one -
Derek’s arms loosened around Stiles, his hands leaving Stiles’s back to grab his waist, moving himself slowly out of Stiles’s embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” Stiles sputtered, hoping that he could talk his way out of the awkwardness. “I was caught up in the moment, I don’t even -”
“Stiles,” Derek interrupted, forcing Stiles to meet Derek’s eyes. Derek hadn’t let go of Stiles’s hips, not letting him back away. “It’s okay.”
Derek’s eyes weren’t mad, or annoyed. In fact, they were alight with energy and emotion, and Stiles couldn’t help but think that Derek looked beautiful in that moment.
One of Derek’s hands let go of Stiles’s waist and came up to very gently trace Stiles’s brow, down his cheek, and then cup his jaw.
Stiles couldn’t breathe.
Derek’s eyes very carefully looked from Stiles’s eyes to his lips, staring at them as he licked his own, before moving back up to meet Stiles’s gaze questioningly. Stiles nodded, almost imperceptibly, but Derek saw it.
They leaned in at the same time, lips meeting in the middle for a chaste, sweet kiss, one full of promise and thoughts of the future. Stiles might have casually been kissing Derek for months now, but this kiss was anything but casual - and it was the first of many, many more kisses, he could tell.