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Derek opens his eyes, and there’s a kitten in his face.
More accurately, there’s a kitten’s claws in his face. It batted playfully at his chin while he was asleep, and it’s tiny paws are pressing into his chest. Its feet are white, but the rest of it is grey and black stripes. It has big ears and big brown eyes and the longest tail that Derek has ever seen on a cat. It’s adorable, long story short, but it’s a kitten on Derek’s chest that he didn’t ask for.
He is not very pleased with this turn of events, but he doesn’t know how it got here, or when, but he suspects Stiles had something to do with it.
He’s been making noises about Derek having something to nurture while the puppies were away at school.
The kitten pushes its face into Derek’s chin, and stutters out a purr. It curls into a ball on his chest and falls asleep. The bottom drops out of Derek’s frustration and the emptiness he feels in the wake of it is filled up with affection for this tiny thing.
“Stiles?” He calls, because he wants to know why he thought this was a good idea.
There’s no answer, but the kitten mews a little in sleepy protest of the noise.
“Stiles,” he calls a little louder, because Stiles may not have heard him the first time. The meow is louder this time, and the kitten raises it’s head from the curl of it’s body to look Derek in the eye. He looks into the amber eyes of the kitten and promptly freaks the fuck out.
He starts to get up, but the kitten latches onto the thin fabric of his a-shirt and into the skin underneath and he hisses.
It hisses back. Derek doesn’t want this to escalate, so he cups it in his hand, it’s so tiny, and soft and warm, and cradles it to his chest as he goes down the stairs.
He puts it on the kitchen counter, and stares at it.
It stares back, it’s eyes bright and almost preternaturally intelligent.
“Stiles?” He whispers, and the kittens ears perk and it makes the smallest noise possible. “Shit.”
--
“Where’s Stiles?” Scott asks sniffing the air, because he is obviously prescient.
“What.” Derek asks, not suspicously at all. He’s getting good a this hiding-what’s-going-on-by-not-using-tone-when-he-speaks thing.
“Stiles. He said he was coming here because he wasn’t feeling well.” And that doesn’t make sense, because why would Stiles even come here if he was sick? Why wouldn’t he just go home?
Some of his confusion must show, because Scott is going on. “He got in it with some witches or something, and they said something like ‘if you wanna run with wolves, let us help’ or something, and zapped him with mystical mojo. He didn’t want to go home in case he turned into a wolf and mauled his dad.”
Well. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.” Derek replies, and it’s not even a lie.
--
Stiles knocks over Derek’s glass of milk onto the floor and starts drinking it, and that’s when Derek realizes that kittens probably need food. He sighs heavily, and picks Stiles up, wiping the milk away from the fur around his mouth.
Milk is no good for kittens.
His trip to Petsmart goes something like this: all dogs bark at him, the cats hiss at him in defiance and look at Stiles like he’s breaking the laws of physics at the same time (he totally is) and Derek buys kitten food, two bowls, a litterbox, and some kitty litter. Stiles stays perched on Derek’s shoulder the whole time, digging his claws in, even when he bends over to pick up the box of litter.
The girl at the register coos over Stiles, and Stiles looks away coldly, flicking his tail in disdain. When she starts to coo at Derek, Derek can feel the way Stiles’s muscles contract, as if he’s about to pounce. He turns his head, and looks directly in Stiles’s eyes when he says “No.”
Stiles bites his nose. Derek flattens his mouth and pays for the stuff.
--
Derek is glad that he has werewolf healing powers, because if he didn’t his ankles would be shredded and he wouldn’t have toes.
“Damnit, Stiles!” He says, jumping away from Stiles’s pounce. The scratch is already healing, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt like a bitch.
Stiles looks up at him, innocent, and damnit. He’s so cute. Derek bends and scoops him up, scruffing up Stiles’s stomach. He bats at Derek’s hands playfully, and he realizes that Stiles is bored.
Derek buys him fake mice.
Stiles catches real ones and leaves them on his pillow.
Derek tries and fails not to be flattered.
--
The whole pack comes over for a pack meeting, and Derek tries to tell himself that it won’t end in an orgy of kitten cuddles, but he knows he’s lying to himself.
Erica is spread out between Isaac and Boyd. Stiles somehow manages to spread out across all three of them, and still look at Derek like Derek’s sole purpose in life is making sure Stiles is happy.
Derek tries not to be jealous, and fails.
--
It’s when Derek comes home and finds Stiles in Lydia’s lap that it’s the final straw and he stomps his way to his room and sulks on his bed. He doesn’t shut the door, because that has never helped and maybe then Lydia will see him sulking and know but Stiles jumps up on his bed and Derek tries to shoo him away, but lets his fist drop ineffectually on the bed.
Stiles sprawls across it, being adorable and spineless, and Derek looks at him for a long time after he’s fallen asleep.
When Derek wakes up, he’s considerably warmer than he was when he went to sleep, and Stiles is sprawled on his chest. He tries not to freak out, but Stiles wakes up anyway.
They stare into each other’s eyes like they did when Stiles was a kitten, and Stiles grins.
He immediately scrunches his face in disgust.
“Ugh, my teeth feel so gross. I bet my breath is rank. I bet I smell like cat food. I can’t believe you didn’t let me drink milk, you heathen. I am so tired of pissing in a box, you don’t even know.” He huffs, and Stiles is right, his breath is pretty bad.
Stiles presses his cheek into Derek’s pectoral muscles before he shoves off Derek.
“Feed me.” He demands, poking Derek in the nipple by complete accident, he swears.
Derek shoos him away and goes to make him a sandwich.