Work Text:
“I don’t understand what the problem is.”
“Stiles,” Scott tries, “these are garbage.”
Stiles’ brow furrows, eyes darting to where Scott is holding the crumpled tickets. Scott can tell he’s fighting with the desire to launch himself towards Scott’s hand. “No they’re not.”
Scott gives him a disbelieving look. “Then why did you have to get them out of the trashcan?”
“Come on, you know the saying: one man’s trash, another man’s —”
“Dude, you had to dig through last week’s leftovers to get to these. There’s nothing you can say to convince me this isn’t trash.”
“Saving tickets from dates is totally a thing though! Commemorating memories! It’s like, romantic or whatever.”
Scott looks down at the tickets that he’d found hidden away under Stiles’ pillow; if this is supposed to be incentive for him to stop crashing in Stiles’ room without asking, it might just work. One of the tickets is so stained that he literally can’t read the name of the movie Stiles and Derek went to see last week. The smell alone — god, this is making Scott’s top ten on his ‘why enhanced senses suck’ list.
“Uh-huh,” he says. “Romantic.”
Stiles glares.
“But why does he do it?” Scott whispers.
Isaac’s eyes narrow. “Does it matter? It’s not like this is any weirder than the shit he did before he got bit.”
Scott tilts his head as they look down from where they’re crouched at the top of the loft’s stairs, watching as Stiles steals furtive glances around the bottom floor, hands clasped tightly in front of him.
“It didn’t make him any more observant either, did it?”
Isaac shakes his head in silent agreement as Stiles sprints to the couch without looking up at them. He shoves whatever he’s got in his hands between two cushions, then hightails it out of the loft, door slamming behind him.
“Should we —” Scott starts.
“No way in hell. Not after last time.”
Scott hums. “That was pretty gross, wasn’t it?”
“I can appreciate our Alpha’s scent as much as the next shifter, but the bloodstained, lake-soaked socks he threw out three weeks ago after the lamia fight? There’s a line, Scott, and those crossed it so far they might as well have hopped the border to Canada.”
Fair, Scott thinks, totally fair.
“So you’re telling me I shouldn’t be concerned about the fact that my son has decided to stockpile snacks in the hollowed-out tree in the backyard?”
Derek and Scott share a wince of a glance across the kitchen table before Scott shrugs at the Sheriff. “Is it really that different from when he started hiding junk food from you a couple years ago?”
The Sheriff levels him with a look.
Scott wilts. “I mean I know the whole half-eaten thing is kind of weird —”
“As is the fact that he keeps just as many empty wrappers in there as actual food,” the Sheriff says drily. “And the fact that it’s outside. In a tree.”
“And that,” Scott concedes. “Those. Those things also.”
The Sheriff turns his gaze to Derek. “And then mixed up in there with whatever the hell food situation is going on, is what I’ve been reliably informed is a broken CD from your car and a single, completely torn-up shirt that I distinctly recall you wearing when you helped me on that case last month.”
Scott probably shouldn’t find as much enjoyment out of the Sheriff making Derek cringe, but he does. He really does.
“I —” Derek’s gaze darts frantically to Scott.
Scott just shrugs. He can’t be expected to do all the work here.
Derek struggles to find a response, and after a solid thirty seconds of excruciating pain for everyone involved, the Sheriff sighs.
“This is really not how I expected to find out you were dating my son.”
And wow, Scott didn’t know Derek was capable of looking that embarrassed.
Erica throws an arm out before Scott, Isaac, and Boyd can get out of the car. “Oh my god, wait.”
“What?”
Erica cuts her chin towards the window of the cafe. Scott follows her gaze to find Stiles and Derek already waiting inside, sitting next to each other in a booth. “I don’t —” he says, but she interrupts, her eyes sparkling, lips curving up in a grin.
“Crikey, I don’t believe it — here we have a Stiles outside of his natural habitat,” she says in a terrible, terrible Australian accent. “But don’t you worry, that won’t stop him from engaging in classic courtship rituals of his species.”
Isaac sticks his head between them over the center console. “A rare breed, these Stileses; their mating habits even more so. But if you know what to look for, they’re easy enough to spot.”
Scott thinks he should maybe tell them to stop, but also, he really, really doesn’t want to.
“Oooh,” Erica continues, as Stiles leans forward and snatches the napkin Derek had just used to wipe up a spilled few drops of coffee. “Wouldja look at that! See how he’s demonstrating the hoarding habit. This species is well known for their desire to keep close what their desired mates have scented.”
“It’s a bit peculiar,” Isaac adds, his Steve Irwin drifting more British than Australian, “and scientists have yet to discern exactly what makes a Stiles go after actual trash rather than anything normal. Say, for example, clothes.”
Scott snorts.
“Quite unique, a Stiles is,” Erica agrees. “The scientific community will continue to be confused by this creature for years to come.”
Scott’s pretty sure that’s accurate. He’s been confused by Stiles since long before he was bitten.
“So are we getting coffee, or…?” Boyd asks from the backseat.
“Okay, now let’s compare.” Lydia pauses the show, sitting up straight, notebook in hand. She looks around the room at everyone that she dragged into attendance. “What’s your biggest takeaway so far?”
Scott glances at Stiles and Derek before looking at Kira, who’s tapping her pen against her own notebook. “Don’t buy things in bulk unless you know you’ll actually use it all?” he offers.
“Not exactly what I’m going for, but good start,” Lydia says. “Kira?”
“There is a limit for how many cats a person should own.”
Lydia’s mouth thins. “Very true, though still not quite what I was hoping for. Stiles?”
“The space behind air vents makes an excellent place for nonperishables. That’s the last place people actually look. I assumed everyone would think to check there; that’s always where people hide shit in crime shows.”
“Okay, so that’s the opposite of what I was hoping you’d get.” Lydia turns to Derek, gaze beseeching. “Please tell me you had a decent takeaway from the story about a woman who almost died because the EMTs couldn’t get through her house when she needed an ambulance?”
Derek glances at Stiles, then down at his notes. “The homeowner seemed to really appreciate when the cleaners asked her before removing any sentimental items. And, um, it seemed like she started collecting things because of how much she cared about her family,” he finishes, before his eyes flick up to meet Stiles’.
“She really did,” Stiles says, tossing his notebook down so he can scramble closer to Derek. Scott wants to cover his nose; his best friend should not be allowed to smell that sickeningly sweet.
Derek smiles, a tiny, bashful thing that only serves to make Stiles’ scent grow stronger.
From the other couch comes waves of pure frustration.“I don’t know why I bother,” Lydia says. “I really, really don’t.”
“So can we turn something else on now?” Scott asks, gesturing at where Hoarders is paused on the TV.
Lydia sighs and hands him the remote.
“So Stiles is letting you put things in his, uh, hidey-hole places now, huh?” Scott asks, sidling up to Derek in the Stilinski’s backyard. The Sheriff is flipping burgers while Stiles finishes up with the food inside. “It’s getting serious.”
Derek gives a noncommittal grunt, but Scott’s learned to use his nose; He’s all fond embarrassment and affection right now.
“I saw that you added a, what was it, paperclip today? But it was folded? In a circle, I think?”
“In a heart,” Derek grits out, like he doesn’t want to, but feels compelled to correct him.
“Ah,” Scott says. “I see. So does that mean you’ve figured out what exactly it is that makes something hoardable for him?”
“Scott,” Derek says, voice more pained than when he got stabbed last month, “I have no fucking clue.”
“You just couldn’t bear the thought of adding actual trash, could you?”
Derek shakes his head.
Scott frowns in thought. “This is really killing your werewolf courting instincts, isn’t it?”
“There’s just no pattern,” Derek grumbles. “He’ll take a paperclip, but refuses when I offered to get him a new game system.”
“Rookie mistake. Shoulda just gone with another game; he’s loyal to his PS3.”
Derek nods begrudgingly, then glares down at the beer in his hand. “And he wouldn’t take the red vines, even though I know he loves them.”
“Did you try Funyuns?”
“Despite how they smell? Yes. No dice.”
“But he loves—”
Derek growls. “I know.”
The door opens behind them and they both watch as Stiles scurries out. He drops a tray of burger toppings next to his dad and turns to go back before freezing. They watch as he takes a step back toward the grill, then both shudder as he points at a crumpled-up piece of aluminum foil.
“No,” the Sheriff says. “Just, no.”
Stiles sulks inside, but both Scott and Derek catch the way his gaze darts slyly back to the foil.
“I hate everything,” Derek grumbles.
“Do you really?”
“Used. Aluminum. Foil.”
Yeah, Scott’s got no argument for that.
“Would you still love me if I’d been bitten by a were-raccoon instead of a werewolf?” Scott dips his head down to murmur in Kira’s ear. They’re the last two awake, as far as he can tell — she’d been really invested in the movie, whereas the rest of the pack had already seen it before.
“Would it mean you’d spend time in the middle of the night digging through dumpsters?”
“As a trade-off for unstable emotions in the middle of the night for three days a month.”
“Might be worth it,” she considers. “Plus, you’d probably make a really cute raccoon.”
“I’m pretty sure all raccoons are cute raccoons.”
“You would say that,” she tells him, then adds, “But don’t let Derek hear that you think a regular raccoon is as cute as Stiles is.”
Scott huffs out a laugh, looking towards where Derek and Stiles are curled up together in their shifted forms. They’re monopolizing an entire couch in the Stilinski’s living room, even though Stiles takes up all of a single foot of space when shifted, which is completely negated tonight by the fact that his chosen napping location is nestled into a tiny, black and grey striped ball in the space between Derek’s abdomen and paws.
“You’ve gotta admit he might be cuter than most,” Kira says softly.
“Mm,” Scott hums, just as Stiles shifts in his sleep, letting out a soft chittering noise. It’s almost as adorable as the rumbles of his purr when he’s half-asleep and content during pack piles. “Maybe.”
Half a second later, Derek stretches, one long, canine hind leg extending out before drawing back in. His eyes stay closed, but his head lifts slightly, and he curves in to wrap just a little bit tighter around Stiles. He noses gently at Stiles’ head, breath making one of Stiles’ brown ears flick. Moment of near wakefulness appeased by Stiles’ presence, Derek settles down with a gentle huff, a soft sigh that radiates so much contentment it makes Scott hold Kira just that much tighter.
“Pretty freakin’ cute,” she whispers. Scott nuzzles into her shoulder in agreement, although —
“If you ignore the trash.”
She lets out a tiny breath of a laugh. “If you ignore the trash.”
