Work Text:
(1)
When he gets home from Lacrosse practice, its dusk and he wants to fall into his bed for some well needed R&R because suicide runs will never be a thing his body can take. When he flicks on the lights he’s drawn to the peculiarly cloth shaped bundle sat on his desk.
He crosses the room with his jell-o legs (raspberry, he thinks, because it’s definitely the best jell-o flavor out there), and picks it up. It’s an obscenely red pull over hoodie that looks maybe a little big for him, but comfortable. After turning it over in his grip several times surveying it, he finds the yellow post-it note stuck to the hood and plucks it off.
Couldn’t find zip-up. Pull over will have to do.
It reads in a jagged, haphazard scrawl that, after several moments, he realizes is obviously Derek’s. He holds the hoodie at arm’s length and gives it a hard glare before accepting it.
“Yeah, you’d better replace my clothes you ruined.” He finally sneers in regards to the broody alpha. A little over a week ago, there was a scrabble between the pack and a trespassing adlet. The adlet was successfully taken out, but not before maiming Derek. Stiles practically carried him out of harm’s way and what did he get in return? That disgusting black goo werewolves vomit up when they’re seriously injured. All down the side of his favorite jacket.
It won’t ever replace his favorite jacket, he reminds himself adamantly, but it will have to do.
For school the next day, he decides to break the pull-over in and wears it over his shirt. He strolls into first period comfortable, damn Derek and his choice of soft cotton. He sits in the desk he always chooses and digs his book from his bag. Having History first thing in the morning is a form of torture in itself, but the teacher is thankfully lenient enough to turn a blind eye when he and Scott pass notes between each other.
Speaking of, Scott walks through the door then with Isaac on his heels. He makes for his desk behind Stiles but stops short standing over his friend.
“Dude, you stink.”
He says as he pulls a sour expression, and Stiles immediately sniffs himself. He doesn’t smell anything different than usual on him, but then again, his scent receptors are only working at basic human level.
“No way!” He groans out, turning to face Scott as he slips into his seat. “I took a shower this morning. I put on deodorant. I should smell awesome.”
Isaac joins the conversation then since the teacher isn’t there yet. He dips into Stiles’ personal space and takes a deep sniff of him which, yeah, way to look totally normal around their peers.
Stiles makes an abortive swat at him to regain his personal bubble and Isaac cringes. “Have you been around Derek? You reek of him.” He states, but before another word can be said, Ms. Blake enters the room and demands all the students get to their seats.
His second and third classes are werewolf free, but then he has Pre-Cal with Erica and Jackson. They’re always in class before he is considering he has to walk from the other side of the school to get there. Today is no different save for the fact that when he walks into the room, both of them glance his way.
He plops down in his desk beside Erica and she offers a wry smile towards him.
“You smell like you’ve been rolling around in Derek’s room for days.” She quirks her brows insinuatively as she tells him this and then nods towards Jackson, who is sitting a couple seats in front of them; Stiles tries to not be totally weirded out by the way he has his top half twisted around in his seat staring at them. Or the ‘I am amused at your expense’ expression he’s sporting.
“Does he smell like Derek to you, Male Model?” She inquires and Jackson turns back around with a sharp chirp of laughter. Stiles rolls his eyes and pulls his phone from his pocket. He keeps it tucked under the desk and away from the teacher’s line of sight as he pulls up a new message.
To: Prime Alpha
Dude, call your dogs off. They’re all saying I smell like you.
What’d you rub it on your pits before dropping the jacket off?
He doesn’t get a response for ten minutes and to absolutely no surprise, it’s short.
Why would I
From: Prime Alpha
The teacher does a walk around the classroom making sure everyone is working on the problems she wants finished before the class is over. Stiles hides his phone in the pull over’s pocket and smiles innocently up at her when she glares at him for only having the first problem on his paper.
She goes back to her desk and he takes the opportunity to text back.
To: Prime Alpha
IDK. Maybe it’s some weird alpha complex. Mark it with your sweat bcuz me smelling
like your gland secretions is your way of asserting your alpha dominance.
He has to wait twenty-five minutes this time for his phone to buzz against his stomach, but the teacher starts asking the class questions about what answers they got on the assignment, and she likes to target Stiles. Something about Beacon Hills High School and the teachers hating him is getting really old. Like, he can’t help it that he can hold still less than a Terrier or Chihuahua. He is (not so) delightfully hyperactive.
He checks his phone after being asked to explain how he worked out number 12 of the assignment.
You’re a human. I don’t need to assert my dominance
From: Prime Alpha
There is a buzz against his palm as he’s about to reply to Derek, so he backs out to check who else is messaging him. It’s another from Derek.
It hasn’t been anywhere near my armpits.
I washed it because it smelled like the store I bought it at.
From: Prime Alpha
Stiles doesn’t have time to reply because the bell is ringing and dismissing the class. He doesn’t want Mrs. Davis seeing him texting and confiscating his phone. He has a gnawing suspicion that she’s the type to go through the phones she commandeers and there is way too much on his phone that should never see anyone’s eyes but his own.
(2)
“Hey, Asshole!” He’s bellowing furiously before he’s even out of the vet clinic, but he knows Derek hears it. He shoves his way out the door and into the small parking lot where the alpha is standing near the Camaro with his jaw set and mouth a tight line.
“You owe me a new set of tires!” Stiles barks when he’s standing within two feet. He has to cram his hands into the pockets of his hoodie or they will be flailing above his head in minus three seconds. Throwing his limbs around seems to take away from the severity of his arguments in any other case, so he digs his nails into his palms and forces them to stay put.
“They would still be intact if you would listen for once.” Derek jeers back as the scowl planted on his face deepens which, if Stiles weren’t completely out of his mind raging at the moment he might totally laugh at how deep the crease between the guy’s brows currently is. But he definitely is out of his mind raging because no one harms his Jeep without consequences.
“Really, Derek?” He blanches and his arms flail out anyways. None of this would be happening if Derek would stop undermining him in the first damn place. And if he wouldn’t have slashed the Jeep’s tires in an attempt to keep him at home, but that’s a given.
“You’re asking me to stay out of it? In case you haven’t noticed, I end up saving everyone’s asses most of the time so no I’m not going to listen when you tell me to sit at home while everyone else is out getting maimed!”
For the record, he is right. Like, absolute right. In the same way the absolute value in math is always equal to what is inside the absolute value brackets. He is absolutely right about always saving everyone’s asses in these situations.
“They can handle it, Stiles. They can heal faster than you so why is this even a discussion? You don’t have the powers that they do-“
He tries to let Derek finish. He really does, but there is no way he can stop himself when this has happened so many times. He is always treated like he can’t do anything to benefit the pack regardless of the fact that he is constantly pulling them out of the trouble they get into.
“Because I’m tired of always feeling like the helpless sheep surrounded by wolves!”
He interjects with a drawn out groan. It’s an accurate description too. Just because he’s not a werewolf like everyone else, that apparently makes him incapable of owning a single iota of strength. Who was the one that literally just managed to fight off three of the members of the alpha pack with powdered Larkspurleaf Monkshood less than an hour earlier? Exactly his point.
“You are the sheep, dammit!” Derek yells then. Something hardens the edges of his eyes and he opens his mouth to say more, but Stiles throws his head back and lets out a sardonic noise almost like a laugh, but lined with a manic anger.
He throws his hands up when the alpha starts to talk again and chooses then to wheel around on his heels. His throat constricts around a haggard ‘fuck you’ and that is the end of the fight. He refuses to stay there and listen to anything more when he is being so blatantly shoved down like some inferior and needless component in the workings of the pack. He refuses to have any of it.
When he steps onto the front porch three days later ready for his morning walk, the Jeep is parked in the driveway. He’s confused, because his dad said it might be a couple of weeks before he could replace the tires. New wheels for a ride aren’t cheap after all.
He whistles through his teeth when he crouches to get a look at the tires. They’re the really nice ones with great tread and he knows for a fact that just one of them costs more than all of the money he has combined currently. He’s sure. He was looking them up last night.
He’s running his finger over the grooves of the tire when it hits him. A certain asshole alpha’s Camaro is always sporting this exact brand of tires. He jumps back to his feet with a screech of protest because while he fully expected Derek to pay somehow (he’s been honestly considering slashing the alpha’s tires so they’re at least somewhat even), he didn’t actually expect anything like this.
He looks around for a minute almost expecting to see a dark, hulking figure somewhere nearby watching him, but there’s no one else in sight. He reluctantly pulls open the driver side door. There’s a gray t-shirt folded in the seat which, okay even weirder. There’s a post-it note on it that he plucks off and reads with a sigh.
I don’t really think you’re a sheep.
The shirt has a large outline of a sheep covering the majority of the chest and within its silhouette are a set of wolf’s eyes. Underneath it, it reads ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’.
He tosses it back into the seat before butting his head against the doorframe. It’s one of the worst apologies he has ever seen, really, but he’s already fighting against the urge to try the new tires out by driving to Derek’s place.
“Stupid freaking werewolves.” He grunts with each jolt of his head hitting the frame.
(3)
Stupid alphas and their stupid tendency to form packs that target Beacon Hills. Like for real. F that S in the A. It’s the morning after their most recent fight with the alpha pack and he is in a whole new world of pain. Being thrown against a tree fractured a couple of his ribs and Scott ended up rushing him to the hospital to see his mom when Stiles started complaining that he just couldn’t breathe.
He’s home now, thankfully, but he’s seriously contemplating sticking his head under a large vehicle because oh my God he cannot catch a breath no matter how hard he tries.
He has a low pain tolerance as he’s always been quick to mention to anyone who brings it up, and having his ribs broken? He’s going out of his mind with the pain that comes with each shallow breath. And even worse? His body hates him. He hasn’t been sick in months, yet as soon as he gets rib damage, he can’t stop coughing.
By the time he manages to make it down stairs and to the recliner in the living room, he is more than ready for the pain medicine he was prescribed. It is strong enough to make him feel boneless and able to breathe without wanting to screech in agony. What confuses him though is the bag sat in the recliner. He shuffles over to it wondering what his dad left and pushes it open.
He’s never believed in anything religious, but the contents of the bag make him consider falling to his knees singing various songs of praise. It is packed to the brim with all things snack-food. There are Pop-Tarts, muffins, sodas, chocolates, chips, and that’s just what he sees immediately.
There’s a yellow post it-note attached to one of the bag’s handles, which he peels off with a moderately surprised grin. This isn’t his dad’s work, it appears.
Here. Now will you stop texting me at 4 in the morning whining about wanting food you can keep by your chair all day?
He blinks a few times because he certainly did not text Derek about food after coming home from the hospital last night. He’s pretty sure he was asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.
He fishes his phone from the pocket of his sweat pants though and goes through his recent texts with Derek. What he finds is an alarming amount of texts to the alpha that even he can barely decipher save for mentioning how bad he needed non-perishable food to store by his chair which he is going to ‘stay in for the next week except to go to the bathroom’.
Oh. Oops. He guesses that the pain meds have more of an effect than he previously thought they did. It takes him roughly two seconds to decide he’s still going to take them if it means some relief. He digs a Pepsi from the bag and pops it open before setting the bag on the floor by the chair and reaching for the yellow pill bottle on the coffee table.
He shakes one of the pills into his palm and swallows it down with a mouthful of soda before finding the television remote and inching into the chair as slowly as possible.
He still lets out every curse word he knows before his butt is firmly planted in the seat.
He coughs himself awake two episodes of Adventure Time later with an impressively pitiful groan and forces himself to sit up. He may possibly let out a terrified mewling noise when a glass is suddenly being thrust in his face.
He glances up more than at least half expecting the worst. He can see the news reports in his head already. ‘Glass toting psycho breaks into house, bashes already injured victim over head with it.’
He’s maybe a tiny bit embarrassed with how long it takes him to realize that said glass toting psycho is Derek holding a cup or orange juice out for him to grab impatiently.
“What- What’re you doing here?” He slurs out with a quick shake of his head. He tries righting his vision but everything looks off to him. The best way he can describe it is that his brain is photoshopping his vision with an explicit amount of Gaussian Blur.
Derek makes an exasperated sound in his throat and forces the glass into Stiles hand and motions for him to just drink the damn juice already. He tips the rim to his bottom lip and gulps down a large mouthful of it before Derek will continue.
“You called me in hysterics because you had to use the bathroom but couldn’t get out of the chair.”
Okay, maybe the pain meds are a lot stronger than he figured they were because he was sure he’d just been asleep for the past hour and not calling people freaking out about his bodily functions. He busies himself with drinking more OJ for the next few minutes.
He doesn’t know what to say about the situation, so he does what he’s best at. He rambles. Mostly about tv shows he likes because it’s what comes out first. He talks about how Regular Show is one of the best things ever and how Scott can do a great Muscle Man impersonation and they almost dressed up for Halloween as Mordecai and Rigby last year. What surprises him though is that Derek listens. He can see even through his blurry tunnel vision that the alpha is nodding along with him and making eye contact every few minutes like he actually cares what the pill-high teen is saying.
He doesn’t notice he stopped talking until Derek raises a brow in his direction but he’s having one of those realization things he gets sometimes. The only problem with that is the fact that his brain to mouth filter is even weaker from the meds coursing through him.
“Dude,” He huffs out around this lilting, ecstatic bubble of laughter that he can’t stop regardless of how much pain it causes. “You’re secretly a huge softie, aren’t you?”
Derek’s face does some twitching motion that looks relatively similar to shock before reeling back in to annoyance. He hauls himself off of the couch and to the bag choosing to ignore Stiles’ accusation completely, so Stiles takes it as initiative to push the boundaries he’s being given.
“You’re a teddy bear at heart! I am not letting you live this down.”
He thinks he may hear a low groan tumble through Derek’s chest, but he still doesn’t justify Stiles with a response. Instead, he digs a small bottle out of the bag and shakes two pills into his palm. He thrusts them at Stiles’ face and commands “Shut up and take these.”
Judging by their color, Stiles guesses they’re Ibuprofen which Scott’s mom said he should take for inflammation. He tosses them onto his tongue and chases them with orange juice. He’s tilting the glass back to finish off the juice when his brain decides to punish him for teasing the alpha for showing some form of kindness.
He’s thinking about teddy bears and Derek being one when the words mesh together and his head screams ‘new nickname!’ at him. He chokes on the last gulp of juice and nearly asphyxiates on it. By the time he’s able to pull himself back up from the ball he curls into over the pain choking causes on his ribs, he’s certain his face is red. He isn’t actually sure if his flooded vision is from the pain or amusement.
He tells himself that for the love of all things holy, this nickname cannot be uttered in Derek’s presence, ever. Because if it should be spoken, there is absolutely no doubt in his mind that things will end bloody. Unfortunately for him though, strong pain killers and a very faulty brain/mouth dam don’t mix well.
“Derbear,” It vaults from his mouth before he can swallow it down and yeah, he said it. His traitor mouth said it out loud. In Derek’s immediate vicinity. He doesn’t care how cowardly it may seem. He instantly assumes the fetal position as best he can. He’s pretty sure it was the fetal position the Discovery Channel said to go into in case of animal attacks, so maybe it is affective for werewolf attacks too.
When he goes unharmed for several long moments, he peeks between his arms at Derek. He hasn’t made any moves to cause Stiles bodily harm, but he does look like he may have intent to disembowel. Which also brings Stiles to the question of when their personal space was diminished to less than two feet.
“Did you-“
Derek starts to snap, but Stiles jumps to cut him off before he can say it. “What? No! Totally did not say that! You’re just-“
“Shut up, Stiles.”
He shuts up.
When he wakes up again, Scott and Isaac are sitting on the couch where Derek had been the last time he saw him. They both shoot him sidelong glances when he snores himself awake. He lays staring at the ceiling for a minute as the sleep clears from his mind and when he finally looks their way, he sees that they couldn’t keep their grubby paws out of his food bag.
Scott shrugs with an innocent beam before taking another bite of the muffin he’s eating. Isaac crunches down louder on a Cheeto knowing Stiles can’t do anything about it.
It’s not until he’s grumbling toward them that they’re mean to eat the injured kid’s food when he notices the paper folded up in his palm. Uncurling his grip he sees the pallid yellow color of the paper and knows it’s Derek’s handiwork. Which, by the way, does the guy just carry a pad of sticky notes around in his pocket at all times?
He unrolls it expecting something like ‘hey fuck you, puny human. You called me Derbear and that’s totally rude’. Instead, he’s kind of dumbfounded.
Hey ewe, Scott & Isaac are taking over. Make them get you OJ.
Drink a lot to keep your immune system up because not being able to
take deep breaths collects moisture in your lungs and can cause
Pneumonia.
P.S. DON’T call me that
The noise that leaves him upon reading it draws both beta’s eyes back to him. Did Derek Hale actually make a joke? Derek ‘always scowling like I’ve been sucking on lemons’ Hale? He blames it on the pills somehow. Has to be, right? Then he stuffs the note into his pocket before Scott can ask what it is.
(4)
By the time he’s able to walk and run and breathe without pain in his chest again, he’s restless. As weird as it sounds, he sleeps better when there is some threat going on. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have to try and lull himself into a false sense of security; he knows something horrible is out there. There’s no lying to himself to believe that he is safe. Nothing has happened in the past month since his injury though, and sleeping is almost out of the question.
Not having something to occupy his mind results in nightly bouts of horrible dreams that end with him shooting awake in various states of panic. It’s starting to become a choice of either stay awake as long as he can possibly manage or subject himself to waking several times a night having to calm himself down from the vivid, bloody nightmares.
He can feel the day is going to be a lot less enjoyable than it should be with the severe exhaustion prodding at his every sinew, but he doesn’t want to bring the pack down. Instead, he tries to rub away the bags under his eyes and masks it all with a very practiced smile.
They’re all going to a festival in the next town over, Carrollwell, mostly at the insistence of Erica. She suckered Derek into it by telling him it would be a great activity for the pack to do together.
Stiles somehow ends up with Scott and Boyd riding with him while Erica and Isaac ride with Derek. Apparently Jackson is going to be there too, but refused to ride with anyone when he has a Porsche he can take himself in.
The festival is actually just a bunch of people with booths set up around a block. Some are there for companies or popular products out on the market, but most are people trying to make a profit by selling things they’ve handmade. When they pass a booth selling the ‘best hot chocolate ever’, he is pleasantly excited that Jackson buys everyone a cup of it.
Basically, it is the best hot chocolate ever.
They get disbanded gradually. First, Jackson and Lydia break away from them to go talk to a woman who is selling home-made hair bows that catch Lydia’s eye. A few minutes after that, Erica goes into a fit because there is this group who are trying to raise money for a cancer foundation. They have a large dunk tank with a girl Stiles knows from English sitting on the flipboard, and it is one dollar for a chance to throw a ball and hit a small target to dunk the girl. Derek begrudgingly slips her a ten dollar bill.
Boyd and Scott stray off after Erica to a stand that is selling funnel cakes. Stiles can’t help but laugh when Scott first sees the stand because he would most likely sell his soul for deep fried foods smothered with sugar.
It’s just he, Derek, and Isaac then, and the beta tosses Stiles a knowing grin like he can tell Stiles is thinking ‘Isaac, the obedient pup that stays close like a good boy’.
A yawn cracks away from him no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. Sure, he likes being out with the group, feeling like he belongs to something, but he is beyond being able to express with words how tired he is. He’s at the point where he would do very shameful and disgusting things for a few good hours of sleep.
He plods off of the walkway and toward a booth without much thought to what it even is. He just knows that he sees Derek going to it and so he follows suit. The alpha is looking at everything the elder woman has for sell, which Stiles finds odd. Most of it looks like Native American merchandise. There is an abundance of beads, feathers, braids, and fringe.
He and Isaac exchange shrugs when Derek points to an intricately made dream catcher and pays the woman for it. When they’re back on the walkway and out of the woman’s earshot, Stiles snorts and nods at the bag the dream catcher is in.
“Wow, Derek. I didn’t know you were that type of guy.” He chortles and gets a withering scowl as a response.
“Really? You sleep with the wolf toy Isaac gave you for your birthday.” Derek retorts in a casual tone, like this isn’t about him buying superstitious items but about them doing questionable things for their age. He takes offense to that.
“It’s got sentimental value!” He gapes at Derek’s back, who doesn’t bother waiting for the teen. Isaac’s face nearly splits with one of his award winning smiles when he quietly asks “You really sleep with it?”
The outing was fun even if he wanted to sleep the whole time. Everyone seemed to be a lot more relaxed and easier to be around since they haven’t had any near-death experiences lately.
He’s bundled under his blankets in bed currently with his face squished into his pillow. He’s comfortable but can’t allow himself to sleep when he knows he’s just going to be burdened by nightmares that will only make him feel even more exhausted tomorrow.
Instead, he’s letting his mind run free while he focuses on the small explosions of color splashing behind his eyelids. He remembers reading somewhere that the colors are anomalies the brain creates when it’s dark because it is still trying to process light and colors the eye has been subjected to during the day. Sometimes the human brain confuses and fascinates him to no ends.
After focusing on the complexity of phosphenes for longer than he would like to admit, his mind slips to the pack. He sometimes wonders how they’ll be come Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or Christmas. He’s always terrified that not all of them will make it that far with the constant, very probable threat of death looming over all of their heads. If they all make it to Christmas time, he’s going to make the biggest freaking batch of chocolate covered pretzels the world has ever seen in celebration.
When he allows his mind to wander, it tends to backtrack to things that have happened in the past few months; it’s never good because it always goes back to things he’d rather not allow himself to think too much on.
Point in case-Derek. He’s been the focus of a lot of Stiles’ thoughts lately and it flusters him because it’s pointless. It’s pointless and only results in frustrating him even more because since when does he think of the alpha in non-angry ways? That’s something else he freaking hates about himself. He is so easy to change his views on people, but in a way that happens so gradually that he suddenly goes from wanting nothing to do with them to being up way too late being exasperated because his thoughts are stuck on them.
Really, piss on that. He just wants to stand by his convictions and genuinely abide by them for once. Hell, he can’t even say that he hates Jackson anymore, and that eats him up because Jackson is a douche and a half.
It’s times like this that he wishes someone would bless him with cool super powers. One of them he would invest in would be for his brain to be more like a radio. He could just switch it over to another station and it would be one steady white noise that he could tune out.
He flops onto his back with a groan and scrubs his hands over his face. When he turns his gaze to the ceiling, his vision is bleary but he can see something dangling above him. His heart seizes for a moment and his head screams ‘goblin, evil fairy, daeva, shtriga, ‘ but stutters to a silence when he realizes what it actually is.
Even in the dark he can make out the grooves of the beads weaved into the strings, and the small down-feathers hanging from it by strips of leather. Derek bought the dream catcher for him? It hits him that dream catchers are supposed to ward off bad dreams, which he’s been having a lot of lately. So Derek knows he’s been having nightmares how exactly?
He guesses with a dash of awkwardness that Derek could possibly be slipping in and checking on him while he sleeps. It shouldn’t give him a rush of excitement, but it does. He watches the dream catcher for a while longer trying to figure out why Derek would care about his state of sleep and all his brain can come up with is.. Well nothing. Huh.
He reaches above his head and feels around for his phone where he always puts it on his headboard shelves and unplugs it from the charger before bringing it up to his face. He scrolls through his contacts and is headed toward the P names when he remembers that he changed Derek’s contact name from Prime Alpha to Derbear, because it amuses him, dammit.
He opens up a text to him and fondles the edge of his phone for five minutes trying to figure out what to say. Finally he just goes for as simple as it gets.
To: Derbear
Hey Derek?
He has no clue if he’ll get a response considering it’s already past midnight so he lets the phone drop to his shoulder in wait.
From: Derbear
Yes?
Leave it to Derek to be so bland with his texting, he muses as he reads over it. It doesn’t surprise him, really. The guy is dedicated to the ‘man of few words’ part.
To: Derbear
Thank you.
He replies after contemplating what exactly he wants to say. His fingers itch to add something about how this totally makes Derek a creeper for knowing Stiles has bad dreams in the first place, but he decides it can wait. For now he just wants the alpha to know his gratitude.
From: Derbear
Try to get some sleep, Stiles.
(5)
Nothing really profound or interesting happens between the two in the next month after the dream catcher incident. That is, nothing really changes.
That may be a lie, actually. Two weeks previous they had a horrible run in with pixies. Not like the dainty little 6 inch tall kind so commonly depicted on tv. No, these were barely shorter than Stiles and had hideous rows of razor-sharp teeth. So when they were certain Stiles was their re-incarnated pixie prince and dragged him to a hill in the middle of the forest, he made sure to try his hardest to keep on their good side while the pack tried to locate him.
They had wanted him to do strange, traumatizing things. Like wear a crown of Meadowsweet and lose his clothing because covering your body is apparently very unbecoming of a pixie prince. He isn’t sure if anyone else knows just how damned cold Beacon Hills gets in the middle of September, but it is definitely not desirable weather to be performing pixie inauguration dances in the woods without a single stitch of clothing on.
When the pack stumbled across the procession and a nearly hypothermic Stiles, Derek tore three of the pixies to shreds before they could flee. Which, yeah, Stiles may have gotten way too much enjoyment out of seeing Derek get so protective over him. It was on the ride home that it clicked in Stiles’ mind that he might kind of, sort of have a thing for Derek. Thing meaning a massive, schmoopy crush.
But yeah, besides that, nothing has happened.
It’s the beginning of October now which deserves a massive fist pump because they’re all still quite alive. Although Stiles feels kind of like death swarmed over. Dancing with pixies and getting way too close to hypothermic ends with a cold, which had to go awry with him. He almost had the cold fought off when the symptoms came back worse.
He’s just getting home from visiting the doctor, because of said symptoms. Turns out the cold has turned into an upper respiratory infection, but he has a shiny new prescription of Amoxicillin to fight away the infection.
He was going to meet a few of the pack members after the appointment for lunch, but he texted them not long ago warning them that he was just going to come home and sleep because he feels like some serious crap right now.
He slouches up toward his room after kicking his shoes off at the door and debates whether he should steep a nice mug of tea before collapsing into bed. He decides against it because a nap sounds more alluring at the moment.
He plods up the stairs and to his room but when he pushes his door open and spots Derek, he all but forgets the sinfully comfortable pile of covers he could be bundling up in.
“What are you doing?” He questions as soon as he’s seen the alpha, who Stiles guesses he somehow managed to sneak up on by the way he jumps to a rigid stance. He looks absolutely confused to see Stiles here at his own home.
“I thought you were going to lunch with Scott.” He grits out with a step to the side, but Stiles sees it before Derek can hide it. There is a shiny new humidifier sitting on his nightstand. He only recognizes what it is so fast because his mom used to be a big believer in having them around the house.
He flounders at the sight and Derek goes even more tense if that’s even possible because Stiles is standing in the doorway with his mouth opening and closing uselessly. A humidifier? Why on earth would Derek be bringing him a freaking humidifier? When his mom used to run them, she claimed it was because they help keep the lungs and sinuses clear of congestion.
So Derek was- Oh my God.
He doesn’t mean to let his mouth speak it, but it usually works faster than his brain, unsurprisingly.
“Oh my God, you care about me, don’t you?”
He gapes incredulously because caring isn’t something he ever imagined Derek could have the capacity to do in regards to him. But it makes sense when he looks at everything that has happened recently. Derek’s expression is very synonymous to a deer caught in headlights. Like the epitome of.
“Holy shit, you do! The dream catcher, and you took care of me and- And oh my God you actually let me call you Derbear.”
He wants to do a victory dance. This is actually happening. Like, in real life and not in his head but it’s painfully obvious when he considers it now. None of the pack can even shorten his name to Der without getting a venomous glare and he called him way worse. And the guy bought him the dream catcher and a humidifier and has, to date, even made a few jokes by calling Stiles ‘ewe’.
His mind is forced to pause when he notices Derek inching back to the window like he’s going to bound through it and run away. It pleases the hell out of Stiles that he can make the alpha want to tuck tail and flee like that, but he doesn’t want him to actually leave so he hurries across the room and grabs onto Derek’s jacket sleeve to stop him.
“Hey,” He tugs on the leather until Derek sighs and turns back to face him completely. He doesn’t like the way his face is losing any trace of emotion like he’s trying to shut himself in as is so common of him. He doesn’t speak for several waning moments as he thinks of just what the hell to do with this all now.
He’s recently admitted to himself that he likes Derek and his stupid default setting glare, but it hasn’t crossed his mind that it could be a mutual feeling. Mostly because he doesn’t see how Derek’s type is lanky, awkward, and obnoxiously loud. But hey, definitely not looking the gift horse in the mouth.
He does what he feels like would be the best outcome of all this, grinning at Derek and inquiring “So you can’t get sick by this can you?” Derek shakes his head and it’s all Stiles needs to know.
He hooks his arm around the back of Derek’s head and pulls him in until their breastbones meet and hooks their mouths together. It’s a wonderful, lock-in-key fit that scatters his thoughts into white noise. The only coherent thoughts he can conjure through the static are ‘oh my God,’ and ‘his lips are softer than I imagined,’ and ‘Stiles like,’.
He hates that he has to pull away so soon, damned stuffy nose that he can’t breathe out of. He loves how unwilling Derek seems to be to let it end though.
(+1)
When he orders the hat, it’s supposed to be more of a joke than anything. He knows when he presents it to Derek he will spare one look at the stupid thing and never acknowledge it again, but it’s worth the twenty-five dollars.
It comes in three days before Lydia’s Halloween party and Stiles has a hard time keeping it hidden in the bottom drawer of his dresser until then because screw it all but it’s actually cute.
Derek is supposed to pick him up at 8:00 P.M. on Halloween night to go to the party (which by the way Stiles had to do some dirty things to convince Derek to go to with), and he stands on his front steps until Derek shows up fifteen minutes late.
As Stiles suspected, he’s in his usual gray Henley and not dressed for a costume party at all. Stiles is attending as a fox; fake tail and ears and everything. When he climbs into the passenger side of the Camaro and gets a secretly amused eye roll from the alpha he pulls the hat from where he’s had it tucked beneath his orange jacket for the past hour. He forces it into Derek’s hands and waits for a reply, only just now considering that his boyfriend may get pissed off about it.
“What is this?” Derek questions with a shake of the hat, but Stiles can see that Derek has an idea of what Stiles expects from him.
“I just thought it would be kind of a play on irony because you’re always calling me a sheep and it’s a sheep hat so you can wear it and be the sheep for a night and I am saying sheep way too much.” He clamps his lips between his teeth and bites down in an attempt to control his outpouring of words when Derek just stares at him like he’s stupid.
“It has pink on it. And ears, Stiles. Ears.” Derek points out as if Stiles couldn’t already see that and when he gets no response he heaves out a groan. Annoyed but not pissed, Stiles notes to himself. When Derek tilts his head expecting some kind of reply Stiles jostles his shoulders up to his ears and grimaces.
“No sheep were harmed in the making of it?” He tries and Derek looks back at the furry little headpiece like it is physically hurting him to touch it. Most likely because it is all things opposite of dark and masculine.
“The whole pack will see it and then every pack meeting after tonight will be nothing but them making sheep noises at me.” He tries to wager and Stiles throws his hands up, palms out, in front of his chest.
“Hey, I never said you had to wear it. I just thought it would be like- Well, cute for lack of a better word.”
He isn’t sure if he can pull off the sad puppy eyes anywhere near the epic levels that Scott and Isaac can, but he tries because hey, he can admit that on his good days he is pretty damn adorable. Plus, come on he’s dressed up like a fox which has to up the effects a little bit, right?
Derek just stares back with an unwavering determination to avert the situation but Stiles goes for pooching his bottom lip out and with a blatant grit of his teeth, the alpha caves. Stiles mentally high fives himself because he did not actually think the pouting would work.
Derek looks in his rearview mirror as he slips the hat over the crown of his head and scowls at the sight but Stiles is too busy containing an actual screech of delight to feel guilty. The white of the hat is a stark contrast to Derek’s dark hair and tanned skin and the little, pink ears poking out from it completely ruin the intensity of Derek’s glower.
Stiles wants to laugh at how great this idea was. Instead he nudges Derek’s arm with his own and beams at him before snickering “Hey. Ewe come here often?”
Derek’s eyes loll up to concentrate on the hood of the car and his jaw tightens even more. “Possibly not after tonight.” He shoots back, but Stiles can tell the anger in his voice is mostly just for show.
Derek starts the car and pulls onto the road afterward and Stiles doesn’t mind the almost constant frowns aimed in his direction or the testy “stop grinning, dammit,” considering Derek is the one wearing a sheep hat.