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Stiles stops scrolling through Tumblr, snaps his laptop shut and glares at it, then flops back on his bed. It’s nearly midnight and uncomfortably hot, with no breeze flowing through the half-open window. He thinks about getting up, closing the window and switching on the fan, but he’s too lazy to move. He’s lying there in his oldest pair of boxer shorts, with his laptop and a half-empty box of Cheez-Its on the bed beside him, orange-yellow crumbs everywhere.
Five weeks until college starts and Stiles is enjoying the first semi-normal break from school and imminent death that he’s had in years. The people he cares about are alive and as safe as they’ll ever be, and he doesn’t have to worry at all about his dad, who’s in Hawaii with Scott’s mom. So he should be happy. He shouldn’t care about what just happened on a TV show.
He sighs, flips open his laptop and keeps scrolling through the freakout on Tumblr. Lots of wank. Lots and lots of wank.
MY GREG AND RAVEN WOULDN’T DO THAT
#shadow city #graven #FAIL #i will go down with this ship
Nooo no no no noooooo he didn’t marry her HE DIDN’T MARRY HER. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.
#graven #shadow city #shakingandcrying
I am seeing SO MUCH denial from the Graven shippers and COME ON you guys. Raven is STRAIGHT, okay? Your ship doesn’t even exist. Time to accept Kaven.
#kavenFTW #graven #too much fail #shippers #told you so#shadow city
Some meta on queer representation and what happened with Graven. Read more
#graven #shadow city #meta #queerbaiting #silencing#visibility
Stiles snaps the laptop shut again. It wasn’t like he really believed – really expected – well, actually, if he’s totally honest with himself, he did expect it to happen. The writers and actors joked about it, sure, but they also talked about it like they were serious. It’s kind of humiliating how they played him and the other Graven fans for suckers. Stiles feels like he’s just woken from a good dream to find that someone has written LOSER on his forehead.
Why has he shipped this pairing for so long? It’s kind of sad that he’s an adult, he’s about to go to college, and he still ships Graven. His love for the pairing just won’t go away, and he takes a weird pride in how he’s kept it a secret. No one, not even Scott, knows about it. They all know he identifies as queer – like he could keep that a secret – but the thought of people knowing he’s a fanboy makes him queasy. He likes to have something that’s just for him, something no one else would understand.
He stares at the fanart on his wall, and smirks at the thought of it, hiding in plain sight. His dad raised an eyebrow when he unwrapped the package at the kitchen table. ‘It’s from a Japanese cartoon,’ fifteen-year-old Stiles lied. ‘Snowboarding, yetis, giant ice squids – you know, the usual.’ They’d left it at that. The fanart was actually an anime interpretation of AU snowboarder!Raven,but how could he explain that to anyone?
Still staring at the fanart, Stiles feels his smirk fade. The picture is kind of annoying now. He doesn’t want newly married Raven staring him in the face every day. He groans as he pushes himself to his feet. Man, it’s way too hot. He brushes off the Cheez-It crumbs and reaches up to take down the fanart.
He hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head and mutters, ‘Adios, Graven.’
‘Talking to yourself now?’ says a voice from behind him.
He spins around, his back to the wall, and feels stupid because of course it’s Derek. Who is sitting on his bed, with perfect hair even in this heat, wearing a tight grey T-shirt and loose black sweats, and the laptop is open, and Derek is staring at the screen –
Stiles lunges for it, but Derek whips it out of reach, one-handed, his eyes still on the screen. Did Stiles get out of Tumblr before he closed the laptop? Because if he didn’t, Derek knows freaking everything.
‘That laptop is password protected.’ Stiles tries to speak in a calm and reasonable way, but it comes out like his voice is breaking again.
‘Your password is wolfbuddytooawesome,’ says Derek, tapping at the keys now, using the hunt-and-peck method. ‘I needed to check my email. Thought I might take you out tonight and work on your crossbow. Your aim is still way off. You couldn’t hit the side of a barn.’
‘First of all, that is such a lie, and second, what the fuck, Derek? Do you have werewolf super-hacking skills now?’ He makes another unsuccessful lunge for the laptop.
‘I’ve seen you type that password a million times. You should change it.’ Derek looks up at him. ‘So you’re finally taking down your Raven fanart?’
‘My … my what?’
‘What is up with you tonight? You seem jumpier than usual. Like when we first met.’ Derek sniffs the air. ‘What’s that smell? Are you taking drugs?’
Stiles points to the crumpled box of Cheez-Its. ‘So much for your super-senses.’
Derek shrugs and turns back to the laptop, and Stiles sinks down onto the foot of the bed and stares, in what he hopes is an adorable way, at Derek.
‘So the game is up,’ he says. Derek keeps ignoring him in favour of the laptop. ‘I beg you, please, please don’t tell Scott. He’ll never let me live it down. He’ll bring it up in front of potential partners, and when he dies he’ll haunt me with it, or if I die first he’ll write about it on my gravestone.’
Finally, Derek closes the laptop. ‘What are you talking about?’
Stiles gestures with both hands in the direction of the fanart. ‘It.’
Derek shrugs. ‘I’d recognise that scarf anywhere. Doesn’t everyone know that’s a picture of Raven? And besides, I can hear you watching Graven fanvids a mile away.’
‘This is all a terrible dream and I am going to wake up any second now.’ Derek pinches his arm and he yelps. ‘Fine, okay, I’m awake but maybe we can just forget this ever happened. You know, the first rule of fandom is never talk about fandom. Whatever happens in fandom, stays in fandom. Can we have that kind of deal?’
‘I don’t know what your problem is,’ Derek says, in that stupid, growly way that is actually kind of hot. ‘Your Graven obsession doesn’t disturb me any more than your obsession with snowboarding.’
That’s when it dawns on Stiles. ‘Wait, how do you know what Graven is?’ He locks eyes with Derek, who clenches his jaw and looks away. Stiles’ mouth falls open. ‘What? No way. You don’t –’
‘Of course I don’t.’ Derek stares at the ground and says, ‘Laura was into fandom. From when we were kids.’
Derek still finds it hard to say her name, and Stiles gets that, he really does. But Laura was a fangirl? A werewolf fangirl? It’s mindblowing. He just has to ask one tiny but extremely important question. ‘So … did she ship Kaven or Graven?’
‘Stiles.’
Derek pins him with the glare that used to scare him, but now it just makes the corners of his lips twitch with laughter.
‘What? It’s a valid question.’
Derek’s mouth quirks and he looks like he might be having a happy memory, for once. ‘She shipped Graven. I watched some Shadow City with her, when we were in New York, but it was never my thing.’
‘Really? Because there’s a lot of broody manpain.’
Derek stares into the distance, looking soulful and melancholy. ‘Those guys don’t know how to brood,’ he whispers, and then his mouth is fighting with a smile.
Stiles laughs and nudges him. ‘Yeah man, amateurs.’
They’re sitting pretty close on the bed now. Stiles may not have super-senses, but Derek smells really, really good. And even though he’s way too warm, Stiles just wants to nuzzle right into him, which means it’s time to get off the bed, have a cold shower, and try not to think about how Derek, the least likely person to understand Stiles, is actually the only one who gets him, has always gotten him, and will continue to be the most awesome and attractive person Stiles knows until death do they part.
Great, this is even worse than his unrequited thing for Lydia. Stiles’ love life is like an angsty WIP that doesn’t go anywhere.
‘I couldn’t help reading some of your Tumblr feed,’ says Derek. ‘Sorry your ship sank.’
‘I should have expected it, right?’ Stiles winces at the hurt in his voice, at how much he cares about something that doesn’t even matter. ‘Guess if I want real queer characters, I have to watch Glee.’
‘I think you place too much importance on fictional characters.’
Stiles tries to laugh. ‘You don’t say?’
There’s something weird about the way Derek is looking at him – kind of intense, kind of exasperated. ‘Real life is better.’
Stiles is thinking about how he needs to get off the bed, because this is getting awkward, when Derek’s hands slide up his bare arms, grip his shoulders and pull him closer. Gasping at the contact, the heat of Derek’s skin on his, Stiles tells himself that this isn’t what he thinks it is, it can’t be. But Derek is leaning in and closing his eyes. His lips are soft. Derek is kissing him.
Stiles freezes and Derek stops kissing him and Stiles says, ‘Wait, wait, I can do better.’
Hours later, with dawn tinting the sky, they’re lying side by side on the rug beside the bed. Stiles is reminded of the time they were both temporarily paralysed. This isn’t all that different, actually, except he isn’t terrified out of his mind and willing his body to move, but instead naked and sore and sticky, and so overheated that he wants to jump in an ice bath.
Hmm. He raises an eyebrow at Derek and rasps, ‘Will you rub ice cubes all over me?’
Derek smirks and licks his swollen lips. ‘Just give me a minute.’ He tries to move, and winces. ‘Or maybe an hour.’
Stiles pokes him in the bicep. ‘So why tonight?’
Derek seems slightly embarrassed, which is a weird look on him, especially after all the things they just did. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on Shadow City … actually, I watched it last night.’
‘Huh.’ Stiles tries to feel annoyed that this information wasn’t provided earlier, but all he feels are these amazing blissful aftershocks.
‘I knew you’d be disappointed about Graven, so it felt like the right time to –’
‘Seduce me?’ Stiles waggles his eyebrows. ‘You know, you could have done it anytime, anywhere.’
‘I figured that out a while ago,’ Derek says, and that hurts Stiles a bit, the thought of being incredibly obvious and Derek not doing anything about it until now, but then Derek says, ‘I have this kink of only getting off with consenting adults who’ve finished high school.’
Actually, that makes a lot of sense, but Stiles rolls his eyes and says, ‘Okay, baby, whatever floats your boat.’
They lie there, staring at each other, and Derek says, soft and sad, ‘I don’t know if this will ever work, though.’ The words are like ice-cold water tipped over Stiles’ head. He’s about to pull himself to his feet and start yelling, when Derek adds, ‘Our ship name would be Stale.’
Stiles laughs and pounces on him, and Derek allows himself to be pinned to the ground. ‘No way,’ says Stiles. ‘Sterek.’