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“What…is happening right now?” Stiles asks warily, halfway to dumping his backpack on the kitchen table.
His kitchen table. In his kitchen. Where Derek has apparently set up a small bakery, whisks and pans and bowls scattered all over the counter, only half of which Stiles recognizes as property-of-Stilinski.
Derek doesn’t even bother turning around. “Isaac’s photography club is having a bake sale tomorrow. It’s more important for him to be training with the other betas right now, so I’m taking care of this for him.”
Stiles looks around at the upended sack of flour, the vanilla extract stains on the formica, the clawed-open box of cornstarch. Cornstarch? ”So, you couldn’t think to ask permission first or whatever?”
That finally earns Stiles a look. It’s a blank stare, but at least he’s facing him now. “I don’t have a kitchen,” is all he says. Like that’s all the explanation he needs.
Stiles knows better than to argue with him by now and his dad’s shift doesn’t end for another five hours, so he plods over to the counter to inspect Derek’s progress. There’s a bowl of some yellowy syrup congealing next to a plate of pulverized chocolate pieces, and when Stiles inhales deeply what he smells isn’t so much sweetness and warmth as it is old granola and lysol.
He chokes a little bit, tries to cover it with an exaggerated ‘mmm’ when Derek glances his way.
The timer dings, and Stiles has to smother a laugh at the way Derek already has his oven mitts on in anticipation, looking like he’s already gone five rounds with Rocky in a giant bowl of batter (and there’s an image he should probably back away from right about now). Derek pops the oven open and pulls out two pans of…cupcakes, setting them on the counter to cool while he shoves two more pans back in.
Stiles leans over the freshly baked ones at the same time Derek walks back over. The liners must have been overfilled, because the batter’s spread out in blobs over each cup, making Stiles think of cloud formations and the game he used to play as a kid.
“This one kind of looks like a birthday elephant eating a tractor,” he points at where two of the cupcakes have melded together. He looks up and Derek is glaring at him, but Stiles sees the underlying pout and he amends, “So all we have to do is just cut off the excess from around the circle! No more large mammals or heavy machinery, yay.”
Derek continues frowning at him, but he reaches for a knife and starts peeling away the weird shapes until twenty-four slightly torn-up cupcakes emerge from the mess. He reaches for a bowl of chunky white frosting and thrusts it at Stiles along with a spatula, and when Stiles gets the idea and spreads a dollop on the first one, Derek takes it from him and meticulously drizzles the yellow syrup on top with a spoon.
“What kind are these?” Stiles asks, picking up another cupcake.
He realizes it’s as adorable as it is absurd, the way Derek’s brows are furrowed at the shape he’s attempting to make with the syrup. “Lemon meringue,” he finally answers. Stiles looks closer at his finished cupcake. Okay, he can kind of see the lemony outline.
They make their way through the rest of the two pans, even though Stiles has to re-frost some because Derek messes up his lemons and has to scrape the whole thing off and start over.
They both lose track of time, because Derek’s head snaps up suddenly, just before Stiles smells the burning coming from the oven. Derek rushes over and shoves a mitted hand in, pulling out one pan of blackened cake and another.
From behind, Stiles can see Derek’s rage-shoulders before he sees his rage-face, and he rushes to calm him before his kitchen gets any more torn apart. “Those are chocolate right? Well now they’re dark chocolate, which is fancier anyway, so we’ll just tell Isaac to market them that way,” he says quickly.
Derek just picks up a fork and checks for doneness, but really, Stiles knows he just wants to stab the cupcake for being burnt.
He carries them over, and at least they’re not overfilled this time, Stiles thinks. Derek passes him a bowl of chocolate frosting (lumpy again), and half-heartedly dumps spoonfuls of pulverized chocolate on top as Stiles hands them over.
When they’re all finished, Stiles steps back to admire their collaborative effort. They actually look decent, at least from where he’s standing, but Derek has slunk off to the side, picking at a dried batter stain on his t-shirt.
And it had all been going so well. Stiles did not just spend an afternoon on manual labor to be stuck with a pouty alpha. He pulls out his wallet and slaps a five on the counter. “One of each, garçon!”
Derek looks up and raises an eyebrow at him, but Stiles stares him down until he finally walks over and collects the five, and pushes a lemon and chocolate cupcake across the counter.
Stiles makes a show of flexing and twiddling his fingers, until he decides on the lemon one first and peels off the wrapper. Derek is trying to look like he’s not watching, gaze fixed on a spot next to Stiles’ ear. Stiles snorts and sinks his teeth into the cupcake.
It…tastes like lysol as much as it smells like it. If lysol also had a strong eggy aftertaste.
Derek’s looking directly at him now, and Stiles can tell by the defeated look on his face that his own face is hiding nothing. He tries to grin around the mouthful. “Mmm, tastes like zesty, uh, sunshine,” he nods. “So tasty, like a citrus cake pillow.”
He swallows effortfully, and has to take a moment before he goes in for the second bite, but he keeps up the satisfied noises as best he can. Derek looks decidedly less impressed for every bite he takes, Stiles’ enthusiasm waning as he tries to keep his eyes from watering.
When Stiles finally forces the last bite down his gullet, he opens his eyes to see the chocolate cupcake sitting on the counter. It takes every ounce of self-control in him not to whimper. He peels off the wrapper with shaking hands, lifts it to his mouth, and bites into it.
Scott once dared him to do the cinnamon challenge, but with cocoa powder, and he’d ended up spewing clouds of it into the air and almost choking to death. He’d learned that cocoa powder does not taste like chocolate in powder form. This cupcake tastes roughly the same, with hints of pure carbon and his startled cough sends the pulverized chocolate on top into the air.
He recovers enough to try and brave the next bite, but Derek’s hand wraps around his wrist and pulls it away. “No, no wait it’s good, it’s delish-“
“You look like you’re having an aneurysm, Stiles,” he grumbles. “I left them in too long but it can’t be that bad-“
He takes a bite out of the remaining cupcake and freezes, face blanching. Stiles watches Derek drop the cupcake and leap towards the sink, spitting vigorously and rinsing out his mouth. When he finally slinks back, it’s to ask, “Was the first one that bad?”
There’s no sense in lying at this point, so he says, “Pretty much.”
Derek’s face falls, and Stiles suddenly feels like a horrible person except then Derek asks incredulously, “How did you eat the whole thing?”
It throws him so much that Stiles barks a laugh without thinking. He’s about to apologize and maybe politely lie some more, but Derek cracks a smile, and then Stiles is giggling instead, and Derek actually guffaws and they’re both doubled-over in laughter on opposite sides of the counter.
When Stiles wipes away his tears enough to see again, Derek is grinning wistfully at the almost four dozen cupcakes.
“I guess I’ll just go buy some for Isaac for tomorrow,” he sighs. Then his eyes snap to Stiles with a wicked glint, and Stiles is momentarily terrified, until he says conspiratorially, “Let’s go see how many of their alpha’s cupcakes the betas will eat before one of them breaks.”
Stiles mouth drops open before it spreads into a wide grin. This might be the best day ever, Derek in little oven mitts, his face when he bit into the cupcake, this mischievous side of him that Stiles had never seen before.
Derek just grins back, and they load the cupcakes into a carrier before heading back to Derek’s.
Isaac caves first, his lip quivering with guilt as he cries that they taste like chalk and hand sanitizer, and the other two drop theirs and start wheezing out their own apologies. Derek laughs and laughs, until they chase him with cupcakes in their hands.
Stiles is sure now - this is the best day ever.