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Derek tries very hard to be patient with Stiles, but there are times when it’s a real challenge. It’s not that Derek is a saint, but Stiles is the most annoying human on Earth, according to everyone (including Stiles himself). Derek likes to just sit down, read a book and drink coffee, while Stiles cannot possibly keep still without complaining about it every second. It seems to be their only problem up until Stiles mentions his father.
Derek freezes and drops his book, actual terror squeezing the air out of his lungs.
Derek didn’t exactly forget about the Sheriff’s existence, he was just focused on being with Stiles and everything else kind of slipped into the back of his mind, Stiles’ father included.
“He’s going to kill me” Is what Derek says, but there’s something worse on the tip of his tongue. He’s going to keep Stiles away from us.
“Don’t be ridiculous” Stiles rolls his eyes, picking up Derek’s book. “You’re a werewolf, there’s no way for my father to seriously harm you.”
Stiles kneels on the couch next to him and noses at his cheek. Isaac walks out of the kitchen and yells ‘gross’, before disappearing into his room. Stiles sighs, resting his forehead on Derek’s shoulder.
“I should have known going out with you meant having your kids around all the time” Derek chuckles because Stiles is kind of spot on. “I’ll talk to my dad, okay? Be ready for having dinner with us in the nearby future.”
Gołąbki
Stiles invites Derek over for dinner that Friday. Derek asks Erica for help with picking out clothes that won’t make him look like a serial killer, per Stiles’ request. She makes him leave his jacket behind and throws a green sweater at him, growling when he asks her if she’s sure.
“You want to look innocent and young, not like a member of a biking gang” She rolls her eyes, walking out of his room. “And shave the beard off, you look thirty!”
Derek eyes his reflection in the mirror and sighs, knowing she has a point.
He stands on the porch of Stiles’ house, rubbing his clean-shaven cheek and thinking about all the ways this could go wrong when the Sheriff opens the door and looks him up and down warily.
“Hello, sir” Derek tries not to panic and lifts up the bottle of wine and cheesecake he bought since Stiles loved cheesecake almost as much as curly fries. “This is for you.”
“You brought wine to a dinner with my underage son?”
Derek wanted to fold in on himself, the bottle of Merlot in his hands weighing him down.
“I-I-”
“Dad, don’t scare him away!” The sound of Stiles’ voice makes him feel a tiny bit better, reassuring him that he won’t have to deal with this alone.
The Sheriff sighs, thanking him for bringing dessert and wine before letting him in. Derek subtly sniffs the air, locating Stiles in the kitchen.
The Sheriff stares him down and Derek remembers that Sheriff must know exactly just how old he is, thanks to the time when Stiles got him arrested.
“You have a nice home, Sheriff” Derek tries to save the situation by giving out compliments. He never really dated anyone except for Paige and Kate, if that even counted as dating.
“Thank you” He crosses his arm over his chest and Derek can hear the angry beating of his heart. The Sheriff motions towards the table and Derek obediently sits down as Stiles brings a plate piled up high with… Something.
Derek stares uncertainly at the weird, steaming leaf bundles. Stiles’ father puts two of them on his plate and so does Stiles and Derek follows their lead, not wanting to come across rude. Stiles passes him a sauceboat full of tomato sauce and Derek pours it on the parcels, before piling up mashed potatoes on his plate. He jabs at the leaf parcels before slowly cutting off a small piece and putting it in his mouth.
Oh. My. God.
There are minced meat and rice inside and Derek doesn’t understand why they have potatoes as a side until he takes a bite of them with the sauce. The taste is incredible and he honestly can’t remember the last time someone cooked him something so good. It must have been back when his father was still alive because Laura couldn’t boil water without burning down the whole kitchen.
Sheriff asks him something but Derek already went down the rabbit hole of painful memories and watching his dad make dinner for their whole family. Stiles kicks him under the table and Derek looks up at the Sheriff, smiling apologetically.
“So, Derek” The Sheriff looks amused for some reason but for Derek the only thing that matters is that he doesn’t want to murder him at the moment. “Tell me, what do you do for a living?”
“He, uh-”
“I paint” And it’s mostly a hobby that he hasn’t indulged in for a while until he got together with Stiles. He filled his office at the loft with various paints and canvases and went back to something he stopped doing after college. Stiles looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. “I’ve got a bachelor in Art History and it provides limited options of a career choice” His minor in Literature in Translation didn’t help, but he wasn’t ashamed of it. Money wasn’t a problem for him and he couldn’t imagine studying anything else. Laura told him to choose courses he’d enjoy and those seemed pretty alright.
Stiles’ jaw dropped onto the floor and Derek turned to him, giving him a smug smile. Stiles burst into laughter before leaning over and brushing Derek’s cheek with a napkin. His eyes widened as he looked down at the cloth in Stiles’ hand, stained bright red from tomato sauce.
Chłodnik
Boyd, Erica, and Isaac are sprawled around the loft, whining at the heat when Derek comes home after a morning run. It’s the end of July and for some reason, the last week has been the hottest one in Beacon Hills’ history. Derek rolls his eyes at the miserable Betas and walks over to the fridge, growling when he sees that all of the soda is gone.
“But it was so hot Derek!” Isaac groans throwing his head over the armrest of the couch and Derek rolls his eyes. He used to keep beer in the fridge but ever since Isaac moved in he threw all of the bottles into the trash.
He slams the fridge door and walks back to the living room, crossing his arms over his chest.
Stiles was set to arrive any minute now and then he’d get to go somewhere with a working AC and cold drinks.
As if reading his mind, Stiles steps through the door, carrying a huge pot.
“What is that?” Boyd raises his head from Erica’s lap, narrowing his eyes and sniffing the air.
“The best thing you could eat in a weather like this” Before Stiles can spill the contents, Derek walks up to him and takes the pan, putting it on the table. “Chłodnik. I know you guys have no actual food in here, so I made you a soup.”
“Soups are the worst” Groans Erica, fanning herself with a newspaper. “Eating hot stuff during summer is dumb.”
“That’s why you eat this soup cold” Stiles sighs, motioning for Derek to put it in the fridge. “Eat it. You’ll feel better. We’re going out.”
“Yeah, yeah” Isaac waves his hand. “Have fun, I guess.”
When Derek comes back most of the soup is gone and he thanks Boyd for saving him a bowl. Derek takes it out of the fridge, curious about the soup’s pink color. He stirs it with a spoon, watching as the chive swimming in it swirls around. He eats a spoonful and smiles, immediately knowing why Boyd had scratches all over his arms. After eating the whole bow he feels more refreshed than he did for the entire week.
He puts the bowl in the dishwasher as his phone vibrates with an incoming text. He unlocks it and rolls his eyes.
‘Did they eat the soup???’
Faworki
Isaac’s birthday is coming up and Stiles insists on making the desserts himself. Derek thought it was ridiculous since he had four teenage werewolves to feed, so Stiles decided that everyone except for Isaac had to help. Scott was excused from the cooking since he was terrible at it and someone had to humor the birthday boy. Erica told Stiles that keeping her in the kitchen was sexist, to which he answered by throwing an apron in her face, telling her to help Boyd with the birthday cake.
Derek chuckles until he's hit with another apron and Stiles tells him to roll out the dough Stiles takes out of the freezer. Derek does it in a minute and smugly watches as Stiles struggles with kneading a different kind of dough.
“Shut up and take over” Stiles huffs, slapping Derek’s chest. He groans and massages his fingers, glaring at Derek. “Rude.”
“You did this to yourself” Derek rolls his eyes and complies, looking over his shoulder every now and then to check over Erica and Boyd.
Erica’s sticking her tongue out as she’s writing Isaac’s name in frosting. Boyd is cutting little wolves out of different colored fondant. Isaac may complain that the cake’s too childish for his seventeenth, but once he hears that Scott came up with the idea, he’ll surely praise it. Erica suddenly turns to Boyd, spreads some frosting onto his cheek and licks it off, smiling. Derek’s concerned that his pack is slowly turning into two couples and him (because although Scott has no idea, everyone knows).
Stiles cuts and folds the dough Derek rolled out into bows, before putting a deep frying pan on a burner and putting a humongous amount of lard into it. Derek wants to ask him about it but Stiles ignores him, waiting for the lard to melt and heat up. The kitchen starts to smell, and Boyd and Erica take the cake into the living room, saying something about needing more room to finish it. Derek breathes through his mouth, watching as Stiles puts the bows into the lard, quickly turning them around and taking them out onto a paper towel.
“What is that?”
“Oh, this?” Stiles raises his right arm, turning over the kitchen appliance in his hand. “It’s a colander.”
“Not the appliance, the bows” Derek ignores the atrocious smell, walking over to the fried bows.
“Don’t eat them yet, they’re not ready” Derek wasn’t going to either way. He trusts Stiles’ cooking, but he draws the line at desserts fried in lard. “Those are faworki.”
Derek goes back to the dough he’s supposed to be kneading. Stiles keeps frying the favor-key, seemingly not minding the smell at all.
Once he’s done he beckons Derek over and takes powdered sugar out of a cabinet. Stiles sprinkles the bow with a healthy amount and looks expectantly at Derek, pushing it towards his lips. Derek sighs and opens his mouth, taking a bite.
The bow in Stiles’ hand shatters and Derek quickly catches the pieces, eating them. It tastes surprisingly good and Stiles smiles at him, kissing away the powdered sugar on the corner of Derek’s lips.
Święto zmarłych
It’s the day after Halloween and Derek feels Stiles trying to climb out of the bed without waking him up. Stiles told his father that he was having a horror movies marathon with Scott and well, he wasn’t lying that much. The pack did have a horror movie marathon, only in Derek’s loft and at the end of the night, Stiles climbed into Derek’s bed, demanding cuddles.
Derek opens his eyes, watching as Stiles trips over the shoes he left on the floor. He chuckled, making Stiles’ head shot up from the floor.
“Sorry” Stiles quickly stands up, running his hand through his hair. They’ve grown longer over the summer and make Stiles look older, more mature. He’s recently started to grow into his awkwardly long limbs and Derek can’t pretend that he doesn’t appreciate the changes.
“It’s okay” Derek stretches, smiling when he hears the change in Stiles’ heartbeat. “You’re in a hurry?”
“Oh” Stiles walks around the room, picking up his hoodie, shoes, and backpack. “Kinda. I’m meeting my dad at the cemetery. We’ve got this holiday in Poland, we visit our relatives' graves and all. And eat those weird sweets called the Lord’s peel. It’s pretty morbid, to be honest.”
“Oh” Derek sits up straighter, feeling his stomach churn. The last time he visited his family’s grave was when he buried Laura.
Stiles stumbles into his bathroom, leaving Derek alone with his thoughts. Would they be disappointed? Would they feel like he abandoned them and their memory?
When Stiles walks out he’s in his nicest pants and a simple white T-shirt, a black, creased jacket in his arms. Derek points him towards the ironing table, his thoughts kicking around his head.
“Derek?”
“Hmm?” He looks at Stiles, who somehow already ironed his jacket and put it on.
“I was asking you about breakfast, but never mind” He climbs onto the bed next to Derek, putting his hands on Derek’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
It took a long while for Derek to actually talk to Stiles about his feelings. It’s stupid because although Stiles knows about Kate, Derek still feels as if he couldn’t let him even think about it for a second. As if Stiles would change his mind and think differently about Derek all of a sudden.
“I-” His eyes travel from mole to mole, mapping Stiles’ face. “No.”
“It’s fine” Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s cheeks, his thumbs brushing against the corners of his lips. “Do you want to come with us?” And as if he knows how to read minds, follows it immediately. “We could visit your family.”
“Yeah” Derek nods, his heart slowing down. “Okay. I’ll make breakfast.”
“Don’t be ridiculous” Stiles gets off the bed, rolling his eyes. “I don’t have the whole day. Go shower and change, I’ll make pancakes.”
They eat and Stiles leaves a ton of pancakes for Isaac, Scott, Boyd, and Erica. To his credit, the Sheriff doesn’t look too surprised to see Derek tagging along with Stiles. He claps Derek’s shoulder, wrapping his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and steers them between the tombstones, stopping almost in the exact center of the graveyard.
Claudia Stilinski was only thirty-three when she died and Derek feels sick imagining a tiny, nine-year-old Stiles standing where he does now, eight years older and after dozens of near-death experiences. Barely alive, considering what Derek dragged him into.
The Sheriff puts down a bouquet of yellow jonquils and Stiles looks somberly at his mother’s name. Derek has no idea what to do, so he just watches the flowers tremble in the wind.
The Sheriff turns to him a while later, squeezing his shoulder. Derek nods, leading them to his family’s grave. Stiles’ eyes linger on his mother’s tombstone, but his father leads him behind Derek.
The tombstones look miserable, overgrown and uncared for. Derek kneels in front of them and brushes the moss off the front, uncovering the names, first of his parents, then of his siblings, finally of his uncle, aunt, and cousins. Laura’s gravestone must look okay for humans, but Derek sees every speck of dirt on it.
He tries to ignore the fact that his brother was only six, that his youngest cousin was three months old. Instead, he thinks about his father cooking breakfast every Sunday and his mother braiding his sisters’ hair every morning.
Once they leave the graveyard, they drive to a nearby diner. Stiles dips his fries in Derek’s milkshake and the Sheriff bites into his burger and Derek feels ten times lighter than he did that morning.
Christmas Eve
Derek has no plans for Christmas at all. Boyd’s mother invited Erica for dinner who in turn asked whether she could take her brother with her, and thus Isaac had plans. Scott was spending Christmas with his mother, of course, and Stiles was going to fly to Chicago with his father.
Derek has no plans for Christmas until Stiles asks him about it and hearing it, calls his grandmother. Suddenly, Derek has plans for Christmas Eve and is supposed to be ready in two days. Derek has no idea why Stiles’ grandmother is okay with a stranger spending Christmas with her family or why the Sheriff is okay with Derek spending Christmas with Stiles’ family, but he reluctantly agrees.
The Sheriff is nice to him and it shouldn’t really come as a surprise since he’s been getting progressively nicer since that first dinner they had. Derek thankfully isn’t seated next to Stiles, since he practically vibrates during the whole flight, annoying the lady next to him to no end. Once they land Stiles calls his grandmother while they pack their suitcases into the taxi’s trunk. They head south and before he knows it, they’re in front of a small apartment complex. A small, elderly woman is standing in front of the door, waving at them.
“Babcia!” Stiles is out of the car a second later and Derek has no idea how he managed to climb over his lap that fast. The Sheriff rolls his eyes from the passenger seat and calmly steps out of the car while Derek stares at his boyfriend being squeezed to death by a woman half his size and four times older than him. He gets out of the taxi and opens the trunk, pulling their suitcases out while watching the Sheriff hug the woman, who tells him something Derek has no way of understanding. His Polish is limited to the names of few dishes and Stiles’ name which, come to think about it is pretty shameful.
As soon as he’s done he walks up to the woman and introduces himself, kissing the top of her hand.
“Mirek, co jest z nim nie tak?” The woman gives Derek a bright smile. “Well hello, my name’s Jadwiga, but you can call me granny. I have to say, you’re quite a handsome young man. Skarbie, nie żebym w ciebie nie wierzyła, ale nie masz aż takiego szczęścia w miłości.”
“It’s official, I hate my whole family” Stiles refuses to translate anything his grandmother has said, picking up his bag. Derek rolls his eyes and takes it from him.
“Cholera, ile on może podnieść? Jeśli za niego nie wyjdziesz, Mirek, ja to zrobię.”
“What’s going on?” Derek asks the Sheriff after Stiles gets into a heated debate with his granny.
“Nothing, that’s just my mother for you” He sighs, patting Derek’s shoulder. “I can book you a ticket if it’s too much?”
Stiles groans and hides his face in his hands while his grandmother laughs and Derek thinks that it’s actually quite fun.
Once they unpack and everyone’s given a cup of scalding tea that Stiles’ grandmother drinks in one gulp, Derek’s given a pot that Stiles identifies as a makutra and more poppy seeds than he’s ever seen in his life. Stiles’ grandmother tells him to grind them. The Sheriff – whose real name isn’t John but Janusz and Derek feels that the last few months have been a lie – has to prepare a carp while Stiles help his granny with pierogi. Derek can feel his eyes on him and smirks while Stiles’ grandmother yells at him for it – “Mirek, chryste, zajmij się ciastem, a nie ciachem!” - although he doesn’t understand a word.
He’s done quickly and Stiles’ granny waves him off when he offers to do something else. He decides to annoy Stiles and walks up to him, poking his sides while the boy struggles with rolling out the dough.
“Update, I hate my whole family and you” Stiles sighs, turning around and hitting him with the rolling pin in the process. Stiles’ grandmother gasps but Derek just rolls his eyes, taking it from him.
“You’re going to hurt someone” Derek steps around Stiles and takes over. He blushes when he feels Stiles kiss his cheek.
“Wiesz babciu, raczej ci go nie oddam. Kocham go i takie tam.”
When they’re on their way back, Derek knows two things. One, he’ll never eat anything as good as Stiles’ granny’s cooking. Two, thanks to a quick Polish lesson courtesy of Jadwiga Stilinski, he now understands that the words that Stiles has been whispering into the skin of his back every night for the last month or so mean ‘I love you’.
Easter
Stiles sits the whole pack down, gives them a bunch of strange contraptions and a huge chunk of bees wax and teaches them all how to make traditional Polish pisanki. Derek watches as he patiently scratches the wax off Erica’s fingernails and promises to repaint them for her, as he tells Isaac the meaning behind every drawing they make, as he praises Boyd for getting them right on his first try, as he tells Scott not to burn his fingers while he melts the wax. Derek looks down at the dozens of eggs in front of him, all of them painted to protect and ensure health and he smiles, knowing that if it were up to him, every year from now on would be just like this.
“Scott, what did I tell you?”
“Sorry, mom.”
Stiles rolls his eyes but every wolf in the room knows that the word is only half mocking.
“Don’t make me talk to your father about this” Stiles winks at Derek over the table and he chokes on his own spit. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac burst into laughter while Scott looks scandalized.
Or maybe, they all know.