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One, Two
Stiles knows a secret: Contrary to all appearances and expectations, Derek Hale has a deep, devoted love for the dark chocolate sea salt doughnuts from Beacon Hills Bakery.
They have a ritual—Stiles shows up in the morning with a bag of them, still warm and a little greasy, and Derek makes coffee, reaching up into a cabinet for what Stiles is pretty sure is his mug. It only comes out when Stiles is there, and he’s never seen it in Derek’s dish drain with the other plates and bowls. It’s a little homely, glazed in brown and blue, obviously handmade, and wide enough that Stiles’s hands wrap around it just right. The heat from the mug seeps into his knuckles, which ache sometimes, like maybe he's still growing, or maybe there’s somewhere deep inside where he’s still cold.
Stiles watches the steam from his coffee rise and catch the morning light, watches the way Derek closes his eyes at the first bite, can’t help watching the way he licks his fingers, waits for him to catch Stiles looking and quirk a crooked, half-embarrassed grin and say, “Thanks.”
Three, Four
When he stops by the loft later than usual, empty-handed because the bakery was sold out, and catches Derek in sweatpants and bare feet, Derek tells him he can hang out anyway, if he wants. He confides that his full shift doesn’t come as easily as it did that night in the desert, when he was dying, when the pack was in trouble. Stiles thinks maybe he’s going to get an eyeful, if Derek’s going to practice his shift, and he’s not sure why he’s even bothering with pants in the first place, but Derek’s apparently committed to meditation before he tries anything, so it turns out to be a lot of quiet sitting.
Stiles doesn’t want to make noise or be a distraction, which, if he’s honest, are two of the things he excels at, so why did Derek want him to stay?
From his perch on the couch, he can see the strong, straight line of Derek’s back where he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, and it’s hard not to be lulled by the quiet intensity of his focus. Stiles tries to breathe deep and slow, tries to be still and not fidget or rustle, tries to stop his brain from running off in eight different directions without him. He can hear his own heartbeat, feel it thumping in his chest. Even the dust motes seem suspended, unmoving in the air.
He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he feels a puff of damp, hot breath, he opens them to see Derek standing in front of him on four huge paws, a dumb, triumphant doggy grin on his wolf face. He looks so pleased with himself, and the urge to reach out and touch him, to pet him is so strong that Stiles has to sit on his hands. But Derek leaps up onto the couch next to him, practically on top of him, butts his shaggy head up under Stiles’s chin until Stiles laughs and tries to shove him away, until they end up in a tangled, panting pile on the floor.
Five, Six
“I wish,” Derek says, “this is stupid, but sometimes I wish I could talk to my mom about all of this.”
It’s so out of the blue and so honest that it catches Stiles off guard; he feels his throat constrict and his eyes prickle hot with tears. Derek looks stricken, and Stiles clears his throat and sniffs a loud and humiliating sniff. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Missing your mom sucks. She could do the full shift, right? I bet she knew you’d be able to. She’d be full-on mom proud right now.” It’s Derek’s turn to look a little wobbly, and Stiles wishes he knew whether it’d be okay to pull him into a hug. Maybe Derek can tell what he’s thinking, or maybe it’s just that he wants it, too, because he sacrifices a little bit of his dignity, sighs and shifts into the wolf and burrows into Stiles’s side, letting Stiles sink his fingers into Derek’s fur and hold on. Derek snuffles in his ear, and Stiles wonders what his own mom would think of him now, with everything he’s seen and done. What she’d think of Derek, and of her son snuggling with a werewolf.
(Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven
He’s not necessarily keeping track, but if he were, it’s possible he’d recognize that there might be something like a pattern here. The wolfsbane bullet. The swimming pool. Peter in the hospital, and Jennifer in Derek’s loft. The warm curve of a broad shoulder, trembling under his palm.)
Twelve
From where Stiles sits, Derek’s completely mastered his shift. It’s fast and fluid, graceful and kind of scary and amazing to watch. But Derek practices like he’s afraid it’s going to be taken away from him again, shifts back and forth until he’s exhausted from the effort, sprawled on the couch with a blanket pulled over his lap in an attempt at modesty, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. He seems content, though. At peace. His hand’s curled lax and loose on the cushion next to him, and Stiles thinks about a giant black paw, and hidden claws, and he reaches out and twines his fingers together with Derek’s.
Twelve and a Half
“Want to know a secret?” Stiles asks. He’s staring at their hands. He can feel their pulses thrumming against each other. He might need to try some of Derek’s breathing exercises, because he’s afraid he’s going to hyperventilate. “I think you might kind of like me.” Derek opens his eyes, glances down at their clasped hands. His face isn’t giving anything away, but he doesn’t let go. What he does is squeeze tight, like a promise. What he does, eyebrows now raised fondly in Stiles’s direction, is say, “What gave it away?”