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The scent of cologne let Stiles know the Sheriff had walked in the living room. He was nervously tying and retying a navy tie, messing up the knot repeatedly.
Stiles pushed himself off the couch and took charge of the full windsor, fixing it quickly. He brushed the invisible lint off his dad’s shoulders and sniffed carefully. “Are you wearing cologne?”
Sheriff’s face colored. “Yes.”
“It’s different than what you usually wear. More...expensive?” He leaned in again sniffing experimentally.
His face got redder and he batted Stiles away. “It’s Armani. Scott suggested it.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. Of course Scott suggested it. He only knew about Axe and Armani, and he was sure that even Scott knew that Armani was the better option for impressing a date. “So, you’re still not going to tell me who this mystery date is?”
“I told you, it’s not a date. I’m just taking a friend out for dinner.”
“A woman,” he corrected.
The Sheriff sighed. “Yes, a woman.”
“Wearing Armani and getting so flustered you can’t tie a tie? Yeah okay. Dad, it’s been thirteen years. And I’m a man now. I understand that you have needs--”
“Stiles I swear to God that if you don’t stop now, I’m locking you in the attic without your video games.”
Stiles fluttered a hand over his heart and pretended to faint. “Don’t toy with a man. Without me all you have is this house and your mystery lady.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Stiles smiled and picked up the book he’d been reading for his Lit class. It wasn’t particularly engaging, but he figured it was better to get his work done while he could.
“You’re sure you’ll be alright alone?”
“God, you can trust me alone for a few hours. Go.”
He gave him a bemused look and nervously adjusted his tie again. “I’m not sure I can. I mean you did manage to set your toothbrush on fire last week. I’m not even sure how--”
“TOOTHBRUSHES SHOULD NOT HAVE BATTERIES, I TELL YOU!”
“You are literally the only one who thinks that.”
“Go. Have fun. Get down with your bad self or whatever it is you do on non-dates with lady friends you wear Armani for.”
Sheriff shot him a look but Stiles pushed him out the door.
“Fine, fine. Be good. Please don’t set anything on fire.”
“Jesus, I won’t. It was one time. Have fun.”
The Sheriff hesitated as he got in his car.
“If you don’t leave now, you’ll be late. No one should be late for their first date. Even if it’s a non-date.”
He nodded and got in the car without another word. Stiles watched him pull out of the driveway and down the street before going back inside. He had already pulled his phone out and was dialling to order two pizzas while the door closed. “Hey, yeah. Can I get two pizzas for delivery? One meat lovers supreme and one veggie lovers with extra onion? The name on it is Stilinski, you should have the address--oh. Cool. Thanks. Yeah. Tell Malia I say hello. Thanks, Liam.”
He put a DVD in the player and pulled a couple of beers out of the fridge. The doorbell rang ten minutes later.
Derek stood there with both pizzas and a slightly sour look.
“Hey, when did you start working for Giuseppe's?”
Derek glowered. “I don’t. I ran into the pizza boy on the way up the drive.”
“So you...stole the pizzas and decided to share?”
Derek rolled his eyes. “I paid for the pizzas and brought them to the door since I was on my way up?”
“Why were you on your way up?” Stiles still hung in the doorway, unsure and confused.
“Because we had plans?” Derek said slowly.
Stiles shook his head. “No I had plans with Scott tonight. He had something to tell me about the big bad coming this way.”
Derek sighed. “He forgot to text you, didn’t he?”
“What?”
“Look, can I come in? Set these down at least?”
Stiles nodded and stepped aside.
Derek came in and set the pizzas on the coffee table.
“What did you mean, he forgot to call me?”
Derek shrugged. “Something came up with a girl or the vet’s office, I don’t know. He told me to come over instead. I told him to call you.”
Stiles nodded. Classic Scott. He was a great friend, truly loyal and super generous, but when a girl was involved he tended to forget things. A lot of things. Basically anything beyond that girl. Stiles was almost used to it by now.
“So you’ve, um, got pizza?”
“Yeah. Help yourself. I was planning like a bro night or whatever.”
“Well, I mean, you can still--”
“Don’t worry about it. I was going to try to make him watch Star Wars finally. That’s all.”
Derek snorted as he took a piece of the meat lovers. “He still hasn’t seen Star Wars? Is he living under a rock?”
Stiles handed him a beer. “I don’t know.” He took a pull from the bottle. “I’ve been trying since we were kids. At first he was afraid of the force and the noises Darth Vader made. Now I think he’s just afraid he won’t like them.”
Derek nodded and took a bite of the pizza. He chewed slowly before he said, “Well, I’ve seen them. I promise I like them, and I’d be happy to watch them again with you if you want.”
“No, you don’t have to. Really. I don’t want you to feel like you have to ditch your Friday night plans just because Scott couldn’t make it over.”
“Stiles.”
He looked at him. Derek wasn’t scowling or looking put upon. He looked interested in the movie and the pizza. “I mean, do you want to?”
“You were my Friday night plans.”
Stiles could feel his face heating up and he knew Derek could hear his heartbeat pick up. Did he know about Stiles’s wildly inappropriate crush? “Yeah, um. Okay.” He finished his beer. “I’m just going to get a couple more of these,” he waved the bottle a little between his fingers. “Then we can start it up?”
Derek nodded and took another bite of his slice.
Stiles stuck his face in the freezer as soon as he got in the kitchen. He took three steadying breaths in the cold air, considered a slug from the vodka sitting in a tray of ice, changed his mind, and grabbed a few bottles of beer from the fridge instead.
When he walked back into the living room, he found Derek had kicked off his shoes and was stretched out on the couch, arms slung over the back, feet propped carefully on the coffee table, with his plate of pizza sitting on his lap. Stiles carefully breathed in through his nose, trying to control his heartbeat, and handed him a fresh beer. He picked up the remote and tried to decide where to sit. Derek sat in the middle of the couch, so Stiles could sit on either side of him and risk being awkwardly close to him, or he could choose the chair that was at a weird angle to the tv that he kept telling his dad they should move to the other room, but for whatever reason remained stubbornly in the living room. Fuck it. He took a breath and decided to risk the couch. It was his house; if Derek got uncomfortable, he could move over.
Stiles sat down and was even closer to Derek than he had thought he would be. He could smell Derek...it wasn’t Armani, he was sure of that. But Derek definitely smelled like something--something good. Musky and sweet and spicy and just a little earthy. It couldn’t be cologne. He was sure no one had learned to bottle that particular scent yet.
“So are we going to watch the movie?” Derek asked, voice steady and only slightly curious.
Stiles’ voice was only a little rough when he said, “Yeah. Totally.” He hit play on the remote and took another pull from his beer. Something hard and flat landed on his belly. He looked away from the previews and found a plate with a slice of veggie lovers and a slice of meat lovers.
Derek was looking at him. “You should eat or you’re going to get drunk.”
Stiles scowled but took a bite. “Who said I didn’t want to get drunk tonight?” he said with a mouth full of cheese and crust.
Derek raised an eyebrow. “If you did, have at it, but I thought you wanted to watch Star Wars.”
Stiles nodded and swallowed hard again. Derek hadn’t taken his eyes off him yet. “So...what’s the latest on the supernatural front?”
Derek rolled his eyes. “Lydia’s pretty sure it’s a harpy but I’m not sure.”
“Why?”
He rolled his shoulders a little and his forearm rubbed against the back of Stiles’s neck. Stiles suppressed a shiver. “Well, harpies usually steal food and carry off criminals. Especially people who have killed their family members.”
“Yeah?”
“The only information we have so far, is that people’s food has been going missing and they’ve found feathers nearby. No missing people. And...all the food was outside while groups were hiking or camping.”
Stiles couldn’t help it. The laugh boiled up inside him and soon he was laughing so hard he could barely breathe. “You’re telling me,” he gasped. “That we’ll have to deal with Yogi the fucking Bird?”
Derek chuckled. “I think so. Like I said, Lydia thinks it’s more serious. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Stiles hummed a little, thinking about the possibility that Lydia was wrong. She probably wasn’t. She never was. He said as much.
“I know. But I prefer your idea of Yogi the Bird.” Derek nodded toward the tv. “So are we going to watch the menu screen all night, or did you actually want to watch this?”
“Oh, yeah totally, dude.” He hit play. Despite being closer to Derek than he’d ever been, he felt relaxed and comfortable, more than he had in awhile. The opening credits rolled and Stiles felt a tapping near his ear. He glanced over; Derek was quietly tapping out the Imperial March on the back of the couch as the opening lines rolled by the screen. He grinned.
“What?” Derek asked.
Stiles looked pointedly at his hand.
“Yeah?”
“You’re totally tapping along to the song.”
Derek laughed a little and shrugged. “You know you were humming along, right?”
Stiles shook his head. “No way.”
“You were.”
Stiles felt the blush creeping into his cheeks again. He took another sip of his beer, sad to find out he’d held it too long and the heat from his palm had warmed it. He finished it quickly with three long gulps, feeling Derek’s eyes on him the entire time. “It got warm,” he defended. “I had to drink it fast or I would have wasted it. I hate warm beer.”
Derek raised an eyebrow without saying anything.
Stiles rolled his eyes and shoved half a piece of pizza in his mouth. “Scott would let me get drunk if I wanted to,” he said, chewing on the obscene amount of bread and cheese.
“Scott still tries to convince himself that he can get drunk if he tries hard enough.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
Again with the eyebrow.
“Okay. But he does it with his own booze at least. I mean, it’s not like he drinks all mine and then complains that he’s not drunk, you know?”
Derek nodded and looked back at the screen. They watched in silence until Darth Vader first appeared on the screen. “Scott was really afraid of the noises Vader made as a kid?”
Stiles shrugged. “He had asthma. Vader constantly sounded like he was in the middle of a bad asthma attack. And you know how he is; he doesn’t want anyone to be suffering, even the bad guys.”
Derek whistled low and shifted in his seat a little, pressing his leg more firmly against Stiles’s and draping one of his arms over Stiles’s shoulders. “Is this okay? I don’t want to be in your personal space if you’re uncomfortable, but I wrenched my shoulder earlier today and…”
Stiles’s heart beat harder than usual and he was sure his ears were turning red. He cleared his throat slightly. “Yeah, it’s uh--it’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m a cuddler.”
Derek snorted. “I’m sure you are,” he murmured quietly.
Stiles took another bite of his pizza, convinced if he didn’t occupy his mouth with something he would end up saying something incredibly stupid, or he would end up nuzzling against Derek’s beard. He’d always wondered what it would feel like against his lips and now that he was in such close proximity, the urge to find out was becoming overwhelming. Okay, yeah. Maybe Derek was right about the whole not getting drunk thing. If two beers were making him think like that there was no telling where a third would take him.
“Want another?” Derek said, cocking his head toward the boxes of pizza.
Stiles shook his head. “Not yet. I’m going to get a coke though. Do you want something?”
“Sure. Coke sounds good. Do you want to pause the movie?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I’ve seen it a thousand times. Missing a couple minutes won’t be a big deal.” He grabbed the drinks from the kitchen, sticking his face in the freezer again for a moment, and walked back out.
“Thanks,” Derek said, popping the tab.
“How’s that shoulder?”
Derek shifted experimentally. “Just stiff. It healed up fine, but sometimes the jolt lasts longer than the actual injury.”
Stiles nodded. Scott had said something similar once. “Sounds kind of like when people lose a limb and they still get those phantom pains, you know? You get pains of what should be there but since you heal so fast, your body just kind of says, ‘I don’t know man. Here I want to remind you not to be an idiot.’”
Derek laughed, and Stiles preened. He liked making Derek laugh. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“How’d you do it, anyway?” Stiles flopped back on the couch and Derek’s arm immediately came back down to rest along his shoulders.
“I, um, nearly fell out of a tree. And I caught myself but nearly dislocated my shoulder.”
“I’m probably going to regret asking but, what were you doing in a tree?”
Derek shrugged. “Observing.”
“Oh.” He decided he didn’t want to know what exactly Derek was observing. He focused back on the movie for a few minutes, until Derek’s thumb started to unconsciously trace circles along Stiles’s upper arm. Stiles shifted slightly, unsure of his movements. He didn’t want to discourage Derek, but wasn’t sure if Derek was even aware of what he was doing.
Derek shifted a little with him, murmured an apology, but didn’t remove his arm from Stiles’s shoulder.
Fuck it, Stiles thought. He’d warned Derek he was a cuddler, even if he was half-joking when he’d said it. He shifted in his seat until his head rested between Derek’s shoulder and chest, slung one leg over the side of the couch, and threw his hand across his own belly. Much more comfortable. “Sorry,” he said, not really meaning it. “This okay? I was getting a little stiff across the shoulders.” It only occurred to him after he’d said it that it was the same excuse Derek had used to spread out.
To his great surprise, Derek said, “It’s no problem.” He then shifted his arm around Stiles, resting it over his shoulder and across his chest and ribs.
Stiles flushed to his ears. There was no way this position was better for Derek’s ‘wrenched shoulder’ than when it was slung over the back of the couch. Derek might have been as much of a cuddler as Stiles. He sighed contentedly and hummed to the music at Chalmun’s Cantina. Derek’s stomach seemed to shake with suppressed laughter when Stiles started humming, so he hummed louder and off-key. Derek’s suppressed laugh boiled up to a full belly laugh and soon his body curled around Stiles’s reclining head, both arms seeming to cradle his head so that it wasn’t crushed between his thighs and abs (though Stiles figured, if he had to die, that wouldn’t be such a bad way to go).
“You’re terrible. It’s no wonder Scott won’t watch movies with you,” Derek said, grinning.
“Hey, he watches movies with me. Just not this one.”
“Right,” he said, stretching the word.
Stiles bumped his head against Derek’s ribs in irritation since he couldn’t maneuver to elbow him. “You’re a jerk, you know that?”
Derek laughed. “And you’re not?”
“I am a perfect ray of sunshine. A gift to humanity, if you will.”
Derek laughed even harder. “You know Pandora’s box was a gift too, right? And her curiosity? And they unleashed the evils of the world. All the evils.”
Stiles looked up at Derek. The gleam--no that wasn’t right, but there was a look--in his eyes showed he was only teasing. “For your information, they also gave the world hope,” he popped the P annoyingly.
Derek nodded soberly. “I suppose if anyone were going to do that, it could be you.”
Stiles’s face got hot. He was sure Derek could hear his heartbeat, and if pleased-embarrassment had a smell (Stiles never was sure what emotions did and didn’t) he would be smelling a hell of a lot of that. And maybe arousal. But that was an almost constant thing when Derek was around. Though, he thought, it might be more pronounced now, since Stiles didn’t usually get this close to Derek. Unless you counted that time Stiles had fallen on top of Derek at the police station. Stiles didn’t. First of all because he had opened his big mouth and Matt the Murderer had rolled him off after only a few moments so that he could threaten Stiles better. And second because even if he had stayed on top of Derek, they were paralyzed, so it wasn’t intentional, and Derek had asked Matt the Murderer to move Stiles off of him. This time, Derek hadn’t asked Stiles to move. In fact, he seemed to be content with the cuddling situation.
Finally, he looked away. This night was turning out weirder and weirder, and if he wasn’t careful, Stiles would end up nuzzling Derek’s beard. He wasn’t even feeling the beer anymore but he wanted to feel the scruff of it under his lips.
Derek’s thumb started moving slowly up and down Stiles’s ribs.
Stiles squirmed a little.
“Sorry,” Derek murmured.
Stiles swallowed hard. “‘S okay. I just have a bruise there from--from training the other night. Kira got me pretty hard with that staff.”
Derek looked down at him, head cocked to the side. “Do you want me to look at it? I mean, if it’s still bothering you?”
Stiles couldn’t think of anything he wanted more than for Derek to examine the flesh under his t-shirt, except maybe the flesh under the rest of this clothes, but he shook his head. “N-no. No, really I’m okay. It’s just not very often that someone touches--I mean--you know.” His face was hot again.
Derek just nodded. “Are you sure? I mean, nothing’s broken, right?”
Stiles swallowed again. “I don’t think so?”
Derek gave him a look.
“Fine, fine.” He carefully turned himself, painfully aware that his mouth was mere inches from Derek’s crotch in that position, and lifted the side of his shirt to expose the stunning black and blue mark that spread across his flank. “It looks worse than it feels,” he lied. He hissed through his teeth as Derek gently (so gently) began to feel at the ribs underneath.
“Nothing feels broken. Do you want me to take some of that pain though?”
Stiles pulled his shirt back down and shook his head. “As long as there isn’t pressure on it, it’s fine.”
Derek adjusted his hand so that he avoided the bruise, but resumed running his thumb over Stiles stomach.
Stiles hummed quietly. “Feels nice,” he murmured to himself.
Derek’s hand rested low on Stiles’s belly, thumb gently moving over his belly button, fingertips nearly brushing the top of his jeans. Occasionally his fingers would drum against his lower abdomen or rub his fingertips over the same spot, though Stiles figured it must be subconsciously. The hem of his t-shirt nearly raising with each small rub. He knew that if Derek realized how dangerously close he was to rubbing his fingers into his happy trail, he would be way less handsy.
Or...at least he thought so.
But Derek’s fingers pulled the last bit of Stiles’s t-shirt up and suddenly his fingers were carefully buried in the wisps of coarse hair trailing down his lower belly.
Stiles coughed in surprise.
Derek’s fingers paused.
Stiles heart was pounding and he knew Derek could smell how much he liked the feeling of his fingers on his skin.
Derek cleared his throat. “I um--” He shifted, clearly uncertain.
And suddenly it hit Stiles. “I’m twenty-one now,” he started.
Derek grunted and looked like Stiles had just suggested they streak down Main Street together. “Yeah. I know.”
“Well, okay. Hear me out before you say anything, yeah? I’ve had a crush on you for like three years now. And I think you’ve known about it. I mean...I know you at least know that I think you’re attractive. And that whole age difference thing isn’t such a big deal anymore, right? I’m legally an adult in all ways. Except for renting a car or running for Congress. But really, full-fledged adult capable of making his own decisions.”
Derek swallowed. “What’s your point, Stiles?” His throat sounded dry and he sounded completely uncomfortable, but Stiles noticed he hadn’t moved his hands or pushed Stiles away.
In fact, whether he realized it or not, he seemed to be holding Stiles closer, tighter to his body.
“My point is: If you’re interested in me, and I think maybe you are, please make a move. Because I’ve been interested in you for a long time now and you’ve known it. And I can never tell with you, so I won’t. But if you aren’t, I’ll pretend I didn’t say any of this and we can just say this was a very cuddly bro-night instead of...whatever I think it is.”
Derek didn’t say anything.
“Right. Well, um--well...they’re about to kill Obi-Wan.”
Stiles tried to focus on the scene. It was one of his least favorites in the series and it was worse now because his heart was pounding and he may have just made things irreparably awkward with Derek.
“I’m not good at saying things.”
Stiles nodded. “I know, man. You don’t have to. I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
Stiles carefully extracted himself from the tight embrace Derek was holding him in so that he could look at his face. Derek looked stonily at the television, watching the intense battle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The only sign of emotion was in his throat, where his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “What--what did you mean then?” he asked slowly, as if trying not to spook a wild animal.
Derek sighed through his nose. Finally, slowly, he turned to look at Stiles. Stiles had always been fascinated by his eyes. He loved that they were green around the edge but brown near the pupil, how intense they looked. He’d looked it up once and found out it was a form of heterochromia. The word briefly flickered through his mind as Derek’s face got closer to his. He licked his lips, watching Derek’s eyes. And, just before Derek closed his eyes, Stiles let out a soft sigh.
Derek inhaled that sigh as he pressed his mouth against Stiles’.
It was brief, far too short in Stiles’s opinion, but it had to have been the best first kiss he had ever had. When Derek pulled away he looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m not good at saying things.”
Stiles grinned and leaned back in for another kiss. This one lasted much longer. By the time they pulled apart, the DVD was repeating the title menu on loop. Stiles could feel his heart pounding in his ears. Derek’s hair stood up erratically from where Stiles’ had run his hands through it, and the discoloration of a hickey on his neck was slowly fading back as he watched.
Stiles bit his lip and looked at the television. “Want to watch the next one?” he asked with a sly smile.
Derek shifted slightly on the couch. “Definitely.”
***
Stiles heard the door open hours later. The grey light of dawn filtered in through the front window. Derek’s warm arms were wrapped around him, his breath steady against his neck. He lightly disengaged himself, careful not to wake Derek.
With a smirk he caught his dad sneaking up the stairs, tie undone and looking exhausted. “Well, well, well...how was your non-date? A walk of shame from the sheriff of all people, my father of all people.”
The Sheriff sighed and looked at him. “It was good.” He looked to the living room and raised his eyebrows. “Is that Derek?”
Stiles coughed to hold back a smile. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”
“Since when does he spend the night?”
He coughed again. “I’ll drop it if you drop it?”
“Deal.”
Stiles went back to the couch with a satisfied smile and curled back into the crook of Derek’s arms.