“How long have you been standing there?” Boyd asks, cheeks flaming hot not only from exertion. He might have gotten a little bit into the song, but it’s catchy, okay? His body moved on its own!
Stiles grins at him from the entrance to the kitchen, hip cocked agaist the doorway and arms crossed in front of his chest – the embodiment of the cat who got not only the canary, but also the cream.
“Long enough to get a decent amount of footage,” Stiles shamelessly admits.
The song on the radio changes then, from Uptown Funk that Boyd was enthusiastically putting dinner together to, to Maroon 5’s Sugar. Stiles’ eyes seem to sparkle at that and he glides right up to Boyd, hands settling at Boyd’s hips. “And gain a new appreciation of these.”
Boyd snorts at that, still blushing but for a different reason now. He reaches out and lowers the flame under the sauce then wraps his arms loosely around Stiles’ neck.
“Well, my hips definitely don’t lie.”
He delights in the way his words make Stiles laugh and mess up the steps as they try to dance along to the tune.
sweet, domestic Stoyd is my absolute favourite and this is so perfect, Mar! I love it so much, oh my gosh ❤
Okay so, I was not aware it’s @matildajones‘ birthday today, so I didn’t have time to make something awesome, which is SAD because Matilda turns a glorious 21 and deserves ALL THE GOOD SHIT! But, alas, this weirdly disjointed thing is the best I could do, and I hope it’s enough.
It has butts, at least, which is something. (And a shoutout to that movie, you’ll know it when you see it.)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR! 😀
* * *
”They said they’d finish it in
post-production,” Stiles moans from under the covers, keeping his
face hidden. Partly from shame, but mostly so he won’t have to
actually witness Scott’s grimacing at every scene as it unfolds on
Stiles’ laptop.
”Oh. Well… I think at least they
tried?” Stiles doesn have to see Scott’s face to feel the wince,
because even to Scott’s own ears that sounds weak.
”You know, when I started acting I
never thought I’d be a household name, but I also never thought I’d
be known across the fucking globe for being the idiot to accept a
role in the worst movie of the century.”
”Well there’s a lot of century left,”
Scott says diplomatically.
It takes Derek kind of a ridiculous amount of time to question it. He’s probably heard it… a dozen times? Twenty? Hell, he might have been in the room when it was mentioned a good fifty times, but in his defense: Stiles has a tendency to ramble about odd shit a lot. And he throws in weird pet names with every other sentence, so it’s not like Derek should have noticed before.
It’s just that he’d grown used to rolling his eyes and ignoring half the crap that came out of – and went into, dear god – that mouth. So… so he didn’t notice.
Hadn’t paid attention, really.
And now Stiles is talking to Mrs. Witherspoon about her grandsons – both on basketball scholarships to competing top ranked universities, if Stiles’ good-humored chatter can be believed – so Derek can’t exactly pull him to the side and ask him…
Ask him what, really?
When did your sarcastic quips about me being your ‘boo’ become, “this is my boyfriend, Derek”?
Or, better still,
When the hell did we start dating?
The worst part is, Derek can’t help but notice how Mrs Witherspoon, eighty if she’s a day, seems perfectly happy and relaxed to be standing on the same side of the street as Derek now when, two months earlier, she’d nearly given herself a coronary trying to cross the road against traffic to avoid coming within spitting distance of him.
The whole town is doing that, actually, now that Derek really thinks about it. Smiling at him, waving when they see his Camaro speed by.
Derek turns a wounded look on Stiles for a moment, mouth parting to growl at him for softening Derek’s icy-tough reputation, when he stops because. Well, he’d always kinda hated how people flinched from him before.
And the lack of parking tickets has been kinda nice.
And really, if he’s not mistaken, he’s definitely getting better service and more ‘oops, free food’ in his take out.
Well. Fuck.
Shit fuck damn.
Stiles has been helping him and he probably owes the kid something now. Because sure as fuck, if they were dating seriously enough to be throwing around terms like ‘boyfriend’, Derek would know. Right?
When Stiles finally says goodbye to Mrs Witherspoon and turns to him with a grin, though, Derek finds himself asking, voice dark and grim, “Are we dating?” Just to be sure.
Stiles’ grin wobbles for a second before it disappears to show a hint of concern under Stiles’ sarcastic eye roll. “Duh. Jeez.”
Pursing his lips, Derek gives a firm nod of his head before pushing his mirrored sunglasses back up his nose. “Come on,” he snarls meanly, striding off toward the hardware store. “And if you see anyone else you know, try to limit yourself to a friendly wave?”
Now that he’s paying attention, he notices how Stiles just shrugs and falls into step with him, giving exaggerated waves to every single person they pass. And it… bothers him.
He’s not nice. He’s never even–
“How long?” he asks.
“Until you stop grinding your teeth when I do it,” Stiles responds, waving to a goddamn ice cream truck driver as the annoyingly loud music blares while it slowly passes down Main Street.
“No, not… that. Although. Good to know. How long have we been…?”
“Soul mates? Dearly beloved? Star crossed lovers?”
“Fuck you,” Derek snarls, not catching himself in time to stop his knee jerk reaction.
“Well, someone’s in a mood. What crawled up your ass, dude?” Finally, Stiles is looking a little pissy, though Derek’s been smelling a hint of emotional hurt since he first asked about the dating.
“How about I didn’t know we were dating? I’ve apparently had a boyfriend for…” His rant ends there because he still doesn’t know how long this has been going on.
“Since graduation,” Stiles says, his voice a lackluster monotone as he blinks down at his feet. “When I asked you out. And then you…”
“Shit,” Derek mutters because he remembers Stiles inviting him for dinner after the hours-long ceremony and Derek hadn’t really questioned why neither the sheriff or any of Scott’s pack had joined them.
Stiles was kind of an odd-man out in his social group, really.
But when Stiles had paid, Derek had immediately suggested a place for their next meal – he didn’t like owing people, not even the price of dinner – and… And now here they were.
Out front of Frank’s Hardware two months later, with Derek snapping at Stiles just like normal and… really?
“Why the hell would you date me?” Derek asks, appalled. “I treat you like shit.”
Stiles shrugs, then rolls his eyes. “So? You’re an asshole. Newsflash! So am I. I just–” He scuffs his toe on the ground, worrying at his lip while still avoiding Derek’s gaze. “I like your brand of asshole. Well. Normally. You’re being more of a dick than usual today, though, which is kinda grating on my nerves, to be honest.”
Derek stares at him some more. “We’ve never even kissed.”
“Hey, I am totally okay with you being sex-repulsed, Derek. Hell, it’d be weird if you weren’t after, you know. Everything.” Stiles leans close enough to bump their shoulders together, which Derek now realizes has become a thing. That he does. While giving off a happy, content smell.
“Fuck that,” Derek growls, absolutely infuriated that Stiles would allow himself to be content with a relationship that was so unbalanced, Derek hadn’t even known he was in one. He steams about it for a minute, chewing over the possibilities before he nods once, decisive. “Break up with me,” he orders.
Stiles’ jaw drops and his scent goes sour and unhappy. “What?”
“I want you to break up with me. I’m an asshole and I treat you like shit. So break up with me because I don’t deserve you.”
Stiles’ lower lip wobbles again before he narrows his eyes and spits out, “No. If you want out, grow some balls and break up with me yourself. I refuse to make it that easy for you.”
“Jesus Christ, Stiles, I didn’t even know we were dating! Just fucking dump me so I can ask you out properly.”
“Fuck y– …what?”
Derek steps closer to Stiles, staring into his big, shocked eyes. “I’m not asexual. I’m only repulsed by sex without informed consent. I want to try this again, but this time where we both know exactly what’s going on and where I’m only an asshole some of the time. And where I hold your hand in public and kiss you the rest of the time because you…deserve that.”
Stiles’ eyes are so big by this point that Derek is legitimately worried he’s broken him. But then they squeeze a little at the corners in concern before Stiles asks softly, “Does that mean I have to stop being an asshole too?”
Derek opens his mouth to say, “yeah of course,” only to close it again because, uh. No? He kinda lives for Stiles being an asshole so he can do things like push him into random bushes.
“We’ll negotiate on a case by case basis,” he finally decides. “Now. Are we done talking about this?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says, grinning again while he bounces on his toes. “Derek Hale, you’re an asshole and I deserve better. I’m dumping your ass!”
“Finally. Stiles?”
“Yeah?” Stiles grins, his scent happier than Derek can remember.
“Will you go out with me Friday? On a date?” Derek maybe stresses that last bit a little too hard.
Stiles shrugs, wrinkling his nose as he waggles his hand back and forth. “Yeah, I dunno, man. I just got out of a relationship with this loser asshole. He acted like we weren’t even mmrrrph!”
Derek cuts off Stiles’ words with a long, hot kiss. Right there in front of the hardware store on Main Street.
“Did you seriously just say nerr, nerr, ne, nerr nerr to me?” Derek
asked, raising an incredulous eyebrow and trying to ignore the way Stiles was
doing a little shimmy in front of him as he waved his Employee of the Month
certificate. It was not adorable.
“C’mon, Der-bear-”
“Don’t call me that,” Derek interrupted, pained.
“Seriously? I thought maybe giving you a cutesy nickname would stop the kids
crying when you went near them,” Stiles said, eyes wide and earnest
Stiles was
probably trying to be helpful. He’d been nothing but nice to Derek since Derek’s
first day at the Fluffy Friends store where kids could customize soft toys. It
was a cute place and Derek had no earthly idea why Lydia had given him the job
that he’d applied for on a whim because, well, he couldn’t exactly explain his
presence in the place without coming off as a creeper and admitting he’d
blindly followed Stiles coming back from a lunch break.
Derek suspected that Lydia was using him as mom bait.
“Okay, how about this, then?” Stiles asked and swapped his
certificate for a toy. It took Derek a moment to realize what he was looking
at.
“Is that a…?”
“It’s a Der-Bear!” Stiles crowed, holding a fuzzy grey wolf
out. “Or, y’know, wolf but that doesn’t rhyme.” It had thick eyebrows and a
tiny leather jacket.
“Why?” Derek groaned, shaking his head vehemently when
Stiles tried to shove his bear doppelganger into his hands. It dropped to the
floor between them and Stiles let out a distressed noise that immediately made
Derek feel horrible. He and Stiles leaned over to retrieve the wolf at the same time so all they managed to do was crack their skulls together with an almost audible bonk.
“Ow! Cripes!” Stiles yelped.
“Cripes? Did you just say cripes?”
“We can’t swear in here,” Stiles said, rubbing at his
temple.
“I know but… are you even real? You’re like a cartoon
character.”
“Har, har,” Stiles grunted.
“Where’s your toy?” Derek asked, mostly joking but Stiles
immediately looked shifty which meant-
“Oh my god, show me
right this minute,” Derek demanded.
“It’s stupid,” Stiles said, suddenly looking deflated and
edging down carefully to pick up the abandoned Derek-wolf.
“It’s in the store, right?” Derek prompted.
“Yeah, but-“
“Is it in the display section or by itself?”
“In the display,” Stiles said, looking wary. It meant it was
in among a whole bunch of other staff-made toys made during demonstrations.
“If I can pick it out, the plush you,” Derek said, rubbing
his chin, “then you have to buy me a muffin.”
“I’ll buy you dinner,” Stiles blurted, then his eyes widened
in a kind of endearingly startled panic and Derek grinned at him.
“Deal,” he agreed, then made his way over to the display
shelves. They hadn’t cleared out the section in a while so it was overflowing
with toys, but Derek just snorted and plucked out a small fox with a backwards
baseball cap with its ears poking through and wearing a flannel shirt almost immedaitely. Derek waggled
the fox in triumph. “You’re not wearing pants.”
“Neither are you,” Stiles pointed out, flipping the wolf
over to proffer its fuzzy butt at Derek.
“Kinky,” Derek said and Stiles’ mouth dropped open.
“Just to be clear,” Stiles said, swallowing audibly when he’d
apparently had a chance to gather himself. “The dinner would be a date. That
was me asking you on a date. I have a history of people not really getting that
with me and thinking I’m just-“ Stiles made a helpless gesture with his arms
and Derek threw the fox at him so it smacked him in the face. “Hey!”
“Considering I’m only working here because I followed your
ass from the food court, I get it,”
Derek said with a self-deprecating smile.
i want derek hale to have like the cutest tattoo ever. like on his hip. and it’s a secret. and it shows how much of a marshmallow he is
The form asks Do you have any distinguishing marks? and Derek chews the pen cap and thinks about it for a second and writes: Yes. Two tattoos.
He figures that will be it.
——
“You know you sign your name under a little box that says the information you have provided is truthful to the best of your knowledge,” Stiles says, flopping down next to Derek and tossing a sheaf of papers into his lap.
“What?” Derek asks. Dog the Bounty Hunter has just apprehended someone on TV and Derek is still getting used to surround sound. It continues to freak out his hearing.
“Your application,” Stiles says.
“I’m not actually a felon,” Derek says. “It asks if you were ever convicted. I wasn’t.”
“Not that part,” Stiles says. “The thing about your tattoos.”
“What about them?”
“Them? Them? What do you mean them?”
Derek sighs. “I have two tattoos. Which one?”
Stiles sputters. “You do not have two tattoos. You have the mystical werewolf back tattoo and that’s it.”
Derek raises an eyebrow. “You’d be the expert on my body then?”
Stiles’ face flushes dully. “Obviously not. But I have seen you half-naked and dying often enough to be pretty certain.”
“There you go,” Derek replies, turning back to the TV.
“What does that mean?” Stiles demands.
“It means you’ve only seen me half-naked. The tattoo is on the other half.”
Stiles’ eyes take on a glazed expression. “Which part of the other half? Are we talking embarrassing butt tattoo? Left cheek? Right cheek—? No, it’s not the right cheek, that harpy shredded your pants last fall.”
Derek lets out a low grumble. He still doesn’t like talking about that.
“Stiles, leave it alone.”
“I am insulted. You have known me long enough to know that I am constitutionally incapable of following that directive. I am wounded, wounded to my very—”
“It’s on my left hip,” Derek snarls. “Now drop it.”
“Oh, I’ll drop it, buddy,” Stiles mutters, subsiding. “I’ll drop it like it’s hot.”
Derek has no idea what that means, but he figures it’s nothing good.
——
“Really, Stiles?” Derek says, sighing heavily. He stops unbuttoning his jeans and turns to his bedroom window in time to hear, “Oh, shit!” then a series of crashes and yelps.
When he leans out the window, Stiles is sitting in the bushes, rubbing his lower back and scowling.
“I’m calling the cops,” Derek says. “There’s a man outside my house. I feel unsafe.”
“You’re such a dickhead,” Stiles says. “I think I broke my spine.”
“It matches your broken brain,” Derek replies, shutting the window.
He makes his way downstairs and heads outside. Stiles is still sitting in the dirt, and he does look a little banged up.
“What are you doing!” Stiles says when he sees him. “You’re giving the neighborhood a show!”
Derek glances down at his bare torso and half-unbuttoned jeans, shrugging. “So? C’mon, you’ve got a cut on your face.”
He tugs Stiles to his feet and tries to usher him inside. Stiles is moaning the whole time.
“Oh my God, this is not good for my rep,” Stiles says. “You’re leading me into your den of iniquity and the neighbors will talk. You look like you got interrupted, okay, interrupted doing carnal things.”
“Stiles, shut up,” Derek says, almost fondly, and pushes Stiles inside. Then he leans back out his front door and raises his voice. “That’s right, boy, take off your clothes.”
Sure enough, Mrs. Pritchard closes her curtains with a gasp and Derek can make out the electronic sounds of a phone being dialed.
“You suck,” Stiles says. “Emotional distress. You should tell me what your tattoo is to make me feel better.”
“Go get the bandaids,” Derek replies, shutting the door.
——
“Derek,” says Sheriff Stilinski.
“Sir,” Derek replies.
“Your first shift is next Monday. You can come in for your uniform fitting this Wednesday.” The Sheriff twitches a little when he says it.
Derek sighs. “Is Stiles going to try to sneak into the fitting?”
“He’s driving me crazy,” the Sheriff says all in a rush. “Put him out of his misery, why don’t you? He walks around the house talking out loud about what it could be. I don’t need those kinds of images about my new deputy.”
Derek massages his temples. “If we keep giving into him, he’s always going to be this annoying.”
The Sheriff sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Derek, believe me when I say that there’s no win for either of us here.”
Derek believes him.
——
“You really seem to want to see me naked,” Derek says mildly, pulling off his sweaty tank top and tossing it on the bench.
“Eep,” the locker behind him squeaks.
Derek towels his neck dry. “Should I read something into that, Stiles?”
The locker is suspiciously silent.
“I’m going to head home now,” Derek says, pulling out a clean shirt from his gym bag. “The Zumba class lets out in five minutes. You should probably be gone by then. They can break your neck with their thighs.”
——
Stiles is pretty creative, and Derek can only take about two months of that creativity before he heaves a deeply irritated sigh, hangs up his gun holster, and pulls Stiles out of his hall closet.
“How do you keep getting in,” Derek asks no one in particular, tossing a struggling Stiles over his shoulder and trudging up the stairs.
“Your security is really lax for a newly minted deputy,” Stiles says, the words punched out of him as Derek’s shoulder digs into his gut. “I’m just—oof—alerting you to its flaws.”
“I wish someone would have alerted me to your flaws,” Derek says, pushing his bedroom door open with his foot.
“Please,” Stiles scoffs, “You love my—Derek, why are we in your bedroom?”
“Yes,” Derek says patiently.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I love your flaws.”
Stiles is wide-eyed. “It’s finally happened. I’ve crossed into a parallel dimension.”
Derek groans out a laugh, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’ll make you a deal: You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”
“I don’t have a tattoo,” Stiles says. “That’s totally not fair! Fine, I’ll go out and get a tattoo, you asshole, and when I get back—”
“Stiles, get in the fucking bed and get naked,” Derek growls.
Stiles mouth snaps shut. For about three blissful seconds.
“I never want to leave this dimension, holy God.”
“You are such a pain in my ass,” Derek says. “I’m gonna get some stuff from the bathroom. Be in that bed and ready when I get back.”
“Nnngh,” Stiles replies.
That’s pretty satisfying.
——
Derek takes a deep breath and steps into the room. He gives Stiles a second to take it in.
Stiles makes a garbled noise.
“Is that… is that a Care Bear?”
“It was a dare from Laura,” Derek says, folding his arms and leaning against the doorframe. He’s a little insulted that he’s naked and Stiles is too busy staring at his tattoo to appreciate the rest of him.
“It’s… Derek, it’s Grumpy Bear.”
“Yeah,” Derek says.
Stiles launches himself out of the bed and wraps his arms around Derek, kissing him full on the mouth. “I love you so much,” he says.
“That’s nice,” Derek replies, his hands going to Stiles’ hips. “If you tell anyone, I’m going to rip your throat out.”
“Are you kidding?” Stiles says. “This knowledge is mine, all mine. Now get in that bed, I need to lick you in a lot of places, including that tattoo.”
“Fair enough,” Derek says, and tumbles them down to the bed.
——
Of course, because it’s Stiles, things are never that easy.
“Care Bear Alpha Stare!” Stiles shouts, and dissolves into honking laughter.
Derek is in love with an idiot.
The noises I made…
I just. I can’t. No can here. Can is on hiatus. Can is never coming back.
shealwaysreads 