aussiebee:

One day I will write something that isn’t tooth-rotting Sterek fluff, but today is not that day.

Title is from Pablo Neruda’s Crepusculario.

---

“… but I’ll be back by seven with dinner, so if you need me to pick anything up from the store before I get back, just text me.”

“Sure,” Derek said, barely concealing a smile as Stiles tried to simultaneously shrug into his jacket, finish pulling on his shoes and shove half a banana into his mouth on his way out the door. All he managed to actually accomplish was losing the banana in one of his sleeves and jamming the laces in under his foot, so Derek stilled him with hands firm on his shoulders and crouched down, slipped the wayward shoe off to retrieve the laces and helped Stiles slide it back on, tying the laces when he was done.

“Thank you,” Stiles breathed out, pathetically grateful, and Derek did smile this time.

“No problem,” he said, leaning forward and pressing his mouth briefly against Stiles’.

They both froze. That wasn’t a thing they did. Not ever. They weren’t… no matter how much Derek might… they didn’t do. That.

“Huh,” Stiles said thoughtfully, then just kind of swayed into Derek’s space and returned the kiss. It was as brief and chaste as Derek’s had been, but it made him frown a little, contemplatively, before he shrugged and smiled widely. “Okay. Gotta go. I’ll see you tonight!”

And then he was gone, leaving Derek standing alone in the front hall, wondering what the hell had just happened.

*

Things weren’t at all different after that day, a fact that Derek was pathetically grateful for. He hadn’t been sure how good an idea Stiles moving into the house would be when he returned home from college, but to everyone’s surprise but Stiles’, apparently, it was a match made in heaven. To have potentially messed it up with a thoughtless, unconscious display of affection had Derek’s stomach churning for the twelve hours that Stiles was on shift, only to have it all have been for nothing when Stiles came home exactly the same way he always did.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that it happened again, and this time Derek wasn’t the instigator. They were shopping for outdoor furniture on Stiles’ first day off in a fortnight, and even though he’d been uncharacteristically sombre over the previous few shifts, he was talking more and smiling again on an unremarkable Thursday morning and that was enough for Derek.

Standing in front of a solid wooden table that seated twelve, Derek smiled a little as Stiles sat in one of the chairs and leaned back, wiggling slightly to test the comfort. “I like it.

“There’s a matching daybed and porch swing back there,” Derek told him, gesturing back the way they’d come. “We’ll get those too. More comfortable for you to read on than this.”

Stiles, who was in the process of getting back to his feet, paused and glanced up at Derek in surprise. “You– that’s your decision-making rubric for furniture?”

Uncomfortable with being unable to read the expression on Stiles’ face, Derek shrugged. “You’d just complain about it, otherwise,” he said eventually. “The cost-benefit analysis makes sense.”

Standing fully upright, Stiles began to smile, a slow and sleepy thing. “You’re very sweet,” he said in a light tone, and slid one wide palm up to cradle the side of Derek’s face and touch their lips lightly together. “Don’t worry,” he added, stepping away. “I won’t tell anyone. Now let’s go and get those cushions with the kraken on them.”

“Octopus,” Derek corrected absently, lips tingling.

“Octopus/octopus,” Stiles said with the exact same inflection as he wandered away.

*

It became something that they did, after that. Not always, not in front of the others, and it was never discussed, but Derek thought it was… nice. More than nice, actually, but nice meant he didn’t have to think too hard about it or read too much into it, so.

Nice.

Stiles had always been tactile, it was one of the irrefutable facts of the universe. He had always been especially hands-on with Derek, something that had confused him and made him suspicious in the early days of their acquaintance when Stiles would instigate touch even as he reeked of fear. That hadn’t changed with this new thing that they did, but the intent behind it had shifted. There was a deliberateness there that Derek hadn’t noticed before, and a lingering that made his belly flip over, yet another thing he wasn’t investigating too closely.

With every kiss, whether to mouth or cheek or hand, or even the pulse point at the base of Stiles’ throat when he leaned quietly against Derek in the kitchen, morning yet to paint the sky as they stood still together before the wide windows over the sink as mugs of tea or coffee sending thick plumes of steam curling up into the air, Stiles’ fingers inevitably followed. They touched briefly at the back of Derek’s head, rested gently and comfortably on his hip, wrapped thoughtlessly around his own fingers, thumb stroking over the lifeline on his palm.

It sustained Derek, filled him up with warmth and comfort and home, and he treasured the long moments of togetherness they shared, affection and presence offered freely and without agenda for him to bask in. He began to remember that happiness had once felt a lot like this.

*

It was almost two in the morning by the time Stiles finally came home, the fatigue of far too much overtime casting a sickly pallor over his ordinarily-mobile face and shadowing his eyes. Derek was sitting at the kitchen table, having woken when he heard the sound of tyres on the driveway, waiting for the kettle to boil with just the light from the rangehood to illuminate the room.

“There’s pyjamas fresh from the dryer in the bathroom,” Derek called as Stiles shrugged out of his jacket and hung it in the hall closet before removing his shoes. “Do you want something to eat?”

“No, thanks,” Stiles sighed, and he sounded so flat, so defeated that Derek followed the sound of his voice and met him at the bottom of the stairs.

“What do you need?” he asked, barely enough light making into the hall to see by.

Stiles was silent for a long moment before smiling faintly, raising his hand to run the backs of his fingers against Derek’s jaw. “Nothing,” he said eventually, his scent sweetening with melancholy. “Just a cup of tea, please. I’ll be back down in a minute.”

“Take your time,” Derek murmured, trapping Stiles’ hand against his face with his own hand, turning and pressing his lips lingeringly to the palm of it before Stiles disappeared upstairs. Derek returned to the kitchen and made a cup of the strong black tea that Stiles favoured, adding just a little milk when he heard the shower shut off. Resting his chin in his hand, Derek yawned widely as he waited for Stiles.

“You shouldn’t get up when I come home,” Stiles told him as he shuffled tiredly into the kitchen.

“Best part of my day,” Derek said softly, hooking an arm around Stiles’ waist and drawing him close so that he could press his face to the warmth of Stiles’ belly, rubbing back and forth like a tired child. “Having you come home to me.”

One of Stiles’ hands splayed over the tattoo on Derek’s back, the other gently cupped the back of his head as he sighed. “You have to stop saying things like that,” he finally said. “Derek…”

“Why?” Derek asked tiredly, pulling Stiles a little closer. “It’s true.”

“That’s exactly why,” Stiles explained patiently. “Because it’s true, but it means something different to you than it does to me. And I don’t think I can do that anymore.”

The words finally penetrated the sleep-dazed haze of Derek’s brain and he pulled back a little to rest his chin against Stiles’ side and look up at him. “I don’t think it does,” he said after a beat, the look on Stiles’ face and the desperate want in his eyes finally making Derek brave enough to say what he’d been aching to for years.

“You don’t get to–” Stiles began, trying to pull away, but Derek held him firmly in place as he got to his feet, remaining squarely in Stiles’ space.

“I think I do,” Derek told him firmly, bracing him back against the table. “Because,” he swallowed hard, “because I think maybe you’re in love with me. And I’m in love with you too.” The way Stiles had paled and then begun to flush at the confession was fascinating and beautiful, and Derek wanted to taste it.

“I want to kiss you all the time, for no real reason. I want to kiss you in front of the pack, in front of your colleagues, even in front of your dad, okay? I want you to kiss me when you’re laughing, when you’re angry, when you’re half asleep and can’t be bothered to even open your eyes enough to find my mouth. I want it without either of us thinking about it. I want to take it for granted. I want it to become a habit. I want it for the rest of our lives.”

Stiles stared at him wordlessly for so long that Derek began to think he’d misread the situation, but then Stiles smiled, wide and unrestrained and joyous, the shadow lifting from his eyes. “You’re not the best with words,” he said, laughter in his voice, “but by god you make them count when it matters most.”

Matching Stiles’ smile with one of his own filled Derek’s chest so full with something terrifying and all-encompassing that he felt his breath hitch.

“How many kisses do you think it’ll take before we take them for granted?” Stiles asked, winding both arms around Derek’s neck and shifting back to sit on the table and hook his ankles around the backs of Derek’s knees.

“More than either of us will ever have time for, even if I kissed you a thousand times a day,” Derek promised him.

“Derek,” Stiles smiled, love and promise turning the word into a sigh.

“I suppose we could get started on making it a habit, though,” Derek suggested, and the laugh in Stiles’ kiss was just as delicious as Derek had always imagined it would be.