Author's Note: Whoa. The last fic I posted on here was, like, way more popular than I thought. Obviously I've written more. I'm going to try to keep writing but I get distracted a lot of the time. I really, really like Teen Wolf (and Derek Hale, which is obvious, because he's Derek Hale) so here goes nothing. (For the record, I also love Lydia and Stiles, so yeah whatever. Sorry, I keep getting distracted 'cause we're watching Merlin.)
Disclaimer: I don't own shit, baby girl.
One thing certainly hadn't changed since Derek had left Beacon Hills and, despite what he would text Cora later that night, it was kind of oddly comforting to know that no matter how many weeks he had been gone (eight) Stiles Stilinski was still the weirdest sleeper Derek had ever come across.
He had stopped by the loft, just to check it, mostly out of a morbid sort of curiosity. It didn't smell like blood or death or pain, anymore, just stray cat and dust. The furniture that Derek had set up in there was gone, not that he was really surprised; he had read all of Stiles' texts even if he hadn't replied to any of them. There had been one nearly a week after he left that had just said if you don't want your furniture donated speak now or forever hold your peace. (He had been in a diner somewhere south of Colorado at the time. He had snorted slightly into his shitty diner coffee and ignored Cora's judgmental nose scrunch, tucking the phone back in his pocket. That had been one of the better days since leaving.)
After the loft he went and got an actual apartment, in a building that was actually inhabited by other people. The teenagers he unfortunately associated with would probably be absolutely unbearable about that fact, when they found out about it. He imagined, for a second, that Erica would have laughed herself sick while Boyd muttered something like finally under his breath. The thought didn't make him sick like it had before he left, though it still hurt.
Derek figured that it would always hurt, but that was okay. (One of Stiles' semi frequent texts had once said that "it hurt because it mattered". Derek was almost positive that the teenager had stolen that from the internet or a book or something. But, like all the other nonsense texts Stiles had sent Derek, he saved it to his inbox. That had been early in the morning, closer to four than it was to three. That was the only text Derek had considered responding to, not that he would admit that.)
After getting an actual apartment (which took three days; he sent Cora a picture message of his barren living room, to which she simply responded loser to) Derek considered grocery shopping (he had a fridge, if not a couch) and furniture shopping and discarded both of those ideas. What he really wanted to do was search out the meddlesome kids that made up the Hellmouth of a town that he now (officially) lived in and find out what had happened in his absence. He could have gone to Scott; they were on speaking terms and he didn't have a problem with the other boy as an alpha, now that the teen had seemed to grow into his own, but he didn't. Instead he shrugged on his jacket and hopped in the Honda, driving straight to the kid's house without thinking about what he was doing.
Stiles was asleep in his desk chair when he crawled up onto the roof underneath the kid's window, legs kicked up on the desk top, head tipped back over the chair's edge. Derek had found him like this often enough that it wasn't anything new, really. Stiles had once dozed off sprawled on top of his own Jeep and, according to something he overheard Lydia say once, Stiles had slept outside her hospital room all weekend after Peter had attacked her. Falling asleep in odd places was one of the things that made Stiles Stiles in Derek's mind, so he wasn't surprised to find the teenager like that.
He was surprised, however, by the fact that Stiles was passed out cold like a sack of bricks while Lydia Martin read on his bed, sprawled like some kind of frightening lioness.
(Derek had watched a documentary on lions in Africa once. He didn't remember much about it except that male lions were sort of useless, when you got down to it. The lionesses did all the work, hunting and raising the kids and being generally wild and fierce. It had reminded him, at the time, of his relationship with his sister. It actually still did; Cora was just a younger, less experienced lioness and he was still the bumbling useless male lion.)
"Uh," Derek said, caught off guard. He still had one leg out of the window. When the red haired teenager cocked an eyebrow at him regally he actually considered making a break for it and coming back later. He didn't, if only because that would put him on Peter's level.
Lydia rolled her eyes and flipped a page in her ancient book. Derek took that as an invitation to do something other than straddle the window sill and stepped fully into the room.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Derek Hale. Had a nice vacation?"
It sounded like a mean question and Derek started to bristle, but a small snort from the girl stopped him short.
"None of us here blame you for leaving, Hale," she said, sounding bored with the matter. "You could have done us all a favor and taken your uncle with you, but it hardly matters now. I was just asking to be polite."
Stiles had mentioned Lydia in a few of his texts, but that didn't mean Derek had any idea what to say to her. He cleared his throat awkwardly and shrugged his shoulders, leaning back again the window and trying not to hunch his shoulders like she scared him. (She did. Whatever she was, whatever a banshee was, he had no idea how to handle that in a fight and that was something that terrified him. But he wouldn't admit it if he could help it.)
"It was good," he said finally. "Cora, uh. She stayed down south and I came back here."
Lydia's smile was knife sharp when she glanced up from the book. "So I can see. Are you here to stay?"
"Yes," Derek said, immediate and easy. Whatever had gone down at the start of the school year was partially his fault and he was going to help protect Beacon Hills however he could. Lydia seemed pleased with his answer.
"Good," she said, sitting up. She didn't close the book, but she did push it out of the way before rising from the bed. Her dress inched up her legs, but she didn't seem to care. She looked comfortable in Stiles room, like hanging out in the afternoons after school were something they did all the time. Actually, now that he thought about it, it probably was. Lydia and Stiles were both brilliant, resilient human beings who were not willing to just roll over and take anyone's supernatural shit.
Derek tried to pretend that he didn't find that endearing, but Lydia's expression was too much like Laura's and Stiles made a coughing snore noise that clenched up his chest.
"He just got to sleep," she said, jolting him back to attention. He had started to zone out while looking at Stiles, which was embarrassing. Lydia rolled her eyes heavenward, like dealing with him was a trial. Derek tried to focus on what she was talking about.
"Stiles," she clarified. "He hasn't gotten much sleep since the ritual that found his dad and he just fell asleep about a half hour ago. If you'd like to talk to him you'll have to either come back later or wait until he wakes up naturally, because you will not be waking him up while I am still here."
Derek glanced at Stiles and then away, considering his options. He could come back later, but he could also just go see Scott. He didn't know why he wanted Stiles to tell him what had been going on in town while he had been gone, but it was probably linked to the same reason he had saved every single text message from Stiles in the past eight weeks. Laura would have been able to tell him why he did it. Hell, Lydia could have probably told him why he did it, but it wasn't like he was going to ask her about it.
"I was just about to go down and make some cookies," Lydia said. Her heartbeat skipped a beat, but Derek actually considered it.
"Cookies sound good," he said, shrugging. Lydia graced him with a small smile and scooped up her book, turning to lead the way downstairs.
Stiles didn't wake up until the Sheriff was home and the cookies were half eaten. He grinned, sleepy and exhausted, when he realized Derek was sitting at his dinner table with his old crush and his father, talking about the last season's baseball scores like this was a normal affair. Derek, for his part, swallowed back a smile and felt lighter than he had in years.