The first time Stiles dresses as a wolf, it's Halloween and he's six years old. It's also the first time he ever really experiences the bitter tastes of mediocrity and disappointment, but that's another story entirely.
His mother finds him crying in his room, ten minutes before he's due to go trick-or-treating with Scott and Lydia. He's inconsolable, as though the world is ending and he can't tell anyone, hunched up in the corner of his bedroom, a grey ball of fake fur and facepaint.
For six-year-old Stiles, the world is ending. The world is sticky toffee apples and pumpkins and bats and skeletons and he's a wolf, and not a very convincing one at that. The world is big and scary and laughs at him. He doesn't fit into it anymore and it's all his mother's fault.
"Stiles?" his mother says worriedly, crouching down beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Stiles lets out a wail and throws his arms around her neck. She pats his back soothingly, presumably to rub away the betrayal. It's her fault. It is. She's the one who made him different.
"You didn't make me scary enough," he manages to choke out between sobs. "I'm a stupid wolf and Scott's going to dress as a ghost and make people think he's their great uncle come back from the dead and Lydia's going to be a vampire and suck everyone's blood, and I'm just a big grey dog and it's all your fault."
His mother laughs softly, and Stiles doesn't understand what's so funny. He releases himself from the hug and folds his arms, pouting.
"Oh, Stiles," she says fondly. She looks back towards Stiles' bedroom door, checking that the coast is clear, and leans in conspiratorially. "I have a plan," she tells him. Stiles' eyes widen. Plans are good. Plans make pirates rich because X marks the spot but you have to find X first without getting eaten by sharks or killed by men in white wigs. Plans get the job done.
"What?" Stiles whispers, excited. His mother puts one finger to her lips and Stiles inhales sharply. It's a secret. That's fine. He can keep those. He hasn't told anyone that Scott wants to marry Mrs Nolan at kindergarten.
"Follow me," his mother instructs him, a small smile on her lips, and Stiles does.
She takes his hand and leads him into the bathroom, where she sits him down on the white bathtub and crouches in front of him, inspecting his costume. He's wearing a grey top and trousers, both of which she has hand-sewn out of some furry fabric, and his face is painted the same colour. He's borrowed a pair of costume cat ears from Lydia (well, her mother. Lydia pouted at the suggestion) which his mother has spray-painted silver, and she's painted whiskers and a snout onto his face. He looks like a wolf, but he doesn't look scary. Not like Lydia and Scott.
"Now, Stiles," his mother begins, reaching into her pocket for something. "I don't want you to tell your father about this, all right? Not until you've come home. It can be our little secret. All right?"
Stiles nods, wide-eyed, as she produces a small tube of fake blood from her pocket. She smiles a little guiltily.
"Bought it from the joke shop after work today," she says bashfully, unscrewing the tip and squirting some of the gooey red liquid onto her finger. She starts to paint it onto Stiles' face, and he holds still as she draws lines of dripping blood down his chin, smears of crimson across his cheeks. "Your dad thinks it's a little gauche for kids to be running around with internal fluids all over their faces – and that's how he phrased it, too, like it was some kind of paedophile free-for-all out there – but, y'know, I just want you all to have fun. It's Halloween!"
Stiles doesn't understand half of what she's just said, but he nods anyway because she's helping him. With a final flourish, his mother finishes applying the blood, and she grins, screwing the cap back onto the little bottle and putting it back into the pocket of her long cardigan.
"There," she says, smiling, and Stiles feels warm inside, like he's just eaten an entire plate of toast. "Now I'd like to see Lydia say that you're not scary enough."
Stiles jumps up from the tub and stands on his tiptoes, trying to see his reflection in the bathroom cabinet mirror above the sink. He's not tall enough, even when he stretches himself all the way up onto his big toe. His mother laughs, and the next second, her arms are around his waist, hauling him up so he can see himself.
He nearly screams with a mixture of fright and delight. His mother has painted his face with bright vermilion and with just a few dabs of red paint she's transformed him. His eyes stand out, cold and hungry, from sunken purple eye sockets where she's smudged the red and grey into violet. His chin drips with the blood of a fresh kill, and even his hands are coated with the remains of his last meal.
"Thank you!" he cries, and squirms in her arms so he's hugging her again, his arms clasped tightly around her neck. She laughs, and sets him down again.
"Don't mention it," she says. "No, really. Not to your father, anyhow."
"I promise!" Stiles replies eagerly, and he means it.
And Stiles keeps promises. He does. So when the moon is hidden behind a thick carpet of cloud and his mother is hiding too, Stiles tells the policeman that he doesn't know when he last saw her.
"Dude," Scott hisses, hoisting his rucksack over his shoulder again. "Just come, all right? Everyone will be there. This is our chance, man! It's Lydia's party! We're probably never going to be invited again. We have to go."
Stiles grimaces.
"Look, Scott," he begins, and Scott sighs. "You know that I would like nothing more than to go to Lydia's house and watch her get fawned over by dozens of beefy lacrosse players while she wears nothing but lingerie and a bunny tail. However, my dad's working late tonight, and I have no way of getting home. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to sit this one out."
Scott huffs.
"Dude," he whines, and Stiles wants to rip his own ears off because seriously, Scott is the most annoying fourteen year old on planet Earth. Probably in the entire galaxy. Or the universe. Tests are ongoing. "Can't you just walk home?"
Stiles freezes, causing some senior to crash into him from behind.
"Watch it, jerk," the older guy mutters, and Stiles raises a hand apologetically. He turns to Scott, who has raised one eyebrow in confusion.
"No," Stiles tells him. "No, Scott. I can't just walk home."
"Why not?"
Stiles doesn't understand why Scott is pushing it. Scott was there that night. It's been eight years, but the date hasn't changed. It still happened. It still could happen.
He decides to be direct. Some people just need telling straight.
"Because I don't think my dad would be too happy about me wandering around by myself at the dead of night on the eighth anniversary of my mother's gruesome murder," he states flatly, and walks off, leaving Scott to curse under his breath, chase after him with desperate apologies.
They don't really mean anything. Halloween sucks.
Lydia's party was due to start at half past eight. It's approaching nine o'clock now, and Stiles' dad has been at work for four hours already. Stiles sighs. Every year of late has been the same. His dad works late, ostensibly to distract his mind from the events of previous years, and Stiles wallows at home with the phone tucked under the cushion next to him, just in case.
He pulls the blanket around him. It's not overly cold, but there's a definite chill to the room. Stiles doesn't know whether he's imagining it. It's entirely possible. He's about to stand up and switch the space heater on when he hears the doorbell ring and nearly goes into cardiac arrest.
Trick or treaters. He hates those. In his mind, they're just kids who are being prostituted by their parents for sweets.
That's what his dad says, anyway. Although Stiles isn't dumb. He knows he's just worried.
Grabbing a handful of toffees from the bowl on the coffee table, Stiles stands up and pads over to the front door. He yanks it open, preparing for the excited cries of children begging for candy.
"Hi, Stiles," says a very sheepish Scott. Stiles blinks.
"Hi," he says. Scott shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his duffel coat and rocks on his heels, awkwardly.
"Look," Scott starts. "I'm really sorry about earlier. I wasn't thinking. I just really wanted to go to the party, you know? We're never invited anywhere, and this year... well. You know. I thought maybe we could make it different."
"I never said you couldn't go," Stiles tells him.
"Dude, no. I wasn't going to go without you." Scott grins at him, and Stiles can't help but smile a little in return, because Scott's smile is completely infectious. "And anyway, different isn't always better. It's cool. We can hang here, right?"
Stiles pushes the door open a little wider and steps back so that Scott can come in.
"We can totally hang here," Stiles affirms. "This house was made for hanging. It is hang central, with trains stopping every hour from Hangtown."
Scott rolls his eyes.
"Your dad fixed the VCR, right?" he asks. Stiles nods. "Good," Scott continues, and he takes out a video tape from the huge pocket of his coat. "Because I brought something to watch."
Stiles narrows his eyes, squints to read the print on the tape in the dark, and gasps.
"Dude!" he cries. "Seriously? How did you get that?"
Scott shrugs.
"I know a guy," he says.
"That's R rated!"
"R for radical," Scott grins.
Stiles rolls his eyes.
"Leave the wisecracks to me, sunshine," he tells him. Scott laughs, and Stiles finds himself smiling again. "Thanks," he adds. Scott beams.
"Don't mention it."
Stiles leads him into the living room and watches Scott work his magic on the temperamental VCR player. He offers him the other half of the blanket and the entirety of the bowl of toffees because Stiles has braces and that's not a good combination, and by the end of the evening, 'An American Werewolf in London' is officially Stiles' new favourite film, even if he does have to sleep with the light on for a fortnight afterwards.
Halloween this year happens to fall on a full moon, which is just excellent when your best friend is a werewolf. Stiles wonders why this is his life. He then wonders if 'life' is an accurate description for his hollow husk of an existence, and makes a mental note to look up the dictionary definition.
"Stop thinking," Scott whines, rattling the chains around his wrists as the painful transformation approaches. "It's loud and annoying."
Stiles rolls his eyes.
"Telling me to stop thinking is like telling you to stop mooning over Allison or doing that thing with your jaw that makes you look like you have orthodontic problems," Stiles counters. "It's integral to my being, man. It's my jam. It's who I am. Can't be tamed."
"Yeah, and Miley Cyrus would be proud," Scott bites back, arching his spine and gasping. It does not look comfortable, and Stiles recoils slightly. He swallows. He has to try and calm Scott down, make him feel at ease with his surroundings, which is easier said than done considering his surroundings include being shackled to Derek Hale's radiator.
"Scott, man, I think I like you like this," Stiles tells him. "The wolf brings out your inner comedian. You're giving me a run for my money."
"Small change, I presume," says Derek, and Stiles nearly craps his pants, because where the Hell did he come from? He whips around, and Derek is standing behind him, leaning against the doorframe with that air of nonchalance and disdain that only he and GQ models can really pull off. Stiles' brain transfers all command to his pants.
"Um," Stiles says thoughtfully and wittily. Derek sighs.
"That's not going to hold him," he says, pointing at Scott.
"Right here, guys," Scott manages to say through the pain.
"It worked last month," Stiles argues, ignoring Scott. Derek frowns.
"It's different this month," he explains, uncrossing his arms and heading over to where Scott is hunched over, bound and chained like some kind of sadomasochistic offering. "It's Halloween," he adds more softly.
Stiles huffs.
"Are you seriously telling me that pumpkin juice has an effect on this?" he asks. "Because dude, I hate to break it to you, but Harry Potter isn't a biography."
Derek growls, and yep, Stiles is still thinking with his downstairs brain.
"A full moon that falls on Halloween is always more potent," Derek elaborates, speaking slowly as though Stiles' brain is made of porridge, which it might as well be at the moment. Stiles hates his taste in men sometimes. It's nearly as bad as his taste in women. "It's charged with the supernatural. It's stronger, somehow." He looks at Scott again, who is muttering Allison's name under his breath. It would be romantic if it weren't so creepy and terrifying. "We need to get him somewhere safe."
"Where, Einstein?" Stiles asks. He risks putting a hand on Derek's arm and pulling him to the other side of the room. He knows Scott can still technically hear them with his super-hearing, but he's rather counting on Scott being preoccupied. "If everywhere's as full of ghosts and ghoulies as you say, then where's safe?"
Derek blinks. Stiles rubs the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and counts to ten. He is too old for this shit.
"Where," he repeats. "Is safe?"
Derek looks at him. Stiles knows that look. It's the look that says 'it'd be obvious if you were as dark and brooding and occasionally hairy as I am, but you're not, so stay out of it'.
"The woods," Derek says finally.
Stiles hates everything and everyone.
"Oh, no," he says, raising his hands in surrender. "You're on your own with this one, pal. I am not going there with two pre-menstrual wolves. I quite like having four limbs, thanks."
"Stiles - "
"Count me out. Count to ten thousand. That's how out I am. I'm so out, I'm like Ricky Martin, but with wolves, not homosexuality. I'm out of here. I'm not - "
"Please."
Stiles stops. Did Derek Hale just say please? He looks at the older man, whose eyes are still blue-green and a little desperate.
Stiles is a sucker for pretty eyes.
He sighs.
"Fine." He looks over at Scott, who's almost retching with agony now. "But if the bogeyman comes, I'm counting on you not to wolf out, all right?"
Derek nods curtly.
"All right."
Stiles sighs again. He wonders if all this sighing is bad for his lungs.
"Help me move him, then." Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles grins. "And yes, by 'help me', I do mean 'move him by yourself, Mr Chippendale'."
The female alpha shows up just as Derek is finishing up with the padlocks on Scott's chains. Stiles feels a little sullied, chaining up his best friend with the help of a ludicrously hot older man, but such is his life these days. They don't even see her coming until it's too late.
"What do we have here?" she hisses. Stiles immediately feels his blood run cold. It's oddly appropriate for Halloween.
"This isn't your territory," Derek replies, immediate and defensive. The woman laughs, and it's shrill and manic and absolutely frightening. Stiles is only slightly ashamed to find he's hiding behind Derek.
"Oh, sweetheart," the female alpha says. "Everywhere is my territory."
From the trees step two more werewolves, and Stiles can tell from the red hue of their irises that these are alphas too. A pack of alphas. Happy Halloween.
"This," Derek repeats, his voice low. "Isn't your territory."
The woman raises an eyebrow and leers, turning to the man and woman behind her.
"He doesn't think this is our territory!" she tells them, lightly. "He thinks that a pack of alphas will be intimidated by a human, an incapacitated beta and an inexperienced alpha." She laughs again, and her cronies snicker like schoolchildren. "How pathetic."
"Hey - " Stiles steps forward to argue, because apparently he's suicidal, but Derek places a hand on his chest firmly, stopping him.
"We have no quarrel with your pack," Derek tells her. The woman smiles, showing pointed canines and pearly white teeth.
"Well, honey," she says, her voice falsely saccharine. Stiles fears he might develop theatrical diabetes. "We have a quarrel with yours." She points at Stiles, and Stiles gulps. Derek snarls. "Rumour has it that you have a human amongst your midst, and I can see already that it's true. How sad. Really, it just makes me want to cry."
"Cry me a river, then," Stiles says, angrily. He's getting fed up of being told he's not good enough because he doesn't have the bestial equivalent of a menstrual cycle. It's getting old now.
The alpha bares her teeth.
"Maybe we should do you a favour," she tells Derek. "And increase your standing amongst the other packs. We could remove the human from your group, make you a real pack again."
Derek's eyes flash red, and he growls threateningly. Stiles wonders if he should leave his Xbox to Scott or Jackson when he dies. He thinks Scott would appreciate it more, but Jackson hasn't led him to his death, so it's up in the air really.
"You won't do that," Derek states, placing a hand on Stiles' shoulder. It's warm and oddly comforting. "He's my mate."
"What," Stiles says. Derek glares at him. The female alpha raises an eyebrow.
"Your mate," she repeats, like it's a curse word, and Stiles sees red, not only in her eyes but in his own, because he is good enough. He is.
"Yes," he says, grinning with false confidence. "His mate. The vegetable side dish to this hunk of beef. So scram."
Derek rolls his eyes. The female alpha narrows hers.
"He's not lying," she tells her followers, who both whine slightly, their fight spoiled.
She turns back to Derek.
"This isn't over, alpha," she warns him, and then she's gone, and Stiles is alone with Derek and an unconscious wolfed-out Scott.
Stiles looks at Derek.
"What just happened?" he asks him. Derek steps over to Scott, who's stirring slightly, and checks that the padlock is secure.
"A mated alpha is a stronger alpha," Derek responds quietly. "I wasn't a threat to them alone, but with my mate endangered, they would have been in serious trouble."
Stiles processes this. It makes sense, but it makes no sense at all.
"So, what," he says. "Am I your mate now?"
Derek grits his teeth.
"Technically," he replies. "I did just declare you my mate."
Stiles swallows.
"So, do we have to do the naughty now?" he asks, and Derek flushes. "Because I'm eighteen, you know, and your mate, and hey, I'm a philanthropic sort of guy, if it helps pack security - "
"No," Derek interrupts. "No. We don't have to do that."
Stiles bites down his disappointment and manages to grin.
"All the pressure and none of the perks," he says. "Brilliant. Story of my goddamn life." He sighs. "Look, I've really got to get home. My jeep's parked pretty nearby. Tell me, am I going to get my throat torn out on the way?"
Derek shakes his head.
"You're the mate of an alpha now, Stiles," he informs him. "You should be safe."
"Cool," Stiles says shortly. "Groovy. Thanks."
With that, Stiles walks away. It's been a funny sort of day.
Stiles has been the mate of an alpha now for exactly a year, and to be honest, not much has changed. Sure, he gets attacked a lot less by passing werewolf packs, but that's compensated for by the fact he's kidnapped as a hostage a lot more frequently by other supernatural creatures who want a piece of Derek's territory. It's equally tiring, especially as he's actually at college now, so having a group of fairies with bludgeons turn up at his door the night before a final exam is really inconvenient.
He's in his dorm room now, the curtains pulled and the lights off, and he's watching porn because he's nineteen and his roommate is out with his girlfriend and Stiles' mate won't look twice at him without threatening to tear his throat out with his teeth, and it sort of sucks.
The woman on the computer screen is doing something very interesting with her legs when Stiles hears a knock at the window and promptly slams the laptop screen shut. He quickly does his flies up and heads over to the window, pulling the curtains open.
Derek's there. Stiles blinks.
"Derek," he says, doing his best impression of Captain Obvious. Derek motions for him to open the window, and Stiles does, allowing Derek to do hisbest impression of an Olympic gymnast as he grips the top of the window frame and swings himself into the room. It's a bit too Tarzan to be suave, but Stiles doubts that's what he was going for. Derek never goes for anything. He just is.
The bastard.
"What can I do for you?" Stiles asks, flushed red from his interrupted exploits and slightly breathless. Derek narrows his eyes and looks at him. It feels uncomfortably like he's reading Stiles' soul.
"Were you just..." Derek gestures inarticulately with his hands, and he's blushing too. If Stiles weren't so mortified, he'd definitely tease him for that.
"It's the middle of the night and I'm home alone," Stiles answers. If he's going to own up to this, he might as well own it. "Of course I was."
"OK," Derek says uncertainly. He scratches the back of his neck and surveys the room. It's a complete mess, of course. Stiles makes no excuses for that. He's not the kind of student who keeps his dorm room neat and tidy. He's the kind of student who's bought twenty pairs of boxer briefs in the past fortnight because he can't be bothered to do laundry. He's the kind of student who does his washing up in the en-suite bathroom sink because it's closer to bed and all he ever eats are M+Ms anyway.
Stiles clears his throat. He wonders if Derek would just kill him now if he asked and save them both the embarrassment of an awkward conversation about private time.
"Can I help you?" he asks. Derek shrugs.
"I was in the area," he replies warily. "And I thought I'd drop in, see how you were doing."
"I'm good." Stiles watches Derek's reaction; he nods slowly. "Good, good, good. I'm great, in fact. Yeah. Eating well, sleeping well..."
"Bullshitting excellently," Derek finishes for him. Stiles shrugs.
"I'm a lone wolf, out on my own," he says, and immediately regrets it because as soon as he says the words 'lone wolf', Derek's face darkens. "Woah. OK. Not a lone wolf, then." Derek swallows hard and Stiles watches the bob of his Adam's apple, wishes it didn't send a flow of blood straight to his unsatisfied groin. "Are you all right?"
Derek sits down at the end of Stiles' roommate's bed. Stiles sits next to him. Derek clears his throat.
"There have been some issues," Derek says. "With the pack," he clarifies. Stiles nods slowly.
"What kind of issues?" he queries.
Derek coughs. He's clearly mortified, although Stiles isn't sure why. He isn't the one who got caught beating off at midnight on Halloween.
"It seems that I'm finding it increasingly difficult to maintain control of them without my mate."
Stiles blinks.
"Um," he says, and he thinks he's made his point.
"I know," Derek agrees glumly. "It's not ideal."
"Could you elaborate on that?" Stiles asks. "I mean, are you just saying that you need my own personal brand of whoop-ass to keep their punk asses under control? Or are you pining away like Scott does for Allison whenever she goes to the shops and doesn't tell him?"
Derek glares at him.
"Both," he grits out.
Stiles doesn't really understand what's going on any more because Derek is Derek and Stiles is Stiles and they've always been separate, even though they're technically mated now, and he doesn't know when they were expected to become 'Derek and Stiles' the unit. He doesn't know when Derek wanted to become that, because even though Stiles is at college now and he's grown out his buzz cut and started working out every Thursday, he's still Stiles Stilinski, the kid who's about as co-ordinated as a peace march in Israel, and Derek is still Derek Hale, he of the cheekbones and perpetual sex-hair and brooding looks.
"Oh," is all Stiles can manage to say. Derek sighs and stands up, rubbing his hands on his jeans like he's nervous.
"I shouldn't have come."
Stiles reaches out impulsively and grabs Derek's wrist. He looks at Derek. Derek looks at him.
"I'm glad you did."
And then Derek isn't standing, but leaning, and then they're sort of kissing, but only sort of because Stiles has judged the angle all wrong, but then Derek sort of growls and pulls away slightly, realigning Stiles' arms to rest on his hips, and suddenly they fit together and it's lips and teeth and tongue and yep, Stiles has some unfinished business to attend to.
He attends to it. Three times.
"I've seen this movie six times already," moans Jackson. Lydia fixes him with an evil glare.
Stiles shifts on the sofa, crosses his legs across Derek's lap, and shoves another fistful of popcorn into his mouth.
"Don't care," he says around a mouthful of food. "My house, my Blu-ray player."
Jackson groans.
"I don't get why we have to have our pack meetings here," he complains. "I liked having them at Derek's house."
Derek looks at him. Jackson cowers behind Lydia's jacket. Stiles laughs.
"It's one of the deals we've made about our mate-dom," he says. "I get to sleep next to a human radiator, one that just happens to have abs of steel, and I don't get beaten and brutalised by Erica anymore. In return, Derek gets to use my amazing leather sofas any time he wants. Which is often."
"Too much information," mutters Scott. Stiles raises an eyebrow.
"Scott, while I'm touched and flattered that your mind went to that beautiful, sweaty place, I was actually referring to pack meetings," he says. Scott flushes scarlet.
"Sorry," he mumbles, and Allison giggles, hitting him in the face with a cushion.
"Shh, this is the best part!" hisses Lydia.
The rest of the pack watches, enthralled, as the man's throat is torn out on the screen. Derek sighs and leans closer to Stiles.
"Why are we watching this stupid film?" he whispers into his ear. Stiles gasps.
"It's Halloween tradition!" he cries.
"I hate American Werewolf," mumbles Derek.
Stiles sometimes forgets that Derek has awful taste in films. He actually laughed at Anchorman, for Christ's sake.
"If you sit through the entire thing, I promise I'll make it up to you later," he whispers.
Derek grins.
"Gross!" says Erica.
"Not the word I would use, but noted," Stiles beams.
"You are the worst pack ever," grumbles Derek, but he's smiling.
It's a sight that Stiles has got used to lately. He's glad of it. Smiling actually suits him, and Stiles is happy to take any opportunity that he can to make others realise.
It's the first Halloween party that Stiles has been to since that ill-fated night of alcohol and regrets in his second year of college, and Stiles is worried that he's made a fatal error of judgement with his costume.
"Seriously, Scott," he frets. "Will this get me lynched or divorced? I need to know, man."
Scott laughs, and punches his shoulder amiably. Stiles winces. Scott's had ten years to get used to his increased strength in relation to Stiles and he still hasn't got the hang of it.
"You'll probably live to get laid tonight," Scott tells him. That's reassuring.
Stiles turns around and inspects himself in the mirror. His wolf costume is pretty convincing, even if he does say so himself. The fake blood is a nice touch.
He thinks back to the last time he dressed as a wolf, how proud his mother had been that she'd made him so happy with a simple costume. He wonders what she'd think of his very wolfified existence these days. He has a strange feeling that she'd approve.
One thing he knows she wouldn't approve of is his stunning ability to live in the past, he thinks. This is the first time he's properly celebrated Halloween in twenty years, the first time he's dressed up since that first wolf costume, and he knows she'd have wanted him to enjoy himself.
He has, though. He has.
"Cool," says Stiles.
There's a knock at the door.
"I'll get it!" Stiles tells Scott, and bounds down the stairs, taking them two at a time. It'll be Derek, who's giving Scott (and Stiles, due to Scott's minor panic attack about leaving a pregnant Allison alone for an evening) a lift to Lydia's party.
He opens the door, and is promptly very confused.
"Hi," beams Derek, his hands in the pockets of his red hoodie.
Stiles looks at him.
"You were supposed to dress up," he says.
Derek smiles wryly.
"I did," he says.
"What as? You just look like a dude in a red hoodie. A very aesthetically appealing dude, don't get me wrong, but - "
"I'm you."
Stiles blinks.
"I've married an idiot," he announces. "I've willingly signed my life and inheritance away to a guy who dresses as his husband for Halloween. I want an annulment."
Derek rolls his eyes.
"Every single year I've known you, your Halloween has been dominated by my 'wolf stuff'," he explains, forming quotation marks with his fingers. "I thought I'd let mine be dominated by you this year."
"That's disgusting!" calls Scott from upstairs. Stiles rolls his eyes and Derek laughs. He's been doing that a lot more lately.
"Maybe later, honey pie!" Stiles shouts back. He hears Scott fall over something in disgust.
Derek looks at him, still smiling, and Stiles' stomach flips right over. He'd thought it might stop doing that after seven years together, but nope, it still works.
"What do you think?" Derek asks.
Stiles grabs him by the waist and shows him.
"That's still disgusting!" Scott yells from his bedroom.
Stiles pulls away, blushing. He still forgets about the super hearing thing sometimes.
"Sorry," he mutters.
Derek grins, and yep, Stiles is falling in love all over again, just like he does every hour on the hour.
"Happy Halloween," says Derek.