"So this is," Stiles starts, and pauses to squint his eyes and lick at his lips before going on, "a bit weird."

"You look like a lizard when you do that," Derek replies, putting a finger on Stiles' bottom lip and dragging it down, all uncoordinated and glassy eyed. "It's cute. You are cute."

Stiles takes Derek's finger in his hand and gets it away from his face, watches in a little bit of awe as Derek takes that as a cue to hold his hand.

"Oh, buddy."

Derek looks up at him from under his lashes, all coy and sweet, and Stiles is equal parts fascinated and horrified at how earnest he looks when he says, "I really like it when you call me buddy."

Stiles pats Derek's shoulder (and thoroughly tries to ignore the way Derek leans into his touch), says: "You're gonna regret saying that in a few hours."

And God, God he hopes he is right, and this thing lasts a few hours, because they are stranded at the top of a tree in the middle of thepreserve, sans phones, with some unidentified supernatural creaturewith magical high-making powers on the prowl.

And Stiles is also freezing his ass off, truth be told.

"Fuck, I'm freezing my balls off," he mutters, and tries to drag his hand through his hair only to be reminded that Derek is holding it captive in his.

"I could warm you up," Derek tells him then, ridiculously cheesy and sultry, inching closer, rocking the branch they are awkwardly perched on, and making it squeak.

"Jesus fuck, Derek, don't. We are gonna fall. And I'm breakable, okay? I'm gonna break everything AND then I'm gonna get grounded for the rest of senior year. And possibly up 'til I graduate college. Who knows."

Derek looks contrite for a second, body hunching a little, and it's hilarious. Except for how it isn't because he looks so damn sad and hurt, and Stiles is a weak guy, okay?

"I wouldn't let you fall," Derek says, and the earnestness is back as he gently squeezes Stiles' hand.

Stiles sighs.

"I know you wouldn't, buddy. You're a big damn hero."

It comes out a little bitter, a little fed up (because Stiles is kind of tired of seeing Derek almost dead, tired of having to wonder again and again if this one time is gonna be time their luck runs out; Stiles wishes Derek would give the self-sacrificing thing a break), but Derek doesn't seem to notice, gives him a dazzling smile with crinkly eyes.

"You're pretty heroic too," he says, voice low and gentle, like Stiles is some tiny, skittish animal he doesn't want to frighten.

Stiles is about to reply, 'I'm not a hero' heavy on his tongue as he opens his lips, but that's when he notices that Derek's gotten close enough to put an arm around his shoulders, fitting there all snug, like it's a puzzle piece that's fallen in place.

Stiles feels himself flush, feels his blood rushing, his cheeks stiff and hot, and his heart beats wildly inside his chest and shit, shit, there's no time for this. There's no time for Stiles to be fucking dumb about this.

He tries to extricate himself from Derek's hold, squirms a little under the weight of Derek's arm, but it only gets Derek to tighten his hold, to press himself flush against Stiles' side.

"You're so stubborn," Derek says then, fond, "I like that. I like that you don't back down."

"Wow, whatever that thing dosed you with, it's sure strong."

Derek shrugs against him, the leather of his jacket creaking, "I feel nice. Happy. Lighter."

"If you use some kind of weird metaphor or simile involving birds or some shit, I'm pushing you off. There's a limit to what I can put up with."

Derek smirks at him, and it's the closest he's looked like regular Derek since they climbed up, "You won't. You keep saying you want me dead, but then you pull me back from the brink time and time again."

Stiles flinches a little at Derek's words, but Derek hums at him, pushes his thumb down on Stiles' shoulder, makes it rub the fabric of his shirt up and down.

Stiles wants to say something, anything, because he feels tiny and too big for his skin, and stretched, and tingly, and honestly? Just like a plain old asshole.

But the intent dies as soon as he hears a weird, hollow growling coming from underneath them followed by a faintly screeching noise that Stiles can guess are claws raking against the tree bark.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he gasps out, as the tree trunk shakes minutely under the weight of the hulking beast underneath them.

Derek draws Stiles' attention back to him, then, with a tiny tug of his hand. When Stiles look at him, Derek's eyes look less glassy, more determined.

"Do you trust me to keep you safe?"

And Stiles, who's been over playing weird power games with this guy since forever ago just nods his head without even realizing so until Derek gives him a soft smile and a gentle squeeze of his shoulder before he-

"Jesus fuck, Derek, are you nuts?"

-leaps.

Stiles hears the sound of Derek impacting against the ground, and the following blood curdling shriek the creature emits, he feels the tree shake under him, making him scrabble to get as close to the trunk as he can, because shit, shit, shit, the branch's already making concerning noises, like it's straining under Stiles' weight and Stiles can't heal and if he dies from falling off a tree after he's literally been possessed by a nogitsune, he's just going to become the surliest ghost to ever haunt Beacon Hills.

There's a heavy thump and a growl, and then there's an impact against the tree that makes the entire thing wobble like it's going to just lose its balance and fall, and Stiles hugs the tree trunk and closes his eyes because he's heard at least two ominous creaking sounds in the past five seconds and oh God, oh God-

Just as a howl echoes through the preserve, rattling the leaves of the tree and making his breath catch (and this is good, yes, great, this means the pack will come for them, okay, yes ), he can feel the branch under him give, and then (as he hears something crunch loudly and sickeningly underneath him, and then a nasty squelching noise that will probably feature as a special guest in all his upcoming nightmares) he's falling, even as he strains to hold onto the tree trunk, his nails leaving indents on the bark up untill it starts hurting so much that he lets go.

He composes several goodbyes in his mind, even though they all contain I can't believe I fell off a fucking tree and died and please bury my laptop with me and you're still not allowed to have bacon, dad as he falls with eyes tightly closed.

Only instead of hitting the cold ground and breaking his spine along with every single other fragile bone on his body he lands on something softer, softer and slimy, and Stiles has a minor freakout about landing on a hopefully dead (is it dead? please let it be dead) unspecified creature of the night until there's an oomph right next to his ear and a strong pair of arms enfolding him.

"I told you I'd keep you safe," Derek whispers in his ear.

It makes Stiles blush, his entire face going burning hot, and because he's unable to not be an asshole most of the time, he retorts with, "You didn't. You said you wouldn't let me fall. And yet, here we are."

Derek laughs softly then, and it tickles Stiles' ear and oh God, he just needs to not do this right now, so he starts flailing around a little until he smacks Derek's shoulder hard enough to make him drop his ass on the ground.

Stiles gets back on his feet swiftly and tries to get a few steps away from Derek, but that's when he notices the way Derek looks, all torn up and bloody, the left leg of his jeans shredded, and the skin under it glistening in the light of night. He scrambles towards Derek then, crouches in front of him and touches along the torn cloth, moves it aside to inspect Derek's leg and hisses when he sees a nasty, bleeding gash.

"It's okay," Derek says, puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder, rubs there like he'd been doing when they were up on the tree branch, "it's healing."

And that's how Stiles notices he's on his knees for Derek Hale.

And the alarming thing about that is how uncomfortable it doesn't make him, how it's breathtakingly easy to look up at Derek (who's looking down at him, eyes soft, with his thumb still rubbing away at Stiles' shoulder), and just remain like that, with a hand on Derek's leg, on his knees in the dirt, silent like he's waiting for something to happen.

How it feels like the one good thing that's happened so far, tonight.

"I, uh, I should help you," he says then, getting up, look away from Derek for a few seconds, trying to will his blush away.

"Sure," Derek replies, and he sounds velvet soft and inviting, and Stiles keeps having to remind himself that Derek's basically stoned, in top of being bloody and ripped (not that way, okay- though, yeah, that way too).

"Sure," he repeats, nodding to himself as he goes to try and support Derek's weight as they wait.

There's blood on Derek's face when Scott finds them some time later, and he's walking with a limp, eyes going pained whenever he forgets he's hurt himself and puts too much pressure on that leg.

He's holding onto Stiles' shoulder, leaning on him, pressing his nose against his arm every now and then with sharp intakes of breath; Stiles is holding onto him with shaking hands, and when Scott looks them over with wide, concerned brown eyes, he seems to stop at every point of contact, blinks at it like he's filing it away before moving on to the next one.

Stiles feels exposed.

And gross, because there's a spattering of blood on his shirt, and at least some of it dripping down his neck, thick and wet and thoroughly disgusting. He doesn't even want to picture how Derek's feeling, with all that stuff all over his-

"Are you okay?"

"Derek's stoned. And there's a dead thing in those bushes over there."

Scott looks at the bushes behind them with a frown on his face, his mouth on a tight line. Stiles knows this is not how Scott likes to do things, but when he looks back at Stiles and nods, he can also tell he's beginning to accept that sometimes there are no ideal endings.

"I'll take care of the rest," he says to Stiles, and puts a reassuring hand on the shoulder Derek's not using as his personal clutch, and he has this tiny moment of overwhelming pride for the man Scott is becoming. He nods jerkily, says, "Okay, yeah, I'll just- leave this on your expert, capable hands now, buddy."

And then his vision goes black and he's pretty sure he hits the ground, that he can hear Derek and Scott's voices washing over him, calling his name all distressed and worried.

When he comes to, the first thing he does is scratch under his nose because he feels itchy.

And that's how he notices that there are bandaids on most of his fingers, covering his nails, and he feels a dull thrum of pain coming from them, like a papercut but worse.

It's still not painful enough to stop him from peeling one of them off to inspect the damage.

"So gross," he mutters.

"You're gonna get an infection."

"Jesus fuck, Derek," he starts, putting a hand on his chest, right over where it feels his heart might be trying to run away from him, and turning around on his bed (his bed, how did he-) to glare at Derek, who's sitting on his desk chair, looking all patched up and clean, "I'm gonna make you wear a fucking bell."

Derek raises both eyebrows at him, and Stiles doesn't even need for him to say really? I'd like to see you try, because it's written all over his face.

"Whatever, big guy. Go around being a creeper, get shot by my dad, see if I care."

Derek gives him a dazzling, shit eating smirk then.

"The sheriff loves me now."

Stiles rolls his eyes at Derek, but doesn't retort because… well, Derek might be right? At least marginally.

His dad has been spending more and more time talking about Derek in a positive light, folding his newspaper at breakfast and looking at Stiles as he drinks his coffee and letting out things like I hear Hale's found himself a job at the library, and Derek came by the station today, he's been helping out with some cases, and I hear Derek's got himself a new house, a few blocks from here.

He's been giving Stiles these looks, like he wants Stiles to show Derek around town, introduce him to the old ladies working at their favorite diner, take him under his wing, be his life coach or something; looks at him from over his glasses like he's saying be nice to him without words and it's so weird. His dad's been acting so weird about Derek.

Derek's smirk turns into a smile as he reclines on the chair, extends his legs and crosses them at the ankle, all relaxed and looking like he's just where he belongs, taking the space that's always been meant to be his.

"Yeah, make yourself at home, dude. Do you want me to bring you a beer? Maybe give you a foot rub?" He intends for the words to come out snappish, biting, but they come out so fond that Stiles can feel a blush creeping up from his neck.

Derek smirks again, and it makes Stiles bite at his lip nervously. He busies himself playing with the sticky bandaid on his hand, looking at it with intent because the blush won't die down and fuck, there's no darkness to hide this here and Stiles has already had a weird and hard night, until Derek clears his throat at him.

When Stiles looks up at him, Derek has moved the chair closer the bed, and he is holding out a new bandaid from the box that Stiles and his dad keep in the downstairs bathroom. It's got the Batman logo on it like the ones he's already wearing.

"You should wrap that up," he looks down at Stiles' hand and makes a face then, scrunches his nose almost comically for a second and says, "and you should throw that thing in the trash."

When Derek makes a move, as if he were thinking about putting the bandaid on Stiles' finger himself, Stiles scrambles to sit down on the edge of the bed and take the bandage from him. He frowns at the thing as he opens the tiny wrapping and lets his tongue peek out as he unsticks a corner and goes about wrapping it around his finger as best as he can.

"That still makes you look like a lizard."

Stiles freezes.

"You were stoned," he blurts out, turning a little to look at Derek, accusing, and what he means is I thought you wouldn't remember. Oh my God, why do you remember.

Derek rolls his eyes at him, pushes the chair back and forth on its wheels a few times and Stiles wants to put both his hands on Derek's legs and make him stop.

"I wasn't stoned."

"Dude, you so were. You had this glazed over, blissed out look and you looked like you were going to start rhapsodizing about the beauty of nature or try to become one with the tree, or something."

"I wasn't stoned, Stiles. I just felt… relaxed."

"And a little loopy, I bet. Man, that's exactly what being stoned feels like."

Derek gets this tiny frown then, as he leans more heavily on Stiles' chair.

"Well, excuse me for not being an expert on being stoned."

Stiles squints his eyes at Derek for a few seconds and then bites at his lips in an attempt to not burst out in laughter, because that's Derek basically sulking, being a whiny, pouty baby, and damn, if it isn't one the most hilarious things that have happened in the past, what? Months?

"You're excused, man." He says, magnanimously. Then, because he can't leave things well alone, he adds, "Was it cool? Did it feel like you could touch colors?"

"Stiles."

Derek looks so pained and embarrassed, it makes Stiles want to pet his shoulder and tells him everything's okay.

"Sorry, big guy. You were so faded. It's retrospectively funny."

"I'm glad my fucking feelings are that funny for you," Derek spits out then, in a tone so vitriolic it makes Stiles recoil.

And then it makes him gape.

"Excuse me, what?"

"Fuck you, Stiles," Derek huffs out. "It's okay for you to pretend that nothing's going on, but this? This isn't okay," he goes on, and he doesn't even look angry is the thing, he looks so fucking upset and Stiles doesn't know what's going on.

"Derek, I'm, I don't know what's going on right now, okay."

Derek blinks up at him, seemingly taken aback by the fact that Stiles is being honest about this, that he really doesn't know what the fuck's going on.

Derek lets out an unbelievable under his breath, looking at Stiles like Stiles is the oddest, most egregious human being he's ever encountered.

Stiles wants to snark at him, is opening his mouth to say something cutting back, but Derek cuts him short.

"Stiles, I like you. I've been hitting on you for months. Tonight wasn't some weird some effect of being high." He frowns then, and amends, "Or it was, yeah, a little. But not the part you are thinking of."

Stiles goes back to gaping.

"What. You're bullshitting me. Everyone would know. Scott would know. Scott would have told me."

"Scott is under the assumption we're taking it slow," Derek tells him and Stiles can practically hear the quotation marks on 'taking it slow'.

He opens and closes his mouth a few times in bafflement, but he's got nothing, so he settles on, "What?"

"So is the sheriff," Derek tells him then, which isn't a reply at all, but he keeps going like it's a perfectly acceptable answer to his many questions (most of them being what and how) "And my own cousin threatened to rip my balls off if I hurt you."

That makes Stiles smile down at his hands, even in his bafflement, and say, fond: "That's Malia for you."

Derek doesn't say anything back, and when Stiles looks at him there's a fond smile there too, but this one seems to be directed at him and Stiles' heart skips a beat.

"Why didn't you say anything?" He asks then, low and hoarse, feeling himself getting restless under Derek's eyes.

The look of fondness on Derek's face drops in favor of a more familiar look of vague exasperation, and Stiles tries to convince himself that he doesn't want that look back on him.

"Anything like what, exactly? Maybe something like 'Hey Stiles, do you want to have dinner at my new place, just the two of us?'"

Stiles blushes.

"On my defense, you didn't word it quite like that. There was like, zilch romance. No flirty undertones. It was all very dry and demanding."

Derek raises his eyebrows at him and lifts his chin like he's saying oh, is that so?

"Stiles," he stops and looks straight into his eyes, "there were candles on the table."

"I thought there was a blackout," he snaps, feeling his cheeks grow warmer by the second.

"There was romantic ambiance music on."

"Is your idea of romantic ambiance music Gotye? Really? "

Derek glares at him and crosses his arms over his chest.

"Really, Stiles? Is that how you plan to deflect?"

"I'm not deflecting, I'm just-," Derek raises his eyebrows even more, gaze intense and fixated on him as he gestures with his hand at Stiles to go on, "Ok, I might be deflecting."

Derek gets serious then, nods at Stiles as his lips go tight and pursed. He puts his hands on his knees and lets them there, still.

Stiles watches the shift with trepidation, feeling antsy without understanding why, battles the impulse to put a hand of his own on Derek's knee, over one of his hands, to squeeze it in a silent offer of comfort to whatever's troubling him.

"We don't have to- Stiles, you can turn me down. If you don't want this, if you don't want me, you are not obliged to return my feelings, or be with me, or- If that's what this is about- I'm, I don't want to pressure you."

Derek sounds so earnest, so tiny and unsure, and he lowers his gaze to where his hands rest, and it makes Stiles ache everywhere; he swallows some spit and dances his fingers nervously over his own knees, and he just breathes. Deep in, slow out.

"I do want you," he says, and it feels fucking momentous as he shapes the words out and hears his own raspy, low voice.

Derek looks up at him lightning fast, mouth dropping a little, eyes wide.

It's comical in an entirely different way than Derek sulking had been; it's comical in the way Stiles wants to touch the little o Derek's lips make with his own, in the way Derek's ears seem to stick out even more, and it only makes Stiles want to bite on them. It's funny as hell in the way Stiles feels so weak for this.

Just. Hilarious.

"Then why-"

"When Braeden left you were heartbroken. I didn't, I don't, want to be a rebound for you," he blurts out, and he'd never even put that together before, had never looked at his feelings close enough to even articulate them for himself, but as the words get out there he can keenly feel them as the truth, as the complete and honest reality.

Derek looks shocked at Stiles' words, and Stiles wants to fidget and to bite at his nails but he can't because they're already bloody, and he's also kind of holding his breath, waiting for the world to start turning again because everything feels slow and quiet.

"Braeden and I," Derek says, softly, and he looks so fond when he says her name and Stiles is happy that he had her, so fucking glad that Derek got to have someone like her in his life, someone that wasn't there to fuck him over, but is still selfish and feels so jealous.

"Braeden and I," Derek repeats, like he can tell Stiles is getting lost on his own trains of thought, "wanted different things out of life. She wanted us to move on. She wanted me to go with her. But I couldn't. I wasn't ready to leave. I don't think I'll ever be ready to leave."

Stiles nods because he gets it. He knows he'll always gravitate back towards Beacon Hills, and he thinks Derek's probably the same.

"And yeah," Derek goes on, "I was upset when she left. We had a great thing. It was important to both of us. But then I moved on, and she did too. And we're friends now."

"Really?" Stiles squints at him. "I thought she didn't do the whole friends thing."

Derek rolls his eyes at him.

"We text. We even skype sometimes."

Stiles can't help himself then and says, "Oh, is it the fun kind of skyping?"

Derek glares at him, even as the tips of his ears go pink.

"Stiles."

"And we were doing so good in the communication front."

"There's no 'fun skyping'. Braeden has a girlfriend. And I have a-"

He stops. The flush spreads from his ears to literally everywhere.

"Crush? On me?" Stiles asks then, grinning like an asshole, "Are you pining?"

"The point is," Derek interrupts him, "That you are not a rebound, Stiles. We wouldn't be a rebound."

Stiles is left speechless at the way Derek's baring himself to him, laying it all in front of Stiles, being open and vulnerable. It's the Derek Stiles sees scarcely, the one that's frail and hurt and caring, the one that Derek puts walls around to protect.

He starts playing with the bandage on one of his fingers, looks down at it as his heart races. He's licking at his lips and thinking for something to say back that isn't that's, uh, that's good, when Derek takes a hold of his hands, makes him stop with the picking, sticks the end Stiles had unstuck back carefully.

"You're gonna get an infection," he tells him again, chiding, and he is so focused on fixing the bandaid, and his voice is almost as soft as his hands.

And it's all too much then, and Stiles has to, he needs to-

"Can I kiss you?" He breathes out.

Derek looks up at him, and there's a little shock there until he locks eyes with Stiles and then his entire face goes tender, a tiny smile dancing on his lips as Stiles bites on his lip.

He nods, once, slow, and Stiles moves a few inches forward but stops, lets his eyes wander all over Derek's face, lets himself seek out a trace of doubt, because he can't do this if they aren't a hundred per cent on the same page, because Stiles is intense and he loves people so much that it feels too much, and he gets invested too fast, and-

And Derek's putting his hands on the sides of Stiles' face and dragging the chair closer (which makes Stiles smile because it makes a squeaky noise that defuses a little of the tension in the air).

Stiles wants to lean into the warmth of Derek's hands, wants to run his nose over the palms with an intensity that's disconcerting.

"I'm a weirdo," he confides in Derek, and it makes him snort, even as he leans in and brushes Stiles' nose with his own.

"I know," he replies.

And Stiles would feel affronted at that but Derek brushes their lips together then and he's too busy chasing after him, too busy getting his hands on Derek's hair and shoulder, too busy inching close enough to let their legs bump.

He'll let this one slide.

("Wait," Stiles asks some time later, after they've been trading short kisses and making out and maybe holding hands a little with Derek on Stiles' bed, because the angle had been killing Stiles' neck -and maybe because he wanted him there, a little, too-, "How did I get here? What happened after I- y'know?"

"Scott took care of the body with the help of Deaton, and I carried you here."

"... Fireman's carry?"

Derek smirks at him.

"Bridal style."

Stiles groans.

Then he's hit with a stray thought.

"Wait. Was taking me out to the fucking preserve in the middle of the night your idea of romance?"

Derek winces.

Stiles has to bury his face on Derek's shoulder to avoid waking up his neighbours from his bout of laughter.)