Written for SterekWeek2015 Day 1 - Sunday Funday

Step 1: Find a Cake to Make

Derek was not a baker. Cora would back him up on that, if she were still in town, and his uncle would laugh for a whole day if you asked for his opinion of Derek's kitchen skills, if he weren't catatonic in Eichen House.

Before the fire, Derek had learned minimal things from his father and even less from his mother. He'd always assumed he would learn later or he'd just live with someone who could cook for him – be it his parents or a significant other. After the fire, Laura could cook a little or they ordered in. And that didn't even scratch the surface of baking. Not by a long shot.

Baking was out of the question.

And sure, on this one occasion where it had been suggested he make a cake, he could have just gone to the store and bought instant cake mix – just add water or whatever – but he had decided not to go that route. If he was going to be convinced to bake at all, he was going to bake like he meant it.

From scratch.

He Googled for over two hours before he found a cake he liked. It was carrot cake.

"I thought the suggestion was for chocolate cake," Isaac pointed out, keeping watch at the window. Watch for what, Derek wasn't entirely sure.

"If you came all the way from Paris just for a party, you'll understand if I don't take your advice on making great decisions," Derek replied. "Stay put. I'm going shopping."

"What? No. No way. You're going shopping, then I'm going with you." Isaac hopped a bit as he pushed off the window, and then he was snatching up Derek's keys and his own jacket. "I've gotta be there to watch you glare the carrots into revealing their leaders."

In lieu of a verbal response, Derek did his best to convey 'keep it up and we won't go at all' with his eyebrows alone. Isaac was unaffected after three years apart, and they headed out the door.

Step 2: Collect Ingredients

Isaac wasn't wrong, but Derek refused to admit he was right either. Derek did stare rather intently at the carrots, but he refused to call it glaring, and he only checked three bags before deciding they all looked the same anyway and tossing the fullest bag into his cart.

After that there was cream cheese to buy – and did it matter if it was fat free or regular? – and sugar, white, and flour, also white – "Wow, seriously? You don't even own sugar?" was Isaac's helpful addition – and vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, canola oil, eggs, butter, and pineapple.

"What the hell kind of cake is this?" Isaac asked, tossing the can of crushed pineapple from hand to hand.

"A healthy one. Stop playing with the food," Derek grunted, snatching the can away just as Isaac let out a loud "Scott!"

Panicking for only a moment, Derek quickly turned and saw Isaac wasn't lying. Scott and Stiles were there, two aisles down, perusing the chips. At his name, Scott perked up and looked over, instantly grinning and waving them down. Derek shot a hard stare at his ex-beta, who only shrugged in response.

"If you didn't want to run into people, you should have just sent me by myself," he said.

"If I wanted the wrong ingredients, I would have," Derek said and huffed.

Leaving the cart momentarily, Derek walked with Isaac over to the two younger men, and only then did Stiles look away from the shelves and take notice. He was chewing on the string of his hoodie but dropped it upon spotting other members of the pack. He licked his lips several times rapidly afterward, as though unsure if he'd actually gotten the string out, and hastily shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Hey, Derek, hey," he greeted, eyes flickering over Derek and then taking brief note of Isaac. "Oh and you too."

"Hey," Isaac complained and Stiles grinned.

"Just messin with you, buddy," he said and stepped forward to bro-hug Isaac, grin splitting his face. The two laughed and hit each other playfully as they parted. "Dude, you didn't have to fly in just for the party. We could have totally video chatted with you on Skype or something."

"Like I'd miss a reason to eat all your food." Isaac rolled his eyes and then he was embracing Scott. "Besides, video just isn't as great as seeing you all in person. Besides, I'm here for a week. Not just for a stupid party."

"Heeeey," Stiles protested, face pulled tight with a pout. He looked to Derek for support, calling for backup with his eyes.

And really, how could Derek ignore that? He laughed softly and shrugged. "Not sure I'd call it stupid, Isaac. You've been gone for awhile. A lot of people are expected to show up. It's supposed to be a party to remember."

With a snort, Isaac said, "Well now I know I'm in an alternate reality. Derek calling a party 'something to remember'? It must be special indeed."

"Dude, you have no idea," Stiles said, and he may not have noticed it, but his chest puffed out like a proud cat… and Derek wanted to rub his belly.

Step 3: Follow the Recipe

Grating carrots had to be the worst thing ever. Derek had forgotten to buy a peeler, but a few strokes of clean claws had done the trick. Grating, though? Grating was invented as a form of torture, he was sure of it. He only needed two cups of carrot but he'd been grating for half an hour and almost cut himself twice and he was only just finishing.

Isaac left after ten minutes, already fed up with Derek's cursing at the grater, but that was for the best. Derek preferred not to have an audience to his inability to properly press the tip of a carrot to a grater. It really didn't seem hard, and it really shouldn't have been difficult for a werewolf, but his muscles were so tense while performing this first step that he had to take a break afterward or he was likely to toss his newly finished cups of carrot across the room as stress relief… which would only mean he needed to grate even more.

Instead he paced his living room and tried to come up with what he was going to say when he showed up at the party with a cake – a homemade cake. It was going to be really weird. Really, really weird. He needed to have a speech prepared or at least a small, grunted out reason.

Returning to the kitchen, he brought up the recipe and tried to follow the seemingly simple instructions. Spoon flour into measuring cups. Wait. Did it matter if he actually spooned or could he just pour? Level with a knife. Wait. Level with a knife? How- What did that mean? Like… spoon flour until it reached the level of a knife … hang on. That thought made even less sense the longer it went on.

After ten minutes, he grabbed his phone and called Isaac, but the brat didn't answer. Instead he sent a text back that said, 'If this is cake related, I'm busy.' Brat. Derek could call Scott but Scott was with Stiles. He could call Stiles except…. He could call Lydia?

"Lydia speaking," she answered, confusion evident in her tone.

"It's Derek," he said.

"Obviously," she said with a scoff. "We might not be text buddies, but I do have your number. Did you need something? And please don't say you found a body or something, because I am not missing this party and neither is anyone else. It can wait until tomorrow. Hopefully. Oh my God, say something."

Smiling to himself at her defense of the party, Derek cleared his throat to ensure the grin was not in his voice when he spoke. "No body," he assured. "Looking for advice."

"Oh. Ask away." But he could tell she wasn't sure what to expect. They'd all gotten closer over the last three years, more so than the two years before that, but it still wasn't often that Derek sought advice. Usually he was the one giving it.

"I'm making a cake," he started, and that's as far as he got.

"You should probably ask Stiles if it's about cake," Lydia suggested.

"What? Why?" Derek spun on his heel, walking stiffly back toward the kitchen.

"Duh. Because he's not just a pretty face. He knows a thing or two about cake." She clicked her tongue impatiently. "Way more than I know. I'm more of a chef, not a baker. I'm making lasagna for the party-" Then, suddenly, she perked up. "Oh! Wait, are you making this for the party too? Have you told Stiles? Maybe you shouldn't ask him after all."

Running a hand down his face, Derek groaned. "Thanks," he said sarcastically. "Sorry, I have to go."

"I imagine. Me too. Lot to do before tonight." Lydia did nothing to hide her grin as she ended with, "Good luck on the cake."

Sighing, Derek put the phone down. Well at least she hadn't teased him about it. But Stiles was the last person Derek would ask for help. He would just have to make do with his own baking ability and hope for the best. Pushing up his sleeves, he reached for the bag of flour.

Step 4: Find Time to Admit You Need Help

Thirty minutes later, he hadn't even used the grated carrot yet. He'd tried pouring the flour and poured too fast and covered a good portion of his kitchen floor in powder, which of course had made a cloud that had then dusted Derek's legs. He'd set the bag aside to scoop the majority of the flour into one pile by the trash can and then decided to try the spooning idea. The only spoons he had were small, like for eating cereal, but he figured that was good enough… until it took forever to scoop. He would fill the spoon but lose half of it by the time he got level with the mouth of the bag.

In his agitation, he'd smacked the counter, but he smacked too close to his plastic measuring cup, because he caught the lip and sent it rocketing across the kitchen and into the fridge.

Kneeling by the preheated oven, he fished his phone from his pocket and pressed a hand to his face to rub the stress from his temples. Only after the call connected did he realize he had flour on his hands and so he now definitely had flour on his face.

"Yo. What's up? And please don't say a body. It's my-," Stiles began but Derek cut him off.

"Why does everyone think me calling means there's a body?" he asked angrily.

"Beeecause it usually does?" Stiles pointed out. He spoke to someone on his side for a second before jumping back into the conversation with Derek. "So what did you need, man?"

Self-agitation gnawed at his stomach, and really he hadn't wanted Stiles to even know about the cake but he was failing in a way he hadn't ever expected was possible. He needed help if the cake was ever going to even resemble a cake… or even get mixed.

"I need your help. Can you come over? Alone. Preferably."

There was regular silence and then muffled silence, like Stiles was pressing the phone to his chest and talking to someone else. Derek hoped the younger man's talent for making excuses was coming in handy, because he would rather not hear about Stiles saying, 'Scott, Derek's asking me to come alone to his home for ambiguous help. Sorry, we have to cut our play date short.' The fewer people knew, the better.

The silence returned to normal and then, "Yeah, sure. Gimme ten minutes."

Step 5: Face the Consequences of Your Attempt

Stiles didn't laugh when he saw the powdery white kitchen. At least, not at first. He slid the door to the loft open and slipped into the home, spinning gracefully around to close the door behind him, and it was such a casual motion that Derek almost forgot Stiles didn't live there. He moved as though he'd unlocked and let himself into the loft a hundred times, and while it was true that Stiles and the team were over more often than Derek had ever expected, it certainly wasn't hundreds of times in three years.

"So what do you- Woah." Stiles froze, keys still in hand, when he first saw the kitchen. "Dude, what did you do? Blow up a meth lab?"

"Funny. It's flour." Derek kicked his shoe at the floor, making a skid mark in the substance he hadn't managed to clean away before Stiles' arrival. "Lydia said you know cakes."

"Dude, do I ever. But I've never seen someone actually mess up this bad." And that's when he started grinning. "I thought it was just a movie trope. But look, you're actually covered in flour."

"Yeah, yeah. Can you help me or not?" Derek asked.

Stiles, still smiling, pulled off his plaid over shirt and tossed it over the back of Derek's lounge chair. His remaining, powder blue t-shirt had a howling wolf on it, but the irony of it had long since worn off for all the wolves he knew.

"I'm all yours," he said, and Derek swallowed thickly at the declaration.

It turned out that Lydia was not lying. Stiles really did know how to make a cake. He scooped the flour without making any addition to Derek's mess and leveled the cups with a knife – which meant using the back of the knife to push off the extra flour on the top of the cup. Good to know. As soon as Derek had dumped the flour into his mixing bowl, Stiles wiped out the cups and used them for the sugar, and better Stiles than Derek because if he managed to cover his kitchen in flour, he didn't want to know what he'd do with sugar.

There was laughing at Derek's expense, but it was over his attention to detail at measuring the baking soda. And Derek erased that laughter by showing off his wolf-y muscles when he mixed everything together. With Stiles' help and guidance, the batter was being poured into the baking pan and slid into the oven in no time.

Then it was time to make icing, where Stiles told Derek to cut the sugar from the recipe in half.

"Dude, that's like sugar coma. I thought you said this was a healthy recipe," he exclaimed, shaking his head.

"It said it was." Derek did as told and even managed to scoop the sugar himself.

"Well it's out of its mind. But we can fix that." Stiles hopped up on the counter beside Derek's mixing of new ingredients before remembering all the flour everywhere. "Aw man!"

Now Derek was laughing at Stiles, who slid back to the floor and tried to look in vain at his now white butt. Pouting, Stiles stuck his finger in the mostly mixed icing and then smeared a globe on Derek's face. Derek glared at him and returned the favor, catching a retreating Stiles under the eye. Stiles tried to reach for more, but Derek moved the bowl away and batted at Stiles' reaching hand.

"This is for cake," he said in a mock scolding tone. Which, to be fair, sounded pretty serious coming from Derek. It got Stiles to calm down, at least.

The cake had half an hour to bake, and the icing was actually done, but Derek didn't want to stop stirring. If they were done making the cake, then Stiles would leave, and he didn't want that at all. The party was in two hours, and Stiles needed to go home and get ready, but that night, Derek wanted to be selfish.

"Hey," Stiles began, lightly tugging the finished icing from Derek's hands and setting it on the counter. "So this cake… it's for me, right?"

Derek's face was blank from his internal struggle on which emotion was proper to show, but he did manage to say the truth. "Yes."

"Pretty sure Scott told you to make something chocolate." He looked sideways at Derek with those caramel, chocolate eyes, and the expectation in them was almost palpable. "Yeah, I was eavesdropping."

"Not surprised." Derek shrugged. "I figured you were going to get plenty of chocolate at the party, so I went another way."

"Good." Stiles turned to face him entirely and stepped closer, so close their chests were almost touching. "But you know you could have just bought one from the store. I mean, if you're this bad at baking…"

It was a good point, and just one more thing he'd been debating earlier when he tried and failed to come up with some kind of excuse for when he got to the party. "This made it more personal. I wanted it to be special."

An approving noise came from Stiles then and he leaned so close that he was all Derek could smell – more than the carrots or the cinnamon or the nuts in the air. The werewolf's chest tightened with anticipation, expecting the human to kiss him – but he should have known better than to expect the expected from Stiles.

Dodging the lips, Stiles instead licked the side of Derek's face, catching all the icing he'd smeared there earlier. Derek jerked back, surprised, and Stiles licked his own lips proudly. He probably should have looked embarrassed by the movement, by Derek's response, but he didn't. He looked challenging, and it only took Derek a second to realize this was Stiles taunting him.

'I know all about your Texas sized crush on me,' he was saying. 'And I literally just showed my intentions. Whatcha gonna do about it?'

A smirk snuck up on Derek's face and then he grabbed Stiles' wrist, holding him close so he couldn't get away, and returned the favor as he'd done earlier – licking the icing from under Stiles' eye. Stiles laughed the whole time and eventually pushed Derek away after the werewolf made the lick last much longer than necessary.

"Help, I'm being attacked by the big, bad wolf!" he exclaimed. When he looked up at Derek, it broke any remaining caution Derek felt, and Derek finally leaned in to try a kiss on those plump lips. Under his touch, Stiles warmed and slid his hands up onto Derek's shoulders. "Help," he said quietly as they parted. "The wolf is a great kisser."

"Happy birthday, Stiles," Derek murmured back.

Chuckling, Stiles gently pushed on Derek's shoulders before pulling him back for a second kiss. "Damn, I can't believe it took me twenty-one years to get a kiss from you. Talk about hard-to-get."

And Derek could have argued that they hadn't known each other since Stiles was born, that they hadn't really known each other at all until five years prior, but he let the comment slide past without rebuttal instead. They could argue semantics later.

"By the way, I hella love carrot cake," Stiles said. "So thanks."

"You're welcome."