02 : Hands Up

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"Stiles."

The owner of the name gave a jerky half-shrug that managed to convey false innocence and even-more-false nonchalance. "Dad. Hey."

The sheriff let his eyes flick briefly to meet Derek's. "Derek," he added with a polite nod, which the alpha returned.

"Sheriff. Sir." Had his voice just cracked? Probably, he mused, pretending the minute press of Stiles' thumb against his knuckle didn't ease the tension in his shoulders at all.

Because it didn't.

He was fairly sure Sheriff Stilinski wouldn't shoot him before Stiles could explain what had happened. Fairly. And the teen couldn't seem to grasp why Derek was so very uncomfortable, had been giving him amused looks the entire drive over, fingers tapping out a stacatto rhythm against Derek's palm.

Derek didn't know what the hell was so amusing about his healthy respect for officers of the law, especially since this particular officer of the law had cornered Derek in the supermarket shortly after discovering the truth about werewolves, and had (hand resting far too casually on his sidearm) proceeded to detail exactly how he'd remove Derek's legs (so he couldn't run, it seemed) and use them to beat Derek to death should anything unfortunate befall his only child.

Derek had believed him. There had been no fear there, no hesitation, no wavering or cardiac clues to tell him the sheriff didn't mean every disturbingly-graphic word. He wondered what it meant - when he didn't have anything else to occupy his time with besides a worn copy of The Fifth Elephant - that the sheriff hadn't warned Derek away, hadn't refused to allow Stiles to associate with the pack, hadn't even hinted that he disapproved of that association.

Having known Stiles for a couple of years, Derek figured the most likely reason was that the sheriff knew his son, and chose to channel his efforts to protect him into something that might actually work rather than go toe-to-toe with the teen in a battle of wills. A fruitless battle if ever there was one.

Sheriff Stilinski was staring between them, face pinched as though he was experiencing the start of a very familiar sort of headache. There was amusement there, and Derek was sure he'd never seen such a solid similarity between father and son before. And where he was more than comfortable glowering his displeasure at Stiles when the boy tried to derive pleasure from Derek's misery, he wasn't about to try the same move on the man who had the kind of deep and involved knowledge of the cleanest methods of removing major limbs that Derek had previously associated with Hannibal Lecter.

"Honestly," the sheriff started, voice pitched a bit too high for him not to be laughing inside, "I'm happy for you both, if a little confused, but I didn't really have you pegged as a hand-holder, Derek."

The earth could swallow him at any moment.

"It's not..." he trailed off, flexing his fingers as best he could. "No. That's not what this is. We're not...not..."

"Dating?"

"Holding hands," Derek ground out, lips pulling back in an instinctive snarl.

Raising his eyebrows at their entwined fingers, the sheriff nodded slowly. "Okay." Then, because he was clearly Satan (which explained a lot about his perception of Stiles, who he'd pegged as the Devil's spawn years ago), the older man grinned. "But you are dating?"

"No!"

Stiles sighed. "Wow, nothing like vehement denial of any sort of affection, laced liberally with overtones of disgust and horror, to make a guy feel special."

"Shut up," Derek hissed. "This is your fault."

"Are you really going there?" Stiles levelled him with an unimpressed gaze that, ironically, kind of impressed Derek. "What are you, five? You're supposed to be the responsible adult here, you know, why am I always the one being reasonable? I'm a teenager. I'm supposed to be the melodramatic, angsty, immature one scrawling emo Simple Plan lyrics on my arms in Sharpie so I can post pictures of it on Tumblr. You're supposed to be the mature, reliable grown-up who doesn't freak out over stuff that's not really world-ending."

Jerking their hands up, Stiles gave them a little shake. "Does this look like a rivers-of-blood, sky-full-of-flaming-sulfur-and-a-rain-of-toads kind of apocalypse to you? No? That's because it's not. Call me when Robert Pattinson declares his unending love for the Twilight series, and I'll be happy to freak out with you, but until then, do you think you can maybe pretend that being magically superglued to me isn't your definition of the lowest circle of Hell?"

The sheriff wasn't even trying to hide his shaking shoulders now. He managed a snicker out, "At least you're only joined at the hand."

And, god, did that ever put things in perspective, the wolf thought, staring down at their hands with a new appreciation. Derek sighed heavily through his nose. "Fine. Whatever."

And it wasn't exactly Hell, he decided, although sitting on the toilet lid with his arm held out while Stiles did his best to render him deaf with an over-enthusiastic rendition of 'Waterloo' and purposely dripped sudsy water on Derek's wrist so that is ran down his arm and into his armpit came close to Purgatory, at least. They'd managed to work through the embarassment of using the toilet with company, which was really probably the biggest hurdle (although Derek managing to not strangle his hanger-on into silence when he spent a whole two hours mourning the fate of his favorite shirts, which the sheriff had been forced to cut him out of on account of them not being able to let go in order to get out of them). It was summer, so it wasn't as though Stiles had been forced to take time off of school. Even sleeping wasn't so much of an issue once they'd worked out a barrier constructed of throw pillows and a comforter to keep Stiles from latching onto Derek in his sleep like a pubescent squid.

There had been a bit of a wrinkle when Deaton had informed them that the spell could only be broken on the night of the "Dispute Moon", which was two weeks away.

"This is not how I wanted to spend my summer," Stiles had groaned.

"Right," Derek had replied, twisting to reach his free hand under their barrier to scratch at the wrist of his captured hand, "because this is my definition of fun."

Stiles had snorted. "Please. I am a veritable cornucopia of junketing."

"That's not even a word."

"Totally is."

"Is not."

"Oh, my God, are we really playing this game? Junket - to entertain, feast, or regale."

"You're making that up," Derek had mumbled petulantly, feeling oddly squirmy and discontent in his existence.

"Nope. Not even a little. It also means to travel, to go on a pleasant excursion as in a picnic, and as a noun it's a curdled milk thing, like custard."

Derek had turned his head away, toes curling restlessly as he tucked his free hand up under the pillow and tried (in vain, it turned out) to go to sleep, verys ure that this was not going in his file of favorite fortnights ever.

What followed was an interesting, albeit forced, study in Stiles.

Derek learned that Stiles didn't have much of a sweet tooth (as compared to other teens, that was), but that Reese's cups were the exception to the rule. He learned that Stiles liked sci-fi and fantasy novels, and that when presented with the possibility of not being able to play video games for two weeks, would put forth an admirable effort to learn to play with his toes. He learned that Stiles flushed easily, especially after a hot shower. He learned that Stiles preferred cream sauce on his pasta to tomato, but made tomato because of his father.

There were those things Derek learned - how Stiles' fear of losing his remaining parent manifested itself in a million little ways, like the healthy diets and pamphlets for gyms left in conspicuous places, and the underlying tone that resonated in Derek's ears when the sheriff left for work and Stiles shouted, 'be safe,' as though he could force the universe to form a protective bubble around his dad by sheer force of will.

He learned that Stiles could multitask as though he had three separate brains running at once, that he remembered things he read like his memory contained a card catalogue, that he was a puzzler. Not a New York Times Word Search kind of puzzler - Stiles was all patterns and connections and walls full of sticky notes connected with color-coded strings. He was shelves stuffed full of psychology and sociology, serial killer profiles and cultural reference books.

Derek wasn't sure what to do with all of the things he learned. Other than, of course, do his best to unlearn them. To unthink thoughts of Stiles wiggling around to ABBA in the shower and touching a spoonful of spaghetti sauce to his lips. To unnotice the thoughtful humming and small intakes of breath as he researched and pondered and worked through new mysteries. And especially, to unwish the stupid, stupid thing he wished every time Stiles' fingers tightened absently around Derek's own, long and pale against his rougher hands.

It had been a very stupid wish.

It wasn't, unfortunately, an unfamiliar wish. It was something that had niggled at him, occasionally and irritatingly, like a persistant mosquito, ever since Stiles had stupidly climbed into a squad car that contained a supposedly murderous werewolf because his curiosity far outweighed his sense of self-preservation. There was always something there, just on the edge of his vision, a low hum of emotional white noise. It meant nothing, Derek thought. Just the occasional glimpse into a life so unlike what he knew now. Something comfortable, natural, honest, not things he was accustomed to anymore.

And now he had to watch it get stirred into pasta sauce, had to smell it in eucalyptus bodywash and hear it in every cheesy pop song written in the last sixty years. And that was something Derek really, really didn't want, because it wasn't for him. Was never for him. Would never be for him. He hadn't earned it, and he never would, because Derek felt he was sometimes just too much of a moron to even figure out how to earn things like that.

By the time the Dispute Moon had rolled around, Derek's head was stuffed full of Stiles Things. Little things like his favorite Monkees song, random things like the way he organized his movies chronologically, pointless things like how he folded his socks. Which, compared to the big things (the way he kept his mother close in pictures and faded birthday cards and a cloud-soft, overstuffed quilt, but never talked about her; the way he stood with his shoulders squared and mouth pressed in a tight line in the face of Derek's misplaced anger, no longer even a little afraid), weren't all that world-shaking.

Still, it felt like too much. It was familiar, almost domestic, and it made Derek want to crawl out of his own skin, scrape Stiles out of his skull and run. It made him anxious, and he didn't much like being made anxious. He had enough going on in his life to fret over, Stiles and his inexplicable habit of worming his way into every pore and nook and cranny of Derek's life should not, could not, be added to the list. It was every bit too much as it felt.

After the casting, Derek stood in the circle for a bit, rubbing his thumb over the skin between his fingers and determinedly not cringing at how weird and loose his arm seemed to hang without Stiles tethered to the end of it. He kept his eyes on the lines of his palm, not really wanting to see how relieved the teen probably looked, not wanting to see nothing of what Derek felt reflected on his too-expressive face.

"You know," Deaton said blandly (purposefully blandly, rather than the usual cryptic-on-purpose-because-just-telling-you-what-y ou-need-to-know-to-not-die-horribly-is-just-making -things-too-easy-for-you blandness Deaton spoke with) when everyone else had gone, "there's a reason spells like that can only be cast in July."

Derek didn't answer, because he knew why. It was the same reason his kind tended to mate in July, and it made him very, very uneasy.

"It's called the Moon of Claiming. The full moon in July."

"So?"

"Just...curious, I suppose. About the whys and the hows."

Rolling his eyes, Derek twirled his car keys. "Well, when you figure it out, let me know," he grunted, though he was aleady certain Deaton had his own theories already worked out.

"I think you already know."

No, Derek thought as he turned his back on the Druid and made good his escape. He didn't know.

He didn't know anything.

At the back of his mind, though, a strange, prickly-warm thought pulsed electrically.

What, if anything, of Derek did Stiles now keep in his card catalogue memory? Had anything of Derek been tucked away in that frighteningly-observant brain? Did Stiles now carry a little bit of Derek with him, like Derek carried way too much of Stiles?

As he fell facedown on his bed, feeling like a round jello in a square mold and trying to force himself to ooze back into shape without Stiles' sleepy snuffling in his ear, he reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to care.

He just wasn't so sure he believed himself anymore.