Stiles toys with the carnation in the miniature vase. Going out to eat with Derek always involves restaurants with flowers. Reproductive organs all over the place. Plant reproductive organs that is. Any other kind are going to have to wait until they leave the public place.

Nudging his foot gently under the table, Derek says gently, "you seem uncomfortable."

Stiles shrugs. "I guess, I mean, it's sort of crazy, don't you think? Like I thought I was seeing ghosts, but then it turned out that I was a ghost the whole time?"

"Who's the ghost in this, me or you?" Derek inquires.

"My point," Stiles loads up his fork with more eggs, "is that I thought everything was one way, and it wasn't, but now we're back to normal? I dunno, like, it's just weird. But whatever, obviously it's not bothering you, unless waffles are your comfort food," he points his fork at Derek's plate, "actually, waffles could totally be a comfort food. Wait, they're my comfort food!"

Cautiously raising an eyebrow, Derek transfers one of his waffles to Stiles' plate. "And clearly you need it more than I do. I'm fine, Stiles," he reassures firmly.

Stiles moves the waffle back to Derek's plate. Derek will never admit it, but he likes waffles more than anybody Stiles knows. He's a seven year old at heart, and there's been many a morning when Stiles served up waffles with whipped cream smiley faces and big, manly Derek didn't make a noise of protest.

"I'm calm," Derek explains as he spears a square of waffle, "because nothing's really changed. Before we went to Deaton's, there was this fire burning in me to be near you, and close to you, and good to you. Like a compulsion."

"But now that's gone?"

Derek looks startled. "Of course not. That's just love, I guess. It's makes it hard to function sometimes."

Stiles fiddles with the straw of his drink, watching the plastic turn white as he contorts it to and fro. How is it that even when Derek isn't bewitched, he still manages to out-romance Stiles? Here Stiles had been hoping that the reason Derek had always been so astonishingly devoted was because of the spell. Apparently he's just always amazing and Stiles can't rouse a proper level of fiery romantic compulsion. Maybe he should try writing bad poetry about Derek. Scott could probably give him some tips.

At least when they leave the restaurant, Derek forgets to hold the door like he usually does. Balances things out a little.

XXXXX

"I thought magic couldn't mess with free will," Isaac runs a hand through his curls in confusion.

"So did I, but apparently fairy magic can. Crazy, right?" Stiles asks as he slams the meat tenderizer down onto one of the sides of meat on the counter. "I totally did not see it coming. Like, plot twist out of nowhere!"

Isaac doesn't say anything for a while, just carefully mixes together a bowl of spices. "I dunno. I could see it."

Stiles brings down the tenderizer again. He misses and it hits the table with a bang. "What do you, uh, when you say that, I mean, it's cool, I'm not offended or anything, but just, uh, you could see that?"

"Don't get weirded out," Isaac says quickly, "Derek was just acting sort of strange for the past month, is all. I mean, you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Yeah," Stiles says softly, "yeah I do."

Bless him, Isaac falls silent again. Stiles appreciates that characteristic in a person, heaven knows he's terrible at it himself. They work through preparing the meat, and the sounds of the rest of the pack outside, milling around the grill, filter through the back door. Derek's gruffly barking something at Erica. Stiles had forgotten that he used to do that.

Without any conscious thought, Stiles' mouth opens and blurts out, "Sometimes I think about how he didn't have a choice and I just-" he makes a grossed out face and wiggles his fingers.

Isaac nods pensively. "I can't say anything that would make that untrue."

Isaac's the most emotionally aware out of any of them, and it sucks.

Derek bursts in through the back door, hollering behind him, "put that down, Scott!" before holding out his hands to the two men at the kitchen counter.

Isaac hands Derek the tray of meat, and Derek makes a grunt of approval before pivoting to exit through the back door again.

"Oh!" Derek stops short, tossing his head up like he's forgotten something. "Stiles."

Like he's checking off an item on a to-do list, Derek comes back to the counter and kisses Stiles on the cheek. "Sorry," he says ruefully.

The back door slams shut behind him when he goes.

XXXXX

Stiles surveys the snowdrifts of rose petals that have accumulated on his bed. They've all shriveled up from so long lying out in the air. He sweeps some of the curling red petals off of his bedspread and remarks, "they never tell you how inconvenient it is to clean up these things. They're like those styrofoam packing peanuts when you let them out of the box. Except less fun to crush."

He bends over the bed to brush a few off of his pillow. They tumble down and down and down onto the floor, where they mix with the dust ground into his carpet.

A line of warmth comes up behind him, gripping his hips, and Derek rumbles, "I had plans for our month-iversary. We got distracted, but," he runs his fingertips underneath Stiles' waistband, "how about we pick up where we left off?"

Stiles lets Derek push him down onto the bed. It's familiar. Like riding a bicycle.

"That was one hell of a line you used back there," Stiles has to point out as Derek efficiently pulls down his jeans, "don't think I'm going to let that slip, Mr. Casanova. Although," he muses as Derek quickly unbuckles his belt, "anything beats 'make love to me.' Yikes."

Derek chuckles ruefully as he presses down onto him, skin overhot and expectant. "So stupid," he mutters to himself, before reaching one hand underneath Stiles' body, and effectively purging any coherent thought from Stiles' head.

XXXXX

Stiles pauses CoD and checks his phone. He thought he heard a text message coming in.

Nothing. The Phantom Text Noise strikes again. Wishful thinking.

XXXXX

Stiles slaps the folders of fairy info onto the coffee table, then sits himself down onto Derek's lap. It's still his spot, dammit. Jackson can take his sour look elsewhere.

"If I could," Lydia inquires in a tone that makes it clear that she will whether you like it or not, "I've made some progress on deciphering the directionality of the fairy dust in the preserve."

"Wait," Derek rubs a hand across his forehead, "when did we start... analyzing the fairy dust?"

"Last week," Lydia answers promptly, before carrying on, "my point being that the theory we had about the fairies converting to a nomadic lifestyle? Seems to have some merit."

"When did we talk about nomadic fairies?" Derek asks Stiles quietly.

"Two weeks ago," Scott answers.

Come on, Scott. It's basic werewolf etiquette to pretend that you can only hear at human levels.

Lydia eyes them all murderously. Scott mimes zipping his lips.

"So," she bites out, "if we're all done interrupting. The fairies have migrated south, which explains why we haven't found any more evidence of them here."

Stiles taps his chin with his forefinger. "So do we follow them? We've got basically the most info on fairies than anybody else in the state, we can't just let the fairies run off to LA or wherever and go nuts with nobody to swoop in and save the day, you know?"

"I'd like to see the Espinoza pack try to deal with fairies," Boyd mutters grimly.

Boyd and the Espinoza pack did not mix well the one time they met.

"The Espinozas wouldn't know a lemonwort tincture if it bit them in the ass," Erica agrees.

Erica and the Espinozas had mixed even worse.

To Derek's questioning expression, Stiles explains, "lemonwort tinctures give fairies allergic reactions. We talked about that-"

"-weeks ago," Derek finishes with the air of someone fed up. "Where was I when we all talked about this?"

"Sticking your tongue down-"

"Rhetorical question, Jackson," Derek growls.

Stiles feels Derek tense underneath him for a moment as he thinks, then doesn't feel anything at all as he's abruptly displaced from his perch on Derek's lap and sent bouncing against the other cushions on the couch. He can feel a cool vacuum of air where Derek used to be.

Derek leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, looking at every member of the pack in turn. "I need to be updated. Tell me everything you learned while I was... out."

XXXXX

Derek takes the last bite of his steak, grilled to perfection by Isaac and Stiles, master chefs extraordinaire.

"Hey Stiles."

"What?"

"Can I have the rest of your steak?"

"I'm kind of eating it, dude."

"I kind of have a werewolf appetite."

"I'm a teenage guy."

Derek pouts.

Dammit.

Stiles passes Derek the rest of his steak, then stands up to go scrounge up a hot dog bun or something.

XXXXX

It's dark when Stiles wakes up. Sex always messes with his sleep pattern, shifts him out of step with normal routines. It's two in the morning and he's wide awake.

Derek lies next to him. Lately, instead of his usual stick like glue cuddling technique, he's taken to sleeping like he's just collapsed after a long fight. Limbs strewn across the battlefield of a bed, hair sticking out every way except for the direction it's supposed to go. His right hand is clenched into a fist.

Stiles gently reaches out to uncurl Derek's white knuckled fingers. It always has to be a fight with this man. Stiles had thought that Derek was giving up his siege on life, but was proven wrong in the worst way when they uncoiled the spell from Derek's eyes. Something incredible would be needed for Derek to give up the fierceness coiled up inside his muscles now. He has warrior carved into his bones.

Prying Derek's fingers open in the liquid blackness of the early morning, Stiles finds a cluster of rose petals crumpled into Derek's palm. He can't even smell the scent of them anymore, they've been crushed so. Derek must have found the last few still lingering on Stiles' bed after their vigorous rechristening of it.

Eight petals. What possessed Derek to gather them up? Once, Stiles was able to read him like a book. A book with cardboard pages and bright illustrations. Now, he's a tome tucked away on a high shelf, and Stiles can't find a ladder.

XXXXX

Zuko is about halfway through cutting off his weird ponytail thing when Derek finally shows up, using his key to come straight into the Stilinski living room.

Stiles dramatically splays a hand over his heart. "Where have you been? I thought you were gone forever! Dead! Deceased! Shuffled off the mortal coil!"

Derek watches him blankly for a moment before his familiar expression of tolerant amusement snaps onto his face. "I'm seven minutes late."

"Seven minutes," Stiles gasps out, "during which I was fraught with angst! Angst, Derek! You know it well."

Chuckling at some inside joke with himself, Derek joins Stiles on the couch. After a moment, he leans down and rests his head over Stiles' heart.

Stiles rolls his eyes to himself and settles against the arm of the couch, turning the volume up. Like Derek can't already hear his heart across the room. No, he's always got to get front row seats to the show.

One of Derek's hands comes up to rub at the back of his neck. Then it stills and hangs back down towards the floor.

A few minutes later, Derek shifts his entire body weight, flipping onto his other side and making Stiles huff out a breath when Derek elbows his gut.

After that, Derek sighs like somebody's trying to mess up his perfectly gelled hair, and tugs Stiles' body down the couch so he's lying horizontal. Derek then clambers back up Stiles' torso to rest his head back over Stiles' heart.

"Okay," Stiles snaps the fourth time Derek tries to rearrange them, "do you have restless legs... arms... body syndrome or something? The cuddling thing isn't usually so difficult."

"I just," Derek rolls his neck, trying to crack it, "this is really uncomfortable. I don't know why I used to do it."

Stiles shrugs, still facing the TV and not watching a second of it. "Sometimes you do stuff that hurts because the hurt doesn't, y'know, matter when the other person is happy?"

Derek makes a noise of understanding and sits up, getting into a more comfortable position on his side of the couch.

Stiles had been bearing Derek's 200 pound weight whenever Derek wanted to cuddle for the past month without complaint.

XXXXX

Exiting the Denny's, apron thrown over his shoulder, Stiles casts his gaze around the parking lot.

Just his jeep.

XXXXX

When Stiles lets himself into the loft, he finds it empty. He's beaten Derek to his own house. Or rather, place of residence.

And it's a sty. Stiles is pretty sure the subway car was cleaner. This is what happens when you let a werewolf have a bachelor pad.

So he dumps some dishes into the dishwasher, picks up a few random pieces of underwear off the floor, puts the Salvation Army "throw the stuff you want to donate into this giant bag" bag on the kitchen table so Derek will see it.

Domesticity never seems as much fun as when your chances at it are getting slimmer and slimmer.

XXXXX

Stiles will give them one thing: they still have a lot of sex.

Stiles will give them one more: he still ends up waking at weird hours in the night.

When Stiles opens his eyes to Derek's bedroom, he's greeted by the familiar shape of Derek's silhouette, backlit by the bone white moonlight. He looks made of stone, from the sharp edge of his nose to the hard, bent curve of his shoulders.

It makes an odd contrast to the plush curves of the teddy bear reclining on Derek's dresser.

Derek's granite hands come up to rub at his temples, and the craggy lines of his eyebrows pull together.

"You okay?" Stiles murmurs, half asleep.

Leaning over to kiss Stiles, Derek replies, "just thinking," then lies back down.

Stiles would have happily gone his entire life without knowing what a halfhearted kiss from Derek felt like.

Beside him, Derek falls asleep quickly, contorted into a position that involves curling up into a ball like a porcupine, fists clenched. It's becoming a habit. Derek's going to be waking up with nail marks in his palm.

Stiles can't fall asleep. He can't mess around on his phone either, the light will wake Derek up. So he lies back. Watches the ceiling. It stares back at him.

Fuck you, ceiling, Stiles doesn't have time to deal with your uncommunicative shit.

The ceiling stares back.

Maybe Stiles doesn't care what the ceiling is thinking.

The ceiling stares back.

Fine, maybe he does. Maybe he misses the days when they'd talk about their feelings, even if it made him feel like a preteen girls. Where had all of his sharing and caring time with the ceiling gone?

The ceiling stares back.

But who is he to demand to know what the ceiling is thinking? What gives him the right? The ceiling never got a say in any of it. If had a choice to begin with, it probably wouldn't want to be involved with Stiles in the first place.

XXXXX

"Derek hasn't been over in a while."

"Yeah. I dunno, Dad, he's got some stuff going on."

"...alright Stiles. Do you at least know if he and I are still on for baseball Wednesday night?"

"You'd have to ask him."

XXXXX

The beach trip was Scott's idea, but everybody else jumped onboard in no time. After weeks of having their noses buried in old books or the forest floor, it would be good to just bake in the summer sun on the beach like stereotypical young adults for once.

Melissa and the Sheriff even end up getting invited. Mostly because Stiles and Scott have decided to play matchmaker and the pack agreed to help. What are friends for if not for help with a game of parent trap?

A smattering of tourists are wincing as they brave the giant tub of ice water known as the Pacific, but as native Californians, most of the pack knows that the real fun of a beach trip comes from baking in a nest of warm sand.

Stiles wriggles back and forth, creating a furrow beneath himself.

"And you make dog jokes about us," Erica scoffs, "you're like one of those dogs that has to walk in a circle three times before lying down."

"I never said being a dog was a bad thing," Stiles counters, "especially if it means all of this sandy comfortableness."

Lydia primly hands Erica one of her folding chairs. "We prefer not to get sand in our bathing suits."

To each their own. Stiles shakes his head back and forth to make a dip in the sand for his head. Perfect.

It takes a half hour for the whole pack to unpack their supplies, and they look like a full campsite by the time they're done. There's a dining area under a pop up canopy, four different beach umbrellas, double that number of coolers, and enough beach blankets to drape the Taj Mahal.

Stiles notes with satisfaction that they've managed to maneuver his dad and Melissa under the same umbrella. Now if only they could stop reading their respective magazines and talk to each other...

Isaac accidentally drops (throws) his drink across the glossy pages of Us Weekly(so his dad has a thing for celebrity gossip, give him some slack, he leads a stressful life,) and Time.

"I've never been more proud of that boy in my life," Stiles confides fondly to Derek, who's reclining nearby in a swimsuit that doesn't show nearly as much skin as it should.

"Mmmm," Derek mumbles sleepily, "he can be manipulative."

"It's the puppy eyes," Stiles agrees.

Erica keeps getting sunburned, then healing. It's disconcerting. Lydia looks like a model for nautically themed bikinis, Allison and Scott are busy playing beach volleyball like the cliches they are, and the other guys are trying to throw each other into the waves while conveniently ignoring how many of the tourists' cameras are pointed at them instead of the ocean. It's a good day.

Derek seems to have decided early on that he would not join in the revelry and instead stay with Stiles, who's working on his tan. He's going to be a bronze statue by the time he's done, thank mid afternoon, Derek falls asleep, letting loose the occasional growling snore that flutters the edge of the beach blanket.

He still looks like he's fighting someone, tense and curled in. How long has it been since Stiles overheated because of Derek cleaving to his side like a limpet? Too long, Stiles decides.

Carefully, Stiles lifts himself up onto his elbows, trying not to shower any sand onto Derek's face. Sand is probably a pain to get out of stubble. He inches over the striped terrycloth until he can lower himself down onto his side, back lined up with Derek's chest. It would probably be easier to be the big spoon, but to hell with that, Derek's arms are the best blanket ever. Letting out another grumbling snore, Derek unconsciously brings an arm up to scratch his nose. Before he can drop the arm back onto the ground, Stiles redirects its path so that Derek's arm is slung over his waist. Spooning achieved.

It's very almost not at all perfect.

Stiles tries to just savor the feel of Derek's weight draped over him again.

Boyd and Erica leave first, packing a handful of coolers and umbrellas into Erica's truck. Next go Allison, Isaac, and Scott, or "the three amigos" as Stiles likes to call them. Lydia and Jackson make their own stylish exits, (with Derek it's dramatic entrances, with Lydia and Jackson, it's stylish exits,) and to Stiles' satisfaction, his dad takes Melissa home.

The sun is starting to set, so Stiles prods Derek awake.

"You had one hell of a nap. Has somebody not been getting enough sleep?"

Derek rasps a hand over his stubble, and winces as a few sand grains fall out. "Insomnia. Nothing new."

Stiles purses his lips in sympathy. For an insomniac, Derek looks good. There's no light more flattering than a California sunset on the beach, and Derek is as close to a golden god as any mortal can get. Derek blinks, and striped shadows cut across his cheeks as his lashes fall, then rise again.

With a jolt, Stiles realizes that Derek's been looking back into Stiles' eyes with as much intensity as Stiles was looking into his. He feels like he's been caught staring at something he shouldn't.

"You," Derek marvels, "are beautiful."

"Um, thanks?" Derek doesn't need to sound so perplexed by it. Stiles is the only one that's allowed to be deprecating about his looks.

"And smart."

"That's what they tell me."

"And funny," Derek observes, his brows knitting together. There's a puzzle he's trying to solve, but Stiles doesn't have the first clue what it is.

So he says, "aw shucks, you're going to make me blush."

"I love you," Derek says. It sounds like he's testing the words out on his tongue, trying to make them fit. As if all that practice he'd put in saying them was all for naught. "I love you," he repeats.

"Could you stop sounding like you're trying to convince yourself?" Stiles finally sighs.

Derek doesn't have anything to say to that. He just grips Stiles' face and holds it to his throat, tucks his chin on top of Stiles' head, and holds on until the sun sets.

XXXXX

Stiles walks in on Derek, the teddy bear, and the Salvation Army "throw the stuff you want to donate into this giant bag" bag. He feels ever so slightly like a husband walking in on a cheating... husband. Or maybe teddy bear. The point is, Derek looks like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That's a much better metaphor, why didn't Stiles go with that?

He waves a hand at the bag, the bear, and the boy. "Salvation Army looking for old toys?"

Derek coughs, then says, "yeah."

Stiles waits. It takes some doing, but he keeps his mouth shut and he waits.

"I- neither of us really like it," Derek explains, still loosely hanging onto the teddy bear. It dangles by one paw, bright button eyes downcast and forlorn.

"You were, uh, pretty enthusiastic about it for a while." Stiles moves closer to sit on the kitchen table. He swings his feet back and forth, and watches his shoelaces flutter.

Derek runs a broad thumb over the face of the teddy bear. "It made so much sense at the time, but- it's just- it's just a teddy bear. I don't understand why I thought it would be a good idea. More and more, I don't understand why it was a good idea."

"The teddy bear?"

Derek pauses. He's like a high bandwidth video running on dial-up, these days. So many moments he spends in his head.

"Yes," he answers. "The teddy bear."

There's something churning in Stiles' gut, but it's been churning for a while, so it doesn't bother him any more than it already is.

He remembers sitting in Algebra, and being shown the asymptote of a graph. A curving line that gets closer and closer to the axis, but never, ever touches it. Never crosses over into the netherworld of negative numbers, just strays closer and closer to the edge, lets the tension grow. Stiles always thought it would just be better if the damn curve could cross the axis already, it was just putting off the inevitable. It would be better to exist in the horrors on the other side of the axis if it meant breaking the tension.

Stiles crosses the axis.

"Donate the teddy bear," he says dully. "Also, we aren't talking about the teddy bear."

"Stiles I-" Derek looks at him with apologetic eyes.

"I know,' Stiles nods, hopping off of the table, "it's okay. We were sort of doomed from the start."

"I really did love you," Derek offers helplessly. A last minute consolation prize. "There just isn't that... fire anymore."

Ah yes. The legendary, all consuming fire of love that Derek had for him once. Well, maybe the fact that Stiles never felt that will make it easier to walk out of the door.

It doesn't.