Author's Note: I do not own Teen Wolf or its characters. This is set in an alternate universe.


Lemon Angel Cupcake

It's well and truly spring, edging into summer, and Derek's family was driving him crazy. Well, to be fair, it was mostly just his Uncle Peter who was driving Derek crazy. There had been a time when Peter had been close to being Derek's best friend. He had always been a little pushy, but now it was all the time. He always seemed to have an opinion on what Derek should be doing, and he was quite comfortable talking about that opinion any time he saw the opportunity.

Peter wasn't at all happy that Derek had quit the basketball team, and he kept pressing him to join one of the other sports teams at school. Derek did like baseball, but he wasn't ready to go back to sports yet. And he was uneasy with the way that Peter kept trying to talk him into things. He always sounded so reasonable, but then again, he had sounded reasonable when he talked Derek into having Paige get the bite. Admittedly, Derek had thought that they were just going to talk to her about getting the bite rather than having her get the bite then and there, but still, Peter had talked him into the idea, and it had backfired spectacularly.

Derek didn't trust his judgment anymore when it came to Peter's ideas, and he also couldn't help but notice the way that Peter watched him anymore, like Derek wasn't something to be trusted any longer. He'd been like that since the fire. And Derek could understand that, at least a little bit. It was true that Derek had almost gotten them all killed. He still felt guilty about that a lot of the time. It was strange to have Peter watch him like he was dangerous.

So when Peter wouldn't stop harassing him back getting back on the sports teams, Derek escaped the house for a while. The big problem wasn't entirely Peter. It was also how nobody seemed to have a problem with Peter harassing him about this sort of thing. Derek knew that his parents and Laura thought that he needed get out more and get involved with people and things at school. But he couldn't. Not yet at least. Maybe next year.

The biggest problem was that he didn't, couldn't trust people anymore. Pack was fine. He had no trouble with Boyd, Erica, and Isaac, or his family. Adults he had known for years weren't exempt for the most part. After Kate, Derek couldn't bring himself to trust people. He spent most of his time around people who weren't pack on guard and hyper vigilant. It was exhausting and it drained Derek. He had never really been that good at dealing with people in the first place, and when he spent all his time trying to figure out if they had ulterior motives, he was even worse at it.

Somehow while he was stuck in his head, Derek had wandered into Beacon Hills Cemetery. Derek sighed and headed for Nana's marker. It wouldn't hurt to say hi. If she had still been here, Nana would have made Peter back off. She always seemed to be able to understand what he was feeling even when he couldn't articulate it well. He'd tried to explain to his parents why he didn't want to get involved with a bunch school activities anymore, but he hadn't been able to make them understand.

As Derek made his way through the plots, he spotted a familiar figure sitting cross legged in front of one of the other headstones. It was easy enough for him to pick up the sound of muffled sobs, and without even thinking about it, Derek changed directions to walk over to Stiles. The other teen didn't even notice when Derek stood right next to him. Derek carefully crouched down and cleared his throat.

"Stiles?" He didn't ask if Stiles was okay. It was clear that he wasn't, and he wasn't going to insult the other teen by asking stupid questions.

Stiles looked up with wide eyes and tried to scrub away his tears. It didn't quite work. Derek just waited for him to speak.

"It's the anniversary. Dad's working a double, and Scott is off with Allison. It's the first time he's ever forgotten. I just don't want to hang around an empty house by myself." He sniffed a little, "It still sucks, but it sucks a little less."

Derek held out a hand and pulled Stiles to his feet. "Come on. How do you feel about Star Wars?"

Stiles blinked at him. "It's awesome?"

Derek nodded. "Okay. How about we go back to your place? I'll make cupcakes, and we can have a movie marathon."

The Stilinski kitchen wasn't what Derek was used to, but it had everything he needed, and it was easy enough to make himself at home. It didn't take him long to put together the batter for the lemon angel food cupcakes that he was currently working on. Stiles actually had fresh lemons in his fridge, and that had been the one ingredient that Derek had been worried about. Once the cupcakes were in the oven and a timer was set, Derek and Stiles settled in front of the TV and started A New Hope.

Derek had to take a break about thirty minutes in to pull the cupcakes from the oven, but one of the nice things about angel food cake was it needed to completely cool before you really did anything with it. So once he pulled them out, Derek set them aside to cool and went back to the movie. When they took a break to switch to The Empire Strikes Back, Derek popped back into the kitchen to see if the cupcakes were cool enough for him to frost yet. They weren't, so he went back to their movies.

It was nice watching Star Wars with a fellow fan. His sisters didn't really care about the series, and Peter was sick of it after the first five times. Only Derek's dad shared his love of sci-fi really, and he was more of a Star Trek fan. Derek liked Star Trek just fine, but he preferred Star Wars. By the end of the second movie, the cupcakes were cool enough for Derek to ice them. Stiles wandered into the kitchen and perched on the counter to watch Derek whipped up a simple lemon icing to drizzle over the cupcakes.

"Do you have any milk?" he asked as he poured the icing over the cupcakes. "We'll probably want something to drink with these."

Stiles fetched the two of them glasses of milk and then they settled back on the couch with their cupcakes for Return of the Jedi. About half through the film, Derek realized that Stiles was using him as a pillow. Not that Derek minded much. They were almost done with the movie when the sheriff came home. Derek tensed slightly, but the man just glanced over at them and shook his head with a fond smile. When the movie finally ended, Stiles got up and stretched. Derek also got to his feet.

"I should probably head home."

Stiles sighed and followed him to the door. Derek was halfway down the porch stairs when Stiles called his name, making Derek turn around.

"Hey Derek? Thanks for today."

Derek just smiled at him and waved goodbye. "Not a problem."