Sweater Weather
It occurs to Stiles the third time he walks in on his dad on a date that it's time to move out. When he moved back home after college it was only supposed to be short term until his degree started to pay for itself. They weren't supposed to be bachelor bros or have any kind of knowledge of each other's sex lives. Stiles was so very done with getting an eyeful of some rando with their tongue down his dad's throat. Bleh.
When he hears that Derek has finished restoring the old Hale house, he doesn't exactly rub his hands together like Daffy Duck, but he comes pretty close. Derek would have plenty of room, and he'd probably let him stay for a few days—ah months, until he could get his life together.
It's surprisingly easy to insinuate himself into Derek's space. He just knocks on the door and when Derek opens it, he doesn't exactly look surprised to see Stiles.
"So I could really use a place to stay."
Derek blinks, and since he doesn't immediately slam the door in his face, Stiles takes the opportunity to lay out the fairest deal he can think of where he helps put the finishing touches on the restored Hale House, and Derek lets him stay there rent free for an unspecified amount of time.
He's in the middle of giving a moving speech about the true joys of charity, and the unparalleled horror of walking in on an aged parent having sex, when Derek loses interest and steps back to reveal his friends lounging on various bits of furniture.
Derek shrugs "It's the pack's house Stiles, you could have moved in yesterday."
Stiles refrains from doing a stupid little dance and hurries to follow Derek who's briefly pointing out the kitchen, bathroom, and the room he'll be staying in. When Stiles opens the door, he's a little surprised. The room looks a lot like his did back at his dad's house. He shoots Derek a questioning look, Derek shrugs again but doesn't look at him.
"I wanted it to be exactly like it was before the fire. This is—this was my old room. I had everything restored, everything I could restore anyway."
He doesn't follow Stiles into the room, just stands at the door and watches Stiles run his fingers over all the little re-created memories. Stiles becomes absorbed with studying everything from his Misfits poster on the wall in front of his bed, to the dark blue jean jacket slung over the back of his desk chair. Derek can practically see him filing away every detail as if he'd never be able to see them again.
"You can stay as long as you need to Stiles." He says it softly, but Stiles still gives a little jump at the sound of his voice as if he'd forgotten Derek was there.
The others don't really stay for more than a few days. Scott and Kira go back to their apartment. The place was flooded for a few days when the kid who lived upstairs tried to make his apartment into a swimming pool.
Boyd and Erica were only stopping in to pick up Isaac and some supplies, and then they were heading out again to finish seeing the world. They loaded up Boyd's old range rover and headed for Vegas.
Derek seems to avoid him after the other's leave, and Stiles can't blame him. Starting and keeping a pack meant everything to Derek. He'd gone through the trouble of fully restoring his childhood home, and even six years later he still couldn't get anyone to stick around. If he wasn't careful, he'd get attached. Well Stiles was going to stick around, and Derek was just going to have to deal with it.
"The downstairs bathroom is off the kitchen. I keep a fully stocked pantry in the basement. Do not. Touch. My Bacon." Stiles wants to laugh but Derek has his serious eyebrows on, and Stiles makes mental a note to buy his own bacon.
"No parties, no loud music after nine, and no intense smells."
Stiles quickly agrees to the rules. He already knows how to live with a wolf, so he goes back to the room Derek gave him to unpack.
Derek really was meticulous about restoring his childhood bedroom. There are a few paperbacks on the bookshelf with burnt edges, and Stiles understands how much they must have meant to Derek, that he salvaged hem rather than just buy new ones.
The room holds so many secrets about Derek, Stiles has to wonder why the wolf put him there. He wasn't exactly Derek's best friend or anything, but now he was living in a room Derek had kept locked inside his heart for years.
He supposed he could move to a different room. It was a big house, after all, but if he was being honest with himself, he really didn't want to. Strangely enough, he suddenly wanted to know everything there was to know about Derek Hale.
He finds the guitar hidden at the back of Derek's closet a few days later. He hadn't been snooping, he was only nosy about the things Derek left open to him. He's rifling through the closet looking for a sweater. Derek's sweaters are far nicer than his and while the winter had been mild, a good comfortable sweater made all the difference in the drafty mansion.
He pulls on an oversized green sweater, and that's when he spots it. The guitar is old, and only has light burn marks on the body. Stiles plucks at one of the strings and it makes a dull but clear sound.
"I could teach you some chords if you want." Stiles jumps and almost drops the thing. Derek is at his door again, arms crossed, eyebrows accusing. Stiles carefully sets the guitar on the bed, letting his fingers run over the rough burn marks.
"Do you think you could play something for me on this?"
Derek tilts his head, and when Stiles turns to look at him, he seems to really be considering the request. Derek moves closer, and leans in, and Stiles ignores the little bunny in his brain that thinks Derek is about to kiss him. He picks up the guitar plucks the same string Stiles had. "Maybe." He's close enough that he can feel Derek's breath on his cheek.
Stile's awareness widens, and he can't stop his skin from heating. He feels warmer with Derek standing next to him than he ever did in an expensive sweater. He swallows and gives himself a mental shake. Derek was his friend. They were friends, sort of, and Derek was off limits.
"How about I cook? And we could have a bonfire later?" Derek gives him a long look before nodding. He takes the guitar with his when he leaves the room.
There's a huge oak tree clinging to the edge of a crumbling hill behind the house. He finds Derek there after dinner seated on one of the massive roots. The fire is already going, and it makes everything warm and bright. Derek nods at a spot next to him, and Stiles manages to climb up, with an agility he had no idea he knew he had.
Derek strums the opening chords to David Bowie's 'Heroes' and Stiles perks up, "Bowie? You listen to Bowie?" Derek shoots him a glare.
"Are you even old enough to know who David Bowie is?"
Stiles rolls his eyes "My dad listens to classic rock in the garage every Saturday night when he's not working. Besides I don't know anyone who's never heard Heroes on the radio. Like you'd have to be living in complete isolation. In a cave or an abandoned train station or…"
"Stiles!" Derek says through his teeth, and Stiles decides to settle down, because he really wants to hear Derek sing. Derek plays a few more notes and gets a faraway look in his eyes.
"My family used to come here years ago. My mom would pack this huge meal and we'd all hike to this spot. It wasn't a long walk and we all just sort of made our way here on our own. We'd chase squirrels and eat mushrooms and put weird stuff in our pockets for mom. One time I wanted to bring her this tiny purple flower I found, but I didn't want it to die so I filled my pocket with dirt. And when I gave it to her, she acted like it was the most perfect flower she'd ever gotten even half squished from my pocket. She was really good that way."
"Yeah," Stiles nodded "Yeah most moms are really great that way."
A soft look comes over Derek and he smiles a little
"I like when you do that."
Derek blinks and looks at him "Do what?" Stiles shrugs and looks away because it's kind of weird trying to flirt with Derek Hale. Kind weird trying to flirt in general, but he can be honest. It was the only advice his dad ever gave him about dating, be honest with your feelings Stiles.
"Sometimes I think you don't know how to smile, and it's really nice when you do." Derek's lips twitch and for a moment he looks like he's trying to keep his face from doing anything, before he breaks into an even bigger smile.
"You know she taught me how to play."
"Your mom played guitar?"
Derek picks at a bit of grass and his smile disappears again. "Yeah, she was really good. She mostly stopped playing when she became an alpha, but she used to sit with me, and we'd play something together. Sometimes we'd just make up silly nonsense songs, but Heroes was one of her favorites. I hadn't played it in forever and it just brought back a lot of memories I guess."
Sometimes all Stiles does is think. He analyzes, and over analyzes. He looks at each thread and tries to make connections. Just now, he decides, is no time for thinking. He plants a soft kiss at the corner of Derek's mouth, and when Derek turns to look at him, he brushes his lips just briefly across Derek's.
For a moment Stiles feels a little spellbound. Derek is looking at him like he's just realized something and Stiles kind of hates that they've wasted a lot of time not kissing. He opens his mouth to say so, but then Derek leans in and they're kissing and it's much more important that he focus on the way Derek's mouth feels against his.
It's good. So good Stiles has to pull away or combust. Derek shakes his head and Stiles decides it's best not to say anything about the blush that spreads across his cheeks and up the back of his ears.
"If you ask me if I want to go steady, I will tear your arms off." He says grumpily.
Stiles laughs and realizes that it's been a while since he last smiled too.
Winter was coming to an end, so Stiles decides to start exploring the Preserve. He'd gotten lost in the place enough times; he figures it couldn't hurt to familiarize himself. There's a Hag who lives in a hollowed-out tree in the Preserve. She's filthy and there's an equally filthy ball of fur that yaps at him when he wanders by, nearly scaring him out of his skin.
When he reaches his hand out to her, she hisses and throws rocks at him. It's late winter so he goes home and brings her back a blanket and a small basket of food. This time she hits him in the side of the head with a mud ball, but at least it's not a rock.
The next day he lures her to his house with a basket of apples and she curses his bloodline. The curse mostly just cured his dad's back pain and gave Stiles a tricky case of magic-speak for a few days. He had to be careful not to start any sentences with "I wish…" but it wasn't all that much of a problem.
The Hag is 14. Her parents kicked her out because she was insolent and disobedient; And she practiced the dark arts.
She uses the apples to bake Stiles a pie.
Stiles starts to like the Hag and her yappy ball of floof. The Hag spends a lot of time baking and does the dishes, so Stiles really can't complain. She prefers to be called The Hag, but lately she's been letting Stiles call her Amelia. She says she doesn't mind if Stiles calls her dog Floof.
Derek doesn't say anything when he finds them in the kitchen with their heads together going over recipes. He tucks her yappy little Floof-dog under one arm, and takes an entire pie for himself, and tells them he's going out back to chop wood. Stiles takes a minute to imagine Derek in with his shirt off chopping wood and ignores the way the Hag gags when she figures out what's going on.
It's Spring and Amelia-the-Hag insists they celebrate spring equinox. The celebration mostly involves spring cleaning Grandpa Stillinski's house and installing a new garden. The Hag insists this requires an entire roast pig as well and when Stiles goes to trade a skeptical glance with Derek he just nods solemnly and goes to get the pig.
"You just want to eat roast pig." Stiles grumbles while digging out the tangle of weeds and old bushes that had been his mother's garden. Neither he nor his dad had been able to get things to grow the way she had and the memory of her on the weekends in her old jeans and gardening gloves made both their hearts ache, so they'd just given up on it. But his daughter wanted a garden and Stiles was damn-well going to give her one.
His dad helps him move rocks and dig out old bushes. They clean out the garage and load all the junk into his dad's old pickup. By the time Derek returns with all the gardening supplies, Stiles is a grimy sweaty mess. He gently moves Stiles to a deck chair and hands him a glass of iced tea.
He and Amelia take over the garden and have the new flower beds planted within a few hours. When the sun starts to go down, they get cleaned up and stuff themselves with so much food, Stiles thinks none of them will need to eat again for a couple days.
The Hag falls asleep in a deck chair while they clean up, and the sheriff takes her up to bed, yawning widely and mumbling about getting some rest himself.
Stiles builds up the fire in the fire pit and squeezes himself into next to Derek on his chair. Derek moves and wiggles until Stiles sinks comfortably into his side. Stiles rests his head on Derek's shoulder and plays with the soft fabric under his cheek.
"Thank you for everything."
"You don't have to thank me Stiles."
"I want to. I want to thank you for being here and helping, because we need you."
Derek places a small kiss on the top of his head, and tightens his arm around Stiles' waist.
"It is nice to be appreciated," he says, letting his lips curve into a small smile.
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