A/N: Another happy chapter, since those two are finally together and they deserve some joy. This time, though, with a twist. Have fun!

Chapters will be updated weekly. Special warnings would be at the bottom notes of the chapters when needed.

Summary: 'Derek glanced at Stiles, who's smile dissolved into a light frown. He moved his hands again, and Derek flicked his eyes back to Sheriff Stilinski, silently asking for help. The Sheriff took a few steps forwards. "Stiles is mute." He said.'

I own nothing.

Chapter 11

Now my feet turn the corner back home.

Sun turns the evening to rose.

Stars turning high up above.

You turned me into somebody loved.

Summer came in a blink of an eye. One day Stiles was still studying hard for his finals, and in the next he was already at the woods in a gray tank top and black shorts, waiting for Derek to arrive and join him on a swim in the pool they found only months ago.

It was just like Erica described in what seemed like yesterday.

Heated kisses and sweaty skin, hot nearly-naked nights in each other's rooms, freedom and the ability to finally be together without any second obligations other than Derek's work at the record shop. Stiles quit the garage he was working at and soon found a better part-time job at the kitchen of the town's best diner along with Scott, who got the opening as a waiter.

Derek soon discovered that Stiles really loved to cook. He told Derek he used to make lunches and dinners for his father ever since his mother passed, inheriting her love for the kitchen and for food. He told him she always used to say cooking helped her think and calmed her down, whenever a much younger version of Stiles joined her in the kitchen. And after she died, Stiles found out it worked well for him too.

He turned Derek into his own personal guinea pig and experimented the recipes he learned at the diner on him, taking notes on Derek's reactions and paying attention to his comments and favorites. Sometimes even Scott joined his brother in on those experiments, dragging Allison Argent along with him.

Summer was going perfectly.

It happened one day in the middle of July, when Stiles had Derek all for himself in his kitchen, testing the most recent recipe he learned on him. Practically covered in flour, he sat and leaned against the edge of the kitchen table and watched Derek chew slowly, his chin resting on his palm and a large, expectant grin on his lips as he saw Derek's face brighten.

"I think I just found my new favorite thing." He commented, gesturing at the huge pile of waffles, accompanied by three kinds of ice cream and home-made sweet foam and melted chocolate and sprinkles and what-not in front of him. "Even though I would probably have a heart attack at thirty, I may die a happy man." Derek added, and happily watched the satisfied grin grow on Stiles' face.

You should see how Garcia makes these at the diner, Stiles signed lazily with a content smile. Next to hers, my waffles look like chocolate covered wood.

"I wouldn't say wood," Derek teased, putting down his fork and stretching his arm to the side. "Cement, more likely." That earned him a punch to the shoulder, and an amused, playful snort.

Asshole, Stiles signed, laughing and straddling his lap teasingly. You are just messing with me, aren't you? Derek chuckled, soon joining him as Stiles flailing-ly leaped onto his lap and placed two dirty arms around his neck. The older man let out a fond laugh, running his thumb across Stiles' cheek.

"You got flour all over yourself," Derek smiled wolfishly, poking Stiles' stomach hard and making him groan in discomfort. "What exactly do you do there in the kitchen? Roll around on the counter?" Another smack hit the back of his head as Stiles leaned back a little. He let out a snort, grinning widely.

I got carried away, He explained, his gestures wide and enthusiastic, making clouds of flour fill Derek's personal space. Derek chuckled again, laughter bubbling in his throat. He didn't even know why he was laughing... he just knew that being around Stiles always did strange things to his insides and made him smile like a helplessly lovesick kid. You know I love cooking for you. Stiles signed, grinning proudly at the small gasps of laughter he got out of Derek – making him laugh that hard was not a simple task and Stiles took whatever he could get. The man shook his head, wrinkles of laughter showing at the corners of his eyes as he tried to breathe.

"Oh God, I love you." Derek suddenly blurted breathlessly, but then his laughter immediately died down as he realized what he just said.

The smile slid off Stiles' face in a second and his light brown eyes widened almost comically, his mouth falling open. Derek stopped laughing in an instant a moment later and froze, horror written all over his face. Then Stiles raised two shaky hands, leaning farther back in Derek's lap, as away from him as possible so he could stare at him in full shock.

...what did you just say? He signed slowly, wide and stunned eyes staring at Derek's face in disbelief.

"I..." Derek's mouth was suddenly very dry, and he cleared his throat and swallowed, then tried again. "I said, I love you." He hoped his voice sounded much more confident than he actually felt. Really, he thought his heart was gonna leap out of his chest and run for it's life like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

You... do? Was the slow, hesitated answer. Derek nodded, the tips of his ears burning bright red.

A soft, shy smile slowly broke Stiles' expression, and he hesitantly sneaked his arms back around Derek's neck, leaning forward as if he was asking for permission, for the first time since they met.

He then placed a gentle, tender kiss on Derek's lips, smiling against him as the kiss was returned with the same softness. Intimate and warm and sweet and... perfect.

An annoying buzz suddenly interrupted Derek's sleep, tearing him from a very questionable dream about Stiles and chocolate. He groaned and turned over, pulling the thin blanket over his head. He didn't want to abandon this dream... it was warm and fuzzy and felt so much like Stiles, that Derek wanted it to last forever. No more nightmares about his mother, bleeding to death on her office floor, no more sleepless, haunting nights of her calling for him to join her, over and over again. Because ever since Stiles came to be in his life, Derek's nightmares began to fade into pleasant dreams only.

The buzz kept going, making a very manly whimper to escape the back of his throat, and a lazy hand darted out from under the summer blanket and slammed itself down on the annoying alarm clock, knocking it off the nightstand with a loud thud. Derek winced and rolled onto his back, throwing his blanket off of his face and squinting his sleepy eyes at the ceiling.

Of course he was tired. Last night he stayed up too late, spending the evening with Stiles and Scott, who magically summoned Allison Argent to join them on movie night. How did the poor girl tolerate a whole marathon of 'Fast and Furious', Derek had no idea. She just kept sitting next to Scott and munch on his popcorn through the whole deal, and her hand kept brushing against his little brother's hand when they reached for it at the same time and-

Okay. Maybe he had some idea as to why she stayed through the whole evening.

Anyway, his decision to stay up until dawn proved as a not-that-great idea as he first thought. He only got three hours of sleep before his alarm clock went off and ushered him to get up and get ready for work, and really, three hours were not nearly enough for him. Derek sighed.

No rest for the wicked, huh?

He was washed and dressed in less than fifteen minutes, slowly making his way downstairs and into the kitchen, where Melissa was already sitting next to the table with a toast and one of the biggest mugs of coffee Derek had ever seen in his life. She smiled at him tiredly as he shuffled in, sliding a bowl of cereal across the table and pointing her chin at the chair in front of her.

"I heard you getting up so I went ahead and made you a breakfast of champions." She explained with a smirk at Derek's confused expression. He nodded.

"Thanks." He mumbled and dropped himself onto the chair, staring at the cereal floating in his bowl as if they offended him personally.

"Why do you look so grumpy this morning?" Melissa asked with a raised eyebrow from across the table. "No Stiles last night?" Derek groaned and banged his forehead against the surface of the table, pausing when he found it was a rather comfortable position for a nap.

"Don't talk to me about Stiles," He moaned miserably into the polished wood. "That asshole still gets to sleep in on Sundays." Melissa chuckled.

"Oh, stop whining," She said with a waved hand. "I'm sure he's gonna come and visit you at work later and then you probably wouldn't look so miserable."

Derek shrugged, raising his head from the table. "Yeah," He agreed half-heartedly and picked up his spoon, shoving milk and already-too-mushy cereal into his mouth quickly.

He was out of the door in no time, going through the five-minutes drive to the record shop and parking his black Camaro at the small parking area saved for workers. The bell above the door jingled mockingly happily as he tiredly shuffled in, nodding at the twins.

"Hi." He said gloomily, rubbing at his left eye as he shed his jacket and threw it on the counter for the twins to hang. Aiden smirked, winking at his brother.

"This guy says hi, I want to kill myself."

"Wha-" Ethan stared at his twin for a second with an open mouth, then shook his head in disappointment. "Did you just quote Ross?" He asked, heavy judgement in his voice.

"You two just have to stop with that endless 'Friends' marathon, you're driving me crazy." A handsome, model-like teenage guy that Derek learned to know as Jackson Whittemore said from the back of the shop. There was a cocky, pleased smirk adoring his lips, and he chuckled shortly before going back to put stray records in their rightful place.

"Bite me." Aiden retorted, grinning. A quiet, displeased feminine cough was heard and then Jennifer's head appeared from behind one of the closer rows. She frowned at them, grasping her papers closer to her chest as she gave Aiden a scolding look.

"Language...!" She ordered as the twins nodded with matching grins. Her eyes flicked towards Derek for a brief moment, and she flashed him a smile, then quickly disappeared again behind the shelves, notes in hands. Derek shrugged, following her to the back rows as he realized he had nothing better to do.

"Do you need some help with that?" He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and pointed his chin at her papers. "It doesn't seem like costumers are gonna come soon anyway."

Jennifer smiled shyly at him, a pale blush tinting her cheeks as she nodded, handing him a couple of pages and a pen. "I'm making an inventory list of what we have, because we found that lately there were a few problems with previous deliveries." She explained and fiddled with her papers, not looking at him directly. "If you wanna help, you can write the name of the product on one column, then it's catalog number and number of copies we have next to it."

Derek nodded. "Sure." He said, giving her a small smile as he took the pages and picked up a record.

They worked in an awkward silence, except for the occasional jingle that indicated a coming of a costumer. They ignored it, leaving Jackson and the twins to assist the few costumers they had. They didn't really need them there anyway. As the hours passed quietly, Derek noticed that from time to time, when they happened to work on the same shelf, Jennifer would not-so-accidentally brush her hand against his. She would smile at him and snatch her hand back nervously, and try to hide the blush that formed on her cheeks.

Oh, boy.

It was near noon when the tension came to a peak that Jennifer finally turned to him and lowered her papers, clearing her throat gently. Derek tensed and stopped writing his notes, looking up at her in question, somewhat dreading the answer.

"Derek," She started awkwardly, and Derek could see how nervous she was. Well, he thought dreadfully. That makes two of us. "I... you know... it's no secret that I like you-"

"I like you too, Jen," Derek's confused expression softened into a warm, small smile as he tried to provide her a safe escape opening. "You know that."

"Yeah, I-I know." She let out a short, nervous, edgy laugh as the door bell joyfully jingled again. "But I mean, I really like you. And what I wanted to ask you, um, well, would you like to go ou-"

"Yo, Derek!" Ethan's voice suddenly called from the other side of the store, interrupting her speech. "There's a Stiles here to see you!"

Derek's face lit up in a way that made Jennifer stop immediately and close her mouth. It took the poor girl a few seconds, but the strangely soft look on Derek's face soon made it clear of what was going on. And when he gave her an apologetic smile and mumbled a quick, "I'm sorry, be right back." And hurried away, she finally understood.

Peeking from her place behind the shelf, Jennifer could see the exact, intimate way Derek's arms fit perfectly around the unfamiliar boy's waist. A boy - no older than eighteen, nineteen, tops - that had the kindest smile and the sweetest eyes. The way Derek looked at him... she was no competition, she knew that.

They glanced at her for a second, and Jennifer waved at them sadly back, forcing a smile on her face as the boy - Stiles - waved back with a wide smile. She locked eyes with Derek's one last time...

Then went back to her notes.

Stiles hung around in the shop for the rest of Derek's shift, sneaking kisses when he thought nobody looked. He got to know the twins - definitely liking Ethan better - while ignoring Jackson's cocky, sometime mean comments. Ethan quickly learned a few expressions in sign language, using Derek as an interpreter. He was eager to learn more while Aiden just wanted to know how to sign swear words, and mastered sign spelling in no time. They put on some music, laughing and cheering when Derek suddenly pulled a laughing Stiles into a slow dance.

Jennifer seemed to avoid him on a principle, claiming to be too busy whenever they asked her to join them. Derek even tried talking to her privately one time, but she said she had 'lots of work to do' and turned her back on him.

When his shift ended, Derek waved goodbye and goodnight at everyone and sneaked his arm around Stiles' waist, leading him out of the store. The sun was already setting, but the air was still warm as the sky slowly changed color from flaming orange to the deep dark blue of summer nights. Derek was just about to take his car keys out when Stiles put his hand up to stop him.

Let's go for some ice-cream? He asked, smiling hopefully as he moved his fist up and down in front of his face. Derek nodded, putting his keys back.

"Sure." He returned the smile.

The small ice-cream shop was crowded, and Derek took their cones and followed Stiles who was crammed over a tiny table at the back, watching him eagerly as Derek handed him his peanut butter and chocolate chips ice-scream.

You'll never guess what happened last night. Stiles signed single-handedly. Derek followed the movements carefully, frowning a little at the strangely signed words.

"Then tell me." He answered lightly, licking slowly at his lemon and mango cone.

Scott and Allison are dating.

Derek choked on his ice cream.

"What!" He coughed loudly, making a few of the couples around them give him nasty, disgusted looks. He ignored them. "How? When?"

He asked her last night, when he walked her home. Stiles signed, chuckling at Derek's still flushed face as he tried to regain control of his breath.

"Attaboy," Derek snorted, shaking his head.

It's about time, too. Stiles laughed, his sweetly hoarse voice making Derek swallow hard as his heart gave a few quicker thumps. He's been pining for her for years, ever since she moved into B-E-A-C-O-N H-I-L-L-S.

"Well," Derek said once he wasn't fighting for his life, scratching at his nose. "We should definitely go on a double date with them sometime."

Stiles smiled softly, lowering his cone to the table. He looked at Derek warmly.

Yeah. We totally should.

Nights when the heat has gone out,

We danced together alone.

Cold turned out breath into clouds,

We never said what we were dreaming of.

You turned me into somebody loved.

A/N: Song used: "Somebody Loved" / The Weepies.

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