fanficition cove

Originally written/posted: March 2013
Fandom: Teen Wolf (2011)
Pairing: Stiles/Derek
Rating: G
Word Count: 996 words
Notes: I have not reread this one, sorry! But I believe it’s misunderstanding schmoopy fluff, going off the original tags.

The first time Derek holds his hand, Stiles laughs at him.

It’s not that he means to or anything–laughing at Derek has proven to be fatal in the past, and while Stiles is regularly dubbed moronic, he’s not stupid–it just kind of slips out, the same way in which Derek hand slips out of his in 0.5 seconds. He’s not sure how it’s possible to do it that fast, but Derek’s also a werewolf so Stiles shouldn’t really be all that surprised.

Derek’s capable of things. Apparently, hand-pulling-awayness in record speed is something that falls under his noted acquired skill-set.

Stiles tries not to judge.

Even if the skill is undoubtedly lame.

“Dude,” Stiles says, and turns to look at him. Derek’s looking suspiciously innocent, and while Stiles is used to seeing his boyfriend look suspicious (he creeps around town in a leather jacket and has a fucking posse, okay, the man practically breathes suspicion), he’s never really considered his boyfriend…innocent. Baby kittens with cute, fuzzy faces, and absurdly huge paws are innocent. Hell, even Scott is innocent. Sometimes. Definitely not all of the time. Derek, well, Derek is decidedly not. “What was that?”

“What was what,” Derek says.

Stiles is long over the issue that his boyfriend refuses to use punctuation marks correctly.

(Okay, he actually isn’t, it really does sort of bother him, but he’s done trying to get him to conform; no amount of dictionary reading in Derek’s spare time is going to change that, obviously.)

Stiles points a finger at Derek’s face.

Derek growls–literally growls— at him. If Derek was a lesser man he probably would’ve actually bit him.

But, they’ve talked about this.

The whole, ambushing your boyfriend to bite him thing.

Stiles isn’t worried.

“You..held my hand,” Stiles sputters, still unable to completely grasp it. It’s not that they’re completely un-affectionate or anything  like that; they cuddle in the puppy piles the pack partakes in regularly (“It builds stable relationships and encourages healthy bonds in the pack,” Derek argued one day, when Stiles approached him about Isaac’s, frankly terrifying ass groping during such proceedings, and look, as a man of many talents, Stiles considered himself flexible and open-minded; he was dating a werewolf, okay, but there had to be some sort of mately  line drawn when your best friend’s boyfriend started feeling up to see just how special your special buns wer–

Just, no.

God, no.

But, in Isaac’s defense, they were. Special, he means).

Anyway.

They participate in pack pile ups, and they sit wrapped up on Stiles’ couch, marathoning old horror movies and munching on stale, over-buttered popcorn on Friday nights, and sometimes Stiles will fall asleep in Derek’s bed, curled around his boyfriend, fingers clutching around Derek’s truly impressive arm muscle because he doesn’t let go, but they don’t do this.

They’ve never done this.

Especially in public.

Not–not that Stiles doesn’t want to, of course he wants to, it’s just–

He wasn’t entirely convinced it was possible, before now, and it catches him off guard.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Derek says, crossing his arms grouchily and staring broodily off into the distance.

“Derek,” Stiles says, stopping in front of him so Derek can’t try to pitifully run from the conversation like he so obviously wants to. “Don’t give me that. I specifically remember feeling a very soft, very–too warm hand slip in mine. And being as I’m fairly certain you’re the only werewolf in within touching distance, it’s you.”

Derek looks nervous and afraid and utterly guilty, like he’s afraid Stiles might do something rash, like reject him,maybe . He shifts his weight from foot to foot in a classic ‘Derek Hale is nervous’ type of gesture and Stiles can’t stop the smile that threatens to twitch his lips upward.

“Derek,” Stiles starts, awkwardly, because while Stiles complains almost constantly about Derek being an emotionally constipated, grumpy turtle, he can easily admit–at least to himself, okay, he’s growing as a person, he’s not completely there, yet, at least–that he’s in the same boat. The only reason he can deal with Derek’s trouble with expressing how he feels is because Stiles has the same exact problem. “Derek–I–”

Stiles cuts himself off.

What exactly does he say, here? ‘I want to hold your hand’ sounds a little too romantic-comedy esqe for them, and anything else would be edging too close to Jane Austen territory for his comfort. They both kind of suck with the romance thing, and they–

Well, basically, they suck at everything.

They’re the worst couple to ever couple, like, ever. He’s pretty sure people around town think that Derek’s the town’s surly drug dealer supplying recreational–and illegal–activities for their youth who, also, just happens to follow Stiles around all of the time (they’ve seen weirder things happen to the sherrif’s son; this is probably considered vanilla in comparison).

Yeah, damn right he’s heard the rumors.

So, yeah, they both monumentally suck at the couple thing. And the romance thing. And, sometimes (58.87% of the time, to be exact) Derek annoys him, with his holier-than-ho attitude, and his penchant for having a deadly brand of martyr complex, even when he so obviously can’t save everyone, and his cooking isn’t the best and sometimes he leaves his dirty socks all over his house, but fuck if there’s nothing more that Stiles wants to do now than hold his damn hand.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, he just turns on his heel and begins walking again, and once Derek finally catches up, when he realizes that Stiles isn’t going to force him to talk about it, Stiles slips his hand into Derek’s.

It takes Derek a few moments, and Stiles doesn’t have to look up to know that Derek’s staring at him expressionless, gauging his reaction, but he tightens his grip around Stiles’ hand and doesn’t let go.

Stiles, despite himself, smiles.