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"So you're in love with Derek." Scott's voice is edged with disbelief.
"Um. I guess."
"Okay." Scott nods. "Why?"
Stiles shrugs, stuffing books in his locker before clanging it shut. "I don't know, man. He's been through a lot, but he's still… kind?"
"Kind," Scott echoes. "Derek Hale. The same Derek Hale that wanted to kill Lydia two years ago? That Derek Hale is 'kind.'" He does stupid air quotes, and Stiles feels something burn in his chest.
"Yeah," Stiles says, straightening up from his crouch with a scowl. "What's with the interrogation, dude?"
Scott hitches his bag up, hooking thumbs into the straps over his shoulders. "I mean. I didn't even think you were into guys. Before." He makes a face. Stiles interprets that as before I found you with your hands down each other's pants.
To be fair, Stiles… doesn't actually remember wanting to really do that before. Everyone has fantasies. Things you think about idly, but don't really think about.
But, like, Derek's nice, when you get past all the growl and bluster, and he's way too trusting for his own good, but he's reliable. He's loyal to the point of idiocy, which Stiles can relate to, and he's still able to open up his heart and be vulnerable, even after all the absolute shit that's happened to him over the years, and, okay, Stiles is aware he's kind of describing a stray dog, but he's always admired the way Derek's shirts wear his arms, so, like… "Holy fuck."
Scott's eyes are puppy-dog wide. "What?"
"I think we're under a fucking spell."
*
Derek has his face buried in the crook of Stiles's neck, arms wrapped snuggling around Stiles's waist, and it's so nice and comfortable Stiles knows it has to be wrong. Everything about this is wrong.
"Derek," Stiles sighs, burying his hands in Derek's thick hair and scratching lightly at his scalp.
They're leaning up against his mom-mobile in the middle of the school parking lot. Nothing about this makes sense.
Last night, one minute they were cleaning up the loft kitchen together like usual, filling up the dishwasher, putting the leftovers in tuperware, and then the next minute Derek had him backed up against the sink with his tongue down his throat.
God, Stiles wants to kiss him again, but the hugging is nice.
Derek's chest rumbles, like a contented cat.
God, Stiles does love him. He's not going to say it out loud, because spell, but whatever is deep in his belly, whatever lightness is around his heart, making him want to press his smile into Derek's temple—that's got to be love. Right?
Too bad it's not real.
"Derek," Stiles says again. "We need to talk."
*
Derek blinks at him and says, "That… are you sure?"
Stiles nods a lot and says, "Nope."
Derek narrows his eyes. His brows do their caterpillar scrunch of doom thing, but his hands are still warm on either side of Stiles's neck, thumbs rhythmically stroking the line of Stiles's throat.
He's not going to complain.
"Huh." Derek looks less concerned than Stiles thinks this situation warrants, but his hands wander up to cup his face and his mouth opens up over his again and all the bones in Stiles's legs melt, so he has to, like, prop himself up against Derek's entire front.
Derek says, "Okay?" when he pulls back slightly and Stiles manages an eloquent, "Buh."
The smile that blooms across Derek's face is magnificent. Pure sunshine. And Derek deserves to be happy, right, so Stiles's fingers steal across Derek's hips, lower back, and tuck up just under the waistband of his jeans.
*
Stiles has never had sex with a guy before. He's only had sex with one other person, actually, and the fact that that other person is also a Hale should probably be worrying.
Stiles has his pants off and his shirt rucked up under his armpits. Derek is the opposite: shirt off, pants unzipped, dick out and hard against the line of Stiles's hip and groin.
It's weird that it's not weird.
Stiles doesn't know why he feels like crying, but he will not. No way could he live that down.
Derek looms up and over him on the bed, hands flat on either side of Stiles's shoulders. Eyes closed, lip bitten. Stiles doesn't even care that the edge of his zipper is digging into the crease of his thigh as he drags into him, rolling his hips, cocks sliding together.
Stiles wriggles his hand in between them, and Derek hisses and finally looks at him again when his fingers manage to curl over both of them.
"This seems a little unfair," Stiles says, watches the split-second wary look cross over Derek's eyes before his mouth smirks. "I think you're overdressed."
The smirk blooms into a smile, and Derek leans down to tug at Stiles's shirt pointedly with his teeth.
*
Afterwards, Stiles does his homework at the kitchen island, like normal, in boxers and Derek's shirt—which is new—and Derek leans into his back when he places a cup of coffee at his elbow, absently kissing the crown of his head.
"Are you only being this nice to me because of the spell?" Stiles asks, tilting back so he's fit into the bend of Derek's body.
Derek says, "Maybe," but he doesn't seem concerned about it at all.
*
Scott says, "So you think you're in love with him because of a spell, but neither of you are doing anything about it."
"It sounds bad when you say it like that."
Scott frowns. "Because it is bad. Like, at least… unhealthy."
Stiles doesn't tell Scott that Derek made his lunch this morning, or that he's ignoring his college acceptance letters, or that he's still a little sore from when Derek finally pushed into him, 3:30 AM, Stiles's hands clenched into the sheets, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, Derek panting harshly into his mouth while his fingers bit bruises into Stiles's hips.
Telling Scott that would be a bad idea.
Stiles wants to adopt cats and watch TV from Derek's lap and go to Beacon Hills Community College.
He says, "Look, Derek and I have been taking care of you fools for over a year," Scott may be the alpha, but Scott doesn't know how to take care of a potato, and Derek's the kind of dude who'll hide under your porch to make sure the new mailman isn't evil, "now we're just a little more… in tune while we do it."
"In tune," Scott says. "Like you're having sex before making us spaghetti on movie night and telling us to text you when we get home safe."
"Uh."
"We could smell that, Stiles," Scott says, throwing up his hands.
Stiles shrugs tightly. "I guess we could ask Deaton about it."
"Yeah," Scott says, like he's made a particular point. "I guess you could."
*
Deaton says, "A spell," and, "hmmm," while staring at them blankly before asking them how long whatever this is has been going on.
"A couple weeks?" Stiles says, looking at Derek. "I mean, he kissed me and then this," he waves his hand between them, "happened, and now I think we're in love."
Derek makes this sound, this little raspy breath noise, and Stiles can't help giving a fond look at the bashful way Derek dips his head, tops of his cheeks pink. He can be surprisingly sweet, for all his gruff exterior, and sometimes still shy about affection.
Stiles wants to palm his cheek until he smiles into his eyes, but Deaton is looking at them weird.
Deaton says, "I see."
Stiles isn't entirely sure does.
*
Stiles's dad is, not surprisingly, suspicious about it all. He says, "So there's a spell, which you have no idea where it came from or who cast it, and now you have to basically live with Derek Hale for a while, who is your boyfriend."
"I'm eighteen," Stiles says, holding up two shirts and wondering if it's okay to pack dirty laundry. He also doesn't have to live with Derek, it's not a proximity spell, but he kind of wants to anyway. "Besides, you like Derek."
"I do," his dad says, nodding slowly. He makes some faces like he's not sure what to say, or if he should try and stop Stiles, and he ends up pinching the bridge of his nose like he's in mental pain. "You know I'm not going to stop you from doing something that makes you happy, so long as you're safe, right?"
Stiles looks up at him, bewildered. "Yeah."
"So you don’t have to…." His dad's face is really expressive, all the Stilinski men have that going for them, but right now he just looks like he's having a seizure while he flaps a hand around. "…do all this. For me. To, you know, have this happen."
Stiles cocks his head. "Wha-huh?"
"I mean." His dad deflates. "Yeah."
"Dad." Stiles pats his shoulder. "I'm not going to be gone for good. Deaton said he'd look into it."
"And… Deaton's looking into what, exactly?" He's got those squinty eyes going on. Stiles is going to get them one day. He's gonna look like he's got a constant headache.
He's probably going to have a kid just like him, too, with maybe Derek's adorable grumpy face and sticky-out ears and Stiles's snubby nose and even though Stiles knows it's virtually impossible, it's still giving him warm fuzzies, Jesus.
He has to go. They're baking cookies tonight and watching The Good Place and then they're probably going to make out on the couch and Stiles doesn't want to be late.
*
Besides Derek and Stiles, things have been relatively quiet. Supernatural things. Big bad things. On a scale of 'I can eat lunch like a normal person' and 'oh shit, we have to make Molotov cocktails and skip the rest of the day,' things have been on a steady 'let's eat outside so we can talk about cool wolf stuff without getting weird looks' for most of their senior year.
So when Erica drags herself out of the preserve just after sundown during a routine training mission, beat to a bloody pulp and barely healing, it takes a shoddy few seconds for everybody to switch into high alert.
"Holy fuck," Liam says.
It's some kind of troll. Maybe. Erica thinks. It was big and hard to get away from and really fucking determined to squish her.
They separate and reconvene at the loft for a planning session—trolls are massive, territorial and dumb, and they turn to stone in the sunlight. They're going to make him mad, and then try to outrun him into the morning.
When Derek says, "Can I talk to you a minute, Stiles?" and pushes him into the bathroom, Stiles briefly thinks it's maybe inappropriate to make out during a crisis, with several nosy werewolves scattered across their living space.
But then Derek presses him into the edge of the sink and kisses him and there should be no time for sex when trolls are wreaking havoc in the woods, but, like, Stiles isn't going to say no.
Derek pulls back a little and says, "I want you to stay here," and Stiles says, "No way," without looking away from Derek's mouth.
"Stiles," Derek growls, and Stiles is hardwired to find that sexy.
He curls his fingers against Derek's nape and says, "You're crazy if you think I'm sitting this out."
"I don't want you to get hurt," Derek says.
"I've been running for my life for three years, I think I'm an expert by now." Stiles thinks about getting Derek out of his pants, but Derek's eyebrows are rapidly falling into not in the mood. Ugh. "What?"
Derek reaches back for his hands, unwrapping them from around his neck, and then places them onto the counter at either side of his hips, warm fingers over his own. "This is for your own good," he says, and then turns around with preternatural speed and locks him in.
There's bolts on the outside of the bathroom, because it's the only room in the entire freaking loft that doesn't have windows, so they thought it'd be a neat precaution, in case of rabid werewolf or random bad guy. That was obviously a mistake to approve.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Stiles shouts through the wood, pounding it with a fist.
Stiles wants to murder Derek. He wants to shake him until his head falls off and some sense rolls in: Stiles is not a liability. Stiles is the motherfucking brains of this operation.
And as soon as he gets out of this bathroom, he's going to yell that in his face.
*
After the first half hour of absolute seething impotent rage, Stiles stops fantasizing about punching Derek in the throat.
He's hurt.
He's abandoned.
And Derek is a jerk who doesn't deserve Stiles being in love with him.
No, that's a lie. Derek deserves everyone being in love with him. He's just an overprotective asshole, and Stiles is going to make sure this never happens again. He's going to give Derek a piece of his mind and then maybe move home to Dad's for a while, and then come back when he's feeling less homicidal.
These are all normal thoughts, Stiles thinks, sitting on the closed toilet and staring down at his hands.
What they are, though, is not normal under-a-love-spell thoughts.
They're functioning relationship thoughts. They're 'I love you but you're wrong' thoughts. They're 'we need to talk about what we're doing here' thoughts.
Stiles is terrified of those thoughts.
When Derek finally unlocks the bathroom, looking haggard and bloody but in one tired piece, Stiles doesn't even bother yelling.
He pretends he isn't crying and bolts for the door.
*
"…so now I'm pretty sure there was never a spell," Stiles finishes hoarsely, rubbing a palm over red eyes.
Even over skype, Stiles can tell Lydia is grossly disappointed in him. She says, "Of course there was never a spell. Honestly, I leave a single semester early and everything falls apart. I should have expected this. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"It didn't seem important." What was he supposed to say? Hey Lydia, guess what, Derek and me are boning and I'm pretty sure magic made us do it. In retrospect, that probably would have worked.
"Trauma and pining make you do crazy things," Lydia says. "It's understandable, but you're still idiots."
Stiles snorts. "What, he's got the trauma and I'm the one pining?"
Lydia narrows her eyes. "First of all, do you honestly think you don't have any trauma? After all these years?"
Stiles picks at the ends of his nails and shrugs. "I mean, prob—"
"And second of all," she cuts in, no-nonsense, "from what you've told me, Derek Hale has been enthusiastically loving you for weeks, so you should be able to figure out what that means without me spelling it out for you."
"I wish you were still here," Stiles says.
Lydia wrinkles her nose. "I don't."
Stiles gets it. He's only a little bit offended.
*
Derek opens the door and Stiles pokes him sharply in the middle of the chest and says, "You never do that again."
Derek frowns and crosses his arms and keeps silent.
"I mean it! You do that again and I’m, you know," he makes a face, "breaking up with you?"
"Was that a question," Derek says, frowning deeper.
Stiles doesn't honestly know what he'd do, but he probably wouldn't break up with him. It's pathetic. Maybe he'd just get his dad to shoot him a little bit. "My dad's the sheriff," he says inanely, as Derek grasps his wrist and tugs him further into the loft.
"I'm sorry," Derek says, and he even sounds sincere about it. "I panicked."
He does not, Stiles thinks pointedly, say he will never do it again. Stiles buries his hands in Derek's hair when Derek dips his face into his neck anyway.
The position is familiar and warm and Stiles closes his eyes.
He says, "Do you think this isn't really a spell?" and doesn't let go as Derek tenses up a little all along his front.
"I don't know," Derek says slow and careful, voice muffled. "Do you think this isn't really a spell?"
Stiles's throat is dry, and clicks when he swallows. "Does it matter?" He feels like they're both really unhealthily sidestepping the issue here, but Stiles doesn't want to let Derek go.
So there's that.
*
Stiles tries it out: "I'm in love with Derek Hale."
He says it to himself, in front of the bathroom mirror, and he says it in the shower. He says it whiles he's toweling off his hair, pulling on boxers, and unscrewing the bolt-lock on the outside of bathroom door. He says it standing over the coffee maker, scratching absently at his belly. He's not stupid enough to think that Derek doesn't hear him every time from where he's still lounging in bed upstairs.
Stiles knows this kitchen like the back of his hand. He knows this whole loft, he knows what times the puppies usually show up, he knows where each of them hide their favorite snacks. He knows where Derek's extra sheets are and what fabric softener to get. Derek buys Stiles sodas and pays for Netflix and knows exactly how Stiles likes his coffee and this has been going on a hell of a lot longer than whatever the hell they're doing right now.
Considering the way they've been living in each other's pockets since last summer, it's a wonder that they only first kissed a few weeks ago.
God, Stiles thinks, watching the coffee slowly percolate, he's been in love with Derek for years.
And Derek kissed him.
He says to the coffee maker, "You know, I don't have your wolfy ears. I can't hear what you're not saying."
"What am I not saying?"
Stiles does not jump. His breath doesn't catch when Derek's hands slide over his sides, arms around his middle.
Derek's scruff is soft on the top of his spine.
Maybe he has been saying it; Maybe Stiles just hasn't been listening.
*
"So it's not a spell," Scott says. He's frowning, but like he's more confused than upset. "You and Derek are really…."
"In love? Yeah. I mean," Stiles bobs his head, "pretty much." Stiles is going to graduate in a month and then they'll have the summer and Stiles'll go to BCC and then the police academy and work with his dad. He's living the dream. He's hoping they'll get multiple cats.
"And you checked with Deaton."
Stiles is pretty sure Deaton thinks he's crazy. That is not actually a new thing.
"Sure," Stiles says.
He had to move back in with his dad temporarily, but only because his dad was using his absence to order too many pizzas. He needs to set up a system, and also ban him from every fast food joint that delivers. Stiles's dad cannot be trusted.
"Well, you know," Scott claps his shoulder, smiling tentatively, "I'm happy if you're happy."
Stiles is satisfied. Content. Before, if he ever thought of having a love story, he figured it'd be wild, impetuous, and ultimately a bad idea. Not whatever this soft, quiet thing is that lets him wake up with smiles and warm hands.
Maybe they'll have a farm. Maybe he'll talk Derek into keeping goats, or alpacas, or chickens. Derek is surprisingly susceptible in the middle of the night, and when Stiles is holding his dick.
"Yeah," Stiles says. "I am."