Chapter 7

                                    

                                          
Derek climbs into Stiles's bed around eight that night. He smells of dirt and the forest and he pillows his head on Stiles's lap, beneath the book Stiles is reading. He waits a few minutes, then begins tugging at the book, and Stiles sighs and sets it down.
                          
He lets Derek pull him down so he's lying with Stiles's arms around him, and then he buries his head in Stiles's pillow and falls asleep. Stiles follows his lead, breathing easily into Derek's shoulder.
                          
He wakes up around ten to a noise in the hallway, his dad saying his name, and the knob on his door turning. He swears, "Fuck, Dad, don't!" as the door opens.
                          
Derek launches out of bed at the noise, crashing into Stiles's bedside table and landing on the floor in what would be a terribly comical heap if the situation weren't so awful.
                          
"Stiles." His dad is standing in the doorway, his face pale, his gaze darting from Derek's shirtless, pajama bottom-clad form on the floor to Stiles sitting up in bed, in a t-shirt and his boxers, the sheets on the ground and everything looking far too guilty for any lie to be believable.
                          
"Fuck," Stiles says again, rubbing a hand over his face.
                          
"Derek Hale."
                          
Derek has not moved. He is pressing his face into the floor as if he can drown himself in the carpet. Maybe he can. Or maybe-and Stiles can see the way he's shaking now, the way his fingers are curved inward toward his palms. He's fighting the force of the transformation, but he's stressed, of course he is, and his body is telling him to change.
                          
"Fuck," Stiles says, one last time, and then he slides over onto the floor and presses a hand over the triskelion on Derek's back. He glances up at his dad and says, "So, um, I'm sort of gay?"
                          
And his dad falls back against the doorjamb, letting his head fall back, too, so he's looking at the ceiling for an instant. Stiles takes advantage of that moment to press his hand over Derek's, to draw his claws out from his palm and press down on them, and Derek's breathing slows, and his fingertips reappear against Stiles's, and thank God at least that won't come out by Derek exploding into a werewolf in Stiles's bedroom. He lets go of Derek and looks back at his dad, who has shut his eyes and appears to be counting. Or praying.
                          
Derek pushes himself up with his arms, reaches for the t-shirt he left on Stiles's chair earlier that evening and pulls it on. Stiles doesn't think he has enough strength in his legs to stand up.
                          
"Sheriff, sir." Derek crosses the room with his hand outstretched, which is a stupid idea, but Stiles can't get a hold of his tongue to tell him so.
                          
"Derek Hale," his dad repeats, opening his eyes and keeping his hands in his pockets. "Will you please sit down?"
                          
"Of-of course." Submission is not a good look on Derek. It clearly fits him wrong, but he sits down at Stiles's desk anyway, keeping his hands pressed beneath his thighs and his eyes down. If his dad knew what Derek was saying with his body language...well, he'd probably be even more freaked out than he already is.
                          
"Sort of gay, Stiles?" His dad crosses the room and kneels in front of him. "And this wasn't something you felt like you could tell me?"
                          
"I felt like I could tell you that," Stiles protests. "I did. I mean, I sort of told you that time at the club but I guess, I guess not really," he says, when his dad squints his eyes in a disbelieving way. "Just the fact that I realized I was gay around the same time that I realized that I sort of had a crush on Derek Hale was more the problem."
                          
"You accused him of murder," his father reminds him, and Stiles risks a glance up at Derek, who's staring down at his pants as if he could disappear in the pattern if he tried hard enough, "twice."