Chapter Text
“So Laura said that mom said that you said you’re thinking about bringing someone home for the Winter Solstice.”
Derek sighs. “Hi, Cora.” He pins his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he slips on his shoes at the edge of the hotel bed. “Yes, I’m doing fine, thanks for asking. So nice of you to call me in the middle of the night. Our current case is going well, we’ve got the unsub in our sights—”
“Yeah, whatever, your job is boring. More importantly, you’ve got a boyfriend? How am I just hearing about this? I thought I was your favorite sister.”
“I don’t think hunting down serial killers for the FBI can be called boring.”
“And Laura said he’s human? But she said he knows about werewolves, so like, you told him your big secret.”
“They make TV shows about my job. That’s how exciting it is.”
“Which means this is serious, right? If you mentioned it to Mom.” Cora’s tone twists up in amusement. “You wanna bring him home to meet your Alpha; next thing I know you’re gonna start courting him.”
He checks his pockets for his room card, then grabs the keys to one of the BAU’s rental cars from the side table. “Solstice isn’t for another three months.”
“That’s not a denial,” Cora sing-songs. “Whatcha gonna start with? Thinking about going old school, dropping a dead deer on his doorstep?” She chuckles, as though she’s imagining her idiot brother killing a deer and leaving it on a human’s doorstep. But then, Stiles isn’t exactly human. Or at least not a normal one.
Derek glances at the clock next to the bed. It’s almost midnight. His sister is ridiculous, going on about courting. Like that’s a real thing. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”
Cora’s laugh cuts off mid-chuckle. “Okay, you’ve gotta know I’m joking. You cannot seriously be that socially inept — there is no way your boyfriend wants a dead deer left outside his fucking DC walkup apartment.”
Derek hums. “You’re probably right. I should at least drop it off inside so he doesn’t have to carry it in himself. That’d be much more considerate.”
“Derek, no—”
“Although maybe a human corpse would be better?”
There’s a pregnant pause, then Cora’s voice reaches a new pitch. “Derek —”
“He did mention that he’s been on the lookout for femurs lately.”
“Derek Anthony Hale, you—”
“Sorry, Cors, I’m gonna have to let you go — I think there’s a graveyard calling my name. Bet I can find a courting-quality leg bone or two if I dig long enough.” He takes the phone away from his ear, but he can hear her inarticulate shrieks until he ends the call. He slips his phone in his pocket and grins as he stands and heads to the door.
He wasn’t lying; he is heading to a graveyard tonight, although he won’t be digging up any skeletons. Well, at least not for himself. He might end up wielding a shovel for a bit, depending on how pitiful Stiles decides to be when he begs Derek to help him unearth the corpse he wants to practice with tonight.
One of the ghosts that Stiles ran into the first night they got to Phoenix indicated to Stiles that she was fine with him desecrating her resting place. A little bit of grave robbery was a perfectly acceptable trade for him helping her find a resolution for her unfinished business.
Derek closes the door to his hotel room and walks to the elevator. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he covers a yawn with his hand as he presses the down button. Getting used to accompanying his boyfriend on cemetery stakeouts a few times a week has taken some time — and some adjustments to his napping schedule. He texts Stiles back as the elevator brings him to the ground floor.
omw
Stiles’ response is instantaneous: three heart emoticons, followed by a skull, a zombie, and the party face with confetti.
Derek rolls his eyes and is grateful he’s alone: the fond grin he can feel stretching across his face is ridiculous. Getting used to Stiles has taken some time, but it’s absolutely been worth it.
The earth is wet and cold, dense and dark. Worms and other decomposers make their homes in the ground, wriggling their way through decades of detritus. They are facilitators of decay, coordinators of the crumbling of corpses, shredders and scavengers alike of the scraps of life that sink deep, deep, deep below the surface.
Coffin lids collapse over time, a gradual rotting that varies depending on material. Steel, bronze, and copper last lifetimes; certain woods degrade quicker than others. A veneer will add decades before decomposition sets in; cardboard, raw wood, and wicker allow the hungry earth to grab hold of all that corpses can offer just that much quicker.
The cool night air sends shivers down a sweat-slicked neck. A low fog roils and writhes, winding around headstones and monoliths and carefully trimmed hedges. Dirt flies through the air, shattering shadows that slither and hiss in complaint. A mound of earth climbs higher and higher as the moon looks on. An owl hoots a low, warning cry as she swoops close then abruptly away: there is no prey here, not now, not tonight. Nothing with a warm, fast-beating heart. Nothing that lives, with blood pumping through its veins, nothing that the owl wants between her talons.
Everything is dead here, and the owl knows it: she glides over the fence and away to where she can find a life to end to sustain her own.
Everything is dead here, except for Stiles.
“I swear to all the demons and gods and angels and shit that if he doesn’t get here soon I’m breaking up with his ass.”
The ghost of the corpse he’s unearthing watches on in silence. The worst kind of spectator, seriously. Stiles needs some freaking audience engagement, goddamnit.
“I think he’s late on purpose,” he speculates, tossing another shovelful of dirt over his shoulder. “I think this is punishment for wanting to do this instead of spending our last night in town making good use of that mattress in the hotel. And like, yeah, sure, it’s a nice mattress — but honestly, the memory foam one I’ve got at my place is just as nice; it’s not my fault he hates going over there. I can’t be held accountable for his high standards of cleanliness. Right? What do you think, is it punishment?”
The ghost doesn’t respond. She floats over her headstone, eyes drifting around the graveyard.
After he gets the hang of making ghosts corporeal, he’s absolutely going to figure out how to give them back their freaking personalities. Is it too much to ask that the ghosts he sees can learn how to hold a conversation instead of just droning on about their grievances and final words? Stiles doesn’t think so.
“Definitely punishment,” Stiles says agreeably. “See, thing is though, if he had just gotten here when I told him to, we totally possibly might have had time for a blowjob before we have to go into the office in a couple hours. But no, he’s got some point to prove—”
“Oh yeah? What point is that?”
Stiles spins, clipping his hip on a headstone. “Shit,” he curses, then straightens with a glare. “You’re late.”
Derek saunters closer with his hands in his front pockets. He stops at the edge of the open grave and peers down. “Am I? I told you when I was on my way.”
Stiles glares harder. “It took you almost forty-five minutes to get here. It’s a fifteen-minute drive from the hotel.”
“Is it?” There’s a smirk fighting against the contemplative turn of Derek’s lips. Stiles wants to bite it. Damn him.
“You’re punishing me,” he says, turning away to resist temptation. He stabs the shovel into the ground, stepping on one side to dig it deeper. “This is just because you’re grumpy about not getting to use that bed one more time.”
“Or maybe I just thought you could do your own digging for once.”
“You’re the one with werewolf strength!”
“You’re the one who wants to dig up graves in the middle of the night.”
“But I’m just a poor, pitiful, puny human. Don’t you feel bad for me?”
“Not really.”
Stiles attempts to throw the dirt in the shovel at Derek. He misses by a good three feet. “You suck.”
"As you've pointed out," Derek drawls, raising an eyebrow, “not tonight.”
Stiles snorts out an unwilling laugh, then pauses, leaning against his shovel. “Will you please help? You know it’ll go faster if you do.”
Derek meets his gaze for a moment before relenting with a begrudging sigh, as though his little werewolfy instincts don’t absolutely light up at the opportunity to help Stiles out. Peter hasn’t given him any books on werewolf habits and instincts yet, but Stiles bets when he finally convinces him to, all of his theories will be confirmed.
Derek sticks out a hand to take the shovel from him. As Stiles begins to step away, Derek reels him in close by the arm. Their bodies press tight together, and Derek lifts his hand to trace over Stiles’ shoulder. His fingers flit up Stiles’ neck, sending goosebumps rippling across his skin. Stiles lets out an involuntary breath.
Derek’s hand settles on the back of his neck, firm and warm. Stiles eases into the comfort, tilts his head. Derek leans into the gesture, pressing his nose into the side of Stiles’ throat. He inhales as his nose runs up a tendon, soft breath puffing out against Stiles’ ear. Stiles can feel his own heart rabbiting against his ribcage as his eyes drift closed.
Derek inhales, lips tickling his ear, and whispers, “You’re standing in my way.”
Stiles’ eyes snap open, and he pulls back. “You—” Derek’s smile is blinding. Stiles loves it. “You complete shithead,” he says, but he can hear the fondness in his own voice. There’s no telling what kind of chemosignals he’s sending out, but the way Derek’s eyes crinkle tells him they’ve gotta be good. Stiles leans back in and presses their lips together.
He can feel Derek’s lips soften from their smile, pressing into the kiss, pulling at Stiles’ bottom lip gently. It’s comfortable, and warm, and right. Stiles is hesitant to pull back, but, “All I need is a finger bone or two, no need to dig up the whole casket or anything.”
“I was wondering why the hole was so small.”
“The book says this is all that’s necessary.”
“Easier to fill back in at the end, too.”
Stiles nods. “I live to make things convenient.”
Derek pushes out a heavy, disbelieving breath through his nose. “Right.” He kisses Stiles once more, then steps back, hefting the shovel between his hands. As he starts to work on the grave, he asks, “So do you think this is what you need to finally make one visible?”
“Here’s to hoping,” Stiles says absent-mindedly, walking over to where he put his materials. He flips to the page with the spell in question. Eventually he’ll be able to make ghosts visible and touchable — corporeal — without holding their bones, without even speaking a full spell, but he’s not to that skill level yet.
This Book of the Dead is a loan from Peter, who had been offended to find out that Stiles hadn’t worked on developing his necromancy beyond speaking to spirits and the manipulation of life force.
“You can't raise the dead unless you sell your soul to a demon? Eternal damnation?” Peter had asked, brows raised. “You’re not a warlock and this isn’t a roleplaying game. Where did you get your information, a Dungeons and Dragon handbook?”
He left the room without another word when Stiles had guiltily shifted in place. Three days and an excessive amount of judgmental grumbling and side-eye later, he slammed an old, moth-ball-smelling book onto Stiles’ desk at Quantico and told him that shitty results from online research were no excuse.
And also that if Stiles spilled something on a Hale family heirloom, his body would never be found again.
Dirt doesn’t count as spilling though, Stiles decides, flipping to another section and ignoring the smear he leaves on the corner of a page. It’s a book on necromancy; dirt comes with the territory.
Soft blue-grey tendrils drift in front of his vision, and Stiles looks up. “I appreciate you being willing to do this,” he tells the ghost. Susanna Jones, killed by her jealous sister on the eve of her wedding in 1938. After hearing the recounting of her final moments and thoughts the first night they got into Phoenix, he made his way to the local antique store where a locked box of her sister’s possessions contained a letter confessing her guilt. On the way into the station this morning, he’ll swing by and make an anonymous drop on her descendant’s doorstep.
Susanna doesn’t answer but to murmur a refrain from her dying moments: “I loved you,” she pleads to her long-dead sister. “I loved you.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘You’re welcome’,” Stiles says.
Behind him, there’s a crunch, and then Derek speaks up. “Broke through. Tagging you back in.”
Stiles props the book on top of a headstone and turns back to the grave. Derek has dug out a bit of a ramp, so Stiles is able to clamber down on his hands and knees to reach into the broken coffin with one hand. He turns his face to the side so he can root around, his arm submerged to the shoulder. His fingers brush through decaying fabric before striking brittle bone. He feels along its surface for a moment, and yep, that’s a hand. He grasps the wrist and pulls. It breaks off with a brittle snap.
“Gross,” Derek comments as Stiles emerges victorious, skeletal hand held high.
“Don’t start,” Stiles retorts, even as he rubs grave dirt off his face. “Last month your uncle got pushed down a set of stairs by the unsub and ended up with his tibia sticking out of his skin. You didn’t even bat an eye at that. This is nothing.”
Derek shrugs.
Stiles walks back over to the book and takes his mother’s ring out of his pocket, slipping it onto his finger. The ring doesn’t exactly scream necromantic foci, but it’s perfect for him. It’s simple and easily hidden in plain sight on his left pinky finger. He chose something small that could fit in a pocket so he can take it with him everywhere on the off-chance he can’t wear it. It’s unobtrusive and doesn’t look out of place at a crime scene or in the office: they haven’t told Chris and Danny about the whole supernatural powers thing, so a ring it is.
Besides, all the sources seem to suggest picking a foci that you’re emotionally tied to in some way, and the wedding band Claudia Stilinski wore until the day she died? Yeah, Stiles would say he’s got some emotional investment in that.
He stands behind the book, twisting the ring around his pinky and lifting the skeleton hand to chest height in front of him. He glances up. “Ready?”
Derek nods. “Where should I be looking?”
Stiles juts his chin to where the ghost is floating over the hole in her burial site. “She’s right there. Remember, if you see—”
“Anything at all, yes, don’t worry, I’ll tell you,” Derek assures.
“Okay,” Stiles says, then, softer, “Okay.” He breathes in and closes his eyes.
The air is cool where it brushes past his face. He can feel her near him. If he opens his senses he can feel the other ghosts that rustle through the graveyard, but he pushes them back and focuses on her. She’s sad; betrayed by her family, mournful of a stolen life, forgotten by the man who swore he’d never leave.
Her sadness is something tangible. It aches where it echoes in Stiles’ chest, sliding through his veins to the ends of his fingers with every pump of his heart. His eyes sting with tears that aren’t his. She has a message, a lesson; her words need to be spoken, and she needs to be heard.
She needs to be seen.
Stiles opens his eyes, gaze shooting to the spell in front of him. He reads the Latin written there once. He visualizes her translucent skin growing opaque, blue-grey filling in with life long passed.
He reads the incantation a second time. He thinks about her taking shape in front of Derek, her bare feet pressing into the grass, nightgown brushing her ankles, heart-shaped locket around her neck twisting between the fingers of one hand.
He reads the incantation a third time, closes his eyes, and focuses.
The wind blows through the graveyard.
Stiles breathes, and believes.
Derek draws in a sharp breath.
Stiles’ eyes snap open and to him. “Yeah?”
Derek nods, his eyes wide. “For a second — some kind of long dress? No shoes?”
“Hell yeah!” Stiles drops the ghost’s hand in his excitement, which, whoops, rude, and bounds over to Derek. “A nightgown, but yeah, dress shaped for sure.”
Derek’s arms are already extended by the time Stiles throws himself into them. “This is good,” he murmurs into Stiles’ ear.
“Good? This is fucking great,” Stiles corrects, clasping his hands behind Derek’s neck and pulling back. “Dude, I just made it so you could see a dead lady! I am amazing.”
Derek squeezes him and laughs. “Seeing a dead lady: not usually what a guy wants props for from his boyfriend in the middle of the night, but yeah, you are amazing.”
Stiles grins at him, then glances at their ghostly guest. “It was really quick though, maybe if I try again I can get it to last longer, or —”
Derek quickly releases him. “No.”
“But we’re already here, and —”
“Another time. You need sleep.”
“I mean I’m pretty jazzed about this, I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep.”
“You just used the word ‘jazzed’ to describe yourself. You need sleep.”
“Worked up? Is that better?”
“The only kind of worked up I want you at—,” Derek checks his watch, “—1:30 in the morning has nothing to do with graveyards and dead ladies.”
“But—”
“Put the hand back in the grave, Stiles. Chris is expecting us at 7:00 am sharp.”
Stiles grumbles, but it’s hard to stay irritated when he’s riding a high of success. They make quick work of recovering the grave, and they’re in their respective cars heading back to the hotel before 2:00 am. He follows Derek into his hotel room, manic grin still popping up periodically as he quickly rinses off. He waits in bed as Derek showers, staring up at the ceiling.
Derek lifts the blankets and slides in five minutes later. “Lights. Why. Turn them off.”
Stiles leans over to do that, and a comfortable darkness fills the room.
“Okay, but that was really cool, right?”
Derek slings a heavy arm across Stiles’ chest, and pulls him closer. “Sleep.”
“Wasn’t it, though?”
Derek lets out a long breath, but his voice is as warm as his shower-heated body as he tucks his nose into Stiles’ neck and says, “Yeah, Stiles, it really was.”
“Too good to be true,” Stiles claims. He slouches down into his seat, crossing his arms resolutely. He changed into his sweats before the plane had even taken off; Derek has been ruing the cruel combination of sweatpants and workplace PDA rules for over an hour. They’re at opposite ends of the plane — Stiles in the front, facing the back where Derek can acceptably ogle him without Chris, seated in the middle, seeing and reprimanding him. “I’ve been lied to before, and I’m not about to get my hopes up now.”
Chris ignores Stiles’ interruption, continuing to address the rest of the jet. “We’ll be back at Quantico by 6 pm, so you all will have Friday night in addition to the entire weekend off. ”
“I’m not superstitious,” Danny says, “but I’m with Stiles on this one. I feel like we gotta knock on wood or something — no way did you not just jinx us.”
“It has been thirteen weeks since the whole team was able to actually enjoy their entire weekend,” Lydia points out. “Statistically speaking, the odds are not in our favor.”
Stiles splays a hand out as though to say see?
“We wrapped this case up earlier than expected,” Chris reminds them. “We don’t have anything scheduled because we were supposed to be in Phoenix through Saturday night.”
“Schedules, schmedules,” Stiles scoffs. “Serial killers don’t care about our schedules.”
“He’s not wrong,” Peter mutters from behind Chris.
Chris turns to look at him, affecting an expression like he’s been stabbed in the back. “And here I thought my team would be happy about this news.”
“I’ve been burned before!” Stiles quips dramatically. His eyes catch on Derek’s and his grin widens when he finds him watching.
Chris shakes his head and lifts up his bag to slip the case folder from this week into it. He levels each member of the team with a look. “Monday morning, 8:00 am, HQ.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Stiles says. Chris just rolls his eyes and pulls out his headphones, slipping them over his ears. Danny does the same and opens his laptop. Derek has no idea what he does on there half the time.
A few minutes later, after Chris’ head has drifted down against the window, Stiles jumps up and walks down the aisle to the seat next to Derek, sprawling down into it. He shimmies the armrest between them up and out of the way, immediately squirming into Derek’s side.
“Don’t we have rules about this?” Lydia asks drily. She doesn’t really mind; her scent is amused as she looks between them.
“I saw Chris pull up his sleepy-times playlist. Bossman is out for at least the next three hours. You know he’s the only one that cares about PDA while we’re on the clock.”
“I care,” Peter objects.
“For all the wrong reasons, creeper,” Stiles shoots back.
“Who determines what’s right or wrong about a reason?” Peter ponders, extending a leg into the aisle. “Society is so fickle about morality. Who’s to say that I am wrong to care about the —”
“If you ever catch me stopping something because Peter cares about it,” Derek interrupts, “assume I’ve been replaced by a pod person.” Stiles chuckles, slipping an arm around Derek’s waist.
“You’re lucky they turned the Body Snatchers into a movie, nephew,” Peter says snidely. “Otherwise there’s no way anyone would ever understand your attempts at making references.”
Stiles glances up at Derek. “Wait, that’s a literature reference, too?”
Peter answers before Derek can. “From a novel published in the fifties, long before any of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers movies ever put pod people on the pop culture map.”
Derek shrugs down at Stiles. A slow grin curves across Stiles’ face, and his scent starts to shift. He winks at Derek, then looks over to Peter. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, man, but telling me that my lit nerd boyfriend is able to reference early sci-fi novels feels like a dangerous thing to do in an enclosed space.”
Derek can see the moment the scent of Stiles’ emerging arousal hits Peter’s nose. His uncle abruptly stands and strides to the front of the jet towards Stiles’ abandoned seat. “It’s so easy to forget how terrible your standards are,” he tells Stiles as he leaves.
Stiles cackles into Derek’s shoulder, breath warm and happy against Derek’s neck, amusement and contentment swirling through his scent.
Lydia rolls her eyes even as she gives a quiet laugh. She opens back up the book she brought to keep her entertained on the flight back. “I’m not moving,” she warns. “Don’t be gross.”
“Why, I would never—” Stiles starts.
“Don’t do it,” she repeats.
“Yeah, okay,” Stiles concedes. He’s quiet for a moment before he pokes Derek in the side. “Hey,” he says, “are we gonna be gross at your place or mine this weekend?”
Stiles does have a better mattress, but on the other hand, the last time Derek stayed over he ended up stepping in a rotting hibiscus plant Stiles had been using for life force manipulation practice. The choice is easy. “Mine,” he answers.
“Is this about the —”
“Yes.”
“You’ve really gotta let that go.”
“Rotten plant goo, Stiles. Between my toes. I couldn’t get the smell to go away for days.”
“Fine.”
It’s Sunday morning, and there’s a rib in Derek’s kitchen cabinet, nestled on the spice rack between the coriander and cumin. “Huh,” Derek murmurs. “This is what I get for trying to get Stiles to clean up after himself, isn’t it?”
The cabinet doesn’t deign to respond.
Derek shakes his head and pulls out the bone, rotating it in his hands. It’s pretty small; likely not human. At least there’s that. He walks into his bedroom where Stiles is still buried under the covers, definitely not showering like he promised Derek he would if Derek got up to make breakfast.
“No,” Stiles groans into the pillow when he hears the door close. “That wasn’t long enough for pancakes. I’m getting up, I promise.”
“It’s only been a minute,” Derek says. “But I’m curious about why I found a rib bone in my spice cabinet.”
“Too many words,” Stiles mumbles, rubbing his face from side to side. “Wait. A rib bone?” Derek can just make out one pillow-messed eyebrow furrow before Stiles continues, muffled, “Nope. Still doesn’t make sense.”
Derek sits down on the edge of the bed. “Remember last week when I asked you to clean up the mess you made in the kitchen?”
“No.” Stiles pauses. “Yes?”
“What were you working on again?”
Stiles turns so Derek can see one bleary eye. “That test with all the different mammalian bones to see which worked best for restoration augmentation?”
“Uh-huh. And remember how you swore you’d be careful with all of it and take it all away because you ‘completely, one hundred percent, why-are-you-doubting-me-Derek’, understood that stumbling upon random fucking animal bones in the middle of my kitchen was something I didn’t want to do?”
Stiles hides his face back in the pillow. His words, when he finally speaks after a long, drawn-out moment of embarrassed silence, are muffled. “What did I leave and where did I leave it?
Derek sets the rib down on the nightstand. “On the spice rack. Next to the cumin.”
“That’s a rabbit rib. I’m surprised it wasn’t next to the dill. Cause, you know, dill makes ranch? And ranch goes with carrots. And, uh — rabbits. What’s up, doc?”
Derek’s more than a little grateful that Stiles still has his face buried in the pillow, so he can’t see the tiny smile that spreads across his face. It helps him maintain a front of exasperation that he definitely doesn’t feel. He waits Stiles out in silence.
Stiles squirms. It’s thirty seconds later that he finally mutters,“I mean…whoops?”
“Yeah, whoops,” Derek says. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You like that about me though.”
“Not when it leads to the potential for animal bits getting mixed up in the pancakes I was planning on making for us.”
“Aw, pancakes, no.” Stiles rolls onto his back, finally facing Derek full-on. The sheets shift as he does, exposing all the smooth, lean lines of his torso, which makes it difficult to focus on the sincerity in his words as he says, “I’m sorry.”
The sweet, morning-soft scent of him is heavy in Derek’s nose, all blankets and comfort and that scent that’s becoming theirs, becoming just DerekandStiles. Stiles’ hair is mussed — partially from how he sleeps with one hand pressed between face and pillow, partially because of how Derek had yanked at it last night when he’d done that new thing with his tongue. His eyes are sleepy, his lips just barely parted as they tilt down in apology.
Derek doesn’t like it when Stiles’ lips do that. He leans forward to fix it. He nips gently at Stiles’ bottom lip until they part further on an inhale. Derek deepens the kiss, cradling Stiles’ head with one palm. It’s a reflex for Stiles to kiss back, confident and sweet and sure.
When Derek pulls away, Stiles blinks slowly at him, an easy smile slipping into place. “Apology accepted?”
“Yeah,” Derek tells him, then frowns. “Just — really, Stiles? In the cabinet?”
“I could’ve sworn I got them all packed away! Guess I forgot about the rabbit one, that’s all! Besides,” Stiles grins unrepentantly as he flops into the pillows, “it’s not my fault I don’t know where you keep everything in your kitchen yet. It’s not my kitchen. I don’t understand your organizational system.”
“Setting aside the fact that rabbit bones don't belong anywhere in anyone’s kitchen — your kitchen doesn’t even have an organizational system.”
“Well now, that's just patently untrue. Wild hare is a delicacy! There are kitchens worldwide that would have rabbit bones aplenty throughout the year.” Stiles chuckles at Derek's unamused look then switches gear. “You're also totally wrong on the second count. My kitchen absolutely has an organizational system."
Derek lifts an eyebrow. He settles down next to Stiles, propped up onto his forearm. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” Stiles challenges. “Glasses, mugs, and other drink things near the fridge; easy access for pouring. Pots and pans in the nearest cabinet to the oven, silverware goes in the drawer under the plates, colander under the casserole dish—”
“You don’t own a casserole dish.”
“Oh, right.”
“And assigning the silverware its own specific place implies that you don’t just use plastic sets from takeout places.”
“Okay so you may be right and it’s possible my kitchen is a mess and it may be the case that I’m just thinking about where my dad keeps everything.” His scent turns sheepish for a moment before brightening. “Hey, you’ll get to see that organization does exist in the Stilinski genes when you go home with me at Christmas.”
Because that’s a thing they’re doing. They’ve been together for six months now and had decided to mutually bite the meet-the-family bullet. They both talked to their respective parents earlier in the week about visiting in December. As a result, Derek had to block both Cora and Laura’s phone numbers on the way to the graveyard after he hung up on Cora back in Phoenix. He’ll unblock them in a few days. Derek wanted to give his family advance warning because he knows how his sisters get, let alone his mother. It’s only September now; hopefully by the time Solstice celebrations roll around, they’ll have calmed down.
With their schedules, getting to see family on actual holidays is rare. As a county sheriff, Stiles’ dad is used to taking what he can get, but Derek’s mom had bemoaned that she now had both a brother and a son who might not make it on time. She’d stopped attempting to guilt-trip Derek really quickly once he told her he wanted to bring Stiles with him.
“So I’ll get to see that you’ve got the ability to be organized, you just choose not to be?” Derek asks.
Stiles sputters. “Hey, I am a busy guy, okay?”
“Uh-huh. That’s why—”
Their phones buzz with a message at the same time.
Derek grimaces, and Stiles sighs, throwing one arm over his face. “I don’t want to.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Fine.” Stiles makes a dramatic show of wiggling to sit up so he can reach his phone. Derek watches as he presses the side button. His scent flicks through disappointment and resolve, and before he speaks Derek knows what’s coming.
“And so ends our glorious weekend.”
Derek lets his head fall into the pillow for just one moment, before lifting up and asking: “What’s the M.O.?”
Stiles sets his phone down and meets Derek’s gaze.
“Arson.”