Work Text:
Derek would deny it if caught, but ever since Stiles was possessed by the Nogitsune he found himself sitting outside the Stilinski household on the nights the Sheriff had to work. It has been two weeks since the demon was stopped, and from what he could tell Stiles was trying to stay awake until his father came home from his shift in the morning. He did this every night he was left alone.
Derek was perched on the roof, just to the side of Stiles' window. The light was on even though it was 2 in the morning, and he could hear the heartbeat of a very awake and very anxious Stiles inside.
He could also hear a pen tapping on paper, the click of Stiles' teeth as he chewed his fingernails, and the odd sentence in Polish that he was starting to contemplate looking up the translations to.
It took Derek a few tries to even get close on the spelling for the translation app he found to work, but he managed to get something close enough for it to guess the correct spelling and suggest a translation.
"To się nie dzieje..." 'It's not real'
"To tylko sny..." 'They're just dreams'
"Nic mi nie jest..." 'I'm fine'
Every line he read made his heart ache more. Derek rubbed the center of his chest absently before turning to glance down at the window.
Not even three seconds later the window was sliding open and Stiles was sticking his head out to squint over at Derek. "I'm making curly fries, do you want some or do you want to keep sitting out here pretending like I don't know you've been hanging out on my roof every other night of the week?"
Derek's face dropped into a look for shock despite himself. "How the hell did you know I was out here?"
Stiles huffed a sigh and rolled his eyes "Dad saw you the first night he went back to work and texted me asking why the hell you were skulking around the roof. Now do you wanna come in or do you actually enjoy freezing your ass off out here all night?" Stiles said before disappearing back into his room before Derek could reply.
Derek blinked a few times before giving up and climbing in through the open window. Stiles was right, it was cold out, and boring. And honestly, he could only play those stupid games on his phone so many times before he lost his damn mind.
Stiles wasn't in his room when Derek entered, so he went through the open door and headed for the kitchen. Sure enough the teen was poking at some buttons on the stove, his back to Derek as he set the oven up to bake the aforementioned curly fries.
Derek was not prepared for what he saw when Stiles turned around. Stiles looked like absolute shit. Worse than when he was possessed. The dark circles under his eyes looked worse, though it could just be the dim lighting. His face looked drawn, thin and tired. That and he just plain smelled off. Not like he was dirty, or sick, just off. A little sourness to his otherwise normal scent.
Not paying attention to Derek's reaction to him, Stiles brushed past him and opened the freezer. He pulled out a bag of frozen fries before turning and dumping them on a sheet pan. Once that was in the oven he hit a few more buttons before shuffling over and taking a seat at the kitchen table. "Sit down already, would ya."
Derek stood there a moment, studying the teen before slowly stepping forward and taking the seat across from him. He didn't say anything. Just folded his hands on the table before him and kept his eyes downcast.
They sat in silence until a buzzer went off sometime later, both jumping slightly at the sudden sound before Stiles stood and walked over to shut it off and retrieve the now finished fries.
A minute later Stiles set one large plate on the table between them with a bottle of ketchup and a shaker of salt. He took his seat and proceeded to dump a puddle of ketchup on one side of the plate before wordlessly grabbing one of the smallest fries and popping it into his mouth.
After a moment Derek started to eat as well, going for the larger curly fries and pulling them apart before shoving the pieces in his mouth.
Stiles watched him, or rather watched his hands as Derek pulled the fries apart silently.
When they finished Stiles put the plate in the sink without a word and motioned for Derek to follow him back upstairs.
Once back inside the teens' bedroom, Stiles took a seat on his bed, pulling a pillow into his lap as he did so, and gestures for Derek to take a seat at the end of the bed.
Again neither of them spoke as Derek sat on the end of the bed, eyeing Stiles appreciatively before taking a look around the room. Everything looked pretty much the same as it had the last time he was in here, though the desk was more of a mess than usual. Multiple notebooks and stray papers scattered about haphazardly.
Stiles noticed Derek eyeing the mess of papers and cleared his throat, drawing the wolf's attention to him. "You, uh... You wanna watch netflix or something?" He asked, eyes darting from Derek to the laptop currently buried under the papers on his desk.
Derek blinked, eyebrows raising slightly at the question. "Sure."
Stiles pushed the pillow currently occupying his lap aside and got up, uncovering the laptop and turning it to face the bed before bringing up netflix and hitting play on a random episode of Star Trek. He took his space on the head of the bed back up once the opening credits began. Pillow being pulled into his lap and turned so it was hugged to his chest as he leaned back against the wall and focused his attention on the opening scene.
Derek eventually ended up kicking off his boots and moving to sit beside Stiles, their shoulders just barely touching as they watched episode after episode. Eventually, Stiles fell asleep, and Derek stayed, waking the teen at the first sign of his heartrate spiking from a nightmare.
After that night this became their routine. Derek would come over, they would eat something, put on netflix, and Stiles would fall asleep at Dereks' side. Derek woke him every time a nightmare started, talking to him to keep him awake just long enough that he wouldn't slip right back into the nightmare, and eventually it got to the point where Derek could go almost all night without needing to wake the teen.
A month later Derek was taken by Kate.