Work Text:
“Oh my God!” Stiles starts, and he shifts slightly where he’s sitting cross-legged on Derek’s naked back. Derek’s form falters for a fraction before he stabilizes himself, and quirks his head to look back at Stiles.
“What?” He asks.
“Lowes is having a sale on cabinet hardware,” Stiles says, excitedly, and Derek feels the edge of the newspaper ruffling as Stiles turns the page. He dips down towards the floor and does three more push ups before he pauses and says, “So?”
Stiles makes a noise of indignation around the mouthful of Honey Kix in his mouth, and Derek can feel the milk in his bowl sloshing. “Because you promised after you finished the reno on the back deck we could upgrade to stainless steel and I’m holding you to that.”
Derek huffs out a long suffering sort of sigh and wriggles his hips, Stiles takes the hint and clambers awkwardly off of him. “I hate shopping.”
“I know but you love me and my ass and my ass wants new hardware so your ass is going to Lowes,” Stiles reprimands. Derek mocks him behind his back and Stiles shoots him a dirty look, “there is a mirror over the mantle ass wipe I can see you.”
“An ugly mirror,” Derek says petulantly. Stiles’ mouth drops in mock outrage.
“That is an heirloom!”
“It’s shaped like a penis Stiles.”
“Heirlooms have to start somewhere Derek!” Stiles shouts and Derek rolls his eyes and grabs Stiles by the hips, yanking him in. Stiles squawks and drops his cereal bowl, it clatters and clanks against the hardwood floor, but Derek isn’t paying attention, grasps Stiles waist and ass and lifts him up. Stiles pulls a face but his legs wrap easily around Derek’s middle and he rests his arms lazily across his shoulders.
“Don’t think sex is going to get you out of your matrimonial duties,” Stiles tries, but his voice ends breathy as Derek starts sucking at his neck, carrying him towards the back bedroom. “Even if…okay yeah.”
Derek goes out of town for three weeks about a month after they move in to their first house and comes home a day earlier than he was supposed to and finds Stiles in bed with someone else.
“I can explain!” Stiles starts, and he sits up in bed guiltily, his Kindle falling into the sheets around him. Derek quirks a brow. “Her name is Starbuck and I found her and she loves me and you were gone for so long Derek and I was lonely,” Stiles says with despair, and he clutches his arms around the panting retriever on the bed beside him.
“Okay, Stiles,” Derek sighs and he drops his bag on the floor beside the door without argument. Starbuck favors Stiles but she’s not afraid of Derek the way some dogs are, and Derek thinks she and Stiles make an oddly good pair the two of them. Stiles barks at Derek when he’s in the middle of losing an argument and she always takes his side, but sometimes Derek hides dog treats in his pockets when he’s feeling particularly vindictive.
They argue constantly about whose turn it is to take her for walks and she stands with her leash in her mouth watching them bicker back and forth, whining softly and pleadingly. Most of the time Stiles ends up falling to the floor dramatically beside the dog and staring up at Derek with an expression of matching despair until Derek sighs with a roll of his eyes and drags Stiles out the door with him.
They walk up and down their quiet neighborhood, leash looped tight around one of Stiles’ hands, the other curled in the warmth of Derek’s. Derek always insists on Stiles walking on the inside of the road and maneuvers them into place when Stiles tries to fight it, even though he grins sappily at it as they kick pebbles down the street.
“I have a mad craving for Chunky Munky and gummy bears,” Stiles says suddenly during the commercial break of SNL. He tips his head back against Derek’s chest and pokes at the underside of his jaw until Derek tightens his arm around him in an attempt to swat his hand away, jaws snapping for good measure.
“The Cumbys down the road is still open, c’mon chunky munky!” Stiles pleads.
“I’m in my pajamas,” Derek reasons. Stiles makes a hissing noise and Starbuck barks from the other couch. “See, she agrees,” Derek responds.
“C’mon!” Stiles whines and Derek maneuvers him into a headlock. “Domestic abuse!” Stiles shouts, trying to twist out of his grip.
“You have legs, you can go.”
“It’s late, I could get kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’m going to pretending you’re making a reference to my obvious fighting skills and not—“ Stiles starts but Derek shakes his head.
“—nope, pretty much you’re old and decrepit and no one else will have you,” Derek reasons.
“You know the other night you farted so hard in your sleep you woke yourself up,” Stiles tells him, seriously. Derek laughs and looks down at him. “I mean, you’re just lucky you can open jars and give really good head is all I’m saying,” Stiles informs him.
“I’d have to put shoes on,” Derek sighs.
“I’ll put them on for you.” He doesn’t though, he chucks them at Derek’s head from the foyer until Derek stuffs his bare feet into them and shuffles over to him. Starbuck whines from the couch until Stiles waves her over and she bounds towards them barking happily. At the gas station Stiles buys his weight in candy and Derek picks up beef jerky for him and the dog and Stiles opens his mouth to crack a joke and Derek gives him a pointed look and says, “remember that head?” And Stiles snaps it shut again with a soft chuckle.
Stiles breaks his flip flop tripping on the way out the door and bangs up his hand and his knee when he tumbles to the ground. Derek goes back in for a first aid kit without a word and comes out with Neosporin and Spiderman Band-Aids.
“I don’t know how you’re still alive sometimes,” Derek tells him only half serious, opening up a bandage and spreading it over the small scrape on Stiles’ hand.
“Because I have a super hero for a husband,” Stiles tells him, “now kiss my ouchies.” Derek rolls his eyes but presses a kiss to the tip of Stiles’ nose, fondly, before picking him up off the ground.
After Kate, Derek never imagined letting anyone in the way some people seem to do so easily. But Stiles crawls in like a special forces commando, an analogy Derek makes the mistake of admitting to, which leads to Stiles going on a shopping spree at on old army surplus store and coming home with a couple of pairs of fatigues and old dog tags. (It irritates Derek at first but they don’t leave the bedroom for a day and a half.)
The first time they try to remake their bed it ends with a trip to the emergency room.
“It goes this way,” Derek says, tugging on his end of the fitted sheet and throwing an irritated glare at Stiles.
“No, it doesn’t, it goes the other way,” Stiles counters, yanking on his end. Derek stares him down and Stiles sighs. “Okay, whatever, you win.” They stretch their sides of the sheet and Derek manages to loop his ends around the corners of the mattress. Stiles tugs on his uselessly and glares at Derek.
“Oh…okay I guess it goes the other way,” Derek concedes with a sheepish shrug. Stiles rolls his eyes and they turn the sheet around. Stiles yanks his over the corners closest to him, and looks up to see Derek looking confusedly down at his own.
They don’t reach.
“What the hell?” Stiles asks.
“It goes…the other way?” Derek asks, looking up at him and they flip the sheet and try again. It still doesn’t fit and Stiles starts laughing, but Derek looks frustrated.
“What the fuck?”
“Are you sure it’s the right size?” Stiles asks.
“It’s the only one we have, it was on the bed before we washed it!” Derek shouts, annoyed. “Who made the bed last time?”
“I think it was my Dad when he helped us move in,” Stiles says.
“What the fuck!” Derek shouts, and he pushes Stiles’ hands away and moves to do it himself. He grips two of the corners in each of his hands and crawls on his knees to the head of the bed, flopping over on his stomach dramatically and stretching one corner and then the other. Stiles watches as his face grows more and more red when he moves to try tugging the opposite ends over the foot of the bed.
He makes dramatic pained noises as he does it until Stiles is clutching at his crotch trying not to wet himself. Derek throws a miniature temper tantrum at the end of the bed and lets out a wail of frustration into the mattress.
“Derek,” Stiles sighs, choking on laughter.
“I hate this.”
“Now I know why you squatted so long in a train depot, wolves are not domesticated animals.”
“Fuck off!” Derek says but he’s laughing now too, turning over on his back until his entire body is wracked with hysterics.
“C’mon,” Stiles sighs, finally getting his giggles under control as he moves to help. They stretch and pull and yank at both ends of the fitted sheet until Stiles hears the threads give way and he shouts out a warning, “Derek you’re gonna—“ laughing, but Derek glares at him and he yanks, tears the fitted sheet in half and punches himself in the face, Stiles darts forward to help as Derek throws his head back, smashing Stiles in the nose with the back of his head, he shouts, tips back over the edge of the bed and catches himself the wrong way with the a sharp twist of his wrist.
“I think I sprained something,” he says unhappily from the floor. “Also I peed myself.”
Sometimes, on Sundays, Derek gets up early and goes for a run and Stiles sneaks out to the bakery down the road and gets them fresh Danishes and the caramel coffee Derek pretends not to have wet dreams about. Then, when Derek comes home, slicked with cooling sweat and hopped up on adrenaline they’ll take a lazy shower together, and Derek will sit on the low bench they have in the wide stall and Stiles will suck him off, slow and enthusiastic, the way Derek likes. He’ll card a hand threw Stiles’ wet hair and Stiles will spend long drawn out minutes licking at his balls, cupping them in his open palm, pressing kisses and soft licks to the shaft of his dick as he makes his way up, before swallowing him down.
When the light bulbs in the kitchen lights need replacing Derek will lift Stiles up on his shoulders because they still haven’t gotten around to buying a ladder.
Stiles doesn’t like reading before bed because it makes him jittery, he gets too involved in the stories and he ends up spending hours trying to get through the rest of his book. He prefers laying on his back with his Kindle held above him browsing reddit or imgur, laughing quietly and tugging on Derek’s sleeve occasionally to show him something. Derek likes sitting with his shoulders pressed to Stiles’ in their bed while he reads sci-fi novels until they’re both too sleepy to stay awake and Stiles will shut his lamp off and curl up around Derek, letting Derek rest his book on his head until Derek finishes the last of his chapter and turns his own lamp off. Then, most nights, they spend the next hour whispering back and forth in the quiet of their bedroom while Starbuck snores noisily on the floor below them.
During a really big thunderstorm Stiles comes home and can’t find Starbuck or Derek anywhere. He’s soaked to the core with water, shakes it off at the front door and grabs a dishtowel to dry off his dripping hair. He goes up to the bedroom and peels off his sodden jeans and t-shirt and pulls on a clean pair of boxer briefs and the henley Derek left draped over the bed that morning. It smells like his aftershave. He slides on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and goes off in search of his two pups. Derek’s car is in the garage and the leash is hung up on the pegs by the door so he knows they aren’t out. He goes down to the small finished basement because it’s the only place has hasn’t checked yet.
The previous owners had a massive pool table they didn’t want to take with them, and Derek said his father had always wanted one, so they’d kept it in the corner of the basement. Stiles can see Derek’s bare feet sticking out from underneath it as he turns the corner and he sighs and drops down to his knees as he moves in front of it. He ducks his head and worms his way beneath it.
“Hey,” Derek says softly. Starbuck picks her head up and looks at him, a crack of thunder rattles the house and she trembles and whimpers softly. Derek buries his head in the scruff of her neck and whispers softly. “I couldn’t get her to come out,” Derek explains. But Stiles can see the skittish look in his own eyes when another crack of thunder makes the windows rattle.
Stiles suppresses the smirk, but whatever teasing might have been there years ago, it’s left only fondness in its wake. He curls up behind Derek, and shoves a barefoot between Derek’s legs and snuffs at the back of his neck, until Derek relaxes back into him and sighs contentedly.
“I’m glad your home,” he whispers.
“Me too,” and he kisses his warm skin and holds his hand over Derek’s heart.
Stiles is a cynic on the surface but a romantic at heart, and he imagined as kid getting married and he’s pictured the way it might go down. Diamond rings and champagne, him down on one knee on Valentines day in Paris.
Instead it’s Derek who proposes…in the household supply aisle at the local grocery store, after they have their first real fight, over which laundry detergent they should buy. Stiles favors Gain but Derek likes Downey and they stare at each other, expressions hard and jaws set tight, each clasping their own bottle without any sign of backing down.
It ends, or maybe it begins, when Stiles shouts in frustration and knocks the bottle of Downey into the cart and stalks off, shouting behind him, “If you love it so goddamn much why don’t you just marry it!”
“Don’t walk away from me, Stiles!” Derek shouts from behind him. Stiles throws an angry glare over his shoulder. He can hear the squeak of the cart coming up behind him but he refuses to move, until Derek is shoving it into him.
“Ow! What the fuck is your problem!” Stiles shouts, and Derek just lets out a frustrated noise and rams him again, until Stiles loses his balance and topples back into the cart, legs going out from under him, waving dramatically in the air. He lands hard on a bottle of diet soda and he smooshes a loaf of bread beneath his ass.
“What the fuck!” He shouts, face heating up as people turn to watch. He wriggles like an overturned turtle trying to right himself without any use. “Let me out of the fucking cart, DEREK!” Stiles cries, waving his legs.
But Derek ignores him, pushes he and Stiles right up to the checkout counters, through the express lane, cutting several people in line. Derek moves himself around to the other side of the cart where a confused, humiliated Stiles is still struggling to right himself. He lifts Stiles easily out of the cart and dumps him onto the conveyer belt.
Stiles moves in a comically slow fashion down the belt to stop at the bemused cashier.
“Just this,” Derek says, staring hard at Stiles.
“Uh…” She says, staring between the two of them. “Cash or charge?”
Stiles sighs and tries to climb off the belt but Derek crowds him in. “Both, all, everything. Anything you want, Stiles. Okay? I don’t care about laundry detergent or whether we buy off brand Oreos or the real thing, I don’t care about wax coated paper plates or the plastic kind, you can have whatever you want. I just…I want you. Okay? Always, for like…” he sighs. “Like ever, okay?”
“Are you…are you….” Stiles gapes at him, there’s a crowd now, watching with interest, some in mild annoyance and others in delighted shock, and there are two deputies buying premade sandwiches at the deli and he sighs. “You’re…I don’t care about any of that either, Derek,” Stiles sighs finally, chest deflating. “Except the Oreo thing, I don’t know why you’d ever buy off brand Oreos—“
“Stiles.”
“Derek, you had me at ‘this is private property,” Stiles says, grinning sideways at him, and Derek rolls his eyes but Stiles cuts the huff of indignation off with a kiss.