When he gets home he is tired as hell and all he really wants is to lose a few braincells to his XBOX. So, of course, when he gets to his room Derek's there.

And of course, Stiles has a few years scared off of him. But that's alright, really, don't worry. He hadn't really been that fond of the idea of being able to meet his grandchildren.

"Jesus Christ! Damn! Derek, man, really. Doors. And not being one of those creepy stalkerish things that go bump in the night. This isn't Twilight. And, dude, do you even know what the concept of private property is?" He clutches at his chest with one hand, while he throws his bag to the floor with the other. "But doors, mainly. I mean, man, what if my father had been home?"

Derek makes a noncommittal grunt from where he's comfortably sprawled over Stiles' bed. He glances at Stiles with a face that's so carefully blank that it could mean anything from 'you are absolutely right, how can I exist without you to point my many errors' to 'gurl, please.'

Just thinking about Derek saying 'gurl, please.' is enough to break his brain and give him a headache.

"Derek, you are giving me a headache."

"No, you are giving yourself a headache." He rises from the bed and walks up to him.

Stiles closes his bedroom door and sags against it, tries to think about ponies. Or about the reproductive life of snails. Such interesting creatures.

Tries to occupy his mind in anything other than the fact that one second Derek is lifting himself from Stiles' bed and the other he's standing right in front of him, eyes affixed to his with a clear determination.

Stiles knows what this is about, of course he freaking knows. Because he is the smart one, the master mind (after Lydia, that is). And because of course Jackson would've had a meltdown with his godforsaken Alpha about his many guilty-jerk feels, too. But he'll be damned if he is the one that brings the topic up.

"Did you know that Apple Snails and periwinkles are the only types of snails that still have a separate male and female species?"

"Did you know that I'm not above ripping your throat out-"

"-with your teeth. I know, yes." Derek's lips turn the tiniest bit upwards. Stiles gasps. "Man, man, you're trying to be funny. What's taken over you?"

Derek shrugs, still casually invading Stiles' personal bubble.

"We are talking about this." Derek says, then.

'Talking about it' is going really well.

Yeah, right.

It starts like this: Stiles worms his way around Derek, throws himself face first onto the bed in a ball of flaily limbs, Derek sits on his desk chair. And they just stay like that for, what? Fifteen minutes?

Yes, fiteen. Sixteen, maybe.

He lifts his head a little from his pillow to say, loudly and dripping in a healthy dose of sarcasm: "Wow, Derek, this is such a high quality conversation. It should be recorded, kept for posterity."

"Jackson is sorry. And so is Scott." Is Derek's answer. He's sporting his best 'I'm the Alpha here so listen' look. Not that it differs much from all his other facial expressions. Stiles is just a pro at reading him by now. "Jackson, in particular is quite worked up."

"Jackson is an ass and he licked my arm. Repeteadly. With his disconcertingly long weretongue." he puts his head back on the pillow but rearranges his body to be able to look at Derek with the minimum effort.

Derek stiffens a bit at that comment, mouth in a thin line.

"Are you honestly gonna be a sourwolf over my wanting to not be covered in your damn beta's spit?"

"Omega."

"Jackson's an omega? Seriously?" That's, well, that's certainly enough to pique his natural curiosity. "I thought that if you guys had an omega it would be me."

Derek's eyes flash red at his comment.

"Okay, okay. Not asking any more questions. Jeez, buddy, anger management issues. So many of them."

"Stiles. Shut up."

He does. Not because he has to, but because Derek doesn't sound pissed off. He sounds...

"Stiles,"

He sounds a little pained. Like whatever he's trying to get out is physically hurting him in some way.

"Look, Derek. Not that this isn't lovely, but my dad-"

"-won't be home early. Don't try to lie to a werewolf, Stiles. You are smarter than that." A second or two pass, then he speaks again, "You are a beta. Betas show support for their Alphas and help enforcing the pack structure."

Stiles can tell that Derek's withholding information, that there's more that for whatever strange reason he thinks Stiles is not supposed to know.

"Okay." He flexes his fingers against the bed covers. Closes his eyes for a little while, feeling a compressing pain envolving his skull. Headaches. Derek, and this tension that's always present with them and they never really manage to get around, always give him headaches.

The bed dips under the weight of someby else. A warm hand finds Stiles' forehead.

Derek's warm hand.

Stiles maybe cranes his neck a little to get more of that warmth.

"You're not our punching bag. Or our stress relief. Or whatever the fuck you've come up with to keep letting this happen." Stiles feels cold rage at those words, but when he opens his eyes and goes to retaliate the hand on his forehead moves to cover his mouth.

Stiles is very tempted to pull a Jackson and get Derek's hand acquainted with his drool.

"When this happens it's not because we don't care. It's because we are idiots."

At Stiles' furious gaze, Derek's face softens. Which might or might not make Stiles calm down a bit (he doesn't see nearly enough of Derek like that, connected to his human side).

"You fit so seamlessly with the idea of pack. Better than Jackson or Scott, or even Lydia. Sometimes we just forget how human you are. " Derek doesn't use the word 'frail', for which he is entirely grateful. But it still sounds too much like that. Too much like 'you're so easy to break, we don't know how to play with you.'

"That doesn't mean that we should get away with it. You ought to tells us these things. We'll be more careful, try to better watch ourselves. But you still gotta do what you do best and call us on our shit when we fall short of the mark."

Derek's hand leavis mouth, Stiles flicks his tongue over his lower lip. Derek's eyes follow the movement closely.

"So you're basically telling me that I'm weak and you don't know how to deal with that, and that all this is my fault for not screaming like a little girl every time you get a little rough?"

"Don't be deliberately obtuse." Derek's eyes remain glued to Stiles' lips for a second or two, before going back to his eyes, holding him still with the sheer force of his intense gaze. "You know that's not what I meant. This is not your fault, I know we are responsible for this. And you are strong. We all think you are strong. I think you're strong."

The hand that had been on his forehead reaches out tentatively for one of his own, resting half on top of it, half next to it. It's only then that he notices how close to him Derek's sitting.

Tension. It's always been there with them, but now it feels overbearing. He groans, not sure if he is ready for this. Not sure if he's ready for whatever this is that they've been slowly inching up to, on top of everything else.

"I can smell your nerves."

His life. What the hell.

"And that's not all pretty freaking creepy, dude. Not at all. Totally something to throw out there."

The hand half resting on top of his shifts until their fingers are tangled. The body next to his moves around until they are touching the tiniest bit.

"Stiles, we can deal with one thing at a time."

He nods, knowing that he's agreeing to a lot more than he can imagine. But that's okay.

He may not be ready for this to be his life, sometimes, but he wouldn't want to change it either.

For the most part.

"You should still work on the door thing. And the creepin'. And Jackson's boundary issues."

"I can still rip your throat out with my teeth."

Their hands stay clasped, tight, warm.