Just The Beginning - Sterek

Chapter 19

Stiles wakes up to the smell of forest dew and Derek Hale.

His face is nestled between the crook of Derek's armpit and left pectoral, which beats a pillow any day. A memory foam pillow, even. They're still in the woods, but Derek just smells like the woods himself anyway, like redwood and fresh pine and a little like sweat and earth. It's good. So good that it takes a minute to remember that right— he and Derek kissed last night, like reallysuperduperintenselyawesome kissed, before falling asleep together staring up at the stars.

Best. Day after his birthday. Ever.

He's still kind of half asleep, but he can sense that it must be early morning because the light behind his eyelids is a little too bright to still be nighttime, and he can hear the distant coos of woodland fowl over the breeze. The leather jacket is layed out over them in a makeshift blanket (when did that happen?) and he blinks his eyes open, which is a monumental task because Derek's breath (which somehow magically doesn't even smell that horrible despite the early hour) is spilling down and ruffling his bangs oh-so-slightly, which is nice. Really nice. Nice squared.

He turns his nose down further into Derek's chest away from the cold. The tip of the sun is just barely watching over the city, so the sky stretches lazily over them in shades of pale purple dusk, with rings of deep pink yawning hello from the horizon. He blinks sleepily at it, sighs happily, and shifts his head up to steal a glance at Derek's sleeping face, only to find that Derek is already awake and staring at him contentedly.

"Were you watching me sleep?" He snorts, voice gravelly. "Gotta say, you've reached a new level of creeper-dom."

Derek grunts in reply. "You snore a lot."

He snuggles back down under the jacket. He's safe. A safe little cocoon, or like a bug under a leaf, like those little black caterpillar eggs that stick to your fingers and freak you out when you pick up a leaf. It's awesome. "And you cuddle a lot, apparently. Derek Hale, the cuddler. Cuddlewolf. Who knew?"

Derek responds my shifting over and slipping his arms off to sit up. Stiles does not whine a little at this.

"Hey, I didn't say stop." He curls into a very lonely ball as the chilly air nips at his arms. Derek tosses the jacket at him, which lands over his face.

"We should get up," Derek announces. His hair is sleep-ruffled and his eyes are sharp grey against the woods, and somehow aren't sealed over with gross crusties, which is just unfair. "Judging by the sun it's about seven. We're meeting Melissa at the farmer's market at nine."

"Okay first, is that a wolf thing? Being super in tune with the sun's alignment and all that? Second, I gotta say you and mama McCall being grocery buds is kind of awesome. Weird and totally unexpected, but awesome. Like those mugs that change color if you put hot or cold drinks in them— Ha! Hey, there's a beetle on my shoe. Sup, beetle— like if you pour hot coffee into it and the mug turns orange—  weird and unexpected, but awesome. Actually jk, the beetle's actually just some dirt. I need Adderall."

"Hurry up."

"I gotta say you are probably the most passionate grocery shopper I've ever met. Sun barely cracks the horizon? Oh good, let's go get some vegetables. Derek Hale, the veggiewolf. Did'ja know NASA's doing experiments where they're trying to grow potatoes on Mars? I bet you'd go to Mars just to get those potatoes. In like, 2053. We'd be like... How old would we be? I can't do math at this hour. I prefer to avoid math at all hours of the day, actually. Hey, is that mint over there?"

"That's huckleberry. It'll probably give your mouth a rash if you try chewing it."

Stiles flings the leaf away.