Derek’s not sure what’s more alarming: that he never heard footsteps on the rickety, rusted-out fire escape, or that Stiles Stilinski is lurking in his bedroom in the middle of the night.
His eyes snap open, focusing with pinpoint precision on the intruder, who reaches long, slender fingers toward the vase of drooping daffodils on his nightstand.
“What are you doing?” Derek croaks as Stiles’ hand grazes a soft yellow petal.
He whips the wandering appendage back like he’s been burned, locking startled, bloodshot brown eyes on Derek’s prone form.
“I…” Stiles stops, glances around, eyes falling back to the small, wilting bouquet, the only spot of cheery color in the dark, sparse room. “Really, dude? Flowers? You realize a few blooms won’t cover up the fact that this loft is a shithole?”
Derek sits up, cotton sheet pooling around his waist. Stiles’ eyes rake down his bare chest, a phantom caress leaving goosebumps in its wake. “Did you break in just to insult my apartment?”
“Whoa, rude. Pot, meet kettle.” Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “Besides, your window was wide open. You’re lucky it was only me.”
Derek scrubs a hand down his face. He may not know Stiles well, but he can tell when he’s stalling. “Stiles, what do you want?”
Stiles continues as if Derek never spoke. “I never pictured you as a flower guy. Did a girlfriend give you these? My mom loved daffodils. There used to be a flower sale when I was in elementary school, right around Mother’s Day, and my dad would give me money to buy her a few. I always used the spare change to buy an extra ice cream at lunch. Hate to break it to you man, but fresh air isn’t going to do these suckers any good. They’re past their prime.”
He flicks a cup-shaped corona, spraying a fine sheen of pollen into the balmy night air, and Derek lets loose a low, menacing growl. Stiles’ outstretched hand trembles slightly with his quickening heartbeat, but one deep breath pulls a blanket of composure over his fear. He turns toward the window, shoulders slumped. “I couldn’t… I… Screw this. I’m leaving.”
A hand snaps out, encircling Stiles’ wrist before he can take a step. “What’s wrong?”
The question Derek should ask is what isn’t wrong. In the past few months they’ve faced off against a darach and a nogitsune. And before that, it was a kanima and a homicidal rouge alpha. They’ve all stared hell in the face, but Derek wagers none more so than Stiles. Weakened after his split from the fox demon, Stiles is a shadow of his former frantic self. Dark circles stain the translucent skin under his eyes, and his already-skinny frame is emaciated.
Stiles’ gaze sticks fast to the vase, steady beat of his heart thumping against the pad of Derek’s thumb. “I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping since…” He looks toward Derek, blinking fast. “Everytime I close my eyes, I see Allison’s face.”
Derek speaks many languages, but they all fail him in the face of Stiles’ pain. So he waits for Stiles to inevitably fill the silence, poorly attempting to convey empathy via his eyebrows. His sisters, both living and dead, always told him the expression made him look constipated, but it’s all he knows.
“I can’t go to Scott with this,” Stiles continues, as Derek knew he would. “I don’t want to hurt him—hurt anyone—more than I already have. Lydia is grieving for Aiden, Danny misses Ethan and Jackson, and Malia is… complicated. My father is worried sick and the last thing I want to do is burden him with a crazy son. Again. I don’t…” He shudders on an inhale. “It was stupid to come here, but I have nowhere else to go.”
Silence stretches between them, woeful and taut. Derek wishes, for the hundredth time in a span of seconds, that he’d inherited his mother’s soft, soothing solace, or his father’s confident gestures of comfort. At the rogue thought of his dad, Derek waves toward the sagging daffodils.
“My father was a florist.” Yeah, Derek sucks at this.
Stiles scrunches his nose. “Uh. Okay?”
He marches on. In for a penny, in for a pound. “It’s how he and my mother met. He was a human florist. Ran a shop outside of town. Floriography was his passion, and she’d heard about him, sought him out when her pack needed help with medicinal herbs. They fell in love and she turned him.”
Stiles is soaking up Derek’s tale like a dehydrated man in the desert, so he charges on. “My father had this book my mother gave him called Le Langage des Fleurs.” The French slides off Derek’s tongue like silk. “We used to read it together, but it burned up in the fire.” The with everything and everyone else remains loudly unspoken. “Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings.”
He slips from the bed, sheet falling to the floor. Thank goodness he wore boxers to bed. Gently, he moves aside the yellow flowers to reveal violet and crimson sweet pea. “These mean thankfulness. It’s a bouquet I arranged after Cora returned. There’s a bunch on her nightstand, too.”
Stiles delicately fingers the petals again. “Why are you telling me this?”
Growing up, his father had filled every room in the house with flowers. On the bad nights, when vivid nightmares rip him from sleep, he swears he can still smell petals burning. “Because, despite everything that’s happened, they help me,” Derek explains. “Flowers make me feel closer to my family, let me express what I’m feeling.”
“I have noticed you’re really bad at that, dude.”
Derek glares. “The point is, you’ve got to find what helps you.” Derek realizes he’s still loosely holding Stiles’ wrist, and quickly drops his hand. Luckily, the awkwardness is broken by the sudden loud complaint of Stiles’ empty stomach.
Stiles laughs, and Derek’s heart breaks a little when he realizes it’s been months since he’s heard the sound. He wraps it around himself like a garland. “Food would help,” Stiles declares.
Derek bends down, grabs a pair of sweatpants off the floor. Stiles mummers something about underwear models under his breath, and Derek flips him off over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s raid the fridge. Cora just went grocery shopping.”
----------
“Derek. Care to explain why I found Stilinski in our pantry this morning, eating Nutella straight from the jar?” Cora crosses her arms over her chest, menacing despite her striped pajamas and bed head.
Derek scowls, bracing for a fight. “He’s struggling, Cora. He didn’t want to be alone, so I told him he could crash on the couch last night. I’ll buy you a new jar next time I’m at Costco.”
She hums, crossing her ankles on top of the coffee table, painted toes almost touching a vase of stargazer lilies. “This is going to be a thing, isn’t it?”
“No.” Derek nips the insinuation in the bud.
It totally becomes a thing.
———-
Derek stills when he enters his room and finds Stiles sitting cross-legged on his bed. He can feel his hackles instinctively rise at the invasion of his personal space, Stiles’ scent already seeping into the mattress. His gym bag thumps to the hardwood floor.
“What do these mean?” Stiles questions, pointing to the fresh purple and white flowers.
“Lavender has lots of meanings, but it’s a healing plant. People have used it for centuries; it calms you down and helps you sleep.” Derek points first to the purple florets on the long, skinny stem, then to the white flowers on the thick green stalks. “And Heather is for luck, protection and making wishes come true.”
“Heather,” Stiles whispers, small smile quickly overtaken by a frown carving deep lines around his generous mouth. He shakes his head like a wet dog, dislodging whatever morose memories have tried to take hold. “So, want to watch a movie or something?”
Derek whips off his white tank top and tosses it in the general direction of the hamper. Stiles’ eyes go wide. “Sure, but I’ve got to shower first. Here,” he chucks his cellphone into Stiles’ lap. “Order us some pizzas, I’m starving.” He heads for the door, speaking over his shoulder. “Get me ham and pineapple.”
“Gross dude!” Stiles yells at his retreating back.
———-
Week three brings horehound and azalea, and a trial run of Claudia Stilinski’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. Derek, Stiles and Cora eat twenty-four cookies between them.
Week four is gardenia, morning glory and blue salvia, and Cora’s thoughtful, “He’s better, more rested. He’s thriving. Don’t you think?”
———
“What was that book called? The one your dad read to you?” Stiles is contemplating camellia, eyebrows drawn.
“Le Langage des Fleurs. The Language of Flowers. He had a first edition from 1819, and handled it like he was holding a newborn.” Derek chuckles, remembering his father’s gentle hands, the memory crisp and sweet as an apple blossom in his mind. “He was ridiculous.”
Two weeks later Derek comes home to hydrangeas, the fading scent of Stiles, and a copy of Le Langage des Fleurs lying on his desk. He picks it up, runs a finger down the spine, and his father bursts into technicolor life before his eyes. It’s not a first edition, but to Derek, it’s priceless.
———
A war rages between Derek’s head and heart, as Stiles peacefully sleeps, belting out an occasional snore and drooling on Derek’s favorite pillow.
It’s your own damn bed. Get in.
You can’t. Not without his permission. Wake him up and tell him to get his ass to the couch.
It’s only sleeping. He won’t mind.
His father might be wondering where he is. Don’t worry the Sheriff or you’ll end up arrested. Again.
“Damnit,” Derek whispers, and crawls into bed, lying down next to Stiles on top of the blankets. As far as truces go, it’s pretty weak.
The movement, though careful, wakes Stiles, and he rolls toward Derek, blinking. “You’re warm,” Stiles mumbles. “Stay.”
Derek does.
_______
“I’m planning on visiting the cemetery Saturday morning,” Derek broaches. “I usually bring some flowers for the graves.” A pregnant pause. “I could gather some for you to take, if you want to come along.”
———
They stop first at Derek’s family plot, and Stiles helps him tend to the zinnias Derek planted around the graves when he first returned to Beacon Hills.
“Ready?” Derek squints in the bright morning light at Stiles’ shadowed face.
A sigh. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
Allison’s tombstone is shiny and summer-warm, and Stiles tenderly lays a spray of willow, asphodel lily and wormwood at the base. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Tears track down Stiles’ cheeks, but he doesn’t swipe them away, letting them evaporate in the sun, leaving behind a tang of salt Derek can taste in the air. “I’m so sorry.”
An entirely different Stiles walks back to the Camaro, a familiar one. The effortless, supernatural confidence of the nogitsune and the quiet, sad stillness of grieving are shed with each step, a much-needed abscission. Rosy cheeks replace a pallid parlor, and fidgety fingers dance along the tops of headstones they pass. The return to normalcy rattles loose a content noise from Derek’s chest.
“What is it, big guy?”
“You’re kind of like a flower, ya know,” Derek replies, before he can internally talk himself out of the confession.
The corners of Stiles’ mouth gradually rise. “If you mean I’m beautiful and smell fantastic, yes, I did know.”
Derek punches him lightly in the arm, and Stiles reels away with a dramatic flailing of limbs. “Some flowers come back year after year, after being buried under snow and ice, and they’re stronger than ever. Take a lotus, for example. It grows in the darkness and mud, but when it reaches the light…” Derek finishes his statement in reverent hush. “It becomes something exquisite.”
“So you’re saying I’m resilient?” Stiles playfully rubs the spot where Derek hit him, but his gaze is shy and tender. Derek refuses to cultivate the seeds that look plants inside his heart, desperately pruning the roots already wrapping around his ribs. “A rose grown in a concrete garden?”
“I’m saying you’re a weed and I can’t get rid of you.”
In slow motion, Stiles reaches out, twines their fingers together like creeping vines, and squeezes once. “I don’t think you want to get rid of me, Derek Hale.”
His mother raised him not to lie, so Derek keeps his mouth shut.
———
He’s roused by the creaking of his bedroom door and Stiles’ shuffling feet. They’d given him a key three weeks ago, when the midnight visits petered off and Stiles started knocking on the front door—in the daylight—like a normal person.
“What time is it?” Derek slurs, fumbling for his phone.
“Three a.m.,” Stiles whispers.
The return to nocturnal visits can’t mean anything good. Derek sits up. “Nightmares?”
Stiles stands at the foot of the bed, worrying the hem of his Lacrosse sweatshirt. “No,” he answers, voice husky. “I haven’t had a nightmare in weeks.”
“Okay. Good.” Stiles shuffles from foot to foot. “Is something… What do you need?” Honeysuckle, wisteria and coriander tickle Derek’s nose.
“You.”
Derek doesn’t hesitate, lifting up the sheets in invitation. “Come on in.”
“Yeah, no.” Stiles shakes his head, eyes bambi-wide. “See, I’m not looking for comfort tonight.”
Derek’s heartbeat trips over itself. He clears his throat, never lowering the blankets. “Well, you’re in luck. I’m shit at comfort anyway.”
“Liar liar, pants on fire,” Stiles whispers, and climbs into bed. Then, “Oh! Look at that. You’re not wearing any pants.”
———-
The doorbell rings at dinnertime, and Derek yells for Stiles to enter, but he remains planted on the hallway doormat, galloping heartbeat beckoning Derek like a siren song.
Derek slides the loft door along the track. “You can come in. You have a key for god’s s—”
The bouquet is bigger than Stiles’ head, bursting with red tulips and yarrow, jonquil and plumeria. Smack in the center is a monstrous sunflower.
“I read the book—well, an English version—before I gave it to you. I hope I didn’t screw this up.” He holds the flowers out to Derek.
Derek accepts them, cradling them to his chest. He plucks out a butter-yellow jonquil, gently offering it back to Stiles with his right hand.
To an outsider, Stiles’ rampant ramblings and Derek’s severe allergy to words would render them incompatible, but Stiles’ smile is so bright it could sustain an entire garden, and Derek knows they’re finally speaking the same language.
“I’m just as much of a mess as you are, Stiles,” Derek warns. “You need healthy soil to grow, and we’re both still healing. Maybe we’ll always be healing. Trees don’t bear fruit on demand.”
Stiles rubs at the back of his neck. “True. But, think about it. All we can do is create the best possible conditions, feed and water the right seeds. I trust nature to take care of the rest. But the parts we have control over? We’ll work on those together.”
Derek grins, and the future unfurls before them, full of potential. He steps back, and Stiles crosses the threshold.
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