"Motherf—" Stiles' bitten-off curse ends with a long hiss that echoes through the freshly painted corridors of the house. Derek hides his smile in his shoulder as he hears Claudia gasp.

"Daddy!" she says, scandalised. "That's a bad word!"

"I know, sweetie," Stiles says, voice coming closer to where Derek is kneeling on the ground, ripping up the old floorboards. "But I only said it because someone—" Stiles stresses as he comes around the corner, mock-glaring at Derek, "didn't bother to pack up their tools once they'd finished working."

Derek rises and dusts his hands off on his pants. "I haven't finished working," he points out, watching closely as Claudia navigates her way across the uneven floor to her room. Once she's safely inside, he turns back to Stiles, whose arms are crossed in front of his chest in an attempt to be intimidating.

It doesn't work. Derek just stares at the bulges of Stiles' forearms and swallows. "I didn't think you'd be home this early," he amends, giving a shrug in apology. "Usually you don't get it for another hour at least."

"Well, considering it's a long weekend, I didn't think I'd need to stay back today. Claudia likes spending her afternoons with Scott and Kira, don't get me wrong – but she likes getting home before dark even better." Stiles uncrosses his arms and sighs, making his own way across the ripped up floorboards towards the kitchen. "You want anything?" he tosses back over his shoulder as Derek turns his attention back to his work.

"I'm fine, Stiles," Derek says, like he always does, and reaches for his bolster chisel.

The thing is, Derek had never wanted to stay in Beacon Hills. Even before the fire which had obliterated his family home—when no-one had been inside, thank God—there'd been this itch beneath his skin, a constant reminder of a world outside small-town California. So after high school he'd booked it for Columbia, spending the first year and a half of his architecture degree sharing a dorm with a pothead. It was what Derek had needed—he hadn't realised how claustrophobic his family was until he'd finally been able to breathe in New York.

Halfway through his second year, though, in the middle of an exam, he'd had a realisation. He was loath to call it an epiphany—there was nothing profound about it—but it did knock him on his ass.

The itch hadn't gone away, he'd realised. It still lurked there, between his shoulder blades, reminding him of something that he was missing—he just didn't know what.

So he dropped out. College wasn't really for him, anyway. It wasn't like he didn't get good grades, because he got awesome grades, but when his friends fantasised about their future careers as high-flying execs or multi-millionaires, Derek just—didn't feel the way they did.

He bought a one-way ticket to Mexico and from there just went wherever the wind took him. Four years later, Laura had called and told him that she was getting married, and that was that. Derek went home.

Two years on, the itch still hasn't disappeared, but Derek's learned to ignore it.

Derek knocks lightly on the door and waits for an answer, because even though it's ajar he doesn't want to intrude.

Stiles pulls the door wide a second later. "Done for the day?" he grins. Derek tries not to stare. Stiles' sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and he's undone the first three buttons on his shirt. His collarbones are beckoning. Derek jerks his gaze away.

"Uh—yeah. Done."

"Uh huh." Stiles steps around Derek and surveys the floorboards. They're a dark oak, and remind Derek of his home before the fire. It's not an altogether unpleasant feeling. "Looks good. How much longer d'you reckon the rest of this place'll take?"

Derek does the mental calculations. "No less than a week, but no more than two, probably. Isaac's got another job lined up in a little over a fortnight, so it'll have to be done by then."

"Cool." Stiles shoves his hands in his pockets and bites his lip. He looks like he wants to say something but doesn't know how. Derek knows the feeling.

"I should probably—" Derek says, just as Stiles goes, "D'you wanna maybe—" They both break off and laugh awkwardly. "I should probably go," Derek says again, and wonders at the small slump that Stiles' shoulders give at the words.

"Right, yeah," the other man says. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. "I'll see you Tuesday, I guess?" Derek nods and leaves before the silence can get any more uncomfortable.

Derek met Stiles on a Wednesday. Well, no, he didn't. He'd met Stiles years ago, back in high school, when he'd been a senior and Stiles a sophomore. They'd both been on the lacrosse team, but Derek was captain and Stiles just a benchwarmer, so they hadn't said more than two words to each other that whole year.

Fast forward almost eight years to when Derek bumped into Stiles at the farmer's market. Well, more like collided and exploded. There'd been blueberries and artichokes everywhere. It hadn't been pretty.

"The fuck?" Derek had said, because he'd been minding his own business perfectly well up to that point. The guy who glared up at him from where he was sprawled on the floor seemed to suggest otherwise.

"Would you mind not cussing in front of my daughter?" he said, hauling himself to his feet. It was then that Derek had noticed two things: one, that the guy was kind of stupidly attractive and pretty much exactly Derek's type; and two, that there was a little girl in a Spider-Man costume standing in the middle of a pile of lettuce leaves.

"Daddy, what's fuck?" she asked, her eyes wide and her voice chirpy, and the man who could only be her father sighed as he crouched down.

"It's a bad word, sweetheart, and I don't want to hear you saying it again, okay?" The girl nodded, still staring at Derek, who shifted uncomfortably and began to help the other man collect their groceries.

"Thanks," the guy had said shortly when Derek handed back his bag of peaches, probably all horribly bruised by now. He and his daughter had then sped off back the way they had come. It wasn't the most auspicious of beginnings.

Derek loves his sisters. Most of the time, anyway. They can be annoying, and interfering, but they mean well. After all, it had been Laura whom Derek had told first about his sexuality, and Cora who'd held his hand as their house burnt to ashes in front of their eyes.

But then there's times like this—times where Derek wonders how long it would take for the police to track him down if he knocked his sisters unconscious and made a break for it.

"Please tell me you've banged him already, Der," Laura says, taking a bite out of her cinnamon muffin. They're at the café on Main Street, where they meet every Saturday for brunch, and Derek wishes he'd had the foresight to cancel.

"Can we stop talking about this?" he pleads, desperate. His sex life has been the hot topic of conversation for the last three Saturdays—ever since he'd started working on Stiles' house. Derek regrets telling his sisters about that.

"We can when you do something about it," Cora says with a smirk. "I know Stiles, okay? I know he's into dudes, I know he isn't seeing anyone, and I know he's got the hots for you. I don't see why you two can't just get it on already."

"Fuck, Cora," Derek groans, burying his head into his hands. He could've lived a million lifetimes without needing to hear his younger sister say shit like that.

"That's the idea," Laura snarks, and Derek groans again.

"This is different, okay?" he says after a long moment, still staring at the tabletop. "It's not—I don't want to fuck him. I mean, I do, but—not just that. I don't want a shitty one night stand, I want—"

"Holy crap." Derek glances up to find Laura staring at him, her mouth slack. "You love him, don't you? You're in love with Stiles Stilinski."

"Well, fuck," Cora says, and yeah. That about sums it up.

The Hale family had taken in Isaac Lahey when the kid was sixteen, fresh bruises still fading from his jaw. Derek had left for New York the following year, so it wasn't until he'd come back to Beacon Hills that he and Isaac really struck up a close friendship.

Derek learned that the construction company had been Cora's idea. Isaac had always been good with his hands, she'd told Derek with a smirk, and he didn't have the grades to get into college. They'd started up Lahey Constructions a year after they graduated, and so when Derek had come home from London there'd been a job ready and waiting for him.

It's not like being a tradie was always Derek's dream job, because it's not. But it's comfortable, familiar, something for Derek to hold onto until he finds what he's been searching for.

It's how he and Stiles met for real—shaking hands and exchanging names and everything.

When Isaac told Derek he'd lined up a job, there was nothing in his voice to indicate that it was anything other than an ordinary job. And to Isaac, anyway, it wasn't. But then Derek had rolled up in his coveralls one gloomy Monday morning, and there he was.

Stiles recognised him instantly. "You," he said, narrowing his eyes and stepping protectively in front of his daughter. "You've got to be kidding me," he then said to Isaac, who gave a bemused sort of shrug and ambled off to help unload the truck.

"Hi," Derek said, and introduced himself. "Sorry about your groceries. And your daughter," he added, catching sight of her hiding in between her father's legs, who gave a heavy sigh.

"It's no problem," he replied, holding out a hand—with long, pianist's fingers that did things to Derek's insides—for Derek to shake. "I'm Stiles, and this is Claudia. Clauds, say hi to Derek, please."

"Hi," Claudia said shyly, smiling up at Derek, who said hello back. Stiles grinned at the both of them in a way that made Derek weak at the knees, and—yeah. He was so screwed.

Derek's back on Tuesday bright and early—a little too bright and early if anyone bothered to ask him, which they didn't. Stiles is still at home, flailing and rushing around to get things done like always.

"Coffee?" he asks Derek, who opens his mouth to decline, and—hesitates. Laura's words echo in his mind. You're in love with Stiles Stilinski.

"Yeah, actually," he says, and his heart jumps at the soft, pleased look of surprise on Stiles' face. "I'd like that."

And so Stiles makes him coffee. Their fingers brush as he hands Derek the mug, who promptly forgets how to act like a decent human being and doesn't say thank you. Stiles just stands there for a moment, car keys dangling in his hand. "Don't work too hard," he says at last, and fucking winks before heading out the door, Claudia in tow.

Derek spends the rest of the day in a haze. Isaac bops him on the nose and tells him to "stop smiling so much. It's creepy." Boyd just gives a long, slow blink and turns away. And Erica—who is far worse than Laura and Cora combined—gives a predatory smile and spends the rest of the day using her tools in very creative ways.

Derek can't find it in himself to care, because Stiles made him coffee.

Derek found out about Heather through Isaac. He'd wondered, of course, about where Claudia's mom was—and why Stiles still wore his wedding ring when he was obviously single. But Derek knew better than anyone how awkward questions about past relationships could make you feel—he didn't have the greatest track record, okay?—and didn't want to pry. But then Isaac had offered to tell him the story and, well—it wasn't like Derek was going to say no.

Apparently it'd been a star-crossed romance kind of thing. Stiles and Heather had been friends since the womb, pretty much, and were attached at the hip during elementary school. But they'd parted ways after sixth grade, Heather's parents moving her to a private middle school one town over, and then Scott McCall had come to Beacon Hills. It'd been the Stiles-and-Scott show through most of middle and high school, according to Isaac, until Scott had gotten a girlfriend and Stiles had found himself at Heather's seventeenth birthday party. "The rest, as they say," Isaac told Derek over a Formica tabletop with a mouthful of cheeseburger, "is history."

At least, until the accident. Isaac didn't know the details, only that the doctors had had to perform an emergency Caesarean on Heather's dead body so Claudia could make it out alive. "He buried her beside his mom," Isaac said, swallowing down the last of his meal and pushing the plate away. "I don't think they were even married for a year."

Derek didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything at all.

"Just tell him how you feel." Laura's voice is strangely disembodied when on speakerphone and it creeps Derek out, but he's at work and his hands are full, so it's not like he can avoid using it.

"I can't, Laura, what if he doesn't—"

"Oh, he does," she says, sounding like she's holding back a laugh. "He's been single for as long as his daughter's been alive, and then you literally barrel into his life and knock him on his ass—how could he not feel the same way?"

"He's single because his wife is dead, Laura," Derek snaps angrily, then takes a long, slow breath to calm down. "He still wears his wedding ring. What am I supposed to do with that?"

"He's trying to move on, Der," Laura says gently. "You can help him do that."

"I don't think so."

"Well I do." She's silent for a long, heavy moment. "Just trust me on this. Please?"

Derek sighs. He thinks about Stiles and his long, ridiculous fingers; his smile that lights up the room; that fucking wink he gave Derek the other day. He doesn't think he's ever felt like this before—like he's flying and drowning at the same time. Not with Paige, not with Kate, not with Jennifer. It makes him nervous—but not unbearably so. "Okay," he finally says, thinking of Claudia in her Spider-Man costume and the shy way she'd said hello, hiding between her father's legs. "Okay. I'll try."

He hangs up and stares at his hands. The decision has done nothing to settle his nerves.

His third day on the job, Derek had just finished packing up his tools when Stiles walked into the room. He glanced up. The other man was worrying the frayed cuffs of his Henley, and Derek just wanted to sweep Stiles up in his arms and keep him forever.

He didn't do so, obviously.

"Something wrong?" he asked instead, because by now Stiles would usually have recounted his whole life story.

"Um—no," Stiles said, laughing a little. "Um—we were just—I mean, I was just wondering if maybe you'd—I dunno, like, wanna stay for dinner?" He had blurted those last few words out in a rush of syllables that took Derek a few seconds to process.

Stiles wanted him to stay for dinner? What the actual fuck?

Slightly numb, Derek nodded, and his heart had swelled at the smile that broke like an egg across Stiles' face. But then Derek's phone had buzzed. It was a message from his mom. Don't forget the pie! :)

And—yeah. Shit. It was Cora's birthday dinner tonight.

"Is something the matter?" Stiles had asked, sounding worried, and Derek swallowed down the lump in his throat.

"Um, yeah. Change of plans, sorry." He got to his feet and shrugged apologetically. The light had gone out of Stiles' eyes. "It's my, um—it's a family thing. With my sisters. Um—it's Cora's birthday. You know Cora." Derek realised that he was babbling, which was weird, because he never babbled.

"Right. Yeah," Stiles had said, a strange, sour twist to his lips. "'S'fine. Another time, maybe."

Derek nodded and had left before he could embarrass himself even further.

When Stiles gets home, it's strangely quiet. Derek wonders why that is, until Stiles rounds the corner—alone.

"Where's Claudia?" Derek asks to break the silence. Stiles grins back at him.

"Oh, she's having a sleepover at Scotty's. You should've seen her face when I told her, man. Pretty sure it was like Christmas and her birthday all at once."

"My birthday's on Christmas," Derek blurts out, and wow. Where did that come from? Evidently, Stiles has the same thought, because he shoots Derek a sort of bemused smile.

"Awesome. Listen, man—just finish up whenever tonight, I'm actually heading out again so—"

"You're going out?"

"Uh, yeah. Meeting up with an old friend." Stiles has a sort of wistfulness to his expression, and oh. Oh. Derek wonders how on earth he could have been so stupid. Of course Stiles didn't feel the same way. In what universe would he?

"Have a nice time, then," Derek forces himself to say, but Stiles has already left to get changed.

Derek lets himself out.

He's going to get so drunk.

Derek had met Kate when he was seventeen and she was twenty-three. It was exhilarating, liberating—devastating, he found out later, as he watched his house burn to ashes. She'd been his second girlfriend, after Paige, and, well—everyone knew how that had turned out. Derek didn't know why he hadn't seen it coming.

In New York, he'd drifted. Gone from place to place, bar to bar, bed to bed. He got himself a reputation, one he'd cultivated over a year and a half. It wasn't until after Mexico, after New Orleans, after Brazil, when Derek had found himself in Ottawa, that he met Jennifer Blake. She became everything to him—until he discovered that her real name was Julia Baccari, and that she'd left behind her a string of armed robberies stretching from Kansas to Canada.

So the moral of the story? Derek's love life kinda sucks. Every time he'd ever let his guard down it had ended miserably. And right now it looks like this whole mess with Stiles is no different.

Derek ended up at Figure 8. He'd contemplated The Jungle, but decided against it—he wasn't looking for a hook-up tonight. Here, at the bar, with shots of whiskey burning down his throat, he could forget.

At least he thought he could until a very distinctive voice floated towards him through the open window to the beer garden.

"—I'm just so fucking confused," Stiles is saying, and Derek's hand stills as it reaches for his glass. "I never know where I stand with him, you know? I mean, he's never super obvious about it, but I like to think that I'm pretty good at reading people, and God, Lydia—sometimes I fucking hate the guy, he's so hard to read."

Derek's palms flatten out on the bar and he takes a long, steadying breath through his mouth. Stiles has stopped talking, instead it's a woman's voice now—Lydia, Derek's mind supplies venomously, and he bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying out.

"—just don't overthink it, okay?" Lydia sounds like she's berating a small child. "If he keeps treating you like this, then screw him. Not literally, of course, unless hate sex is your kind of thing, which—hey, I'm no-one to judge. But there are other things that matter right now, Stiles, like Claudia, and your dad and your job—don't let Derek fucking Hale, of all people, ruin that."

Derek's heard enough. He stumbles from his stool—fuck, he must've drunk more than he realised—and heads towards the exit, except he's not really thinking straight and so barrels right into a big, hulking bald guy, who promptly turns around and socks him in the jaw.

Derek falls. He sees stars. He also sees Stiles, who, oddly, looks terrified. "Derek," he hears, from a great distance, "Derek, come on, don't be an asshole—don't you dare leave me, okay? Derek, fuck—"

The stars fade, and so does Stiles, and Derek drifts away.

He wakes to a hand gently carding its fingers through his hair. Derek forces his eyes open, blinks away the crust, and groans.

The hand stills. "You fucking asshole," Stiles says, leaning over Derek, but he's smiling, so it's okay.

Derek struggles to sit up and fights the dizziness that accompanies the effort. "What—what happened," he says, not really a question, because despite the alcohol and mild concussion, he remembers everything.

"You were an idiot, that's what happened," Stiles says conversationally, his hands now in his lap. He's sitting by Derek's bedside, and there's a red seam running along his cheek, like he'd fallen asleep by Derek's bedside, and—wow. He totally fell asleep by Derek's bedside. "That guy, Ennis—he says you assaulted him, but dude, no way you could've landed a punch. No offense."

Derek remembers the guy at the bar. "None taken," he says in all honesty. "I bumped into him, and he—well, I guess you saw, huh?"

"Unfortunately." Stiles' smile quavers at he stares at something over Derek's shoulder—the wall, probably. "Your family called. Cora's working a shift at the station, Laura's got the kids, and your mom's held up in a meeting. They said they'd get here as soon as they could, but you're stuck with me until then, I guess. Sorry."

"I like being stuck with you," Derek tells him quietly, searching to make eye contact. He does, and holds Stiles' gaze for a long moment—two, three.

"You're a fucking asshole," Stiles says at last, sighing, but there's a hint of a smile playing at the edge of his lips. "You know how long I've been trying to find out if you're interested in me? God, Derek, I made you coffee!"

"To be fair," Derek says, with an apologetic shrug, "you still wearing your wedding ring kind of threw me."

Stiles glances down at his left hand, as if he'd forgotten. "Oh," he says in a small voice, and Derek wants to crawl into some deep, dark hole to die, because wow, #1 way for scaring off potential partners is to bring up their dead exes while in the fucking hospital where they died. Derek opens his mouth to apologise, but stops before he can think of what to say, because Stiles is twisting the ring off of his finger, slowly, and setting it on the bedside table. When he turns back to Derek, there's a softness and vulnerability in his eyes that wasn't there before. "She would have liked you," he says, and Derek just can't take it anymore.

He leans in, gently, and gathers a fistful of Stiles' jumper in his hands. Pulling the other man in slowly, giving him all the time in the world to turn away, Derek's lips find Stiles' and he closes his eyes.

It is, quite possibly, the saddest and simultaneously sweetest kiss he's ever shared. It's heartbreaking—but, at the same time, uplifting. Stiles pulls back, and his cheeks are flushed pink, but he looks content.

"You're such an asshole," he says again, but here, in this brightly lit room, with the taste of Stiles still on Derek's lips, it sounds like an endearment.

"You love it," Derek laughs gently, and when Stiles doesn't contradict him, leans in for another kiss.

Lahey Constructions finishes with the Stilinski house less than a week later. The floorboards are a dark oak; the walls a pale green; the front door is painted strawberry red. Derek watches Claudia tear around inside in her too-big Spider-Man outfit, and smiles. That grin only widens when he feels arms wrap themselves around his waist and a chin rest on his shoulder.

"It's perfect," Stiles says, kissing his neck. Derek looks around the kitchen, out the windows and down the corridor, then turns to face Stiles.

"Yeah, it is," he agrees, and just keeps on smiling.

The itch between his shoulder blades disappears for good.