First he just showed up randomly, occasionally, to tell him something that for whatever reason couldn't be communicated with a phone call or a text, or hell even an e-mail (if Derek even had a computer, it sure didn't look like his house was wifi equipped). Stiles would be saying goodnight to his dad, promising he would get to bed on time, or maybe it was so late that his dad had gone to bed and he was sneaking downstairs for a late night stack to carry him through his endless hours of internet surfing, and then BAM! Derek Hale out of nowhere. Well, the window. It was a big enough shock to make him think he was having a heart attack the first few times.

He actually distinctly remembered the first time he hadn't had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming when he saw Derek, who still terrified him despite now seeing him regularly as Scott's alpha. He had been arguing with his dad. It had been a particularly difficult month with trying to protect Scott from being outed as a werewolf and helping Scott defend the town and talking to Scott about his girl troubles. His grades started to slip and when his dad confronted him about it the stress just kind of came bubbling out and they ended up yelling at each other about how Stiles needed to buckle down and think about college and his dad needed to lay off his back and would never understand what he was going through. By the time Stiles had stomped upstairs to his bedroom he felt like shit. He hated fighting with anybody, especially the one real family member he had left. Derek was sitting on his bed, one of Stiles' werewolf books he'd gotten from the library open on his lap.

"Oh, hey." It was at that moment that Derek started actually looking at place in his bedroom.

"Everything ok?"

"Yeah. Sure. I don't want to talk about it. What's up?" After Derek filled him in on whatever information had been so vital, as he was about to slide out the window he said,

"You should just apologize to him in the morning. He's under a lot of stress, too. He'll understand." And then he was gone. Like a mysterious, probably way hotter Dear Abby.

It was about a month after that when Stiles noticed the visits becoming more regular. Derek started appearing like clockwork, a couple times a week. Sometimes he wouldn't even have anything to say and they would just sit on Stiles' bed and talk until dawn. It felt good having somebody to confide in, especially after all the time he'd been there for Scott without having the favor returned. He didn't have to cover anything up around Derek, or use half-truths. And the same went for the werewolf alpha who could comfortably complain to Stiles about the issues he had in the pack.

It could be accurately said that Stiles had always been attracted to Derek, because Derek had always been hot and Stiles had always noticed it, but he hadn't dwelled on it much when Stiles had been scared half shitless by the man. Once the fear was gone and he could more safely think about Derek's cut abs and smooth chest without being afraid for his life, the crush started making itself known. But Derek was older than him, not old enough to make a difference if they were both adults but Stiles was still in high school, so it was technically illegal. For another few months, at least, until he turned eighteen. But he would still be in high school and what normal adult wanted a relationship with a hormonally unbalanced, annoying, ADD high schooler? Also Derek was way out of his league, obviously. Then there was of course the fact that Derek was straight. Or at least all facts led to that conclusion. Of course, most people assumed Stiles was straight. Or at least he thought they did. Nobody really took those rumors seriously right? Scott was obviously head over heels about Allison still, and Danny had laughed that one time somebody actually asked if he'd ever done anything with Stiles.

Whatever. He was still in the closet or whatever. It's not like it was worth coming out when the one male interest he had would never return his feelings. But as time passed Stiles began to think it was less of a one-time fluke and more of an actual sexual identity emerging. He still liked girls, but it was like his attraction to Derek had made him think about other possibilities as well. He decided to keep it to himself, nonetheless. At least until college.

Derek was becoming more and more comfortable with him during his nightly visits, which was awesome but at the same time giving Stiles' crazed hormones false hope. Especially the night when he'd managed to fall asleep while they were talking and woke up in the morning cuddled to Derek's side. He wondered why the man hadn't just left. He's awkwardly apologized and when he returned from the bathroom Derek had gone. But it started him thinking.

Stiles liked experiments. So he decided to start an experiment with Derek, testing the boundaries of their odd friendship. He'd seen the members of Derek's Pack of Misfits do a wolf-ish kind of cuddling occasionally, though they would probably all deny it if confronted. Maybe Derek letting Stiles sleep on him was him seeing Stiles as a member of the pack. He'd been going to pack meetings already, him and Allison were like the human mascots or something, but they both usually skipped out when Derek did training or Werewolf 101 class, because it seemed like it would be over their heads. When Stiles next heard Scott mention having another 101 course after school, he asked to tag along.

"I mean, do you think that would be ok?"

"Yeah, can't see why not it's not like we're trying to keep anything secret from you."

"You sure?"

"…Maybe I'll ask Derek. Just in case." Stiles didn't see the proof of the text conversation that led to him being granted access, but he wondered if he should have looked at it when Derek gave him an odd look upon him entering the house after school behind Scott.

"What are you doing here?" Of course Jackson would have a problem.

"I figured if I have to be official werewolf babysitter maybe I should know more about them."

"Well then read one of your books, Stilinski."

"Jackson." Derek's voice apparently had magical powers to get Jackson to shut up and pay attention. "He's right. Books can't teach him everything, especially about pack dynamics and customs. An outsider would view him as a part of our pack and he would be expected to show the same formalities as the rest of you." He looked at Scott. "Allison, too."

"Should I tell her to start coming?" Derek nodded. Apparently Stiles had opened some odd doorway into full pack initiation for the both of them. He hoped he wouldn't regret it, considering that part about outsiders.

"Do a lot of other werewolves tend to want to come visit?"

"There are a few packs that knew my family. Some allies. And there is always the chance of somebody wanting out territory. Human expansion has affected us as well. A pack doesn't live well in a city." That started Stiles true education on pack life. It was hella more complicated than he anticipated. Apparently Scott had already been telling Allison everything he learned, but Stiles had to start playing catch-up, so Derek started coming by every night.

He was always there by midnight, around the time Stiles' dad would start snoring. They would sit on Stiles' bed and Derek would tell him about pack dynamics and stories from lessons he'd learned growing up. Stiles would interrupt him with questions continuously. At around three Derek usually left. Stiles hadn't fallen asleep on him again but he started doing little things; sitting closer to Derek on the bed, touching him on his arm or leg when he asked a question, even going so far as to resting his head on Derek's shoulder one night, using a yawn to convey that it was because he was tired.

"Maybe we should call it an early night."

"No, no, I'm fine. Keep going. I'm listening, I swear." Derek kept talking, and he let Stiles keep his head on his shoulder. The thought made him giddy all during the next day.

Now he really had to do some strategizing. Stiles opened up a spreadsheet on his computer for the first time since he was in elementary school and forced to do the science fair every year. In one column he made a list of things to try to do at and around Derek. He left a column beside it to record positive or negative reactions. He separated all the actions by type. If he could complete a certain amount of one group with mostly positive reactions, he would move onto the next group. The simplest group included things like small touches; in a more advanced one he would try giving the big sourpuss werewolf a hug and one beyond that was hold his hand for five seconds; the king daddy at the very bottom of the list that he would only try if he got all positive reactions from everything else was a kiss on the cheek. He didn't want to plan anything passed that, incase his entire experiment bombed from the start. He saved the spreadsheet in a deep dark file on his computer long before he expected Derek to show up.

The light touches were things he'd already been doing, but he started doing them more frequently, more purposeful. Derek didn't react to them at all and Stiles began to realize quickly that he might have to jump ahead a few spaces. He been told the quickest way to a man's heart was through his stomach, and he wondered if the same applied to werewolves.

"Stiles?" His dad always called him when he entered the house, as if he was afraid Stiles was hiding behind a door and going to jump out so he needed to know his exact location.

"Kitchen!" His dad appeared in the door way and surveyed the room with wide eyes.

"Stiles what the hell?"

"I'll clean it up when I'm done. Promise."

"You better. What are you making?" Stiles turned and grinned, showing him the tray he was about to put in the oven.

"Cupcakes!" Sheriff Stilinksi nodded slowly.

"I'm going to go change out of my uniform. Try to clean off enough space to make dinner."

"That's what the cupcakes are for!"

"No way in hell, Stiles." Stiles grinned to himself. He was in a giddy mood and the fight with his dad and long since blown over. While the cupcakes baked he started cleaning up the mess he'd made. Stiles wasn't a bad cook we he focused. Actually, when he focused he was pretty good at most things. He just didn't like to focus. As he cleaned his dad came in and started looking in the fridge for something to make for dinner. "How was school."

"Fine. Same old, same old."

"Anything interesting happen?"

Stiles started to automatically answer no, but then again somebody had thrown a note at his head that said 'fag' in science class. He hadn't really thought anything of it, though. It was just a stupid thing people said and he'd already come to terms with the fact that he was hot for Derek, which made him at least a little bit of a fag. But he realized now maybe it should bother him. Maybe it was something he could talk to his dad about. Haha! As if. No, this was for burying deep deep in his mind and ignoring.

"Nothing exciting." His dad seemed ok with that answer.

"How about burgers?"

"Yes! Are there still frozen French fries?"

"Yeah, but your cupcakes are taking up the oven."

"There's room." While Stiles rearranged the oven and poured a pound of frozen fries onto a baking sheet his dad made patties.

"So. Birthday is coming up."

"Yeah, it seems to do that about the same time very year."

"Ha. Eighteen. Big one."

"…Are we about to have another 'now that you're becoming a man' talk?"

"We could. I have about two dozen more. Or you could just tell me what you want for a present." Stiles sat on the counter. He hadn't really been thinking much about his upcoming birthday. It was still a month away.

"Um…give me some time to think about it I guess."

That night he waited in his room, a little plate of cupcakes waiting by his computer. About thirty minutes before Derek showed up he began thinking that this was the worst idea in the world and he was a moron, and had finally convinced himself to just throw the cupcakes away. He was about to leave his room to do so when Derek slid inside.

"Oh. Hey. Cupcake?"

"What?" Stiles held up the plate.

"Um…do you want a cupcake?"

"Oh…I thought you…yes." Stiles held out the plate and watched Derek as he bit into the pastry. "Aren't you going to have one?"

Stiles looked down at the plate he'd piled cupcakes onto. "Oh, yeah." He put the plate down and tried to navigate getting cupcake into his mouth while also watching Derek put some into his. He realized just how awesome and terrible it was that he'd iced the fuck out of them. Derek was a lot more careful with his, only getting excess icing on his fingers that he removed with his tongue which was basically the hottest thing Stiles had ever seen that wasn't on his computer screen. All of this managed to distract Stiles so that he ended up missing his mouth and getting icing all over his cheek. He gave up and put the partially-eaten snack back on the plate before he embarrassed himself further.

"Um, you have…" And then Stiles' life must have become one of those quirky teen movies because Derek was actually wiping the icing off his cheek and lip with his thumb, standing a lot closer than he had been a moment ago. When Derek actually put his thumb in his mouth to suck the icing away Stiles brain and heart stopped.

"Stiles?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you ok? You've been standing there staring at me for two minutes." Stiles blinked and his mind caught up with the situation.

"I'm fine, totally fine, just was thinking about…this huge paper I have to do."

Derek sat on the bed.

"What's it on?"

"Um…" Stiles moved to his desk chair, glad that he actually did have a paper, but it wasn't due for two weeks and Stiles never worked on something more than four days in advanced. "I have to choose a topic relating to one of the wars we've studied in my history class. I was thinking maybe the Korean War? Something about the medics."

"Why that."

"Because M*A*S*H, due." Derek looked confused. "The TV show? Starring Alan Alda? Aired from '72 to '83? Eleven seasons? Don't you ever watch TV?"

"No. I don't have one."

"Well yeah but didn't you have one growing up? Before the fire?"

"No."

"Really?"

Derek shrugged. "My family thought it encouraged isolation from the pack." Stiles started to type away on his laptop.

"Well screw that, this is, like, the best show to ever be aired. Next to Firefly and Avatar the Last Airbender." He found a link online and pulled up the first episode, then angled his computer to get a good view of it from the bed. "Move over." Stiles settled in next to Derek.

"Shouldn't you be working on homework."

"This is more important. You've educated me on wolfy life, now I get to educate you on quality television and pop culture."

They watched almost the entire first season and when Stiles woke up he'd been tucked under the sheets. Even though he was pretty tired from the late night marathon he still beamed and even whistled as he walked into first period. Scott was already in a desk, glaring at the wood like he wanted to set it on fire.

"Well you look like you had a way less awesome night than me," Stiles commented as he took the desk next to his best friend.

"My mom has a new boyfriend."

"Oh. Well what's so bad about that? Is he a jerk or something."

Scott sat up and sighed. "No, he seems nice on the outside but…"

"What? Wolf senses tingling?"

"You could say that…"

"Well then what is it?"

Scott leaned closer and Stiles mirrored him.

"When he came to pick her up for dinner last night…I could…well, I could smell him."

"Well, yeah, can't you like, smell everybody?"

"No, I could…I can smell his pheromones, right? I could….I could tell he wanted to…you know…"

"Oh. He was horny and wanted to bone your mom." Scott hit him for that, but not very hard. "Well that's awkward."

"Tell me about it. It was disgusting."

"Wait…can you always smell pheromones like that?"

Scott shrugged. "I didn't know what it was at first. Derek's been teaching us the different scents people give off. Fear and excitement and…sexual attraction." Stiles' eyes were wide. Did this mean that every time Derek was around him, especially last night, he could smell that Stiles was attracted to him? "It can be kind of cool sometimes but when it's not…it's not like I can just shut off my nose. And this guy just reeked of it."

"Uh-huh…"

"So, what did you do last night that was so awesome?" Luckily Allison showed up and Stiles had never been more grateful for her taking all of Scott's attention.

There was no way that Derek didn't know now, unless there was some lucky magical fluke happening in the Universe. And if he didn't know…and yet still hung out with Stiles and let him do things like fall asleep on him, did he not mind then that Stiles was attracted to him?