Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or the places unique to these fandoms. I do own any original storyline ideas that come up within this writing.

Title: One More Thing
Author: The Red Hoodie
Rating: T
Characters: Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale
Ship: Derek/Stiles
Summary: AU S2. There are stakeouts, texting, grenades and chemistry homework. And silly boys who don't know how to say how they feel.
A/N: So this takes place in a whole other season 2. Derek is Alpha, there is no pack yet (he didn't bite Jackson idk). Allison spies on her family for Derek and Scott and yeah. Good times. Written specifically for Gabi, because I love her and it's my birthday (well it was when I started) and I do what I wanttt.

88

One More Thing

"One of these days, we're using your car," Stiles grumbled from behind the wheel of his Jeep. He was slumped down uncomfortably in his seat, glaring out the window at the quiet home they were currently stalking.

Derek sniffed. "Mine is more suspicious."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just do this yourself? Crawl onto a rooftop or scale a tree and perch? I'm getting sick of doing homework in my car." These almost nightly stakeouts were becoming so common that Stiles was beginning to take naps after school so he would be awake enough to stay up until the wee hours of the morning. And he also learned to always bring a bag full of homework since Derek did most of the watching anyway.

Scott and Allison were somewhere across the city, presumably doing the same thing as Stiles and Derek. Both of them knew that the two lovebirds were having a bit too much fun instead of watching what was going on outside, but Derek never suggested they break up the groups into something different.

"I don't perch," Derek growled from the passenger's seat. His eyes were on the house. It didn't look any different from any other house around the area; it was brick with a light on inside and curtains over the front window.

Stiles bit down on the end of a pen. "Oh right. Correction: you can scale a tree and break it under your wolfy mass."

Derek actually let his eyes slip over to glare at Stiles, even if he didn't see it. This had been going on for months now. Allison's hunting family had practically taken over the town. They were in the police department and high school and somehow managed to get houses at various places around Beacon Hills. Derek didn't trust the girl entirely, but she hadn't led him into a trap yet. She was the one who decided to tell Scott—and there Derek—about what her family was doing. What they were preparing for, how many of them were there…it was risky for her, Derek could give her that much credit. But he also knew that if he or Scott purposely or accidentally killed one of the hunters closest to Allison…it would change things. But Derek didn't think of killing anyone…yet.

"What are we even looking for?" Stiles said after a few moments silence. His chemistry textbook and almost illegible notes sat on his lap. In fact, he hadn't touched them in over an hour, but he was too lazy to move them back to his bag.

Derek let out a breath through his nose. Stiles asked this just about every time they had a stakeout. "Anything. Hunters do their work at night. We're bound to find something," he said calmly, the same reused answer he had already given at least thirty times.

"Oh right." Stiles nodded, bouncing the pen against the steering wheel. He and Derek had gotten…used to each other. There was still a shitload of glaring from Derek's end and Stiles always slipped in a wolf or dog joke during conversations, but they tolerated each other. Or so Stiles kept telling himself. He phone beeped, and he jumped. "God," he muttered under his breath, pulling out the device and touching the screen.

Nothing here.

It was from Scott's phone, but Stiles figured Allison had typed it. Scott had that annoying way of sending texts like he was eleven, without vowels or punctuation or correct spellings.

Same. Stiles texted back, before glancing over at Derek. "There hasn't been anything going on, has there?"

"What?" Derek was taken off guard.

Stiles furrowed his eyebrows a moment. "At this house…it's been quiet?"

"Yes," Derek replied gruffly. He had…he hadn't thought that was what Stiles was asking about. He wondered why he had even thought that Stiles would ask anything other than something pertaining to the stakeout.

"Okay," Stiles said quietly, turning back to the small screen.

I need to head back home. This is Allison, by the way.

Stiles smirked. Of course it was. Okay. Thank your fam for not killing us tonight.

He had just hit sent when Derek suddenly perked up. Stiles glanced from him to the house, sitting forward and cursing the book in his lap. He couldn't see anything. "What? What's going on?" Stiles found himself whispering.

Derek didn't answer. He was ripping open the door and jumping outside.

"What the hell! Stay inside!" Stiles scrambled to toss the book into the backseat and launched himself painfully outside, landing on his ankle wrong. He cursed, watching Derek disappear into shadow across the street. "You are so stupid!" Stiles hissed into the darkness. He couldn't see a thing. He had to shove into his Jeep to grab his phone to text Scott that something was happening. Just as he got back outside, ready to type, there was some sort of explosion. Stiles almost dropped his phone.

"Derek!" he yelled. He shouldn't have yelled, but he couldn't help it. He shoved his phone into his pocket and tried to run without tripping over something in the dark. Where were the damned streetlights?

Someone ran right into him a second later, causing him to flail and land flat on his back, almost losing his breath. It was Derek. He wasn't wolfed out, but his eyes kept flashing red, Stiles could see that much.

"Walk much?" Stiles wheezed, trying to stand. Derek grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up. "What the hell happened?"

Derek's grip tightened on Stiles' bicep. He shoved Stiles toward the Jeep and ran a fingertip along the grill and fender so he didn't miss the door, before crawling inside and digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Stiles got in and shut the door with a thunk. "What—"

"Drive."

Stiles nodded and turned the key. The Jeep roared to life and he put it in gear. His phone was in his pocket. He should call Scott. "Dude, what happened?" he said finally, once the house was no long in the line of sight out of any mirror. "Why did you run after a hunter like an idiot?"

"He didn't know who I was," Derek growled, sitting back in the seat. His fingers curled over his knees and he blinked as his vision came back. His ears were fuzzy and he couldn't smell a damn thing. "I scared him and he dropped a friggen' grenade."

"Ouch," Stiles said automatically. He glanced over at Derek, who seemed to be unhurt and there wasn't any blood. "What did it…do?"

Derek narrowed his eyes out of the windshield. "Dulled the senses," he replied. "My sight is almost back. Hearing is…how I'm guessing humans hear."

"I take offense to that," Stiles interjected.

"I can't smell anything."

Stiles' eyebrows shot up. "Nothing? That is…so weird."

Derek frowned. "Yeah."

"So uh…you'll be fine?"

"Yeah. It'll heal soon."

"Okay…good…because you're like the Alpha now, and dying by way of sense-dulling-grenade would not be the best thing to put in your memoir."

Derek rolled his eyes. His sight was almost back to normal.

"Where are we going? Since I'm your chauffer, I should at least have a destination of some sort." He was going to add something about getting paid but his mind was scattered. He wondered if Derek could hear his heart beating faster. He was glad Derek was okay…and he was also pretty sure he had been more scared for Derek's life than his own when he heard that grenade go off. The idea, accompanied by a number of other thoughts having to do with Derek from the past few months, made Stiles itch to move or something, but he was stuck driving.

"The preserve," Derek replied. He never said…'home', which is where he went. The Hale family home. Everyone in town knew it as such. But Derek never said home. Ever.

Stiles nodded. "Sure. Think you can text Scott and tell him what's up?" Stiles dug his phone out of his pocket and tossed it over.

Light filled the cabin when Derek touched the screen.

Stiles hit the brakes at a stop sign. "I have a question," he started, glancing over. Derek was holding his phone tightly in a hand. "Why uh…why haven't you turned anyone into a werewolf yet?"

Derek stiffened and Stiles feared for his phone as Derek's knuckles went white for a moment.

"I mean…being an Alpha is like…a power thing right? You need a bunch of werepeople to have any power…"

"More, not any," Derek corrected. "I have power."

"Of course you do," Stiles said under his breath as he pulled onto the main street, ready to head out of the town up the street that led to Derek's house. "So why haven't you? I mean…Scott is the only one around and you didn't bite him so I don't even know if he counts…"

"He counts."

"So why haven't you made a wolf pack? Because I am storing up a whole list of jokes to make and I can't use them until you have some cronies."

Derek could have easily just mumbled something threatening to make it so he didn't have to reply, but instead he found himself talking rather slowly and deliberately. "Having a pack is a responsibility. There are humans in wolf families that never take the bite because of the responsibility it holds. We're in the middle of a war…biting someone, finding anyone who could handle this…I don't think I could do that."

Stiles blinked and raised his eyebrows in surprise. He wasn't expecting that sort of answer. "Oh…but if there's like a war going on, then why don't you get a wolf pack to make yourself stronger?"

"I should."

Stiles wet his lips, heart taking up a nervous pace. "Don't…don't ask me. I prefer to stay human, thanks."

"I wouldn't," Derek said sharply.

"Good," Stiles swallowed. He wanted to say something else…he wanted to say that Derek should start making a pack quicker so Stiles didn't have to worry about him so much, but he bit his tongue and stopped himself.

Derek's hearing was slowly becoming sharper. He still couldn't smell a thing, which was deceptively awful. He couldn't smell the trees as they drove out of the city and into the forest. He couldn't figure out what Stiles was feeling except by soft heartbeat he could just barely hear.

"Why do you even have a car if you don't use it?" Stiles grumbled as he slowed down, headlights washing over the dark, quiet woods as he pulled onto the 'road' that led to Derek's.

"I use it."

"You just run everywhere. Including my house. Since when did sneaking in windows become your thing?" Stiles didn't dare look away from the windshield lest he run into a tree. Stiles had also gotten good at sneaking in and out of his own window. Either his dad knew what was going on and was ignoring it, or the Sheriff still didn't know what his son had been doing almost every night for the past few months. Stiles guessed his dad knew.

Derek frowned slightly. He had been sneaking into Stiles' room often. He didn't know what compelled him to start…or what had changed to make him want to seek out Stiles instead of feeling burdened by him. He couldn't put a finger on when that had actually changed. "You always run late," was his response.

"Pfft." Stiles tried to ignore his ankle—it didn't hurt incredibly but it was uncomfortable—and his elbow stung where the asphalt had scraped away skin when he fell. The Jeep bounced over a dip in the ground and the headlights flashed over the dark remains of the Hale house. Stiles didn't know why Derek didn't move somewhere else. He obviously had money, if he could afford a brand new Camaro. The dude was seriously self-loathing, forcing himself to live in the place where his family had died. Stiles pulled up a few more feet and stopped the car, cutting off the engine for some reason.

"Are you waiting for me to walk you to the door?" Stiles mocked when Derek didn't make a move to exit the car.

Derek snorted and glared—an ineffective mixture—and popped open the door.

"One more thing," Stiles said suddenly. His heart was beating at a startling rate and he didn't even care if Derek could hear. Which Derek could, but without his sense of smell, the whole reason why was sort of lost to him.

"Yeah?" Derek sighed, turning back in his seat.

He didn't get an answer. Or at least not a spoken one.

No, suddenly Stiles' hands were holding Derek's face and kissed him. Or…you know, he tried, since the last time he'd kissed anyone was three years ago during a game of spin-the-bottle. Just as soon—or so it seemed—as his lips met Derek's, Derek sort of jerked back in the seat and stared.

"What was that for?" Derek asked, voice dangerously low and seriously sexy.

Stiles swallowed, not moving his hands because Derek was all warm and he liked the feel of scruff against his skin. "Uh...you don't know what that was for," he said, heating up in an embarrassing way. "That's the way humans say 'I'm glad you didn't die tonight', didn't you know?" he ended up dropping one hand, but the other refused. He scratched behind Derek's ear, through hair that was seriously soft considering how much gel it must take to keep it together.

"Don't do that," Derek said, grabbing Stiles' wrist. In fact, he wanted the opposite of what he said but he was the adult here. "Why did you kiss me?"

Stiles' eyes shifted to Derek's hand around his wrist. "Uh…you're the one who keeps sneaking into my room. Sorry if I got mixed signals. It's your fault," he added stubbornly, pulling his arm back and sitting properly in the seat, waiting for Derek to leave.

Derek blinked and furrowed his eyes in confusion before getting out of the Jeep. His boots sunk into the soft ground, the noise the door made when he closed it was loud and sort of popped his hearing back to its normal state. He could hear Stiles cursing lightly inside the vehicle with a pounding heart.

He started walking toward the porch, ready to just shut out the world and wait for his sense of smell to come back. He felt off balance without it. If he had had it, he could have figured out the way Stiles was feeling…words were nothing compared to how someone's body reacted to each and every situation. A person's body was their own downfall because it couldn't lie.

But did he really need it? He tried to think of all the other times he and Stiles had been together during stake outs or when something came up and Stiles showed up with Scott. He couldn't really say he had paid much attention to Stiles then, but a little voice inside his head told him that he was fooling himself. He heard the Jeep's engine roar to life.

"Shit," Derek muttered.

Stiles started up the Jeep, eyes staring at the dashboard because the last thing he wanted was to watch Derek walking away in the line of headlights. He jumped when there was a knock on the window next to him. He glared out the window at Derek. Derek…who suddenly pulled open the door and hauled Stiles outside by his shirt.

"What—?" Stiles squeaked when Derek pushed Stiles against the side of Jeep, hands releasing his crumbled shirt and moving to his face. Derek kissed him; like an actual kiss. Stiles didn't know what to do with his hands because there were too many things he had to remember to do with his mouth.

There were six long seconds of hot lips and tasting and Stiles wasn't sure if he was even breathing when Derek stopped kissing him. Their faces were still close and Stiles' heart was about to beat out of his chest.

"What…what was that for?" he finally got out, finding it oddly intriguing that he could see like a rainbow of colors in Derek's eyes in the low light.

Derek moved his eyebrows. "You need practice," he said simply, a hint of something new in his voice. Something nice and warm.

Stiles nodded, gaining his motion controls. He lifted his hands, feeling Derek's move a fraction, like he was taking them away from his face, and that is not what Stiles wanted. He grabbed fistfuls of Derek's shirt in his hands and pulled them together again. One hand circled around Derek's neck, fingers slipping through soft hair, because it seemed like the right thing to do. He could feel Derek's heart beating under his other hand. "Stakeouts are gunna be so much better now," Stiles said quickly before Derek kissed him again.

88

A/N: This is a hot mess. I apologize.