It's not like Stiles was expecting Derek to move into some cozy as shit apartment right over a coffee house with dark wood floors and exposed brick walls, because that was his dream, but he didn't quite expect this place either.

Huge empty floorspaces, modern appliances and furniture, and everything in shades of white, black, and grey to the point that Derek's eyes were the only color in the room.

Not that Stiles was paying attention to Derek's eyes or anything.

"It's so... cold," was the only thing he could say when he finally had an excuse to come over.

Derek looked up from the lore book Stiles had brought, having begun reading it the second Stiles had handed it over.

"I can turn up the heat."

Stiles laughed. "No, I mean, it doesn't have any warmth, like, at all."

Derek arched an eyebrow. "I'm not a warm apartment kind of guy," he bluntly said.

Stiles blinked at him, slightly taken aback by the admission. "Is that the book you needed?"

"Yeah," Derek said, looking down at the book in his hand like he had forgotten it was there. "Thanks for bringing it over," he added, but Stiles was barely listening, his plans already formulating.

XXX

The next time Stiles had a reason to come over, he came prepared.

While Derek was off searching the recesses of his lore collection for that passage about Alpha packs, Stiles snuck into the kitchen and pulled the baggie out of his backpack.

He quickly emptied the bag onto the black granite countertop, spreading the brightly colored magnet letters around to get a look at them. At first he stuck them randomly to Derek's stainless steel and magnetic free refrigerator, but the finished product was too mundane. He grinned to himself and cleared a space in the middle of the letters, carefully spelling out the word 'asshole' in red, yellow, blue, and green.

Satisfied with his work he hurried back into the living room just in time for Derek to come back downstairs with the book he'd been looking for. He barely managed to pay attention as Derek read the passage, none of it was new information but he nodded his head in all the right places and managed to contain his laughter until he was outside on the sidewalk, where he disolved into laughter that lasted for most of the drive home.

XXX

Three days went by with no annoyed text message, phone call, or casual wall slamming. The guy had to use his kitchen, right?

So Stiles called Scott, who he knew had gone over there after school on official pack business, no humans allowed.

"Magnetic letters? Yeah, they're there, why?" Scott asked.

"Did they say asshole?"

"No, they didn't say anything, they were just all over his fridge. Seriously, why are you asking me this?"

Stiles sighed. If he wasn't even getting a reaction he was going to have to step up his game. "I was just wondering," he lied, knowing Scott could probably hear the lie in his heartbeat over the phone, but simply not caring.

He could practically hear Scott rolling his eyes. "Ooookay then, I'm going to hang up and actually do my homework, I'll talk to you later."

"Bye," Stiles replied, hanging up and tossing the phone down on his bed.

Yeah, he was definitely going to have to step up his game.

XXX

A week after his conversation with Scott, Stiles convinced Erica to help him sneak a few vases of flowers into the apartment and place them in strategic places, like on the fireplace mantle, Derek's desk, etc.

"I don't understand why I'm doing this," Erica said after sneaking a vase onto Derek's bathroom vanity.

"Because I'm cute like a chipmunk," Stiles quipped, which earned him an eyeroll.

"Wolves eat chipmunks," she pointed out, taking a vase from him.

"Well good thing I'm only cute like one."

"But what is your point with this?" She asked, ignoring him.

"There's no way Mr. Macho Man is gonna stand for having a bunch of flowers in his perfect little bachelor pad."

Erica doesn't reply, but gives him a look that he chooses not to decipher.

XXX

"So what did he do?" Stiles asked the next day, way too eager but too curious to care as he spun around in his desk chair, waiting for Erica's reply.

"He sniffed them when he thought I wasn't looking, and smiled a little."

Stiles caught the carpet with his foot, bringing him to a quick stop. "What?!" he asked indignantly.

Erica turned to face him, one of his t-shirts in her hand. "You should wear clothes that actually fit you, this shirt has to be at least two sizes too big."

"So says the Queen of tight clothes. Don't change the subject. He sniffed them? And smiled?" he asked, trying to picture Derek sniffing and then smiling at flowers.

Erica shrugged, turning back to Stiles' closet. "Maybe he likes flowers," she suggested as she continued to rummage through his clothes.

Stiles practically fell out of his chair, his hands flailing with exasperation. "Erica, dude is your Alpha, how do you not know him better? He's Derek freaking Hale, he does not like flowers. He was probably smiling because he thought of a creative and bloody way to kill me."

"If you're so worried that he's going to kill you for filling his apartment with flowers then why did you do it?"

"Because he never said anything about the magnets."

She faced him, a faded red henley held up to her shoulders. "I knew you did the magnets. How would this look on me?"

Stiles blinked at her. "Are you actually trying to borrow my clothes? Did we get transplanted into the Twilight Zone when I wasn't looking?"

"Well, you are wooing Derek by sneaking flowers into his apartment so that seems pretty likely," Erica pointed out, tossing the shirt back into his closet before plopping down on his bed.

Stiles jaw practically hit the floor. "I am not wooing Derek."

"Stiles, you've got this weird mix of a ten year old's crush and actually kind of romantic going on, but it is most definitely working."

"I am not- Wait. It's working?" he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

"He smiled. And not one of his sarcastic 'I'm not actually happy but I know I look good when I smile' smiles either, this was a genuine smile."

"Well, I'm not wooing him."

Erica rolled her eyes. "Ok, so if you did the flowers because he didn't notice the thing with the magnets, then tell me, why did you put the magnets up?"

Stiles chewed on his lip for a moment. "Because of reasons."

"And those reasons are?" Erica asked, clearly not about to put up with his shit.

"Because his apartment isn't warm."

Erica shook her head, looking at him like he was a poor pathetic thing that needed her pity. "You're wooing him, Stiles. Deal with it." She glanced at a clock at stood up, "I have to go meet Boyd, I'll see you tomorrow, and then, if you want, I'll help you woo him for real."

And with that, she left, leaving Stiles in a puddle of confusion.

XXX

He decided he would find one more thing and then stop. Three was a pretty good number, and he figured anymore and Derek really would kill him.

The only problem was he had absolutely zero idea on what that thing could be.

Two weeks after he and Erica had flowered up Derek's apartment he somehow found himself shopping with Lydia.

"Why, exactly, is Jackson not shopping with you? Or Allison, even?" he griped, following her around Macy's junior's department.

"Jackson is having a guy's day with Danny and Allison's on a trip with her dad," Lydia explained, pulling a dress off a rack and handing it to him. He sighed and accepted it, having learned in Dillard's that it was easier to just carry her bags and clothes than to try to make her carry it herself.

"Then wouldn't this be the perfect oppurtunity to bond with Erica?"

Lydia looked at a blouse before answering, frowning at the pricetag before adding it to the pile anyway. "Erica and I have bonded. At least enough for her to tell me that you're attempting to woo Derek."

Stiles mouth worked like a fish's out of water as he searched for words. "I am not wooing him!" he said, far louder than he meant to. He glanced around before quietly adding, "And is everybody talking about it?"

Lydia pondered his question for a moment before answering. "Not everyone. Erica told me, and Boyd. I told Jackson and Allison, Jackson probably told Danny who probably doesn't know who Derek is anyway. Allison probably told Scott. And Peter probably just knows, he's creepy that way."

"That is everyone!" he shouted. A sales clerk looked his way and he lowered his voice again. "You guys are a bunch of unreliable scum, you know that?"

Lydia shrugged. "It's not everyone. Isaac probably doesn't know, unless Scott told him. But most importantly, Derek doesn't seem to know."

"There's nothing to know, I'm not wooing him. And seriously? I never thought I would use the word 'woo' this much in my life."

"The point is, while he seems to appreciate your gestures, I don't think he realizes that they're your way of trying to get in his pants." Stiles opened his mouth to argue but she held up a hand. "Stiles, do you even hear your arguments? You filled the guy's apartment with flowers. There is literally no explanation for that that doesn't sound like you're trying to get in his pants." A rack of skirts caught her eye and she went over to them, looking through them as she continued to talk. "Honestly Stiles, it's not even a big deal."

"Even if I was trying to get in his pants, which I am most certainly not doing, I really doubt that Derek would actually be down for that."

"What do you think of this skirt?" she asked, holding the skirt up for him to see.

"What is it about the women in my life trying to give me love advice while also asking for my opinions about clothes?"

"It's too flashy anyway," Lydia said, hanging it back on the rack. "You don't actually need love advice, you're doing pretty well on your own, if either one of you would just realize that's what you're doing."

Stiles was quiet for a moment. "Fuck, maybe I am wooing him." He sighed. "But why would he want me if I am?"

Lydia looked at him sympathetically. "You poor thing, you don't even realize that he's crazy about you."

Stiles gave her a skeptical look. "Uhhh. What?"

"Stiles, you filled his apartment with flowers and he didn't rip your throat out. He made sure they had fresh water and when they started to wilt he got new ones. He didn't take down those tacky magnets, although he did rearrange them, which, by the way, really? Asshole? What are you, ten?"

"He replaced the flowers?" he repeated, feeling way more touched than he should.

"Yes. Now, let's go, I think I've done enough damage to my father's credit card for the day."

XXX

He almost didn't see it, he was so absorbed in not dropping the ridiculous amount of bags Lydia made him carry on their way back through the mall to her car. But it just barely caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he did a double take, dropping three of the bags and making Lydia cry out in annoyance.

"It's perfect," he said, walking over to look at the small store's window display.

"It's tackier than the magnets," Lydia said, coming up beside him with the bags he'd dropped.

"I'm gonna buy it."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Any plausible deniability will fly out the window if you buy that," she warned him.

He chewed on his lip for a moment, thinking about it. "I think I'm ok with that," he said, and then went into the store.

XXX

He spent a full day trying to figure out how to sneak his gift into Derek's apartment. He didn't want to call on one of the betas for help, namely because of the endless teasing that would happen when they saw what he'd bought, and it wasn't really something he could sneak into place while Derek wasn't looking.

In the end he settled on staking out Derek's apartment to wait until it was empty. Kind of creepy, but Derek had slipped into his bedroom on more than one occasion, so he figured this was just payback.

He only had to wait about an hour until he saw Derek emerge. He ducked down below the dashboard, waiting until he was sure Derek had driven away before sitting back up. He looked all around the street to make sure he really was gone before getting out of his Jeep, shopping bag in hand.

He hurried across the street to Derek's apartment building, feeling like a criminal even though this was only technically breaking and entering. He piushed those thoughts from his mind when he reached Derek's door and realized there was a huge flaw in his plan. He didn't have a key.

"Fuck," he swore. He tried the knob, not expecting anything, but he swore again when it didn't turn anyway. He bit his lip and looked around, trying to think. There was no welcome mat at Derek's door, but there was a ledge above it that would be perfect for a key, so Stiles slid his fingers across it, barely containing a shout of victory when he knocked the spare key down.

He unlocked the door and entered Derek's apartment, shutting the door behind him. He hurried over to Derek's black leather couch and pulled his gift out of the bag, unrolling it and spreading it out on the back. He stepped back and studied it, trying to make sure it was straight.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked directly behind him.

Stiles yelped, spinning around to find Derek standing right behind him.

"What the hell man, you left!"

"And you broke into my apartment."

"I didn't break in," Stiles argued indignantly. "I used the key on top of your door. Which, by the way, is a really dumb idea, anybody that thinks of it can just walk right into your apartment."

"The kind of people that would want into my apartment when I'm not home are also the kind of people that would have no qualms with breaking the door down, and I don't want to explain that to my super," Derek pointed out.

Stiles glared at him. "Ok. That makes sense. But why are you home already?"

"I left to see if this is why you were sitting outside my apartment for the last hour."

Stiles opened his mouth to fire some witty comeback at Derek but he found he didn't have one. "Oh," he said instead.

Derek stepped around him, looking at the couch. "So this is what you broke into my apartment to do, huh?" he asked, a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth.

Stiles turned around and looked at the item in question, a large blanket in a deep blue, one corner taken up by a full moon. In the middle were two gorgeous wolves staring up at the moon from a clearing in the woods.

"Yeah, uh, it's lame I know but I saw it and I just- Did you really replace the flowers when they started to die?" he asked, interrupting himself.

"You put a lot of thought into this," Derek said instead of answering him.

Stiles shrugged. "I just saw it in a store and bought it."

"No, you put a lot of thought into all of this, the magnets, the flowers, this blanket. You really didn't like that my apartment was cold."

"Well... You're not cold. You try to be, y'know, you put up this wall of ice, but it's not real. So it didn't seem right that your apartment was so cold."

Derek moved over to the couch and sat down, his fingers brushing over the closest wolf's face.

"Y'know everybody keeps saying that I've been wooing you," Stiles blurts, suddenly feeling nervous.

Derek raises his eyebrows, "You've been wooing me?"

Stiles mouth twitches into a nervous smile against his will. "Uh, yeah, maybe a little bit. And they've been saying it's working," he added.

Derek stood up, coming close to Stiles, stopping just a few inches away. "That's what you want?" Derek asked, his voice low, the words just for Stiles even though there was no one else there.

"Yes," Stiles breathed, his eyes darting from Derek's eyes to his lips and back again.

Derek didn't say anything else, just took Stiles' face in his hands and leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Stiles' lips. He pulled away slowly and Stiles swayed, following him for a brief moment.

They both stared at each other for a moment before Stiles finally whispered, "Wow."

Derek's lips turned up in a half smile, which pulled a grin from Stiles. "So is this a thing now? Are, are we a thing?"

"Do you want us to be a thing?"

"Oh I definitely want us to be a thing."

Derek leaned in and kissed Stiles again, deeper this time. Stiles managed to push Derek to the couch, no easy feat considering the guy was like a freaking brick wall, and they both sort of collapsed on it, neither of them willing to stop kissing long enough to see where they were going.

A shiver ran up Stiles spine, one that wasn't caused by Derek's mouth, and he reluctantly pulled back. "It's cold in here."

"I thought you'd fixed that for me."

Stiles rolled his eyes. "No like it's actually cold, as in physically not warm enough, smartass."

"Then it's a good thing somebody snuck this into my apartment," Derek said, pulling the blanket down and wrapping it around their shoulders. "And I can start a fire," he added, grabbing a remote off the glass coffee table. He pressed a button and a fire sprang to life in the fireplace.

"Seriously? You have a remote control fireplace?"

Derek shrugged. "It came with the place."

Stiles sighed, snuggling closer to Derek to leech some of his body heat. "That's so lame. It's a good thing you're hot."