Do You Live in a Corn Field? Cause I'm Stalking You.

[thetyro]

Title: Do You Live in a Corn Field? Cause I'm Stalking You.  [ AO3]
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters/Pairing: Sterek, Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall,  Sheriff Stilinski.
Prompt: Derek and Stiles stalk each other badly.

By December Derek had been stalking Stiles for long enough to have routines.

Having looked up the legal definition one night (as well as if it was any more illegal when the son of law enforcement was involved) Derek resented the implications of the label. He had extremely good reasons for “stalking” Stiles.

He was the Alpha and Stiles was his human. Stiles was a human in his pack. He was involved with werewolves and worse, and had ended up getting hurt for it before. “Stalking” implied being a threat and Derek was trying to be the opposite of that for Stiles.

He was careful not to get involved in his life any more then pack function demanded. He didn't go inside the house except once or twice when no one was home. (Now that was December Derek was as close to content as Derek got. He'd managed to "persuade" (/ɡraʊl/ verb 1. (of an animal, especially a dog) make a low guttural sound of hostility in the throat.) Stiles into wearing his leather jacket three times in the last two weeks. It made Derek want to purr -- but because of the impending werecat jokes, and general lack of dignity, he refrained. At least when he was in the company of others. )

And he drew the line at listening to Stiles sleep. Watching was obviously creepy and ridiculous.

Although following him to and from school and camping out on his roof at night were not.

But Stiles didn't have to know about any of that. Legality and morality aside, Derek felt he was doing a good job as Stiles' Alpha. He hadn't been kidnapped or attacked in the night. He was safe and that was what was important to Derek.

-

Stiles, of course, knew about all of it.

Derek was sweet for trying. Really. Stiles was very endeared and impressed by his reasonable and arguably contextually normal choices. (That was the story he was sticking with if he ever had to break the news to Derek...)

But Derek wasn't nearly as good at lurking as he thought. In fact, he was sort of terrible at it. Bad enough Stiles believed that when they'd first run into him in the woods Derek had been under the impression he was concealed behind that tree.

At first Stiles had thought he was imagining things. That he wanted to see Derek keeping watch over him so badly his sleep deprived, teenage brain had produced some “minor” paranoid hallucinations. That was way more likely than Derek actually doing it, he reasoned. Hell was going to freeze before someone Stiles like-liked like-liked him back enough to be the more obsessive party.

And yes, Derek was the more obsessive party. Stiles might have had the wedding planner and the eight step plan for improving Derek's general well-being and happiness. And he might always make sure there was a blanket on the couch and that the latch on his window was unlatched, just in case Derek ever decided to seek refuge. But Derek was following him around on the daily.

And really everyone knew. The sheriff and the neighbors and the pack and Stiles... Derek drove the second most obvious car in Beacon Hills two cars behind Stiles every day to school. Then left it parked on a street Stiles used to get home and camped out above Stiles' room, a spot that was visible from at least two sides of the house.

Stiles still only suspected he was breaking in and rolling around on his laundry, but he was damn sure Derek spent at least five nights a week on his roof.

So yes. Overall it was pretty obvious what Derek was doing.

He imagined Derek listening to his heart beat and being annoyed by how his laundry detergent messed up his scent. He imagined Derek counted his moles with the same intensity Stiles studied Derek with.

Scott said it was weird but Scott was a huge hypocrite and could shove a sock in it. Stiles' only concern with the arrangement was that the roof was in no way comfortable and also, recently, rather wet.

Now Beacon Hills got an average yearly rainfall of fifty five inches, most of which came down in January. By November Stiles was sure they had had at least twenty five or thirty inches. Everything was constantly wet and in Stiles' world smelled vaguely of dog. On nights when it was raining when Stiles got into bed he would lay awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling and trying to listen for the spot where the rain didn't hit the shingles.

Watching Derek trudge, thoroughly waterlogged, across the neighbors' yard every morning was too much for Stiles' heart to handle. Something had to be done.

Luring Derek inside was a process that would outlast the rain, so Stiles went with his next best idea: he'd build Derek a tree house. That was a totally reasonable, realistic response to these circumstances.

-

John thought of himself as a good father. He'd had his ups and downs, probably messed up once or twice along the way. Should he have bought a few more parenting books? Probably. But Stiles was a good kid and he'd played no small part in that. He knew when Stiles getting into trouble. Generally. Ignoring how the werewolf thing had evaded him for a disturbingly long time.

And as he stood in the kitchen, holding a warm cup of coffee in his hands and watching Stiles and Scott hauling lumber out of Stiles' jeep, all kinds of alarm bells started going off in his head.

He put the cup down and quickly made his way out the door and around the side of the house to where the boy's were piling their materials...under the tree outside Stiles' window.

“I don't think that tree can take very much weight, Stiles...” he started, trying to look casual as his knuckles turned white around the handle of his coffee mug.

“We're building a shelter for Derek,” Scott volunteered, two large pieces of wood tucked under one arm and his feet already off the ground. Stiles grinned, glowing in pride at his solution. (Apparently Derek hadn't figured out the purpose of the tarp Stiles had climbed onto the roof to place the week before. ) Studying the tree more closely, specifically the branch that extended out towards Stiles' window, the sheriff suddenly regretted his choice not to clear it for rose bushes.

“Stiles,” he started, looking up into the foliage and trying to remember where exactly the power saw he'd used to clear a few dead branches last fall had disappeared to. There was a sickening, painful crack from the leaves that John hoped was Scott and not his poor tree. “Werewolf sternum,” his brain suddenly volunteered. Right. He wasn't getting that saw back. “You're not building a lookout for your supernatural stalker. Scott, get out of my tree. ”

“Scott, don't you dare get down from that tree,” Stiles answered, freezing the wolf in place about halfway up.

“Um...I'm just going to let you two work things out down there before moving-”

“Dad, Derek needs this. He's getting soaked every night. He's got to be cold and miserable on that roof.” Stiles argued, talking right over Scott.

“Oh, I have a solution for that,” the sheriff started bitterly. “He could stop following you home. He could even go to his home.”

“I'm his person!”

There was no winning this, the sheriff realized. There were only shades of losing that didn't involve any more concerned calls from the neighbors. He made a mental note to leave a copy of Penal Code 646.9 and a few job applications up there.

“Tell him he's not allowed to climb through his person's bedroom window in the middle of the night. I will arrest him, Stiles. I swear to God. I don't care if he's “the Alpha.” ”

-

Somewhere between Stiles' handwriting and Scott something went terribly wrong.

That night Derek discovered Scott and Stiles' offering. It wasn't fancy. Just a platform spanning two branches with a pointed roof. But it was obviously waiting for him. Taunting and mocking.

He wanted to go back to his car. Wanted to go back to his loft. Wanted to reconsider this whole adolescent-pack thing. But then his brain offered up how crushed Stiles would be if he didn't use the damn tree (dog) house. Stiles, most likely, wasn't mocking him in the least. It was probably another sickeningly sincere effort and if he thought Derek didn't like it he'd turn on the ironically good puppy-dog-eyes.

Mortification or no he had to use it, so up the tree he went.

The tree was a solid oak, healthy and well cared for.

The structure was constructed by Scott, who was at the time interpreting Stiles' poor penmanship, habit of using both the metric and imperial system simultaneously, and shouted instructions.

It was significantly smaller than was necessary for Derek to sit comfortably in. It was built to face Stiles’ window, sitting just a little bit above it. This was a placement that didn't offer a lot of easy access routes. It was also tilted so dramatically towards the house that it looked like a slide meant to shoot Derek through Stiles' window. The roof and floor both jutted outwards to uneven lengths and the whole thing looked like it had been sandblasted, then polished, then varnished. Stiles had probably been worried about him getting splinters. And that was sweet.

But it was still a terribly, terribly executed structure.

The only way he was getting up there was climbing up past Stiles' window. But that was fine. He was the Alpha. This was not a hard job for an apex predator.

In his room Stiles lay awake listening to the sounds of Derek climbing the tree, heart beating wildly in his chest. In the dark he let himself grin, smile going from ear to ear as he pictured Derek sitting comfortably inside his shelter. Wrapped in blankets and less miserable than usual.

The picture started to crumble as a muffled string of curses reached him. He opened one eye, rolling over casually so he was facing the window. Outside the dark mass that was Derek 'apex predator' Hale wiggled and thrashed and scrambled for perch. He seemed to be pulling himself up okay for about a second. Then there was the sound of claws gouging wood and Derek slid backwards and lost his hold. If the house hadn't been there he would have gone down but as it was- fortuitously for everyone involved- he just ended up with his ass pressed against Stiles' window.

Stiles took a moment to thank life, the universe and everything else that had come together to make this moment possible.

What was very likely the sound of his heart missing a beat gave Derek enough push get himself out of that position in a hurry. But by the time he'd turned his (glowing red) eyes, Stiles had snapped his eyes shut and was aggressively pretending to sleep. Trying very hard not to smell awake.

After a very long time Stiles heard Derek return to his task.

A minute later he head a muffled 'crackshitfuckaah-ooohthudscreethump', followed by a long and extremely angry silence. When he opened his eyes there was no sign of Derek in the tree so he got up and crept to the window, throwing it open and looking out.

“Derek?” In the dark he could make out where the plants that made up the edge of the platform had snapped, the branch Derek had taken out in his fall, and the trail of claw marks that had hopefully slowed his descent.

There was no sign of Derek, but Stiles still grabbed the leather jacket he hadn't yet returned and went out to make sure he wasn't hiding under the neighbors' hedges and licking his wounds alone.

-

The next night Derek tried to climb down from the roof, which did end him up under the neighbor's hedge licking his wounds. (He thanked god Stiles hadn't been home that night.)

But by third night Stiles had fixed things enough that Derek was able to climb up. There still wasn't enough room for him to get inside. But as a wolf, it turned out, he fit very nicely.

Knowing that Stiles knew (which everyone knew) didn't kill Derek. Stiles didn't mock him at pack meetings any more than usual and he didn't drop dead or turn evil, which gave Derek hope for the future of their stalker/stalkee relationship.

Stiles was just glad Derek hadn't bailed out. Partly because a itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny part of him felt that this wasn't as reasonable as he'd told himself it was. And also, partly, because this was practically Derek asking to go steady!

Everything settled back into what could be called a routine. Until one dark and stormy night a few weeks later. Beacon Hills wasn't exactly known for it's storms, but it wasn't known for it's record rainfall either.

At first Stiles thought there was no way Derek would be out in this. He'd be at the loft, maybe worrying and maybe not. But after a few hours of staring out the window, trying to see anything past the torrents of rain and spinning oak branches, Stiles wasn't so sure.

Getting up he first went and tossed some clean clothes into the bathroom, trading them for towels. Then he got the sleeping bag from the closest and unrolled it, padding the meager nest with blankets and pillows from his bed before heading towards the window.

He opened it up, bracing against the wind as he leaned out. Sure enough there was Derek, holding perfectly still, like Stiles couldn't obviously see the giant wolf with glowing red eyes a few feet away from him.

“Okay, sourwolf. Let's go,” he yelled. “Up, up.” He patted the windowsill like he was trying to encourage a Pomeranian up a flight of stairs. Derek turned around, clearly trying the old 'if I can't see it, it can't see me'-trick.

Stiles sighed. He leaned out as far as possible, grabbed as much of Derek as he could reach, and pulled back with all 147lb of his weight..

When the dust settled and Derek wasn't crushing him, he closed the window, ignoring Derek's extremely indignant glares.

“You're, like, a million times heavier like this. You know that, right? I think that defies the laws of physics.”

Derek glared, sitting down in place.

“Don't be such a sourwolf. Not leaving you outside to brave the elements is kind of my thing. We've established that. This is just an escalation. Now. Go shift your furry butt into a shape that doesn't smell like wet dog. I put your favorite Henley and a pair of sweats in the bathroom.”

Derek kept glaring. But he also skulked off to do it. Stiles showed a great deal of restraint in not shouting 'good boy' after him.

He came back wearing the still too small orange and blue Henley, and the same glare. He sat down on the sleeping bag, having firmly resolved not to obviously smell anything until he was sure that Stiles was asleep.

-

Derek crashed on the floor that night. And the next time Stiles deemed it “too rainy” for the tree house. A lot of nights he just ate the food and glanced over the sheriff's somewhat threatening notes, but a lot of nights he let Stiles bully him inside to watch a movie or listen to him chatter.

It didn't feel like a big change. But at the same time it also did. And Stiles was safe, and happy, and he hadn't turned evil yet. And Derek didn't have to struggle with Stiles smelling wrong. So Derek was happy too.

 

Comments

[phnx]

They are so fail. I can't even.

<3