![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thetyro posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
suica-Relations, Demolish a Symbol of Trauma. But Actually Not All of Them Do.”
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters: Allison Argent, Derek Hale, Erica Reyes, Isaac Lahey, Jackson Whittemore, Lydia Martin, Peter Hale, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski
Pairing: Vague Stiles/Derek. Like, if you really squint.
Rating: G
Prompt: Write a short fanfic based around the Round Robin written during Meeting 004.
Hindsight being 20/20, Stiles thinks that maybe, just maybe, the loft wasn't so bad. He’s got enough time to really think about it while the Betas squabble and he’s suddenly coming up with a lot of arguments he hadn’t thought of before. Honestly, there were a lot of compelling reasons to keep having their meetings there.
1. They could all just continue to believe Derek when he insisted he was legitimately paying rent. 2. The AC that blew cold air in the winter and hot air in the summer wasn’t a deal breaker in NorCals’ tepid climate. 3. He had never complained about having to sit on Derek’s bed when space ran out on the couch. And 4. It would have been a lot less emotionally volatile.
But even with all that in mind Stiles can’t pretend he isn’t still a card carrying member of the Hale House Reconstruction Foundation. (A only-kind-of-not-real group whose goals are the subject of tonights meeting. And yes, they-- or at least he --has cards.)
It’s about the space! There simply isn’t enough of it in the loft anymore.
The meeting having already dissolved into a violent mess didn’t change this resolve. After all it didn’t take too much longer on a “normal” night. Their record is half an hour of peaceful discussion before total madness.)
It’s a little frustrating that this happened before they even got to start talking about the house. But it’s fine.
Right now Erica is making threatening noises at Lydia, Isaac is bouncing back and forth between Derek’s side and Scott’s, guilty either way, Boyd is ignoring everyone, and Stiles--Stiles is laughing.
Like he said; it’s fine. Laugh or cry, right? And it is harder to mediate Derek’s mediation while crying.
Derek might have been laughing too if he wasn’t stuck trying to get them all to the end of the meeting alive… And if they weren’t about to be discussing The House, the destruction of The House and by extension the emotional baggage inherent in these things.
But that’s not what the fight is about. Oh no. The meeting had started reasonably enough. Stiles had made cookies. Jam Thumbprints, Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip… And that was how the fighting had started. That was all it took. One little thing that tips the scales over, and off a cliff. Isaac had reached or the last cookie, and neither Erica nor Lydia approved of that.
“So, Scott,” Stiles stage-whispers, leaning over dramatically towards Scott. “On a scale of one to homicide, how would you rate this argument?”
Derek slowly turns his head, eyes narrowing at them.
Scott pretends to seriously contemplate the question, his earlier tension relaxing. “I’m thinking, ‘I will rip your throat out with my teeth’?” Stiles sniggers and exchanges a brofist with Scott while Derek grinds his teeth, scowling.
“Would it kill you to take this seriously?” he growls, looking right at Stiles as if it was all his fault.
That is simply not fair. It is, at most, 47% his fault. “Because if you don’t I will kill. Guaranteed. With my--”
“Teeth!”
“Bare hands!”
“Pillows?”
The rest of the group looks at Isaac and then turns away again, deciding together to pretend he hadn’t spoken. He pouts and Stiles pats his curls twice before Isaac swats him away. Stiles feels a little bit bad for not acting appropriately serious. But everyone’s in a slightly better mood. The pressure is off. At least a little.
Jackson, meanwhile, eats the cookie.
“So, to get this meeting back on target, rebuilding the house. How are we doing this?” Peter asks.
Stiles watches as Derek shifts uncomfortably. “I guess the entire earlier foundation has to be removed before we start to rebuild--” he begins softly. He’s clearly floundering.
“Well, duh,” Stiles says, jumping in with a reply to Peter on Derek’s behalf. “But like, what about the design? Are we basing it off of your old house? Or like, making something completely new just for us?”
Derek’s gaze shifts to Stiles and he stares at him like a deer in a cars’ headlights.
“Oooookay. You don’t know,” Stiles says, grabbing his notebook and pen. “We need lots of bedrooms, baths...a big living room. I’m thinking a nice Cape Cod/Victorian/Colonial-Style design. Modern interior… How about--”
“The place is a burnt out tomb, laying in ruin on top of a crumbling foundation and the bones of more people than are sitting at this table. There is no point in picking out paint or curtains before it’s even started,” Peter cuts in. Stiles wants to punch him. Derek looks like he’s considering life as a feral wolf more seriously than usual. Even Jackson is cringing. And Jackson is easily the most empathy-challenged person there.
“Nooo. But we should have an idea of how many rooms, rough size--there are things that need to be done, so why wait?” Stiles asks, proverbial hackles raised. He’s not sure why Peter doesn’t argue. Probably the same reasons that make everyone else gives Stiles a little more clout than his height, weight and overall physical aptitude allow. He gets (sometimes Derek backed-) weight to throw around because… of those reasons. Those compelling, convincing, totally legitimate reasons.
“Are we going to remove it ourselves, or hiring a company?” Lydia asks, taking Stiles’ notebook.
“Uh. Well--” Derek starts.
“Why pay people to tear it down?” Jackson asks, crunching on something he’d had in his bag.
“Jackson. Why should we do it? Clearly it’s less effort for us to pay people,” Lydia points out, rolling her eyes.
Scott was pouting. “But--we could demolish a house! That’s an OPTION. Why are we not jumping for this?”
“In case we do it wrong?” Isaac tries, looking back and forth between Stiles and Derek and Scott for someones approval. Stiles flashes him a quick smile and nod, rewarding his very valiant effort.
“Oh my god, tearing down a house can’t be that complicated.” Jackson rolls his eyes. “Even you idiots couldn’t do it wrong. And it’ll be fun.”
“Okay, we’re hiring,” Stiles says, putting his foot down.
“No one has decided that, Stilinski.”
“Dude. Did you not hear me? I totally just did. “ Stiles is okay with Jackson being pissy. His two main concerns tonight included potential danger to “his” puppies (Stiles can see it coming, demolishing the house is going to lead to a dozen broken bones apiece.) and Derek.
“We’re HIRING,” he repeats, “and before the company comes, we can go as crazy as we want destruction-style, but we’re hiring. Derek?”
Derek still looks overwhelmed but he is the Alpha, and sitting there wasn’t an option. “Stiles is right.”
Everyone groans. Erica cuts in before Stiles can start checking that people had, in fact, witnessed Derek saying that. “What’s the worst that’s going to happen if we do it ourselves? It’ll be a kind of pack-bonding. You’re always going on and on and on about how we need to do that.”
“You want to bond over demolishing my childhood home?”
“No, no, of course not,” Stiles sooths, glaring at Erica. He stands up, moving as if he’s about to go to Derek’s side and offer a comforting hand on the shoulder or… something. But Derek growls and Stiles sits back down.
(Erica thinks about disagreeing, but remembered that the last time she had done something like that, Stiles had taken away her cooking eating privileges. It hadn’t been a good week.)
“We can bond after, with ice cream!” Scott suggests, eyes going hazy in happiness.
Stiles rolls his eyes at Lydia, hoping she’d share his pain at the people they associate with. Against all expectations, she did. “Fine,” she decides, putting away her phone. “But you need to get all your anger management issues out before the 23rd, because I’ve scheduled the demolition for that day.”
That puts an end to it. Jackson is not going to argue with Lydia, Isaac is on Derek’s side, Peter doesn’t care, and Boyd and Erica were going to be reasonable for their own reasons. “Okay,” Stiles says. “The 23rd. I’ll make a pot roast.”
“...A pot roast,” Lydia asks flatly, looking at Stiles like he’s just...offered to bring a pot roast to a demolition.
“...Yes? Yes. A pot roast.” Stiles nods decisively.
Derek sometimes wondered how he had ended up surrounded by these people.
“Glad that’s decided, then.” Lydia says, clapping her hands together decisively. “Jackson, give me a ride home now. It’s time to leave.” She stands. Stiles hops up right behind her, and everyone else follows suit.
Jackson grabs Lydia’s jacket and helps her into it, before getting his own. Erica and Boyd dart out. Stiles starts cleaning up the plates, yelling at Isaac to brush and floss his teeth and have sweet dreams and make sure his homework is done as he heads out.
Derek gives him three minutes to get all the dishes into the sink and then starts to back him and Scott out the door. Inch by inch.
“Eat breakfast,” Stiles reminds Derek’s shoulder, walking backwards. “Fruit Loops are not a complete breakfast! And make sure to soak the dishes. But not for too long because if the sink clogs-”
“Goodbye, Stiles.”
“And restock juice-”
“Goodbye, Stiles.”
“And don’t be late picking Isaac up from lacrosse practice tomorrow. He’s going to be sulky and hurt if he thinks you forgot him.”
“Get out, Stiles!” Derek says, closing the door closed and jamming the screw driver he used instead of a padlock into place. He pretends his super-hearing is on the fritz until Scott drags Stiles away from his door.
-
Stiles only watches the baby-Betas go about demolishing Derek’s childhood home for a few minutes before packing it in.
Derek is not there.
(It seems like no one else has bothered to notice that fact. Or maybe they have but have also decided not to care. Stiles would believe that. )
Stiles didn’t expect him to be. But that doesn’t make it okay. Just because he expects Derek to be a no-show doesn’t mean he’s not worried that Derek is sitting alone in his loft with the lights off. All sad and brood-y.
He winces as Erica misjudges the integrity of the roof and goes crashing through, adjusting his mirror so he can’t see the house anymore.
Lydia has total control over the situation even while sunbathing at a safe distance. She’d have everyone out of there by 2:30 so the actual, professionals wouldn’t witness any werewolf shenanigans. He’s almost jealous at how easily his one job is filled in his absence. But with Lydia there he doesn’t feel bad as he slowly backs away, and starts towards the loft.
Derek wants the company. He’s sure.
-
“What are you doing here?”
The first words out of Derek’s mouth are less than rewarding, but Stiles wedges himself into the door just enough that Derek can’t slam it closed without having at least half of his body bleeding all over the “foyer.”
“Dude, have you met me?” he asks, trying to push himself the rest of the way in. Derek holds the door in place, unrelenting. “I once got my sleeve caught in a paper shredder and almost died. Can you imagine me trying to demolish a house? No super-healing here, sourwolf.”
Derek inches the door closed threateningly, squeezing Stiles in the frame. “Ow. Okay. This is not cool. I bring you food and the joy of my company this is that thanks I get?”
Derek opens the door, stepping back as Stiles collapse inside. He’s still not totally convinced that Derek isn’t wishing there was a mountain ash equivalent he could implement to keep humans out, but this seems like progress.
“You’re ridiculous,” Derek tells him, taking the tupperware out of his hands and digging in uninvited.
Stiles picks himself up, grinning from ear to ear. He follows along, going past Derek and into the kitchen.
Derek ignores Stiles complaints about his lack of kettle, mugs, or more than one working burner on the stove. He focuses on shoveling as much lasagne into his mouth as he can and eventually Stiles joins him.
“I think we should paint the living room blue. It’s a calming colour.”
“It’s an ugly colour,” Derek retorts.
“You are literally only saying that because I suggested it. If I suggested the concept of breathing you’d hold your breath until you turned blue yourself. You are an unreasonable creature. But fine. Fine. What color would you pick?” Stiles baits, stealing a bite of the food out from under Derek’s nose. “And red is not an option. And it has to match the curtains I picked. Which are not optional. That’s decided.”
“I’m the unreasonable creature?”
“Yes.”
Maybe, Stiles figures. It wasn’t really about the space. Just like how it was never really about the last cookie or primum couch space. The Lycanthropy Support Group meetings hadn’t physically outgrown the loft yet. They could continue to meet at the loft forever and sure, everyone would complain about it forever, but they would keep coming.
But if pack is supposed to be Ohana, or family or whatever… Well. They’re still kind of a long ways away from that. But it made sense they would be trying to build a real home.
If they all associated family with a front door you didn’t lock with a screw driver and window boxes or whatever then...Yeah. They need this. And Derek probably needed it most of all.
“We should go look at paint swatches this weekend,” Stiles says. “You’ll totally appreciate blue when you see what I have in mind.”
“We’re not doing that,” Derek says, but he can tell from Stiles face that the tiny, annoying human did not hear the “not”. He gives up, lets Stiles hunker down on the couch next to him.
“You’re going to need a kettle. And some pots and pans,” Stiles says.
“If I put on a movie will you stop talking about household goods?” Derek asks. Stiles shrugs.
“Maybe.”
Derek tries it. It only kind of fails. Which means it also actually kind of works.
Which is what Stiles thinks he’ll put on the pack’s cards or sweatshirts or something.
So the house comes down, the new frame goes up, and Stiles bullies Derek up and down the aisles of Home Depot and Sears and slowly the house comes together. And it actually does kind of work.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~AND THEN THERE WAS KNOTTING AND XENO PORN. YOU'RE WELCOME~*~*~*~*~*~*~
no subject
Date: 2014-11-13 12:12 pm (UTC)