Chapter Text
Stiles had very quickly come to the conclusion that there was probably nothing on the earth quite like a Hale family barbeque, especially one were everyone was in on the family’s little furry eccentricities. Apparently getting the ok from the adults that it was alright to shift in front of the new humans was all the younger members of the clan felt was needed in order to let loose. Wolf cubs that had been little five year olds in sun dresses and swim shorts only minutes before were now running around on all fours, nipping at Stiles’ heels as he tried to carry a tray full of pies out from the Hale house kitchen out to the temporary picnic tables.
“Emma, I know that’s you, you still have a Hello Kitty barrette in your hair. Fur. You know what I mean. Which by the way, I still find it very odd for a werewolf to be showing their allegiance to, and wearing the mascot of, those of the feline persuasion, but whatever. The point is you need to quit trying to trip me up if you actually want to be able to eat any of this world renowned Stilinski family pie or just be covered with it.” Stiles said to latest one of Derek’s pint sized cousins to decide he was essentially a fun new toy to play with.
The little blonde wolf cub shrunk back and whined.
“Oh stop the wounded little wolf act. I’ll play with you later, but the fact of the matter is that I do not possess any of your Hale family wolf related reflexes, so if any of these pies go down, they are going down. And my dad and I spent like a day and a half baking them, so that is not going to happen if I can help it.”
Emma cocked her head, and then padded off to the impromptu dressing room made of old bed sheets set up in deference for the sensibilities of the human guests at the barbeque who, while for the most part were fairly comfortable with wolves running around and choosing to have their steaks cooked beyond rare, were not quite as at ease with the rampant, unselfconscious nudity. Stiles was totally alright with Derek being naked as much as possible, more than alright really, but in private, and not in front of others, especially his dad. And neither Stiles nor his dad were honestly all that comfortable with the idea of seeing every member of the Hale clan in the buff while they were trying to eat corn on the cob.
Emma emerged from the changing area a few moments later, now wearing a Hello Kitty sundress to match her barrette, and walked back over to where Stiles was setting all of the pies out onto one of the tables. She crawled up onto the bench to get a better view and tugged at Stiles’ t-shirt.
“What’s in the pies?”
“Are you looking for the one with rabbits in it Little Miss Hello Wolfy?” asked Stiles, placing the last pie on the table
“You put sweet stuff, you don’t put rabbits into pies!” Emma replied, sounding very affronted. “Momma cooks them in sauce in the oven, or Daddy rips them apart when we’re in the woods so they’re easier for me to eat.”
“That’s very considerate of Peter…your dad I mean.”
“My daddy’s wonderful. He knows what’s supposed to go in pies.”
Stiles decided that getting into an argument with a five year old over what constituted proper pie filling probably wasn’t the best idea in any situation, even if said five year old didn’t have particularly vicious canines at their disposal, and that it was for the best to just try and move on.
“So do you still want to know what’s in these pies then?”
Emma looked at him like she was debating whether or not she needed to put Stiles in his place more, so he plowed onwards in the hope that food would distract her. Honestly, it worked on ever other single member of the family so far, so he thought his odds were pretty good.
“So this pie is a summer berry pie with blackberry, strawberry, and raspberry, this one is peach and raspberry, this one is peaches and cream, the one with the lattice crust is sour cherry, this is banana cream pie, and this one is strawberry rhubarb,” Stiles said, pointing to each of the pies with a dramatic wave of his hands.
“What’s a rhubarb?”
“Delicious is what it is. I’ll cut you a small piece, ok? My dad wanted me to make sure he got a piece of this one, but you’ll get the very first piece.”
“Ok,” Emma said, acting like she was being incredibly magnanimous and doing Stiles a big favor, even as she stared hungrily at the pies.
Stiles cut her a small piece that unfortunately came out a little mangled as Stiles had never quite mastered the technique of elegant pie serving. However, Emma didn’t seem to mind all that much, because as soon as the pie touched down on the paper plate, before the filling even had a chance to start oozing out, she was shoveling it into her tiny mouth with her bare hands and running toward her mother yelling, “Momma, Stiles makes good pies so I get to marry him instead of Derek!”
Stiles wondered if there was some sort of werewolf equivalent to catnip that he was unaware of and had somehow ended up as an ingredient in his shampoo as he cut another larger, but not too large, piece of pie for his father who was sitting at a table near the grill drinking a beer with Peter Hale.
His progress to actually get to his father and deliver his gift of pie was somewhat hampered by still more of Derek’s younger family members, not to mention a few of the older ones who should really know better, running around at his feet. And even those in the clan still in human form were delaying his advancement by continuously stopping him to welcome him to the family, which felt very gratifying, but he was a man with pie to deliver.
He thought he was in the clear when Emma, back as a wolf but still with smears of strawberry sauce around her muzzle, and her two little brothers started playfully circling around his feet. Stiles just sighed and debated calling out to Peter to manage his kids, but he was locked in conversation with his dad and decided to listen in instead and make sure his dad really was doing as well with everything as he said he was after the initial shock wore off.
“I just wanted to say, as we do get humans marrying into the family ever so often, that you seem to one of the better adjusted soon to be in-laws I’ve seen. You’ve only known for a few months, yes? Usually at that point even the ones who say they’re alright with it show up to the first family gathering wearing an amusing overabundance of silver jewelry,” said Peter taking a sip of beer. Laura’s fiancé’s parent’s were also guests at the barbeque, and were definitely looking a lot less relaxed and a lot more glittery than the elder Stilinski.
“First off, my kid is not get married until he finishes college, that is a done deal, so you guys really need to hold off planning out the actual ceremony for a little while yet. And second, I’m not much of a jewelry man myself, and even if I were I’ve always been told that yellow gold suits me better,” Stiles’ dad said, glancing off to where Mark’s parents were sitting stiffly together.
“Yes, that would certainly work better with your coloring. But in all seriousness, it is rather heartwarming to see you so accepting of our…quaint little differences.”
“Peter, once I got over the surprise that people like you actually existed, which admittedly did not happen overnight, my next thought was that Kate Argent had actually been telling the truth about why she tried to do what she did, and I wished I could have been able to tack on multiple hate crime charges in addition to everything else for targeting a specific group like yourselves.”
“Sheriff, may I say once again, welcome to the family,” Peter said lifting his beer bottle in a toast, an action Stiles’ dad copied just as the cubs around Stiles’ feet got distracted by someone turning on the sprinkler. Stiles bolted forward while he had the chance.
“And I present to you: pie.” He said placing the plate in front of his dad with a flourish.
“What, no pie for me?” Peter asked Stiles with a look at the already rapidly shrinking piece of pie on his dad’s plate.
“As you neither helped wash and chop fruit nor asked for me to save you a piece, you can go to the table over there and try to get one for yourself,” Stiles said gesturing back to the table now obscured by dessert seeking Hales.
“You’re a cruel one Stiles,” Peter said with a laugh before casually vaulting over the table to make a dash for the pies, leaving Stiles with his dad.
“So, having a good time?” Stiles asked leaning against the table.
“If nothing else, I can say that werewolves definitely supply a good spread. I’m pretty sure they bought out the entire butcher departments of at least three stores.”
“Of which you only ate a sensible, human sized portion and then had a salad, right?”
“Well I wouldn’t want to seem like I was ungrateful for their largesse…”
“Next time I’m leaving a note with Mrs. Hale to make sure that you stick to salads.”
“Stiles…”
“Really, consider it already written.”
“Peter was right, you are a cruel one,” his dad grumbled around the last bite of pie.
“I do what I must,” said Stiles with faux seriousness. “However, I could be distracted long enough to let you at least attempt to get another piece of pie if you could tell me if you’ve seen Derek around? I haven’t seen him for like the last hour.”
His dad shot a speculative glance over to the dessert table, probably thinking if he could manage to play the fragile human and cut in line. “Last I saw he was going inside to change shirts after one of the little ones…Lily I think, there’s too many to keep track, managed to open up and upend her sippy cup on him.”
“Yeah, all his younger cousins kinda view him as an oversized plaything…I think it’s the eyebrows. So he’s still inside?”
“Haven’t seen him come out. And now if you will go be distracted looking for Derek as promised, I have somewhere I must be…”
“Only a small piece!” Stiles shouted after his father’s retreating form, and made his own way back to the house, passing Laura and Mark cuddling on the porch swing, utterly indifferent to his parent’s discomfort. He gave them a little wave which they ignored as well and went inside.
Derek was in his room, sitting on his bed shirtless, with the hoodie of Stiles’ that he had never got around to taking back as well as that leather jacket laid out across his lap.
“You know, I was right downstairs. You don’t have to restrict yourself to second hand scents while I’m here,” he said, sitting down next to Derek on the bed, looping one hand behind him in a half hug and leaning against him.
“But you won’t be here soon, so I thought…I thought I should start getting used to it,” Derek said, scooching away from Stiles just enough so that he was at the right angle to lay his head on Stiles’ shoulder.
“But not yet, and my school isn’t that far, I mean it’s barely a six hour drive, and I bet if you totally abused your cop powers and drove with the siren on you could knock a good ninety minutes off of that.”
“Even if you weren’t trying to encourage inappropriate usage of police equipment, it’s still you being there and me being here.”
“We’ve talked about this though,” Stiles said, tightening his grip on Derek. “We can do it, you can come over for weekends, cause you definitely have an in with getting scheduled, and I’ll be back for breaks, and we’ll phone and Skype, and do the scent exchange mailing like Laura and Mark did except way better because it will be us instead of them. Honestly I am looking forward to the first time I get your underwear in the mail; if nothing else it’ll make whatever future roommates I have to afraid to go through my packages to steal your mother’s cookies.”
Derek laughed softly, the small puff of air warm against Stiles’ neck. “I know all of that…maybe not how you planned to handle your roommates, but the rest. But that still doesn’t mean I won’t miss you. I’ve gotten pretty used to having you around you know,” he said as he nuzzled against Stiles’ pulse point.
Stiles pulled back and took the hoodie and the jacket off Derek’s lap and tossed them to the side, leaving Derek’s lap free for him to swing himself over and straddle. He wrapped his arms around Derek’s neck and kissed him softly.
“We’ll be alright. Believe me, we’ll be better than alright. We’re mates, and we’ll be wonderful, no matter what.”
“OK,” Derek whispered tenderly, as he wrapped his own arms around Stiles and pulled him in closer for another kiss. “I believe you.”