Archive of Our Own

For some reason people have a hard time understanding this, but plants do get that there are different stages of life. Yeah, so they don’t really understand the idea of linear time, but the two things aren’t the same. One is an artificial intangible construct, while the other isn’t. So big deal if the Nemeton doesn’t quite get the idea of graduation, it still understands that Stiles deserves a party and for that Stiles is very proud of it.

“Awww, thanks, I love you t—” Stiles pauses to sneeze off a catkin tendril “—too, you’re a nice tree, yes, you are, blood drinking and all.”

There’s an echoing sneeze from behind him, and then Derek just bends over and braces one hand on his knee, and does a full-on doggy whuff. Fluffy pollen whiffles outward around him, then floats lightly back towards his face as he starts to raise his head. He swears, then stifles that in favor of whuffing again. “Okay. Again, it’s celebrating the fact that you can now make acorns? Is it—this isn’t some—some weird invite to make acorns with—with it, right?”

Peter sighs and reaches for Derek. He’s probably aiming to thwap the back of Derek’s head, but before his hand gets there, the breeze shakes the branches and dumps a fresh load of pollen on him. He steps back, politely trying to just sniffle it off, and then puts his foot right into a clump of fallen catkins. The air briefly goes cloudy around him, then clears up as he ducks into a rapidfire series of sneezes.

“Don’t listen to them, just remember they bring you nice juicy kills,” Stiles whispers, hugging his tree. He pats its trunk as the Nemeton happily sways its branches. And okay, drops another ton or so of pollen.

Both werewolves stumble away, Peter half-heartedly calling that they’re not leaving, just giving him some space. Stiles makes a face, but withdraws from the tree. The pollen’s getting so thick at this point that honestly, it’s not a matter of allergies so much as just sheer volume of foreign particulate matter, and even his nose is a little stuffy.

“Okay,” he says, walking after his still-sneezing betas. “So I was thinking that we could have the grill over there in the clearing—”

Peter lifts his head just long enough to catch Stiles’ gaze and look like he has something to add. Then he buries his nose back into a soggy tissue. He raises his other hand and signals to give him a second, and then almost trips over Derek, who’s given up on walking and who’s just plopped down to honk his nose into his hand.

Stiles sighs and walks over to where he tossed his backpack. He digs around till he finds the tissue pack that Melissa always sneaks into his stuff and brings it back over, and then waits while Peter and Derek run through the whole pack.

“The tree isn’t a sex-crazed maniac, by the way,” Stiles says. He takes a seat between the two of them, and when as usual, Peter takes the opportunity to tip over and slip his head into Stiles’ lap, starts picking catkin bunches off the man’s shoulders and out of his hair. “It’s celebrating that I’m not a sapling anymore, and flowers just happen to be an important botanical signifier for that, and—”

“Fine, fine, it doesn’t want to have sex with you,” Derek mutters. Stiles’ lap is taken so once the rate of his sneezing allows for it, he leans so his head drops against Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles does not pick catkins off him, because sure, he loves Derek and all, but oversimplifying jerkiness is what it is. “You know, this is why it thinks you’re weirdly interested in having its roots all over you, for a vertebrate.”

“Derek, nephew, don’t open doors if you aren’t prepared to catch what’s going to fall on you,” Peter chortles over Derek’s sputtering. He’s still dusty with pollen, but he’s gotten enough of it off that his nose is no longer running. At least, it’d better not be, considering that he’s twisted over and started to nuzzle at Stiles’ stomach. “Mmm, yes, grill over there, then we can use that slope to run the hose from the water tanks for the washbasin…”

Well, okay, not the stomach, even Stiles has to admit that Peter’s aiming a little too far below his waistband. He slides his fingers into Peter’s hair as a warning and Peter decides that constitutes encouragement, and starts pulling against Stiles’ grip, then whining in contrition, like the smugly perverse thing he is. “I’m still trying to make up my mind whether I want that cider fountain Laura mentioned,” he says, in an attempt to get back to business. “On the one hand, potentially tacky, definitely gimmicky. On the other hand, the possible expressions on Lydia’s face.”

“You know, her party actually wasn’t that bad,” Derek mumbles. He’s apparently decided that alphas cure sneezes, because he’s shoved his face so deep into Stiles’ neck that Stiles half-wonders whether Derek is getting enough air. His nose and upper lip feel slightly moist, in a very suspicious way, but then he does that insidiously, annoyingly lovable purr of his, exactly like a cat who tries to make you forget the hairball puke by cuddling up to your leg. “You really want to poke her?”

“Okay, first, she’s pack and she works that prom queen-mad scientist crossover like it evolved for her and just her, and I love all of it,” Stiles says, just a little offended. Because seriously, of all people, Derek should understand about intra-pack teasing, what with him and his sisters’ trolling of each other. “And second, it’s not poking, it’s just assessing the range of Lydia’s capacity to both understand and accept my sense of ironic—”

Damn, he got distracted and forgot about the equally epic Hale instinct to collaborate on hunting down and cornering targets, and so now he’s falling over on his back while Peter makes not-very-sorry noises around his cock. And when Derek hikes himself up over Stiles, he doesn’t even attempt to act like he’s checking whether Stiles is okay. He’s doing it so when he strips his shirt off, he can use that same motion to duck his head under Stiles’s upflung hand, get his nape grabbed and squeezed, and use that as an excuse to start playing tonsil hockey.

“I feel like you’re trying to change the subject,” Stiles pants when he gets a second. It’s kind of hard. Peter is doing highly enjoyable things with his tongue and the head of Stiles’ cock, and also making those little noises he knows make Stiles come about thirty percent quicker, and when Derek isn’t allowed to keep kissing Stiles, he just twists his head around and starts sucking at Stiles’ thumb. “You know, if you want, Lydia could plan the whole party, she did offer—”

“Not that we’re not interested in what you’re saying,” Peter says. He moves off Stiles’ cock just enough that the tickle of his breath jolts a hiss out of Stiles and tightens Stiles’ grip in his hair. Peter tips up his chin, bares throat, looks smug as hell about it, and then dips to lick at the side of Stiles’ cock like it’s the stickiest, tastiest popsicle ever. “Want—be—involved—it’s—”

“Sex pollen,” Derek says, sliding off of Stiles’ thumb. Having one of those random, eerily on-the-nose pop-culture moments of his, which would be just frustrating as hell because Stiles totally knows Derek is geekier than he lets on, he just never has the definitive proof.

Except Stiles is always way too busy being plain delighted by it. “Sex pollen? Sex pollen? Really, Derek, this is what you’re—”

“Whatever, I inhaled a fucking bucket of it, must be doing something,” Derek mumbles as he flops down beside Stiles, head back on Stiles’ shoulder as his body does a completely obscene little spinal twist and hip-thrust that ends in him basically skinning himself out of his jeans, pushing his cock into…Stiles’ hand that is already reaching for it, because okay, whatever. Sometimes Derek has the right idea about how to respond to situations, however untactful he is.

Peter hums in agreement and he’s doing his little eye-twinkle of high amusement because the rest of him is deeply, deeply engaged in the low but much-appreciated art of deep-throating. Stiles hisses again, letting go of Derek’s cock so he can grab Peter’s shoulders with both hands and ride out his climax. Then he rolls his eyes, even though he’d really rather be chilling with the boneless happy feelings, and musters up the energy to grab Derek again as soon as his nervous system is semi-cooperating.

Derek growls a little, because he’s just that deeply invested in nuzzling Stiles’ neck, but he rolls over so that Peter can crawl up between his legs. Peter’s still licking off his lips, and being really show-offy about it, practically willing the sunbeams to dance over his shiny, shiny mouth, and when Derek hikes his hips, Peter cocks his head and eyes Derek’s erection like he might just decline.

Before Derek can get too huffy and ruin the groove, Stiles grabs Peter’s nape. He gives it a squeeze and Peter shivers, his shoulders stretching down and back as he makes little apologetic noises, and then sucks down Derek’s cock. Derek groans and drops his head back, his hands raking up furrows in the pollen-dusted leaf litter around them.

He looks ridiculously hot like that, all sprawled out, his chin tipped up and the slightly yellow pollen floating around him and catching the light like some kind of porno halo, and yeah, Stiles enjoys the view. For the all of three seconds that Peter waits till he starts whining and bucking up against Stiles’ grip, wanting some attention. Stiles kind of fumbles himself around till he’s kneeling behind Peter—he doesn’t want to let go of Peter’s neck but it’s an awkward angle—and then fumbles some more as he slips out his trusty lube tube.

Peter humps back into Stiles, knocking him off-balance enough that he semi-falls on top of the man, almost dropping the open tube, and then Peter slides his ass up and down over Stiles’ groin, pointed and impatient. Stiles gives his neck another squeeze and Peter has the temerity to muffle an annoyed noise around Derek’s cock.

“Oh, come on, you’ve totally waited longer,” Stiles mutters, pushing himself up by his elbow against Peter’s back. “Or what, is that it, you’re upset I’m not making you wait long enough? Because I can totally—”

Moaning, Peter flattens himself as much as he can, like a properly sorry beta. Which apparently does fantastic things to how his mouth and throat fit around Derek’s cock, because Derek jerks up, his shirt flipping off his belly to give Stiles a great view of those perfect abs working, and then snaps himself back down like he’s trying to crack through the ground.

Stiles snorts, not believing a single second of Peter’s show. But hey, it’s a good show, he can appreciate without buying it, and anyway he’s got Peter’s fly open. And between his fingers (which he probably should’ve waited to slick up till after he dealt with stuff like slippery metal zipper tabs) and Peter’s hitching, Peter’s pants slide down enough for Stiles to push a couple fingers into Peter’s hole.

Peter shudders and groans at the intentional roughness, moving enough that Derek half-sits up again, annoyed, and hooks his claws into the top of Peter’s shirt to shove his head back down. And Peter goes with that, a little too quietly. Because he’s ramping up to do something that drops Derek backwards like somebody dumped a sack of concrete on him, gasping and snarling and clawing up the ground around them till the Nemeton complains a little.

Stiles can’t reach Derek from where he is, so he—is frustrated for a second, and then he shoves sorry-will-fix vibes at the Nemeton while releasing Peter’s nape so he can haul his arm back and then give Peter’s ass a good, hard slap.

Derek stops digging towards Nemeton root network because he’s busy with rolling his eyes back into his head and coming. Peter finishes up that wild, slightly choking moan of his, jamming himself back onto Stiles’ fingers, and then he pulls off Derek’s cock to pillow his head on Derek’s thigh as Stiles twists those fingers a little, grabbing and plumping Peter’s buttock against their knuckles with his free hand. A last shudder, a tiny up-hitch of his hips, and Peter’s done, too.

“The tree wants us to know that there’s a little patch…like, six yards over that could use some attention,” Stiles mumbles as they settle into a sated, smeared pile. “You know, if we’re gonna be doing fertility spell-ish stuff.”

A little puff of yellow specks spouts up from Derek’s mouth, and then he turns his head to the side. “See, sex pollen.”

“You are such a troll,” Stiles says. He removes his fingers from Peter and wipes them off on Peter’s thigh. And takes another swipe with them after Peter shifts into the first pass, making a lazy, contented noise. “Okay, you know what? Let’s err on the side of more, what the hell, I only get one high school graduation. Cider fountain it is.”

“Whatever you want, alpha,” Peter murmurs. “It’s your party.”

* * *

“Well, it’s your party, that’s why you have to decide,” Lydia says impatiently.

Stiles…does not want to be going over invites. So yeah, fine, he and his pack sit within the greater Hale pack and he’s also a tree guardian and blah blah blah politics plus networking opps plus responsibilities to the whole pack and not just him. But that’s why the Service is throwing a separate party at the office, so they can get all that stuff out of the way. The party at the tree is supposed to be the private, people-we-genuinely-care-about one.

But obviously there’s going to be overlap, because if you get to go to the party at the tree, you’re also going to be somebody who deserves to go to the office party, and figuring out exactly who falls into that slice of the social Venn diagram is kind of a pain in the ass. Because the people you love are still, well, people. “So we gotta invite the whole lacrosse team? Even the guys who never show up to training and are still listed on the roster only because Finstock didn’t want to look shorthanded?”

Jackson spares a second from taking yet another selfie with his new limited-edition some testosterone-fueled brand sunglasses, one of his graduation presents, to demonstrate how even luxury goods can’t convert his glower from pissy to cool. “Team unity, anyone?”

“Season’s over,” Stiles says, eyeing him. “And even during the season, it’s not like you ever did anybody favors when it came to cutting in the line to get out of the school parking lot.”

“More to the point, Stiles,” Lydia interrupts. “We still all live in Beacon Hills, and we have at least half a summer before college orientation. The chances that someone will hear about the second party and complain to Scott—”

Who is friends with literally everybody, including those douchebags who get to be listed in the official yearbook as part of the team but who haven’t put in their time with Finstock’s drills and motivational speeches. “Damn it,” Stiles says.

Lydia doesn’t say anything but the very precise finger-flick she gives the touchpad of her laptop says plenty. Selfie done, Jackson lowers his phone like he’s going to put it away, then raises it again to check something on it. “Can you just tell him that he’s technically not pack so whatever if people whine to him?” he says, because who cares if he was arguing the other side literally two seconds ago.

Stiles looks at Lydia, who looks ever-so-slightly exasperated with her boyfriend. “That reminds me, have you not finished the campus werewolf association’s social guidelines? I haven’t gotten your read receipt,” she says, turning with a sweet smile.

Jackson swallows a little roughly. If he were shifted, his ears would be drooping.

As is, he’s saved from a full Lydia sugar-roasting by Allison, who walks into the diner with an unusually nervous expression. Equally unusually, she doesn’t have Scott within five yards of her. She spots them and her eyes scan the booth before her shoulders sag.

“So he hasn’t come yet?” she says, slinging her purse off her shoulder.

“Nope, but he’ll be here in a couple minutes,” Stiles says, frowning. He’s had to update Allison on where Scott is…actually, never. “Just stopped to pump more air into the car tires, he said the low pressure light kept going on.”

“Oh,” Allison says. She does not look as relieved as she should be. She slides into the booth next to Stiles, pushing the hair back from her face. “Did he…he didn’t tell you, did he.”

Stiles shakes his head while rapidly going back through every interaction he’s had with Scott in the past…thirty-one hours and twenty minutes, since that’s the last time he saw Scott and Allison cuddling. “No, what—oh, shit, it’s his dad, isn’t it? Please tell me that asshole hasn’t shown up, because I swear to God, if that’s what happened, at least four people in the FBI owe me a zillion favors for keeping Melissa off them.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just I think he sent Scott something for graduation,” Allison says hurriedly. Then she pauses to give Stiles a little bit of a wary look. “How’d you know it was him in the first place?”

“Well, because if Scott or his mom was in trouble, he always calls me first thing. Unless it has anything to do with his dad, because then he never tells me anything and pretends everything’s cool till Melissa finally talks to my dad and I know who to screw with,” Stiles mutters, pulling out his phone. Peter’s still at work and Derek got dragged into helping set up some joint party Cora is throwing with one of her few real friends (and will not be taking an excuse to ditch that, however much he dislikes Cora’s friends, because Talia insists he do at least one big-brother deed a week), but Laura’s around and bored. “Okay, so you and Isaac distract him—”

Allison raises her brows. “Isaac?”

“Laura’s gonna bring him, it’s a bonding weekend for them, so we might as well use the extra body,” Stiles says, text halfway typed out. “You guys distract him and I’ll analyze the package and Lydia, did you bring your—”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Allison says. “He already doesn’t want to talk about it at all, and isn’t tracking down his dad just going to bring more attention to that?”

Stiles looks at her.

“I think I have some idea about how you think by now,” Allison says, going with a sunny smile instead of the sarcastic tone anyone else would use. She flags down the waitress and orders a milkshake for herself and some cheesy fries for Scott, and then sits back to give Stiles a concerned look. “I don’t want to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do, I just want to know that he’s okay. He’s just…he’s just letting the box sit in the basement and pretending it’s not there. And I don’t know, do you think that’s…that’s normal for him?”

“Why don’t you just trash it for him?” Jackson says, picking up his half-eaten burger. “That’s probably what he’s hoping somebody will do anyway, just so he doesn’t have to take the heat for getting rid of it.”

Allison frowns and crosses her arms over her chest, giving Jackson enough of a stink-eye that he hastily switches from the burger to the bigger-but-still-a-lame-shield soda cup. That said, the guy isn’t entirely wrong, at least not about the part where Scott wouldn’t mind somebody taking away a problem he’s too polite and too stubborn to walk away from, but that he really, really doesn’t want to deal with.

“Melissa might get upset if we do that,” Stiles sighs. “I mean, it’s not like she wants that asshole back in their lives, or anything from him, but I think she’s got kind of mixed feelings about getting things from him.”

“Why would she?” Allison asks, turning back to him.

“Because the point isn’t whatever he sent, the point is that he got off his ass and thought to send anything in the first place, and at least that means he has thoughts about them. And even if she doesn’t need him to think about them, it’s still an ego boost,” Lydia says. She’s a little more brittle than she sounds, shutting her laptop and then too-carefully examining her nail where the laptop edge caught it.

Stiles glances at Jackson, who responds with hunched ‘what am I supposed to do’ shoulders and a jerk of the chin that’s just verging on fuck-off. And then he lifts his hands and flops them back over the top of the booth seat, attracting Lydia’s attention away from her nails. “Fine, then why don’t you just ask McCall if he wants the box or not?” he says. “Offer to open it for him and you can just tell him it wasn’t anything good and toss it, and he never has to know.”

“Well, I would, but every time I even start to bring it up, he just gets all tense and I just feel really bad about making him that uncomfortable,” Allison sighs.

“I’ll try and talk to him later,” Stiles says. And then he sees Lydia reaching for her laptop again, and for a second he honestly wishes Scott would hurry up because he would rather quiz his bestie about his runaway jackass father rather than do this party-planning stuff. “Okay, fine, we’ll invite the whole team. And Finstock.”

Lydia looks up sharply, her mouth opening. Then she stops herself from saying whatever and narrows her eyes at Stiles, while beside her, Jackson makes strangled noises and does his damnedest to pop his own eyes out of their sockets.

“Are you joking,” Jackson says. Then he shakes his head. “No, you have to be. Stiles. Stiles—fuck it, alpha, for the sake of our sanity, you can’t—”

“Oh, my God, Finstock’s not actually going to come,” Stiles says dismissively. “Are you kidding? He still thinks Melissa’s gonna hunt him down over the motel. When Scott showed up to the team party and he realized Melissa wasn’t dropping him off, he practically cried on Scott’s shoulder, he was so relieved.”

“It’s just so that when everybody else hears he was invited, the people who can claim they have a conflict without worrying that a Hale will show up to call them out on it will tell us they can’t come,” Lydia says briskly, with just the faintest hint of approval in her eye. She gives Jackson a pat on the shoulder and then flips open her laptop again. “Good, that’s one issue taken care of. Now what is this I hear about a cider fountain?”

“That’s nonnegotiable,” Stiles immediately says. “I’ve dreamed about having a cider fountain since I was just a little kid, Lydia, you can’t take this away from me.”

Lydia eyes him briefly, and then gives her head a little toss that lets him know he’s totally misjudged where her main objection was going to be aiming. “I was just going to suggest that we upgrade to pear cider. Apple is so…common, and pears are also a symbol of longevity, and—”

Stiles starts to slouch, and gets an elbow from Allison, of all people. “Scott, eight o’clock,” she mutters when he glares at her.

On the other hand, she is a wonderful, wonderful, mindreading comrade-in-arms, and Stiles is totally counting on Scott’s werewolf strength to hold them up as he pounces on his friend. “Scotty! Scotty, wow, you are just in time—” he drops his voice to a hiss “—come up with something now, I need an out, Lydia.”

“Um,” Scott grunts, awkwardly hefting Stiles with one arm. He turns slowly and semi-blindly in place till he manages to find the edge of their booth, and then tilts as his bookbag strap slides from his shoulder to his elbow. “Uh. Hey, so sorry I’m late, but while I was at the gas station, I realized I…I…um, forgot something. At home. So, um…”

“I guess we should get it?” Allison lilts, in perfectly decisive indecisiveness. She slides out of the booth and grabs the milkshake and fries order from the waitress who’s just walked up, smiling in apology. “We’ll be taking them to go, actually.”

Lydia’s gaze is peeling layers off the back of Stiles’ head like a laser scalpel, an onion, and a bored lab tech. “Stiles.”

“Sorry, it’s important!” Stiles calls back. “Text me all the other stuff you need to know, okay?”

“Stiles,” Lydia says, voice dropping dangerously close to a growl.

“Oh, shit, go, go!” Stiles hisses at Scott. He makes a grab for Scott’s backpack, manages to hook the strap, and then swings it so that Scott’s balance shifts definitively towards the door. Scott stumbles and huffs, but like the champ he is, he goes with it, and gets them out of there before Lydia gets to a third ‘Stiles’ and they find out which flavor of apocalyptic destruction she’s implicitly counting down to.

* * *

They can’t actually go to Scott’s house, because obviously Lydia will follow them there. Stiles’ house is out for the same reason, so they…crash Cora’s party at the Hale house, because even Lydia isn’t going to trespass there without Talia’s permission.

“Hey, I guess he texted you?” is how Cora greets him.

“What?” Stiles says, automatically looking for Derek.

Cora grimaces. She actually grimaces, which immediately gets his attention back to her because Cora generally doesn’t give a shit what Stiles’ opinion is. And then she sighs and waves off a classmate approaching her with an open yearbook, and pulls Stiles over to the corner. “See that girl over there by the punch bowl? The one talking to Francis?”

Dark-haired, definitely older than high school, pinging human as far as Stiles can tell. Laura’s at the party too and there are a couple people her age floating around, who Stiles assumes are her buddies, though this woman looks a little young for that.

“That’s Paige,” Cora says. “Derek’s ex?”

Stiles blinks. “His ex?”

Cora stares at him for a couple seconds. And then she gets a good grip on Stiles’ arm and then drags him up the porch steps and into the kitchen. Really drags him, not an ounce of deference to alpha status or even common courtesy, and he’s about to complain when she whirls on him, her finger just a hair from taking out his eye.

“My brother has issues, but loyalty isn’t one of them and you’d better know that by now,” she says. “He didn’t invite her, she just showed up because her cousin’s Yvonne over there and we used to be tight—”

“Used to?” Stiles says.

“Yeah, well, Yvonne didn’t heads-up that Paige was in town and going to pick her up, and now she’s not getting her ass out of here because she thinks she’s gonna have a chance with Jake,” Cora snorts. She glances past Stiles, catches somebody’s eye and makes a gesture with her chin that Stiles recognizes as a flank-left signal from past Hale hunts. “So. Used to. Anyway, I need to boot them, but first you’re gonna promise me you won’t get on Derek for Paige.”

Stiles blinks. “Uh, no. Wasn’t on the to-do list.”

Cora studies him, unsmiling, intense enough that Stiles almost asks her whether he accidentally missed a spot when washing off after feeding the tree earlier in the day. Then she lets him go and pushes by, with a last glower over her shoulder. “I’m watching.”

“And…that wasn’t ominous at all,” Stiles mutters to himself, watching her cut back through the party towards Yvonne. Who’s apparently enlisted Allison and Scott as living props in some sort of story she’s telling Jake.

Scott notices Stiles is looking over and gesture-asks whether Stiles needs them to come over, which gets Allison’s attention. She looks up too and they both are nailing him with the pleading puppy-eyes, and Stiles sighs and is about to go over to the doorway when Laura walks in from the hall, carrying a bulk-size package of paper cups.

“Oh, hey,” she says. “Did Derek finally suck it up and text you?”

“No, and if this is about Paige out there, Cora just gave me the out-of-context death threat,” Stiles says. “Well. Okay. There wasn’t an express death threat, but I think based on all the body language there’s a strong case for saying there was an implicit one, and—”

Laura’s busy combining an eye-roll with an exasperated sigh. “Goddamn it, Derek. God, he’s probably still in the basement, pretending like it’s really that hard to find the pallet of soda. At least tell me that Cora is getting her stupid friend and Paige out of here.”

Stiles nods towards the backyard, where a very irritated Yvonne is stomping up to Paige and Francis. Paige, who seems like a reasonably decent person, just based on the couple minutes of nonspeaking observation Stiles has had of her, starts to smile at Yvonne, pauses to assess, and then switches to a look of concern while simultaneously saying something to Francis that has him affably exiting. “So he’s in the basement?”

Once Laura’s had a peek, she comes back to slap the paper cups on top of the kitchen island. She’s kind of rough and at least one stack of them look dented, from where Stiles is standing. “Yeah, but before he comes up, just—”

“I’m not going to get mad at him because before I showed up, he actually dated people besides Peter and, um, you know,” Stiles says, starting off strong and then remembering that flippancy’s not really a great fit for sociopathic statutory rapists who killed Derek and Laura’s father. “And it’s not like I need a detailed history of who he—okay, but just, Paige isn’t trauma fodder, right? One-word answer, yes or no, I don’t want to get into the whole am I going behind Derek’s back thing, I just wanna know the appropriate level of weaponry to keep around her.”

Laura snorts as she tears open the plastic wrapped around the cups. She reaches into the tear and pulls out some of the dented ones, then sighs and starts to un-dent them. “She’s still allowed on our property and Cora’s still friends with her cousin, that doesn’t say anything to you?”

“Given that Cora just told me she and Yvonne are done, it does say something and that something is mixed messages,” Stiles says. “Also, clearly-worded instructions. Why is it nobody can follow them?”

“No,” Laura says, rolling her eyes. “Stiles, we’re werewolves. If we obeyed instructions, we’d fall into that false cultural dichotomy based on inaccurate canine socio—”

Stiles sticks his fingers in his ears and lalalas himself out of the kitchen, because love of science and open discussion is one thing, while getting into a debate with a graduate student who’s in the final stage of editing her master’s thesis over the topic of said thesis is a completely different thing. Kind of like how loving sausage doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to know the individual taste of every single body part that goes into it, you’d rather just enjoy the harmonious result.

Anyway, he’s so busy doing that that he walks nearly to the front door before he realizes what he’s doing. He takes his fingers out of his ears and is rubbing at the side of his head, wondering why today’s starting to feel a little like he’s stepped into one of those funhouses with the funky mirrors, and then turns around to see Derek coming out of the basement with a big, heavy, cardboard tray of sodas in his arms.

Derek’s shirt got pulled up and then pinned off his stomach by the edge of the tray, so that’s a nice view underneath, and then over the tray his arm muscles are testing the integrity of the sleeves of his t-shirt, because supernatural strength thankfully doesn’t mean that stuff doesn’t have to flex and bulge and okay, Derek was saying something. “Yeah?” Stiles says, dragging his eyes up.

“I said, what are you doing here?” Derek says. He’s a little smirky, but not nearly as much as he normally would be. Then his shoulders hunch up and that has nothing to do with the weight of the sodas, and everything to do with the sudden flicker of sullen nerves in his eyes. “I thought you weren’t coming over today. Did Laura or Cora call you?”

“Actually, me and Scott and Allison are hiding from Lydia and her deranged party-planner spreadsheets,” Stiles says, taking a step towards the other man. He pauses and watches to see if Derek hunches more or straightens up, and when Derek does neither and just tenses up as he is, suppresses a sigh and walks the rest of the way over. “They supposed to call me?”

He doesn’t push that, just says it and lets it float as he reaches up for Derek’s neck. Once he’s got his hand around the back of it, he hooks Derek down and lets the man scent him, crooking himself to avoid the sodas till Derek grunts and just shifts those under one arm.

“Not…really,” Derek mutters, after he’s gotten his stubble rash all over Stiles’ neck (never going to need a loofah, between that and bark scrapes). So Stiles thinks Derek’s just going to do his duck ‘n hide thing, and then Derek sighs and pulls his head back and looks down at him. “This girl I dated a little bit in high school’s out there, and she just heard about us, apparently.”

“Um, has she been living under an Internet-less rock?” pops out of Stiles’ mouth. He’s not a narcissist, really, Peter rocks that one so well that Stiles would never want to horn in on his shtick, but…even if Paige isn’t a werewolf or has any connections that would require her to keep up with werewolf packs, the Beacon Hills gossip network is pretty thorough.

“She doesn’t live here,” Derek explains, shifting a little on his feet. “That’s actually how we broke up, her mother got a job in Canada and they moved when we were sophomores. She still has family here—Cora’s friends with her cousin, that’s why she’s at the party, but I guess nobody ever mentioned it to her.”

Stiles nods slowly, giving Derek an absentminded neck-rub as he does. It all makes sense, and if the Internet alone was enough to keep everybody up to date about everybody else, he and his dad would never, ever get blindsided by morons who fail to realize that ‘obvious’ is a subjective value judgment. And yet for some reason, he’s still feeling slightly off about the situation.

“So why are you running from Lydia?” Derek asks. He shifts the soda under his arm again, and Stiles backs up to let him head towards the kitchen.

“Go out the front door!” Laura yells. “I spilled lemonade!”

Derek stops, makes an annoyed noise, and then swings himself and Stiles around to face the front door. His posture’s slowly reverting back to its usual slouching swagger, and he’s leaning over for a totally gratuitous cheek-rub by the time Stiles opens the door for him.

“Lydia keeps wanting me to make social-status decisions on the guest list,” Stiles says. “I get it, but at the same time, honestly, I kind of liked being an outcast. Way less people to background-check.”

“Why is she doing the guest list anyway, she had her own party,” Derek agrees. “And we’re doing one for all the were seniors, so between all of them, you’d think everybody has at least one—”

“Derek!” calls a female voice.

It’s Paige, who’s with Yvonne about halfway down the driveway. She’s half-into a car parked there, but takes her leg out as she waves at Derek. Who’s gone all stiff again, his eyes flicking to Stiles before he sort of, well, puppets his own arm into lifting and giving her a jerky wave back. Paige’s head tilts, as maybe you would if you were watching somebody you used to date resemble an animatronic robot, and then she starts walking across the lawn towards them.

Stiles still has his hand on Derek, though he’s let it slide to Derek’s shoulder. He pushes it back up onto Derek’s nape and then into Derek’s hair for good measure, giving the other man a quick, reassuring press—Derek is obviously trying to fight the urge to just jump on the roof or do something equally werewolfy-avoiding—and then saunters out to meet Paige. “Hi!” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m Stiles.”

“Paige,” Paige says, taking his hand and smiling with what seems like genuine friendliness. She actually seemed to be angling towards him anyway once he started to come down. “Hi, I went to high school with Derek. I just was in town for Yvonne’s graduation. So you’re his alpha?”

“Yep,” Stiles says. “Alpha, that’s me.”

“I think Yvonne said that you’re a tree guardian too?” Paige says. “Sorry, I’m asking because my mother works a lot with the Vancouver guardian—”

“Oh, yeah, Therese,” Stiles says.

Paige gives him another smile, that vaguely delighted but uncertain smile you give people when you’ve just figured out you have mutual acquaintances but before you’re sure that said acquaintances are decent icebreakers. She starts to ask him something, but both her cousin—calling that they’re gonna be late, but probably more motivated by Cora glaring from the side of the house—and Derek, who’s decided to walk up, interrupt.

“Hey,” Derek mutters.

“Hey,” Paige says. She folds her hands over her purse and hugs that to her belly, half-glancing over her shoulder at her irritably-signaling cousin; she’s got a ring on her left hand. “Hey, so your sister was saying you were around, but I didn’t…anyway, since I was picking up Yvonne, I thought I should say hello if I could find you.”

Derek looks like he is wishing he was enough of an asshole to just ditch the whole situation and go back to hiding in the basement with the soda, but he gives her a short nod. “Yeah, so, Canada’s okay?”

“It’s nice,” Paige says.

They stand around awkwardly. Paige looks at her sandals. Derek fiddles with the edges of the soda tray. Stiles debates whether he should go with friendly but socially-inept or friendly with off-putting undertones to get things out of their conversational sinkhole.

“Anyway, I just…wanted to say hi,” Paige says, looking up. She pauses, and then gives Derek a slightly nervous smile. “And it’s—it’s really good to see that you’re…you’re all doing well. We, um, we heard about things, and I felt really…I just wasn’t sure if I should, you know, send you a message or anything, and I wish I had. But anyway, you look pretty good now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re all right,” Derek says. He’s still stiff, but he shifts over enough to bump Stiles with his hip.

Stiles automatically lifts his hand and hooks it over Derek’s shoulder. He’s not really doing a possessive show or anything; he’s not getting those vibes from Paige, and he’s just doing a little reassuring, since Derek’s asking. So when Paige’s eyes go to his hand, Stiles almost wants to explain, and maybe…well, not apologize, because he doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong, but convey in a very nice, nonthreatening way that she is in no way, shape or form a threat here.

“Good,” Paige says, looking back at Derek. She takes half a step back. “Good, I’m glad. Well…Yvonne’s screaming, but I’m in town till next Thursday, if you want to catch up or anything. Stiles, good to meet you too. If you can come, I’d love to talk more about conservation, I do work in that area.”

Derek makes one of those Rorschach-blot noises of his, which aren’t noncommittal because even noncommittal is putting a reading on it and these noises just defy any kind of firm interpretation. He lifts his arm for a wave that’s even more puppety than the first one, and then, when Stiles moves—to scratch his nose, what, they’re outside in the middle of a forest—drops that over Stiles’ shoulders and damn near rescents Stiles while Paige’s car is pulling out of the driveway.

“So, she seems normal,” Stiles says. He had to drop his grip on Derek’s shoulder so he moves his hand to Derek’s ass, giving that a brief cup, and then tucks it into Derek’s jeans-pocket.

Derek shrugs, clearly not wanting to talk about it. When Cora yells at him to bring over the soda already, they’re down to the last two cans, he’s so eager to jump on that that he actually almost drags Stiles face-first into the grass as he, well, jumps to it.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, backtracking so Stiles doesn’t sprain his wrist letting go of him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Stiles says before Derek can start trying to check him for injuries. Because Cora, and standing in the Hales’ front yard, and all those disorderly-conduct citations he’s had to have wiped from his record were in spite of him, damn it. “Okay, so, anyway, this party’s going at least another hour, right? And there have to be emergencies besides soda that we gotta get on, and that’ll keep us away from Lydia?”

“I’ll give you all the emergencies you want if you’ll just get Derek to bring the Sprite already,” Cora calls at them. “Flat lemonade sucks, so hurry up.”

“Cora, would you just—” And Derek ends that in a snarl that has Cora rolling her eyes and stalking back around the corner. Derek stares after her for a few seconds, clearly reevaluating his duties as an older sibling, and then heaves a sigh. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we can find something. Always something fucking up around here.”

“Good,” Stiles says. Then almost slaps himself in the face as they start walking back across the yard. “I mean, not good in the sense that I enjoy fuck-ups, because I do not, emotional sadism is not my thing, just good in the—”

The corner of Derek’s mouth quirks up. Then he dips his head, snickering, and swerves a little so that he can nuzzle in behind Stiles’ ear. “No, got it, alpha,” he says. “It’s cool.”

* * *

“So is it really cool?” Stiles says. “Because I love him as he is and obviously think the best policy is being true to yourself, but I feel like Derek has a very, very loose understanding of what is ‘cool,’ when using that word to mean that nothing’s wrong. I mean, you get what I’m saying?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” Peter sighs. He rubs his cheek a little against Stiles’ belly, which sets the hammock they’re lounging in to swinging, and then stretches his foot out to press against one of the anchor ropes and steady them. “I have had the privilege of watching Derek since he was born, after all.”

They’re working, really. The hammock is going to be Stiles’ Father’s Day present—at least, one of them is. His dad deserves nothing but the best and so Stiles researched return policies and covered off on his betas’ urges to look after him financially, and ordered up a whole selection for testing purposes. Can’t have a substandard hammock, gotta make sure that it’s not going to sag funny or unbalance itself without warning, or God forbid, break off the anchor bolts. And look, realistically, his dad’s going to have multiple people in there at some point, so Stiles has to check that too.

Speaking of, Stiles pulls out his phone. He checks his texts, sighs when he doesn’t see any response from Derek, and then stuffs it back into his pocket. “Okay, so what’s the deal here? If it’s some weird thing where he thinks I’m gonna be madly jealous, shouldn’t he be all clingy instead of, you know, suddenly volunteering to go over and argue with Lydia about capping the guest list? And actually doing that?”

“Werewolves?” Peter tries. He even twists his head around so he can look up at Stiles with the hopeful eyes.

“Ha,” Stiles says flatly, and then he gives Peter a hard shove on the shoulder. “So I think this one’s sturdy, but it’s scratching through my shirt so it’s a no. Up, we have another three to test before Dad comes home today.”

Peter makes a face, but obligingly pushes himself up and then swings out of the hammock. He pauses to fuss with his clothes, incidentally giving Stiles some nice flashes of belly and back, and then makes another face as Stiles ignores that in favor of untying the hammock ropes.

“Well, it probably does go back to werewolf behavior,” Peter finally says. “You’re not in danger, Stiles, so there’s no reason to hang around and protect you.”

“Yeah, since Derek won’t even hang around to let me give him the whole, ‘take your time because I understand but don’t stall ‘cause open communication is healthy’ speech,” Stiles mutters, yanking at the rope.

Peter bends over for the next package. “True, and I won’t defend my nephew’s behavior, but…honestly, we’re rather in the dark too. Derek doesn’t like to talk about Paige, since she was his girlfriend right before Kate Argent.”

Stiles starts to turn towards the other man, but just then the knot unravels on him and he nearly lets the hammock fall to the ground. He grabs the spreader pole at the end just before the netting would’ve snagged on a lower branch, then hikes that back up so that he can start rolling up the netting around the pole. “Okay…and I feel as if you have a little bit more than that to say, Peter. Don’t pull that cryptic stuff, I told you, no sex in my dad’s potential presents.”

“There’s no crypticness, there’s just simply not much to say. We didn’t have any problem with Paige,” Peter finally adds, in a very bland tone. He slits the tape on the package with a claw and busies himself with prying the end open. And then he sighs. “Well, all right, Talia and I weren’t sure that she and Derek were going to match well once they’d grown up a bit, but she seemed acceptable for a high school relationship.”

“Oh, my God, you totally thought she wasn’t good enough for Derek,” Stiles says, grinning. “What was it? Was it her comebacks? She didn’t seem like the snappy type to me, it was totally that, wasn’t it? You didn’t think that she’d keep up with your witty repartee.”

“Now, Stiles,” Peter says, giving Stiles a reproving look from where he’s squatted down to shake the hammock out of its box. “We’re hardly living in a sitcom. Life isn’t simply about the ability to be quotable.”

“Says the man who texts me his best insults of the day and then gets all pouty if I don’t compliment him immediately,” Stiles says.

Peter sniffs. “That’s different. In alternative dispute resolution, your living depends on having judgment that’s not just good, but memorable enough to merit a referral. But all right, Paige was…she was a little boring.”

Stiles cackles, finishing up with the current hammock. He passes by Peter to find its box, giving his wounded-face beta a quick hair-ruffle, and then starts working on fitting Styrofoam bits and bagging stuff in plastic. Things like laptops and other electronic goods, he can understand all the packing material, what with having to protect delicate internals from being shaken loose, but a hammock is a bunch of rope with the odd piece of wood. But damn it, even if Peter and Derek can afford it, he refuses to get dinged on a damaged return.

“At least it wasn’t something like, she was insecure about being a human in a werewolf pack,” he says.

He’s working on sliding the hammock back into its box without knocking off the protective foam endcaps, so he mostly misses Peter’s reaction. But what he does catch out of the corner of his eye makes him look up.

“It wasn’t what you think. She and her family were fine about werewolves,” Peter says immediately. He has the next hammock half-wrapped, but he just fiddles with the plastic wrap instead of pushing it the rest of the way off. “She actually was interested enough to have herself tested for bite compatibility, in fact, but it turned out she was allergic.”

“Oh, really? That…that sucks.” And that actually is Stiles’ first reaction: werewolf-bite allergies are really rare, to the point that you have better odds of being struck by lightning. Then he thinks about it some more and he looks sharply at Peter. “Wait, she got tested for that? I thought you said they weren’t serious.”

“I didn’t say that, I said Talia and I didn’t think they’d be,” Peter says pointedly. “And Derek probably wouldn’t say he and Paige were that serious if you asked him now, but they were about fifteen, and everything’s always so urgent at that age.”

Stiles gets the last bit of hammock stuffed into the box and puts that down on the grass, and then holds his hand out for the end rope on the one Peter’s unpacking. “Yeah, I guess I get what you’re saying. I mean, not like I know myself, because trying to get bonded to a blood-drinking tree tends to not attract the fairytale romance crowd, and Scott and Allison are a bad example since they literally are the first-love-true-love trope, but I can extrapolate from other adolescent bad-judgment calls. So they didn’t break up because of that, did they? Because I’m gonna have to revisit the whole Paige seems nice opinion, if so.”

“No, no, she wasn’t that shallow, thankfully,” Peter mutters. He hands Stiles the rope, but then gestures for Stiles to wait as he…removes a bunch of plastic clips that Stiles thinks are even more unnecessary than the foam endcaps. “Derek had some silly moments, but Laura talked him out of that, I think. The whole thing actually ended up making the two of them closer.”

“Okay, and then she moved and they discovered that they didn’t like each other so much that they were willing to keep it up over the distance,” Stiles says. “At least, that’s what Derek said, but that doesn’t actually sound that bad. Unless one of them got weird about it?”

“No, they didn’t, so far as I and Talia could tell. But I think that might have been the problem, in hindsight. It might actually have been better if one of them had thrown a fit over it,” Peter says thoughtfully. He gets up to help Stiles string up the next hammock. “Derek had this idea that they were so serious, and then it turned out he didn’t actually feel that strongly about her, and I…think he thought he must have done something wrong with her, because it should have been dramatic if they had really meant anything to each other.”

Stiles hums to show that he’s listening, and because if he were going to say something, it’d be that that seems kind of stupid. But like he’d just said to Peter, he might not fully understand Derek’s mindset but he does fully understand that he didn’t have the most normal childhood. His parents did a great job of keeping him from getting a swollen head or too many neuroses, in his opinion, but look, normal teenagers don’t think about killing people and burying the bodies in tree roots as a chore.

“That’s possibly Talia’s and my fault,” Peter adds a little slowly. “Derek saw the aftermath of a few of my break-ups, and I’ll admit, even if I wasn’t serious at all about the person, if the break-up was their fault, I usually made it, ah—”

“Memorable?” Stiles suggests.

Peter smirks, but it’s a little more subdued than normal. “Well, the way I looked at it, I was helping the poor unfortunate who dated them next, letting them know that that was unacceptable behavior. But anyway, Talia would always second me on that sort of issue, and Derek seemed to have gotten the idea that real romance is full of property damage and mildly illegal behavior.”

“You know ‘mildly’ isn’t actually a legal qualifier, right?” Stiles says. “It’s more like, how expensive is your lawyer, and do you happen to have a plausible claim for governmental immunity.”

“Speaking from experience, I take it?” Peter says, brows raised, like that totally isn’t a huge turn-in for him (and like he totally isn’t confirming Stiles’ suspicions about snappy dialogue being tops on his list of desirable traits in a romantic partner). “Yes, well, anyway—after Paige, Derek went looking for what he thought was real true love, and…Kate Argent found him.”

Peter stops there, like maybe that speaks for itself, and he and Stiles work in silence on opposite ends of the hammock. To be honest, it doesn’t explain everything, but Stiles doesn’t want to just come out and say that. For all the snarking he and Peter have been doing throughout the whole conversation, Peter’s shown enough signs of uneasiness that Stiles doesn’t want to be too pushy with him.

It’s just that the dots aren’t connecting. Stiles gets that Derek was rebounding from Paige and let that lead him into some really terrible decisions, but he doesn’t really see how to go from that to Derek suddenly acting weird now. He doesn’t think Derek blames Paige for Kate Argent, seeing as Derek wasn’t mean or anything when Paige showed up, and it also doesn’t seem like either of them really regret that they didn’t stay together. Sure, Paige invited Derek to catch up, but Stiles thinks she just means that in a platonic sense. There’s the engagement or wedding ring she had on, and also, well, Stiles has seen a lot of people hit on Derek. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of all possible signs of that now, and Paige wasn’t showing any of them.

Not to mention that Derek’s response wasn’t to stick close and shower Stiles with affection, like he would if he thought, somehow, that Stiles didn’t think he was still interested, but to put himself out there like he’s trying to audition for beta of the month or something. And okay, Stiles gives up. “I don’t think I follow,” he says. “Is he saying something about how he’ll be an awesome beta even if we break up? Because one, I’m not exactly going to move to Canada. Two, I just…does somebody really have to explain to him that alphas don’t alpha on the basis of who they’re having sex with? Unless he thinks I don’t understand that, and I know I’m not a born wolf, but—”

“What, no, it’s not that,” Peter says. “Of course not. If you weren’t so instinctive about alphahood in the first place, Derek and I wouldn’t even have been interested in you.”

“Okay, great, because I gotta say, I’m really confused about the pack dynamic right now,” Stiles says. He gives the hammock rope a last jerk and then turns to face Peter. “Sorry, I know I’m usually a quicker study.”

Peter smiles sympathetically at Stiles, but under that he seems a little frustrated too. He starts to reply and then stops himself a couple times, and then ends up just rolling himself into the hammock as he does some thinking about what he wants to say. Then just lies there and growls in irritation at himself till Stiles, feeling guilty about making him like that, crawls on top of him.

“I think the curvature of this one’s a little too much,” he says, propping his arms against Peter’s chest and looking down at him. “I mean, I’d be okay, but I think Dad’s back would cramp up.”

“It is a bit steep,” Peter says absently. Then he lets out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, it’s just…like I said, Paige is one of those topics that Derek avoids like the plague. It’s easier to say what I don’t think he’s doing—I don’t think Derek is mixing you up with Paige. He’s grown up since then and he does understand you two aren’t the same, and it’s not just—avoiding the same mistake. It’s just…”

“Well, look, I should be having this conversation with him anyway,” Stiles says. Then he cocks his head. “And you haven’t once pointed that out. You’re being super-easy on him, should I be asking about that instead?”

Peter’s brows rise. “Can’t I be altruistic about my own nephew?”

“Yeah, sure, and as your alpha I can do reasonable due diligence into your motivation,” Stiles says, with a playful flick at the underside of Peter’s chin. “You’re not having some weird reaction to her showing up, are you? I mean, Cora and Laura were treating her like she was some kind of crazy stalker ex, I was kind of wondering if I was gonna have to challenge or something.”

“They were reacting to Derek,” Peter says, with a slightly put-upon sigh. He shifts against the hammock, then grabs at Stiles’ waist as it rocks way more than that movement merited. “And if I seem a little off, it’s probably for the same reason. He’s gotten so much better about reminders about that time and it’s just…it’s worrying to think he might be reverting. I don’t think he is, not yet, but…well, we worry. We’re his family.”

Stiles nods. “Okay, well, it hasn’t even been a day yet. Maybe fighting with Lydia will clear it from his system. And if it doesn’t, I guess we’ll just corner him.”

Peter smiles at him, then leans up for a kiss. And then curses and flattens back as the hammock swings wildly again.

“In the meantime, how about you get your alpha out of this thing before we break something?” Stiles sighs. “Seriously, it shouldn’t be this hard to string webbing between a couple of trees.”

* * *

Derek at least comes home when he’s supposed to, and dinner is pretty normal: Peter heats up some stuff from the Hale kitchen, Stiles’ dad complains about paperwork, Stiles suggests a shortcut or two and his dad reminds him of the paperwork increase the last time they tried one of those. Then Stiles’ dad pops back to the preserve to check something and Peter needs to work on one of his cases, so Stiles asks Derek to help him pick out designs for the party evites.

“I just don’t see the difference,” Derek says. “They look like the same photo to me.”

“It is totally not the same photo,” Stiles says. “This one’s a Nemeton leaf from when it just revived, see the way the edges are still unfurling? And this one’s from last week, it’s fully mature and the veining is way more evenly distributed.”

“Okay,” Derek says, clearly not seeing the difference. “So just go with the one you like better.”

Stiles resists the urge to put his hand over his face and scream a little. “But I need a tie-breaker, Derek. I love them both very much, that’s the whole problem.”

“So put both of them on,” Derek says.

“That’s not always the solution, much as I’d like it to be,” Stiles sighs. “I tried that and it looks stupid because of the preformatting, so we have to go with one or the other.”

Derek starts to look just a little bit fidgety. “Which one does Peter like?”

“Nice try, but he already pulled that one and nominated you as the tie-breaker,” Stiles says. Then he laughs at the face Derek pulls. “Okay, okay, you know, lemme call Scott really quick, see what he thinks.”

Scott is equally unhelpful, though to be fair, he sounds like he’s in the middle of something when he picks up. “I refreshed three times and I’m still not getting the text,” he says. “But I’m in the basement, reception’s not great down here. Could you wait a couple minutes till I’m back upstairs?”

“Well, sure, I have another six hours to send these before we run up against Lydia’s rule about allowing at least a week to RSVP,” Stiles says, pushing at Derek’s shoulder as the man lets out discontented grunts. Then he uncrosses his legs and pushes up back against the headboard, just giving up and letting Derek snuggle his head on Stiles’ lap. Which ensures that Derek’s not going to be offering much in the way of criticism, except to point out that they could be screwing instead of doing this, but Stiles supposes that was a lost cause anyway. “What are you doing down there? Did you get grounded again?”

“No.” Scott sounds a little bit tight, and Stiles belatedly remembers that Scott’s dad’s stupid package is down there. But then Scott makes a pleased noise and the sounds of cardboard scraping come over the phone, and Stiles guesses that Scott was just getting frustrated over not finding something (Melissa is perfect in every way except that her basement is the parent of all disorganized black holes). “No, Mom just asked me to try and find this serving platter for the food we’re bringing to your party. But I just found it, just give me a sec and…oh, hey, the text came through. So which one did you like better again?”

Derek makes pointed noises into Stiles’ thigh. He’s not quite as smooth about reminding people that he called something as Peter is, but as a Hale he’s biologically incapable of not bringing something like that to Stiles’ attention.

Stiles recognizes that, so he limits himself to just a hard poke at Derek’s head. At least, that’s what he’s aiming for, but Derek moves at the last second so that Stiles hits Derek’s deltoid instead. Stupid werewolf with his stupid poke-resistant musculature of steel. “I can’t choose, Scott, that’s the problem. They’re both great shots and the first one’s from when it first revived, so there’s all that cool symbolism about a fresh chance, right? But on the other hand, I’m not saying I need to reinvent myself, because I may be a work in progress but I think the progress so far isn’t bad and—”

“Hey, so, I’m listening and I get it, but…do you think anybody else is going to see all of that in the invite?” Scott says delicately.

“True,” Stiles sighs. “And I guess we do have my college graduation, in case four years from now I look back at this evite and am all, what the hell was I thinking, the color balance is completely wrong.”

Scott makes sympathetic noises while slinging boxes around, and then tripping over something, and muttering an apology to nobody in particular. “Honestly, Stiles, I think Lydia might be getting to you. You know it’s not her party, right?”

“Yeah, I know, but you know I hate this kind of stuff—”

Derek snorts. “We’ve been talking about these photos for almost an hour.”

Stiles scruffs him, and then glowers down when Derek makes the expected regretful whine. Glowers, and does not let Derek nuzzle his hand in apology, which seems to bother Derek a lot more. “—anyway, she’s been kind of touchy overall, don’t you think?” Stiles says to Scott. “I just figured it’d give her an outlet for whatever’s going on.”

“I think it’s her parents again,” Scott says, stair-steps creaking in the background. “I haven’t asked or anything, but Jackson let slip that they were both trying to take Lydia for trips after graduation at the same time, or something like that.”

“She had her luggage out when I was over,” Derek volunteers. He looks up at Stiles, then rolls off Stiles’ lap and onto his arms so he’s not upside-down. “Had sweaters and summer clothes out, but she didn’t seem excited about either.”

“I think Jackson’s just going to offer to take her somewhere. He was saying something about his dad having a client in London,” Scott says. “So, the photos. Isn’t the first one the one you wanted for the holiday cards, but the Service didn’t use it?”

Stiles had actually forgotten about that, and he has to switch to the text app to check. “Oh, hey, yeah, it is. Okay, you know what, we’ll just go with that one, second chances and whatever. Thanks, Scotty, you’re the bestest tie-breaker ever.”

Scott says his usual stuff about it not being a big deal and him not actually doing that much, and then gets off the phone as Stiles hauls his laptop back over. It’s a nice, companionable quiet for a few minutes, while Stiles is navigating the options menus on the evite site, and then Derek sits up.

“I’m not avoiding you over Paige,” Derek says.

Stiles blinks. “Well, okay, that is…directly introducing the subject.”

“I know I’ve been weird,” Derek mutters, grimacing and running his hand over his hair. “But honestly, my whole family’s being weird about her and I just wanted to back off and get some air before I tried to explain it to you, if that makes sense.”

The evite status bar is still only about three-fifths of the way complete—Stiles totally will acknowledge he is the last one to be throwing stones about the detail-oriented, but how many virtual engraving details can you have?—but Stiles saves where he is and lowers his laptop lid. “I get the impulse to not have bunches of people throwing input into your business, because God knows that bureaucracy’s been both the salvation and bane of us quasi-botanicals, but…I don’t think that that’s what you meant.”

“No, not really.” Derek puts his hands down on the bed like he might just give up on the conversation, and then pulls them off with an annoyed sigh. “For once. Though I don’t know, I wonder if it’d be better if they were just doing their usual thing and sticking their noses into it. This whole…tiptoeing around deal, where it’s like everybody thinks I’m going to fall apart if they say something, it’s driving me crazy. Even Peter’s keeping back and I keep looking over my shoulder thinking he’s working on deporting Paige or something.”

“Well, if it helps, I don’t think he can do that. Paige was born here and not Canada, right? Deportation’s only if you’re an immigrant,” Stiles says.

Derek makes that face of his where he’s simultaneously wanting to admire his alpha’s mad smarts and also to cover off on his pride by saying something like, werewolves have special sovereignty rights over territory, remember? And then he ends up going with option three, which is to pop his claws and start picking at them. “I get that they’re worried about me and I don’t want to be that asshole, but sometimes—sometimes I just think that everything shouldn’t be about my dad’s death and Kate Argent.”

Stiles hears ‘dad’ and ‘Kate Argent’ and connects those keywords with what Peter said, and he’s about to spring into action with some comment about how it wasn’t Derek’s fault and not letting one psycho ruin your life when his laptop beeps. Which is probably the one time that a low battery actually helps him out, because by the time he gets it properly put to sleep, he’s actually listened to Derek and realized that that’d be about as unintentionally patronizing as the rest of the Hale family.

“And then I feel like shit, because that was a huge—it screwed up everybody’s life,” Derek goes on. He glances up at Stiles, uncharacteristically mournful, and then sighs and stops with the claw-picking to drop his head against one hand. “Peter had to move back home, he and Mom had all kinds of pack politics to straighten out, Laura doesn’t think she’s a good enough alpha to manage a pack and Cora pulls all that high school queen stuff so she feels safer. But Paige isn’t—seriously, we dated for three months.”

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly. “Okay, I think I’m starting to follow now. Though, um, you guys dated when you were in high school, right?”

Derek glances up again and he’s slightly less mournful, slightly more glowery. “If this is you saying that somebody said I was an annoying teenager, then fine, I was. But still, that was years ago. It’s not like I stayed an annoying teenager.”

“Nope, for sure, at least one of those categories has changed,” Stiles says. He reaches over at the same time to rub the side of Derek’s neck, softening the tease, and…gets a growly werewolf tackling him.

So he’s not about to let that stand, as alpha, and anyway Derek isn’t really looking for that so much as getting Stiles to flip him onto his back and straddle him and get halfway down to an unintentional cuddle, realize that, be aghast at Derek’s underhanded tactics—and shrug and make out with him anyway. A little bit. It’s not like Stiles has lost track of the conversation, really, it’s just sometimes the indirect interrogation is the best way to go, and adding a little honey helps too.

“There any reason why they’d think you still would freak out over her?” Stiles asks, pulling back. He folds his arms across Derek’s chest, keeping Derek from leaning up after him, and then grins and flicks his fingers against the underside of Derek’s chin. Playfully, but still telling the man that fun times are on hold for the moment. “I mean this in a totally nonjudgmental way, just…like you said, they’re worried, and I don’t think your family usually worries unless there’s a reason. Which may or may not be a real reason, as opposed to a phantom reason that nevertheless qualifies as a good-faith concern, but still, a fake reason is a reason for the purposes of…I lost you.”

Derek puts his head back in the pillow and stares up at Stiles for a couple seconds. “Somewhere around the stuff about good faith.”

Stiles makes a face at himself, then hitches up Derek so the man’s fly isn’t digging into his belly-button. “Is it just in their heads, or are they overreacting? Because if you overreact, you’re, well, overdoing it, but there’s still something that you’re reacting to, or…tell me you’re not lost again.”

“No, I think I actually get where you’re going this time,” Derek says. He tilts his head back, the corners of his mouth heading towards a smirk, and when Stiles flicks at his chin this time, pulls that chin up to get a stroking out of it. Stupid stupidly attractive, touch-appreciative werewolf that he is. “I guess…I guess it’s more like an overreaction. Paige and me—okay, back then I did think we were pretty serious, and when we broke up I was upset and that probably was one reason why I ever thought that Kate Argent was a good idea.”

“So…they think if you see her, it’ll remind you about what happened?” Stiles tries.

“Mom and Laura and Peter, I guess, yeah.” Derek’s brow crinkles as he rolls his eyes and looks balefully at the ceiling. “I think Cora has some weird idea that I still might like Paige, or that Paige wanted to check whether I still had a thing for her, and I don’t know. Sometimes I think she might actually believe all the high school drama shit-stirring she does.”

Stiles can’t exactly say Derek is wrong there, so he just shifts his arm up to rub a piece of lint off of Derek’s ear. And then leaves his hand there, his thumb just lying along the side of Derek’s jaw. “That doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch, honestly. I mean, the non-Cora theory.”

“I know, that’s why I—I didn’t want to yell at them, because I get that, and I used to not want to talk about Paige, but that’s because I didn’t want to talk about anything,” Derek says, exasperated. “It’s been a long time and I don’t think I really would’ve made much of a big deal out of Paige coming over if everybody else hadn’t. Not every single thing makes me think of my dad, all right? And honestly, now I almost feel like I’m doing something wrong because I’m not making that connection.”

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles says. Then he pushes himself up on his arm, looking down at the other man. “No, really, I mean it this time. People have this weird idea about…they’d do the same thing to me with oak trees, you know, like every time I see a really big old one like my mom had, I was going to burst into tears or something.”

Derek frowns. “But why would you? It’s not her tree, they’re all completely different, isn’t that what you keep telling us?”

He says that like that’s completely obvious, in that blunt-instrument tone of his that is constantly making Peter or Laura shove him behind pillars or doors or trees so he doesn’t spoil delicate negotiations. And it’s funny, because as much as Derek tries—and he does try, under the scowling—to understand Nemeton nuances, he’s never, ever going to actually see the difference between two trees the way Stiles does. Peter gets it, really gets it, and so easily that even Stiles finds it a bit eerie, but something in Derek’s mind just refuses to compute when Stiles starts talking about lamina shapes.

So Derek just takes Stiles’ word for that sort of thing. But it’s not some blasé whatever taking of Stiles’ word; Derek takes it really seriously, not just accepting it as fact but incorporating it into his belief system and things like that, and actually using what Stiles says as a basis for figuring out what he should do and say. Like right now when Stiles is looking down at him and he really, genuinely can’t understand the idiocy of people because it doesn’t fit with how Stiles has told him things should work.

“Hey,” Derek says. His expression softens with concern and he lifts his hand up to touch fingertips to Stiles’ cheek, and then to put it on Stiles’ shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just—well, oak trees don’t do it, but it’s weird what will, right?” Stiles says after a second, once he thinks he’s shaken his little spell off. He blinks hard and his eyes sting, but the world stops being blurry after that. “You think you’re okay for a long time and then it kind of sneaks up on you. And so maybe people have a point, kind of.”

Derek doesn’t respond in words. He just nods, resting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, and then, when Stiles sags a little, shifts his head so that Stiles can just put his head under Derek’s chin and lie on him for a little while. His arm slides over Stiles’ back, and a few seconds in, he noses into Stiles’ hair and starts up a muffled purr.

“’m good,” Stiles mutters. “I just miss her.”

“Yeah,” Derek says. He stops purring, but keeps his arm on Stiles’ back. “I know I should…say something to them, let them know it’s actually not a problem. It’s just, if I bring that up, then we kind of are going to end up also talking about the other stuff. Even though that’s completely not related, but now it’s going to be. If any of that makes sense.”

Stiles nods against Derek’s chest. “Yeah, it does. Though I think if we work at it, and I’m totally available for this, we could probably boil it down to five words and then you could just do your standard grunt till they leave.”

Derek’s glowering at him, it’s completely a glower that’s warming up the side of Stiles’ head. But then Derek snorts in definite amusement, his hand moving in a semi-circle over Stiles’ back. “Thanks. But no, you don’t have to do that, I can—I’ll deal with it. I just—I needed a little time first.”

“Okay,” Stiles says.

They lie peacefully for a few minutes, till Stiles feels a little bad about hijacking Derek’s reassurance session and drags up his arm so he can at least rub his thumb along Derek’s throat. Derek purrs louder, tilting into it, and then snorts again. “Also…don’t know if this seems weird to you, but I think I wouldn’t mind grabbing a coffee with Paige before she leaves. She doesn’t remind me of Dad but she—when I saw her, I did think a little bit about what things used to be like. Before everything went crazy. Not thinking that I’d rather ended up with her, but just…things were really different, and I guess I just wonder if they stayed that way for her.”

Stiles lifts his head. “I’m not weirded out, and I feel pretty secure that Cora’s not going to get her homewrecking ex trope, so coffee away.”

“I am really, really talking to her,” Derek grumbles. He glances off to the side, then looks back up at Stiles. “Do you want to come? I think she meant it about wanting to hear about conservation. She was always really into environmental work, come to think of it—her mom worked with a water-rights group when they were living here.”

“Oh, well, I guess if that wouldn’t be weird, but sure. It’s always cool to hear about what other people are doing, and Dad and I haven’t gotten up to Canada in years,” Stiles says. Then he grins. “Plus you know I love first-hand stories about younger you.”

“On second thought, maybe Paige and I will just elope,” Derek says, straight-faced.

Stiles hits him on the shoulder. Derek doesn’t even so much as twitch, like he’s now not just made of concrete but also of super-high-tech shock-absorbing concrete. So Stiles rolls his eyes and shimmies his ass back till he’s crossed Derek’s waistband, and then smirks as Derek growls and grabs at his hips. “Elope my ass,” he says as Derek drags him down. “What, to Canada? Derek, you are not Canada material, trust me on this.”

“Why not?” Derek mumbles, sucking on Stiles’ tongue. “I like maple syrup.”

“Oh, my God, Canada is not maple syrup!” Stiles says. While shoving his hands into Derek’s jeans. “That’s completely on the other side of the country anyway, see, you’re just proving my point, you’re totally Californian with how you have no idea about regional food production distribution.”

“Well, if you say so.” Derek humps himself, literally shrugging his ass out of his jeans, and then drops back down to nuzzle at Stiles’ crotch till Stiles gets his fly open.

“I totally say so,” Stiles says, gripping Derek’s shoulders. He hisses a little as Derek takes a lick at his cock, and then relaxes into Derek’s mouth. “Totally. Maple syrup, Jesus, I’ll show you something about the sweet life—”

Actually, Derek shows him. And Stiles’ session with the evite website times out and it turns out the stupid thing doesn’t save properly and he has to start that all over again. Still, it’s worth it (no offense to Canada, Stiles is sure it’s lovely).

* * *

“So I think that that’s good to go,” Stiles says, picking up a sapling by its burlap-wrapped bottom. He feels around to see how much moisture is coming through and then squeezes a little bit to try and see if the roots are crowded up against the burlap. “And I cornered Jackson and he is taking Lydia with his parents when they go to London in a couple weeks, so hopefully that will give her parents some time to straighten out their heads.”

He and his dad and Scott have driven out to one of the Service’s nursery centers to pick out baby trees for a planting ceremony during the party. Stiles would’ve loved to use saplings from his own tree but it’s not really acorn season yet and aside from official samples, he didn’t save any from the fall. Anyway, monocultures are bad and they should be encouraging people to plant a diverse mix. But this particular sapling seems a little bit undergrown, so Stiles puts it back and then moves down to the next one.

“I think this one might be good,” Scott says, handing him a pine. “Did Derek talk to his family yet?”

“Well, no, but Laura’s thesis defense is tomorrow and she’s flipping out like you wouldn’t believe, so I think he’s waiting till that’s done,” Stiles says. “But he called up Paige and we’re all gonna have ice cream so we can avoid the Hale house till somebody tells us Laura passed.”

The pine is okay, so Stiles sticks it in the cute little wagon the nursery director gave them, then heads over towards the cottonwood section. Scott hops over a row of saplings and catches up. “She did seem pretty nice—nicer than her cousin,” Scott says. “Allison’s still annoyed that Yvonne tried to drag us into a laser-tag group date with Jake.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed back into the park after what Derek did to their ceiling,” Stiles says, frowning.

Scott looks somewhat less pained than when they first heard about their ban (which was completely justified, one of the other guests was having a panic attack and up was going to be a lot faster than trying to navigate that crazy maze). “Yeah, that’s how we got out of it. Except Yvonne keeps coming up and asking whether we can just use different names, or wear disguises, or things like that. Allison’s getting worried.”

“Why doesn’t she just tell Yvonne off?” Stiles says, looking over a baby cottonwood. He touches a leaf and concentrates, and then pulls his hand away. And shakes his head when Scott reaches for it. “Not that one, way too whiny, it’ll drive my baby crazy. Or hey, since Derek hasn’t talked to her yet, we could probably get Cora to scare her.”

“Thanks, but that’s okay. I don’t think it’s anything anyway, I think Jake just doesn’t want to tell her to her face that he’s not interested, so he keeps saying only if Allison and I come,” Scott says. He pokes around in the row and then holds up another sapling for Stiles to check.

Stiles pokes it, then shakes his head again. Man, cottonwoods are such picky little things. “Are you even friends with Jake?”

“Not me, Allison knows him through the hunting club. But she’s really mad at him right now,” Scott says, putting the baby tree down. He crosses back into the aisle and takes over the wagon as Stiles just duck-walks along the row with one hand out, trying to find at least one cottonwood who isn’t going on and on about the perfect river mud. “I’m not really sure why, since it can’t just be because of Yvonne. It’s annoying, but it’s not like it’s a huge deal. Honestly, I’m a little worried about her.”

“You sure it’s not the other way around?” Stiles says. His hand passes through a silent patch and he backtracks, not sure if he just missed the leaf. But no, this one is…oh, it was snoozing. He vibes it an apology and it sleepily asks again what he said, and he looks at it for a few more seconds, then shrugs and puts it in the wagon. He suspects it’s not exactly bright, but you can’t always get everything. “Because…Scott, you know I hate to meddle, but it’s come to my attention that you may have received a certain surprise in the mail and it may have more than just Allison wondering if you’re okay.”

Scott shrugs and looks away as he follows Stiles to the end of the row. He has a little trouble getting the wagon to turn around the end—one of the wheels is always wonky, always—and then he stops and fidgets while Stiles lifts and lowers baby cottonwoods.

“It’s fine,” he finally mutters.

“Okay,” Stiles says.

Scott fidgets some more, and then squats down to rearrange the saplings in the wagon to maximize the space in between them. Which he then has to redo when Stiles finds another cottonwood that won’t send the Nemeton into a murderous rage with queries about when it’s going to rain. And then again, as Stiles hands him a third tree.

“I told Mom and Allison it’s not a big deal,” Scott suddenly says, about as close as he gets to bursting out with something. He stares at the tree he’s holding, then puts it in the wagon and sighs and sits down next to Stiles. “It’s really not. So he sent something. It’s not like anybody was expecting him to, or even wanted him to. It’s just some package and I don’t even know if I want to know what’s inside.”

“Well, you know I’m always around to be your surrogate package opener,” Stiles says. “I’ll open it and tell you, or open it and tell you I’m not telling you, or open it without telling you so you have complete plausible deniability. You don’t even have to let me know you want me to do it, you just need to…to let me know that you’re not going to say don’t do it.”

Like Derek, Scott’s face says he can’t follow that. Unlike Derek, who to be fair hasn’t known Stiles a full year yet, Scott doesn’t waste any time saying that. He just jumps straight to what he knows he needs to say. “Don’t open it, Stiles.”

“Okay.” Stiles crosses his legs and drops his hands onto his knees, then raises them palms-up as Scott gives him an affectionate but completely not buying it smile. “No, really! You don’t want me to open it for you, I won’t open it. I’m just saying. If you want to save yourself a little trouble.”

“I know, and I appreciate it, but he’s my dad.” Scott pokes his finger into a bit of mulch that’s leaked out of one sapling’s burlap bundle. “Barely, but he’s still my dad and I should just deal with it instead of letting other people.”

“For the record, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve dealt with him way, way more than anybody in their right mind would say you have to,” Stiles says. He looks at his friend for a little longer, and then scoots over to put his arm around Scott’s shoulders. “You know whatever the hell it is, it doesn’t change anything, right?”

Scott keeps watching his finger push mulch fragments around. “Yeah, I know,” he mutters. “I think maybe that’s why I don’t want to open it.”

“Well, it’s not like anybody’s going to say you should change your mind just because he remembered this one time,” Stiles says. “Your mom won’t, I won’t, Allison won’t. And seriously, Scott, I know you like to cut everybody a break but you should not, under any circumstances, feel like you have to even entertain the idea of this being your dad’s first step to redemption—”

“Yeah, I know, it’s not—” Scott jerks under Stiles’ arm like he’s going to get up, then slumps down, his head almost knocking into Stiles’ head “—it’s not that, it’s really not. At this point I don’t think he could do anything to change it. He’s just missed so much, and even if he really, honestly wanted to make up for it…he can’t. There are things he wasn’t here for that he just can’t.”

He sounds so harsh and so dejected at the same time that Stiles wishes for the umpteenth time he could just go after that asshole. But Stiles promised both his dad and Melissa that he wouldn’t, and he breaks a ton of rules, all the time, but promises are different. So he just hugs his friend. And maybe hopes that one day Rafael McCall will wander within the Nemeton’s range, because that wouldn’t be going after, that’d be reacting to an intrusion.

“I don’t know, it’s just everything was going good again. I ended up getting that scholarship even after the whole motel mess, Allison and I can go to the same college, and Mom asked Chris to move in, and it just seemed like we have things all set now,” Scott says after a long, frustrated pause. “And then he has to send this, and he can’t make up for things but what if he just—just wants to be friends—”

“I don’t really see how that’s different,” Stiles says.

Scott bumps the back of his hand against Stiles’ knee. “You do too, come on. If he’s not trying to be my dad, okay, but he’s just asking for…for some communication…”

“Well, just send him a thank-you card, and I guess if you really want, you can stick him on the holiday card list like Dad does with his parents and brothers,” Stiles says.

That gets a half-smile out of Scott, but it’s fading almost as soon as it appears. Scott dusts the mulch off his hand, then rakes his fingers back through his hair. “You know, I think what I hate the most is feeling like my mom and I can’t actually get past him. Even when we’ve got our own lives and we’re happy, something like this comes up and I have to remember he’s out there somewhere.”

“You know,” Stiles starts. He pauses and pushes at the wagon handle, which was jabbing him in the back, and then looks at Scott again. And changes his mind about what he’d been about to say; just reminding Scott that they could always look into a restraining order doesn’t seem as funny, now that he’s seeing how frustrated his friend is. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

“Like…like I hate remembering him?” Scott says.

“No, c’mon, give me some credit, we are buddies,” Stiles says. “I meant that you feel like he’s in your way. I kind of thought it was more of an omission problem, you know, all the packless stuff and what that means and how people give you and your mom shit about it, even though the sociologists have shown it’s completely possible to raise well-adjusted werewolves outside of traditional pack structure.”

Scott, being Scott, hasn’t taken offense at any point. He just was confused, and then once Stiles has explained, he nods and accepts the explanation and that’s it for the potential cultural minefield. “Yeah, I know, it sounds weird but it’s like—like I can’t close the door, because I never know for sure if he’s really gone. And I know, if Mom and I don’t want him back—but if he comes, he’s still there, right?”

“Well, he’s not coming,” Stiles says. “I can guarantee you that much, at least. If he sneaks away from all the people who are supposed to tell us if he’s heading our way, there’s still the tree and I have fully briefed it on what it’s supposed to do. It doesn’t even need to wait for me.”

Scott looks at him. “Stiles. The Nemeton can’t just eat him.”

“I didn’t say I told it to do that!” Stiles says, indignant. “We’re in civilized times, Scotty.”

“You know it also can’t just hang him upside-down and naked,” Scott says. “You know what Mom said about—”

“I know, I know, and no, it wouldn’t do that either,” Stiles mutters. “Not that I wasn’t tempted, but no. It’ll just keep him till we can get somebody with a tranq gun out there.”

Scott opens his mouth, lifting his hand, and then shakes his head. “I know I’m not arguing you out of that one. Anyway, I’m sorry everybody is worried, but it’s…you know, this isn’t anything new. And the package—I’ll deal with it, but I just wanted to leave that till after graduation. I just…I just don’t want to be thinking about whatever it is, or about him, while we’re celebrating.”

“I guess it is easier to ignore a box,” Stiles says after a moment.

He actually doesn’t agree; if it’d been him, having an enigma like that sitting around in his basement for days and days would just eat at him till he got up really late and ran down and ripped it open. But he’s not Scott, and from the way Scott’s shoulders drop in relief as he nods, Scott really does find it easier this way.

“I talked to Mom about it and I think she gets it, but I guess I should tell Allison too,” Scott says. “I just didn’t want her to have to think about it. She’s got enough family issues without having mine.”

“Yeah, you say that, but this is what happens when you do long-term relationships,” Stiles says. “What’s yours is mine and mine is yours, and justifies all the extra intel requests I put in before anybody has a family reunion.”

Scott sighs. “I kn—”

“Boys?” Stiles’ father calls. A second later, he steps into the greenhouse, frowning and scanning till Stiles and Scott stand up. Stiles waves and his father’s face clears. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, I think a couple more and we’re good. Why, did something come up?” Stiles says.

“No, just want to see where we are,” his dad says. “Meeting wrapped, so I’m going to file some reports while you’re picking. I’ll be in conference room eight, all right?”

Stiles says all right, and then grabs up the wagon handle as his dad walks back out of the greenhouse. He and Scott probably do need to get on it; they’re due back in Beacon Hills for dinner at Melissa’s house, since the Hales are all huddled around Laura, trying to stop her from melting down and extending her thesis through the summer.

“Anyway, sorry if I was being weird or scary,” Scott says as they start back down the row.

“Nah, you weren’t. I just want to make sure it’s all okay,” Stiles says. “We’re this close to getting out of high school, and maybe I’m being paranoid, but the closer it gets, the more I feel like something has to get in the way.”

Scott looks over at him. “Are you okay?”

“What, me?” Stiles says. “I’m fine. I am totally lacking in the surprise from the past department and I am totally okay with that. It’s just my inability to not think about the worst-case scenario acting up, you know me. But life is not a movie and blah blah I’m okay, really.”

“Yeah, well, if something does come up, or if you just want to talk, you know I’m around,” Scott says.

“I know, Scott,” Stiles says, throwing him a smile. “Thanks.”

* * *

The party is awesome, if Stiles says so himself. He had the Nemeton dial down the catkins so nobody’s allergies will trigger, but it still has enough that when the sunlight hits it, the fuzz refracts the light and it looks like it has an angelic glow. And the cider fountain is completely classy, and he knows that the guest list came out okay because nobody nods off when he explains the proper way to plant the sapling that everybody gets. Even Lydia seems relaxed.

“My parents are funding separate shopping sprees for our London trip,” Lydia explains, getting herself another cup of cider. “Occasionally their desire to one-up each other works out in my favor.”

“Great, and you’re totally diverting some of that stuff for our subsonic work, right?” Stiles says. “Because they just rolled out a new detector and the specs are sweet.”

Lydia looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Did I or did I not introduce you to that blog in the first place?”

“Okay, okay, just checking,” Stiles says, holding his hands up. “Well, cool, glad your trip worked out. God knows I don’t want you to come back in a bad mood when we’ve got a trial run scheduled three days after you touch down.”

She tilts her head and the angle change alone doubles the irritation in her gaze, so Stiles excuses himself to go make sure nobody gets carries away and tries to pour a cup of cider for the tree. He bounces through a couple conversations before finding himself with Laura and Peter, who were apparently discussing whether Laura needs to be around for some court hearing of Isaac’s.

“The university is giving him a lot of shit about his financial-aid paperwork, even though he’s not actually going to need any. Something about not being able to just sub in our info for his foster family’s,” Laura explains. “So we’re looking into whether it’s easier to just get him formally adopted into the pack, now that the thesis is done and I’m moving back.”

“It’s a very short window, or else we’ll have to amend the forms later,” Peter adds, shaking his head. “Though I suppose Talia and I could always invite the dean to breakfast.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound menacing at all,” Stiles says, sliding his arm over Peter’s shoulders. He lifts his chin so Peter can get in his scenting, and then shifts back so that they’re acceptable for public viewing, but can’t help tugging a little at Peter’s hair.

Peter looks at him again, smile turning slightly curious, and then turns back to Laura. Who’s already stepping away, frowning into her cup. “I swear, I don’t know where it goes,” she says. “Guess I’d just better head on back to the fountain.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound tempting at all,” Peter purrs, twisting to nuzzle at the side of Stiles’ head.

“Hahaha, very cute, and also, my dad and Melissa and the tree and—and your sister,” Stiles says, looking around them. “Um. Cora. Lydia. Half of—”

“Fine, alpha, I’ll behave myself,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. He lets go of Stiles and steps back, so Stiles almost thinks the man is really annoyed, and then he returns with sapling in hand. He looks embarrassed in a shamelessly ingratiating way when Stiles raises a brow. “I did listen to all your instructions, but I just don’t think I can spot a good place for it. There are rather a lot of people planting around here, after all.”

Stiles snorts, and grabs Peter’s wrist, and drags them towards the side of the clearing with the thickest underbrush because that’s where the tree is telling him there still are spots. Because Peter has a point about running out of room, and the baby tree is piping up that it wants to root down already, and serious stuff like that. It’s totally not about getting somewhere they can at least get in a grope or two without putting it right in people’s faces.

“Well, parents should teach their children how to use their superhuman senses politely,” Peter sniffs, as Stiles pries the man’s hand off his ass. “If they’re using them to invade other people’s sex lives, that’s more of a reflection on them than on us.”

“And now poor Isaac’s chugging Scott’s cider on top of spilling his all over Scott’s shoes,” Stiles says. He pulls back from peeking around a bush, then smacks away Peter’s hand. “Come on, he’s gotta deal with Laura’s revolving door of boytoys, let’s not make him an alcoholic.”

Peter sniffs but he gets down with the trowel and digs a hole while Stiles is unwrapping the burlap from around the sapling’s root ball. “And here I would’ve thought we were doing him a favor, getting him used to that sort of thing.”

“Sssh, be patient, a couple more minutes won’t kill you,” Stiles says to the sapling. “Besides, he could stand to have a little more depth.”

That earns him a narrow-eyed look from Peter, who nevertheless carves out another inch of dirt from the hole. Then he drops the trowel and backs up, only to blink when Stiles hands him the tree instead of putting it in the hole. Peter opens his mouth, starts to say something, and then instead quietly sets the sapling in the hole, centering it, before carefully pushing dirt back in around it to hold it straight.

“So I think the family’s all had a very enlightening conversation with Derek, at one point or the other today,” Peter says after another second.

Stiles gets down on one knee and helps to move the dirt once the root ball’s covered. “Yeah? Was it really a conversation?”

Peter looks at him again, with about the same amount of knowingness but with less ruffled pride. “It was a useful exchange of information,” he says dryly. His mouth quirks into a half-smile as Stiles can’t help fussing with some of the soil, moving it to where the sapling is complaining, and then it smooths out. He doesn’t look worried, but he is a lot more serious. “It was more than I think anybody was expecting to hear.”

“He was gonna talk to you anyway, that’s what he told me,” Stiles says, looking up. He thinks from Peter’s tone that they might be getting into one of those times where Peter or Derek talks about how much he’s improved things and yeah, he appreciates the ego boost, but at the same time…well, he’s not delusional about his skills, and they weren’t exactly locked up in jail when he came along, or anything like that.

“Yes, he probably was, but I doubt he would’ve felt comfortable doing so this quickly,” Peter says. He pauses and Stiles finds himself tensing up, but then Peter glances back at the party. “I have to admit, I still don’t know what to ask Derek when he gets like that.”

“Really?” Stiles says. Because Peter always seems to know how to push Derek.

Peter also seems to read Stiles’ mind, because he laughs quietly but shakes his head. “Oh, of course I could get him upset and sometimes he’ll blurt out a thing or two then, but really, that’s not guaranteed. And it’s certainly not going to dial down the tension, is it?”

“Okay, probably not,” Stiles admits. He gives the soil a last pat before getting to his feet. “That kind of thing is tricky.”

“Even for someone who first made eye contact with him before he was completely out of his mother,” Peter mutters. He lifts his hand towards his head, then grimaces and dusts it against his hip. Then he pushes his hair away from his eyes (and conveniently misses Stiles’ grimace, because man, but when they’re not being cryptic, the Hales push TMI to a new level). “I know, but I still think I should…I should be able to help you with this sort of thing. It shouldn’t just be on you to sort out.”

“Well, again, it wasn’t just me, Derek did pretty much all the heavy lifting and I just gave him somebody to bounce things off of. And you guys are always saying how having somebody without all the history just—gives you a different look at things,” Stiles says. “And anyway, seriously, Peter, you really don’t have to know everything all the time, every time.”

Peter looks up at him and Stiles thinks he’s going to get a smart, smug reply. But no, Peter just keeps looking at him, and then the man smiles ruefully. He shuffles forward on his knees and Stiles puts his hand out without thinking, and ends up having it hover near Peter’s head as the other man suddenly leans into Stiles’ legs. For a second Stiles thinks that if Peter feels like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he should try Stiles’ life for a little bit.

Then he shakes that off and just slides his fingers into Peter’s hair, which earns him a quiet, content noise. He feels a little bit better at that, both about Peter and about himself. “I don’t know, you know,” he says. “I think we do a pretty good job taking turns and all.”

“Turns?” Peter says, pulling back to see Stiles. He’s frowning. “At…”

“Well, at…at not being an expert, or at being one and still coming up empty-handed when things in your wheelhouse happen, I guess,” Stiles says. “I mean—high school graduation, you know, so I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty amazed at myself for making it to here, but come on, this is gonna be the easiest one to check off the list.”

“I suppose, from certain viewpoints,” Peter says after a moment. He leans into Stiles again, digging his chin into Stiles’ thigh so he doesn’t have to break eye contact. “Though that’s also a rather good argument for enjoying the easy victory while you can.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “You’re not blowing me, Peter. One, I can actually hear my dad’s voice from here, and that is a huge mood killer. Two, we just planted a baby tree, we’re not gonna accidentally stomp it, that’s massive bad luck.”

“Not everything comes back to the potential for public embarrassment,” Peter says, sighing, as he gets up onto his feet. Carefully avoiding the sapling, which requires him to slide right against Stiles as opposed to using any of the empty space they have on the other three sides. “But really, Stiles. Perhaps having the list is the problem, rather than what’s on it?”

“I still feel like you’re after sex,” Stiles says. He puts his hands up and grabs Peter’s arms as they move towards him; Peter probably wasn’t about to feel Stiles up, judging by how smirky he looks about Stiles grabbing him, but still. Might as well make sure. And hey, since he’s holding Peter there, give the man a kiss. “But it’s a good thought. I’ll take it under consideration.”

“Do, please,” Peter purrs. He sneaks another kiss, and then reluctantly lets Stiles lead them out from behind the bush.

Whereupon Talia comes up and asks him to go with her to talk to Isaac about adoption stuff. Peter sighs and gives Stiles a cheek-rub, and then goes off, while Stiles’ father comes up with a cup of cider and a slightly suspicious look.

“I am completely decent and public-event appropriate,” Stiles immediately says.

“And I wasn’t sure what was going on, but now I am,” his dad says dryly. He drinks from his cup, then stops himself in the middle of adding something to look around. A little bit of the exasperation drains from his face, to be replaced with a kind of wistfulness that almost makes Stiles reach out and check him. “This turned out real nice, actually. I think—I think she’d really be proud, you know.”

Stiles presses his lips together, and suddenly really, really hopes that nobody is looking at them just now. He hears his dad breathe in a little sharply, and then out in a way that means his dad’s barely muffling a curse, and then feels his dad’s arm drop around his shoulders. But it’s another couple seconds before he’s okay to say something without messing it up.

“Thanks, Dad,” he says.

His father hugs him for a little longer, then lets go with a little push, so that Stiles has to shift away from him. “Well, go enjoy it,” his dad says. “You’re supposed to have fun at these sorts of things.”

Stiles rubs at the side of his head, thinking…he should say something. Some dumb-smart remark, if only to reassure his dad that he’s still him. But he can’t really think of anything just then, so he just…he smiles and nods, and goes off to try out that cider fountain again.

* * *

“You’re sure,” Stiles says, holding up the X-Acto knife.

Scott looks tense and Allison twists their clasped hands closer to her hip, but he nods. “Yeah, let’s just get this over with,” he mutters. “I know I said I was gonna wait till everything was over, but I think Mom’s getting antsy and it’s not fair to her and let’s just see before it ruins commencement.”

“Well, your wish is my command,” Stiles says. He hikes up the edge of his robe and squats down, and then starts cutting through the tape.

And cutting. And Jesus, but there are enough layers to gum up the knife edge and get it stuck in its handle.

“Are you done yet?” Jackson yells from the top of the stairs. “Lydia says the principal’s starting to ask around where we are.”

“Peter and Derek are supposed to be running interference, tell her to text them!” Stiles yells back, seesawing the knife through the tape.

“Oh, look, don’t cut yourself,” Scott suddenly says. He nudges at Stiles’ shoulder, and then slips in while Stiles is busy being startled, claws popped.

So…actually, werewolf claws don’t do that much better than the X-Acto knife. But when the technology isn’t up to snuff, then it’s down to sheer numbers: Stiles moves around and starts on the other end, and after a second Allison hikes up her gown, pulls a knife from a sheath strapped somewhere Stiles politely doesn’t look, and then tackles the top.

One cardboard flap finally starts to lift up and Scott switches to it, pulling while Allison and Stiles slice under it. Then they get the other one up, and then they all look down into the box.

There’s a piece of paper on top, which turns out to be the packing slip, and a lot of foam peanuts underneath. Stiles picks up the paper and Scott plunges both hands into the peanuts before Stiles even has a chance to read the sheet. The peanuts go swirling up and over the edge, and a good handful of them even pop over the paper, which keeps Stiles from reading it. And by the time he’s shaken them off, Scott has hold of something and is hauling it up.

“Okay,” Allison says after a long silence. “Well, it’s…it could be useful.”

“Yeah. Sure. If, y’know, I couldn’t do ten times better with some witch hazel and baking soda,” Stiles says.

“Guys,” Scott says.

Calm, not that loud, but they both shut up and look at him at the same time. He…doesn’t look impressed either, but he also doesn’t look upset. His brow wrinkles a little and past him, Stiles can see Allison biting her lip and hovering her hand near his shoulder, but Scott just looks at the dorm special scent-masking kit (which is mass-produced to boot, seriously, like the guy just rush-ordered something off Amazon’s Graduation Gifts for the Were in Your Life list) and then lowers it back into the peanuts.

“The clinic could use a redo, actually,” Scott eventually says. Allison scuffs the floor or something, because Scott looks embarrassed as he turns to her. “I went into the cat room yesterday to get something and they all started hissing at me, even the kittens. And they took a good ten minutes to calm down after I walked out. I felt really horrible afterward.”

She smiles and slings an arm around him, telling him she’s sure they were all fine, and Stiles does not remind Scott that he could totally fix the clinic wards for free and way more effectively than a kit he’s seen on late-night infomercials. Because he is Scott’s friend, and sometimes friendship is letting people erase the assholes from their past the way they want.

“Lydia says that Derek says that the principal got to Scott’s mom, and is asking her what you’re doing over the summer,” Jackson calls down the stairs. “He’s bringing up bootcamp and how Finstock needs an assistant.”

“Oh, my God, no,” Stiles says, grabbing Scott’s arm. “No. Scotty, we promised each other, if we made it through high school without being expelled, we were gonna hit the beach, you know, I was gonna commune with the kelp forest and you were gonna rescue cute little sea otters—”

“And we’re going hunting in two weeks!” Allison says, dragging Scott’s other side. “Dad already made the reservations and everything, he can’t get his deposit back and it’s a national park so the waiting list is four months long. We’ll have to start classes at college—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Scott says, shaking them both off and dropping down a step. He grabs at the stair rail, but before they can get too worried about pushing him too far, he smiles up at them. “Okay, all right, I’m coming. Don’t worry, all right?”

Then he gathers himself up and jogs up the stairs. His robe flips up and Allison hangs back to yank it down, and then she eeps as she loses her grip on her cap. Stiles grabs it before it hits the ground and tosses it back to her, and then jams his own cap on his head as he and she follow Scott up the stairs.

“Finally,” Jackson says, as they all emerge at the top of the stairs. “Now can we get the hell over there and get the hell out of high school already?”

“I think that’s potentially more of an existential question than you realize,” Stiles can’t help saying. “Sure, we can exit the doors, but can we actually leave—ow.”

“Stiles,” Scott says, smiling affectionately, his arm folding over Stiles’ shoulder. “Stiles, seriously, let’s just go.”

“Well, all right,” Stiles mock-sighs. “Just for you, buddy.”

They get into Jackson’s car. Scott’s trying to help Allison fit her hair under her cap, while Jackson is still bitching about Finstock and how he’s absolutely not agreeing to anything that gets them back within range of the guy not that they don’t legally have to be. Stiles rolls his eyes and then looks back over his shoulder, out through the rear windshield. Nothing’s caught his eye or anything, but…well, they’ll be back soon enough, he thinks. The stupid package and everything like it can take a break for one day. They’ve earned it.