Archive of Our Own

    It all starts with cupcakes.

    Well, no, Stiles amends his inner monologue. Really, it starts when Derek moves into an actual apartment, with an actual kitchen, and finds a set of baking pans in the drawer under the oven. Stiles can clearly remember setting down the last of pitifully few boxes and poking his head into the kitchen to see Derek staring down at the muffin pan in his hands with a look of childish wonder.

    “They’re for baking things,” he snarks. Derek doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash, and Stiles doesn’t think much of it.

    Then Derek starts baking things. Glorious things. Things with spun sugar…things on them, and fillings made of all sorts of decadent…things. Things that were surely the work of some sort of pact with Satan.

    The first batch goes to three people - Melissa, Chris Argent, and Stiles’ dad. It had been a formality, Stiles is sure. An apology and an olive branch all at once, and certainly not one any of the pack parents could refuse. Of course, Stiles had confiscated two of the four demon cupcakes that had made their way into the Stilinski household…for the sheriff’s own good. The gesture is the important thing, anyway, and it had worked it’s tasty Satan magic on the three (okay, four) of them just as planned.

    And after that, it’s like storm clouds breaking apart and a ray of delicious sunlight spearing down to engulf Derek Hale. Suddenly, there are batches of cookies and pitchers of smoothies and mini quiches everywhere, and it doesn’t taken long for pack meetings to migrate from Deaton’s office to Derek’s flat. It isn’t much of a contest, really - the smell of sickly animal versus the aroma of hand-made ravioli? Not even a bit of hesitation there.

    Even more surprising is that Derek is creative. He’s never really satisfied with recipes or instructions until he’s adjusted them time and again. It produces an incredible sort of food evolution that no one really complains about. Who can argue being served slice after slice of cherry pie, each one better than the last, until it reaches a sort of pie pinnacle and can no longer possibly be improved upon any more. Derek doesn’t just cook or bake - he creates and perfects.

    It makes him happy, Stiles thinks. This past-time…it’s about more than just good food. Stiles can see so many good things in it. He can see how much it pleases Derek to be able to provide something for the pack, something positive, that they are grateful for. Something he can make better - something he can do right. Stiles can see comfort in it, in the way Derek is no longer cut like marble and ready to claw at death in a mad bid to hold it back. He sees peace in the softness of Derek’s belly and the swirls of red food coloring in icing. There’s now a slew of timers instead of a door alarm, and Stiles can’t pretend he doesn’t like it.

    This Derek is smooth around the edges and hums swing music while he batters and breads and kneads and blends. Stiles likes the new smoothness, can’t help running mental fingers over it and indulging, letting it smooth his own edges when they become sharp and unpleasant. Sometimes he imagines that no matter what awful things happen, no matter what gets lost, Derek can fill those holes with fried tofu and cannoli. He thinks that Derek probably feels the same way. He knows the others do. There’s a whole drawer full of aprons that Derek certainly never would have bought himself, and at least a dozen salt-and-pepper shaker sets that he’ll never use. He displays them along the back of the stove, anyway.

    Melissa talks about cooking wine when she visits, and brings over photocopies of pages of her grandmother’s cookbook. It’s all in Spanish, but Derek still works magic with it, and Melissa visits more, until the pack isn’t something she’s reluctantly allowing her son to lead. Instead, it’s something she’s a part of, even if she and Derek still argue about whether or not flour tortillas or corn are better.

    The first time Stiles brings Derek a recipe from his own mother’s recipe box, one for peach cobbler that she’d wheedled out of a school friend from Georgia, they both just sort of stare at it, propped up against Derek’s mixer innocuously.

    “It probably won’t taste the same,” Derek says quietly.

    Stiles wonders how many Hale family recipes Derek has tried in vain to replicate exactly and shrugs. “I don’t really remember what it tasted like,” he lies.

    It doesn’t taste the same, but Stiles had known it wouldn’t. He hadn’t wanted it to, because that would have felt wrong and weird. Instead, it tastes like a reprise, like Variations on a Theme of Cobbler, and Stiles likes it. Not more than his mother’s, but differently and at least as much. He brings a bit home to his dad, who eats it at the counter silently, thoughtfully, and Stiles leans back against the fridge with his hands trapped behind him, palms pressed firmly against the cool surface to stop them shaking. He doesn’t know why he’s anxious, but then John licks the spoon with finality and sets the dish in the sink.

    “It’s good,” he says hoarsely with a lopsided smile. His eyes don’t meet Stiles’, but he gestures towards the kitchen drawer where Claudia’s recipe box is kept. “You should see how he does with cabbage rolls,” he finishes, and Stiles sags with relief.

    The peak of Derek’s achievements, though, has to be when Allison approaches him with a wrinkled sheet of lined paper that’s been scrawled on sloppily, lines crossed out and written over, little tears in the page where someone had pressed too hard with the pen. Allison and Derek have a stilted relationship based on mutual distrust and begrudging respect, and the issue of her mother always stands like a brick wall between them. They never speak much outside of pack business or polite compliments in regards to Allison’s strategies or Derek’s culinary wizardry, and no one is more surprised by her request than Derek, except for Allison herself.

    “Dad’s been wanting to try this weird egg-less cake his mom used to make,” she explains, fingers rubbing at the corners of the paper nervously as she avoids looking right at Derek. “He’s having some trouble, though, and I thought…maybe you could help?”

    Derek nods, taking the paper and smoothing it out on the counter, and they never speak of it again, even when Derek starts turning out little sample cake after little sample cake to send home with her. They speak of other things, though, things that aren’t stilted and awkward compliments or strictly business, and everything seems a little warmer.

    One afternoon, Stiles is pulled from the depths of homework by the chime of his phone. It’s from Derek, just a short list, and Stiles blinks at it for a moment before he realizes what it is - groceries for dinner. He scrambles up, flinging his books aside and digging under his bed for a pair of pants and his left shoe.

    Derek likes to do his own shopping - he’s very particular about his ingredients and the selection thereof. Stiles had once witnessed Derek sending Scott back to the shops three times in a row until the teen had managed to find acceptable eggplants. When asked why he hadn’t just gotten his own eggplants, Derek had simply snorted and gone back to hunching over a mixing bowl like an overprotective mother bird over her nest.

    “He can’t learn if Derek does it for him,” Lydia had put in helpfully.

    Also, Stiles remembers with a satisfied mental sigh, Scott’s expression had gotten funnier every time Derek had turned his nose up at the alpha’s offerings. Just recalling it leaves him feeling all warm and fuzzy. Really, Foodie Derek is the best thing that could have possibly happened to the Beacon Hills Pack.

    This, though, is unusual. Derek has never asked Stiles to pick up ingredients for him. Melissa, Scott, occasionally Isaac, sure. He trusts Melissa’s judgement, trusts Isaac’s own attention to detail, and he’s meticulously trained Scott in the art himself. He had even once asked Lydia for advice about the best place to get fresh crabs, which still makes Stiles snicker a little…and that, in retrospect, could be why Derek doesn’t trust Stiles to take the grocery shopping seriously.

    But Derek is asking him now, trusting him with this most sacred of tasks. Stiles finds himself supremely unwilling to let the older man down, and not simply because he doesn’t want to get sent back three times in a row until he gets it right. So he stands in the produce department, Googling instructions on picking the perfect parsnips, the perfect onions, the perfect chard. He consults with the employees, with passing customers, and ends up going to the farmer’s market eventually, because nothing at the local Smith’s seems good enough.

    “You know,” he says as he finally sets his bag of hard-won plant matter on the counter, “that wasn’t so tough as you make it out to be.”

    Derek dives for the bag immediately, and Stiles has a sudden image of a puppy tearing at a bag of Beggin’ Strips prancing through his head. He hides his grin behind the freezer door under the pretense of digging for Derek’s raspberry lemonade ice cubes. He frowns at them a little, glistening at him innocently with their little raspberry chunks, and wonders when plain old ice cubes had lost their appeal.

    Probably about the same time Derek had started following all those foodie blogs at the beginning of the summer, the brilliant bastard.

    “So,” he huffs as he picks a cube out and pops it into his mouth.

    “So?” Derek looks up, brow furrowing as he sighs. “Those are supposed to go in your drink, Stiles.”

    Shrugging, Stiles clacks his front teeth down against the ice and grins widely, waggling his tongue out of the side of his mouth lewdly. Derek turns pink and stares down at the bundle of chard, picking at the twisties binding it absently.

    Stiles feels his grin soften, and he clears his throat. “So,” he lisps around the melting treat, “wha’s f’r dthin’r?”

    Rolling his eyes, Derek pulls himself out of his sudden bout of shyness and looks to the vegetables that Stiles has brought. He turns and feels and sniffs and purses his lips in irritation when each passes inspection. A warm feeling settles in Stiles’ stomach as he watches. He likes knowing that he did well. Even more, he knows it shows how seriously he takes the things that are important to Derek. How seriously he takes Derek.

    “All good on the flora front, mon capitaine?” Stiles crunches his icy treat when Derek looks at him again, just to annoy him.

    The werewolf pauses, head tilted slightly as he regards Stiles. Then he nods, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. You did good.”

    “Damn right I did,” Stiles replies, silently thanking Google and Lou from the farmer’s market.

    Later, when everyone is digging in, ooh-ing and aah-ing, and Derek says, “Thank Stiles - he saved it,” pleasure and pride blossom in his chest, and he thinks that if that’s how Derek feels every time they praise his work, it’s no wonder he loves doing it so much. He helps clean up after, drying what Derek hands him as they stand by the sink, not very close, but close enough for Stiles to feel the warmth of Derek’s body and to see the easy set of his shoulders.

    “I like Foodie Derek,” he says when it’s just the two of them.

    Derek shakes his head with a smile. “Me to,” he admits quietly, like just saying it could shatter the delicate balance of the time-space continuum.

    When they’re done, Derek lets the water out of the sink and rinses the sides methodically before he turns to Stiles, tugging at one end of the damp towel Stiles is still holding to dry his hands. He smiles again when their eyes meet, and Stiles drops his end of the towel and leans up, pressing his lips to Derek’s briefly.

    “I like the rest of you, too,” he confesses, pressing his palms against Derek’s stomach through his shirt as color rises in the werewolf’s cheeks.

    “I can tell,” he rasps, tilting and leaning in minutely like he’s thinking of kissing Stiles back. After a moment of tentative breathlessness, he does, and this time Stiles presses all the way, looping his arms around Derek’s neck and fitting their bodies together firmly.

    “Don’t worry,” Stiles whispers against Derek’s mouth when they part the littlest bit, “it’s nothing serious.”

    “Oh?”

    Stiles grins. “Yeah, I’m mostly in it for the cupcakes.”

    Derek laughs into the next kiss, and it’s the sweetest thing Stiles has ever tasted…so far.