Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stiles was a good cook, and Derek was not. That was all there was to it; nothing more, nothing less.

There were times, however, when Derek did wish he could cook. When his other Alpha friends bragged about bringing their mates breakfast in bed. When they recounted times where they surprised their significant others with special dinners. And even more than not, when his parents were invited over, and when Stiles brought a fully self-cooked three course meal to the table, and Derek’s mother just gave him that look.

“You’re very lucky Stiles is such a good cook,” would be her only comment, but Derek knew.

So he tried. He watched Stiles cook, looked up tutorials, went through cookbooks, he tried everything. Stiles of course didn’t mind, he said he found it cute, but today Derek was getting on his nerves.

Stiles watched with lips pressed together as Derek tried – emphasis on the tried – to put together a proper meal. Derek had barged into the kitchen, announcing he was taking over, and was slowly destroying the meal. Stiles didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so he’d agreed, but this was taking a toll on his tolerance.

It was when Derek was about to put the sauce in the microwave with the lid still on when he snapped.

“Derek. Stop.”

“What? Why?”

“You will literally ruin this kitchen if you don’t take the lid off right now.”

“Oh. Oh, um. I knew that,” he shrugged.

“Get out, Derek, let me take over,” Stiles sighed exasperatedly.

“No, I don’t want to,” he said and Stiles would have sworn there was a tone of whining in his voice. Now under normal circumstances Stiles would have found this cute – and he did – if it was not for Derek proceeding to leave a stainless spoon inside the container now destined for the microwave.

“That’s it, Derek! Get out!” Stiles barked. “Go and sit in the corner over there until I’m done cooking on my own,” Stiles stressed.

Derek blinked, biting his lip to stop the laugh that was threatening to escape.

“What… ‘sit in a corner’? Are you… giving me a time-out?”

Stiles glared at his mate. “Do not make me repeat myself, Sourwolf.”

Now the only times Stiles called Derek ‘Sourwolf’ was either when he was very flirtatious or very angry. This, Derek reflected, was not exactly the best of times to mimic him like he usually would.

“Fine, fine,” Derek muttered, his eyebrows mashing together as he sulked out of the kitchen and slid down the wall to watch his mate resume cooking.

It was surprisingly hard to maintain his time-out. In fifteen minutes Derek was restless, wanting to move, wanting to go near Stiles, anything. By twenty- five he was shifting around. Usually he would have crept into the kitchen on normal days, wrapping his arms around Stiles’ waist and quietly watching him cook, and sometimes earning free taste-tests for being quiet.

The thing was, Derek was not used to seeing Stiles and not touching him, especially for so long.

“Why are you taking so long?” Stiles heard Derek mutter darkly from the corner.

“I had to clean up your mess too, in case you forgot,” he snapped back, and for a while it was quiet.

Stiles knew, actually. While he was dutifully researching werewolves for Scott, he’d stumbled across one piece of gold about mates. At that time he’d ignored it, but soon after Derek came into his life he’d dug that article up again and gone through it.

And one of these had mentioned the need for contact. There was a lot more, but the gist of it was that werewolves found comfort in contact with mates more intensely than humans. So of course Stiles was curious, and up till now hadn’t found any situation to prove this statement. And judging by the was Derek was shifting around, he was right.

Now he was beginning to feel bad for the were, so he called out, “All right, Derek, I’m - ”

Even before Stiles had finished his sentence, Derek was looming in front of him, pulling the human to him and burying his nose into his neck.

“Sorry,” Derek mumbled almost inaudibly.

Stiles smirked and hooked his thumbs into the back pockets of the werewolf’s jeans. “Apology accepted, Sourwolf.”