Work Text:
Stiles refused to think about how exactly Creepy Uncle Hale had got the TV, or how exactly it worked in the house with apparently zero electricity, why there was fresh paint on the walls and the fridge seemed to work, too, and what for was this haphazardly-looking tangle of wires thrown across the floor. In fact, he suspected that depriving himself of higher brain functions altogether would do wonders for his sanity, even if he was to achieve it with a well-aimed brick to the head.
“I was joking,” he murmured to himself, eyeing the ratty couch suspiciously. It looked as if something died on it, or maybe was born, or maybe both, and this train of thought needed to stop as of now. “I swear I was joking.”
There was a muffled snicker somewhere behind him. He refused to turn around and see Creepy Uncle winking at him, face crunched into this little smile of his that really made Stiles feel like something small and furry and caught in the headlights.
It seemed as if someone had made an effort to sweep the floor, but valiant as it must have been, it made little to no difference in the end. Stiles suspected that accumulated layers of soot and dust and wallowing misery were more than adequate opponents to the pack of teenaged werewolves. Though it probably had more to do with the teenaged part than accumulated dirt part. Other than that, they had brought this couch, a few rickety armchairs that threatened to fall apart under their own weight, and a small coffee table, everything looking as if someone had stolen them from the worst flea market in the history of mankind.
Then there was the carpet. Stiles refused to look at the carpet. In fact, there were quite a few things he absolutely refused to do today, and if this continued he would probably be forced to sit still with his eyes closed and ears covered, singing Britney Spears, which may actually be the lesser of two evils.
Peter sailed into his field of vision, happy as a clam, leather coat and faint aura of homicidal craziness notwithstanding. “Why, I think it’s a brilliant idea,” he said, smooth and almost-entirely-sane. “The pups love it. Or they love electricity and running water, it’s so hard to tell sometimes.”
“Don’t forget the TV,” Stiles mumbled, feeling so surreal he expected his watch to start melting any moment now.
“And the TV,” Peter agreed, flashing him a brilliant smile that had just slightly too many teeth in it to be entirely comfortable. He moved the armchairs around a little until the layout pleased him, or fit into some sort of feng shui, or maybe was a basis for a black magic ritual that would kill them all. “I got snacks,” he said, satisfied. “I believe it’s customary.”
“Well, yeah,” Stiles said. “I need to go now and see that thing that is somewhere else.”
“Yes, of course,” Peter said, nodding wisely. “The thing. Very important.”
*
“Do we have anything besides bacon chips?”
“Nope,” Erica said cheerfully, taking the handful of chips in question and scattering crumbs all over her cleavage. She was sprawled on the kitchen table, bare feet in the air, her skirt just long enough to fail at being decent. She may have been trying a little bit too hard, but damn, she seemed to have so much fun doing that.
“Is there anything in the fridge besides meat?”
“Nope!”
Stiles sighed and closed the fridge door, reaching for his half-full can of Coke, and finding it warm and disgusting. The kitchen was slightly cleaner than the rest of the house, which was not much, but for the record, the effort was appreciated. If only the same could be said about the bathroom. Stiles wasn’t sure whether it was used to wash dirty werewolves or to conduct research on biological warfare. Or maybe both, the werewolves were quite resilient anyway.
“You do realize we need popcorn, right?”
She pouted, pretending to consider the matter. “No, we don’t.”
“Of course we do!”
“Peter makes steaks. It’s better.”
“You actually let Peter anywhere near your food?”
“Oh, please.” She threw what was left of the chips at him. The aiming skills of those werewolves were so, so unfair. “We would have smelled it.”
“Yeah, you wish,” Stiles muttered under his breath and gave up. “I’m not finding any antidotes for rare poisons, just so you know. Where is Isaac? He was supposed to bring the DVDs.”
“What, you don’t have them?”
“There’s this incident with a Sprite bottle that Scott refuses to talk about. Me too, for the record. Anyway, I don’t have the DVDs.”
“Always the same with you nerds.”
“Hey! I have seen your Twilight poster. The one with Robert Pattinson that looks so crumpled and used and--”
She shrieked and lunged at him.
*
The intro to A New Hope was well underway and Stiles was sulking. He felt it was only fair, considering he had a lump on his head the size of an egg, the couch creaked ominously every time he shifted, and he was the only person sitting there, and there were too many eager werewolves drinking carbonated beverages and eating meat for this movie night to be entirely safe. Also Derek was nowhere to be seen. He had appeared for a few moments before to smack Erica over the head and then was gone again, citing complete and utter hatred for old school science fiction. Come on, who hated Star Wars?
Scott appeared from the kitchen and sat on the opposite end of the couch, which wobbled and creaked. Isaac looked like a kid that was told that birthday, Halloween and Christmas were combined into one super holiday and there was ice cream, too, and was totally humming to the main theme. Boyd looked blank, but again, it was his default expression ninety percent of the time, so he could have been repeating every dialogue from the movie in his head for all Stiles knew.
They managed to get the first look of Tatooine when Erica made an impatient huff, got up from her armchair and moved to sit next to Stiles, looping her arms against his and pressing her cheek to his arm. “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said, and sounded sincere. Stiles nearly fell off the couch.
“Apology accepted,” he said, trying to wiggle out from her grasp. “Um, there is a lot of room over there.”
“Nah,” she said cheerfully, and that was that.
*
It turned out Isaac was mindlessly terrified of Darth Vader’s voice. His eyes got bigger and bigger until they nearly popped out of his head, and he shivered violently at every swish of that black cape. He must have stank of fear, too, because after fifteen minutes of that Erica got bored, grabbed the back of his hoodie and dragged him onto the couch where he was huddled between Stiles and her, and could hide his face alternately in Stiles’s neck or Erica’s collarbone when someone outlived their usefulness.
*
Somewhere around the time final credits for the first movie rolled in, the armchair under Boyd gave in. It was like watching a mountain crumble. For reasons he decided not to share, Boyd insinuated himself between Stiles and the other end of the couch. At this moment Stiles decided not to question anything, just go with the flow.
*
His resolve nearly failed when Peter appeared out of nowhere and started imitating Jabba the Hutt perfectly down to the strangled noises when Leia finally got her hands on that chain, and Stiles nearly cheered. A man could indulge in fantasy once in a while. He felt much less like cheering when Peter inspected the remaining armchairs and sat next to Boyd, surreptitiously taking more and more space until he took over more than half of the couch, Erica ended up in Stiles’s lap, Boyd halfway over her, and Isaac somewhere over Stiles’s back. Stiles could swear he could see Scott leaning closer in a gesture that was probably misplaced solidarity.
“Guys?”
Silence, just someone’s contented murmur and someone impossibly shifting closer.
“Guys, is this a pack thing?”
A murmur again and he hoped to God it wasn’t Peter, because that was way too creepy. They needed to burn this couch, and possibly knock Stiles over the head in hopes it would induce selective amnesia. His leg, folded under him (and now probably under several hundred pounds of assorted werewolves) started to fall asleep.
“Great,” he murmured and let his head fall back, where it hit someone’s thigh.
*
The quality of silence changes somewhat and Stiles opened his eyes to see Derek Hale, who stood in the middle of the room, held a bag of popcorn and for the first time ever, looked entirely at a loss of words.
“Hi,” Stiles said. “A hand, please? Oh wait, I don’t think I can find mine. Last time I checked it was under Erica, but now it isn’t, oh wait, ew, that’s actually gross. Can you tell your uncle to stop being gross? Maybe it’ll help. It probably won’t, but I’d appreciate the effort. Also your pups are heavy, what do you feed them?”
“Food,” Derek said, but it seemed like a reflex now. He walked to the couch, eyebrows raised. “What happened?”
“They fell asleep. Officially, you are the worst werewolves ever. I can’t find my legs. God, if we all melt together and turn into a many-legged and many-armed monstrous abomination, I’m totally finding new friends.”
Derek nudged Isaac a bit and the Beta werewolf moved away a few inches, still asleep, but he somehow managed to tangle himself into Erica even tighter, Peter’s arm thrown over their legs and his head somehow in her lap, and how he had got there, he must have had fifteen octopus limbs and thirty joints in each arm to do that.
“You are so, so very bad at this,” Stiles told Derek, who managed to insinuate himself between them somehow in one fluid movement, popcorn still in hand, and Stiles felt an arm sneaking behind his back. He was one hundred percent certain they were breaking several laws of physics. Derek opened the bag of popcorn and offered it to him.
“You said you wanted it,” he said, smiling a little, his head suddenly on Stiles’s shoulder, in the crook of his neck. “And I don’t like those movies.” His voice came out muffled, and Stiles had to still his wandering hands before something embarrassing happened.
“I’m pretty sure what you just said is a heresy somewhere,” Stiles sighed.
“Hm.”
“What?”
“We probably need a bigger couch.”