Work Text:
Derek finds the cat at his apartment, scratching and rubbing at the door as if he’s going to find a lifetime of tuna on the other side. He freezes the moment he sees it, standing back far enough that the cat doesn’t notice him and continues it’s rather pitiful clawing and meowing at the door.
It’s a tabby. Thin and long-legged with short, chocolate-brown fur and expressive amber eyes. It’s not quite a kitten, but Derek suspects he isn’t fully grown either, by the size of his paws and the proportions of his limbs. Derek can’t help but think, after only watching the thing for barely a minute, that it’s kind of an idiot.
While scratching helplessly on the door it catches one of its claws in a dent, meowing this sort of screech of a sound (bit of an overreaction, Derek thinks) and struggling momentarily to free itself. It calms down for a second after that, sinking to the ground and breathing heavily before suddenly turning its head down the hall and spotting Derek.
“Crap,” Derek mutters as the cat makes a ridiculous noise and starts bounding towards him like he’s the last bowl of cream on earth. Derek really didn’t want to come home to a desperate kitten situation and yet here he is with a cat winding around his ankles and reaching up to paw at his knees, making these panicked little mewls that he seems to think Derek can understand.
He wonders if there’s any way he can make it into his apartment without the thing following him.
He looks down at it and sighs. Despite what Stiles may say about him, he’s not completely heartless. It’s a freakin’ kitten and it probably belongs to someone who probably misses it and since the thing is so determined to get into his apartment he reaches down and picks it up, sliding the doors open and tossing the thing inside before closing them back and hanging his jacket on the hooks Lydia picked out ages ago.
He glances back at the cat, who appears to be silent for the first time since Derek has met it, standing with it’s shoulders raised and eyes wide as though Derek picking it up traumatized the thing for life.
“You wanted to come inside, didn’t you?” Derek asks, and then feels instantly stupid for talking to a cat. It seemed to recognized his voice though, because it instantly resumes its loud, insistent mewling, racing over to Derek and practically knocking its head against his shins in an attempt to communicate something.
Unfortunately Derek does not speak cat, so he steps carefully over it and into the kitchen, trying to think of something around the house he could feet it that might make it shut up for a second. The cat runs after him, a little unsteady on it’s feet in a way that makes Derek worry it may have been drugged or injured. He’ll take a closer look once the thing has calmed down a bit. It’s still trying to gets Derek’s attention for something, circling his feet and making it almost impossible for Derek not to step on. Its voice is really something else too, his meows so close together and high in pitch that it almost sounds like one long howl, punctuated with little breaks in which the thing takes a breath to start all over again. It would be kind of annoying if it weren’t also really adorable.
The cat’s panicked state seems to be getting even worse when Derek opens the cabinet and pulls out a can of tuna. It tries jumping up and batting at Derek’s hand, scratching at his jeans and one time he even bites the leather of Derek’s shoes. His breathing seems to be getting faster too, and he starts spinning in circles as Derek reaches down to place the tuna on the floor.
At the sight of the food the cat finally seems to relax, although to Derek it looks more like he just gives up, falling to the floor without any kind of grace and swishing his tail agitatedly, refusing to look Derek’s direction. It also doesn’t even consider eating the food, content to glare at dust and meow dejectedly every few seconds.
Derek isn’t sure what possesses him in this moment, but before he can stop himself he’s reaching down and carefully petting the cat from it’s head and down it’s back before going back to it’s ears and giving them extra little scratches.
At first the cat freezes, staring at Derek with an expression of horrified shock that Derek wasn’t even aware that cats could make, and then almost, it seems, against the thing’s better judgment, closes it’s eyes and softly begins to purr.
And that is the moment that Derek stopped pretending all together that he wasn’t totally a cat person, as ironic as he’s sure Stiles would find that.
The cat almost reminds him of Stiles in a weird way, with his expressive eyes and inability to walk properly, and the mouth that doesn’t know when to quit. Stiles, who would probably lose his mind over the cat, name it something dorky and exclaim that it was the Pack’s cat and they all had to look after it. Stiles, who was supposed to be coming home from college this weekend and Derek was loathe to admit he was actually sort of looking forward to seeing.
He continues petting the Stiles cat for a while until he finally stops and it looks at Derek with an expression that Derek can only interpret as, “you got yourself into this, buddy. Now you’ve gotta follow through.”
“Fine,” Derek tells it gruffly. “You can stay here for now. But I’m making lost cat posters tomorrow.”
It almost looks like the cat huffs and rolls it’s eyes, but Derek is pretty sure that’s just a trick of the light. It slowly stands and stretches, padding it’s way over to the couch—Derek is already thinking about cat hair problems—where it then stops and stares up at it with something like a scowl on it’s face.
“What?” Derek asks, looking from the cat to the couch. “It’s not that tall. You can make that jump. I’m not going to pick you up.”
The cat paws at the ground, looking from its feet to the couch and then back again. He crouches down, wiggles a little, and with determination set on it’s face, leaps for the edge, absolutely flying past and smashing headfirst into the pillow before rolling onto it’s feet and trying to walk off the shame. Derek snorts and the cat flashes him a look.
He sits down on the other end of the couch and turns on the TV. He’d been really looking forward to some downtime before all this random cat drama pounced into his life from out of the blue. Then again, he should be more used to random drama, considering what the past few years—and pretty much his entire life—had been like.
He glances at the cat every few minutes, only to find that the thing is just staring at him, head tilted a bit to the side. He’ll look away and the next time he looks back the thing is staring again, sitting upright in the spot on the couch Stiles always claims whenever he’s barged his way into Derek’s apartment looking to help with some crisis or, more likely, to bother Derek into going bowling or hiking or something else ridiculous with the rest of the Pack. Derek always goes, and although he’d never tell Stiles, he always has fun.
The next time he glances over the cat has stopped staring at him and finally turned to face the TV where some show about dragons and swords was playing on HBO. It almost seems interested in the show, the way its ears perk up when one of the characters is talking and it leans in towards the screen, just the way Stiles does when something exciting is happening in a movie their watching. At some point it must get bored though, because it starts pacing around the couch cushion and kneading it’s nails into the pillow. Derek hopes it isn’t a scratcher. He actually likes this couch, and it took forever to get it to smell right.
The cat jumps up onto the back of the couch, slightly more confidently than it’s last leap, and is carefully making it’s way towards Derek only to lose it’s footing halfway through and tumble with an undignified yowl back to the floor.
Oh god, Derek thinks. it’s one of those cats.
He can’t help himself and glances over the side of the couch to find the cat shaking its head and meowing quietly to itself, preparing to make another leap back to the couch. It manages it without too much difficulty but refuses to look at Derek out of—Derek can only assume—pride.
“You are a really weird cat,” Derek tells it, unable to resist petting another line down it’s back, all the way to its tail this time. The cat pauses again, but only for a tiny moment this time before it rolls its body into the pet and takes a step closer to Derek as if saying, “If this will make you forget about that fall off the couch just now please continue.”
Without even really thinking about it Derek grabs the cat around the middle and lifts it in the air to look under it’s belly. Almost instantly the cat starts struggling and making a huge fuss.
“Calm down,” Derek growls. “I’m just trying to see if you’re a boy or girl.”
This doesn’t make the cat calm down and it instead struggles enough that it flails out of Derek’s hands and into his lap, fur puffed up and tail sticking straight out behind him. He shoots off of Derek’s lap as fast as he can and scurries under the armchair. Derek huffs out an annoyed, “You’d think you’d been less shy about it since we’re both guys.”
He thinks he hears a soft hiss but it may have just been the TV.
It’s a few minutes before the cat reveals himself again, and he’s clearly still pissed at Derek because he clambers gracelessly onto his lap and begins kneading his claws through Derek’s thighs without a care in the world.
“Okay, fine,” Derek finally says, pushing the cat off of him and glaring sideways at it. “Invasion of privacy. Sorry. I wouldn’t be very happy about someone staring at my dick without my permission either.”
The cat blinks at him, wide little amber eyes looking like he just isn’t sure how to process this information until Derek reaches forward and starts scratching at the bottom of his chin and his eyes sort of roll back in his head and he makes this contented little sound that kind of melt Derek’s cold, icy heart.
“You do look like Stiles,” he says. The cat stills, meowing intently and swishing his tail. “I could call you Stiles.”
He stops himself short and frowns.
“Not that I’m going to call you anything, because you aren’t staying here. You’re temporary. Just because you aren’t bothered by werewolves like a normal cat doesn’t mean I’m keeping you.”
The cat stares at him with a sort of judgmental expression, sighing deeply in his little furry chest and plopping down in his previously vacant seat like he already owns the whole apartment. Derek glares at him. It glares back.
“You’re a weird cat,” he sighs. The cat sort of bobs its head, almost like he’s agreeing, and then hops off the couch and slinks away towards the hall with singular purpose in its strides. Derek is pretty sure a normal cat wouldn’t be behaving this way, as if he’s lived in Derek’s apartment for years. He’s not as quiet as a normal cat either, because when he pads back over to the couch Derek can hear every footfall and he doesn’t think it’s because of his wolf hearing. At least it wasn’t flailing all over the floor like it had when Derek had first let it in and thought it might have been drugged. It seemed okay now. Still not normal, but at least okay.
He doesn’t return to his seat on the couch but instead begins circling it, pacing around the living room and meowing every now and again, glancing back to Derek with this complicated expression on his furry little face. When Derek does nothing but stare back blankly he meows louder and continues pacing.
“If you don’t stop meowing I’m going to kick you out,” Derek threatens.
The cat very slowly turns his way and meows loudly. When Derek does nothing to scold him he perks ups, ears wiggling and tail swishing happily behind him.
“Don’t push it,” Derek tells him. “Just because you’re cute doesn’t mean you’re staying. In fact, I’m calling Scott to help me make posters right now.”
This doesn’t seem to bother mysterious cat as much as Derek thought it would. In fact, he sort of sits up straighter and gets this expression that looks like, “good, because that’s exactly what I wanted you to do.” But that wouldn’t really make sense unless this was Scott’s cat, and Derek is fairly sure Scott doesn’t have a cat, so he just ignores it and sends the message.
Within the next twenty minutes Derek’s loft is full of his pack and every one of them is crowded around the stupid cat who looks positively giddy at the level of attention he’s receiving. He’s meowing even more and louder than before—which Derek is amazed is even possible—and seems to particularly like Scott and Lydia scratching and petting him behind his perky little striped ears. Derek is standing a ways back and trying to ignore the whole thing, but every now and then he glances over and rolls his eyes. It’s just a cat.
“Where did you find him?” Isaac asks.
“Outside the loft.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Shouldn’t he be freaked out by the amount of werewolves in the room?” Scott asks as he rubs the cat’s belly (he’d rolled over when Kira scratched his throat, the little whore).
“He would if he were a normal cat.”
“He looks like a normal cat to me,” Kira says, grinning brightly.
Derek just scowls. She hasn’t seen how expressive his face is, like he’s actually communicating with Derek through eye blinks and the twitching of his ears. A normal cat wouldn’t have just randomly shown up at his door and taken to his apartment like he owned it. The things probably possessed or evil—or possessed and evil. The second one is most likely, considering Derek’s life.
“I think it might be possessed,” he says, hoping someone will back him up. The cat stops purring and turns to stare at Derek blankly as if he’s thinking, “possessed? That’s the best you came up with?”
“He’s not possessed!” Scott scoffs. “Don’t you think he would have tried to kill you or something if he was possessed?”
“He’s probably just biding his time.”
The cat is staring at him in earnest now, completely unaware of the hands still petting furiously down his back and stomach. He meows loudly…
…and doesn’t stop.
It’s just constant meow after meow, long yowls and short crisp brrrreows as the can stands and paces across the floor in front of Derek like he’s listing off his entire life history in meows. He turns to glare at Derek every few seconds and then finally attacks one of Isaac’s shoelaces in apparent frustration.
“I think he thinks we can understand him,” Lydia explains, bending down to taunt him with a piece of string. He looks reluctant to play with it at first, still worked up from his earlier rant, but after a minute it seems like he can’t resist, scrambling awkwardly across the floor and trying to grab at it with his front paws.
He doesn’t seem to have any of the killer instincts a normal cat would have—Derek doesn’t think the thing could catch a mouse if it was sitting on his nose. A few of the others laugh.
“He’s sort of funny. Like those cats in the youtube videos,” Kira giggles.
“We should record him!” Lydia pulls out her phone so fast it seemed like she always had it in hand, ready to record. The cat seems to realize what’s been proposed and freezes instantly, shooting to hide behind Scott’s legs.
“Ooh, come here, kitty! Do something youtube worthy!”
He stares at Scott with an expression of utmost betrayal, looks around the room at each pack member like he’s trying to decide which one is least likely to record an embarrassing video of him for internet posting. Somehow he winds up settling on Derek, bolting out of Scott’s reach and clawing at Derek’s pant’s leg until Derek has no choice but to reach down and pick him up.
“I thought you didn’t like being held?” Derek asks him. It’s panicked eyes say very clearly, “it’s better than the alternative, buddy.”
“Got it!” Lydia smirks, turning her phone to show the video of the cat bolting to Derek and nearly clawing his way up Derek’s leg. The cat lets out his loudest meow yet at that and when everyone laughs Derek feels his claws against his skin.
“You know,” Kira says thoughtfully, “he sort of looks like Stiles…”
Everyone turns Derek’s way, leaning in to get a closer look.
“He does,” Isaac agrees.
“Yeah, woah,” Scott laughs.
“What?” Derek asks, ignoring the nagging voice in his head that had already been thinking the same thing earlier. “No he doesn’t.”
He turns the cat to look at him closer and he’s giving Derek the most sarcastic expression Derek has ever seen on an animal—and that’s saying something, because his sister used to hang out in her wolf form around the house and she had a mean sarcastic face when she wanted to. Still the cat beats her, meowing pitifully and relaxing in Derek’s arms like it’s just not worth fighting it anymore.
Seriously, the thing is so weird.
“We should call him Stiles,” Lydia decides.
“We aren’t calling him anything,” Derek asserts. “Remember, he’s probably possessed, or evil.” There’s claws against his skin again but Derek ignores them.
“Alright, but if he’s not evil we’re calling him Stiles.” Scott nods, as if just by saying so it must be how it is. “I hope Stiles gets here before we find its owners or something. It’ll be like two Stiles’ in the same room!”
Derek groans at the idea of two Stiles almost without thinking about it. Now the claws actually dig into his skin, scratching along his arm through his sleeve before the Stiles cat hops out of his arms and saunters back to the couch looking as if he’s too good for the likes of the rest of them.
“Alright so what do you want this lost cat poster to say anyway?” Isaac asks.
Derek, who had been distracted by watching the cat attempt to do an actual cat thing and lick one of his paws, only to stop a second later with an expression of the highest disgust and shock at what he’d just done, sighs dejectedly and replies,
“Found Cat. Tabby. Bit of an idiot. Doesn’t know how to be a cat.”
“Unnaturally loud,” Lydia adds, in response to the cat’s loud meow. His eyes are digging daggers into the side of Derek’s face, but somehow it’s not as intimidating as it should be.
“Sort of ridiculously expressive.”
“Soft and friendly, in a really derpy way.”
“Probably possessed, or evil,” Derek mutters and receives yet another glare his way from the somehow offended Stiles cat. And he really needs to stop calling it that because no.
“Isn’t afraid of werewolves,” Scott says cheerfully, sliding over to the couch and scratching the thing behind its ears.
“I’m not sure we should put that on the poster if we want anyone to actually reply,” Derek raises an eyebrow.
“Too late,” Kira laughs, holding up a nice-looking poster she’d penned out with everything they’d used to describe the cat. “Now we just need a picture and we can send it to Stiles and have him edit it in. Has anyone heard from him, by the way?”
“I called him earlier but I got his voicemail. He’s probably asleep since it’s the day after finals,” Scott offers.
“When is he supposed to get here?”
“Sometime tomorrow. He said he had this party he wanted to go to otherwise he’d come down today.”
“He can’t meet the cat,” Derek tells them. He’s put his foot down on this issue. The next thing he knows Stiles will have bought the cat one of those sprawling cat houses and fifteen cat toys and talked Derek into buying it the most elite, expensive cat food that Petsmart stocks. It would be a disaster.
The others titter at his statement and the cat meows in a sarcastic, offended tone. His pack is staring at him with these stupid, amused expressions and he hates them and he doesn’t know why he even stays in this dumb town.
“What?” he barks.
“You just don’t want Stiles to meet the cat because he’ll tell you what you already totally know,” Lydia explains, grinning smugly. Derek doesn’t dignify this with a response but Lydia answers his unasked question anyway.
“This is your cat soulmate.”
“What? He’s been here for like three hours. And he’s not even MY cat? Why would you think he’s my cat soulmate?”
“Um, you totally understand everything he’s saying even though he’s speaking cat.”
To make the whole thing worse the cat meows and Derek glances over to find that the thing has this very easily understandable expression of, ”they’re kind of right, you know.”
“You’re a cat person!” Scott exclaims, as giddy as, well, Scott. “I never knew that!”
“It’s not like most cats can stand to be around me,” Derek says, crossing his arms. “Werewolf!”
“But this one can,” Isaac grins.
“Cat soulmate,” Kira whispers.
“Okay, enough. All of you—leave. Send the stupid signs to Stiles and put the things up so I can be rid of this annoying little furball as fast as possible.”
The cat makes a sort of choked and offended mewl but Derek ignores him because he cannot understand a cat no matter what his idiot packmates try to tell him.
“But I didn’t get a picture!” Lydia stands, waving her phone around and heading towards Stiles—the cat. Heading towards the Cat. The cat that bolts at the sight of the phone to hide under the far chair, hissing at the general room around him. It takes Derek five minutes to pull the thing out and then he has to wrestle with it to get it to stay still long enough to take the picture. Weirdest cat ever.
“Awwww,” Kira says when Lydia shows her the picture. “Derek, you look so cute holding a widdle kitty!”
“Get out,” he points towards the door and, before he can stop himself, adds, “And watch the door as you’re leaving. He might try and get out.”
Scott laughs a little and nods towards the cat on his way out, telling Derek evenly,
“I don’t think so, Derek. I think he knows exactly where he wants to be.”
Derek turns to look towards where he’d tossed the cat after the picture was taken and he’s sitting upright on his preferred spot (Stiles’ spot) on the couch, tail flicking behind him and expression deeply annoyed.
“What are you so pissed about? You’re just a cat.”
If Derek weren’t so intent on ignoring the oddities of the cat he would have been completely positive he saw the thing roll his eyes before leaping ungracefully from the couch and trudging towards the kitchen to resentfully eat the tuna Derek had put out for it earlier.
”I am not a cat person,” Derek tells himself hopelessly when the cat returns to the couch and places himself within perfect petting distance. He purrs as soon as Derek’s hand touched his fur.
”Just let it happen, dude,” the cat “says” as he arches up into the touch. Yeah, at least they’re on the same page here.
Derek wakes up the next morning not well-rested and walks into the living room to find the cat staring at the television that Derek had definitely, 100% remembered to turn off before trying to get some sleep in the first place. The cat turns to look at him, sort of bored judgingly like he’s trying to say, ”took you long enough to wake up.” Except he can’t be trying to say that, because he’s a damn cat.
A cat who turned on his television last night.
He checks his phone and finds about fifteen texts from himself and four to Stiles that consist of absolute gibberish and random letters and symbols. Also one missed call from Scott that Derek remembers getting at seven in the morning and ignoring like his life depended on it. Maybe Scott had slept well enough to be awake at those hideous hours of the morning but he probably hadn’t had a cat mewling and crawling over him as he’d tried to get to sleep, so Derek thinks Scott could wait a few more minutes for him to wake up before he calls back.
He heads towards the kitchen, the cat hopping down from the couch and following noisily after him.
“God, don’t you ever sleep?” Derek asks it as he tries to pour a saucer of milk for the evil little thing to drink and manages to spill half of it onto the counter.
“Meeeow,” he replies.
“No, you can’t have any of my eggs.” He hadn’t even started making them yet, just pulled the carton out of the fridge and the thing was already trying to mack on his food. The cat was worse than Stiles, who never failed to steal something from Derek’s plate whenever they had pack meals together. Everyone else was quick enough to move their food away but Derek was always too slow and a prime target.
When Derek had been eating his dinner the night before he’d looked away for just a second and the cat was there, nibbling off the edge of the plate. He sort of froze when Derek caught him and scrambled back to the floor, as ungracefully as usual. Derek glared at him and scooped the corner of the food that the cat had touched into a little bowl and placed it on the floor. He didn’t think cats should eat chicken alfredo but he really didn’t know much about cats, so who was he to say anything? The cat looked pleased enough.
He drinks the milk dejectedly and stretches, padding around beside Derek’s feet as he tries not to burn the eggs. For some reason as he’s busy cooking, the cat decides that he needs to attack Derek’s feet, sinking his claws in and making Derek curse and drop his spatula to the floor. The sudden object dropped from above causes the cat to hiss and jump sideways, crashing into the legs of a chair and toppling over. If he weren’t seriously annoyed about the fact that he had to wash his spatula now, Derek would have been mildly amused.
“Stop getting in the way!” he tells the Stiles cat. “Just, go over there and sit quietly or lick yourself or something.”
The cat, looking partially offended and partially embarrassed, shoots Derek a look and saunters back over to the couch, where Derek watches as he hops up onto the coffee table and carefully uses it’s front paws to turn the television on and then scan through the channels until it settles on MTV of all things. Derek sighs as he dumps his eggs onto a plate and dials Scott’s number without even getting to eat one bite of breakfast first.
“Derek? Everything okay?”
“I think we should take those posters down.”
“Why?”
“I’m worried the cat might actually be evil. Or magic. It could be a vampire cat, like that one time. "
“Did it bite you?”
“No, but I think it wants to. It turned the TV on last night. And tried to use my phone. Just take the posters down for now,” Derek huffs.
“That should be easy,” Scott laughs. “We hadn’t even put them up yet.”
“What? I told you to put them up last night!”
“Well yeah, we might have if Stiles had sent us back the final one with the picture and everything. He hasn’t been replying to email or text, so he’s either really, really hung-over, lost his phone, or he’s in trouble.”
“Why would he be in trouble?” Derek sighs, thinking that it’s too early for this kind of shit and Stiles gets in way too much trouble for someone so annoyingly human.
“You know how my phone does that thing sometimes where I don’t get voicemails until the next day? Yeah, I got one from him this morning, and I don’t think we should panic or anything but it could be a bit of a problem.”
“What did the voicemail say?” Derek ignores the way the cat has his ears back and is clearly listening in on his phone conversation. He’ll deal with that thing later—Stiles’ safety is slightly more of a priority.
“Here, I think I can send it to you.”
Scott hangs up and Derek receives a sound clip a few minutes later, already calculating how bad the situation is likely to be, based on what he knows about Stiles and his various situations.
”Heeeeeyyy, Scott, so this party is awesome! Turns out I’m like, freakishly good at beer pong! Might be a superpower—I’m gonna look into it. Right, but, uh, just calling to let you know, in case something happens—not that I think it will!—but just in case it does… there was this witch at the party tonight and I was trying to be nice and everything but she said I was ‘werewolf bait’ and I don’t even know what that means but I’m a little drunk and I may have offended her, so just in case we have another cauldron boil, toil and trouble situation, it wasn’t my fault! And also tell Derek I don’t appreciate that he hasn’t been returning my texts and as soon as I get back to Beacon Hills we’re going to have a serious conversation about his rudeness on the phone. Anyway, see you soon buddy! The witch was not my fault!”
Derek sighs. The cat meows. He sends a text to Scott about giving Stiles a little more time and then maybe going and looking for him, or at least trying to track down this witch and see what she probably did to Stiles. He hopes it’s not irreversible. Unless it’s something funny, like she gave Stiles huge ears or buckteeth or something.
“I never return his damn texts because they’re all just random nonsense!” he tells no one, because there’s no one there except his weird cat. THE weird cat. Not HIS cat, just A weird cat that doesn’t belong to him and he is definitely not going to adopt no matter how attached the thing seems to be to him. And how soft his fur his.
The cat meows loudly and Derek turns to it. He seems to be giving Derek a seriously reproachful look.
“What? It’s true,” Derek isn’t sure why he’s arguing with the cat but it seems to want to defend Stiles for whatever reason. “Look, here’s the last text he sent: ‘Derek! We need SODA-MACHINE for loft! Cheaper than buying soda! More fun! What do you think?’ What does that even mean?”
And the cat starts meowing again. Derek groans.
“I keep trying to tell you, I don’t speak cat!”
The look he receives says clearly, “then why are you talking to a cat?”
“Because there’s no one else here!” He shouts, and it echoes around the apartment, as if affirming the statement with solid proof. Derek exhales; he hadn’t meant to shout it, but it suddenly seemed more obvious. Without his pack in it his apartment was big and lonely. He usually tried to ignore it.
He chances a glance at the cat to find it staring at him with a surprisingly normal expression. It blinks and pads over to where Derek is seated, sitting at his feet and staring up expectantly. He raises an eyebrow it’s way.
“Mrrreow.”
“You want me to pick you up?”
“Meooww.”
He carefully reaches down and picks he cat up, holding it gently so it’s face is about level with his chin. The cat stares at him a little more then dips his head and rubs underneath Derek’s chin, up along his jawline.
He’s all soft fur and purring, comforting Derek’s sudden loneliness with affection. He closes his eyes and lets the cat rub against his face, burying his mouth and nose in its fur for a moment and breathing in.
“You’re easier to talk to than Stiles.”
The cat meows and Derek scratches it behind its ear until it can do nothing but lie in Derek’s arms in a soft, fluffy puddle and purr. He sighs.
“He’s really loud, like you are, but worse. And he’s always sticking his nose in people’s business and causing problems and getting himself hurt.” The cat doesn’t stop purring but struggled in his arms. Derek barely notices, too wrapped up in his own head.
“He always comes over when I didn’t ask and hangs around eating my food. And then he falls asleep on my couch and drools on the pillows and that should be really gross but you know what the worst part is?”
He holds the cat out, one hand under it’s arm and another supporting it’s body, staring right in it’s huge, expressive eyes.
“Whenever I see him sleeping I can’t help thinking that he’s adorable. And I want to kiss his stupid mouth just to get him to shut up for once!”
Derek feels the tips of his ears grow warm and wonders why on earth he would be embarrassed about telling a cat about his stupid, pointless crush on a teenager (though Stiles does turn twenty in a month). The cat’s mouth is hanging open so Derek can see his sharp, pointed little teeth, and the thing keeps blinking at him, pupils huge and dark. Derek sighs again and tries to get his feelings for Stiles out of his head.
“And now that idiot’s gotten mixed up with a witch. Of course he has, because he’s a magnet for trouble.”
“Meow.”
“No, they aren’t like Harry Potter. Witches are vindictive and have a twisted sense of humor. Who knows what she did to Stiles if she caught up with him.”
“Meowww.”
“They’re always casting unluckiness jinxes or forgetfulness curses or—
“MEEEOwww!”
“—wart charms or turning people into animals or—“
“…Mreow.”
That’s when it all clicks, and he drops the cat.
“Stiles! What the hell!”
Surprisingly, he lands on four paws—paws that should be the feet of the 19 year old in cat form that Derek just unknowingly confessed to.
Before he has any real time to panic or do much of anything to salvage his dignity, Scott bursts through the door with Isaac, Kira, and Lydia, dragging a girl in what looks like zebra striped pajamas into the loft with them.
“We found the witch!”
“Hey! Let go! I didn’t do anything you dumb mutts!” The girl yells as she breaks free from Scott’s grip and he shuts the door, standing in front of it to make sure she couldn’t get out if she tried.
They clearly stole her from her bed and brought her right away from her clothes and the state of her hair, not to mention that fact that she was wearing no shoes. If Derek weren’t angry, confused, and mildly panicking he might have been cross with his betas for taking her without any proof she was really the witch.
“Stiles’ friend said you were the one Stiles was talking to at the party and you told him you were going to curse him!”
“Oh yeah?” She mocked, one hand on her hip, nose scrunched up in a snarl. “Prove it.”
The cat—Stiles—races across the room and attacks her legs. She shrieks and jumps to get away but he sinks his claws and teeth into her leg until she curses, reaches down and picks him up by the scruff of his neck.
Derek reacts instantly; his worry about Stiles almost makes him half-shift to get her to stop touching him, even if she isn’t really hurting him. Instead he keeps his cool and watches as Stiles is suspended in the air, a low growl in his throat.
“See, the cat doesn’t even like you!” Scott declares. “Now tell us what you did to Stiles!”
The witch blinks, staring around at each of them blankly.
“You still haven’t figured that much out? Are you all this stupid?”
“Mreeeeeeeeeeeyyyow.”
Derek watches the realization dawn on everyone’s faces at once; everyone except Lydia, who looks as though she knew all along—a very likely but annoying possibility.
“Stiles…was the cat?” Scott asks.
“Is the cat,” Kira corrects helpfully.
“Enough,” Derek finally steps in, flashing his fangs and extending his claws so the witch can see them. “Change him back. Now.”
She looks him up and down, only the smallest edge of fear in her expression, then lifts Stiles up and raises an eyebrow at him.
“Told you you looked like werewolf bait.” Stiles swats his claws at her and she laughs, holding him at arms length away from her. “Being a cat sort of suits you. Are you sure you want to go back?”
“This isn’t a discussion. Change him back.”
She glances at Derek again and then sighs, snapping her fingers once, then twice, wiggling her index finger and tapping Stiles in between his ears. There’s some glowing and meowing and then the meowing turns into Stiles saying “shit, shit, shit, shit” over and over again until he stops glowing and is not longer in the shape of a cat.
He somehow wound up on the floor, clutching his chest and breathing heavily.
“Are… are you alright, dude?” Scott asks delicately. Stiles turns to him with wide eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Do you have any idea how fast a cats heart beats? I feel like my chest is gonna explode!”
Scott and Kira laugh as Stils climbs shakily to his feet, like he forgot what having only two of them was like, then turns towards the witch. She shirks back a bit and Derek can’t blame her. If he were Stiles he would at least want to yell at her for putting him through everything she did.
But, much to Derek’s and everyone else’s surprise, Stiles pulls the pajama-clad girl into a hug. She makes a face and does not hug him back.
“You,” Stiles grins, “Are awesome. Sorry for attacking you. Cat instincts and everything.”
“Uhhhhh…” She trails off, confused. “Okay? Can I go home now?”
“Uh,” Stiles turns to Scott. “Can you guys take her back to her house? I need to talk to Derek about something.”
“Sure,” Scott shrugs, clapping one hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Good to see you, man. We should play video games tomorrow.”
“Yeah!”
Isaac opens the door and everyone files out with the witch. Just before the door closes Derek hears her say to Lydia,
“You know, the stupid curse would have worn off in a few days anyway. I was in the middle of a Netflix marathon!”
Once they left the loft plunged into a heavy silence, which Stiles chose to break by loudly proclaiming,
“I knew you got my texts about the soda machine!”
Derek huffs out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding and rolls his eyes.
“Why would I get a soda machine? Just so you can use it?”
“Absolutely! I’m over here all the time already—and it’s only gonna get worse now that I know that kissing could possibly be happening!”
Derek feels his face flush but looks over to see that Stiles’ pale skin was glowing pink too, all the way to the tips of his ears. His big round eyes blink quickly at Derek and he can hear how fast his heart is beating.
Derek groans and puts his face in his hand.
“How did I not know you were the stupid cat?”
“I don’t know. I was giving you as many clues as I could, dude. I kept trying to tell you, remember!”
“Yeah, in cat!”
“Sure, but I still thought you would be able to recognize me easier than anyone else. Why do you think I came here instead of Scott’s house? And stop trying to change the subject!”
“Stiles…” Derek trailed off, trying to come up with a way to salvage this without hurting Stiles. Why was dealing with him so much easier when he was a cat?
He had never planned on telling Stiles how attracted to him he was, or tell him that he got a happy feeling in his chest whenever Stiles visited him in his loft, or how lonely it was with Stiles away for college, how he wished he could see him every day. Stiles deserved more than Derek could give him and it wouldn’t be fair for Derek to keep Stiles to himself, not when he had his whole life in front of him.
“You liiiike me,” He grins, taking a step closer. “You said I was cute!”
“You were cute,” Derek deadpans. “As a cat.”
Stiles went on like he hadn’t even heard him, taking another sneaky step closer to Derek.
“You can’t deny it Derek! You said I was cute and that you wanted to kiss me.”
“…to get you to shut up.”
Stiles shrugs, takes another step. He’s right in Derek’s bubble and Derek wonders how he didn’t at least recognize the smell of Stiles when the cat first appeared. There must have been too much cat smell because Derek can usually pick Stiles scent out a mile away. It’s sort of heavy and burn-y, like chemicals, but then underneath that is earthy and warm and comforting. With Stiles standing as close as he is it’s all Derek can smell and it’s starting to cloud his head.
Stiles smiles at him, tilts his head and for a moment Derek swears he sees his pupils turn to cat-like slits.
“Mrow?” He asks, and somehow Derek knows exactly what he’s said.
Fuck it, He thinks, meeting Stiles’ kiss halfway. I am a cat person.
Later, the two of them are lying in Derek’s bed and Derek has somehow found himself gently petting the head that’s resting against his chest. It’s peaceful and quiet and he has his eyes closed as he listens to rain begin to fall outside the window.
Then, all of the sudden a rumbling sound starts, that seems to be coming from Stiles’ chest.
“Are—“ Derek holds back his laughter, “Are you purring?”
Stiles bites him in response and Derek laughs, rolling both of them over and giving Stiles an even better reason to keep purring.