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“Derek, this might be the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”
The wolf only let out a low grunt in response, clearly not picking up or caring about the devastation that was Stiles’ life on this particular morning.
Derek, Stiles, and Lydia had stayed up until what must have been six in the morning pouring over every scrap of information they could find on banshees. They had come out with little more information than they had going in, and called it quits when Derek slowly lolled off to sleep with his head hung over a book.
Lydia had crashed in his bed. Stiles slept on the loveseat after corralling Derek onto the couch and under a blanket. And now, here Stiles was at the horrifying hour of 10 AM, and Derek’s coffee machine was literally the slowest thing he had ever encountered before in his life. He was even counting those sloths in the videos Malia had recently discovered and fallen in love with. He had seen a lot of sloths.
And Derek’s coffee machine was slower.
Sure, it brewed at a regular speed, but try to get the coffee out and you’ll be 80 and too old for caffeine so late by the time you get half a cup.
“This is ridiculous. I must have been standing here for what, ten minutes already?” Stiles huffed as he stared into the slowly filling puppy mug—Allison’s, if he remembered correctly—and tried not to die of impatience.
“About ten seconds, actually,” Derek grumbled into his crossed arms, his head tucked into his own elbow as he drooped pathetically at the kitchen table like wilting wolfsbane.
Stiles guffawed, meaning to direct the sound at Derek but too busy wasting his life away for a cup of coffee to turn his head properly in the older man’s direction. “That’s an excessive amount of time to spend pouring a single cup of coffee. How do you even live? How are you a person if this is what you have to deal with every morning?”
He was fairly sure that he heard Derek mumble something about Starbucks, but Stiles was too enamored with the fact that his mug was now full to really care. “Finally!” He griped and put the mug down to get the sugar and milk needed for his perfect cup.
The fridge was oddly bare, a testament to the fact that Scott and Allison had clearly been around and hungry. Derek’s fridge never survived those hungry teens—but there was milk, so Stiles didn’t really care that their breakfast would likely consist of slices of butter.
Only, when he turned back around, his mug was not where he left it. Oh no, it was held in a carefully manicured hand by a bleary-eyed goddess. He sputtered, an indignant whine ready to spring from his chest, but he could physically feel the weight of heavy eyes on him coming from the general direction of the broody loft owner.
So instead of flinging his pointed finger of justice at the redhead taking her first sip of painstakingly poured coffee, Stiles pointed at Derek. “If you’re going to be such a gentleman, you can get me my coffee,” he declared and shamelessly let his legs crumble, allowing him to lie on his back on the cool kitchen floor without any further adieu.
His eyes slid closed and he listened as Lydia snickered and quietly sat herself at the table. She would likely be pulling out her phone and playing Candy Crush within the minute, lost the rest of the world as she always was when dealing with her puzzles. She clearly had no remorse for the stolen coffee.
He listened as another seat was pushed out and heavy footfalls crossed the kitchen. A clink of a mug as it was pulled from the cabinet, and then a dull whir and the sound of the first drop of coffee dropping into it. In other words, a victory. Derek really was getting him coffee. A lone fist punched lazily into the air before it was dropped back down onto Stiles’ stomach.
Within a minute, he heard the clinking of a spoon against ceramic, and then the dull thud of that same ceramic being carefully placed on the floor by Stiles’ head. Opening his eyes, Stiles saw an Elmo mug (when had they gotten that? What a monstrosity.) resting there, filled with lightened coffee and smelling of everything good in the world.
“Thank you, Derek,” he said as he raised a leg to awkwardly and softly pat Derek’s lag with his foot.
He only got another grunt in response, but Stiles knew he was smiling.