he had met sheriff stilinski the night of the fire. he remembers the man being very quiet and kind, wrapping blankets around him and laura while talking to them about what had happened. he remembers laura crying and the smell of smoke, but most of the night has been since blocked out.
he remembers the two of them being regularly brought over to the stilinski home for dinner because the sheriff wanted the two orphaned teens to feel like they still had a family. and he remembers spending a lot of late nights over there, watching the sheriff’s son while he had to work late. he knows he was a shitty babysitter, he didn’t do it because he liked it or even because he wanted to. he did it because if he owed anyone anything, it was the sheriff.
stiles had always been... interesting. and definitely the type that needed supervision. but, he just laughed off his random declarations of love and impending marriage in their future.
even now that stiles was old enough to actually be trusted to be left to his own devices, derek was there regularly, still being pulled into family dinners. after laura’s accident left him basically completely alone in the world, the sheriff and stiles still made a point of including him in their own broken little family.
which is why, tired after a long day on a build site, derek finds himself sitting across from stiles at the dinner table, passing the bowl of mashed potatoes to the sheriff as his phone buzzes in his pocket. thinking it might be work, he quietly slips it from his pocket and checks the notification, eyes widening when he sees it’s not a text message, but a notification from tindr. a superlike. from stiles.
glancing up, derek gives the younger male a confused look, not sure how to react to this.