Stiles looked at the foam container in his hands, to Derek, back to the foam container.
“You brought me chiggen noodde soub.”
Derek scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s homemade.”
Stiles looked like he was still trying to process what was happening.
“You brought me ‘omemade chiggen noodde soub,” he said.
Derek felt his cheeks heating up and he looked to the hallway, longing to flee the awkward situation he had put himself in. He should’ve just left it on the goddamn doorstep.
“Do you wanna gome in?”
Derek was ready to reject the idea, to just say ‘thanks but I’ve got to get going’ or ‘I don’t want to impose’, but then he looked at Stiles’ hopeful—though congested—face and he found himself saying,
“Sure.”
Stiles grinned widely and then immediately sneezed, his whole body convulsing and almost dropping the container of soup. Derek took it out of his hands and entered the apartment.
“Maybe I’ll just go heat this up for you.”
“’ang you.”
As Stiles made his way to the couch, the big blanket he had wrapped around himself slipping in his grip to drag on the floor, making him trip on it, so he ended up face-planting into the couch. Derek could just make out a quiet ‘ahhhh’ as Stiles’ mouth was smooshed into the cushions, but he didn’t attempt to move from his awkward position.
Derek shook his head and found a suitable size pot for the soup. He also found a piece of bread that he toasted and a glass of juice because he knew Stiles didn’t like to drink water when he was sick, and a few minutes later he presented Stiles with the meal. He hadn’t moved except for his head to allow for breathing, so Derek helped him sit properly—even though Stiles protested a great deal—and put the tray in his lap, so he wouldn’t have to bend over the table to eat.
“Mmm, this loogs gread,” Stiles said. “I wood say id smells gread bud my nose is degommissoned.”
Derek didn’t respond, just gave Stiles a small smile and turned on the tv and flipped through the channels until he found a show he knew Stiles liked. Meanwhile, Stiles had started eating the soup and was making little ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’ noises that did not settle something deep in Derek’s heart.
“Dis really good, Dereg,” he said, sniffing a bit since his nose had started running because of the hot soup he was eating. Derek found him a tissue and sat back down next to him. If Stiles noticed he’d sat down a little closer than before, he didn’t mention it.
When Stiles was about halfway through the meal, his eyes started drooping and his movements got slower. Finally, when he yawned right after taking a mouthful of soup resulting in the soup slipping out of his mouth and spilling down his shirt, Derek took away the tray.
“Ey!”
“We can reheat it, and you can finish it later,” Derek said, dropping the tray on the kitchen counter and finding a new shirt for Stiles in the third drawer of his dresser.
“You staying?”
Derek held out the shirt for Stiles. “You’re a disaster when you have all your normal functions, I’m not sure it’s safe to leave you alone in this condition.”
“Oh, har har,” Stiles responded as he took the offered shirt with a quiet ‘thanks’ added—which Derek wasn’t sure was for the shirt or for Derek staying—and changed with sluggish movements while Derek looked pointedly at the tv.
“You gan unglench, ‘m decend.”
Derek rolled his eyes and sat next to Stiles again, wrapping him back up into his ridiculously soft blanket.
Stiles laid his head on Derek’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and hummed softly. “I lige when you tage gare of me.”
Instead of replying with a grunt or not replying at all, like he usually would, Derek let himself use words that scared him.
“I like taking care of you.”
The whole world didn’t come crashing down and Stiles didn’t push him away, instead he intertwined their fingers and made himself as comfortable as he could on Derek’s shoulder and fell asleep with a pleased smile on his lips.
