Work Text:
Russ opens the door to see a group of almost ten people on his doorstep. “Um, hi,” he says, a little concerned about how a few of them are grinning widely and kind of bouncing.
A dark haired guy about his age gives a little wave and says, “Hey, I’m Scott McCall, a friend of Stiles’s.”
Russ vaguely recalls his roommate mentioning a Scott, so he thrusts out a hand and says, “Hey, man, nice to meet you.” He steps back and says, “You can come on in, I guess. Stiles isn’t here, and he didn’t mention people coming over.”
“We’re here to surprise him,” a very pretty blond girl answers as she passes him.
“Oh, cool,” Russ says, shutting the door behind them. “Go ahead and make yourselves at home,” he says, motioning to the living room. “Sorry the place is a mess. My parents just sent up the rest of my stuff, and we haven’t got around to unpacking it.”
The group crams as many of them as they can get onto the couch, the rest take over an arm chair. Scott goes around and introduces the rest of them. He and his girlfriend Allison continue to chat with him, the others mostly silent, just looking around the townhouse’s living room with barely contained excitement. The redheaded girl’s expression is more critical, and Russ can just see her making a list of everything she thinks needs to be cleaned and redecorated.
Russ is kind of floored by the sheer levels of attractiveness in this group. All the guys are buffed out, and the three girls are knockouts. Not that Russ thinks his roommate is a dork or anything—ok, Stiles is kind of a dork, but that’s not a bad thing—but he imagines that Stiles would look weirdly out of place amongst them.
It’s about twenty minutes before Allison pauses in the middle of a sentence. Everyone excluding her and Lydia has gone still and alert, and Russ is reminded very strongly of a dog that’s caught scent of a squirrel. Allison pats Scott’s knee and continues on as though nothing’s happen.
Weird, Russ thinks.
It’s still another five minutes before a key turning in the door sounds and Stiles is pushing his way inside. “Hey, man, I’m back. Remind me never to take Washington at this time of day ever again. Shit.”
He comes into the living room, and he has absolutely no time to absorb their guests before Isaac is running straight for him. Erica climbs over the back of the couch and literally leaps in the air with a cry of “Stiles!”
Russ winces as Stiles goes tense. Luckily, Isaac gets to Stiles first. He serves as a bit of a buffer for when Erica collides into them. They all fall to the floor. Erica and Isaac are laughing, and Stiles just groans, “Hey, guys.”
The others are all up and hovering over them. Lydia smiles a bit meanly—something Russ immediately decides he’d love to never have directed at him—and says, “Well, what are you all waiting for? Jump on him.”
The rest of the group does exactly that. Stiles huffs as the air is knocked from his lungs. Lydia walks around to where his head is the only thing sticking out of the pile. She lowers gracefully to her knees and says, “Good to see you.” She leans down and rubs her nose against his.
“I’d love to be irritated with you right now,” he groans.
“But you love us too much,” Scott says from under Allison.
“It’s my curse,” Stiles says, lifting up his head for Lydia to scoot closer. He drops it down over her thigh, and she threads her fingers through his hair.
And then they all just stay there.
Russ blinks down at them in utter confusion. No one is making any move to get up. In fact, they look to really be settling in. “Um, you guys just going to stay down there,” he asks.
Stiles looks up at him around Boyd’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen any of them in almost two months, so this should go on for the next, what do you think,” he asks, tilting his head back to look at Lydia. “Half hour?”
“Closer to forty-five minutes, I’d think,” Lydia says.
Definitely weird, Russ thinks.
And they do it. They literally all lay cuddling and squishing Stiles on the floor for the next forty-seven minutes. And Russ can’t help but just watch. It’s the weirdest thing. They just lay there, and Stiles talks to each of them in turn, asking them how they’re doing, how school’s treating them, if they’re acclimating well. Russ gets the feeling that some of the questions have hidden meanings, but what that might be, he’s not about to guess.
Except for the pile on the floor part of it, the whole process kind of reminds Russ of going home for breaks when his mother sits him and his siblings down and gets updates about their lives.
After they all get up off the floor, then the round of hugs start, like they all haven’t gotten enough tactile time lying around behind the couch. And some of those hugs look an awful lot like nuzzling.
Ok, no, Isaac is definitely nuzzling his face in Stiles’s neck. And no one seems to think anything of it. Scott does it too a moment later. The three girls all seem to pet at him. Russ is starting to wonder if maybe his roommate isn’t quite as vanilla as he had been thinking.
“So, any reason for this visit,” Stiles asks, and yeah, he’s scratching behind Erica’s ear, and she looks completely blissed out.
“We missed you,” Scott says, and Jackson huffs. Allison elbows him in the side.
Stiles hums. “And what about Derek? He’s not going to be happy you came up without him.”
“Please,” Lydia says with a flip of her hair. “He’s a big boy with his own car.” Then she loops her arm through Stiles’s. “Come on, let’s get you out of your slob clothes so you can take us out. The car ride was miserable.”
“The dogs wanted the windows rolled down the whole time,” Jackson grumbles.
“Like you don’t love it,” Boyd chuckles, hooking an arm around his shoulders and pulling towards the front door. “Bags,” he says, and the others follow him out.
“We’ve got the couch, but did any of you bring an air mattress,” Russ asks. He doesn’t think they have one, and even if they did, they don’t really have enough stuff to accommodate so many guests.
Stiles heaves a longsuffering sigh, and Lydia grins as she presses closer to his side. “They’ll all be in my room,” he says. “Freaking should have bought a king bed.”
“Dibs on your comfy pillow,” Lydia says.
“It’s my pillow,” Stiles complains.
“But it’s comfy. And I want it,” Lydia says plainly. Stiles just throws his free arm in the air and huffs. With a sweet smile that really isn’t so sweet, Lydia drags Stiles back into the house to get him to change.
“You’re all terrible people,” he whines as they turn down the hall.
“You live for this,” Lydia brushes him off.
After the others bring in their bags and Lydia has bullied Stiles into tighter jeans and a shirt that doesn’t involve plaid, they’re ready to go. Stiles invites him to go along, and Russ has a moment of inner debate where he sort of really wants to figure out how this group of people works, but he’s also kind of scared to get those answers.
He decides when he notices a few of them looking like they might punch him if he accepts. “Naw, man, you go have fun with your friends,” he answers, and they all brighten.
“All right,” Stiles says, already being herded out the door. “Call if you change your mind.”
Erica and Isaac stop short, turn back to face Russ, and shake their heads slowly and deliberately.
Awkward. Rude. Weird. Just really weird.
And the weird builds up as the weekend goes on. Stiles wasn’t joking at all when he said that they’d all be sleeping in his room. Russ does not want to know how eight people can sleep comfortably on a queen-sized bed. It’s just unfathomable. And then there’s the way that they all sort of follow Stiles around the house like lost puppies. Well, not all of them. Erica and Isaac for sure, Boyd most of the time, Scott when he’s not staring like a dope at Allison. Lydia and Allison take turns being crowded in Stiles’s personal space, always hooking their arms with his and running their hands through his hair.
The only one who seems to not be under this spell is Jackson, but then again, even he tends to keep an eye on Stiles at all times, and even if he’s grumbling, he’s still doing what Stiles says.
Russ just doesn’t know what to make of the whole thing, and there definitely isn’t any spare moment he can ask Stiles. Because his roommate is absolutely never alone. Russ is pretty sure not even the bathroom is sacred to these people.
Things go from weird to Twilight Zone on Saturday afternoon. They’re all lazing around the house, Stiles once again at the center of a massive cuddle session while they watch reruns of Real Housewives of the OC. It’s terrible trash, but Lydia and Stiles have a running commentary that is made out of pure golden sass, so no one is complaining.
But then the same ones who tensed at Stiles arriving two days previous do the same thing again. Immediately following, Russ sees Allison’s hand go to the pocket of her jacket—and that’s creepy. Does she have a gun in there or something?—and Lydia grabs at Stiles’s sleeve.
For his part, Stiles has this look on his face that Russ has never seen before. It’s serious and a little bit frightening. It’s more than a game face. It’s the kind of look you get when shit gets real.
“What,” he asks, and it’s Scott who answers with, “Derek.”
Then there’s a knock at the door. All of the tension completely leaks out of Stiles, and he’s laughing uproariously as he detangles himself from the pile. “Oh my God, he’s actually knocking on a door. This is the best thing ever.” He’s still going on about it when he answers the door. “Hey, honey, what’s the matter? Forget your key?”
Russ can hear the answering growl, and whoa, really?
“So your little business trip is over kind of early, huh,” Stiles is still talking. “Missing the kids? Don’t worry, they’re here and fine. Full disclosure, I got them ice cream. Lord knows you never treat them to anything nice.”
He’s snickering as he comes back into the living room. The man who walks in behind him is not what Russ is expecting, although, to be fair, he’s not sure what he was expecting in the first place.
The guy is only an inch or so taller than Stiles, but he’s freaking built like a brick house wrapped up in leather. He’s the actual epitome of tall, dark, and handsome, but he’s got this epic glare going on that Russ gets a feeling is sort of a permanent fixture.
At the sight of him, most of the group sits up at attention, and when the glare is turned on them, most of them wither. Erica, Isaac, and Boyd all hunch and look like dogs with their tails between their legs. In turn, Scott looks like a kicked puppy, and he scoots a little bit behind Allison, who offers up a sheepish grin. Jackson’s gaze is firmly locked on the floor, and Lydia is the only one who looks like she doesn’t care. She just flips her hair over her shoulder and arches a brow.
“Will you stop that,” Stiles demands, smacking Derek’s arm. Derek glowers at him and huffs. “You left them to go to your super secret managerial meeting. Of course they came down here.”
“Without permission,” Derek says with plain irritation.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Things I’m sure you’ll get over. Come on, we’re watching Real Housewives.”
“This is trash,” Derek says, but he drops into the spot that Stiles vacated and pulls Stiles down almost onto his lap after him. Stiles doesn’t complain at all. He just relaxes back against him, and one of Derek’s arms wraps around his waist to hook a finger through his belt loop.
Hello, there. Looks like there’s going to be nine in the bed now. Jesus, Russ had no idea Stiles was this kinky.
And unfortunately that’s about the time that Derek’s eyes lock onto him over Stiles’s head. “Who is that,” he asks gruffly.
“My roommate,” Stiles answers, not looking away from the thumb war he’s engaged in with Allison.
“You shouldn’t have gotten a roommate,” Derek says, and seriously, who taught these people manners?
“Some of us don’t have an unlimited supply of money,” Stiles says. “Some of us are doing our best to live off the salary of a single parent and don’t have access to the trust fund their mom set up until after they turn twenty-one. Dammit,” he adds when Allison pins him down.
Derek doesn’t say anything to that. He just glares at Russ and holds Stiles a little closer.
They all go out again that night, and Stiles manages to convince Russ to come along even as Derek glares at him over Stiles’s shoulder. Russ is not ashamed to admit that he’s scared shitless of Derek. The man’s got serial killer eyes. He only agrees because Stiles has called up some of their other friends, and Russ’ll have people to run and hide behind.
They end up at a dance club. It’s packed and dark and loud and smells like sweat. They all love this place, and Stiles’s group all charges out into the middle of the dance floor.
“Holy crap on a cracker,” Jennifer says sliding up to Russ, the straw of her Jack and Diet falling out of her open mouth as she stares out to where Stiles and Derek are dancing. Although dancing might not be the right word here. They’re pressed up against each other with no room for even air between them. Their hips are grinding and hands wandering. Derek’s face is pressed into Stile’s bared neck, and Stiles had a hand buried in his hair.
Russ just nods dumbly. He’s straight, but shit, there is no denying that that’s just hot.
“Where did Stiles find him and does he have a brother,” Jennifer asks. “These are things I need to know. For reasons. Sexual reasons.”
“I mean, is he even real,” Blair asks.
His arm draped around her shoulders, her boyfriend Jeremy hollers, “Whoo, go Stilinski!” His voice is obviously lost to anyone out on the dance floor, but a couple of seconds later, Stiles laughs and then licks his way up Derek’s jaw to get his earlobe in his teeth.
“Holy shit,” the girls gasp.
“Welp,” Jennifer says throwing back a gulp of her drink. “I know what I’ll be picturing with Mr. One Night Stand later tonight.”
Russ thinks Jennifer’s got a pretty good plan there. Not the picturing Stiles and Derek while having sex part, but the sex with a stranger tonight part. Preferably at that stranger’s place. Whatever’s going to go down at his place tonight, he doesn’t need to hear it. The walls are pretty thin.
It’s pretty late the next afternoon when the others leave. They all look really reluctant, and there’s a lot of that lingering hugging/nuzzling/petting business. The goodbye process takes almost a half hour, and then only Derek is left behind. Stiles waves at Russ and says they’re going to go grab a burger.
Russ is pretty sure that’s code for blatant car sex.