there ain't been nothing that i couldn't leave behind

The Stilinskis’ house smells like smoke; it's the first thing Derek notices, the scent. It permeates the air and fills the space, clinging onto upholstery and tapestries and throw blankets and onto the pages of books. It’s a particular kind of smoke: tobacco, sage, lavender, and weed all rolled into a little spliff and tucked behind the ear of a twitchy teenager.It starts like this: Stiles smells like spices and herbs. To Derek, this isn’t unusual. He and his father have a garden where they tend to things and make them grow; Stiles does most of the cooking in his house. Underneath the surface of cooking and gardening and deodorant, Stiles – actual Stiles and the scent his body produces – is earthy and rich and magic-spiced, like cinnamon and cardamom. There is a distinct shift in his scent after the fox, after Allison, after, after, after.-Canon divergence about coping and healing and poetic shit about the cyclic nature of grief. Derek and Stiles character study.