Chapter Text
“Secret Santa. You want to do Secret Santa.”
Stiles reached over to clap Derek on his shoulder. “Question marks, dude. I know you have to know how to use them, somewhere in that wolfy brain of yours.”
Derek pointedly ignored him, turning his attention back to Isaac, who was sitting on the other side of the table. He stared and glowered until the younger wolf shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“I thought...it just seems like a thing that families do, right? I thought it would be...nice.” Isaac was practically whispering, and god dammit, Derek would be a god’s honest, actual monster if he denied Isaac this inconsequential thing. He put his hands to his head and rubbed his temples for a moment before again addressing the table.
“Any objections?” he asked, purposefully going up at the end of his sentence as obnoxiously as possible, earning a punch on the shoulder from Stiles, who breathed “Atta boy” under his breath. Derek continued to ignore him as he looked around the table.
“I’m in,” Scott replied easily.
“Me, too!” Allison, so chipper it made Derek’s stomach roll.
“Why not?” Erica sounded bored.
Boyd simply nodded.
“It’s...a cute idea.” Lydia elbowed Jackson in the ribs until he grunted out an agreement.
Derek didn’t even get the chance to look over to Stiles before the human let out a loud woop and flurried up and away from the table.
“Alright, festive festivities! We need paper, and pencils, and why aren’t there any of these things laying around? Shouldn’t somebody be, like, pack secretary during pack meetings? That would make sense, but no, let’s not do things the logical way, ever. Derek, do you not own paper?”
Stiles was exhausting.
Derek motioned towards the kitchen area of the loft. “There’s a shopping list pad on the fridge, should be a pencil out there somewhere. And grab a bowl.”
Stiles bounded into the kitchen and returned seconds later, plopping himself back at the dining room table with the aforementioned items. “I like the shopping list. It’s so very domestic,” he crooned as he scribbled before tearing the paper into strips. He folded them up and tossed them into the bowl, mixing them with a flourish before handing the bowl over to Scott. “Pick and pass, my good man. And no name sharing!”
Derek watched the bowl make its way around the table. He watched the smiles or purposeful stoic facial expressions come across his pack members’ faces as they unraveled their mystery gift recipients. He watched Isaac’s flush grow redder and deeper as the seconds passed; he seemed genuinely pleased and surprised that the group had taken to his idea with so much gusto. Derek also had to suppress a small smile himself as he noticed Jackson’s face turn a slight green color; he made an internal bet with himself that Jackson had drawn Stiles. Derek also made an internal bet (with better odds) that his face likely turned even greener than Jackson’s when he drew the last name in the bowl.
Lydia? What the fuck would he get for Lydia? This whole thing was stupid. Dammit, Isaac.
The pack meeting came to a close not long after, everyone having confirmed that their security runs around the border had stayed quiet, after the humans had given updates on the physical training that Derek had forced them to start completing after the debacle with the Alpha pack earlier in the year. Having agreed to reconvene on Christmas Eve for their gift exchange, Scott, Allison, Lydia, Jackson, and Stiles started bundling up to head out for the night. Isaac, Boyd and Erica had already left for their quick jaunt to their own shared loft on the other side of the repurposed industrial building, calling out their goodbyes amidst a discussion about ordering pizza once they settled in for the night. Derek found himself smiling into his quiet, empty space after Scott closed the door, the last one out. He always found himself filled with an almost foreign warmth when surrounded by his pack (and they were all his pack, Scott’s stubborn insistence be damned).
It took barely an hour for the panic to start settling in. He had a week until Christmas Eve to find a gift for Lydia, and after spending 45 minutes sifting through the internet (“Yes, Stiles, I know how to connect to WiFi, Jesus.”) the only thing he had accomplished was working himself into a frenzy. He would have felt better prepared to choose a gift for anybody else in the pack. The wolves would have been easy, but so would the other humans. Allison? Something archery related. Stiles? 17 bags of curly fries. Done. But Lydia?
It took 10 minutes of brooding and pacing before he cursed under his breath and texted Stiles to see if the Sheriff was home, and another 20 minutes before he pulled up to the curb down the block from Stiles’ house. He leapt onto the roof with ease, slid the window open, and swung himself into Stiles’ room.
“See, I prefer being warned about your impending arrival via ambiguous questions regarding my Dad’s whereabouts over you just breaking and entering with zero warning. Next, we can practice you asking permission to bop into my home in the middle of the night like a post-grunge Santa Clause.” Stiles didn’t bother turning away from his laptop before addressing Derek, who closed the window behind him with a huff.
Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s only 10:30, Stiles. It’s not the middle of the night.”
Stiles sighed with overdramatic exasperation from his computer chair, finally swiveling to look at Derek. “That’s what you got out of that, okay then. What’s up, Buttercup?”
Derek let the teasing name slide, biting his tongue against the sight of Stiles dressed warmly in soft looking flannel pajama pants and an overly large forest green sweatshirt that made his amber eyes pop and glow in the low light of the room. His hair was messy, as per usual ever since he had grown out his typical buzzcut. Derek preferred Stiles’ hair a little longer like this, and often wondered if it was soft to the touch, or if there was enough of it to pull…
Not the time to wax poetic about the idiot teenager’s eyes and hair, Derek scolded himself. He had been having to do that a lot lately, when it came to Stiles, and it was becoming infuriating. Pushing aside thoughts of curling around a warm, pajama’d Stiles and determinedly ignoring the strong scent of StilesStilesSTILES surrounding him in the guy’s room, Derek held out his slip of paper from the Secret Santa drawing.
“No way, man! I don’t want to trade. I have a boss idea about what to get my lucky gift-ee. Put that away.” Stiles held his hands palm up in front of himself, made a few frantic pushing motions.
Spastic moron, jumping to conclusions, flailing about.
It IS kind of cute.
godDAMMIT
“I’m not here to trade you, Stiles. Or I guess I hadn’t thought about asking, although that would probably solve my problem.” Derek kicked himself for not just forcing one of his wolves to trade with him.
“No can do, Buttercup. Sorry. Bye now.” Stiles turned his attention back to his laptop. Derek kind of hated him.
“Stiles. I need your help.” He could hear the strain in his own voice. It was worth it though, to watch Stiles nearly fall off of his chair with the force of how hard he whipped his head around to stare at Derek, eyes as big as saucers. He wasn’t prepared for Stiles to jump up and crowd into his space, however, his human heart rabbiting in his chest as fast as a human heart could.
“Are you hurt? Is somebody else hurt? What happened? DEREK, focus here! What happened?!” Stiles’ fear rolled off of him in bitter waves.
“Stiles!” Without thinking, Derek reached out, placing a hand on each one of Stiles’ shoulders and squeezing firmly. “Nothing! Nothing happened. It’s not...it’s about Secret Santa. Hence the paper? Relax. They’re all okay.” Derek tried to sound as calm as possible. He was not ready to deal with a Stiles Stilinski level panic attack. He was even less prepared to deal with having been the cause of one. His heart ached in his chest at Stiles’ immediate reaction to a simple request for help. Spending time around werewolves, Kanimas, Nogitsunes and evil, evil people will do that to a person, he supposed, a new wave of the same old guilt blanketing over him.
“They’re okay?” Stiles asked, wide eyes searching Derek’s as though he would be able to spot a lie. Derek nodded. Stiles drew a deep breath.
“You’re okay, too?”
Derek felt like Stiles had struck him in a not-completely unpleasant way. A year ago, the thought of Stiles checking on his well being would have been a joke. The thought of Stiles caring about him would have been a joke.
They had come a long way.
“Yeah, Stiles, I’m fine. I’m going to take my hands off,” Derek stated before lowering his arms and taking a step back. Stiles let out a short burst of laughter.
“That’s my line, man. And, ah. That’s good, that everyone’s okay. Sorry about the freak out. It’s just...walking on eggshells, you know?” Stiles ran his hands through his hair. Derek swallowed down his own pitiful jealousy at the action.
“I know. It’s okay. I should have led with something different.” It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was close enough for Derek’s comfort. Apparently it was acceptable to Stiles, who nodded and eased himself back into his chair.
“Alright, okay. Crisis averted. What do you need? If you drew my name, don’t ask me what I want because you’re taking the surprise away, dude.” Stiles was back to speaking at his normal rate, the bitter scent of fear being replaced with Stiles’ usual scent of spicy deodorant, teenage arousal, and something sweet that Derek could never place.
“I didn’t get you, calm down. I got Lydia.”
Stiles threw his head back in laughter. “That’s...well, that’s unlucky, dude. She’s impossible to buy for. I don’t know why you came to me for help, I once bought her like 37 things for her birthday because I didn’t know what she would like.”
Something in Derek’s core clenched. He gritted his teeth. “I figured I could count on getting some ideas from the moron who has been madly in love with her for all of eternity,” he bit out, as much as it pained him to do so.
Stiles just waved his hand in the air dismissively. “That ship has sailed. The 10-year plan didn’t pan out, she’s in love with a lizard/wolf hybrid, and my unrequited affections have skipped their way onto someone anew,” he said, and the air became tangy. Derek heard Stiles’ heart thump out of rhythm. Either he was lying about not being in love with Lydia, or it still hurt him to think about it. Derek didn’t like it, either way.
“Great,” he said dryly, running a hand over his face. “If you can’t even think of a gift for her, I’m basically fucked.”
Stiles cocked his eyebrow in Derek’s direction. “If it’s that important to you, I can do my best to help you out. Do you even have the slightest ballpark of an idea?”
Derek shook his head. “No. I tried looking online, but…”
“Well don’t do that!” Stiles interrupted. “That’s going in blind. No, you have to have things in front of you to get ideas. Pick me up tomorrow, we’ll go out to the mall and figure something out.”
Derek glared. “Why am I picking you up? The loft is closer to the mall, Stiles.”
Stiles grinned. Derek’s heart sped up. “Because otherwise, you have to be seen in public riding shotgun in old Betty. Besides, man. Camaro.”
Derek rolled his eyes, surprised that they hadn’t started aching from all of the strenuous eye-rolling activity that usually occurred when in the same room as Stiles for this long. “Fine. I’ll pick you up at 11. Be ready to go.” He made his way back to the window, expecting a quip or complaint about having to get up in the morning over school break.
Instead, he got an “Aye aye, Captain Buttercup! Sleep tight. I hope you catch all of the cute bunny rabbits and gophers in dreamland.” Derek smiled in spite of himself before closing the window behind him.
Before he went to sleep later that night, he shot off a quick text.
"Stiles?"
"yeah?"
"Don’t call me Buttercup."
"noted"