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John is tired. Bone-deep exhaustion is weighing heavily on his shoulders and each step he takes drags slower than the last, he socked feet barely lifting off the ground. He’d barely managed to get his belt and gun locked up in the safe by the front door and now he stares at his stairs in dismay. He could barely hold his arms over his head, how the hell is he gonna make it upstairs?
Without conscious thought his eyes slide over to the perfectly good couch in the middle of his living room, one he’s spent a number of nights on in the past, and he honestly considers calling it a day right then and there. Considering the fact that he hasn’t been home in twenty-three hours, he figures passing out on his couch would be pretty reasonable.
But he knows he’d regret it in the morning. His back isn’t what it once was. Hell, not a single part of his body is what it once was, and despite the impossible challenge that the stairs feel like, he’d rather wake up tomorrow and actually be able to stand up. That sure as hell isn’t going to be the case if he passes out on the couch. So with a groan that makes him feel all of his forty-something years, he pushes himself up the stairs. He leans heavily on the banister and can’t bring himself to care.
He’s not made for pulling doubles that turn into triples. Not anymore.
Halfway up the staircase, John realizes he can hear Stiles singing. Something in his chest goes unbearably tight in a way it shouldn’t, not about his fucking kid. He takes a deep breath as he focuses on the sound of Stiles’ voice, and he sways forward, barely managing to keep himself on his feet when his knees suddenly go weak. He lets out a relieved breath when he doesn’t fall down the freaking stairs, and then pushes himself the rest of the way up as quickly as his sore knees will take him.
Once he reaches the top and steps onto the landing, he leans against the wall and listens, a smile twisting across his face.
He hasn’t seen his kid in days. It’s been... fuck, John realizes that he can’t actually remember the last time he and Stiles had a conversation that wasn’t over text. John’s been at the station almost every waking hour for at least a week, helplessly chasing after a trail of bodies that have kept him awake during the few sparse hours he has tried to sleep. He’s already consulted with the oldest Hale and the monster they’re trying to catch doesn’t have anything to do with the supernatural, which just makes everything worse.
No, the monster he has his whole station running after is human, and they’ve been working double-time trying to keep their town safe.
But it’s still been too long since he’s seen his son.
As John listens to Stiles’ voice soar over the song he’s listening to, his entire body eases. Tension washes off his shoulders and his whole body goes loose and relaxed and he slumps against the wall behind him, letting it hold him up as a yawn cracks at his jaw. He scrounges up the last of his willpower to push himself from the wall and lumber down the hall to Stiles’ room without a second thought towards the bed he was so close to falling into.
Stiles is sitting at his desk with a makeup brush in hand, doing something around his eyes in a pale purple colour. John leans against the door and crosses his arms over his chest as he watches, transfixed. His son’s always been the most gorgeous thing John’s ever seen, even years before John should have ever been looking at him that way. Not that he should be looking at him now, but at least Stiles is twenty.
This whole... makeup thing is new. Didn’t start till after he graduated from high school, actually. John doesn’t have any sort of problems with it; Stiles is a grown adult, first and foremost, and secondly, if he wants to wear makeup, so fucking what? Stiles was always a pretty artistic kid, scribbling doodles on any paper—and when he was real young, walls—he could find. John’s always been pretty sure this was just another form of that, and Stiles was actually pretty good at this shit, as far as John could tell, anyway.
Makeup or no makeup, Stiles is gorgeous. John has to admit he preferred him barefaced, but that’s probably ‘cause it’s just more familiar. When John looks at Stiles’ face now, watching the reflection of him in the mirror sitting on his desk, his eyes get pulled towards the shiny reflection on his nose and the way he makes his eyebrows look so sharp.
Stiles’ head is bobbing along as he does the “blending”—John knows that one!—and he switches from singing to humming along under his breath when he picks up another brush. He sees his son dip into another colour from his palette and wonders what he’s going for today. Even if it’s different, it is always cool as hell to see what Stiles does.
John must make a noise, though, because all of a sudden Stiles’ head is whipping around and he gets to see his son’s beautiful face head-on, even if it’s only his shiny profile.
“Daddy,” Stiles says with a smile stretching across his face. It’s new. Well, new-ish. Stiles had grown out of calling him “Daddy” when he was seven or eight, but he started to do it again a year or so ago and hasn’t called him anything else since.
Actually, he started it when... well, when it all started.
“Hey, kiddo,” John murmurs, feeling his exhaustion rearing back up now that he’s laid eyes on his boy.
“You look exhausted,” Stiles points out immediately, a worried frown creasing his forehead and tugging a pout across his glossy lips and John...
John’s too fucking tired to hold himself back.
It’s been more than a year, and he just doesn’t have the willpower to keep denying himself something he’s wanted for so long. Not after more than a year of lingering glances and cuddling too close on the sofa. Over a year of kisses pressed to his cheek and of hugs that lasted far longer than they should have for a twenty-year-old and his dad. Over a year of Stiles pointing out men he finds attractive, all men John’s age, all men wearing uniforms.
Over a year of Stiles prancing around their house in barely any clothing, watching John watch him with a smirk that drives John mad.
After the week he’s had, he just... can’t stop himself. Not when all he wants is his son and he could lose him so easily.
So John pushes himself from Stiles’ doorway and shuffles into his room. Stiles watches him with something worried in his eyes, no doubt spinning worst-case scenarios in his mind since John didn’t answer him. Stiles’ desk is opposite his bedroom door, so John gets his hands on the back of Stiles’ desk chair and tugs him backward enough that he can turn the chair around. He shuffles even closer, stepping between Stiles’ spread thighs as he keeps his hands on the back of the chair to cage his boy in.
“Daddy?” Stiles asks, the frown on his face easy to hear in his voice. He’s worried. He’s always worried about John, in a way no one has ever once been.
“I want to kiss you, Stiles,” John tells him simply, meeting his eyes and watching the bright amber of his iris get swallowed by his pupil as it blows out.
His son makes a noise, something that sounds needy and desperate and brings to life something fierce in the centre of John’s chest, and he starts nodding like a bobblehead. John grins, hope climbing up his chest and wrapping around his heart when Stiles’ hands tuck into the collar of his uniform shirt and pull him down.
Their noses brush together softly, sweetly, before John finally kisses him.
Their lips meet in a firm, dry press of mouths that has John’s heart somersaulting inside his chest before it starts racing erratically. He hasn’t kissed someone in, fuck, over a decade. Stiles’ lips pull the air from John’s lungs until their burning so good and all that John can feel is the warmth of Stiles’ mouth against his own and the little puffs of breath coming from Stiles’ nose that are hitting his upper lip.
It feels like nothing else. Never before has kissing someone felt like this. As their lips move together it feels like Stiles is creating him, pulling the staggered bits of who John is together and making it all make sense, until he can see with crystal clarity that this has always been what he was meant to be.
“Daddy,” Stiles whimpers, and John pulls back to get a good look at him.
His lip gloss is smeared over the shape he draws for his top lip, and something primal heats John’s chest. Stiles’ eyes are even darker than they were the last time John looked and before he can tell himself not to, he’s leaning back in for another, longer, kiss.
“God, you’re fucking gorgeous, kiddo,” John mumbles against his lips, breathing in deep and pulling Stiles’ scent into his nose.
He kisses him again, feeling greedy for it. He’s wanted this for so long and, if his suspicions are correct, so has Stiles. This feels like the eventuality of everything he’s ever done, of every single thought he’s ever pushed away and every time he’s held himself back, feels like John’s entire lifetime has been leading to this single moment in time. He trails his kisses across Stiles’ cheek, no doubt ruining his makeup and finding that he doesn’t care when his son starts giggling.
John nips Stiles’ jaw before he pulls back, his own smile so wide it’s blurring his vision. “I love you so goddamn much, kiddo.”
“I love you too,” Stiles tells him sweetly, an adorable smile on his face that John leans in to kiss, overwhelmed by the fact that he can, after so long of wanting.
“How did I ever get so goddamn lucky?” he asks, leaning in for another series of sweet kisses that are only broken by Stiles pulling back.
“I don’t know, but you need a shower,” Stiles tells him with his nose wrinkling up.
John laughs and drops a kiss to the very tip of it, before he asks, “You wanna join me?”
Stile bobblehead-nods again, a fierce grin stretching across his cheeks, and he jumps to his feet quick enough that he almost slams their heads together. John laughs as he gets his hands on Stiles’ waist to steady him, giving him a slow, deep kiss that leaves them both breathless when he finally pulls away.
“Heck yes!” Stiles cheers, throwing his arms around John’s neck and kissing him again, and John...
Well, he certainly doesn’t feel as tired. Not anymore.