Work Text:
Derek is nervous.
He shouldn’t be, it’s not like Stiles and Dinah are going to be the only parent-daughter combo at this thing; Erica is going to show up with Venny, Scott has Artemis for the week, and Isaac is going to bring David whether he wants to be there or not.
So, there is absolutely no reason to be nervous.
Except Derek, inexplicably, is.
With all due respect to his other friends, it’s because Stiles and Dinah are going to be here and they’re the ones that have the biggest hold on his heart.
Hence, the sweats that are starting to make him think that he might need to change his shirt.
This is the third time that’s happened…
It’s unnerving in a way that makes Derek grit his teeth, shocked that those two have somehow managed to wiggle past his defenses, defenses that have been there since the last shitstorm that was his ‘relationship’, defenses that he thought only his family would ever get through and that was because the majority of them already had a key.
A knock at the door interrupts his contemplation of whether or not he should change again and Derek is so grateful for the distraction that he doesn’t check to see who it is before he opens the door.
"Hi, Mista’ ‘Ale!"
And, of course, it’s Stiles and Dinah because he wasn’t having a hard enough time trying to remember that this was a good idea.
"Hi there, Dinah." Derek smiles as he realizes that she’s just as bundled up as the last time he saw her. "Are you excited about today?"
She nods, auburn hair bouncing as she manages her own suits and jackets this time, her father less enclothed behind her. “I like Unca S’ott and Arthemis! But I wanna met new friends too!”
Derek chuckles at her enthusiasm, gathering up her things as she sheds them and placing them in the closet just by the door. “There are some toys in the living room if you want to play while I untangled your daddy?”
"Yay!" Dinah needs no more urging and takes off down the hallway before Derek can even tell her which way to go.
"Don’t touch anything but the toys, Dinah Stilinski!” Stiles surfaces to shout after her. “Remember this isn’t our house!”
"Got it!"
There’s a heavy sigh behind him. “I apologize in advance for anything that she breaks and there’s a standing offer to pay for any damages she causes.”
"It’s okay, I moved everything important to the attic before you got here."
Derek turns back at Stiles’ snort, blinking at the sight of Stiles with tousled hair and still struggling with one jacket that’s somehow pinned one of his arms to his side.
It makes Derek want to kiss him, to pin his other arm and press him against the doorway, devouring him until Dinah gets bored and comes to find them, nagging them to open presents with her.
He wants to keep Stiles, wants to keep them both, keep the feeling he has whenever he looks at Stiles lately and when he hears the way Dinah laughs when she finds something that delights her…
He swallows the feeling, not sure if Stiles feels the same way even though they’ve finally got their act together and have started dating; Stiles has yet to invite him over to his place, and the only time he ever sees Dinah is when he’s either dropping Stiles off at the end of the night, or when Stiles comes in for a few hours on one of his days off.
Maybe he’s just reading too much into their relationship, making it more than what it is…
He’s startled out of his thoughts when there is another knock on the door, making him realize that he’s spent the last five minutes staring at Stiles.
Stiles, who has an adorable flush covering his cheeks and a surprised look in his eyes, which keep darting down to Derek’s lips like he can’t help himself.
There is another knock, louder this time, and Erica’s voice is booming through the wood, “Stop hiding in your kitchen and let us in, Hale!”
It breaks whatever trance they were in and Stiles is pulling away-when had they started drifting toward each other..?-and stuttering, “I- I better go make sure Dinah isn’t getting into trouble.”
Sliding around Derek, Stiles picks up the small mound of presents that Derek hadn’t noticed before and practically gallops to where his daughter is playing.
Derek opens the door to Erica and her son, not sure if he should yell at her or thank her.
It’s not until everybody else has arrived and are all gathered in the living room that Stiles pulls Derek off into the kitchen to talk to him.
"Listen, I want you to know that I was just joking around with my gift, okay? It’s more of a gag gift than anything, so please don’t get offended… Or wait, go ahead and get offended, just know it was all in the spirit of fun, okay?"
Blinking, Derek takes in the fact that Stiles looks nervous, hands wringing in front of him and he keeps looking away every time that Derek tries to catch his eye.
It makes something sharp and cold settle under Derek’s breastbone as his overstressed mind immediately latches on to what he believes is evidence that Stiles thought of this thing between them as merely two people having a bit of fun, making him choke out, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Stiles.”
"But earlier, in the hallway-"
"It was nothing, Stiles, I was just feeling tired and blanked for a second. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable."
"…Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I was worried over nothing."
Derek pulls his lips into a grin and moves around Stiles, careful not to touch him and make this more awkward. “I better go get my presents for everyone. Erica probably going to start screaming any second now, she’s worse than a kid.”
The joke is a little flat, even to Derek’s ears, but Erica doesn’t let him down by starting to caterwaul not two seconds later, much to the delight of the children in the room.
Something was wrong.
Stiles had been so sure that he and Derek had been doing well, that there was going to be a time in their near future that Stiles would feel comfortable enough to invite him to say over when Dinah was home, that they had finally made it to the same page.
Yet in true Stiles style, somewhere between the moment in the hallway and now, he had managed to screw it all up.
They had only managed a few kisses on their sporadic dates-what with Derek running a company and Stiles being a working single father-but that moment in the hallway had felt like Derek was only seconds away from pushing him against the door and taking what he wanted.
Stiles had been a little shocked by how okay he was with that.
It had also made him feel like shit about his gift; when Derek had first invited him to this shindig, Stiles had thought it was more of a company party, and had shopped accordingly, but after seeing how Derek reacted with the rest of the group had made it seem much more than that.
It had almost felt like a meet-the-parents kind of thing…
Jumping up from where he was sitting when he had heard Derek on his way back from the bathroom, Stiles had pulled him into the kitchen to apologize for being a shitty person, but somehow had made it so Derek had shut down to the unapproachable stiff Stiles had thought he was before he started dating the guy.
And he didn’t know why, or how he was suppose to fix it!
Derek was still his lovable self to the kids, grinning softly when Dinah had pulled Stiles’ mess of a wrapping job forward and insisted that Derek open it first, making Stiles swallow a lump in his throat when Derek rubbed a hand through her hair when he accepted his gift.
Stiles can only numbly watch as Derek unwraps the gift, Dinah helping from her seat in the man’s lap, wanting to snatch it away when it reveals the tie that he had thought was so funny just hours before.
"What the hell, Stiles?" Erica starts to giggle, even as Scott shakes his head at the brightly colored monstrosity that had the words ‘I’m The Boss Now!’ repeating over and over on the stitching.
"It was a gag gift," Stiles mutters, his voice making Scott look up from where he’s playing with Artemis to give him a frown, but Stiles just slightly shakes his head and continues with, "When Derek had got promoted, he had made this big speech at the next company meeting and had ended it by saying that in this real serious monotone that scared the shit out of everyone there.”
"You remember that?” is Isaac’s contribution to the evening, David looking like a little storm cloud beside him.
I remember everything about Derek, is what Stiles wants to say, but he’s interrupted by Dinah shoving a gift into his hands and squeaking, “It’s from Mista’ ‘Ale, Daddy! Open it, open it!”
Stiles gaze flits over to Derek, but his eyes are still on his tie, index finger rubbing over the words on it and he seems to be lost in thought.
Probably trying to figure out how to get away with burning it.
Sighing heavily, Stiles unwraps his gift, which seems to have been done in the same shoddy way his had and it’s a little odd, because none of the other gifts seemed to have been wrapped as badly…
It’s a plaid shirt, making Stiles blush to the roots of his hair as Erica busts out laughing and states, “Looks like you weren’t the only one that had thought of gag gifts, Stilinski!”
"Why would you give my Daddy a shirt, Mista’ ‘Ale?" Dinah asks, seemingly indignant on her father’s behalf. "Clothes are the worst gifts!”
"Oh, then maybe I should give back the princess dress I got you…"
“No!” Dinah shrieks like an angry cat and launches herself at Derek, who had been pretending to reach for one of the presents under the tree.
He adopts a confused expression. “But I thought clothes were the worst?”
Dinah gives him a serious expression, or as serious as a six-year-old can get and says, very slowly, “Not a princess dress, Mista’ ‘Ale. It’s a princess dress.”
"Ah, good to know."
Stiles watches this exchange with a small smile on his face, a bit of hope blooming in him that he didn’t screw up as badly as he thought when he distinctly remembers that the very first thing Derek had ever seen him in was a plaid shirt much like the one in his lap.