Work Text:
Their relationship can be summed up in holidays and state appointed days off, one or the other wrapping the the others up and taking them off to a dinner, movie, dinner and a movie, or something to that effect before heading off for the night.
It was the way things were for a year now and Stiles was tired of the fact that he only got to see Derek for a few hours on days that celebrated family and coming together, that the one time he had attempted a family dinner it had blown up so spectacularly in his face that he’s still not speaking to Jackson unless he has to.
(Granted, that’s the way it usually is between the two of them, but the point stands!)
Enough is enough in Stiles’ mind and he has this Christmas week to show Derek how very much he wants the man to be a part of his little family, that Jackson’s words that Christmas last year were absolute bullshit, and that there was a drawer on the right side of Stiles’ bed just waiting for Derek to fill it up with every Henley he owned…
There’s also a portion of his closet opened up, but he figures he should ease Derek into this slowly, just in case his habit of jumping in with both feet is the thing that finally sends Derek running for the hills.
Everything is in place, he’s thought of nearly every possible scenario, Stiles just has to get everyone to agree with what he wants to do.
Derek isn’t sure what’s been going on with Stiles lately, but it’s making him nervous in a way that he hasn’t felt since he first started at Hale Inc. and Laura told him he was in charge of interviewing prospective employees.
He knows he shouldn’t let what Jackson said nearly a year ago get to him so badly, that Stiles and Dinah have shown him that he’s certainly part of their trouble-making duo, and that there have even been times that Dinah had called out for her Dadda and insisted that she meant Derek, not Stiles.
It’s just that the words had shed a light on the fact that, even though he wants nothing more than to be a part of Stiles’ family, he’s not and it makes an ache settle in his stomach every time he says goodnight to Stiles at the end of the day, a echoing ache in his ribs every time he has to say the words to Dinah as well…
He’s been on the cusp of asking Stiles if he could stay over several times, if only to spend some more time with the people that managed to pull him out of the hole he had been in ever since Paige told him that she needed to be with someone that wasn’t afraid to say they loved her, but Stiles had always seemed so jumpy every time that Derek had taken the coward’s way out and just made his escape.
This will be the second Christmas that they’ll spend together and Derek is determined that this will be the night that he asks, that he’ll tell Stiles just how much he and his daughter mean to him.
Derek swallows, looking down at the presents in his hands, trying to will his heart into slowing down as his doubt tries to make him change his mind and just let things stay at the status quo.
He needs to this, he has to do this. He’s done torturing himself by keeping this just out of his reach, he’s going to grab it with both hands and not let go unless Stiles outright tells him to.
He can do this.
He can.
Stiles is standing in front of the mall with Dinah toddling back and forth beside him, trying to keep down the rising panic that’s slowly gaining more ground the longer it takes for Derek to show up.
Everyone had been surprisingly supportive on the gesture he had been about to make and it just clarifies that Stiles should have made it a whole hell of a lot sooner if his dad claps him on the shoulder, stating that he liked that ‘Hale boy’ and was glad that he was sticking around.
It makes the fact that Derek is more than twenty minutes late even more nerveracking and while Stiles is glad that Danny doesn’t mind waiting for a little while, a dark voice in his ear is saying that Derek isn’t coming at all…
Thankfully, for both his sanity and Dinah’s increasing questions of why they’re waiting so long, Derek makes his way around the corner of the sidewalk, panting heavily and snowflakes covering his entire frame as he makes his way over to them.
"I’m so sorry! My car broke down and I dropped my phone in a puddle when I went to call you." Derek’s face is flushed and he still seems to be having a hard time breathing as he picks Dinah up from where she’s making grabby hands at him. "I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t showing, so I ran the rest of the way here."
"Derek, the mechanic is more than five miles away!” Stiles wills his heart to slow down, mentally flipping off the part of him that had doubted as he moves into the arm that Derek holds out to him.
"Like I said," Derek murmurs, rubbing his nose against Stiles’ cheek, a little quirk that never fails to make Stiles smile. "I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t coming."
Warmth rushes through Stiles like he just swallowed a whole jug of hot chocolate and he starts tugging Derek toward the mall, using the movement to hide the blush that’s growing. “Come on, I don’t think Danny is going to let us get away with missing our appointment because we’re canoodling on the sidewalk.”
"Too bad," is Derek’s reply, complete with a dramatic sigh that makes Dinah giggle from where she’s still perched on Derek’s hip.
"What’s ‘cahnoodle’ mean, Dadda?"
"It means being all lovey-dovey, sweetheart." Derek responds before Stiles can even answer, pressing a kiss to Dinah’s nose. "Sometimes people don’t like it when other people show how much they love each other."
Dinah scrunches up her nose while Stiles tries to not to trip at the casual way that Derek uses the word ‘love’ to describe what they have, at the hope that this won’t end up being the disaster he keeps fearing that it would be.
"That’s stupid."
"I know, sweetheart, I think so- Why are we stopping here?"
Okay, Stilinski, time to lay it all out on the line…
"Because I want to take a family photo with you and use it as my Christmas card, because you’re just as much my family as Scott is, maybe even up there with my father…" Derek is looking at him like he just punched through his chest, Dinah looking between them with her eyes wide and a little scared. "I want to do this every Christmas, every single holiday that I can get away with it, and I want you to be there with me at every recital that Dinah has-"
"Stiles…" Derek’s soft voice cuts off Stiles rant as he sets Dinah on the ground and starts walking toward him, a look of determination in his eyes that makes Stiles want to apologize for ever opening his stupid, idiotic-
-mouth that Derek is kissing like Stiles is the last bit of oxygen at the bottom of the ocean, making Stiles so dizzy that he barely hears Dinah whining that she wants kisses too.
Derek pulls away, still pressing quick kisses to Stiles’ lips like he can’t help himself, the grin stretching his lips making it a little harder than normal, but Derek seems very determined.
"Yes. Yes to everything, to whatever you want to do. Jesus, Stiles, I was worried that I was the only one-"
This time it’s Stiles that cuts him off with a kiss, going at it so long that Dinah starts hitting at their legs, the security telling them that they need to move on before they’re asked to leave.
(It’s worth it though, for the way that Derek can’t seem to stop smiling at them, so much that Danny gets frustrated and just makes them keep the last picture.
Everybody coos at it, making Derek blush, but grin at the same time.
Stiles keeps it in a place of honor on the mantelpiece.)