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Someone pounds on Derek's door just before two AM, rousing him from the doze he'd just barely been able to find his way into. He's been trying for hours to ignore the sounds of the other residents in this building, but it's always harder on holidays where all anyone wants to do is get drunk, blast music, and set off fireworks. He hauls himself off the couch, stomps his way towards the door and yanks it open, ready to tell the third dumbass of the evening that they've got the wrong apartment.
The snarl dies before it even really begins, because it's not some random dumbass standing on his doorstep. "Stiles?" It comes out as a question due to the sheer surprise of seeing him standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie as he bounces just a little on his toes, a sign of nervous anxiety that Derek's seen in him hundreds of times over the last several years. "What are you doing here?"
"I just—some of us were talking about resolutions and superstitions and I—wait. You're wearing it. You're actually wearing it."
Derek reflexively looks down at himself, at the new sweater he'd fallen asleep in, then back up at Stiles. He shrugs awkwardly. "Yeah." Stiles and Lydia had thrown together a little Christmas party for the pack just over a week ago, and Derek let it happen, because he'd seen Isaac's and Erica's faces in the two seconds in which he'd thought about vetoing or at least ducking out of attending it, and he hated the feeling of ruining their excitement over something inconsequential in the long run. So he'd spent what felt like eons trying to find a gift for everyone in the pack that was more personal than a gift card, and made himself participate.
(In the end, he had resorted to one gift card. He knew Erica was dying to order clothing from a particular website—but when he'd pulled it up on his laptop to browse his options, he'd scanned the first dozen items on their "featured" page, couldn't see which bits of leather and vinyl and latex and lace he could possibly gift her without embarrassing either of them terribly, and decided a gift card would leave them both less emotionally scarred.)
Stiles opens his mouth to say something, makes an incoherent sort of noise, and snaps his mouth shut again. He's staring—like, really staring—at Derek's chest and shoulders, and it makes Derek want to squirm, because he feels like Stiles is almost able to see through it—see though him—and that's something he's tried to avoid for a long time. He's not sure he can handle being seen on more than just the most superficial level. Especially not by Stiles, who's even more intelligent and shrewd than most people ever give him credit for.
"It's really comfortable," Derek says after another few moments of awkward silence. The sweater's insanely comfortable, actually, the softest article of clothing he owns, and it fits like it was tailored to him. It even has thumb holes knitted into the pattern on the cuffs. And somehow, rather than smelling like some storeroom or weird dry cleaning chemical or the dozens of people who've probably handled it while it sat on a table in a department store, it smells like Stiles. It's both the best and the worst thing about the gift. "Thanks."
"You already thanked me for it, in that text," Stiles says, but his voice sounds off and he's still staring at Derek in a way that makes him feel overly warm.
"Well, now I'm doing it in person," he says before it dawns on him that maybe this entire interaction would be less awkward if he actually lets Stiles inside instead of making him stand on the other side of the doorway. He steps back and makes a gesture for Stiles to come in, and Derek finally hears the way Stiles's heartbeat seems stuck a dozen beats per minute too high, a pace nearly identical to the music playing somewhere a floor or two below them. "You want anything?" Derek asks as he steps around the island in his kitchen, putting some distance between them. Stiles smells like nerves and determination, but underneath that is the smell that increasingly makes Derek want to do things. Stupid things, like get close, touch, say things he can't let himself think about too much. "Water, or something else?"
Stiles shakes his head quickly, and Derek's not entirely sure if he's trying to shake some thought away or just decline the offer. Stiles dips his head, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then looks up at Derek, a crooked little smile on his face. "I thanked you for the book, right?"
Derek snorts softly, unable to keep the small grin from his lips. "It took me until your sixth text of random caps lock nonsense to figure out that's what you were doing, but yeah."
Stiles laughs, a sound that seems to brighten the room and make everything lighter, easier. "I thought it was a textbook or something!" he says, rolling his eyes as his smile quirks up even higher on the one side. "You just sort of dropped a twenty-pound hardcover book wrapped in red and silver paper into my lap, and we'd all agreed to not open anything until it was actually Christmas, because of Scott's dumb superstition or tradition or whatever." This time, he snorts. "I got zero sleep that first night after opening it, by the way. You can't just give someone like me eight hundred pages of Deadpool comics and expect them to do anything but get lost in that shit." He takes a deep breath. "Also, seriously, that's the coolest gift I've gotten possibly ever."
There's something in his voice, an undertone that Derek knows he can only pick up because of his supernatural hearing, and it says there's more to that sentence than a standard thank you for a gift, a lot more, and Derek tries to ignore it instead of analyzing it, knowing that he'll read into it what he wants to be there instead of what's really there. He can feel his cheeks heat in a way that he's positive is visible at the praise anyway, and he ducks his head and shoves his hands into his pockets to keep from doing anything dumb, like reaching out to touch Stiles. "Glad you like it."
"Yeah. Glad you don't hate the sweater, too," Stiles says. He kicks lightly at the corner of the island with his toes, still looking down when he says, "I thought it might be dumb, since werewolves run warm, and I wasn't sure about the color after I got it home, but…."
He doesn't finish the thought, and Derek hesitates for a second. He guesses he can see why Stiles might have been unsure about the color, at least on the surface. Derek tends to wear darker colors most of the time—forest green and deep burgundy and greys and blacks—but this is a bright blue, a shade Derek doesn't have the proper name for, something sort of like sky blue or powder blue or cornflower or cerulean, but not quite any of those. It's—it's almost the exact color of Stiles's Jeep, in fact, but with just a hint more of a grey undertone to mellow the brightness, making it something that doesn't clash against Derek's skin.
"No, I like it," Derek says hastily, not wanting Stiles to doubt his choice. "It reminds me of Roscoe," he says with a shrug, rubbing the bottom hem between his first two fingers and thumb. Maybe that's part of the reason he likes it, after all, on a subconscious level. Roscoe and Stiles are always going to be linked in Derek's head, and along with that is some feeling of safety, of knowing that help is at hand, and Stiles is right there, the only person Derek trusts to not just abandon him.
Stiles sucks in a breath and makes a faint squeaking noise that has Derek glancing up, looking for context. "Uh, yeah," he says, and now his cheeks are turning red. "I guess it is kind of similar, huh?" He clears his throat. "I thought it might go with—and Erica told me to try it on and send her a picture, and she said I was right, and you'd definitely like it. She said it would look nice on you."
So Erica's responsible for the fact that the sweater smells so heavily of Stiles. He's not sure if he should thank her or hate her for that. He knows that of all his betas, she's the one most likely to have picked up on any of the physical cues he's let slip regarding how he feels about Stiles, because she lives and breathes flirtation and seduction, could teach a master class on it without even needing to rely on her werewolf senses all that heavily. "You thought it might go with what?" Derek asks, once the whole statement makes it through his brain.
Stiles's heartbeat ticks up even higher, and he's staring at the floor. "Your, uh, your eyes," he says, and then he raises his head and looks directly at Derek, steeling himself for whatever sort of response he thinks he's about to get. "It does, by the way."
"Yeah?"
"I mean, everything looks good on you," Stiles says with a shrug that Derek's sure is meant to look casual, even though it fails at that. "But it, uh, does set off your eyes. And everything else." His eyes sweep down from Derek's, across Derek's chest, before bouncing back up, and Derek actually sees Stiles's pupils dilate even as his heart thuds louder and the unmistakable scent of lust mingles with Stiles's usual smell.
Derek has no idea how to respond to that, has no way to interpret the physical signals he's getting as anything other than interest and arousal on some level, and it throws him, makes everything feel a little off-kilter. He's quiet for too long, the silent seconds stretching out forever, until he remembers he never did find out why Stiles stopped by, only knows that Stiles seemed nervous, but didn't smell panicked or afraid. "Why are you here?" he asks again, and he hears the confusion in his own voice, different from the curiosity of earlier, and he wonders if Stiles can hear it, too. "You said something about superstitions?"
"Oh. Yeah. Uh. More resolutions, I guess, but also traditions and superstitions. And then I just started thinking…"
He trails off, and Derek offers a small smile. "Careful. That shit's dangerous."
"Don't I fucking know it," Stiles mutters. He clears his throat, then stands up a little straighter. "So, yeah, I was thinking, about the whole concept of New Year's resolutions, and sometimes it's giving shit up, or telling yourself you're going to start doing something you think you should be doing but you've put off or avoided, y'know, that sort of thing. And a lot of the time, people fail and give up on their resolutions within about a month and a half or so, because they set up these unrealistic, broad goals that don't have enough specificity—stupid shit, like 'I'm going to lose weight,' or 'I'm going to get better grades.' But they don't have an actual plan in place, like going to the gym three times a week, or not eating fast food more than once a month, or setting up a study group, or hiring a tutor, or writing down their assignments in a place they'll remember to look at once they get home. You know?"
"Yeah," Derek says. He gets the concepts, anyway. He doesn't know what the hell that has to do with why Stiles showed up on his doorstep five minutes ago, two hours into the new year, but so far he's not saying anything batshit crazy or worrisome.
"Okay, good. But also, sometimes it really is hard to set out a step-by-step plan. And that's sort of where I am, with some stuff. But there's, like, a guiding principle to the whole new year, fresh start sort of thing. And I think that's the one I can work with. Sort of like a mantra, or a motto. But for action."
"And what's that?" Derek asks. Stiles smells like he did when Derek first opened the door, again, that mix of nerves and determination, and he's staring at Derek now in a way that makes Derek's heart speed up and beat heavily in his chest, the sound of it loud in his ears.
But the sound of Stiles's heartbeat is louder.
Stiles swallows hard, then licks his lips and steps closer, into Derek's space. Derek doesn't step back, doesn't flinch. He feels rooted to the spot, not sure he could move away if he tried. "Start as you mean to go on," Stiles says, and then he closes the distance between them, tilts his head up, and presses his mouth against Derek's.
So much of Derek's life has been lived in a constant state of fight-or-flight, but right now, he just freezes. His brain short-circuits, his nose filled with Stiles's scent and his lips tingling from their contact with Stiles's own, and he can't even remember how to breathe for a moment, not until Stiles starts to pull away, uncertainty clouding his features.
It's that doubt, that worry, that makes Derek able to move again. He catches Stiles by the elbow, pulls him back in with his left hand and uses his right to reach up and cup Stiles's face, running his thumb gently over Stiles's cheekbone before tipping his chin upward. "And go on as you began," Derek says, his voice little more than a murmur as he dips his head and meets Stiles for another kiss, one they can both participate in.
Stiles drags in a gasping sort of breath against Derek's mouth, and Derek takes the opportunity to slide his tongue past Stiles's lips, relishing the taste of him. Fingers tangle in the hair at the back of Derek's head and another hand slips underneath his sweater, cool fingers sliding against his waist and then up towards his ribcage. Stiles kisses him eagerly, touching him as though he's he's been waiting for a long time to do just this, and Derek knows he's had feelings for Stiles for much longer than he's been willing to admit to himself, but he hasn't realized until just now how much he's needed this, needed to feel that someone he trusts wants him perhaps just as badly in return, isn't using him as some sort of game or ploy. There's an earnestness in Stiles's every touch, every breath, that Derek's never felt with anyone else.
They eventually break it off, both of them breathing hard with Stiles leaning back against the kitchen counter for support. Derek stands up straight, holding Stiles by the hips, and his smile grows even wider when Stiles throws both arms up over Derek's shoulders, linking his hands together behind Derek's neck and holding on. "You know," Stiles says after a moment, favoring Derek with a smirk that threatens to melt into a real smile. "I'm pretty sure this is the first new year's resolution I won't have a problem sticking with."
Derek just chuckles. Everything feels easy and right in his world, with Stiles here in his arms, smelling like happiness. "I can always help remind you, if you need it."
"Pretty sure I won't need it, but feel free to remind me whenever and however you want." He tilts his head back, smiling softly as they lock eyes. "Happy New Year, Derek."
Derek steals a quick, gentle kiss and holds Stiles a little tighter. "Happy New Year, Stiles."