Work Text:
A lot has changed in Beacon County in the last nine years.
It's only six thirty, but it's already dark when Stiles drives into town on December 23rd.
There are new housing developments, more stores and businesses, but the foundations of the town are still there.
(The Nemeton still calls.)
Stiles feels the bone deep ache of missing pack ease as he gets closer to home, deep in McCall pack territory.
The porch light is on. John is standing in the doorway, backlit by the glow of the hall light. Stiles is on the porch with his arms around John before he realizes he parked.
"Welcome home, kid," John says, gripping Stiles tightly. "Glad to have you back."
"Glad to be back," Stiles says, and it's only partially a lie. "I missed you."
That part is very true.
"I missed you too, kid," John says. "Come on, let's get inside. Melissa is waiting to see you."
Melissa hugs Stiles as soon as he steps into the kitchen, dropping her spoon to reach him faster.
"It's so good to see you," she says with a squeeze. "FaceTime doesn't cut it when I miss my boy."
"It's good to see you too." Stiles rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Are Scott and Allison...?"
"On their way. They move a little slower these days." Melissa goes back to the pot of chili on the stove. "Go put your stuff in your room. They should be here by the time you're back downstairs."
Stiles heads upstairs, past the wall of photos from a combined Stilinski-McCall life together. His room is just as weirdly empty as it was when he left, a few remaining mementos and the same old plaid bedspread the only real proof it was his.
He shouldn't be sad about it. He's the one who stripped the room of personality.
(It's still sad.)
When Stiles finally talks himself into going downstairs, Scott and Allison are walking in the door.
"Stiles!" They exclaim together.
Scott's hug is tight enough to crack Stiles' back like a glowstick. Allison's is gentler, both due to her humanity and her condition.
"Oh my God, I knew you were pregnant, but this is insane." Stiles holds onto her shoulders to look at her. "You look good, Allie."
Allison smiles, still dark around the edges in the way none of the sacrifices have managed to shake.
"Thanks. You do too." Her eyes go unfocused for a moment. "She's kicking. I think you'll be able to feel, if you want?"
So Stiles finds himself with his hand between Allison's tank top and sweater, feeling his niece kick his hand.
"Hey there, pup, it's nice to meet you." He keeps his volume moderate, in case the kid already has werewolf hearing.
(The research they've done says it's fifty-fifty. Stiles just wants to be careful.)
Allison squeezes his wrist, and Scott's eyes are misty over her shoulder.
"Dinner is ready," John announces, launching everyone into a bustle of motion to get settled at the table.
Dinner is happy and warm and delicious, and Stiles sinks into the conversation like slipping into a warm bath.
But things keep popping up.
Talking about the future. The pack. The town. The baby.
"...and if you can't come out when she's born, I understand," Allison says. "I know leaving your job is hard. Coming back is hard."
"I'll... I don't know." Stiles shoves a piece of chicken into his mouth before he over-explains.
Allison being high risk is 80% of the reason he came back this Christmas.
"We'll figure it out," Scott says. "We always do."
Stiles inhales the last few bites as Melissa skillfully pivots the conversation away from the future.
"I'm going for a drive," Stiles says, desperate for space and fresh air and something besides the syrupy-thick feeling of home wrapped up in guilt. "I'll text."
"Don't do anything illegal," John jokes.
"No promises," Stiles responds as he pulls his coat on, mostly joking.
The rental car is a bland black SUV, but Stiles is content as long as it gets him away from dinner.
He drives around for a while, going from old haunt to old haunt looking at the ways that the town has changed in the almost decade since he's been home.
Stiles ends up parked in an abandoned lot that used to be a gas station between the high school and the tiny Methodist church that he doesn't remember ever being in use. As much as the town has grown, most of its inhabitants are home with family and not out wandering the countryside on this chilly December evening.
It's been a long time since Stiles enjoyed the holidays.
Hypervigilance he's never quite gotten rid of alerts him to the fact that there is a dark figure lingering in the tree line. Stiles turns on his headlights to see the familiar glow of werewolf eyes reflecting light.
Stiles rolls down his window.
"I see you." He doesn't bother shouting. Derek can hear him.
Derek doesn't move. Stiles sighs.
"You going to come talk? Or are you just lurking again?"
Derek crosses the space between them between blinks.
"It's been ten years," he says gruffly, and Stiles wants to trace the gray in his beard with his fingertips.
"Nine. It's been nine years. Summer of 2013, remember?"
"Nine and a half," Derek counters, slightly more relaxed. "You're back."
"It's cold." Stiles unlocks the car doors. "Get in."
Derek gets in. Stiles pulls out of the lot before either of them second guesses anything.
"Melissa says you're a nurse now?" Stiles says after a long, not-uncomfortable but not-comfortable silence.
"I finished nursing school a few years ago," Derek says. "I had to finish undergrad first. I'm in the emergency department with her."
"I forgot you never got to finish your degree," Stiles says, and it's only a little bit of a lie. "You like it?"
"I get to help people." Derek smiles, a soft little thing Stiles only barely catches. "Kayla says I have the best bedside manner in the ward. Being able to take people's pain helps."
Stiles doesn't ask who Kayla is.
It’s a near thing.
"I'm glad that you found something fulfilling," Stiles says. "You deserve that, after everything. And God only knows that Beacon Hills Memorial can't hold down nurses for shit."
"Retention has been better recently," Derek says. This smile is sharper, almost pained. "Scott has really grown the pack and strengthened the wards. We don't have quite as many casualties."
"I'm glad he's been doing well. I know it was touch and go there for a while after we left."
Stiles has had plenty of panicked FaceTime calls in the intervening decade to prove that much. He isn't sure if Scott talks about him with the pack.
(He isn't sure if he wants to know.)
"Things have settled down quite a bit recently. Not completely, of course, but it's starting to feel more like the old days under my mom."
There has never been higher praise for an alpha. Stiles is proud of Scott.
(He's always proud of Scott, but that isn't the point.)
Stiles lets the car go silent for a while, trees slipping past the windows as he heads north.
(Even now, the nemeton calls to him. He can't help but listen for at least a little while.)
"You seem healthy," Derek says, apropos of nothing. "You look good."
Stiles does his best not to cling to the phrase like the idiotic nineteen year old he was when he left Beacon Hills.
"My job has a good EAP and gym program," Stiles says blandly. "Lydia makes me eat vegetables."
The atmosphere grows prickly.
"You and Lydia..."
"Best friends," Stiles says. "Platonic soul mates. She's very happy with her girlfriend, believe me."
Tension melts out of Derek's frame. Stiles takes note but does not make a comment.
(It's a learned skill. He's still working on it.)
The rest of the ride to the preserve is quiet.
It's been a long time since Stiles has been this comfortable in the quiet, and he absolutely is not going to examine that
"It's cold. You sure you want to do this?" Derek asks when Stiles parks.
(Derek doesn't ask what Stiles is doing. Even after this long, he doesn't have to. Stiles appreciates it.)
"I think I need to." Stiles gets out of the car and doesn't wait for Derek to follow.
The pull is tougher to resist this close to the tree. Stiles isn't afraid, not anymore. He feels Derek's werewolf warmth close behind him.
The massive stump of the nemeton was ground up into mulch before Stiles left, but the new growth of nemeton 2.0 looks much older than ten years old.
"Apparently magical sacrifice is a hell of a fertilizer," Stiles says ruefully.
(The darkness is gone, but the connection won't ever be severed. He doesn't know if he'd want it to.)
Stiles puts his hands on the trunk and breathes deeply. Leaning in, the bark scratches his forehead even as it soothes his nerves.
"Strong pack means strong connections," Derek explains softly.
"I can feel them like this." It's faint, but he can feel the spiderweb of pack relationships spread across the territory.
(Stiles could sink into the magic, acknowledge the spark at his core, but he's afraid the darkness would engulf him again.)
This is enough, for now at least.
Stiles zones out until Derek places a hand on his arm (warm warm so warm).
"Stiles, it's cold, and we've been out here a while. We should get back to the car."
"We just got here," Stiles protests. He follows Derek back out of the woods anyway.
"Come back to my place," Derek says once the car doors are closed. "I know you're staying with your dad, but... you don't have to hang out in your car to get space."
It feels so insanely familiar.
"Sure. Address?" Stiles asks like he doesn't have the location of Derek's little bungalow memorized.
Derek gives it, and god, Stiles missed his smile.
The highway is mostly empty as they head back into town. The light at Fulton and Main turns red right as they pull up, and Stiles takes the moment to breathe.
He looks over at Derek, illuminated by yellow streetlights and red traffic lights and the soft blue of the dash.
The last time he and Derek were in a car together, things were both the same and so inconceivably different.
The memory hits like a train.
...
"It's my last night," Stiles says, looking out at the glow of the town. "I fly out in the morning."
"I know."
Stiles looks over at Derek and finds him looking back. Stiles' arm is hooked over the back of the passenger seat, and he can't help but slide it down to Derek's shoulders.
"It's going to be a while before I come back," Stiles says, leaning in like it will soften the blow.
"I know." Derek's eyes flick down to Stiles' lips, and Stiles /wants/ so much.
"I'm going to miss this. Miss you," Stiles says, finally sinking his fingers into Derek's hair.
(Soft cozy warm home)
Neither of them move.
Neither of them breathe.
Stiles isn't sure who closes the gap first, but he's the one who dodges at the last second.
"I'm leaving in the morning," he whispers, desperate for any other option. "I have to go."
"I know," Derek whispers back, breath fanning over Stiles' ear.
...
"Green. Stiles, it's green."
Stiles startles out of the memory.
"Shit, thank you, I zoned out."
He manages to keep his head in the game long enough to get to Derek's house.
"You changed the color," he says to have something to say.
"I like it better in blue," Derek says after a long moment of hesitation.
"Blue is a pretty color."
Derek gets out of the car and comes around to open Stiles' door, even though Stiles is the one driving.
"Come inside."
Stiles follows. (He'd follow Derek anywhere, if he'd just ask.)
(He's never asked.)
Not much has changed. Some updated furniture, nicer appliances, but it's still the same house. Stiles was there when Derek picked it out.
"Here, let me -"
Stiles hand Derek his coat without a second thought, like memory, like habit.
(Like home.)
Derek takes Stiles' coat with one hand and catches his wrist with the other. He hangs Stiles' coat but doesn't move away from him.
"Why are you-"
Derek pulls Stiles close, and neither is sure who closes the gap. Stiles kisses back for one moment, two, before he remembers himself.
"I can't." Stiles pulls back, just far enough to breathe, foreheads touching.
Sharing air.
"Why not?" Derek asks, blunt as always.
Stiles scrabbles for the myriad reasons he's come up with over the years, trying to find the words. Finally, finally, they come to him.
"Why didn't you ask me to stay?" Stiles demands, nine years of frustration bubbling over.
Derek leans back just enough to make eye contact. "Why didn't you ask me to go?"
Stiles' brain stutters over the idea. He didn't even consider it as an option.
"I guess... I guess we can call it even, then," Stiles finally says. "No one asked."
"If we're calling it even, then…"
Stiles grabs Derek's lapels and pulls him in for a kiss, deeper this time.
Fuck it.
He'll face the consequences in the morning.
They make their way through the tiny hallway to Derek's bedroom, shedding outerwear in the process. Stiles feels his legs hit the bed as he reaches for Derek's hem.
"Can I?"
(He has to have permission, can't be yet another person seeing Derek as just a body to play with, can't be, won't be.)
"Yeah." Derek leans back so Stiles can strip the shirt and undershirt over his head. "Can I?"
Stiles only hesitates because his brain is swamped with the reality of a shirtless Derek.
Derek is softer now. Not in a bad way, in a healthy, well-fed way. He has chest hair, salt and pepper curls scattered across his chest.
(He looks like he could crack a walnut between his tits, but now is so not the time to consider that.)
"Yeah. Yeah, of course."
Once Derek gets Stiles' shirt off, they tumble into bed in just their underwear, landing in soft, warm blankets and a heap of limbs and kisses and grabbing hands.
Stiles melts into it, until something unpleasantly hard pokes his shoulder.
"Ow, fuck, what is that?"
"Shit, sorry." Derek fishes a book out of the covers beneath Stile's back. "I wasn't expecting company."
It's a book, a hardcover edition of some classic Stiles doesn't have the mental capacity to recognize.
"Of course it's a book, you nerd," Stiles says with an easy laugh. He pulls Derek back down into the kiss.
Then, because he's Stiles, he says, "No company? Not even Kayla?"
Derek rolls his eyes and kisses him to shut him up.
"She's a coworker, and you aren't subtle. There's no one other than the pack in my life right now, and certainly no one in my bed. Can we fuck now, please?"
"If it's okay with you, it's okay with me," Stiles says, the last tension melting out of his spine.
"Good." Derek kisses down his neck, smirking against Stiles' skin when he shivers. "Very good."
...
Stiles wakes slowly, the weak winter sun finally piercing the deepest sleep he's had in years. Derek is sprawled on top of him, warm and soft and home.
Stiles allows himself to enjoy the moment while it lasts.
Derek mumbles in his sleep, eyebrows furrowed. Stiles kisses his brow, smiling when the worry eases.
(You have to leave soon. You can't keep this.)
Stiles will pretend while he can.
And a few days later, when he has to go back to the airport and pretend he isn't leaving his heart with Derek, his smile will be plastic, brittle around the edges.
"I'll be fine. I've got work."
Derek knows it's fake.
Derek always knows.
…
Two weeks into January, three weeks since Stiles left Beacon Hills and the road not taken, someone knocks on Stiles' door.
"It's unlocked," he calls out, assuming it's Lydia.
The door swings open.
"You didn't even ask who it was," a familiar, warm, perfect voice says, flooding Stiles' system.
Stiles whirls to face the doorway. Sure enough, Derek Hale is standing in the doorway, duffel bag on his shoulder and suitcase in hand.
"Why are you here?"
"I got a job in town," Derek says. "Could I stay for a while? I haven't gotten approved for an apar-"
Stiles kisses him before Derek can finish the sentence.
"Stay with me," Stiles finally manages to say. "Forever, if you're up for it."
"I think I can do forever.”