Chapter Text
Stiles was desperate. He had been walking around town for the last three hours looking for his dog, who had run from him when he picked up some kind of smell in the air.
For Hell's sake! Even his dog was getting laid more than him. Or at least it was what he hoped, because thinking that his dog run away just because he was tired of him... No! He was not thinking about that. He couldn't lose anyone else, not even his dog.
Stiles was getting ready to call the k9 unit to search for his lost dog when his phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Stiles?"
"Oh! Hi, dad!" he frowned "Huh... not that I don't appreciate your call, but... why are you calling?"
"Jeez kiddo, I do feel loved right now."
"Dad, you know that is not what I meant. I meant... I don't know what I meant. I'm tired. I'm freezing. I'm hungry and now I feel a headache coming. I can't go home before I find Spark, so... I'm sorry, but why are you calling? And more important why are you not calling from your phone or from the station? What happened? Where are you?" Stiles was starting to panic, "Are you okay? Are you safe?"
"Stiles! Stiles, calm down." his father asked from the other side of the line, "Breathe for me, son." and, as usual, Stiles did. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yes." he croaked "Yeah... I'm here. I'm fine." Or at least he was getting there.
"Okay... So, Jordan called. He said he saw you with your pups James and Spark - his words not mine - in the park earlier and then he saw you again an hour ago and you were alone and you looked like a crazy person. So I went out and I was looking for you and then I found someone petting Sparky and you were *cough* not in the neighborhood. Then I realized that I had left my phone at the station. Well, never mind, I'll tell you my adventure later. Right now all you need to know is that I'm in front of your favorite coffee-shop and I think you should get here as fast as you can, but, please for God's sake, be careful and believe me when I say, everything IS okay." His father hung up on him, and he felt like a deer caught in the lights of a freaking speeding car.
Stiles ran. He ran as fast as he was capable of, luckily his favorite coffee-shop was only four blocks away from where he was. He was panting like a race horse after the said horse had run two laps at full speed one after the other, yeah… It was not pretty, when he stopped in front of his dad.
“You had to run, huh? What part of everything IS okay, didn’t you get?”
“You said... You said to get here… here as fast as I could” he panted while folding on himself with his hands on his knees trying to get his heart to calm down. Again… not pretty.
He unfolded himself and looked at his father who looked a lil bit pissed, but Stiles could also see amusement in his eyes alongside with… relief? No… Stiles’ brain wasn’t getting enough air, so he was imagining things. Someone stepped beside them and… yeah, not enough air.
“Stiles” it was whispered like a prayer. And then he fainted.
****
Derek barely had the time to look him in the eyes, before Stiles looked at him like he was seeing a ghost, and who could blame him? Not Derek, that was for sure. Despite all of that, in that fraction of a fraction of a second, Derek regretted all his decisions regarding that man, his mate, his Stiles. He grabbed him before he could reach the floor. Safe, he was safe.
****
Stiles woke up in his childhood bed. Was all of that a dream? Was he free? He left the bed and walked towards his in suite bathroom to splash some water in his face on the way back he stepped on some lost piece of lego.
“Freaking lego! This should only be sold as a torture device.” He limped to the bed “Well, at least now I know this was not a dream and I’m not still possessed.” he muttered to himself. “But… Derek. That must have been a dream.” He dismissed. When he was getting ready to leave his room, his dad knocked on the door.
“Hi, kiddo. Do you feel better?”
“Yeah. I feel tired though.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Take the day off tomorrow and that is an order” Stiles chuckled.
“Sir, yes sir.”
“Dismissed, detective. Now, as your father. I’ve someone here to see you, but before that, I want you to hear and answer him with your brain AND your heart. Can you promise me that?” Stiles not knowing what to answer only nodded. “Okay. I’ll let him in.”
Stiles didn’t need to wait long, before Derek walked in. Stiles felt… weirdly funny. His heart was doing Olympic somersaults in his ribcage and besides all of his knowledge and incessant talking he was speechless and didn’t even know what to say.
“Hi.” Apparently Derek felt almost the same. Wait. No, Derek didn’t know how to talk with people, but Stiles never fit in that category to him, so… yeah. Derek could talk, oooh… and how he used to talk. Jeez he should stop thinking about the past like, right now.
“It wasn’t a dream.”
“No, it was not. Before you come back online and start talking nonstop, let me… let me talk.” This is news to him, Derek wanted to talk first.
“Okay, sure. You can start.”
“First of all I am truly sorry. I left you and I totally understand if you’re not able to forgive me, God knows I can’t forgive myself, but I’m sorry. I know that for a while now and only now I could man up and come clear about my feelings about everything. I was in therapy and that helped me a lot. For the past year I was making amends in London with Jackson, Isaac and Cora. And… You are the only one missing now. Cora asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year and I couldn’t think about anything material to ask, I only wanted to apologize to you and I told her that so she bought me a plane ticket I told me to leave, she made me see that I was free from the ghosts of my past, but I had to take care of my ‘ghost’ from the present… you. So, here I am. I’m apologizing to you. I hope you can forgive me someday and that we can be friends again. You are so important to me and I was so blind. I’m sorry, Stiles. I’m sorry.”
“Dad?” Stiles was crying silently when his son, their son, walked in.
“James, came here. I want to introduce you to someone.” He looked at Derek while his son walked towards him, Derek looked like he had seen a real ghost, he was so pale that Stiles was afraid that he would be the one fainting now. “Derek, please, take a seat before you faint and break something.” He hugged his son, seeing Derek take a seat right there in the middle of the room. “James, this is…”
“My other dad.” And… yeah, if Derek wasn’t already sitting he would have fainted.
“How?” he whispered.
“I am a powerful spark and you are a born werewolf and apparently, like that wasn’t enough, we’re mates, true mates. And faith wanted us to be linked forever, so… Derek meet your son Deejay or like I call him, James. James, go say hi to your father.” His child walked towards Derek while Stiles felt his heart melt and take a new form, a family shaped form. “It’s Christmas eve, it’s your birthday. I forgive you, but we are going to work some stuff out.”
“Okay, sure. Anything.” Derek said clinging to his son like his life depended on that.
“Happy birthday, Derek.”
“Merry Christmas, Stiles. And… thank you.”
Stiles smiled. His son was in his father’s arms for the first time and today, right now… it was all that mattered to him.
“You are so welcome.”