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December 2014
Stiles was looking at Derek as if he had just told a 3-year-old that Santa wasn’t real. Which, well…
“You don’t celebrate Christmas?” Stiles asked incredulously, crossing his arms and looking around at Derek’s woefully undecorated loft. He whipped his head to Derek, narrowing his eyes at him suspiciously. “Am I missing something? You’re not Jewish, are you? Can werewolves even be Jewish?”
Stiles had dropped by on behalf of Scott to invite Derek to the New Year’s Eve party their pack was throwing. Another attempt to make him feel welcomed and included.
Derek appreciated the sentiment, and although he and Scott were on good terms after what went down in La Iglesia, Scott’s pack made Derek feel old. A little envious too, if he was being honest.
Surrounding himself with fresh-faced high schoolers seemed like a good idea back when he was an alpha, and that didn’t turn out so well. Scott ended up doing the same thing, more or less, but he pulled it off. In fact, he did better than pull it off. He got himself a pack, a family. Something which Derek royally fucked up. Twice.
He trusted Scott’s judgment and skills as a leader, but he was just fine with keeping his distance and being available for backup and to offer the occasional sage advice.
Stiles thought otherwise though, which both annoyed and mystified him. He wasn’t pushy about trying to get Derek involved with the pack, but he was definitely stubborn, always coming around again and again to invite Derek to this or that. Derek said no every time. He didn’t understand why Stiles hasn’t given up yet.
Derek huffed in amusement. “I’m not Jewish, Stiles.” Then he gave a noncommittal shrug. “I mean, I used to celebrate it. Didn’t feel like it was worth celebrating after… after the fire. Laura and Cora felt the same way. Now it’s just a habit, I guess.”
“Oh,” Stiles said. “I’m sorry, man.” He quickly looked away and ran his fingers through his hair, thinking of what to say next. “You think you’ll ever change your mind? Put up some stuff?”
Derek shrugged again. “It’s just me in here. Don’t really see much of a point.”
Stiles pursed his lips, giving a slow nod. “Okay, well, I’ll see you around then. Let me know if you change your mind about the party.”
“Sure thing,” Derek responded as Stiles shut the door. Stiles barely heard him as he walked away, already deep in thought and formulating a plan.
January 2015
Derek woke to the incessant buzzing of his phone on his nightstand. He groaned quietly, rolling over to reach it and see who the hell was calling him at - he squinted at his clock - five in the fucking morning.
“Hello?” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
“Heyyyy, Derek,” said Stiles. He was clearly awake. And way too loud. “I know it’s super early and you might hate me right now because I probably woke you up so I’m really sorry about that and -”
“Stiles,” Derek said with exasperation, effectively cutting the other man off. He turned his bedside lamp on and sat up in his bed. “Is something wrong? Is the pack okay?”
“What? No! I mean, yeah, they’re totally fine. That isn’t what I called about. There’s nothing wrong wrong but I’m in a bit of a hurry because I have school in a couple hours and -”
“Oh my God,” sighed Derek, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Stiles. Where are you?”
“Um. Outside your door.”
Derek tilted his ear towards the door to check if Stiles was messing with him but instead heard the steady thump-thump of his heart. Derek sighed again. “Gimme a sec,” he said, then hung up.
When he padded his way over to the door and slid it open, he was met with Stiles holding an armful of groceries.
“Uh,” Stiles began, “It’s my dad’s birthday and I wanted to bake him something. But I want to surprise him and it’s his day off so I can’t do it in the house. And Scott’s oven is broken. So. I thought I could use yours.”
Derek wordlessly let him inside.
“You bake?” he asked as Stiles unloaded the ingredients on the kitchen counter.
“Yeah,” Stiles replied quietly. “My mom used to bake a lot. I always helped her. After she died, it seemed like a good way to remember her by. Kept my hands busy too.”
A couple seconds of silence followed, partly because Derek wasn’t sure how to respond and partly because it was still five in the fucking morning.
“That doesn’t look like cake,” he commented instead.
Stiles chuckled. “It’s a birthday fruit tart. Family recipe. And way more healthy.” He cocked his head slightly, then asked, “Did your mom ever bake stuff?”
The question caught Derek off guard, but he quickly recollected himself and thought back to his childhood. “Um, well, she always baked treats for special occasions and pack meetings. Our family really liked almonds, so she’d bake things like almond bars, almond thumbprint cookies.”
“Sounds delicious,” Stiles said as he retrieved mixing bowls from his bags. “Did you have a favorite?”
“Yeah,” Derek said, smiling softly. “Every Christmas, she’d bake these peppermint chocolate cookies to give to our friends and family. It was your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, but she used Andes peppermint white chocolate instead. All of us kids would always try to steal one while they were cooling on the racks, but she always caught us. Werewolf hearing and all that.”
Stiles snorted out of amusement. “That’s one of the downsides of living with werewolves, huh? Not much room for privacy. Or getting away with stuff.”
“Doesn’t really matter when you’re part of a pack,” Derek stated wistfully. “She always baked extra cookies anyways, so there was plenty to go around.”
Some more silence stretched between them as Stiles began mixing the pastry, but it was comfortable this time. Then Derek realized he was just standing in his own kitchen staring at Stiles doing all the work.
“Um. Do you need any help?”
“Nah, I’m good. I know this recipe like the back of my hand.” He took a break from mixing to look up at Derek. “You should go back to sleep, though. You look like you need it, old man.” He grinned as Derek rolled his eyes at him. “I promise I won’t make too much noise. I just need to let the tart chill in the fridge when it’s done and come by again to pick it up after school.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Derek said begrudgingly as he stifled a yawn. He walked over to the coffee table, coming back with his keys in his hands as he fiddled with the ring. “Just in case I’m not around, you should take my extra key for the door.”
“Oh, thanks, man. I’ll leave it when I come back.”
Derek shook his head, giving a small smile as he held the key out. “No, keep it. Someone in Scott’s pack should have a key anyways. For emergencies. Plus, I’m sick of always getting the door for you.”
“Very funny,” Stiles said dryly as he took the key, looking at it thoughtfully for a moment before pocketing it. “I’ll make sure not to lose it then.”
“You better,” Derek replied as he made his way over to his bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
When he woke a couple hours later, he found eggs and toast waiting for him on the kitchen counter, along with a plate of fruit arranged in a bright, colorful smile.
He smiled back and savored every bite.
April 2015
Derek was sitting in on the monthly pack meeting, helping Scott work out the logistics of delegating patrol duty and showing the betas where the weakest points in their territory were on a huge map spread out on the coffee table in Scott’s living room. He was in the middle of explaining the importance of scouting Beacon Hills’ ley lines when Stiles suddenly shot up out of his seat from the couch across from him.
“Shit! I forgot that my shift starts in five minutes. Sorry guys. You can gimme the deets when I get back, Scotty.” He scrambled to gather his things as he and the pack exchanged goodbyes, running out the door in a flurry of flailing limbs.
Derek turned to Scott, raising a questioning eyebrow as they listened to the distant roar of Stiles’ jeep’s engine. “Stiles has a job? Where?”
Scott, who was completely unfazed by Stiles’ outburst, looked up from the map, mirroring Derek’s expression. “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” His face scrunched up in confusion. “That’s weird. He’s been working at the library for about a couple months already. Said something about doing so much research for supernatural stuff he might as well find a way to get paid for it. Two birds with one stone, you know.”
“Huh,” Derek replied. He knew he and Stiles weren’t exactly best friends, but he felt a little hurt that Stiles wouldn’t mention that he got a job back then, especially since he was the type of person to say whatever’s on their mind. Derek supposed it made sense, though. Stiles was going to college soon and probably wanted to save up some money in the meantime.
Stiles. At college.
Thinking about it made Derek feel a sense of dread. Which was… unexpected. Huh. He promptly shoved the thought away and cleared his throat, wanting to get back to business. “Good for him. He needs something normal in his life.”
“We all do,” Scott agreed solemnly, “So what were you saying about the ley lines?”
July 2015
“Red or green?” Stiles asked, splayed across Derek’s couch as he mindlessly watched some kind of food documentary on Netflix.
Derek stopped in the middle of a pushup he was doing and popped his head up from behind the couch. “What?”
Ever since Derek gave his spare key to Stiles, he’s been stopping by more and more frequently over the months, usually under the pretense of doing homework. Now that it was summer though, it seemed like he just came by whenever he was bored.
Derek didn’t mind the company. He actually enjoyed it. Scott and the pack visited sometimes, but those were mostly matters of convenience to field questions or regroup somewhere safe when dealing with the Monster of the Week.
Except for Stiles. Stiles always visited him. Not because he needed to, but because he wanted to. For the most part, they didn’t even talk that much. He was just there, providing background noise for Derek’s otherwise lonely life. Derek couldn’t help but admit that he found Stiles’ presence comforting.
Stiles continued impatiently, “If you had to choose between red or green, which would it be?”
Derek stood up, resting his hands on his hips as his eyebrows scrunched together. “Why?”
Stiles looked up at him, briefly skirting his eyes over his bare torso, then back towards the screen. “These chefs are talking about how color theory influences plating techniques. Apparently, the color of the plates is a huge factor in which plate a person chooses, even if the food on the plates are exactly the same. They’re having volunteers decide between red and green right now.”
Derek watched on curiously as the majority of the volunteers chose the food on the red plate, saying that it looked more appetizing. He stared at the screen as shades of red swirled in and out of frame. He didn’t see anything appetizing about it. He saw anger. Blood. Alpha eyes. Derek quickly looked away.
“I’d choose green,” he stated, as he settled himself on the floor for another round of pushups.
“Hm, interesting,” Stiles said casually. He discreetly pulled up a note on his phone titled Christmas Stuff and quickly added GREEN to an ever-growing list.
Derek was too lost in the burn of his muscles to suspect anything.
October 2015
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Oh, come on, Derek. I’ve never seen it before, and I heard it’s pretty good,” Stiles whined as the mouse cursor hovered over An American Werewolf in London. “You’ve picked every single movie for movie night so far because you’re the grump who didn’t want it in the first place, so I graciously let you choose.”
Derek knew for a fact that he was never gracious about it. He nearly threw a fit when Derek wanted to watch Bee Movie. Although, to Stiles’ credit, that was a regrettable night filled with way too many bee puns.
Stiles crossed his arms and gave a small pout. “Just let me choose this one time.”
Derek huffed in annoyance. “You’re already surrounded by real werewolves on a daily basis, yet you want to watch a movie about fictional werewolves. With me, a real werewolf. Do you have a death wish?”
Stiles threw up his hands. “What’s the big deal? It’s Halloween weekend, man! It’s appropriately fun and spooky! We can joke about how inaccurate it is.”
He sighed dramatically as he motioned towards the screen. “Look, I know you haven’t seen it too. If we get through the whole thing and you still absolutely hate it, I swear I’ll never insult your taste in movies again.”
Derek pretended to ponder the offer for a moment before giving a solemn nod. “Deal.”
“Yesss,” Stiles said to himself as he fist-pumped.
Derek rolled his eyes fondly as they settled in. If they scooted a little closer together, neither of them acknowledged it.
“Halloween must’ve been fun for your family when you were growing up,” Stiles commented a while later as they watched the main character undergo his first transformation into a werewolf. “You could just pop out your fangs, flash your eyes, and call it a day.”
Derek thought back to last Halloween when he scared a group of trick-or-treaters by doing just that after he gave them some candy. A self-satisfied smirk found its way onto his face.
“It’s fun every now and then,” he said lightly. “It would’ve been weird to ‘dress up’ as werewolves year after year though, plus hunters could track pictures of us if they ever got circulated and they saw that it was legitimate. But what kid wouldn’t want an excuse to dress up?”
“Mm, family costumes and all that?”
Derek gave a small laugh. “For as long as I remember, and even before that too. It was a family tradition.”
Stiles saw an opening in the conversation and carefully glanced sideways at Derek. “You guys have any other traditions for different holidays? My mom always baked the most amazing apple-pumpkin-pecan pie while my dad was in charge of the turkey for Thanksgiving. For Christmas, we have family ornaments all the way from Poland for the tree.”
“We never ate turkey for Thanksgiving actually,” Derek admitted while Stiles gave him a mortified look.
“What?”
“We ate other game animals,” Derek continued, looking more sheepish by the second. “Like rabbits, pheasants, and squirrels. One year we even had elk.”
There was a pause as they watched the werewolf attack some unsuspecting citizens. When Derek turned towards Stiles, he saw that his shoulders were silently shaking with restrained laughter.
“I wanna say so many things about that right now,” Stiles gasped out when he saw that he was caught. “But that has gotta be the greatest inside joke I’ve ever heard of. Great way to get back to your roots.”
Derek threw a handful of popcorn at his head when he couldn’t hold his snickering in anymore.
“So what about Christmas then?” Stiles asked after he managed to calm down. “Your parents tell you that Santa’s sleigh was pulled by wolves or something?”
He got a glare in response, although it lacked any real heat.
“I already told you about my mom’s cookies,” Derek said, neatly sidestepping the last question. “Not much to add to that. We always had a real pine tree for the living room. We had a day for decorating gingerbread houses. A lot of group stuff.”
Stiles hummed in acknowledgment. “Oh, by the way, the pack was wondering if you wanna come to the Halloween party tomorrow night. No pressure.”
Derek felt that familiar craving for belonging, for pack. Instead of the fear and guilt it was usually accompanied by though, it just felt... right.
“Yeah,” he said, surprising Stiles. “Yeah, I think I will.”
A grin slowly stretched across Stiles’ face as he kept his eyes on the screen. “Great. I’ll let them know.”
The movie wasn’t so bad after all.
December 2015
When Derek arrived back home from sparring with Scott and his betas, he saw Stiles’ jeep parked outside, which was nothing new. What was new were the smells drifting down to where he was standing outside his car. His eyes fluttered shut as he took a big whiff, trying to pick the scents apart.
Peppermint. Gingerbread. Pine needles.
What the hell? Derek thought as he quickly made his way up the stairs. When he slid open the door, he was nearly overwhelmed by the sight.
His eyes caught on the glow of the curtain lights strung from the ceiling, the tall pine tree standing next to the dining table, the plain gingerbread houses sitting on the kitchen counter, and then Stiles, who was struggling to untangle a mass of dark green ribbon over the coffee table which held an assortment of mostly green ornaments, wreaths, candles, and God knows what else.
Stiles whipped his head towards Derek at the sound of the door, his eyes wide with alarm.
“Oh, fuck,” he said, “Shit. Uh,” he looked around the loft, at loss for what to do, then remembered the ribbon he was holding and placed it on the table. He turned to face Derek with a forced smile, placing a hand awkwardly on his hip and giving a small wave.
“Heyyyy, Derek, what’s up? Fancy seeing you here.” He nervously scratched his head. “I, uh, thought you wouldn’t be back for at least another two hours. You know. Instead of now. Which is great! Because you live here! But, like. Yeah.”
Derek blinked, his body still frozen in the doorway. “We ended early,” he said matter-of-factly, attempting to piece the scene together. “The betas still need to work on their defensive strategy and building up their stamina, so they didn’t last as long as Scott and I thought.”
“Goddammit, Scott,” he heard Stiles mutter under his breath, “Can’t trust in werewolf powers just to buy some time and then -”
“Stiles,” Derek said, interrupting his verbal thoughts, “Can you please tell me what all this is?”
“A surprise,” Stiles blurted out, then he looked around the loft sheepishly, “Well, it was supposed to be. A bit late for that now, huh?”
“Okay,” Derek said slowly as he finally stepped inside and slid the door behind him, “I get that. But why?”
Stiles picked up the ribbon and began fiddling with it again, deftly avoiding Derek’s questioning gaze. Derek just stood there watching him until he was ready to speak.
Stiles sighed. “I’m not really sure, okay? Like, I really love Christmas and it kinda bummed me out when you told me that you didn’t celebrate it anymore. So I guess I thought it’d be a good idea to bring the Christmas spirit to you. Or something like that.”
Derek was trying to remember when he told Stiles he didn’t celebrate Christmas. When he did, a puzzled frown crossed his face. “Stiles, that was almost a year ago. How did you…?” He took stock of what he smelled again and what he was seeing.
Peppermint. Gingerbread. A freshly cut pine tree. Green decor. He thought back to their conversations the past year, when Stiles got his job, and everything started clicking into place.
“You’ve been planning this the whole time since then,” Derek concluded. He took a few measured steps to where Stiles was standing and saw that a flush had painted his cheeks. “Why?”
“I, uh, well,” Stiles began stammering, still fighting with the ribbon before dropping it with a huff of frustration. He kept his eyes on the floor as he turned his body towards Derek and crossed his arms defensively, shuffling his feet a little.
“I don’t know. I… I kept thinking that it sucks for you to be alone during the holidays and how you should be spending it with loved ones, so I thought I’d… I thought I’d do this because I… love… you…?”
Stiles’ eyes widened in horror at his unexpected confession. He quickly covered his mouth with one of his hands and turned his back towards Derek, who heard his muffled voice saying with panic, “Oh my God, is that what’s been happening this whole time? I’ve been in love with him? What the fuck, Stiles?”
Derek supposed he should have been shocked. Instead, his life made a lot more sense. Stiles never gave up on him and always came back. It was because of him that he was part of a pack again.
They were so comfortable around each other, their conversations natural and honest, full of ease and light teasing. He felt a blooming warmth in his chest, filled with happiness and relief.
He loudly cleared his throat to catch Stiles’ attention, who turned towards him still in distress.
“Look, Derek, I didn’t mean for that to come out. Even I didn’t know that was gonna happen, and like, I can’t say it’s not true because it is so if you don’t, um, feel that way I totally get it and we can -”
“Stiles,” Derek said, putting his hands up in placation. There was a soft smile playing on his lips. “It’s okay. I, uh… I… love you too.”
Stiles’ face went blank. “Oh.”
They stood there staring at each other for a long moment, trying to process what just happened.
“You know,” Stiles said, finally breaking the silence and taking a step closer. He was looking at Derek again, his eyes bright and a wry smile on his face, “this has gotta be the most anti-climactic declaration of love that I’ve ever been part of. On both ends.”
Derek also moved forward. “That makes two of us.”
They slowly continued walking towards each other until they were only a hand’s width apart, never breaking eye contact the entire time.
“I’m pretty sure this is the part where we’re supposed to kiss now,” Stiles murmured when they came to a stop, resting a warm hand on the back of Derek’s neck.
“Sounds right to me,” Derek said in a low voice as he cupped Stiles’ cheek.
They began leaning in, their lips softly meeting halfway. The kiss was slow and languid, sweet and blissful, like a savored reunion rather than an explosive revelation.
Derek had never felt more at peace as he breathed in Stiles’ scent, as they explored each other’s mouths.
The ding of the oven timer interrupted them. They broke apart grinning, resting their foreheads against each other.
“The peppermint cookies are done,” Stiles whispered, “I should probably get that.”
Derek nodded as he slid out of their embrace, following him to the kitchen. He leaned against the counter, his eyes shifting from Stiles, to the gingerbread houses in front of him, and to the heap of decorations waiting in the living room.
“We should invite the pack over,” Derek decided. “They can help out with decorating. And I don’t think we’ll be able to eat all those cookies by ourselves.”
Stiles looked up from where he was sliding cookies onto a cooling rack and gave Derek a lopsided smile. “That sounds like a great idea. You can go ahead and give Scott a call while I finish up here.”
Derek came around the counter to where Stiles was, tilting his head up to give him another kiss.
“Thank you,” Derek said softly against his lips, “for everything.”
“Thank you,” Stiles replied, his eyes full of joy and satisfaction, “for letting me give it to you.”
FIN