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If he were to be honest, Stiles had not imagined his New Year’s Eve would to end up like this; when Derek almost timidly offered him to spend the day only the two of them, away from the pack and the familiarity of Beacon Hills, the younger man didn’t really know what to envision, what to expect.
Still, without having any expectation, ending up with no electricity in the middle of unknown woods is not something he would have ever taken in consideration.
“Well, this was the last one, can you see enough?”
Stiles, from where he’s positioned against the banister, turns towards the voice that just spoke up. What he finds waiting for him leaves an affectionate smile on his face, a warm look in his eyes: Derek’s surrounded by the soft light of the candles he just finished lighting up. The suffused light seems to make his sharp features look more soft themselves, and between that and the soft sweater the werewolf is wearing (a birthday gift from his father and Melissa, Stiles remembers with a note of pleasure), Stiles finds it hard to make the association with the angry man he met so many years ago, and this soft, relaxed one that stands by him.
“It looks less like a serial killer’s out to get us, so I’d say it’s perfect,” is what Stiles answers, a small smile dancing on his lips. His voice is light and playful, and has the only purpose of getting the creases on Derek’s forehead to disappear.
“It’d be even more perfect, though, with one little thing more,” he adds after a beat, moving his eyebrows suggestively in what he knows to be too much of an exaggeration to be taken seriously. The whole thing is made even more ridiculous by him being wrapped in what are probably at least six blankets, which he keeps trying to wrap closer to his body even while he’s talking.
He does, however, obtain the desired goal when he hears the light laugh he’s come to love and wish to always hear, when he hears a soft “Idiot” leave the other’s lips before being engulfed in a warm hug, when a soft pair of lips presses against the side of his neck.
Stiles hums happily, content in being held close by the man he loves. The younger man is so focused on the extra warmth, that he almost misses the next words the other says.
“What did you just say?” he asks anyway, as what he understood seems absurd.
Derek keeps silent for a while; then, he repeats what he previously said.
“I am sorry this is how we have to spend the night,” he murmurs; Stiles feels the words as a scraping of lips against his skin – and in any other moment he would find it extremely pleasurable, but, as for now, he’s too busy trying to push his boyfriend away from him in order to look at him with stern eyes.
“Derek Samuel Hale.”
Derek rolls his eyes, but too weakly to be one of his trademark eyeroll. At this, Stiles’ glare softens into something more akin to worried affection, and he takes no time in getting one of his hands free from the covers (and, meanwhile, understanding how to keep both ends in one hand so to stop them from falling on the ground, leaving him without protections against the freezing temperature), only to lay it on the man’s cheek. The instant his palm touches the other’s scruff, Stiles starts to caress the patch of skin over his cheekbone almost subconsciously.
He doesn’t miss the way Derek relaxes into the touch with the same rapidity, and his expression softens some more.
“Derek Hale,” he repeats again, “please explain to me why is it that you think I’d want to be anywhere else, now, and not right here with you.”
“Anywhere else you’d have the lights on, for example, or the freedom to turn on the heating system instead of having to hoard all the covers of the cabin to keep from freezing.”
And, Stiles know the look that he sees passing on Derek’s face, has seen it too many times for his liking – sometimes a quick shadow passing by, mostly a permanent expression that darkens him. It’s the face that he makes when he believes everything bad that happens to him in life is because he deserves it, the face of someone that isn’t even trying to fight it and just accepts his fate. It’s pure resignation, and it breaks Stiles heart every time he sees it.
Stiles waits until he has his forehead almost pressed against the other’s, but far enough to allow him to see Derek’s green eyes; only then he speaks.
“Okay, for once, with all the candles you lighted, I can see all I care about. Also, it’s decidedly more romantic than some boring, artificial lightbulb’s light. Then, I have an important question: are you cold?”
Derek looks at him with a slightly raised eyebrow, but he shakes minutely his head.
“No.”
“Well, then it’s not a problem for either of us, seeing as I happen to be lucky enough to have a living furnace for a boyfriend, and I believe he won’t have anything against sharing a little body-heat with me.”
This time, when he rolls his eyes, Derek has the beginning of a smile on his face. He also finds a path through the layers of blankets and clothes Stiles is wearing, presses his warm hands against Stiles’ chilled skin in what seems a natural answer to the man’s last statement.
Satisfied with the non-verbal answer he receives, Stiles covers the remaining distance between them and leaves a chaste peck on the other man’s lips. Then, he squirms and wriggles until he’s able to turn around, pressing his back against Derek’s chest, laying the back of his neck on the man’s shoulder. He sighs, contented, turns his head in a way that allows him to press a series of kisses against every patch of skin he finds uncovered and finally closes his eyes.
He doesn’t know how long he stays there, his eyes closed in the belief that he’ll enjoy the moment more, but it feels like it could have been whole years or mere minutes when the silence is interrupted by Derek talking.
“We used to stay here, me and Laura. After everything happened.”
His voice is soft, a murmur so low that, even with his head so close to Derek’s mouth, Stiles can barely hear him. Still, he doesn’t say anything in fear of ruining the moment; the Derek he knows now talks more openly than the one he first met, but the fire is still one of the topics he avoids. So, Stiles keeps quiet, lets him know that he’s listening by pressing his nose where he was leaving kisses just some minutes before.
“It’s the place where we used to stay while she was getting used to being the Alpha.”
After that, Derek explains how this small cottage in the woods is still part of the Hale territory, and how he and his sisters, with their parents, used to come here at least once every winter to spend some time only the five of them. A smaller pack inside the big one the multitude of Hale relatives and pack acquaintances composed. For this reason, when they ran from the still fuming ruins of their lives, the two young werewolves didn’t have problems with other packs, had the time to try and get back on their feet enough to be able to move further. It was before New York, before they tried living again. It was a moment of passage, of stillness, of quiet stasis between what their old life had been and what their new one would be.
“We’d stay out here for hours, looking at the stars,” he adds after a while. Stiles can’t help but notice how his tone is of nostalgic fondness while retelling the story, only a hint of the anguish that used to be present in the werewolf at the mere mention of his family. In that moment, with his eyes trained on the endless night sky that seems to grow even bigger with each passing second and so many more stars to shine upon them than he ever remembers seeing, Stiles feels a surge of affection for this man that has been through so much in life, but is still standing. Knowing that Derek is still working on verbally expressing his feelings, and not wanting to ruin the moment, Stiles refrains from voicing any of his thoughts out loud, but presses his body back into the other man’s chest more firmly.
“I always wanted to learn something about astronomy, but whenever I tried to get out at night and memorize the constellations I’d get distracted, end up calling Scotty and doing something else entirely,” the human answers, his eyes still looking up at the stars.
Derek lets out a soft laugh, and Stiles feels it reverberating through his frame from where the chuckles cause the werewolf’s chest to shake.
“Laura, Cora and I used to make up our own constellations, all with their background stories,” he admits, still a smile on his face when Stiles turns his head to look at him.
Stiles can’t do anything but smile up at him right back, lean up to give the umpteenth kiss to the werewolf, this time on the underside of his jaw. Then, the human scuttles away, paying extra attention not to fall down on his face while he leaves the balcony and enters the dimly lighted room.
“Wait right there! Don’t move! I have a plan!”
He doesn’t hear Derek’s answer, but he also doesn’t hear him coming after him, so Stiles launches himself in a flurry of motion (in whatever extent he can reach without having to get rid of his trusted blankets) to locate the couple of things necessary for the realization his plan. His good luck must be looking out for him tonight and, even if his masterplan was ideated no longer than five minutes ago, Stiles manages to find everything he needs for it and stumble on his feet only once.
It takes him a couple of trips to take all the pillows outside, and with the bedroom being in complete darkness he decides to use the couch’s cushions instead of the mattress, but he’s overall satisfied with his handiwork once he’s done. When he turns towards Derek, he can’t help but flush in front of the mixed expression of amusement and fondness that the man sends his way, but he only shrugs his shoulders before clambering into the fortress of pillows and laying down.
“What are you waiting for, loverboy, written invitation?”
Stiles doesn’t need to see him to know that Derek is rolling his eyes at his boyfriend’s antics.
When they’re comfortably bundled up in the covers Stiles so magnanimously decided to share, the human clinging against the werewolf in a way that still allows him to look up at the sky, the younger one points his finger up at the dark mantle covering them and says, “That’s definitely an elephant, and he’s trying to escape from the circus to find his lost family.”
For a beat, Stiles only feels Derek’s intense gaze on the side of his face, no words coming from him; then, after pressing a fleeting kiss to his temple, after squeezing his side with one of his hands, Derek speaks.
“The one next to it is a pixie, it has the same sharp looking wings,” and, after that, they just go on and on and on, making up increasingly more unrealistic stories that have them both laughing before pointing out a new character with a new absurd background.
After, Derek will venture in to fetch the edible things that he brought over with the idea of cooking dinner, and they will have strawberries and champagne and some lukewarm hot chocolate from a small thermos Stiles had in his bag for the road-trip. They will check one of their phones to see the time and, on midnight, they will kiss each other and promise to be there for one another this new year, too.
But, for now, they’re contented with trading unhurried kisses and silly stories under an endless sky that never seemed brighter.