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Stiles should be happy.
He should be happy, he should be fucking delighted—there’s a bottle of champange being uncorked, hands being shaken, a too-hearty clap on his back that jolts him forward and causes him to stumble slightly. But the space in his chest that usually burns with the high of a closed deal is hollow, empty, and the twinkling gold Christmas lights one of the secretaries had hung in the office mock him, a depressing reminder that he’s about to be alone for the holidays.
It feels like I don’t know you anymore, was the last thing Derek had muttered to him, standing in the threshold of what had been their apartment, backpack slung over one shoulder and duffle bag strap clenched in his fist. I can’t do this.
He manages to stick it out for half an hour, then makes his escape when the talk turns to the holiday plans that he doesn’t have because his boyfriend broke up with him when Stiles had let it slip that he wasn’t planning on joining him at his family’s because his promotion hinged on the pitch he’d been working on and he figured he’d need a few weeks to get the deal done. And he would have been fine, if it had. That would have been ideal, actually—Stiles could have buried himself in research and crafting the perfect pitch, ignored the ache in his chest where the absence of Derek lived, and worked his ass off. So it figures that he’d opened his mouth and blurted out the first thing that came to mind during their initial meeting, spent ten minutes roughly sketching out what the ad campaign would look like, and that had been that. According to his boss’ near-hysterical whispered congratulations, Stiles is the first junior associate in company history that had sold a multi-million dollar deal before the coffee was even brought into the meeting room, and therefore the first to wish he could take it all back.
The walk back to their—to his—apartment is cold; the apartment somehow colder, weak afternoon light filtering through the small windows and keeping the pile of flattened boxes shadowed. He pours a finger of whiskey into a drinking glass, sets it on the counter and takes the bottle with him, slouching down on the sofa and staring at his reflection in the black screen of the television as he tips the bottle up and lets the alcohol pour into his mouth.
Derek would hate it. It’s the expensive kind, the bottle they splurged on when Derek was finished teaching his last class in the sweltering beginnings of summer and was looking forward to a long year of thesis writing without other commitments weighing on him, the type that you’re supposed to let breathe before you drink it and clear your palette with water in between every sip. They’d shared a small glass that night, Derek’s head tipped back onto Stiles’ legs from his position on the floor, hair soft against his fingers. Stiles had poured them a glass of fancy distilled water to accompany it, spoke in a snooty French accent for the entirety of the glass, and Derek had laughed until his shoulders shook and he’d snorted what Stiles had determined was six dollars worth of whiskey up his nose.
He tips the bottle back again and lets the burn of it gag him, the bitter taste coating his tongue. His hand drifts towards the remote, fingers stroking over the buttons, but five seconds of a commercial is enough to make him feel worse than before, the false laughter of strangers pushing against his chest, making him feel unsettled. So he sits in the fading light and drinks until the shelves on either side of the television become a little blurry and the weight eases from his chest, until the occasional shouts coming from the apartment next door are a comfort rather than an annoyance, until the ringing of his phone for the sixth time doesn’t send an edge of panic through his throat.
He squints at the display until the first letter swims into view and slides his thumb across the screen three times before he manages to answer it. “I’m not coming to your party, Lydia,” he says, trying to blink the world back into focus. “You can’t make me.”
But it’s not Lydia’s voice that comes from the other end; it’s Laura’s familiar sigh. “Well, you sound like you’re a mess.”
He doesn’t say a word. Hanging up on her isn’t something he wants to do, but it never occurred to him that any of Derek’s family members would call him. Derek himself hasn’t sent so much as a text—he’d left that to Boyd, who’d called Stiles two weeks ago and let him know he’d be by to pick up Derek’s things in the new year—so he doesn’t see why Laura saw fit to get ahold of him. But Laura seems content to let the silence linger and he’s too far gone on alcohol that’s barely tolerable to wait it out, so he takes one more sip and leans forward, a wave of dizziness cresting over him as he fumbles to set the bottle upright on the coffee table.
“Drinking’s practically mandatory when you’re alone on Christmas,” he says—or tries to say; it takes him a couple attempts to spit it out, but he thinks she gets it.
“It’s barely Christmas Eve in New York,” she says, which he’s a little surprised to hear considering it means he’s been sitting on the couch for several hours without realizing it. “And you’re alone because you broke my brother’s heart, so maybe you could fix that.”
“Doesn’t want anything to do with me,” he mutters, letting himself fall backwards against the oversized pillows Derek liked to prop up when they would stay awake late watching movies. “He left. Not me. I was gonna propose.”
Laura is suspiciously quiet. “That—that is not what I heard,” she says after what feels like a long few minutes. “I know he left, of course, but Derek seemed to be under the impression that you were growing tired of him.”
It’s almost too much to focus on; the alcohol has been getting to him for awhile, and he can’t hold onto consciousness much longer. “Was gonna be a surprise,” he says, words broken up by a yawn. “Just needed everything to be perfect. Just had to get the promotion, an’ find a better apartment, an’ then I could ask him. Was gonna get everything he wanted.” It’s an explanation that will have to do; he doesn’t have the energy to explain the feeling that would eat away at his stomach when he’d catch Derek browsing real estate listings for places they couldn’t afford, or bookmarking restaurants and experiences that were beyond their means. So he’d spent a few months—maybe closer to half a year at this point—working himself harder and harder, throwing everything he had into doing his own market research for the brands that he’d been offered, and the payoff had come just a little too late, because it’s all meaningless now.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Laura sighs, and the last thing he hears her say before he passes out is, “the only thing he ever needed was you.”
It’s still dark when he wakes, head pounding, goosebumps over his bare forearms thanks to the bitter cold. There’s frost on the window of his sixth floor walk-up and he swears he can see his own breath, which means the heat is out again. In his early morning confusion he reaches for warmth, hand flung out in search of a body that’s not there, and rolls straight off the couch and onto the unforgiving floor. The only thing he can manage is a groan as he presses his forehead to the scratched and dented wood, the conversation with Laura flooding back into his head. He reaches up and gropes for his phone, finding it wedged in between the couch cushions; there’s a missed call and a slew of texts littering his screen, all from Laura. The newest only shows a small photo and, knowing he’ll look at them eventually and it won’t hurt any less, he taps on it once to pull it up.
It’s a collage, he realizes after a moment. Six tiny photos of them arranged into one, a snapshot of each Christmas he and Derek had spent together, including the day they met—both of them on the ground, Stiles laughing and Derek glowering, the two trays that Stiles had been using to sled down the hill outside his dorm off to the side. There’s Derek wearing the paper crown for his birthday for the second, Stiles wrapped up in strong arms under the mistletoe for the third, Derek leaning against the wall of their first apartment together for the fourth, hungover on cheap champagne. The fifth photo is the selfie that Stiles had taken of them in front of the tree, and they’re leaning against the rail of the Rockefeller Center ice rink in the sixth, his arm around Derek’s waist, and as he stares at it he realizes he can no longer feel the weight of Derek’s arm around his shoulder.
It should be their seventh Christmas together, he thinks, staring at the picture until his eyes burn from the glare of it in the dark room. He should be sleeping off his sugar crash from Derek’s cookie baking spree, cuddled together in bed, the glow of the multi-colored lights from the tree in the corner of their studio apartment dancing over Derek’s skin when he finally cracks his eyes open. He should be plotting how to sneak out and pick up a box of cake mix and frosting so they could have cupcakes on Derek’s birthday, looking forward to eating them fresh out of the oven, the frosting melting over the top, as soon as Derek is home from his run. There should be decorations up, tinsel taped to the edges of the counters so that Derek sighed every time he had to lift it to open and close the drawers, stockings thumbtacked to the wall over the picture of a fireplace he’d drawn one year in college, the tacky wreaths made of ornaments he’d gotten for a dime each at the end of January and superglued together in a circle hung up around the doorway.
He has nothing. He’d put off decorating after Thanksgiving thanks to several meetings that stretched into the night, and then Derek had walked out the door on December 6th and Stiles couldn’t see a point to celebrating anything, not when everything felt so bleak, when he’d work himself up to blaming Derek despite knowing it was his fault all along. He’d been so wrapped up in his own hurt that he hadn’t stopped to consider Derek at all, and the shame of that lodges in his throat and makes it difficult to swallow back the sudden tears that sting the corners of his eyes.
It hits him then as he’s laying on the floor, bones aching from spending the night on the lumpy couch—the terrifying, suffocating feeling that this is what the rest of his Christmases will be like, and that he could do something about that. Because Laura had said he could fix it and if there’s anyone who knows Derek, if there’s anyone that Stiles could trust to know Derek’s heart, it’s his twin sister.
He scrambles up; a mistake, given the way his stomach heaves, and flips on the lamp before pulling his backpack out of the small coat closet. He takes out the gifts he’d kept hidden for Derek in there and sets them on the bed, then starts filling it with whatever is clean in his drawers as he scrolls through available flights on his phone, trying not to wince at the cost. He books one of the last available seats on a flight that leaves in three hours, entering his credit card number with trembling fingers, and prays he can make it on time.
There are three people ahead of him at the counter and with each one that leaves, Stiles’ heart sinks lower in his chest. He’d made it to JFK—barely making it through security on time, but had boarded his flight with his hair still wet from his two minute shower, stomach rumbling and feeling slightly queasy from the lack of food and night of drinking. But the touchdown in Indianapolis from his layover was bumpy, and he’d gotten off the cramped plane to hear that the next leg of his journey had been canceled.
Judging from the yelling and the snow falling rapidly outside, he doesn’t have very high hopes of getting out of there any time soon. He balls his hands into fists and flexes them repeatedly, until the disgruntled man in front of him stomps away with a boarding pass to a flight that leaves in ten hours, and fixes the girl at the counter—Allison, according to her badge—with a hopeful look. “I’m trying to get to San Francisco,” he says, handing over his pass. “But Oakland would work. Or anything in Northern California, really. Sacramento, or some of the smaller regional airports—”
“It’s more an issue of getting out of here, sir,” she says, looking like she’s ready for him to start yelling. “All flights are grounded right now so you’re looking at a wait of at least four hours, and I can get you on one to Oakland that departs at 3:30pm but if that one is canceled it’s just going to push you further back. Your best bet might be the red eye—”
“I really need to be there tonight,” he interrupts; politely, at least, he’s not going to take out what he’s feeling on her. “It’s—I’m trying—” and the story comes spilling out, how he really needs to be in Beacon Hills because he needs to take Derek out at exactly midnight, that it’s been their tradition to get burgers and milkshakes as soon as the clock ticked over to Christmas Day. He tries to keep it short; he rambles, he knows that, but she’s clicking around on the computer and nodding at him, and as soon as he stops she looks up and gives him a soft smile.
“I know this isn’t ideal, but Chicago still has flights departing,” Allison says quietly. “If you can rent a car—and that’s a big if right now, I’d start checking—I have two options, one to San Francisco and one to Sacramento. You can just step to the side of the counter and if you get something, you can interrupt and let me know and I’ll get it booked for you.”
Stiles could kiss her. As it is he thanks her profusely, phone already up and searching for rentals as he steps to the side of the counter, backpack at his feet. He gets as far as putting in his credit card information twice before a message appears that his transaction couldn’t be completed and the next time he searches, he comes up blank. He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath, ignoring the way he feels like crying; it figures that he would get as far as the midwest and be stopped in his tracks, and end up spending all this money he doesn’t have just to be in a shitty motel room on Christmas.
There’s a gentle touch on his elbow and he jumps, and Allison is looking at him with sympathy. “No luck?”
“Nope,” he says, and tries to smile at her. “Thanks, though, I appreciate it. I guess—whatever flight is supposed to be the first out?”
She motions him back over to the counter and studies him, the corner of her bottom lip caught in her teeth. “There’s another option, but it’s a little unorthodox—”
“I’ll take it,” he says immediately. He doesn’t care if he has to hitchhike to Chicago; anything that might get him to Beacon Hills on time is worth a shot. “Please. Even if it’s a cargo flight. Especially if it’s a cargo flight, actually, that’s bound to have more legroom than the middle seat I was just in.”
A slow smile spreads over her face as he talks. “My boyfriend is a TSA agent and his shift is just ending. He’s heading to Cincinnati to see his family—he’s a great guy, I swear, and an absolute romantic so I’m positive he’d agree—I could easily get you a flight out of there if you don’t mind riding with a stranger—”
“I’ll pay for gas,” Stiles offers, pressing his hands down on the counter to stop them from shaking. “And snacks. A bottle of wine for his family, I don’t care—yes, please, if you can get him to agree—”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem,” she says cheerfully, mood visibly lifted as she clacks away at the keyboard. “He never says no to me. Just be prepared for a hundred questions about your relationship, I’m warning you. Complete romantic. It might be a little awkward for you, but at least it’ll get you home.”
Scott’s bright grin puts him at ease almost immediately, and they haven’t made it ten minutes on the highway before they're talking like they’ve been friends all their lives. They fall together easily—they share the same taste in music, favorite video games, and they both order chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce when Scott pulls over at a McDonald’s and apologetically explains that he’d spent his break at the airport with Allison and hadn’t eaten lunch, not that Stiles minds. He’d eaten half a stale bagel and a protein bar on the way to JFK and falls on the food, ravenous.
When Scott gets them back on the freeway and points out a road work sign and quotes Stiles’ favorite vine, Stiles decides they’re probably soulmates.
It’s not until they turn onto the beltway that Scott looks over at him and asks, “So what’s the plan, bro? Do you have a whole speech? How are you gonna convince him it’ll be any different now that you got promoted?”
Stiles squints at the road ahead into the bright winter sun before turning to face him. “I was just gonna wing it,” he admits, and by the way Scott’s mouth spasms he gathers that it’s not the greatest plan. “I’m—I’ll have more work with the promotion, sure, but I won’t have to like, prove myself or anything. It shouldn’t be—it shouldn’t be that bad. Not all the time, at least.” The moment it’s out of his mouth he realizes it’s not going to work. Derek had said he felt like he didn’t know Stiles anymore, and Stiles is suddenly certain that continuing on more or less of the same schedule isn’t going to be a selling point for getting back together. “Shit. I’m gonna have to quit my job, aren’t I? I can’t afford—fuck, fuck, what am I gonna do?”
“It might not be so bad,” Scott says, placating, but Stiles is already spiraling.
“He tried to talk to me about it,” he says, breath coming more shallow as he tries to draw it in. “I ignored him—I heard him, you know, and I told him it would get better but I knew it would be a few months and I don’t know if I told him that, and Derek—he always wants to know the plans, okay, Derek hates spontaneity. He’s probably got an apartment lined up and doesn’t ever want to see me again—”
A hand fits over his mouth and nose, pressing down; Stiles startles and jerks back but there’s nowhere to go, and when it disappears he draws in a long, ragged breath. “Sorry, man, it’s the only way I could think of to get you to breathe,” Scott says. His hand is back on the wheel and he shifts over a bit, which doesn’t do much except give the illusion of space and, Stiles thinks, safety.
“Had a girl kiss me once,” he says when his heart calms down a little. “I think I preferred that.”
Scott laughs. “I’ll bet. Look—I don’t know Derek, obviously, but you’re going through all this trouble and that’s gotta mean something to him. Just tell him the truth. Tell him you don’t have a plan and that you’d like to make one together. Isn’t making decisions on your own what caused this mess?”
He books a rental car to pick up in Oakland as he waits in line through security, sends Scott a text asking him to thank Allison profusely for not getting him stuck in a middle seat, and just barely remembers to send a text to his Dad letting him know that the stranger who drove him not only didn’t kill him but might also be his new best friend before he passes out in his window seat, forehead pressed against the cold acrylic.
Thankfully, his headache is gone when he wakes to the wheels touching down and an overhead announcement, and he feels rested for the first time all day. There are a few texts from Scott on his phone, and one from Laura; he taps on it as he shuffles his way off the plane, backpack held closely in front of him.
Laura: Are you seriously not even going to call?
His thumb hovers over her contact picture for a moment before he changes his mind and slides the phone into his jacket pocket. He’s come this far and Scott had been right—showing up will mean something to Derek. Derek may be able to hold his emotions close to his chest, and even after knowing him for six years Stiles can have trouble figuring out what he’s feeling if Derek really doesn’t want him to know, but Derek has always been about meaningful gestures—he’s kept the same ratty gloves Stiles had pulled off his own hands to give to him the day they met tucked faithfully in the pocket of his winter jacket despite having a nicer pair of his own. He’d skipped the phone call for a reason; he just has to hope it’s enough.
It’s a Christmas miracle that it only takes an hour to pick up the rental car, and he’s on the road with just enough time, the Hale family’s address input into the car’s navigation system and triple checked. He ignores the phone call from his dad when it comes, too aware that he’s still a little prone to panicking and there’s no one in the car to help him this time. It’s a relief to see the arrival time as shortly after 11:00pm; he knows that just showing up with Derek’s birthday dinner isn’t going to be enough to fix everything, but it’s a crucial part of the plan in his mind, like everything would fall apart for good if he didn’t manage to do just one thing right. He pulls off the road and readjusts the GPS as soon as he crosses into Beacon Hills, heading towards the diner they’d gone to two years prior. There’s a heartstopping moment where he sees a broad set of shoulders under a leather jacket and thinks Derek’s in the diner, but the man looks nothing like him when he turns around and Stiles heads inside to order, slightly dizzy between holding his breath and the relief of his plan still being in place.
The only thing he didn’t account for was all the lights being off in the Hale house when he finally rolled up the driveway at 11:55pm.
He knocks on the door with hands shaking from the cold, jacket abandoned back in the warm car, the milkshakes tucked between his arm and side and the bag of food clutched in one hand. The house remains still, and he’s just trying to decide between knocking again and retrieving his phone from his pocket when a light flickers on inside and the door opens.
“Well,” Talia says, stepping back and opening the door wider, “you’d better come in.”
He hesitates. “I don’t know if Derek—”
“Derek wouldn’t want you to freeze,” Talia says, motioning him forward, mouth quirking into a small smile when she sees what he’s holding. “Why don’t you go on up? I heard Laura getting out of bed on my way down, she’s no doubt realized you’re here and woken him by now.”
Derek’s sitting on the edge of his bed when Stiles makes his way up the stairs and knocks lightly on the partially open door, swinging it inwards with the barest pressure from his knuckles, and the sight of him almost takes his breath away. He’s missed him, for weeks if not for months, and the relief of just getting to see him, blearly and sleep-rumpled, hits Stiles hard. It takes an enormous amount of willpower not to drop everything he has and rush to him, but he manages to set the milkshakes on Derek’s small nightstand and hold the bag out towards him.
“Happy birthday,” he says, hating how tentative it comes out. He’s supposed to be confident, sure; he’s supposed to make Derek feel like he can be trusted again. But everything he wants to say is building up in his throat, crowding against his closed lips, and as soon as he opens them again it all comes spilling out. Every regret that he’s had over the last several months, every bit of loneliness he’s felt, every plea to allow him to make things right. It rushes out of his mouth faster than he can stop it and by the time he’s done he’s crouched in front of Derek, hands on his knees, and his heart stops when Derek sighs and says his name.
“I don’t know,” Derek says quietly. There are pillow lines on his cheek, bags under his green eyes that Stiles knows weren’t there three weeks ago. His beard is untrimmed, longer than Derek likes it, the shirt he’s wearing has three different stains on it, and he’s still the most beautiful person that Stiles has ever seen. “You didn’t think about me for months, Stiles—”
“I did,” he interrupts, shifting forward on his knees, back aching. “I was just thinking the wrong things. I swear, I just—it’s been six years, please—”
“It’s been four years,” Derek says, automatically rehashing their old argument. Derek insists the first two years didn’t count as they weren’t really together; Stiles insists they do, because neither of them dated anyone else and they spent all their time with each other anyway. And then he frowns, so beaten down, shoulders slumping like his strings have been cut. “I don’t know,” he says again, and Stiles knows that’s the end of the conversation. Any pushing he does will cause Derek to retreat and do more damage, and now the only thing he can do is what he’s the worst at—wait.
He forces himself to move. Lifts his fingers off Derek’s knees one by one and curls his hands into loose fists, stands up and takes a few steps back, scooping his backpack off the floor where he’d let it fall. “Okay,” he says a few times, nodding. Because he’d hoped, of course, that it would be enough to show up—but he should have known that it wouldn’t. It wasn’t for him in the first place; he’s spent years telling Derek that his birthday was just as if not more important than Christmas, insisting that they find time to celebrate just him, and he got on the plane rather than picked up the phone because he wanted Derek to see that he still cared. “I’ll uh, there was a motel I passed on the way in—”
“You don’t have to go,” Derek says; the aborted motion of his hand stretching out slightly gives Stiles more hope than he’s felt in weeks. “We should eat, you brought food.”
“We don’t have to,” he says, and Derek looks up at him, lips pressed together.
“I want to,” Derek says. “I missed you. Don’t do this—this thing where you want to let me decide everything, where you just stand around quietly until I know what I want. I missed you, Stiles, don’t be someone you’re not. Give me more than two minutes to adjust to you being here and—” And show him, Stiles thinks when Derek stops abruptly, hand waving a little through the air, a mannerism he picked up from Stiles. Derek’s never cared about words; a shame when Stiles uses them so well, in his own opinion, but—
Meaningful gestures.
“I have your gifts,” he says, feeling for the zipper on his backpack without moving his gaze from Derek’s face and yanking it open. “I can put the one for Christmas under the tree but I should give you your birthday present—” he wiggles it out, ignoring the shirt and pair of socks that fall to the floor on the way and holds it out, heart hammering in his chest. “Open it.”
“Impatient,” Derek mutters, but his lips curve a little into a smile as he examines the wrapped square, fingers trailing over the seams of the paper.
“Says the one who always wants to open his birthday gifts at midnight,” Stiles says; Derek’s smile turns full-blown, finger sliding under the fold and flicking it up to tear the tape. He spent months on this gift, scouring the internet and hounding the Beacon Hills librarians for help; he knows Derek will love it, but the anticipation that’s normally there feels more like anxiety.
“That’s your fault,” Derek points out, pulling the rest of the paper off. He looks at it in confusion; Stiles can see the moment where he realizes what it is, eyebrows lifting and mouth parting as he looks at the Bless This House cross-stitch that’s yellowing with age, pressing his fingers to the glass before flipping it over and working to get the frame off.
“It’s hers,” Stiles says. He sits on the edge of the bed and taps where the signature is on the back, Celia Hale in neat, nearly faded letters. Derek’s family had lost everything when their house burned down just over a decade ago, and his grandmother’s cross-stitching that was hung up in the living room was something he had mentioned a few times over the years. “You said she would sell them at the craft fairs so I tracked this one down from a picture in the Beacon Herald and convinced the family to look for it. I thought,” he adds, steeling himself for rejection, “that we could look for a new place and hang it up—”
Derek is kissing him. In the blink of an eye he’s flat on his back, feet still planted firmly on the floor, but with Derek’s familiar, heavy weight on top, blanketing him. His mouth is parted, lower lip caught between Derek’s, and he reaches up and weaves his hands in Derek’s too-long hair as soon as his brain catches up and kisses him back.
“Please come home,” he says again, some minutes later, when they’ve slowed down and Derek’s nuzzling at his jaw.
This time, Derek says yes.