“I think we should focus on the fact that Jackson is cuddling a bottle of wine while hugging a baguette.”
“Well, at least they managed to get the Eiffel Tower into the shot.”
(aka that one time four members of the Hale pack went vacationing for a month and kept sending back questionable postcards so that Stiles and Derek wouldn’t miss out on their adventures.)
This was definitely inspired by How I Met Your Mother. No regrets.
2:15 AM
“Dude, admit it,” Stiles slurs. “We’d be great parents!”
Derek nods empathetically. “We would be!”
Stiles looks at him with wide eyes. “We should totally adopt a baby!”
“We should adopt a baby!”
–
Earlier that night, 9:35 PM
“Still bummed out about the breakup?” Derek asks, coming up behind Stiles. It’s a chilly night so Derek’s glad he decided to wear the dark purple cable knit sweater Laura got him as an early Christmas present.
Stiles gives an indifferent shrug. “Meh.”
“Liar.”
“Pathetic, isn’t it?” Stiles murmurs, sipping his drink. “Goddamn, Allison makes a mean drink.”
Derek huffs, taking a sip of his own coke-infused vodka. He makes a face at the burn in his throat. “She does, and it’s not pathetic.”
Stiles frowns. “What? Of course, it’s not. Allison is the best bartender ever. She knows what my heart wants and needs. She’s gifted, not pathetic.”
“I meant about your breakup, dumbass.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, it’s not pathetic.”
Stiles snorts, staring out at the city as he leans on the balcony railing. “You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves, man. Admit it. I’m twenty-eight, stuck in a job that I hate, trying to find the person of my dreams so I can finally settle down, but instead–,” he cuts off, shaking his head. “I’m wasting my time. What am I doing wrong, Derek? I don’t get it.”
Derek looks away, leaning on the railing beside Stiles. Despite the warmth of the sweater, tiny little goosebumps erupt on his skin from the way Stiles leans into him for a moment too brief for Derek’s liking before pulling away.
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Derek finally manages to say, but this only makes Stiles roll his eyes. “No, hey, listen, you’re not! You’re a great guy. Think I’d hang out with you if you weren’t?”
“I always thought it was because of my sparkling wit.”
Derek snorts. “I think you meant to say despite your sparkling wit.”
Stiles smacks his stomach, making him smile. “Fucker.”
“Stiles, you’re a great guy and one day, you’re going to find someone who not only appreciates that but loves it. And your age is a number. I mean, look at me. I’m almost thirty-three.”
Stiles checks his watch. “Three more hours, buddy.”
“I think the most important part is to keep trying. You might strike out, but at least you’ll have tried.”
“Easy to say when you look like that,” Stiles points out, waving his hand at Derek’s general everything and it infuriates him. If there’s anything Derek hates more than cocky, drunk Stiles, it’s self-deprecating, drunk Stiles. Self-deprecating Stiles never sees what Derek sees; he sees the failed relationships, the minute insecurities, the inability to settle down.
Derek sees the Stiles that’s always trying and hoping for something more, the confidence he gives other people when they’re doubting themselves, and the ability to keep going. Derek sees the strong, loyal, honest version of Stiles and it really gets to him when Stiles turns a blind eye to all of that.
“So why am I single?” Derek asks instead. Truth be told, there’s only one reason Derek’s still single and he’s staring at it.
Stiles squints at him. “Why are you single? You can go to any bar and I bet you can get any guy to bend over backward with just one word.”
“We already made that bet and you already won,” Derek points out.
“Exactly! So why are you single?”
Derek opens his mouth to say it, to finally admit to Stiles something that he’s been wanting to say for close to two years now, but chickens out at the last second. “I don’t know.”
“Another Christmas, another lonely year.” Stiles sighs, gulping the last of his drink. “I’m gonna go inside and get another drink. Want a refill?”
Derek shakes his head. “I’m good with this, thanks.”
–
2:20 AM
“Wait, wait, wait,” Derek shushes him, making Stiles pout. “We can’t do this.”
“But Derek–”
“We have to name the baby! We can’t just call it ‘the baby’!”
Stiles looks at him with awe. “Dude, you are so right! What about Luke?”
Derek wrinkles his nose at him. He opens his mouth but closes it with a pop. “What if the baby is a girl? I like girls better. Means I can have a gun and pretend to clean it when she brings a boy over. Or a girl. Whoever she wants.”
“Leia!”
“We can’t call the baby Leia!”
“Why not?”
“Because! No, wait, because, that’s gonna – hic – our dog’s name!”
“We have a dog?” Stiles gasps, nearly knocking over the red cup. He leans over, smacking both his hands on Derek’s face and holding it tightly. “Der, you can’t lie, kay? We have a dog?”
Derek almost stumbles back at Stiles’s weight but manages to right himself. “Of course we have a dog, idiot. What family with kids doesn’t have a dog?”
Up close, Stiles’s eyes are very shiny and brown. They may also be sparkling.
“Der, we’d be a family! That’s all I’ve ever wanted!”
Derek hiccups again, blinking his eyes. He feels himself leaning over onto Stiles but Stiles steadies him. This is nice, he thinks. It should always be like this. Derek falling over and Stiles catching him.
“I’d always catch you, idiot.”
“Huh?”
“You just said–no wait, back to Leia the puppy. No, wait, before that. If Leia’s the puppy, what do we name our baby daughter?”
Derek thinks for a second. “Can we name her Natalia?”
Stiles gives him a hopeful look. “Natalia Claudia Stilinski-Hale?”
Derek beams. “ Yes!”
–
11:24 PM
“Excited for the big 3-3?” Stiles asks, humming pleasantly.
Derek shrugs, looking at him through his periphery. “Age is but a number.”
Stiles laughs. “C’mon, seriously.”
“What’s not to enjoy? I’m gonna be 33, I’ll be a real adult–”
“I thought that happened at the big 3-0?”
Derek snorts. “Apparently we didn’t get that memo.”
Stiles laughs. “Damn straight.”
“I’m–I’m just so happy, y’know? Like despite all the shitty stuff that we’ve all been through. I’m so glad I get to look around that room–” Derek says, pointing at the living room behind them. “–and see all the people that I love and care about and know that I get to have them all for another year. That I got to have all of them for 33 years and I can have them for another one.”
Stiles gives him a considering look, before slowly breaking out into a smile. “Dude, you’re so drunk. You’re getting all cheesy and shit.”
Derek shoves him half-heartedly, making him giggle. “Nuh uh!”
“Yuh huh!”
“Nuh uh!”
“Yuh huh!”
2:30 AM
“We should go adopt Luke or Natalia right now!” Stiles says after a few minutes of quiet, making Derek lose his train of thought.
“Hm? Whazzat now?” Derek squints at him. “Who’s Luke? Is that your new boyfriend?”
Stiles gives an exaggerated gasp. “How dare you, sir? I would never cheat on you!”
Derek gives him a dopey smile. “Good.” He pats Stiles on the cheek. “I’d never cheat on you either. I love you so much,” he emphasizes it by throwing his arms out, almost knocking Stiles down.
“Aw, bro! We’d be the best parents ever!”
“Obviously!” Derek grins before something occurs to him. “We can call this Operation: Bro Parenting!”
Stiles gasps. “Ohmygawwwwwd, yes!” He stumbles upright and punches the air. “Operation: Bro Parenting is a go!”
–
11:54 PM
“Dude, dude, dude,” Stiles grins at him. “You’re going to be 33 in like five minutes. Oh man!”
Derek nods. “I’m going to be so wise and old and you better listen to me. With age comes wisdom and I’ve seen the future, Stiles! I’ve seen, um, wait, you’re 28.” He starts counting on his fingers, blinking when his fingers don’t stop fusing into bigger fingers. He shakes his hands and smiles when everything’s normal again. “Yeah, I’ve seen like five years of the future, Stiles!”
Stiles’s mouth drops open and all he can think of is how pretty Stiles’s lips are and how much he just wants to touch them and kiss them and–
“Do we still have stuffed pizza crusts, Derek? There’s still Uber right? I don’t know how I’d survive without Uber, Derek!”
Derek pats him on the head. “It’s okay. We’ll go first thing in the morning. That way, we’ll beat the – hic – crowd and get the best one.”
“You’re a genius.”
–
1:20 AM
“Okay, you’re cut off,” someone who looks oddly like Scott says, taking Derek’s drink away.
“You can’t do that! My mom said never to waste food or drinks and I still have so much left!” Derek argues. “Also, tell your Scott #2 to stop. When did we get two of you anyways?”
“Yeah, bro, you can’t waste alcohol,” Stiles says wisely. He tries to reach out for the drink but Scott #1 – the rude one – does something with magic and suddenly, the red cup is gone.
“Woah, when did Scott #1 learn magic?” Derek whispers to Stiles.
“I think Scott #2 taught him.”
“True. Okay, Scott #2 can stay,” Derek declares. “I’m the birthday boy and what I say goes.”
“Huzzah!” Stiles crows.
“Yeah, you’re cut off too,” Scott #1 says and takes Stiles’s cup away but Stiles doesn’t even care. In fact, he smiles happily at Scott #1 and then winks at Derek.
Derek grins dopily and elsewhere, Scott #1 and Scott #2 facepalm.
–
2:05 AM
“You’re my bestest friend, Stiles.” Derek says. “I wish – hic – I wish we could just be one, y’know?”
“Like one person? Dude, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. That’s too much awesome in one person. The world isn’t ready for that.”
Derek nods wisely. “You’re right. Okay, we can be two people. But we should like be one unit. Like a furniture unit. Oh, oh, like a bookcase! You’re the shelf and I’m the, um, like the case without any shelves. So we’re both kinda useless but when you put me and you together, we can be a bookcase!”
Stiles claps his hands. “I’d love to be bookshelves with you! But, like who can we get to be the books?”
Derek thinks about that for a second, before snapping his fingers. “Babies!”
“Babies are books?”
“Yeah, like we can get a bunch of babies and they can be the books on our bookcase and all together we’d be the prettiest bookcase in the world!”
Stiles nods with a big smile on his face. “Yes, and we should be the classy bookcase. Like not some shitty Ikea Billy case. We should be an elegant, hand-crafted mahogany bookcase.”
“ Yes! ” Derek agrees. “Wait, but we don’t have girl parts. How can we have books without girl parts?”
Stiles gasps loudly, jumping in his spot. “We should adopt the books!”
“Yeah?”
“Dude, admit it! We’d be great parents!”
–
The next afternoon, 2:33 PM
Derek opens his eyes for less than a second before he shuts them, yanking the blanket over his head and curling up in a fetal position. Too much brightness, too much sun, too much everything. Jesus Christ, what the hell did he do last night?
He lays in bed for a solid twenty minutes, trying to get his head to stop feeling like it wants to melt into a puddle, before pushing the blanket off and slowly opening his eyes.
“Did I drink my entire apartment last night?” he asks, not expecting anyone to answer.
Which is why he jumps when he hears Laura snicker and say, “Um, yeah. Also, Stiles is here.”
At that, Derek immediately sits up, heart thudding so loudly he’s sure Laura can hear. “Stiles is here?”
“Stiles is here.”
“Why?!”
Laura raises a brow at him and motions to the living room. “I think you should see for yourself. You should probably put some pants on first though.”
Derek frowns, but does as she says, hands shaking the whole time. He tries to think of what happened the night before but comes up short. Truthfully, he doesn’t even know how he ended up in bed. All he can remember is being out on the balcony with Stiles and drinking. A lot.
He doesn’t know what he’s expecting when he gets to the living room but he can honestly say that a black husky puppy with a red and silver bow around his neck, jumping up at the sight of Derek isn’t it. The puppy runs straight to Derek, tumbling into his legs, hopping onto its back feet and reaching up.
“What the–,” Derek asks, leaning down to pick up the puppy, checking to see if it’s a girl or boy. It’s then that he notices Stiles standing in the corner, biting his lips with nervousness. “Stiles, why is there a dog?”
Laura snorts. “Um, as much as I’d love to watch this happen, I’ll give you two sometime.” She winks at him before whisking off into her room. Stiles clears his throat, fingers fidgeting and looking oddly out of place in an apartment he should be very comfortable with.
Derek looks between the puppy and Stiles, still stunned.
The silence stretches over for too long before Derek finally clears his throat. “So, the puppy is for…?”
“That’s Leia,” Stiles squeaks. Derek frowns, because that name sounds weirdly famil–
“Oh my god,” he groans, squeezing his eyes shut from the embarrassment as the memories from last night flood his brain.
“I–you–the baby store was closed today but I remembered Deaton had the puppy and she always reminded me of you whenever I saw her and I went this morning after to see if she was still there because then it would be a sign, y’know, from like the universe. And she was! She was there and Deaton was there and I was there and all I could think of was you and what we talked about last night and it just made sense. Oh, happy birthday, by the way,” Stiles rambles, eyes widening in horror at the word vomit.
Something like hope flutters in Derek’s chest. “So you got me…Leia?”
“I-I don’t think we’re ready for Luke or Natalia, but oh Jesus, I really didn’t think this through, did I?” Stiles trails off, looking mortified. Derek smiles slightly, clutching Leia tighter to himself.
“We?” Derek asks, just to be a little shit, but his smile grows bigger when Stiles flushes. “I don’t remember being asked to be a ‘we’.”
Stiles narrows his eyes at him. “Today’s Christmas, asshole. You can’t just read between the lines and save me the embarrassment?”
Derek smirks. “It’s my birthday first. I can do whatever I want.”
Stiles snorts, shuffling his feet adorably. He peers at Derek, giving him a thoughtful look. “Technically, you already asked me to be a bookcase with you remember?”
Derek looks at him, bemused, before it clicks and he flushes. “Oh fuck off.”
Stiles gasps, covering Leia’s tiny ears. “Language, Derek! We have highly impressionable minds here!”
“I hate you.”
“Liar, liar,” Stiles sings.
“For the record, I don’t want to be bro-parents with you,” Derek murmurs, staring intently into Stiles’s eyes.
“That’s cool. I don’t either,” Stiles whispers, all shy and cute. He scratches Leia behind the ear, making her yip happily. Derek leans closer to Stiles, shifting just slightly so Leia doesn’t get smushed between them. “I guess I’ll settle for being real parents with you someday.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Stiles admits sheepishly. “I guess I never really let myself hope that I could have you. It was just easier to keep looking elsewhere; it hurts less when someone you’re not really into rejects you.”
Derek looks down at Leia, heart full of warmth and happiness. “I’m glad you tried one more time. I have a feeling it’ll be the last time you’ll have to.”
They grin at each other and Derek finally feels it; that sense of completeness that he’s been aching for.
Sterek restaurant AU where Derek is the head chef and Stiles is the general manager of the Hale family restaurant, Blue Moon.
Stiles started working there as a busser when he was just 16 and needed some spending money, by the time he was 18 he was waiting tables, when he went off to college he picked up a serving job in Berkley and quickly realized how well run Blue Moon was. He went back and worked there every school break and it always felt like coming home.
He never planned on staying in the restaurant business, the hours are terrible, the shifts are long, you put a lot of wear and tear on your body, but his college internship with the FBI wasn’t what he was expecting, and his internship with the Beacon Hills Sheriff Department kind of made him miserable.
After he quit the internship he went full time at Blue Moon and within a year he was the head bartender, then the assistant general manager, then when Talia wanted to retire he took over as GM. He hadn’t realized she was grooming him for it, even though he should have.
Derek always knew he wanted to be a chef, he would follow his dad around the kitchen as a kid, he started working as a line cook at 15, he went to Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and then spent a couple years in Italy learning from some of the best chefs in the world.
When he moved back to Beacon Hills to run the kitchen at Blue Moon he was 25 and excited to spend his days creating and cooking. He learned quickly that there as a lot more to being the head chef and it didn’t help that the new head bartender was Stiles Stilinski, the formerly awkward busser that used to steal french fries on shift and was always talking. Except now Stiles is hot and always charming the guests (and Derek).
They spent long hours together at work, after work they grab drinks and rant about work, they both love their jobs too much to risk messing up what they have going, they scream at each other when it’s busy and they both work too hard and too often.
It goes on like that for years.
Then Stiles gets promoted and he’s around even more, and he and Derek have to have weekly meetings in their small office to go over the menu and the weeks events. They have to stay late so Stiles can count the money in the safe and Derek can make sure they have everything prepped for the next morning, they’re together or near each other almost constantly.
It becomes almost unbearable for Derek, who wants to cook Stiles dinner at his apartment instead of from the industrial kitchen at Blue Moon, who wants to use their shared night off when the restaurant is closed to go to the new Superman movie that Stiles has been talking about. He wants nothing more than to come into work in the morning with a coffee for Stiles (black, one shot) and kiss him on his pink lips.
So Derek pulls away because being near Stiles hurts, watching him smile and laugh but not being able to be with him is almost unbearable. But Stiles notices and that hurts him because he’s been into Derek since he was a teenager and now he’s almost 31 years old and Derek’s almost 35, they should have this figured out or he should get over it.
And Stiles isn’t good at being subtle and he’s never been good at getting the timing right, so he confronts Derek about it after the shift from hell. It’s nearly 1 in the morning, they’ve been at work for 18 hours because brunch, and Stiles just wants to know why Derek has been avoiding him because not only is it making his job harder, but it’s making his life suck.
Derek’s not expecting the question, but he throws his rag aside and kisses Stiles in the middle of the freshly cleaned kitchen. Stiles fists his hands in Derek’s filthy chef’s coat and kisses him back. They end up back at Derek’s place and they both show up at work the next afternoon looking a lot happier than the day before and holding hands.
Sure, they still scream at each other on shift, they still argue about menu changes and scheduling events, they still get drinks after long shifts, but now there’s usually dinner with those drinks and cuddling on the couch after that. And now when they fight about the benefits of changing the hours on weekends they have makeup sex in the office instead of storming out to their own apartments to fume.
Talia couldn’t be happier for theme, after all she and her husband founded Blue Moon a few years after they got married, she managed the front of house and Joseph ran the back. She always dreamed about it staying a family affair.
She mentions that to Stiles a few weeks before Derek proposes and again at the wedding. Their gift to Derek and Stiles officially making them part owners of Blue Moon.
And when Stiles and Derek’s daughter Erica turns 16 she starts working as a line cook and two years after that their son Isaac starts as a busser. It really is a family affair and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ve been watching college football all day with my dad and it got me thinking about a Sterek college football AU….
Derek is senior quarterback of some big Division 1 team and he’s a real man about campus. Everyone knows who Derek Hale is, all the best looking people throw themselves at him, and it seems like he’s got it made. Professors love him, his entire education is paid for because he can throw a football, and he lead the team to bowl game wins the last three seasons, everyone expects big thing from him in his last year.
Stiles is a journalism major, the editor-in-chief of the schools newspaper, and one of the anchors of the colleges weekly news program. He isn’t 100% sure what he wants to do postgrad (please stop asking, he still has almost a year to figure it out). He isn’t exactly popular on campus, but people know who he is and they usually like him because he’s charismatic and charming when he wants to be.
They haven’t ever really interacted, Derek is a biology major and spends most of his time with other football players or studying, or partying in places Stiles wouldn’t be caught dead.
Then comes the interview. The girl who was supposed to be covering football for the paper ended up with mono and couldn’t cover the first game or the big interview with the teams star player, Derek Hale. Stiles didn’t have time to get another reporter on it so he does it himself.
He only ever covered sports when he was in high school and he liked it, but in college he got swept up in investigative journalism, but the paper needs the cover story and football seasons is all anyone is talking about.
Derek didn’t know what to expect when he got an email about rescheduling his interview for the paper, but it sure as hell wasn’t some guy with thick rimmed glasses, tousled hair, and sinful lips wrapped around a straw at an on campus Starbucks.
And the guy didn’t fall all over himself trying to make Derek like him, he just asked him questions about the season, drank his iced latte, and typed away on his laptop with his long fingers that Derek wanted to put in his mouth. He should have known that he would walk away with a crush the size of the Grand Canyon.
What Derek didn’t know what that Stiles was fighting the urge to flirt with Derek the entire time and that Stiles was actually really enjoying the interview. He had always liked sports but had never really thought about sports journalism as a career path until that moment. He also didn’t know that when he gave Stiles his number in case he thought of any more questions (but really he was hoping Stiles would just text him) that Stiles heart had skipped a beat or two.
The interview ended and the story that Stiles wrote was beautiful and really captured Derek in a way Derek didn’t think anyone saw him, the article has a great picture of Derek, sweaty but grinning, his helmet under his arm, on the front page of the paper, Stiles manages to land the sideline reporting gig for the TV station without any bribery (there was most definitely bribery involved).
That’s how he ends up interviewing Derek after every game before he goes into the locker room. He also discovers that Derek Hale is out and proud about his bisexuality, that if he isn’t drafted into the NFL he’s going to go to med school, that he coached peewee football every summer before coming back for training camp.
Derek learns that postgame interviews can actually be a ton of fun if the interviewer isn’t sucking up to him, he learns that some journalism majors are actually really good at what they do, and most of all he learns that Stiles is single and got offered an internship with ESPN after graduation, which he’s taking because he discovered a love of sports journalism.
And after winning the championship game for the first time in over 20 years Derek has so many different reporters in his face, but he just keeps looking for Stiles.
Stiles, who is standing off to the side while ESPN, Fox Sports, ABC Sports, and a bunch of other real news outlets ask Derek about the game and his future.
Derek finally catches Stiles’ eye, says sorry to the reporters, and walks over to him.
“I actually have a question for you this time, if that’s alright,” Derek asks once he was standing next to Stiles. Stiles nods and Derek grins as he says, “Will you go out with me?”
Instead of saying anything Stiles tosses his mic to the camera guy and kisses the shit out of Derek.
It makes the ESPN top plays and when Stiles accepts his lifetime achievements in journalism award at the ESPYs 28 years later they play that clip. Stiles blushes, but Derek smiles from his spot in the audience.
They had played the same clip when he won an award for his charity 10 years prior. They also played the clip at their wedding 10 years before that. Sometimes Derek forgot that he won the championship that day because after the game was won something much more important, Stiles Stilinski’s heart.
shealwaysreads 