/ / / 10 \ \ \

Stiles swallowed and stood up, the jacket dropping to the floor in front of him as he stepped around the material and towards the door.

"Stiles."

He froze at Scott's voice.

"It was us, the pack, we knew you might leave so the packs got together and decided to try and remind you of what you mean to us."

"So you were all in on it?" Stiles asked, turning around but keeping his eyes from drifting over to Derek and looked at Scott instead.

"You say that like it was a malicious plot," Isaac said, coming to stand next to Scott.

"You all sent me amazingly sweet gifts without anything but notes all written by Derek how can I not think that you were all playing some elaborate prank?" Stiles asked, folding his arms over his chest protectively.

"I had nothing to do with this." Derek said.

"He didn't," Lydia said quietly, coming to stand in front of Scott, "Derek didn't know anything about it."

"Then how did he write the notes? Because, that was his writing and I know how the rest of you write."

"That was my idea," Cora admitted.

"Why?" Stiles asked, clamping his mouth shut when he heard the vulnerable note in his own voice.

"I knew you would leave," Cora said, her eyes flicking to her brother. "You have a PhD in astrophysics you weren't going to stay in Beacon Hills. So I went to Lydia and suggested we write the notes that were going to go along with the gifts."

"I wrote my own note," Boyd said.

Lydia turned to him. "And then I rewrote it before I took the present over."

"So it was just you and Cora?" Stiles asked.

"I was just trying to help Derek," Cora said, stepping towards Stiles.

Suddenly Derek was standing between Stiles and the rest of the room.

"Derek?"

"Out!" Derek ordered, his voice more a growl than anything else.

The wolves all perked up, he might not be an alpha anymore and he certainly wasn't the alpha of half of them but they listened to him anyway. They filed out of the room and the house while Stiles was held firm by the hand on his wrist. Cora was the last to go, her eyes worried as she looked back at them.

Derek held him until well after the wolves had left and then he let go, stepping back to sit on one of the couches.

"Why did you kiss me?"

"Because…" Stiles watched Derek closely, his voice fading away when he recognised the tense, scared look in Derek's eyes and remembered the way the other man had kissed him back. He couldn't be flippant about this, he realised with sudden terror that he would need to be honest here or he would always regret it. He may have read the whole situation wrong and he was probably about to embarrass himself more than he already had today but he took a deep breath and looked past Derek to answer. "I wanted to."

"Because you thought I had given you those gifts?"

"Because I…" Stiles swallowed thickly, he had never said this to anyone – he had even chosen silence when Scott and Lydia had called him out on this when he was younger. "I…I've always been…God, this is surprisingly hard. I like you, I liked you when I was a stupid teenager and you hated me, I left and I figured it would go away but it never really did and I…I wanted you to be the person giving me the gifts."

Derek was suddenly standing in front of him, staring at him intensely. "I never hated you."

"You hid it well then."

Derek's eyes flashed but they didn't leave Stiles' face. "I knew you would leave."

Stiles reached out for Derek only to have the alpha step back.

"Which you're doing. Enjoy Belgium."

"Wait!" Stiles lunged for Derek's arm, gripping his wrist tight.

Derek froze but he didn't turn back.

"I'm not actually going anywhere."

"But you will be."

Stiles felt his body heat. "Everybody keeps telling me that I'm leaving but I haven't even made a decision."

"Stiles," Derek voice was rough, "you have studied something that demands you move away."

Stiles wanted to argue, he wanted to say something but he'd been fighting against the fact he had done this to himself since he'd come home. His father and everyone else had been reminding him when all he really wanted to do was pretend he could come home and live here. It was exciting, the idea of going to Belgium and living there, working at the Royal Observatory, but it was also terrifying and Stiles was quite done with the idea of having to be mature about all of this. He didn't want to be alone out in the world and working full time and having to be a damned adult.

"I don't actually think I want to go," Stiles said quietly.

"I know you do."

"How?"

"You have a certain look when you are talking about something you want to do. Like when you started mentioning university and I knew you were going to leave."

"And I look like that now?"

"Every time people talk about it."

Stiles nodded but he refused to let go of Derek. "I haven't made a decision about that and now I have a chance at something I want and I'm not going to let it go so easily."

Derek looked relieved for a moment but then his face shuttered down.

"I will not stand between you and what you want."

"But I want you."

"I'll still be here."

Stiles gaped at him. "What?"

Derek didn't say anything, staring at Stiles instead.

"You'd just wait? That's…what you've been doing? You've been waiting for me?"

Derek's face tightened.

"I've been studying for years."

Derek's eyes flicked past him.

"I…you could have had me."

Derek's eyes opened wide.

"If you had have just said something you could have had me."

"I don't want only part of you."

Stiles couldn't have stopped that smile that spread over his face if he'd tried. "So have all of me."

"Just until you leave?"

"I'm certainly not letting you go when I've just learned that I can have you."

"I won't be the reason you stay."

"Please stop being noble," Stiles said. "It's going to be very hard to convince you if you're noble and stubborn."

Derek's face turned mulish and Stiles sighed.

"Derek, please." For just a moment Stiles was hit with the sudden realisation that he was actually standing here fighting for Derek to give him a chance. Never in a million fantasies had he actually expected to have a chance with Derek. And he was losing it before he'd even had it because Derek didn't want only part of him but…but, he'd wait. Stiles sunk down onto the coffee table behind him and Derek followed him for a step so their connection wasn't severed.

"Stiles."

"You can't honestly think you can tell me you are interested in me after all this time only to tell me I'm not allowed to…well, that's ridiculous." Stiles stood up and stepped into Derek's personal space, kissing him firmly, tempting the older man into kissing him back, walking them back towards the couch. Stiles didn't bother with a gentle fall just collapsing back onto the soft cushions and dragging Derek with him.

There was a loud whoop from outside and Derek yanked himself away from Stiles. He growled at the window and Stiles shook the lust induced cobwebs from his mind to stand up and walk next to Derek.

"Everyone listening in?"

"Of course," Derek growled.

Stiles was torn; he wanted to drag Derek back to the couch and burrow his way into Derek's defences, he wanted to ask the packs for more information about their little Secret Santa escapades, and he wanted to try and convince Derek to give them a chance in a way that wasn't likely to spook the alpha tomorrow.

Derek's head cocked to the side and his eyes flashed.

"What did they say?" Stiles asked.

Derek turned to look at him. "Nothing complimentary."

Stiles smiled and sighed before he walked over to the door. "Just come inside and stop annoying him."

The two packs trailed back inside and sat down. Stiles moved to stand in front of them, Derek still standing close to the window with his arms folded across his chest menacingly. "Right, explain now."

Lydia sighed at him and fidgeted on the chair. "We decided that you needed something to remind you how much you mean to us all."

"My idea," Scott offered, smiling.

"Yes," Lydia intoned sarcastically and sighed. "We each decided to find you a gift that had meaning for you and for the giver."

"That's sweet." Stiles conceded. "Let's go to the part that's not."

"Derek's in love with you," Cora offered.

"Cora," Derek reprimanded.

"Yes, because dry humping on the couch was hiding your feelings so well."

"We hadn't made it to dry humping," Stiles told her sharply.

Cora had the grace to look apologetic and then shuffled forward on the couch. "I knew he'd been waiting for you, just like everyone else did and he would have just kept pining at you while you were oblivious because he's emotionally stunted and doesn't know how to show he likes them. If I left it to Derek he would have found any number of excuses because he's convinced you'll leave and you probably will because why wouldn't you?"

Stiles could almost feel the waves of betrayal rolling off Derek behind him.

"I'm sorry, Derek, but you wouldn't have done anything and you deserve to at least have the chance, which you would never had if I hadn't gone to Lydia."

Stiles turned his eyes on Lydia.

"And I knew you had had a crush on Derek and I thought it might help so we came up with a plan to rewrite the notes."

"We thought you would know Derek's writing," Cora continued. "But you didn't."

"When has Derek ever had any reason to write me anything?" Stiles asked.

Stiles watched Cora bite her lip to stop herself from saying something and Stiles silently thanked her.

"How did you do it so well?" Stiles asked Lydia.

She smirked at him. "I'm a good forger, I could do it with any of your writing."

"Disturbing," Isaac said quietly.

"Your plan to get Derek and Stiles together was to make him think Derek had given him all of those presents?" Jackson asked. "I put effort into that and you were going to give someone else credit for it?"

"Try not to be selfish every minute of your life," Lydia threw at him.

"Okay," Stiles said, cutting in over the top of them, "I see what you were trying to do and how you did it. But, I want to know who gave me what. I figure the condoms were from you, Lydia."

"Yeah," she smiled, then she looked at Derek, "you're welcome."

Stiles sighed; she really didn't have any self-preservation instincts sometimes.

"I got you the chess set," Allison said, "I'd seen it a couple of months before the whole thing came up and I was going to give it to you for Christmas anyway."

"I love it."

Allison beamed at him. "Good."

"I wanted you to jump out of a plane," Jackson said. "You're welcome."

Stiles shook his head at Jackson.

"I got you the 'Golden Girls' box set," Danny smirked, "because you bored me to death about it."

Stiles smirked at Danny. "I loved it."

"And you've watched it?"

"Of course."

"I knitted you a scarf," Boyd offered quietly.

"You knitted that yourself?" Lydia asked, turning to him.

Boyd nodded.

"How did I not know you knit?"

Boyd shrugged.

"Aren't you basically living together now?" Stiles asked.

Lydia shrugged.

Stiles smirked at her. "That leaves 'Good Omens' and Artoo Potatoo."

"And mine," Scott said.

"Of course yours," Stiles said, the smile falling off his face for a moment. "Thank you for that."

"You're welcome."

Stiles turned away from him and looked at Cora and Isaac, sitting close on the couch, unable to decide which of them gave him what gift.

"Good Omens," Cora offered.

"And obviously Artoo Potatoo to replace the one I broke." Isaac offered.

Stiles smiled at them all.

"Don't get mushy," Jackson warned.

"I want to thank you all, I appreciate what you've all done and-"

"Seriously," Jackson interrupted. "Don't be a girl."

"Perhaps you should wade out of that mire of sexism and think before you speak," Cora said, eyes flashing. "Also, I want to hear Stiles thank us so that we can go and they can have sex."

"We're not having sex," Derek said.

Stiles had turned around to look at Derek who was quite deliberately not looking at Stiles.

"Why not?"

Stiles turned around when he realised that it was Jackson who had spoken. Everyone else was looking at him too.

"What?" Jackson asked. "Derek's my alpha; I do actually want him to be happy and Stiles is apparently a factor in that."

"Wow, Danny, you're so lucky to have found yourself a romantic like Jackson." Allison commented.

"I know, right?" Danny said, sliding an arm through Jackson's elbow anyway.

"Stiles is taking the job so we're not going to be doing anything."

"Do I get a say?" Stiles asked.

"Are you taking the job in Belgium?"

Stiles looked up at the ceiling and screamed. "I don't know, okay? I want to but it's terrifying."

"Stiles," Scott said.

"Don't worry about it." Stiles said, waving his hand. The pack all looked at him with something close to concern so Stiles looked away from them. "Can we at least talk about this?"

"No." Derek said, firmly.

"That's ridiculous," Scott said.

"Derek, you want him and I got him to tell you he was interested. He's offering you all of this and you're still going to be an idiot?"

"He's going to Belgium," Derek growled, low and rough, his eyes flashing dangerously at his sister.

"Well, honestly," Cora said, rolling her eyes. "Why don't you just go with him?"

TBC…

That was going to be the last chapter but Derek is being a pain in the backside so there will be one more.