Belief is a Wise Wager
Title: Belief is a Wise Wager
Summary: Stiles accepts a new job (thanks to Mayor Laura Hale), in a new town and inadvertently starts a war, but it’s not his fault. Honestly.
Warnings: None
Rating: Mature
Chapters: 9/?
Notes: I swore up, down and whatever other direction that I wouldn’t post another WIP, yet here it is! I just feel like I’m more motivated to work harder once I’ve posted.
PS AO3
1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7|8|
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Wulfstan is seriously like some magical fairy tale village bullshit or something - Stiles is positive. He wakes up early Christmas morning to a blanket of freshly lain slow outside, with more snow falling gently over everything and it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Normally Stiles isn’t a fan of snow, but on Christmas who doesn’t want a little snow?
Stiles bundles up in his jeans, a tacky snowman sweater that he bought a few days ago shoves all of Laura and Derek’s presents in a larger bag and gets ready to head to their house. Laura had told him to be there for around 9am so that they could open presents and have some breakfast and Stiles wasn’t about to turn down home-cooked breakfast - not in a million years.
Laura opens the door wearing a green knit sweater and sleep pants, with a large red and white Santa hat on her head and it’s the most adorable thing Stiles has even seen. He never thought he’d see his boss in sleep clothes let alone a Santa hat. Which makes him think about his old boss back in Beacon Hills, a grumpy 50 something year old man with a pudgy stomach and balding head - Stiles definitely doesn’t want to see him in his sleep clothes.
Laura ushers Stiles in and then Stiles stops dead in his tracks because now, now what he sees is the absolutely most adorable thing Stiles has even seen in his life, also the funniest - which explains why he almost drops the bag he’s carrying and doubles over laughing. Derek is also in a large red and white Santa hat that’s lopsided on his head, with a red knitted sweater with a picture of Santa on it and Rudolph boxers. Derek narrows his eyes and scowls at Stiles until Stiles finally manages to catch his breath and get some oxygen to his lungs.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Derek growls when Stiles tries to fish his phone out of his pocket and snap a picture.
“Aw c’mon Gypsy, where’s the Christmas spirit? Oh right, you’re wearing it all,” but Stiles pockets his phone, he has all morning to sneak a picture and he fully intends to.
“Don’t worry Stiles, we take a family photo every year, I’ll make sure to send you a copy as well,” Laura chimes in as she takes the bag of presents Stiles brought and scatters them around under the tree. Stiles smirks when he sees Derek’s scowl deepen, because ha!
Breakfast is one of the most mouth-watering meals Stiles has ever had and he secretly wonders if Luke came in here to make breakfast. They have snowmen and gingerbread men shaped pancakes doused in syrup, whipped cream, fresh fruit and even little M&M’s made to look like buttons, coffee (okay, not Luke’s coffee but still delicious nonetheless) and Stiles spies some decorated cookies in the kitchen for later. He’s seriously going to go into a sugar coma but he thinks it’s totally worth it.
After the breakfast plates are cleared the three head back into the living room where there’s a large, real Christmas tree decorated to the nine with all brand new looking decorations with a large shiny gold star on the top. How the hell they even managed to get that inside is a wonder. They start off handing out presents; Laura and Derek give them each other’s gifts which mainly consists of clothes. Stiles has to laugh trying to picture Derek pick out woman’s clothes for his sister. Laura gives Derek some t shirts that are brightly coloured and Derek looks like he might have a heart attack because clearly he only does white, black or grey clothing.
Laura gives Stiles his present from her and he greedily rips into the paper to reveal a shiny new DVD/Blu-Ray player - and he nearly drops it by how surprised he looks. Laura explains that she knows Stiles likes to watch his movies and ends up normally watching it on his laptop and he might as well watch it on a larger screen TV. Stiles clutches it to his chest as if he was a10 year old again and says his thanks a million times over. Stiles hands Laura her present, the first one a little gag gift which is a mug that reads “#1 Boss,” Laura laughs and tells him she’s going to take that into work and use it every day and flash it in front of Boyd who’s never given her one. His next gift to her is an all-expense paid day trip to the spa - or what passes for a spa here - so that she can have a relaxing day out of the office. Laura looks genuinely touched and brings Stiles in for a hug.
Next, Stiles darts under the Christmas tree to bring out a little bag and hands it to Derek. Derek takes the bag and tugs the colourful tissue paper off the top and grunts when he sees what’s in the bag. Laura badgers him until he takes out the content. First, there’s a small magic crystal ball keychain that has metal fingers with long looking nails holding it and then there’s a box of tarot cards. Laura nearly falls off her chair laughing when she sees what they are and Derek has a small smirk like he’s trying not to laugh or show any sort of emotion.
“You gotta admit it’s hilarious,” Stiles points out, “like I could resist the prime opportunity to buy you this stuff!”
“You’re crazy,” Derek mutters but turns the box of tarot cards over in his hands as he inspects the keychain.
Stiles snorts because hello, not the first time he’s heard that before but grabs the card that he also brought wedged in between the branches of the tree and hands it to Derek.
Derek raises his eyebrow but opens the envelope anyway, and when he opens the card music starts blaring, ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,’ and it just happens to fit with Derek’s whole outfit - Stiles couldn’t have planned that better if he tried. A piece of folded glossy paper falls out of the card and Derek picks it up and opens it.
“I uh ordered it online but I didn’t have time to pick it up, it’s a few towns over.”
Derek looks shocked as he looks at the picture. Stiles had asked Laura what the hell he should buy for Derek because it’s not exactly like he’s the easiest person to buy for, despite Laura saying whatever he bought Derek would like. After some more badgering, Laura finally told Stiles that Derek’s been looking at this fancy pants ball bearing tool chest, that has six drawers and locks so that he can keep his tools in there and not have and of the other mechanics use his stuff. Stiles immediately went online and looked it up and before he even realised and ordered it.
“Thanks,” Derek says in a bit disbelieving tone.
“I hope it’s the right size and everything,” Stiles says scratching the back of his neck - he doesn’t know why he’s all of a sudden getting clammy and nervous.
“No, it’s good,” Derek reassures Stiles quickly.
Derek has a genuine smile on his face now, not a quirk of the lips or a smirk at his gag gift but an actually happy smile - one Stiles hasn’t yet seen, but it’s a look that suits him perfectly.
“You better have bought Stiles something,” Laura threatens as she looks under the tree but there are no more presents, “I told you to get something ages go.”
Derek ignores his sister shooting her an exasperated look as he leaves the room and enters back a few minutes later and drops a bag in Stiles’ lap, there’s no tissue paper but at least it’s partially wrapped. The bag hits Stiles’ leg and he lets out a yelp of pain because whatever’s in the bag is heavy and kind of hurt.
Stiles puts his hand in the bag and removes the contents when a startled look takes over his face. “This is from the civil war,” Stiles says dumbfounded.
“If you say so,” Derek smirks.
Stiles is holding the doorknob he’d seen as Ms Kim’s, the one he nearly dropped when she startled him.
“Not me, Ms Kim said so; she could be lying for all I know.”
Derek gets back up and Stiles can hear something being dragged down the hallway, when Derek enters the room Stiles’ eyes always bug out because Derek’s carrying the very same brown leather arm chair and ottoman that he wanted to buy at Ms Kim’s that day - but she wouldn’t accept a deposit.
“Dude, is that for me!” Stiles screeches jumping up from the ground.
“I didn’t buy it for myself,” Derek huffs.
Stiles plops himself down on the chair and wiggles his bum around it until he’s comfortable and props his feet up on the ottoman. Laura and Derek are standing beside each other with equally amused looks on their face.
Stiles doesn’t realise the minute he jumps up and brings Derek into an awkward embrace of a hug. Derek seems startled a minute, gone completely rigid before he brings one arm around to clap at Stiles’ back before Stiles comes to his sense and moves away - redness creeping down his neck. He tries to cover it up by bringing Laura into yet another hug despite them saying their thanks already.
“We should put those tarot cards to use,” Laura declares suddenly grabbing the cards from where Derek put them on the couch.
They settle around the dining room table where they earlier had breakfast, Derek and Stiles sitting beside each other and Laura on the other side of the table, they work out that Laura will read Stiles, Stiles will read Derek and Derek will read Laura. Both Laura and Stiles look giddy with excitement while Derek looks sceptic - the might as well have a dog choosing their cards.
Laura shuffles the cards and places them down on the table telling Stiles to choose his card; his hands linger around a bunch of cards before he settles on one and flips it over. The card reads ‘Fool’ and is a picture of a jester with the joker hat, throwing what looks like three balls in the air with a bindle resting over his shoulder. Laura makes a ‘hmm’ under her breath as she flips through the book to find out what Stiles’ card says about him and his future.
“In general,” Laura starts, “the joker indicates a new beginning, something that usually has a deeper meaning such as meditation or a relationship - often depicted as an ‘important fresh start.’ In work, others may not understand your choice or ideas but if you know you’re where you belong and you’re happy, keep going and helps those that don’t understand, to understand. For love, it can mean that you’re not ready for a commitment, even if someone is pressing you however don’t let the temptation of just having fun make you overlook the chance for the ‘real thing’ should it ever come your way. Lastly, for health you’re apparently accident prone, and shouldn’t be taking any silly chances.”
Stiles is a little baffled because Jesus Christ if some of that doesn’t apply to him. Danny and Lydia didn’t understand his decision to move to fuck knows where and leave behind everything familiar all for a new job, he’s not looking for a relationship or any sort of commitment and even if he were (like with Ian) he shouldn’t let the idea of fun overtake the possibility of there being something else real out there, and as for accident prone - well yeah that’s nothing new.
He takes the cards and shuffles them before laying them out and telling Derek to pick his card. Derek for his part doesn’t grumble - he probably knows that he won’t be allowed to leave the table until they get this over with, so he flips his card. The card reads ‘The Hanged Man’ and is a picture of a man hanging upside down in tights and a tunic from a tree branch.
“In general,” and now it’s Stiles’ turn to start, “the hanged man shows that you’re at a crossroads, with two options such as ‘up and down,’ ‘in and out,’ or ‘yes and no.’ You might find yourself very much wanting to do something but you don’t know how, when or if to do it. If that’s so, it’s a sign that you should take a step back, relax and possibly let go. In work, nothing much seems to be happening you may even dislike your job and be sick of it, if that’s so, you should figure out if there’s something you can do about it. For love, it may be time to let go of an ‘unattainable lover,’ or let go of a vision you have for a certain relationship because it’s not the only way to be happy. Lastly, for health your health improves but it’s a process.”
Stiles clears his throat as he shuffles back the cards and hands them to Derek - Derek has a pinched look on his face like he’s eaten sour grapes or something.
Derek will never admit not out loud and barely to himself how much that card reading hit home for him - so naturally, he thinks it’s a bunch of bullshit. There’s no way cards can read the future or describe how someone is feeling - don’t people naturally try and fit a reading to fit their idea of what’s about to happen? Yeah that’s it.
Derek shuffles the cards with a sigh and places them out letting Laura pick her card. Laura claps her hands together and flips hers over. The card reads ‘Justice’ and is a picture of a woman in a long draping dress covering her whole body, she’s seated with a crown on her head, a sword in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left.
“In general,” Derek mumbles, “the justice card depicts the need for fairness, balance and harmony. You feel the need to operate in a balanced and reasonable fashion. If you are directly involved with the courts, it’s likely to be resolved in your favour. In work, you need to be sure that your work life and personal life is balanced, too much emphasis on one or the other throws your life and a balance between the two is a necessity to thrive. For love, if you’re single this is a time when a relationship may be coming your way and are likely to find it very soon. Lastly, for health it’s important to stay in the moment, pay attention to how you’re doing and everything must be taken in moderation.”
“Well, I’d say I balance everything perfectly,” Laura clears her throat, shuffling the cards and placing them back into the pack.
“Right,” Derek snorts, ignoring the death glare his sister is shooting him at the minute, “you spend more hours at the Town Hall than you do at home.”
“Well it’s not easy taking care of a whole village is it?” Laura shoots back.
Stiles can tell this isn’t the first time they’ve had this argument, and it probably won’t be the last - and its Christmas day, there shouldn’t be fighting on Christmas day. So he stands up, and declares that they should have some of those delicious cookies he saw sitting in the kitchen and find something else to do.
At least both Laura and Derek have the audacity to look a little sheepish at their bickering and agree. They end up snuggled on the couch with Miracle on 34th Street playing, Laura explains that they watch it every Christmas and they’re not going to break tradition.
Stiles wakes up sometime later with his head pillowed on Derek’s shoulder and his legs tangled with Laura’s. He jolts straight up instantly trying to inconspicuously wipe the drool from his chin.
“Hello sleepyhead, you’ve already made a puddle on Derek’s shoulder anyway,” Laura smirks.
Stiles blushes and glances at the wet spot on Derek’s shirt and yup, he did that. Totally embarrassing. At least Derek doesn’t look like he wants to murder Stiles - not that he looks thrilled either, but not being murdered maybe that’s just another Christmas present.
“Falling asleep on my boss’ couch with her and her brother, not at all awkward.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Laura shrugs untangling her legs from Stiles to stand up and stretch. “I’m going to go get ready for dinner tonight.”
-
The Great Wolf Lodge is the busiest Stiles as ever seen it. No scratch that, it’s the busiest he’s ever seen any place in Wulfstan. There’s more people scattered about than anyone at Luke’s and House of Wolf combined. There are children running around a ginormous Christmas tree with presents wrapped underneath it, adults mingling about chatting to each other with glasses of wine and bottles of beer in their hands.
Stiles is soon pulled into the usual gang of people, Scott, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Dean, Rory and Lane. Someone hands Stiles’ a beer as they all mingle about. Scott brags about the newest game that his mom bought him for Christmas and Rory ruffles his hair saying it’s the most adorable thing in the world - Scott is apparently such a mama’s boy. Erica goes on about the newest sex toys that she bought for her and Boyd to use and everyone cringes saying they don’t need the specifics.
At 8pm on the dot everyone is ushered into the massive dining room in the Lodge that Stiles had never seen before, there are rows of tables all pushed together to form a large box-shaped U with chairs on either side - so that everyone is sitting at the same table. There are Christmas themed party poppers on everyone’s plate, with flickering candles, pine cones and other little decorations in the middle of the table with room to set down trays of food.
Everyone pops their party poppers, some getting little wine glass charms to put around the stem of their glasses, different coloured paper crowns to wear, cheap key chains and jewellery. It’s nothing fancy but everyone loves their gifts playing with it for a few minutes before chucking it to the side. Stiles gets a red paper crown and immediately sets it on top of his head. Boyd and Derek also get one but they look a little more dubious to put it on before everyone badgers them into doing it. Stiles isn’t surprised to see that Luke also got a paper crown but he opts not to wear his, in fact he’s not even wearing his normal backwards baseball cap that Stiles figured was permanently glued to his head. Instead he’s dressed up in a nice pair of slacks and button up shirt, no plaid or jeans in sight and talking to a beautiful brunette - scratch that, the brunette is talking to him a mile a minute and Stiles recognises her as Rory’s mom. Aw little Luke has a crush.
The food is just as good as Stiles expected it to be, he seems to see double or triple of everything as numerous turkeys, hams and chickens come out followed by various plates of vegetables, gravy bowls and more bottles of wine. Everyone digs in as soon as the food is placed on the table like they’re scared it’s all going to run out in a matter of minutes - which Stiles doubts because there’s a fuck ton of food. He wouldn’t be surprised if everyone passed out the minute they finished their meal from all the turkey and other food they’re cramming their stomachs with; not that Stiles isn’t doing the same.
He almost has a heart attack when he sees the plates being cleared away and then dessert is on its way out. There’s a cake made out of cinnamon buns made to look like a Christmas tree with coloured sprinkles baked in with icing drizzled all over it, gingerbread men cookies, Christmas pudding and any other Christmas related dessert every known to man. Stiles looks just as excited as the children giddily clapping their hands waiting to dig in.
After dinner and dessert is served Laura stands in the middle of space between the tables to explain that there’s coffee, tea and hot chocolate being served, presents for the children being handed out and horse drawn carriage rides outside for two people at a time and to enjoy the rest of the night, and drink up.
Stiles watched as the children scramble to the large Christmas tree looking for the present with their name on it so they can rip into it, excited to get yet another present from Santa. He remembers going to his dads Christmas parties at the police station when he was younger, and there’d be a man dressed up as Santa and the children each had a turn to sit on his lap while Santa handed them a present. Stiles used to think it was the bomb that he’d be getting an early present from Santa - except, of course now he knows that the present was just even more money parents had to spend to buy yet another present to pretend it was from Santa. While the kids thought Santa was awesome, the parents never getting any of the credit. It was still adorable seeing kids get excited though.
He soon joined the line of people waiting to get drinks when he smelled hot chocolate being made, but not just any hot chocolate, candy cane hot chocolate. It was mouth-watering. Turns out, Luke was the one handing out he coffee’s and tea, and the candy cane hot chocolate was his creation - which just confirmed Stiles’ thought that it was going to be delicious. Luke grunted as he handed Stiles’ his hot chocolate in a Styrofoam cup sending him on his way.
There was no way Stiles was going to miss the horse drawn carriage ride, not when it was getting dark and the village Christmas lights were on and it looked straight out of a picture book. His eyes scanned the room for Scott, ready to drag him along even if he protested but he was nowhere to be found. Whatever - he headed outside and hopped in the carriage, rearranging the blankets provided to keep himself warm and told the driver he was ready, taking a sip of the scrumptious hot chocolate.
Just as the carriage lurched forward starting their journey throughout the town, it shook as someone jumped in and sat beside Stiles startling him.
“What are you doing?!” Stiles screeched nearly dropping his hot chocolate - and oh there would be hell to pay if he dropped it.
“Well I heard it was two to a sleigh, no more no less. You were breaking the rules,” Derek replied pointing his finger at Stiles.
“You could have hurt yourself!”
“I live on the edge. I can jump out if you want.”
“And hurt yourself and then the blame is on me? No way man.”
Stiles then proceeds to ignore Derek by taking a sip of his hot chocolate, because it’s not like he’s going to admit it’s nicer to have someone on the sleigh ride with and not be on his own like a total loner. He rearranges the blanket so that it’s also draped over Derek’s lap because he’s only in a sweater and a pair of nice pants - pants which Stiles heard Derek arguing with Laura earlier on back at their house, and why couldn’t he just wear jeans? Laura evidently won the fight.
“Don’t fall asleep on me and start drooling,” Derek jokes. “I’m sending you my dry cleaning bill.”
“Have you ever stepped foot in there?” Stiles snorts. “Besides, there’s no way I’d fall asleep now, the view is just too perfect.”
There’s a few minutes of silence before Stiles speaks again, happy that the redness in his cheeks can be hidden behind the excuse that it’s cold outside.
“I meant the village view, by the way.”
“And here I thought you were talking about me,” Derek drawls snatching the cup of hot chocolate from Stiles and draining the last few bits.
“Seriously man, we’ve had this conversation before - cooties! Not to mention I kinda love that stuff.”
“Luke will give you another one when we get back.”
“Yeah right, he always tries to cut me off anyway.”
“I can be very persuasive,” Derek shrugs.
“Somehow I can believe that.”
The sleigh is just rounding the gazebo when the partial remains of the snowmen that the village made a little over a week ago still stands - surprisingly enough Stiles and Scott’s is still fully intact. Stiles smiles like a goon when they pass by it as he starts to retell the story to Derek about how the next day after the competition Ian and Kirk’s snowman was annihilated and Stiles’ snowman had the first place ribbon on it - and how awesome was that?
Derek, for his part nodded his head pretending he hadn’t heard or known about this story - despite the fact that he was the helping hand that made that little scenario happen. It was nice to see Stiles so animated talking about something as trivial as a snowman.
When they make it back out front of Great Wolf Lodge Derek hops out of the sleigh and slinking off to whatever corner it is he seems to constantly lurk in while Stiles goes back inside to get another cup of hot chocolate - because why not? It’s Christmas, he’ll overload if he wants to!
He finally finds Scott talking to Isaac and berates him for bailing on him because he wanted to go on the sleigh ride together. Scott looks sheepishly away saying sorry, he went with Isaac but he’d totally go again if Stiles wanted to - Stiles rolls his eyes saying it doesn’t matter, he already went.
“But I don’t like you,” Stiles narrows his eyes at Isaac, “Scott’s my best friend, not yours.”
Isaac shoves Stiles, bringing him into a headlock until Stiles has to tap out saying he gives up - because no matter how hard he tries to kick his legs out and trip Isaac or push him off, the dude won’t budge. Isaac can’t stop laughing while Stiles shoots him a dirty look before he and Scott start laughing too.
Nothing ruins the magical day of Christmas and Stiles is genuinely surprised that he doesn’t spend the day dwelling about not having his father around or not being back in Beacon Hills - Wulfstan managed to be just the distraction he was looking for.
10|
Summary: Stiles accepts a new job (thanks to Mayor Laura Hale), in a new town and inadvertently starts a war, but it’s not his fault. Honestly.
Warnings: None
Rating: Mature
Chapters: 9/?
Notes: I swore up, down and whatever other direction that I wouldn’t post another WIP, yet here it is! I just feel like I’m more motivated to work harder once I’ve posted.
PS AO3
1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7|8|
-
Wulfstan is seriously like some magical fairy tale village bullshit or something - Stiles is positive. He wakes up early Christmas morning to a blanket of freshly lain slow outside, with more snow falling gently over everything and it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Normally Stiles isn’t a fan of snow, but on Christmas who doesn’t want a little snow?
Stiles bundles up in his jeans, a tacky snowman sweater that he bought a few days ago shoves all of Laura and Derek’s presents in a larger bag and gets ready to head to their house. Laura had told him to be there for around 9am so that they could open presents and have some breakfast and Stiles wasn’t about to turn down home-cooked breakfast - not in a million years.
Laura opens the door wearing a green knit sweater and sleep pants, with a large red and white Santa hat on her head and it’s the most adorable thing Stiles has even seen. He never thought he’d see his boss in sleep clothes let alone a Santa hat. Which makes him think about his old boss back in Beacon Hills, a grumpy 50 something year old man with a pudgy stomach and balding head - Stiles definitely doesn’t want to see him in his sleep clothes.
Laura ushers Stiles in and then Stiles stops dead in his tracks because now, now what he sees is the absolutely most adorable thing Stiles has even seen in his life, also the funniest - which explains why he almost drops the bag he’s carrying and doubles over laughing. Derek is also in a large red and white Santa hat that’s lopsided on his head, with a red knitted sweater with a picture of Santa on it and Rudolph boxers. Derek narrows his eyes and scowls at Stiles until Stiles finally manages to catch his breath and get some oxygen to his lungs.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Derek growls when Stiles tries to fish his phone out of his pocket and snap a picture.
“Aw c’mon Gypsy, where’s the Christmas spirit? Oh right, you’re wearing it all,” but Stiles pockets his phone, he has all morning to sneak a picture and he fully intends to.
“Don’t worry Stiles, we take a family photo every year, I’ll make sure to send you a copy as well,” Laura chimes in as she takes the bag of presents Stiles brought and scatters them around under the tree. Stiles smirks when he sees Derek’s scowl deepen, because ha!
Breakfast is one of the most mouth-watering meals Stiles has ever had and he secretly wonders if Luke came in here to make breakfast. They have snowmen and gingerbread men shaped pancakes doused in syrup, whipped cream, fresh fruit and even little M&M’s made to look like buttons, coffee (okay, not Luke’s coffee but still delicious nonetheless) and Stiles spies some decorated cookies in the kitchen for later. He’s seriously going to go into a sugar coma but he thinks it’s totally worth it.
After the breakfast plates are cleared the three head back into the living room where there’s a large, real Christmas tree decorated to the nine with all brand new looking decorations with a large shiny gold star on the top. How the hell they even managed to get that inside is a wonder. They start off handing out presents; Laura and Derek give them each other’s gifts which mainly consists of clothes. Stiles has to laugh trying to picture Derek pick out woman’s clothes for his sister. Laura gives Derek some t shirts that are brightly coloured and Derek looks like he might have a heart attack because clearly he only does white, black or grey clothing.
Laura gives Stiles his present from her and he greedily rips into the paper to reveal a shiny new DVD/Blu-Ray player - and he nearly drops it by how surprised he looks. Laura explains that she knows Stiles likes to watch his movies and ends up normally watching it on his laptop and he might as well watch it on a larger screen TV. Stiles clutches it to his chest as if he was a10 year old again and says his thanks a million times over. Stiles hands Laura her present, the first one a little gag gift which is a mug that reads “#1 Boss,” Laura laughs and tells him she’s going to take that into work and use it every day and flash it in front of Boyd who’s never given her one. His next gift to her is an all-expense paid day trip to the spa - or what passes for a spa here - so that she can have a relaxing day out of the office. Laura looks genuinely touched and brings Stiles in for a hug.
Next, Stiles darts under the Christmas tree to bring out a little bag and hands it to Derek. Derek takes the bag and tugs the colourful tissue paper off the top and grunts when he sees what’s in the bag. Laura badgers him until he takes out the content. First, there’s a small magic crystal ball keychain that has metal fingers with long looking nails holding it and then there’s a box of tarot cards. Laura nearly falls off her chair laughing when she sees what they are and Derek has a small smirk like he’s trying not to laugh or show any sort of emotion.
“You gotta admit it’s hilarious,” Stiles points out, “like I could resist the prime opportunity to buy you this stuff!”
“You’re crazy,” Derek mutters but turns the box of tarot cards over in his hands as he inspects the keychain.
Stiles snorts because hello, not the first time he’s heard that before but grabs the card that he also brought wedged in between the branches of the tree and hands it to Derek.
Derek raises his eyebrow but opens the envelope anyway, and when he opens the card music starts blaring, ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,’ and it just happens to fit with Derek’s whole outfit - Stiles couldn’t have planned that better if he tried. A piece of folded glossy paper falls out of the card and Derek picks it up and opens it.
“I uh ordered it online but I didn’t have time to pick it up, it’s a few towns over.”
Derek looks shocked as he looks at the picture. Stiles had asked Laura what the hell he should buy for Derek because it’s not exactly like he’s the easiest person to buy for, despite Laura saying whatever he bought Derek would like. After some more badgering, Laura finally told Stiles that Derek’s been looking at this fancy pants ball bearing tool chest, that has six drawers and locks so that he can keep his tools in there and not have and of the other mechanics use his stuff. Stiles immediately went online and looked it up and before he even realised and ordered it.
“Thanks,” Derek says in a bit disbelieving tone.
“I hope it’s the right size and everything,” Stiles says scratching the back of his neck - he doesn’t know why he’s all of a sudden getting clammy and nervous.
“No, it’s good,” Derek reassures Stiles quickly.
Derek has a genuine smile on his face now, not a quirk of the lips or a smirk at his gag gift but an actually happy smile - one Stiles hasn’t yet seen, but it’s a look that suits him perfectly.
“You better have bought Stiles something,” Laura threatens as she looks under the tree but there are no more presents, “I told you to get something ages go.”
Derek ignores his sister shooting her an exasperated look as he leaves the room and enters back a few minutes later and drops a bag in Stiles’ lap, there’s no tissue paper but at least it’s partially wrapped. The bag hits Stiles’ leg and he lets out a yelp of pain because whatever’s in the bag is heavy and kind of hurt.
Stiles puts his hand in the bag and removes the contents when a startled look takes over his face. “This is from the civil war,” Stiles says dumbfounded.
“If you say so,” Derek smirks.
Stiles is holding the doorknob he’d seen as Ms Kim’s, the one he nearly dropped when she startled him.
“Not me, Ms Kim said so; she could be lying for all I know.”
Derek gets back up and Stiles can hear something being dragged down the hallway, when Derek enters the room Stiles’ eyes always bug out because Derek’s carrying the very same brown leather arm chair and ottoman that he wanted to buy at Ms Kim’s that day - but she wouldn’t accept a deposit.
“Dude, is that for me!” Stiles screeches jumping up from the ground.
“I didn’t buy it for myself,” Derek huffs.
Stiles plops himself down on the chair and wiggles his bum around it until he’s comfortable and props his feet up on the ottoman. Laura and Derek are standing beside each other with equally amused looks on their face.
Stiles doesn’t realise the minute he jumps up and brings Derek into an awkward embrace of a hug. Derek seems startled a minute, gone completely rigid before he brings one arm around to clap at Stiles’ back before Stiles comes to his sense and moves away - redness creeping down his neck. He tries to cover it up by bringing Laura into yet another hug despite them saying their thanks already.
“We should put those tarot cards to use,” Laura declares suddenly grabbing the cards from where Derek put them on the couch.
They settle around the dining room table where they earlier had breakfast, Derek and Stiles sitting beside each other and Laura on the other side of the table, they work out that Laura will read Stiles, Stiles will read Derek and Derek will read Laura. Both Laura and Stiles look giddy with excitement while Derek looks sceptic - the might as well have a dog choosing their cards.
Laura shuffles the cards and places them down on the table telling Stiles to choose his card; his hands linger around a bunch of cards before he settles on one and flips it over. The card reads ‘Fool’ and is a picture of a jester with the joker hat, throwing what looks like three balls in the air with a bindle resting over his shoulder. Laura makes a ‘hmm’ under her breath as she flips through the book to find out what Stiles’ card says about him and his future.
“In general,” Laura starts, “the joker indicates a new beginning, something that usually has a deeper meaning such as meditation or a relationship - often depicted as an ‘important fresh start.’ In work, others may not understand your choice or ideas but if you know you’re where you belong and you’re happy, keep going and helps those that don’t understand, to understand. For love, it can mean that you’re not ready for a commitment, even if someone is pressing you however don’t let the temptation of just having fun make you overlook the chance for the ‘real thing’ should it ever come your way. Lastly, for health you’re apparently accident prone, and shouldn’t be taking any silly chances.”
Stiles is a little baffled because Jesus Christ if some of that doesn’t apply to him. Danny and Lydia didn’t understand his decision to move to fuck knows where and leave behind everything familiar all for a new job, he’s not looking for a relationship or any sort of commitment and even if he were (like with Ian) he shouldn’t let the idea of fun overtake the possibility of there being something else real out there, and as for accident prone - well yeah that’s nothing new.
He takes the cards and shuffles them before laying them out and telling Derek to pick his card. Derek for his part doesn’t grumble - he probably knows that he won’t be allowed to leave the table until they get this over with, so he flips his card. The card reads ‘The Hanged Man’ and is a picture of a man hanging upside down in tights and a tunic from a tree branch.
“In general,” and now it’s Stiles’ turn to start, “the hanged man shows that you’re at a crossroads, with two options such as ‘up and down,’ ‘in and out,’ or ‘yes and no.’ You might find yourself very much wanting to do something but you don’t know how, when or if to do it. If that’s so, it’s a sign that you should take a step back, relax and possibly let go. In work, nothing much seems to be happening you may even dislike your job and be sick of it, if that’s so, you should figure out if there’s something you can do about it. For love, it may be time to let go of an ‘unattainable lover,’ or let go of a vision you have for a certain relationship because it’s not the only way to be happy. Lastly, for health your health improves but it’s a process.”
Stiles clears his throat as he shuffles back the cards and hands them to Derek - Derek has a pinched look on his face like he’s eaten sour grapes or something.
Derek will never admit not out loud and barely to himself how much that card reading hit home for him - so naturally, he thinks it’s a bunch of bullshit. There’s no way cards can read the future or describe how someone is feeling - don’t people naturally try and fit a reading to fit their idea of what’s about to happen? Yeah that’s it.
Derek shuffles the cards with a sigh and places them out letting Laura pick her card. Laura claps her hands together and flips hers over. The card reads ‘Justice’ and is a picture of a woman in a long draping dress covering her whole body, she’s seated with a crown on her head, a sword in her right hand and the scales of justice in her left.
“In general,” Derek mumbles, “the justice card depicts the need for fairness, balance and harmony. You feel the need to operate in a balanced and reasonable fashion. If you are directly involved with the courts, it’s likely to be resolved in your favour. In work, you need to be sure that your work life and personal life is balanced, too much emphasis on one or the other throws your life and a balance between the two is a necessity to thrive. For love, if you’re single this is a time when a relationship may be coming your way and are likely to find it very soon. Lastly, for health it’s important to stay in the moment, pay attention to how you’re doing and everything must be taken in moderation.”
“Well, I’d say I balance everything perfectly,” Laura clears her throat, shuffling the cards and placing them back into the pack.
“Right,” Derek snorts, ignoring the death glare his sister is shooting him at the minute, “you spend more hours at the Town Hall than you do at home.”
“Well it’s not easy taking care of a whole village is it?” Laura shoots back.
Stiles can tell this isn’t the first time they’ve had this argument, and it probably won’t be the last - and its Christmas day, there shouldn’t be fighting on Christmas day. So he stands up, and declares that they should have some of those delicious cookies he saw sitting in the kitchen and find something else to do.
At least both Laura and Derek have the audacity to look a little sheepish at their bickering and agree. They end up snuggled on the couch with Miracle on 34th Street playing, Laura explains that they watch it every Christmas and they’re not going to break tradition.
Stiles wakes up sometime later with his head pillowed on Derek’s shoulder and his legs tangled with Laura’s. He jolts straight up instantly trying to inconspicuously wipe the drool from his chin.
“Hello sleepyhead, you’ve already made a puddle on Derek’s shoulder anyway,” Laura smirks.
Stiles blushes and glances at the wet spot on Derek’s shirt and yup, he did that. Totally embarrassing. At least Derek doesn’t look like he wants to murder Stiles - not that he looks thrilled either, but not being murdered maybe that’s just another Christmas present.
“Falling asleep on my boss’ couch with her and her brother, not at all awkward.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Laura shrugs untangling her legs from Stiles to stand up and stretch. “I’m going to go get ready for dinner tonight.”
-
The Great Wolf Lodge is the busiest Stiles as ever seen it. No scratch that, it’s the busiest he’s ever seen any place in Wulfstan. There’s more people scattered about than anyone at Luke’s and House of Wolf combined. There are children running around a ginormous Christmas tree with presents wrapped underneath it, adults mingling about chatting to each other with glasses of wine and bottles of beer in their hands.
Stiles is soon pulled into the usual gang of people, Scott, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, Dean, Rory and Lane. Someone hands Stiles’ a beer as they all mingle about. Scott brags about the newest game that his mom bought him for Christmas and Rory ruffles his hair saying it’s the most adorable thing in the world - Scott is apparently such a mama’s boy. Erica goes on about the newest sex toys that she bought for her and Boyd to use and everyone cringes saying they don’t need the specifics.
At 8pm on the dot everyone is ushered into the massive dining room in the Lodge that Stiles had never seen before, there are rows of tables all pushed together to form a large box-shaped U with chairs on either side - so that everyone is sitting at the same table. There are Christmas themed party poppers on everyone’s plate, with flickering candles, pine cones and other little decorations in the middle of the table with room to set down trays of food.
Everyone pops their party poppers, some getting little wine glass charms to put around the stem of their glasses, different coloured paper crowns to wear, cheap key chains and jewellery. It’s nothing fancy but everyone loves their gifts playing with it for a few minutes before chucking it to the side. Stiles gets a red paper crown and immediately sets it on top of his head. Boyd and Derek also get one but they look a little more dubious to put it on before everyone badgers them into doing it. Stiles isn’t surprised to see that Luke also got a paper crown but he opts not to wear his, in fact he’s not even wearing his normal backwards baseball cap that Stiles figured was permanently glued to his head. Instead he’s dressed up in a nice pair of slacks and button up shirt, no plaid or jeans in sight and talking to a beautiful brunette - scratch that, the brunette is talking to him a mile a minute and Stiles recognises her as Rory’s mom. Aw little Luke has a crush.
The food is just as good as Stiles expected it to be, he seems to see double or triple of everything as numerous turkeys, hams and chickens come out followed by various plates of vegetables, gravy bowls and more bottles of wine. Everyone digs in as soon as the food is placed on the table like they’re scared it’s all going to run out in a matter of minutes - which Stiles doubts because there’s a fuck ton of food. He wouldn’t be surprised if everyone passed out the minute they finished their meal from all the turkey and other food they’re cramming their stomachs with; not that Stiles isn’t doing the same.
He almost has a heart attack when he sees the plates being cleared away and then dessert is on its way out. There’s a cake made out of cinnamon buns made to look like a Christmas tree with coloured sprinkles baked in with icing drizzled all over it, gingerbread men cookies, Christmas pudding and any other Christmas related dessert every known to man. Stiles looks just as excited as the children giddily clapping their hands waiting to dig in.
After dinner and dessert is served Laura stands in the middle of space between the tables to explain that there’s coffee, tea and hot chocolate being served, presents for the children being handed out and horse drawn carriage rides outside for two people at a time and to enjoy the rest of the night, and drink up.
Stiles watched as the children scramble to the large Christmas tree looking for the present with their name on it so they can rip into it, excited to get yet another present from Santa. He remembers going to his dads Christmas parties at the police station when he was younger, and there’d be a man dressed up as Santa and the children each had a turn to sit on his lap while Santa handed them a present. Stiles used to think it was the bomb that he’d be getting an early present from Santa - except, of course now he knows that the present was just even more money parents had to spend to buy yet another present to pretend it was from Santa. While the kids thought Santa was awesome, the parents never getting any of the credit. It was still adorable seeing kids get excited though.
He soon joined the line of people waiting to get drinks when he smelled hot chocolate being made, but not just any hot chocolate, candy cane hot chocolate. It was mouth-watering. Turns out, Luke was the one handing out he coffee’s and tea, and the candy cane hot chocolate was his creation - which just confirmed Stiles’ thought that it was going to be delicious. Luke grunted as he handed Stiles’ his hot chocolate in a Styrofoam cup sending him on his way.
There was no way Stiles was going to miss the horse drawn carriage ride, not when it was getting dark and the village Christmas lights were on and it looked straight out of a picture book. His eyes scanned the room for Scott, ready to drag him along even if he protested but he was nowhere to be found. Whatever - he headed outside and hopped in the carriage, rearranging the blankets provided to keep himself warm and told the driver he was ready, taking a sip of the scrumptious hot chocolate.
Just as the carriage lurched forward starting their journey throughout the town, it shook as someone jumped in and sat beside Stiles startling him.
“What are you doing?!” Stiles screeched nearly dropping his hot chocolate - and oh there would be hell to pay if he dropped it.
“Well I heard it was two to a sleigh, no more no less. You were breaking the rules,” Derek replied pointing his finger at Stiles.
“You could have hurt yourself!”
“I live on the edge. I can jump out if you want.”
“And hurt yourself and then the blame is on me? No way man.”
Stiles then proceeds to ignore Derek by taking a sip of his hot chocolate, because it’s not like he’s going to admit it’s nicer to have someone on the sleigh ride with and not be on his own like a total loner. He rearranges the blanket so that it’s also draped over Derek’s lap because he’s only in a sweater and a pair of nice pants - pants which Stiles heard Derek arguing with Laura earlier on back at their house, and why couldn’t he just wear jeans? Laura evidently won the fight.
“Don’t fall asleep on me and start drooling,” Derek jokes. “I’m sending you my dry cleaning bill.”
“Have you ever stepped foot in there?” Stiles snorts. “Besides, there’s no way I’d fall asleep now, the view is just too perfect.”
There’s a few minutes of silence before Stiles speaks again, happy that the redness in his cheeks can be hidden behind the excuse that it’s cold outside.
“I meant the village view, by the way.”
“And here I thought you were talking about me,” Derek drawls snatching the cup of hot chocolate from Stiles and draining the last few bits.
“Seriously man, we’ve had this conversation before - cooties! Not to mention I kinda love that stuff.”
“Luke will give you another one when we get back.”
“Yeah right, he always tries to cut me off anyway.”
“I can be very persuasive,” Derek shrugs.
“Somehow I can believe that.”
The sleigh is just rounding the gazebo when the partial remains of the snowmen that the village made a little over a week ago still stands - surprisingly enough Stiles and Scott’s is still fully intact. Stiles smiles like a goon when they pass by it as he starts to retell the story to Derek about how the next day after the competition Ian and Kirk’s snowman was annihilated and Stiles’ snowman had the first place ribbon on it - and how awesome was that?
Derek, for his part nodded his head pretending he hadn’t heard or known about this story - despite the fact that he was the helping hand that made that little scenario happen. It was nice to see Stiles so animated talking about something as trivial as a snowman.
When they make it back out front of Great Wolf Lodge Derek hops out of the sleigh and slinking off to whatever corner it is he seems to constantly lurk in while Stiles goes back inside to get another cup of hot chocolate - because why not? It’s Christmas, he’ll overload if he wants to!
He finally finds Scott talking to Isaac and berates him for bailing on him because he wanted to go on the sleigh ride together. Scott looks sheepishly away saying sorry, he went with Isaac but he’d totally go again if Stiles wanted to - Stiles rolls his eyes saying it doesn’t matter, he already went.
“But I don’t like you,” Stiles narrows his eyes at Isaac, “Scott’s my best friend, not yours.”
Isaac shoves Stiles, bringing him into a headlock until Stiles has to tap out saying he gives up - because no matter how hard he tries to kick his legs out and trip Isaac or push him off, the dude won’t budge. Isaac can’t stop laughing while Stiles shoots him a dirty look before he and Scott start laughing too.
Nothing ruins the magical day of Christmas and Stiles is genuinely surprised that he doesn’t spend the day dwelling about not having his father around or not being back in Beacon Hills - Wulfstan managed to be just the distraction he was looking for.
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