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Stiles had to admit. Waking up and being eighteen didn’t feel much different from waking up and being seventeen as he had done the previous morning. He stretched out in bed, cracking his bones and joints taking up the whole bed to do it. It was unusual that he could do that these days as usually there was an emopants Beefcake McSexywolf next to him in the bed. Not today though. Nope. Derek had decided that the night before his eighteenth birthday would be the perfect opportunity to leave Stiles by himself. On his own. Alone.
He grabbed his phone off the side table and scrolled through his messages. Twenty thousand facebook ‘Happy birthdays’, texts from his actual friends, a missed call from Lydia, nothing from Derek.
He collapsed back down onto the pillow and sighed. He couldn’t help but feel he should be enjoying having perfectly legal sex right about now instead of trying to force himself up to go to school.
“Up you get, Stilinski,” he told himself and hauled himself out of bed.
He was half way through getting dressed, looking all around his room for the specific t-shirt he wanted to wear when he saw a single red rose sitting on his desk. He smiled and picked it up. Attached was a cream card with very fancy hand writing.
7pm. Dress nice. D.
Stiles took a deep sniff of the blossom. It had the usual floral smell with a hint of lemon to it. He looked at the rose more closely. Someone had taken the time to remove the thorns from the stem. He wondered if that was Derek or the florist. Then he tried to imagine Derek in a florists shop, standing amongst all those colours demanding to be brought a perfect rose while all the different scents made his nose itch.
He wondered if he was supposed to make some kind of response, text Derek to let him know he’d be there. No. He wasn’t going to do that. If Derek was going to be old fashioned with roses and notes then Stiles was going to do this right.
“It’s a date,” he whispered into the rose’s petals.
He dropped the flower into the glass of water on his bedside table and went to eat the birthday breakfast he could tell his Dad was cooking for him downstairs.
*****
It was 6:45 when Stiles finally managed to kick Lydia out of his room. When she’d heard that Stiles and Derek were not just going on a date, but their first actual proper date after over a year of dating, she’d insisted on coming home with him to make sure he understood what ‘dress nice’ actually meant. This meant that Allison came, which meant that Scott tagged along and so did Isaac.
6:55. Once more he looked at himself in the mirror. He’d grown a lot since the first day he’d met Derek. His arms were thicker with muscle, his buzz cut long since grown out and there was something different about the way he wore his face, even he could see that. His experiences of the past two years had aged and matured him, and it showed. There was still the trace of a scar at the base of his hair line from his tussle with a group of faeries, one of the vast collection he was beginning to amass. There had been a time when he resented being pushed into this world, when all he did was get him and those he loved hurt for a world he wasn’t even truly part of. Now they were trophies, reminders of all those he’d helped and the evil’s he’d destroyed.
He looked wrong with a tie, he decided. It was making his neck hot anyway. He loosened it and was about the throw it in the laundry when he thought better of that and hooked it around the headboard of the bed. You never know…
6:58. Man this was killing him. He caressed the petals of the rose that was now in one of his mother’s old vases on his shelf next to her photo and the birthday card she’d written from him before she died. There was a picture of him and Derek leaning against the frame. There was something about having Derek and his mother next to each other that he liked. He would have loved to introduce the two of them. No. Scratch that. He would have loved the two of them to have been introduced while he was several countries away and then turned up himself when they were getting along famously.
It was 7:01 when Derek’s Camaro pulled up outside. He was at the door before Derek was even halfway down the path. Stiles nearly fell over when he saw him. He’d seen Derek in a suit once or twice before but it still made him nearly faint from the sudden blood redirection.
“You dressed nice,” Stiles said weakly.
“You too.”
There was a definite flash of red there, Stiles noticed with glee. He closed the distance between them. Derek took his hand and pulled him in close, kissing him hot and hard right there on the front lawn. He could practically hear the curtains twitching.
“So. What do you have planned for me Mr. Hale? Hot air ballooning? Whisk me away to your private yacht. Are you going to take me away to Paris?”
Derek rolled his eyes at him before stepping up and taking his hand.
“It’s a surprise. Come on,” said Derek.
“Just bring him back in one piece,” Stiles’ Dad called from inside.
“Doesn’t he always?” replied Stiles.
“Uh-No!”
Stiles ignored his Dad as Derek pulled him towards the car.
*****
“I love it up here at night,” said Derek.
“I can see why.”
Stiles didn’t even try to not sound amazed. How could he have lived in this town all his life and never seen this?
They’d gone for dinner in a very fancy restaurant and sat, very pointedly, at a table by the window in full view of the street. There was nothing to hide about Derek and Stiles’ relationship now. When Derek had lead him up into the ridge in the middle of the woods, spread out a blanket, told him to lie down and close his eyes, Stiles had been expecting them to take advantage of this fact. Instead he’d opened his eyes and looked straight up at the sky spread out before them.
It was incredible. There were more stars in the sky than he’d ever seen before. Even when he came out into the woods with his friends he hadn’t seen this many. Across the centre was a great swathe of creamy white; the Milky Way. Derek had explained it to him, how the band of light that swept across the sky was made up of millions of stars, so many that you couldn’t tell them apart. He pointed out all the constellations, weaving ancient stories with astronomical titbits as he led Stiles across the night.
“How do you know all this?” Stiles asked.
“My Dad,” said Derek. “When I was younger we spent a lot of time in the woods. He used to tell us all about the sky and the stars. He said it would help us learn our place in the universe. Werewolves are stronger, faster, more powerful than humans are, it’s easy to get a big head and think we’re better than humans but in the grand scheme of things, we’re nothing really. Not even a blip in time.”
“Well that’s not depressing at all,” said Stiles.
“It is kinda. Sorry.”
Stiles stared up, scanning the sky. He tried to pick out the patterns he did know but there were so many stars out it was hard to find them. Instead he let his head loll to the side and stared at the man next to him. It didn’t matter it was dark. He knew Derek’s face better than anything, certainly better than he knew the night sky. He watched the smile change across Derek’s face as his eyes scanned the sky, remembering old memories and creating new ones. He smiled broadly and pointed up to the sky.
“Do you see that star there? Orion’s left shoulder.”
“Wait I know this one,” said Stiles excitedly. “That’s Betelgeuse, right?”
“The boy does know something,” Derek laughed. “They reckon it’s going to blow soon, you know, go nova and explode. It takes light from that star over 600 years to reach us. It could have died before our grandparents were born and no-one would know until after our grandchildren were dead.”
“Now that really is depressing. It’s my birthday. Could you not make me feel like my life has no meaning?”
Derek laughed and turned to face him. He ran his hand down the side of Stiles’ face.
“Think about it this way.” He continued to caress Stiles’ features as he spoke. “Out there, there are a million billion galaxies with billions of stars in each. But there’s this one star. It’s got a bunch of planets going around it and on one of those it’s got a bunch of people and werewolves and faeries running around it. In one corner of that one planet, there’s me and you, sat here right now. Together. Against all the odds, we both ended up in this little corner of the universe at the same time so I could be here with you on your eighteenth birthday.”
Stiles felt Derek’s fingers lace through his own as they lay together, listening to the sound of each other breathing. Stiles rolled over and snuggled into Derek’s chest. He could feel the warmth of him, reminding Stiles that he was here. For now and all the other birthdays that would follow.
“Derek.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for ending up in my corner of the universe.”
“Back at ya.”