[Sterek] Cupboard Love (boyxboy) (complete)

Chapter 30

It's only the next morning that he realizes the only way he has of getting the cookies to Derek is walking all the way to the Hale house, a good hour away on foot. It looks cold outside. His phone goes off.

Are you free today? Right now? Are you up and everything?

-Alex

Stiles adds her to his phone and texts back. Sure, what's up?

Be out front in five.

Stiles shifts from foot to foot debating bringing the tin with him to pass to Alex to give to Derek, but that just seems too indirect or vaguely rude, so he leaves it behind in the kitchen and sits on the stoop, hands tucked into his pockets and shoulders hunched up against the chill.

"Don't even say a word," Alex says when she pulls up in front of his house. Unlike her siblings, who apparently favour sleek cars made for illegal street racing, Alex drives a beaten up wood-panelled station wagon that is straight out of the late 70s. "One of us had to have a real car, and El said he would hook me up," she explains once Stiles is buckled in.

"Actually, I was going to ask where we're going."

Alex laughs sheepishly. "Oh, right. Didn't I tell you? You're coming tree hunting with us!" Stiles checks the date on his phone but yeah, it's definitely still December 22nd. "I know, it seems late, but we had to wait for Derek to get here and trust me, we're not going to have any trouble finding the perfect tree."

"I'll take your word for it." Stiles and his dad have been using the same little artificial tree for years now. Every year they take it out and assemble it and fluff it up and cover it in decorations. It's not big, but it doesn't need to be since there's only the two of them.

Alex pulls up in front of the Hale house and honks twice, loudly. "Stay put," she says when Stiles reaches for his seat belt. "You get shotgun."

"Because I was here first?" Stiles asks.

"Because it'll drive Derek crazy to see you up front with me," Alex corrects which doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless Derek doesn't want Stiles hanging out with his family, in which case he probably shouldn't have given them all Stiles' cell number. Weird.