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Stiles goes to college.
And he excels.
It comes as no surprise to Chris and John that Stiles is doing great at school. They meet once a week to talk, mostly about Stiles, though they’ve found a mutual sort of friendship in the longing for someone.
But regardless, Stiles is doing great at Stanford. He’s acing his classes, making friends with complete strangers who know nothing about the supernatural, and joining a fraternity, apparently. John doesn’t care too much about Stiles drinking with other college idiots, but Chris finds it charming in an odd sort of way.
(That might be because Stiles drunk calls him all the time and leaves sappy messages.)
Still, he’s excelling at school and he’s happy.
Until he’s not.
Chris isn’t sure what it is about the phone call that sets him on edge, but as he sits in his chair, TV on but muted, he knows something is off. Stiles is talking 90-nothing about class and his friends and the frat, but he doesn’t sound…right. It’s been a few weeks since he came home, his new found freedom keeping him too busy. He always keeps their Wednesday lunch skype dates, hasn’t missed the first one, but he’s turned down every invitation to drive back home on the weekends. Between Chris and John, there’s more than enough funds to bring the boy home every single weekend if he’d like, but Stiles adamantly refuses for a number of reasons.
“Baby, slow down,” Chris says softly, affectionately. “Take a deep breath.”
He listens as Stiles stutters to a stop, following the soft instruction until he’s breathing quietly, if not a little shuddery into the phone. Chris smiles at that, wishing for the millionth time that he could reach up and pull Stiles hair like an asshole, just to hear the complaint. But he can’t do that, can he? “I’m glad things are going so well for you. Sounds like you’re busy.” He braces himself for the next question. “Is it safe to assume that you’re not driving home this weekend?”
It’s a Thursday night, late for Chris, but early for Stiles. He knows Stiles is just gearing up to go to a party, knows that his boy is already a couple of shots into his pre-game, gearing up for a night of dancing and drinking and ill-advised make out sessions with girls and boys before he passes out in his bed, alone. Chris knows all of this, but the half dozen drunk messages he’ll wake up to in the morning, along with as many more apologies, tell him it just that Stiles misses having Chris close, that he doesn’t actually like any of the people he kisses. It’s not like he’s fucked any of them.
Stiles sighs softly. “Can’t, Daddy.” It’s soft, quiet, the most regretful rejection Chris has gotten yet, and he can hear the tears in his boy’s voice. “We’re…the game is this weekend. Big tailgating event. It’s important for me to be there since I’m just a freshman. I’m sorry. Maybe next weekend.”
But it’s never next weekend.
“That’s okay, baby, I understand completely. You be safe tonight, have a good time. I’ll talk to you soon.” They spend a few more minutes with their goodbyes before hanging up. Chris spends a few more hours in front of the TV with his favorite whiskey before he goes upstairs to a bed too big and too cold with his boyfriend gone.
Like clockwork, Chris wakes up the next morning to voicemails, though these are different. Chris sits in bed, listening to Stiles cry himself sick, mumbling nonsense about how he misses Chris, can’t come home, can’t come back.
So Chris does what he needs to do. He goes to Stiles.
The trip doesn’t feel like it takes 3 hours, but it certainly takes too long. He makes some calls on the trip, grabs a room at the Hilton where he has a Gold Membership from years of “consulting” on gun sales while hunting. Books a suite. Stops and grabs enough takeout for him to eat now and them to eat later. When he gets there, he checks in, drops a bag on the bed, and sits down.
He calls Stiles. “Hey, kiddo, how’s my boy?”
Stiles shuffles, yawns with a squeak that has Chris smiling in spite of his reasons for being here. “Daddy? What time is it?”
“About 10, 11, something like that.”
“Mmm, too early. Drank too much. Hungover. Call back, ‘kay?”
Chris laughs at that, so far gone in his dedication to a boy half his age that he can’t even be upset at having to wait a few more hours to surprise him. “Of course, baby. You rest.”
A part of him says he should have told Stiles anyway, told him that he was sitting in a hotel 3 minutes from campus, but he holds back. He wants Stiles to rest; of course he wants to have his boy here sooner, but he’s a patient man. So Chris unpacks, clears his schedule through Monday, knowing he can take a couple more days if necessary. He watches TV, eats his food, then texts Stiles.
253 Milner Lane. Go there.
Then he waits.
It’s about another hour later before his phone rings. Stiles says, “I’m sitting outside a Hilton 3 minutes from Stanford. Please…fuck, please tell me you’re inside.”
The voice on the other line is shaking, filled with what’s clearly a nervous excitement. The last time Chris heard this kind of voice, Stiles was standing naked in front of him, asking for Chris to take him, for them to have sex for the first time.
He grins. “Room 508. It’s a suite. I’ll have the door open for you.”
Chris laughs at the sounds on the phone, the line disconnecting as Stiles hurries inside. Chris gets up, clears the bed, and goes to open the door. He doesn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes before the elevator dings and footsteps pound through the halls. Chris pulls Stiles in with a grunt, his arms tight around the boy, holding him close as Stiles’ tucks his face into Chris’s shoulder and starts to cry.
Somehow they end up inside the room, tangled together on the floor. Chris rearranges them, gets Stiles seated in his lap so that they can really hold each other. He pulls the blanket off the bed, wraps them both up in it as he shushes his boyfriend gently. It takes a few minutes, but eventually Stiles settles, looking up at him with a red face and a runny nose.
“You’re so beautiful,” Chris murmurs using the corner of the blanket to wipe at Stiles’s face.
Stiles laughs. “Shut up, no I’m not. I’m the worst crier ever. But fuck, I’m so glad to see you, even if I’m ugly crying. I’ve missed you so much, Daddy.”
Chris pulls him into a sweet kiss, “Missed you too, kiddo. Come on, let’s get out of the floor, okay?”
They end up in the bed, stripped to nothing as they curl up together. It’s so nice to be with Stiles again, to just be in his presence. And even though Stiles is an 18 year old boy with a refractory period that is nonexistent, they’re able to just curl up and enjoy this. It’s been too long since they were together last; sex isn’t the priority. Yet.
Stiles is tucked up against him, tracing lazy patterns into Chris’s skin while Chris rests a hand on Stiles’s hip, the other hand carding through his hair. It’s nice. Nicer than Chris is willing to admit. He’s missed Stiles more than he cares to admit. He fully expected something like this to happen, but he never thought he’d drive up to find Stiles.
“Your hair has gotten long…” he murmurs to his boy, smiling into his skin. “I like it. Long enough for me to get my fingers tangled in.” He grabs a handful of it, tipping Stiles back so that they are looking each other in the eye. “Also long enough to make sure that you can’t turn away.”
His voice softens, gentles, takes on a fatherly quality he prefers not to use with Stiles because it reminds him that he has a daughter the same age as the boy he loves. But in this moment, it’s necessary. Chris tells himself is the same voice someone deeply in love makes when they attempt to soothe a creature who can turn wild in a second. “Stiles…it’s okay to admit that you’re scared to come home…”
The look of guilt is enough to tell Chris he’s hit the nail on the head. He let Stiles go, knows he won’t hide from the conversation. Stiles sits up, drawing the blanket up to his chest, knees following until he’s curled up into a little bundle. Chris sits up with him, sitting close, hand resting on Stiles’s back, though he remains silent.
“I’m not scared,” he says, and there’s no hesitation in the admission. “I can’t come home. I can’t…I can’t go back to Beacon Hills. After everything that happened, I can’t go home. I don’t want to. It’ll kill me, Chris, it’ll kill me to go back. For the first time in years, I feel human again. I feel like I can live a normal life. I haven’t had to touch a single thing in the trunk of Betsy. Nothing has come after me. People aren’t dying. The werewolf pack here…they’re nice and well-adjusted and when I told them who I was and what I could do, we made a treaty like it was nothing. They don’t bother me. I don’t bother them. It’s…this is what life is supposed to be, Chris. It’s normal. And after…after the…after the Void, I just…I don’t want to be back there, and I think if I tried to go back, I’d end up dying. So…I’m not coming back. Period. Ever. I’m just…not.”
Chris remains silent for a couple of minutes. That had been a hard time for all of them. No, Allison hadn’t died, but she’d come so close. And for a while, that had been impossible for Chris and Stiles to overcome. Until it hadn’t. Until one day Chris had found Stiles at his lowest, lower even, than when he’d been the Void. And then, they’d learned to breathe again. Together.
Chris leans forward and presses a kiss to Stiles’s shoulder. “Then don’t come home. You never have to come home. I…wish you would have told me sooner, instead of just…avoiding things. I’m certain your father will feel the same…”
Stiles flinched. “I told him…about a month into school. I told him I couldn’t come home again. We’ve been making plans for the holidays. For my break. He knows. I just….”
Chris sighs, drops his forehead against soft, warm skin and breaths in the scent of the boy he fell in love with. The boy who turned into a man when he wasn’t looking. Then he sits up, lets his hand slide off Stiles’s body. “I see. Was it…were you nervous to tell me? Afraid of my reaction? Or…is this goodbye? It’s okay, Stiles, whatever it is. Whatever makes you happy is enough.”
It takes all Chris has to fully brace himself for what Stiles might say. If Stiles has moved on, then so be it. Chris will go back to Beacon Hills and he’ll bury himself in work until he’s okay. Until he can breathe again on his own. He did it when Victoria died. He did it when he thought Allison was dead. He can do it again, without Stiles. Does he want to though? Does he want to let Stiles go…or is he ready to fight for something?
Stiles stills, body locking up tight. They don’t look at each other and Chris can see that Stiles is fighting his own battles. But then his boy says, “I…I had hoped…that maybe it wouldn’t change anything between us. That…we could continue to see where this relationship was going. I know…that you never thought it would be the long haul for us, that you never believed I could stick it out, but…I’m in this, Chris. I’m committed. I’d like…to see if we can keep being…us. But if me not coming home is a problem…”
It’s admittedly a lot like Christmas morning, Chris thinks to himself. He reached forward, grabs Stiles hand where it’s linked around his legs and laces their fingers together. Shifts until he’s slotted up around Stiles’s back. “Hey, no, fuck that. I knew you were serious, but I was trying not to get so attached. I didn’t want you to feel like you were stuck with me when you came to college. I wanted you to have this, baby. I wanted you to have the chance to experience something normal. And frankly, I’m so thrilled that you’re never coming back. I’m only in Beacon Hills for two reasons. You and Allison. And luckily for you, she’s got Scott. And Stanford isn’t that far from her. She’ll be okay. I don’t have to stay there. I can be where you are, especially if this thing keeps going the way it’s going. So stop that, okay? Stop beating yourself up. I’m not even upset that you chose to wait to tell me. I can’t be. Because I love you, Stiles. I love you, and you’re something I’m going to fight for.”
The confession ends up with the two of them fucking into the sheets. It ends up with rough, frantic, desperate sex because they’ve been apart for too long. It ends up with Stiles gasping promises and plans as Chris takes him apart with cock and fingers. It ends with them making love, bodies sliding together with sweat and cum and lube and soft words of love.
It ends up with Stiles falling asleep beside Chris, body loose and relaxed as the boy sleeps hard. Chris suspects this is the first good rest the boy has had without the help of alcohol since he realized he couldn’t go back to Beacon Hills.
And if it ends with Chris calling a Realtor while he cards his fingers through dark hair and smiling, well, no one has to know but him.