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Elijah was almost seven months old the first time that Stiles had to travel for his job.
Well, not the first time. Realistically, Derek knew that Stiles had traveled for work several times by now. But it was the first time since Derek and Eli moved in that Stiles was leaving for longer than a ten hour shift at the office, or the few days he’d taken off last month to go visit his dad for Noah’s birthday (Derek and Eli had been invited, naturally, but Derek was determined not to put Eli on an airplane again until he was old enough to teach proper airplane etiquette, or at least give a nonlethal dose of sleeping pills).
No, this time, Stiles was going to be gone for…he didn’t know, not for sure. Ideally, not more than a couple of days. “A week, tops,” Stiles said distractedly, shoving his work laptop into his bag. The skip of his heartbeat betrayed his uncertainty. He’d told Derek a little bit about this particular case: what was supposed to be a relatively minor dispute between the established Morgan pack in Utah and some up-and-coming hunters who had, up until now, kept to the Code, had exploded recently, and ended with bodies on both sides. Stiles and his team had no choice but to step in before it escalated further and began to attract national attention.
Derek had never personally had any contact with the Morgan pack, nor had his mother, nor her mother before her. They existed on the periphery of the Hale pack’s awareness, far enough away that there was really no reason to be friendly. But they were an old family, almost as old as the Hales, and that required acknowledgment. From what Derek knew, they had always been heavily religious, but kept to themselves overall. Pillars of their community and Mormon in practice, not quite hiding their true nature from what Derek understood. An open secret, which frankly made him uncomfortable, but Talia Hale said that their community respected them too much to ever reveal them to other humans.
At some point in the last few years, Stiles told him a few weeks ago, these newer hunters had caught wind of the Morgans’ unconventional existence within their small town and taken personal offense, despite the fact that they didn’t even live in Utah, or anywhere nearby. They’d been poking and prodding endlessly, just toeing the line of legal and illegal so as to avoid the local law enforcement’s wrath. Until recently, that was. Stiles had gotten a call from his director the other day, explaining that, while the details were fuzzy, immediate intervention was required to avoid further bloodshed or attention.
Quite frankly, Derek was freaking out.
“Are you sure I can’t do anything to help?” he asked for the umpteenth time, helplessly watching Stiles load his second duffle bag into the back of Derek’s Mazda. Derek was going to drive him to the airport, where Stiles and the rest of the small team would catch the next flight to Salt Lake City and, from there, drive to the Morgans’ small town to investigate the problem.
Stiles huffed out a laugh. “I won’t lie and say that the concern isn’t warming my heart, because it is,” he said, absently squeezing Derek’s hip as he passed by him on his way to the passenger side. As usual, Derek’s fingertips buzzed at the contact, urging him to…grab Stiles, or something insane like that. “But I think that bringing one of the last remaining Hales would be a terrible idea, honestly. You may all be scattered to the wind now, but you guys are still famous in the supernatural world. It may not make a difference to these hunters, but the Morgans might be offended if I try to bring in another old family.”
“I wouldn’t be going for them,” Derek muttered, sliding into the front seat after ensuring that Eli was safely buckled into his car seat. “They have nothing to do with it.”
“That might make it worse,” Stiles told him, but he was smiling that happy little smile he got whenever he thought that Derek was being unreasonably clingy (which Derek absolutely was not). “The FBI showing up to try and settle a dispute is one thing, but one of those FBI members shows up with a personal Hale bodyguard? It’d be basically telling them that I don’t trust them.”
“But you don’t,” Derek frowned, pulling out of the driveway. In the back, Eli fussed a little bit until Stiles turned on the pop punk music that always settled him down.
Stiles gestured with both hands like he was balancing a scale. “I don’t know if they’re being entirely honest about who made the first move,” he corrected. “I mean, if the hunters have been sticking to the law and the Code so far, why change it up now? This has been going on for years at this point; up-and-comers or not, that shows restraint and discipline. I’m just not totally buying that they lost patience and provoked this themselves, you know? At least, not without cause.”
“Have you asked Argent about them?” Chris Argent still resided in Beacon Hills, having seemingly accepted that he would never truly escape it, not while the McCall pack held the territory. He was semi-active on Stiles’ blog, sometimes getting into text tiffs with Peter about various subjects, whether that be lore that one or both of them thought Stiles had gotten wrong, or whether or not Eli really had Derek’s nose, or if they just thought that because they didn’t know what his mother looked like.
“I mean, his standing in the hunter community diminished a long time ago,” Stiles said, which was fair; essentially declaring yourself on the side of the things you hunted, and going so far as to become part of a pack of them, was not a good way to uphold your social standing within your community. “But from what he knows of these guys, they’re not, like, reckless or anything. Not like the group that basically turned Beacon Hills into a warzone, you know?”
“So he doesn’t think they would purposely orchestrate a situation in which to take down a large pack,” Derek concluded.
“No, he doesn’t. Which begs the question: what happened that they finally made a move?”
Derek knew full well that Stiles could hold his own in a fight; he’d been doing it since he was sixteen years old, armed with only a bat, an ancient Jeep, and his wits. Stiles had only gotten smarter over the years, and in these last years apart, he’d bulked up a little too. Not the way that Derek had when he’d done his brief stint as an alpha, but Stiles was all lean, wiry muscle that was impossible to hide, even with a thin layer of fat covering the abs on his stomach. It had been the first thing Derek had noticed upon meeting him again, and continued to surprise him every time Stiles made it his personal mission to obliterate any semblance of personal space and give Derek the physical affection he’d been lacking for so long. Stiles may still be soft around the edges where it mattered, particularly in regards to those he loved (which Derek felt very lucky to be included in, regardless of how he wished that love could be a little different), but he still held the sharp angles of his youth. He was just more…precise with who he directed those angles at.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Derek began.
Stiles barked out a laugh. “That’s a great way to start a sentence.”
Derek shot him a glare. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he stressed, “but your team, they’ve got your back, right? You trust them to back you up in a fight?”
Stiles eyes softened, head lolled back on the headrest to look at Derek while he drove. “This is far from the worst thing we’ve dealt with,” he said in what was probably supposed to be assurance, but only served to make Derek’s gut clench uncomfortably, thinking of how many times Stiles had been in danger when he wasn’t there (he’d never forgiven himself for not knowing when Stiles was taken by the Wild Hunt). “They’re not exactly a pack by any means—not that I want them to be, not when I already have one—but they’re good people. Actually, they’ve been wanting to meet you.” With the last sentence, his gaze slid away towards the road. It might be casual, if he hadn’t started tapping a restless rhythm on his jean-clad thigh.
“Oh?” Derek questioned, feeling his eyebrow quirk.
Predictably, Stiles’ heartbeat stuttered slightly and Derek smirked to himself. “Yeah, no, they, uh, they just – I guess I’ve been, you know, happier lately, to the naked eye, and they know you and Eli have been living with me for a few months now, and for some reason, they’ve got it in their heads that you’re responsible for the, uh, change in mood—”
“For some reason,” Derek echoed, unable to stop the smirk spreading over his face.
“Shut the fuck up,” Stiles muttered, and upon shooting a quick glance in his direction, Derek found that he was smiling a little bit too. “I was thinking, when we all get back, the director usually likes to have a bit of a, uh, ‘paperwork party,’ we’ve dubbed them. You know, documenting all the shit that happened in detail, as though any of it will ever see the light of day, and then turning it into something palatable to the public in the event that the public needs to be addressed. Anyway, considering the nature of this group to begin with, you know, you and Eli could come along; some of the others bring their spouses or partners along sometimes, and we usually order pizza or Chinese and just, you know, have a good time doing what would normally be boring as all hell, and there’s no risk of anyone being freaked out if Eli can’t control his shift, so…”
Derek cleared his throat, positively beaming at this point. “Partners, huh?”
“Look, they know we – we aren’t, but that’s not going to stop them drawing their own conclusions,” Stiles defended, and chemo signals or not, Derek could tell that he was a little embarrassed. “If it’s a totally stupid idea, you definitely don’t have to come along. I mean, they’ll be nightmares about it, and make all sorts of innuendos, even though they’re all either supernaturally inclined or have been around it as long as I have, or longer, and know full well that it isn’t like that.” It could be like that, Derek thought, but Stiles was still rambling. “Plus, you know, I know you don’t like crowds, though they honestly hardly quantify as a crowd, there’s all of six of us total, max ten if anyone brings someone along, and maybe it would be a slight risk, bringing a baby werewolf into the office now that I think about it, and yeah, no, you definitely don’t have to do this—”
“Stiles,” Derek laughed, reaching out and putting a hand over Stiles’ restless fingers. “I don’t mind meeting your team. Who knows, it could be fun. I’ve been here, what, four months? Five? And I’ve barely interacted with anyone but you and the lady at the twenty-four hour grocery store. Plus, Eli is going to have to start going outside at some point. We can’t keep him locked up forever. Besides, he’s getting better at not shifting when he’s excited.”
“That’s actually super impressive, considering he can’t even talk yet,” Stiles mused, glancing back at the infant strapped in the backseat. He babbled happily when Stiles smiled at him.
“Some born ‘wolves develop control pretty early on,” Derek told him. He wondered about it sometimes though, a little worried and not sure if he should be. He’d (reluctantly) shot Peter a text during the last full moon, when the whole night passed and Eli didn’t even shift once, just occasionally flashed golden eyes at Derek or Stiles during feedings. Peter, in a surprising turn of events, was genuinely reassuring, or at least tried to be, reminding Derek of Baby Rosetta and how she hardly shifted at all during her first several months of life. Granted, her life had been cut very short by the fire; she hadn’t been much older than Eli was now when she died. In contrast, Cora had been almost feral by the time she could walk, and from what Peter gleefully told Derek later that night, so had Derek and Laura both. None of them could attend public school until they were eight years old – ten, in Cora’s case.
All baby werewolves are different, Peter’s last text read. They’re similar to human babies in that way.
Still, Eli hardly shifted at all anymore, apart from the rare flash of gold. Derek wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
“Well, if he gets overexcited with this group, no one will be upset about it,” Stiles said decisively as he turned back to face the front. “So…you’ll come?”
“Yeah,” Derek agreed easily, turning onto the service road that would take them to the airport drop-off. “Yeah, we’ll come.”
Stiles sighed with something that sounded like relief.
A few minutes later, Derek got out to help him shoulder his bags in such a way that Stiles would have at least one free hand, trying to swallow his anxiety all the while. Stiles smacked a kiss to Eli’s forehead and hugged Derek as best he could with the bags in the way. “I’ll call you,” he promised, “at least once a day.” Just before he pulled away, he trailed the tip of his nose deliberately down Derek’s neck, starting just behind his ear at his hairline and ending in the hollow of Derek’s throat. Scent marking, Derek thought faintly, almost dizzy with it. Stiles had done it before, usually with his thumb or fingertips, and usually in such a way that Derek didn’t think he knew what it meant beyond just pack. But that – that was intimate. And judging by the way Stiles’ pulse skyrocketed the moment he did it, Stiles knew exactly what it meant.
Oh. Okay.
“If I don’t hear from you, I’m sending the calvary,” Derek threatened, hoping his voice wasn’t too shaky.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Stiles shot back, grinning nervously.
Derek swung back into the Mazda, rolling the window down to return Stiles’ wave when he reached the door before he disappeared from view. He took a deep, centering breath before driving away. Stiles hadn’t meant it that way, he reasoned. He was just leaving Derek with reassurance that everything would be okay. That was all.
“Don’t look at me that way,” he muttered to Eli’s reflection in the rearview.
Eli just grinned a gummy smile that seemed just a little too smug for a seven-month-old.
***
True to his word, Stiles texted Derek as often as he could, mostly sporadic pictures of him and his team on the plane, and then in the car, and then in hotel rooms. He called Derek that first night, complaining about Mormons and how, “They’re worse than the fucking Alpha Pack, Der, I swear to God. Like we thought that shit was cult-like? This town is fucking creepy.”
They switched to a video call a few minutes into their conversation at Stiles’ insistence (“I miss Eli!”), even though said baby werewolf was sound asleep in his crib. Derek was distracting himself from the strange quiet in the house by drawing up business plans for the used bookstore he’d finally decided on, sipping a glass of the wine that Stiles kept in the house – Stiles himself would have to drink a whole bottle of it to get even buzzed, as it was essentially glorified grape juice, but Derek liked the taste. Stiles called him on it immediately, grinning widely, and then asked Derek to log into his home computer to email over a file he’d forgotten to transfer.
Derek swapped the camera so that it faced the computer screen instead of him, and was grateful for it when he turned it on and was met with Stiles’ screensaver: a picture of Derek and Eli, both passed out in the armchair Stiles had stolen from his dad’s house in Beacon Hills at some point. Stiles breezed right past it, telling Derek the password to unlock the computer and get to the file, but Derek just stared for a few seconds, slightly awed.
“Uh, Derek? You still there?”
“Y-yeah,” Derek said, shaking himself slightly and moving to log in. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.”
Stiles paused too, probably realizing that Derek had never actually seen that picture before. “Oh,” and his voice was flustered, face flushing slightly on the phone screen, “yeah, sorry, I probably should have told you I had that picture. I can totally change it when I get home—”
“No, no, it’s – it’s fine,” Derek told him, knowing his own cheeks were probably red and desperately grateful that Stiles couldn’t see it right that second. “It’s, uh, it’s…it’s nice.”
All in all, Stiles saw Eli’s face for a grand total of about a minute that night, and Derek’s for about thirty. Derek wasn’t complaining.
The pictures kept coming over the next few days, but the calls became much shorter. On the fourth day, Derek didn’t hear from Stiles at all, and stayed up until nearly four in the morning trying to lose his shit in such a way that he wouldn’t upset Eli over it. Not only did he upset Eli to the point of screaming for hours in a way that he hadn’t for almost two months now, but Nessa was agitated too, constantly pacing and looking through the windows and not eating her food. By the time the phone rang, Eli had wailed himself to sleep, and Derek was thinking wildly of who he could get to watch Nessa and Eli while he flew to Utah to track Stiles down (no one, the answer was no one, because Derek knew no one except for Stiles here). He was scrolling through his contacts to actually call Peter, who he was fairly sure could get to Stiles fastest by virtue of currently residing in south Wyoming, when Stiles’ name and picture flashed across the screen.
“I’m sorry,” Stiles said immediately, before Derek could even open his mouth. “I totally would have called sooner, but we’ve spent the last few hours cleaning up—”
“Are you okay?” Derek asked urgently.
“I—yeah, yes, I’m fine.”
Derek didn’t need to hear his heartbeat to know that Stiles was lying through his teeth.
“Video call,” he demanded. “Now.”
“Derek—”
“I’m not asking.”
Someone in the background laughed and said, “Ooh, your hubby’s mad.”
“Shut up, Andi,” Stiles snapped, voice slightly further away. To Derek, “Okay, yeah, just give me a second.” The call abruptly cut off, only for Derek to get the Facetime notification a second later. When Stiles’ face filled the screen, he had to stifle a gasp.
Stiles looked – well, he looked like he’d been beaten up by a werewolf. “You should see the other guy,” Stiles joked weakly.
“No, really,” the other voice, Andi, chimed in, “Stiles got him good.”
“What. Happened.”
“Look, Derek, I’m okay,” Stiles said, eyebrows scrunching guiltily. “No hospital necessary. It looks worse than it is.” His phone seemed to jostle slightly, and Derek realized that he must be in the back of a car. Okay – so Stiles must have actually called the literal first chance he got, especially if at least one of his team members was there. More, if Stiles wasn’t even in the front seat.
Sure enough, another voice piped up, this one from slightly further away. “Seriously, I know it looks bad, but I’ve checked him and the rest of the team over, and the injuries are all manageable. Stiles doesn’t have a concussion, no broken bones, nothing even sprained. There were just a few lucky hits, that’s all.”
Derek breathed in slowly through his nose. “And your friend’s authority is…?”
“Trained combat medic,” Stiles told him. “Though he’s a werewolf too, if that helps. Seriously, Derek, it looks way worse than it is.”
It looked pretty damn bad: blood drying in Stiles’ hair, visible even in the dim light from what Derek assumed were multiple phone screens, a black eye, a long claw mark down his jaw and disappearing into the collar of his shirt, and a split lip. Realistically, Derek knew that Stiles had been through worse (the memory of Gerard Argent came to mind). But Derek hadn’t seen Stiles hurt like this in…years. Sure, Stiles was missing part of his pinkie toe now, courtesy of their memorable reunion from the last time Derek was on the run, but it hadn’t been difficult to find the humor in that, even at the time. Now though…Derek had seen what Stiles looked like in the midst of pure domesticity, had gotten used to it. This was jarring, to say the least.
He let out the breath he’d been holding as slowly as he could, willing his hands to stop shaking and the shift to stop itching at his gums and fingertips. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Stiles’ expression softened, furrowed brow smoothing out. “It’s okay,” he said gently. “I should have warned you.”
“No, I,” Derek sighed, “I’m just not…I can’t protect you from here. Or at all, really. That’s on me though, that’s not on you. It’s my issue to deal with.” There was a lot he wasn’t saying that he knew Stiles would pick up on, starting with his family burning alive and every subsequent person he lost after that. What Stiles might not pick up on was that Derek wasn’t thinking of any of them right now; he was thinking of the very first person he lost:
Paige.
The circumstances were entirely different. He knew that. Paige hadn’t had a clue of the world she’d stepped into by dating Derek. She hadn’t known the dangers involved, that she’d be targeted just by being associated with one of the youngest members of the pack. Stiles, on the other hand, had figured out what he and Scott were dealing with right off the bat. Not only that, he’d chosen it. Again, and again, and again, until it wasn’t just Scott he was choosing it for, but everyone else. He chose it for himself, to the point that he made a career out of it.
But he didn’t know (at least, Derek thought he didn’t know) that Derek looked at him sometimes and was faintly reminded of the girl he’d loved so fiercely all those years ago. That Stiles smiled sideways at him a certain way sometimes and made Derek’s breath catch in his chest, seeing a flash of different dark, shining eyes. That, despite their differences, Paige and Stiles were lumped together in a category in his brain that no one else was.
It's entirely different, Derek tried to tell himself. But it was hard to remember when Stiles’ face was busted up on a phone screen some two thousand miles away.
“No, Der—”
“Jesus, you guys are sort of disgusting,” the second voice from before, Andi, muttered from somewhere out of sight. “Okay Stiles, tell your husband good night and you’ll see him tomorrow night—”
“Andi, for the love of God—”
“And Derek—” there was an offended yelp from Stiles, the phone screen shaking slightly like it was being wrestled out of Stiles’ hand, and then another face filled the screen, significantly less bruised and healing fast, “don’t worry so much. We’ve had Stiles’ back for awhile now, we can take care of him when you’re not here. It is nice to know that he has someone to go home to now though.”
“Jesus Christ, Andi,” Stiles was grumbling. From the way Andi was holding the phone slightly to the side and up, Derek thought she must be holding it out of reach while shoving Stiles back with the other hand. Her curly blonde hair reminded him uncomfortably of Kate, but her features were much softer, round cheeks and storm-grey eyes that held sympathy alongside humor. Stiles had told him a bit about Andi, how she reminded him of Erica; she’d taken the bite for similar reasons, plagued by an autoimmune disorder that made it next to impossible for her to function normally without severe pain.
Derek hadn’t trusted his instincts about other people in a very long time (though he’d put significant work into rectifying that), but he thought that he could probably trust Andi with Stiles’ life, at the very least.
Still, he didn’t like how fast she’d clocked them, and how falsely. “Get him back in one piece,” he said anyway, more concerned with Stiles’ wellbeing than his own embarrassment.
Stiles finally snatched the phone back. “Ignore her and her entire existence,” he said immediately, shooting a glare to his right. Andi cackled loudly enough that the driver groaned in frustration from the front seat, as did an unidentified third passenger. “Look, we’ve just got to meet with the local law enforcement later this morning and be present while they address the town at eleven, but we’ve got the next flight out of Salt Lake City in the afternoon and we land at IAD at seven-thirty. I’ll text you the flight details, yeah? You’ll pick me up?”
“Yeah, of course,” Derek said immediately, ignoring Andi’s pointed, “Or Rocky and I can drop you off like normal, it’s not like you’re on the way home or anything.”
“Okay,” Stiles breathed. He looked like he wanted to say something else, and Derek held his breath, but after a quick look around the vehicle, he just said, “See you later, Der.”
“Yeah.” Derek swallowed his disappointment. “See you later.”
Suffice to say, Derek did not sleep, and when the sun rose, he strapped Eli to his chest after feeding him and took Nessa on a long, long walk. He only took her home when Eli was growing slightly fussy and Nessa was starting to toss her head the way she did when she was annoyed. By the time Derek had taken a quick shower, choked down some food himself, and put Eli down for an early nap (he was still exhausted from screaming himself hoarse yesterday), Derek finally gave in and curled up in Stiles’ bed. Payback for all the times that Stiles had napped in his own bed, he justified to himself, knowing full well that wasn’t it.
He barely remembered to set an alarm to pick up Stiles before he passed out.
***
Despite his exhaustion and the comforting scent of Stiles wrapped around him, Derek slept fitfully up until Eli woke him up with tiny whimpers an hour or two before his alarm. Derek occupied himself with feeding him, changing him, and reading him some book called The Passage that Stiles swore by. Derek had never been much of a reader, and had been more than happy to let Stiles and Lydia do the research way back when despite grumbling about trusting them, but it was easier to digest and understand when he was reading out loud. He never gave the characters distinguishable voices, not the way Stiles did, but he enjoyed how Eli seemed to pay attention anyway – entranced by the story itself or his father’s voice, Derek didn’t know.
The ride to the airport was spent white-knuckling the steering wheel until Eli started whimpering tellingly, forcing Derek to relax and turn on the newest All Time Low album. Traffic was worse than he anticipated, and Stiles was waiting outside with his bags by the time Derek pulled up to the pick-up.
Derek’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of him. Stiles looked worse than the video call that morning, his injuries thrown into sharp relief despite the fact that the sun was already mostly fallen. He’d thrown the Mazda in park and practically fallen out of the vehicle before he could stop himself, just barely remembering to put the hazard lights on. The closer he got, the worse Stiles looked, bruised and cut up and worn-out. But Stiles grinned, straining his split lip, and fell into Derek’s embrace the moment he was close enough, bags forgotten at their feet.
“God, I missed you,” he murmured into Derek’s skin where he’d tucked his face into his neck.
It made Derek’s chest ache.
“I missed you too,” he admitted quietly, tilting his face into Stiles’ hair and breathing in. “I – we all did.” From the car, he could hear Eli babbling excitedly, clapping his little hands together. Even so, he gave himself another second to hold Stiles close to his body, one hand drifting up to the back of his head unthinkingly. He could feel Stiles’ heartbeat against his own chest, beating fast but strong, with Stiles’ arms wrapped securely around his waist. From the outside, he knew that this looked anything but platonic.
Derek didn’t care.
When Eli’s car-muffled babbling changed over to frustrated sniffles, Derek finally released Stiles and busied himself getting his bags in the car while Stiles opened the back passenger door and smothered Eli in kisses. “You could sit back there with him,” Derek offered, even though he definitely did not want Stiles out of arm’s reach. “He’s been pretty upset with you gone.”
But Stiles climbed into the front and, the moment Derek had pulled out of the tangle of cars at pick-up, claimed his right hand. Derek tried to pretend that his heart didn’t skip at the easy way that Stiles interlocked their fingers and didn’t let go the whole way home. Derek wanted to talk to him, wanted to ask what went wrong, how everything ended up. But Stiles’ eyes were closed, head tilted back against the headrest like he was falling asleep. He wasn’t; he was holding Derek’s hand too tightly for that, almost like he was anchoring himself to the ground so he wouldn’t float away, and his breathing was too even. In four, held four, out four. Over and over in such a way that Derek knew Stiles was trying to keep himself from spiraling out.
He wondered how long Stiles had been doing that today.
So Derek didn’t ask about any of it. He just asked what Stiles was feeling for dinner, making sure to give him choices and not just leave it entirely up to him. He remembered how Laura would do that for him after the fire, when his anxiety and guilt swirled up and filled every part of him until there was nothing else. When making the simplest choices led to an inability to control the shift for the first time since he was eleven and entering puberty. When Stiles didn’t answer for almost a full minute, he thought maybe he’d said the wrong thing, until Stiles let out a deep sigh and said, “Leftover roast sounds really good right now. Your dad’s recipe, right?”
“Yeah,” Derek confirmed, smiling a little as warmth flooded his chest. Peter, in some fit of nostalgia or affection for his remaining niece and nephew, had sent Cora and Derek several old Hale family recipes a month or so ago. The file was digital, but the pictures were of various family members’ handwriting.
Derek was not ashamed to admit that he’d cried a little bit upon receiving it.
“I haven’t had a real meal in days,” Stiles groaned, eyes still closed. “Just a bunch of takeout. Which is really good sometimes, especially when the director springs for us to go somewhere nice, but that stupid little town didn’t have anything nice. Not even a mom-and-pop diner or anything like that.”
“Sounds shitty.”
“It was, like, peak shitty,” Stiles lamented. “I never want to go back, ever again. I can take getting the shit beaten out of me, but at least give me good food while you’re at it, you know? I didn’t realize how spoiled I’ve become since you and Eli moved in.”
“Happy to provide,” Derek teased. Relief was settling in next to the warmth and affection as he turned into their driveway. Stiles still didn’t look or sound very good, but he was coming out of whatever despair he’d slipped into. Derek promised himself that he would continue to provide whatever distraction Stiles needed and let Stiles come to him about the assignment on his own time.
He set about reheating the pot roast he’d made a couple nights before while Stiles took a shower. After some debate, he made some hot chocolate too, adding less than half a shot of Fireball. If Stiles wanted more then Derek wouldn’t stop him, but he’d seen how Stiles tended to be cautious of hard liquor, preferring to stick to seltzers or wine, and avoiding beer altogether. From what he remembered of Stiles as a teenager, he was never one to turn down a drink, but evidently something had changed. Privately, he had wondered once or twice if Lydia leaving had something to do with it; he’d heard offhandedly from Scott once that the sheriff had been a pretty heavy drinker after Mrs. Stilinski died. But he didn’t ask, and in this case, Stiles could probably use a little help relaxing. Though, if he declined, Derek wouldn’t be offended in the slightest.
Derek had never seen what Stiles was like after an assignment before. He had no idea if he was doing any of this right. But Stiles came out of the shower in the soft flannel pajama pants Derek had hesitantly put outside the bathroom door, having forgone the worn t-shirt accompanying it in favor of one of Derek’s sweaters with the thumb holes. He held Eli in both arms like a security blanket. Nessa followed on his heels. “Sorry, but I’m kidnapping your child for the rest of the night,” Stiles said unapologetically. “I need him more than you do right now.”
“I think he needs you too,” Derek said, smiling a little at the sight. He’s just as much your child at this point, he refrained from saying. He offered Stiles the bowl of pot roast and mug of spiked hot chocolate as he joined Derek at the table. “There’s whiskey in it,” he warned. “If you don’t want it, I’ll have it, no worries.”
Stiles didn’t hesitate to take a sip and reach for the bottle to add a splash more. “No, it’s a good call,” he told Derek. “You don’t have to believe me, but I don’t have cheat days very often when it comes to alcohol.”
“Stiles, I’ve lived here for five months and I’ve only seen you have a single screwdriver one time,” Derek laughed. “I trust you.”
“Yeah, well,” Stiles started, but trailed off. Derek didn’t push, just let the silence stretch comfortably for a few minutes while they ate. “We had to eliminate the pack,” Stiles sighed finally, apropos of seemingly nothing. Derek froze, halfway to reaching for his glass of water. He changed tactics, reaching out towards Stiles instead. Stiles didn’t hesitate to take his hand and squeeze hard enough to hurt a little. “It happens, sometimes,” Stiles continued quietly, staring down at his half-finished dinner, “that we’ve had to take out alphas and such before, let the power pass on to someone else or fade altogether and the remaining members move on somewhere else. I haven’t – we haven’t had to eliminate an entire pack before though. When we got there, they tried to tell us that the hunters had provoked them, that they’d kidnapped one of theirs and were torturing them. That’s where the first bodies came from. But…in reality, they’d started it.”
Derek felt his stomach sink down to his toes. “Why did they do it?”
Stiles shrugged. “They said they were tired of being under surveillance all the time. That they hadn’t done anything wrong, the hunters had no reason to be there. The thing is, though, once we talked to the hunters and even the local law enforcement, the story fell apart. Turns out the pack had so much power in that town because they’ve been essentially ritually sacrificing other citizens for years. Humans. Anyone who fucked up, in their eyes, or wasn’t following whatever Mormon traditions they held onto well enough. They had to stop when the hunters got there, and the townspeople started getting more confident, less afraid of them. They were losing face and the local police figured now was the time to make a move. So…the pack took one of the hunters’ kids.”
Derek’s blood ran cold. “Did they…?”
“He’s dead,” Stiles said dully, “but they had him for six days before he died. That body, Derek…we’ve seen some shit, you know? But that…that wasn’t just werewolf claws or fangs. It was…it was calculated. Intentional. And it wasn’t just…” He shook his head. “Anyway, once we found out about that, the Morgan alpha tried to backtrack, tell us that it was just one pack member. That they’d gone feral. He brought up Peter, if you can believe that. Compared this to that. And, yeah, Peter…none of us are ever going to be able to look at Peter and not see what he did to us. To Laura, to you, to me, to Scott, to Lydia…”
“He was out of his mind for a lot of that,” Derek said reluctantly. Stiles was right; he didn’t think they would ever be able to forgive Peter for the things he’d done. But… “He redeemed himself, somewhat. And he’s…better now.”
“And the Morgans were lying,” Stiles spat bitterly. “I knew they were as soon as we actually talked to them. And once we got the local police to release the information about the sacrifices…I guess the only good thing is that none of the Morgans have had kids in a really long time. The youngest member we had to eliminate was nineteen.”
“You had to,” Derek told him gently, but with conviction. Stiles wouldn’t have otherwise.
“It doesn’t make it any easier,” Stiles murmured. To Derek’s slight alarm, his eyes were filling with tears where he continued to stare at the table.
Derek didn’t think too hard about it. “Come here,” he said, and pulled Stiles up from his chair. Trusting that Nessa would continue to be as well-behaved as she usually was, he abandoned both their bowls and only paused to scoop Eli up from his hi-chair before guiding Stiles to the couch. Derek continued not to think too hard about it as he deposited Eli in his little playpen, where he happily began gnawing on a teething ring, and sat on the couch with his legs stretched out, one foot resting on the ground. “Come here,” he repeated, holding out a hand and gesturing for Stiles to join him. After a moment of hesitation, Stiles gingerly sat down, looking slightly confused. Derek pulled him back against his chest, lightly touching his forearms until Stiles got with the program and brought his legs up on the couch, going boneless after linking his fingers with Derek’s and crossing both their arms over his chest.
“I love my job, I do,” Stiles said after a few minutes of silent shaking, voice thick with suppressed tears, “but sometimes I wish I’d listened to my dad when I was younger and stayed out of law enforcement. I’ve always known that we can’t save everyone, that sometimes we have to make the hard choices. I hate having to make them though. I just – I just want to be able to save people sometimes, you know?”
“You do save people,” Derek reassured him. Stiles heaved out a deep sigh, tilting his head back onto Derek’s shoulder. “You saved those townspeople from the Morgans. Who knows how long they would have kept that up?”
“We’d never have known if not for the hunters though. And their kid…” Stiles swallowed hard. “Maybe this isn’t right for me to say, or feel, but…all I’ve been able to think about these last few days was Eli. How it would feel if—if one day, he got caught up in that sort of shit. If something happened, and I couldn’t save him. I saw that kid’s mom and dad completely fall apart, and I kept imagining if I would lose my mind like they did. And then, I remembered that Eli isn’t even my kid, you know? He’s yours, and it’s completely unfair of me to feel like that, so I felt guilty over that—”
And Derek couldn’t sit there and listen to Stiles say things like that. Not when he’d spent the last five months of his life helping Derek raise a baby without complaint. Not when Stiles had thrown himself into parenthood wholeheartedly and enthusiastically. Not when Eli had evidently missed him when he was gone, and not just because Derek did. So he said what he’d wanted to earlier: “He’s just as much yours as he is mine by now. Maybe you didn’t ask for him, but you didn’t turn us away, and you’ve been just as much a dad to him as I have. You didn’t have to do that, Stiles, I tried to tell you, but you did. I don’t think you understand how much that means to me, to us. Eli loves you, it’s so obvious.”
“I never would have turned you away.” The words were little more than a breath, spoken like a secret. Like a promise. Paired with Stiles tilting his head until his nose just touched the bottom of Derek’s jaw, the whole thing made Derek feel more in love than he could ever recall feeling before. “I think…” Stiles trailed off, pulse ticking up a little. For the first time in a long time, Derek could feel the nerves coming off of him, like Stiles had forgotten to mask his chemo signals.
Or maybe he’s letting you in, a sly voice in his head sounded.
Before Derek could prompt him, Stiles went on. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you until you showed up that night,” he said steadily. “I didn’t know how lonely I was. And I’d just been going through the motions for so long, even before Lydia and I broke up, that I’d just gotten comfortable with it. Comfortable, but not happy. And when I saw you, it was like waking up. Like coming back to life.” His heartbeat was racing now, thundering in Derek’s ears and against his fingers where they rested on Stiles’ wrist, but Stiles powered through. “I wanted you to stay, and I figured if that meant helping you raise a kid, then so be it. But it didn’t take long to fall head over heels for Eli, and to start thinking of him as mine too. Especially because you didn’t do a single thing to stop me.”
“I think we needed you too,” Derek whispered. He shivered a little where he could still feel Stiles’ nose against his skin, breath puffing softly on his neck. “I mean—I know we did. I did.” He laughed reluctantly. “My apartment was already in boxes by the time I came here. Even without Eli, I would have ended up here sooner or later. He just…made it the former.”
He heard Stiles’ sharp breath and the hard swallow that followed. Then, despite the awkward angle, Stiles deliberately twisted his neck to that he could replicate what he’d done at the airport days prior, and dragged the tip of his nose from behind Derek’s ear to the hollow of his throat. Derek couldn’t help the full-body shudder that wracked him, grip tightening reflexively on Stiles’ hands. “You know what that means,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question.
“Scent marking,” Stiles confirmed, voice thready and determined. “Claiming you as pack.”
“But do you know what it means to me?” Derek asked, a little desperately. He had to know if Stiles was in this too, or he’d been falling by himself this whole time. Reading too far into deliberate touches, lack of personal space, raising a child together.
Stiles turned enough that he could look Derek in the eye, letting go of his hands only to bring one up to the side of Derek’s neck, the other still holding onto his forearm. There was something uncertain in his eyes, something hopeful, and something else that Derek was afraid to read into. “You’ve always been more of a show-don’t-tell kind of guy,” Stiles murmured. “I figured I’d try it.”
Then he knew, Derek thought. Stiles knew what it meant, and had done it all anyway. Done it all on purpose. “You can’t take it back,” he said anyway, voice embarrassingly wrecked, needing to make Stiles understand. “I can’t—if you don’t—don’t want—”
“When have I ever done something that I don’t want to do?” Stiles countered fondly. And he leaned forward again, repeating the motion with an exhale that left a trail of fire on Derek’s skin. Then, without hesitating, Stiles pressed a light kiss to Derek’s throat.
Maybe this wasn’t the time for it. Maybe it was exactly the time for it. Derek didn’t know, didn’t care, not when Stiles met him in the middle and slid both hands into Derek’s hair like he’d been waiting for it as long as Derek had. He kissed Derek like he meant it, turning fully until he could press Derek back against the arm of the couch and blanket him with his body. And Derek – Derek could lose himself in this, easily, and never look back. He could, and was fully prepared to, except…
“Eli,” he mumbled against Stiles’ mouth. Sure, Eli was asleep again in his playpen, but there was something a little weird about making out in front of a baby.
Stiles pulled away with a dissatisfied groan. “I hate when you’re right.” It was somewhat disjointed, like they’d skipped a line or two in the conversation, but Derek supposed they’d always sort of been like that: skipping steps only to circle back later, ending up on the same page regardless of how different the paths there looked. Maybe they were always supposed to end up here. Maybe they both just needed time to grow up a little and get some distance from the traumatic events that brought them together in the first place.
Derek didn’t ask himself if he would go through it all again if he knew where he would end up, because it didn’t matter. It had happened, and they were here, and Stiles was huffing out a disbelieving laugh and placing a delicate kiss beneath Derek’s jaw and hauling himself out of Derek’s arms to scoop up a sleepy, disoriented Eli and put him to bed in the crib that had made its way into Stiles’ home office at some point when Derek wasn’t looking. The old travel bassinet still resided in Derek’s room for the nights that Stiles was working on sensitive cases and needed the quiet, but Stiles seemed to have no intention of working tonight.
Derek cleaned up in the kitchen, listening to Stiles sing Eli back to sleep (Johnny Cash; Eli was going to grow up with some confusing music tastes, that was for sure), and put Nessa out one more time. He took his time getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth and grabbing two glasses of water, letting his brain go quiet in favor of listening to Stiles’ heartbeat, slower and steadier than it had been all night. And it was early still, much earlier than Stiles would normally go to bed, but when he followed the sound of Stiles’ breathing, he was already curled up underneath Derek’s comforter, face buried in Derek’s pillow. “You are not allowed to judge me for this,” he mumbled into the pillowcase.
The sight of Stiles’ exhausted, bruised face, the sound of his sleepy, rough voice, the smell of his body wash already twining with Derek’s own scent – it was all enough to make Derek’s stomach flip over in nervous excitement. He had no intention of doing anything other than maybe kissing Stiles a little longer—truthfully, now that he’d gotten a taste, he kind of wanted to kiss Stiles forever—but the implications of Stiles seeking out Derek’s bed in search of comfort was doing things to him. For a wild moment, Derek felt the urge to wrap his arms around Stiles and just…never let go again.
He shook the thought away. “I don’t mind,” he said quietly, heart aching a little as Stiles inhaled deeply. “I, uh, may have slept in your bed while you were gone. Just once.”
“Creeper,” Stiles murmured fondly. He cracked an eye open and squinted at Derek, still hovering in the doorway. “Well? Are you coming or not?”
Yeah, there were definitely steps being skipped here, Derek thought. But those could wait for tomorrow, or the next day. Right now, Stiles was radiating contentment and something that Derek thought might be close to love, all directed at Derek himself, and it was the easiest thing in the world to slide under the covers and pull Stiles into his chest. He kissed him again lightly, mindful of his split lip, and just barely suppressed a shudder when Stiles didn’t hesitate to kiss him back. “I think Andi and Rocky would babysit for us next week if you wanted to go out,” Stiles whispered into the dark a few minutes later. The moonlight coming into the room through the window glinted in his eyes, sleepy and hopeful.
“As in a date?” Derek dared to ask.
Stiles shrugged, nudging closer to press one last kiss to the corner of Derek’s mouth and press his nose to the juncture of his neck and shoulder with a sigh. “If you want to.”
Derek grinned up at the ceiling, feeling his own heart thump-thump in his chest. “I’d like that.”
“Cool,” Stiles sighed. He was drifting off, Derek could tell. “We’ll ask them at the paperwork party tomorrow night.”
“Go to sleep, Stiles.”
“’Kay. ’Night, Der.”
It was the best night of sleep Derek had gotten in years.