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There’s something impossibly soothing about the sight of a sleeping child. Something soft and wide open, like the possibilities held by this tiny baby’s future; the unknown is sweet and comforting. Here is something - someone - who will outlast the man currently hovering over the makeshift crib; the next generation to carry forward the stories and traditions, memories of fishing trips and Thanksgivings and heartbreaks and victories. This bundle of soft fabric and skin smelling of sleep is all the hope and wonder Derek couldn’t even imagine.
It feels like this wave of tenderness will kill him, like it’ll make his heart burst wide open in his chest.
Of course Stiles is responsible for this. His irresponsible, impulsive, beautiful wildfire of a husband is already dead to the world, curled up under the duvet and quietly snoring into his pillow. Derek is aware he should probably follow his example and sleep when the baby sleeps but there is just no way he’ll be able to get even a few minutes of rest when his brain is still working through what happened. Not after this afternoon when Stiles came home unexpectedly early, smelling of blood and smoke and anxiety, holding the baby tightly to his chest.
“Hunters,” he said, pushing the baby into Derek’s arms and promptly turning around towards the back door standing ajar. The little girl was by some miracle asleep and so the older man just held her gently, blinking owlishly at his husband currently disappearing in the backyard, wanting to loudly demand to know what the fuck was going on but not willing to risk waking the baby up. And there was something in his throat, some sort of a terrible despair, because the infant smelled like a wolf. No. She was a wolf.
“Is the whole family gone?” he asked quietly when Stiles came back from another trip outside, hauling a few shopping bags of baby things. Abandoning them all over the kitchen table, Stiles crossed over to the dining nook and dropped down to kneel by the armchair Derek sat down in, cradling the little sleeping weight.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, smoothing the baby blanket out with trembling fingers, his scent still filled with acrid adrenaline and cortisol. “Jeremy Gilbert tipped me off about some hunters breaking the code but I was too late, the house was already up in flames when I got there so I just grabbed her and…”
Derek wanted to scream at the injustice of it all - at the mere thought that if Stiles got there a few minutes later this little girl would be dead in her crib, left to die screaming in the fire with bodies of her parents laid out on the nursery floor. But he’s unable to do anything about it other than allow the Council to work their justice on the hunters, and make sure the kid doesn’t end up in the foster system. Sometimes he wished it wasn’t so. Sometimes he wished he could let the world feel his rage.
“Stiles, we can’t keep her,” Derek said softly, shifting one hand to cover the warlock’s still moving fingers. “If there is a family out there, grandparents, cousins… She needs to be with them.”
“Danny’s already checking.” Stiles pressed a kiss to Derek’s knee and got up to pace across the room and back again, in an attempt to burn off the excess energy. “I just couldn’t leave her with CPS, I can sense she’s a wolf, and I just…” He stopped in his tracks and looked at Derek, completely bewildered. “I just accidentally acquired a baby.”
When Derek thinks about it - and he has a lot of time to think about it, standing over the crib and listening to the baby’s breathing pattern - accidents are how destiny usually happens, and they have been the defining thing of their relationship. Before Stiles, he didn’t believe in things that were just meant to be.
But it’s hard to not believe some sort of kismet when time and time again the universe shoved them together and refused to let go.
*
Stiles stops talking right after they bury Allison.
It’s a horrible, bleak November day and Beacon Hills is crawling with hunters arriving to pay their respects, something that has Derek on high alert even through the fog of exhaustion and sadness. Common sense would dictate for them to stick together but there’s something cracked at the heart of the pack, something vital gone, lost forever. He doesn’t know what to do about it.
They drift apart even at the funeral - Scott and Isaac staying close to Chris, leaving Lydia and Jackson to stand together; Kira and her parents somewhere in the crowd, while the Sheriff and his people make sure nobody disturbs the ceremony. Derek knows Peter came but elected to linger in the distance, ready to disappear into the woods should somebody notice him. This leaves Derek to stick to Stiles’ side - because fuck knows nobody else will.
It’s not that they’re blaming him for Allison’s death, no, Derek is almost certain nobody does but Scott and Lydia are too wrapped up in their own grief to have the mental capacity to deal with the nogitsune’s fallout. So there he is, closer to the back, immersed in the feeling of utter wrongness surrounding Stiles. He’s still and silent, and his scent…
Stiles used to smell like the forest after a rainstorm, like ozone and damp moss under the moonlight. He used to be in constant movement, fidgeting and tapping his foot and snapping his fingers; making sounds and almost hummingbird-like moves Derek always noticed because for some reason it’s impossible for him not to notice things about Stiles.
But nogitsune changed all that and the young man standing next to him is still as a gravestone, and silent like one. Derek's nostrils are filled with the scent of scorched earth, of desolation and despair.
“Have you figured it out, nephew?” Peter asks sometime in late February, face all innocently neutral, a dark threat somewhere in his eyes.
Derek knows “it” refers to Stiles. The two Hales are probably the only people in Beacon Hills who still notice the kid - Scott’s scent completely disappeared from the Stilinski house, Lydia left for London together with Jackson just after the funeral, Isaac is in France with Chris, and Derek is pretty sure John is drinking again. The Sheriff has been uncharacteristically fine with the younger Hale hanging around the house and his underage son in particular.
Stiles himself never rebels against Derek’s frequent visits. He just moves over to make some space on the couch as they binge-watch some mindless TV show together. Over the weeks even the silence stopped feeling awkward.
“Fuck off, Peter.”
“So you haven’t. But it’s important and I’m trying to be the good guy for a change so I’ll tell you: he’s in a whole new body, Derek. A kitsune-made body.”
That gets Derek’s attention. He turns to look at his uncle - really look, taking in the carefully crafted facade of control, noticing the fear and loneliness lurking behind it. It’s been just the two of them and by some extension Stiles for months now, Alphaless, rootless, adrift.
“So that’s why he smells off.”
“He doesn’t smell off.” Peter rolls his eyes and steals Derek’s cup of freshly made coffee, Derek really should just kick him out of the loft but even a facsimile of a pack is better than the screaming nothingness. “It’s just the scent of his new body. He inhabits a construct of the chaos magic which interacts and enhances his natural Spark ability and honestly, it’s ridiculous that I even have to spell it out for you. Stiles is controlling himself the only way he knows how. Now go and help the boy out or he will burn himself out. Or worse, the fox will take over.”
The younger werewolf is out the door before Peter can even throw a cheeky “you’re welcome!” at his back.
The woods are silent and gloomy in the afternoon blue. They sit side by side on the half-rotten stairs leading up to the Hale house in what on the surface seems to be a companionable silence while Derek is struggling to find the words to start the conversation that needs to be had. He was never the diplomat, and he’s acutely aware he lacks the empathy necessary to be a good leader - but once upon a time he was the kid carrying a secret too heavy for his shoulders so perhaps he doesn’t have to be a leader. Maybe it’s enough if he’s a good friend.
“It’s your magic, isn’t it?” he says quietly, looking over at the younger man. “You’re so focused on keeping it together that you simply can’t talk.”
Stiles doesn’t meet his eyes, instead reaching for his pocket and retrieving a few coins, the last light of the day catching on the metal as they begin to spin around his stretched out hand, looping again and again like planets on their own orbits, faster and faster - until they hit the wood of the step below their feet.
A few coins slash clear through the board.
“Will you lock me up in Eichen?”
There’s something fragile in Stiles’ hoarse voice, a vulnerability that has Derek wrap his fingers around the Spark’s wrist and squeeze oh so very gently. He allows the warmth to seep into Stiles’ skin, patiently waits for his muscles to relax, for shoulders to drop in relief.
“I won’t let anyone lock you up anywhere,” Derek promises, not letting go even when Stiles leans against him slightly as if unable to support himself straight anymore. “I’ll teach you control. You and I, here, every day after school.”
“Why?”
Derek levels him with his best ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’ stare.
“You’re pack. We’re a weird pack of two,” he winces, struck by a thought. “Well, two and a half because we need Peter or else he’ll go insane again.”
“He can have my cell at Eichen.”
Derek just tightens his grip on Stiles’ wrist again and doesn’t let go for some time.
He’s not sure when exactly it happens.
Like Derek promised, they train every day to burn off as much energy as possible - running through the Preserve, some boxing, some work involving Stiles’ newfound powers in defence. The first time Stiles is able to hold Derek’s charge off for the whole five minutes with magic only, they go for celebratory curly fries. They meditate because Stiles says it helps his mind to calm down, and Derek finds some comfort in being so still in the nature, in allowing his senses to focus on the heartbeat of a rabbit in the bushes 50 feet away from where they’re sitting, on the whistle-cries of baby birds high up in the trees.
He’s aware that Peter checks up on them from time to time, never letting himself be seen. Scott watches them from afar once, Stiles seemingly doesn’t notice but Derek does and waits to see if the other wolf will make a move. He doesn’t. He just disappears back into the Preserve.
“He subconsciously blames me,” comments Stiles quietly a few minutes later, not opening his eyes. They do that now, pick up threads of conversations and unfailingly expect the other to know what it’s about. “For Allison. I mean, he’s right but still, I hoped…”
“You’re not to blame for her death, Stiles.”
“I should have fought harder. Earlier. Tried to take control back, at least to let you guys know there was something going on but Derek, it was so much easier to be the backseat passenger, you know? Someone else was making all of the planning and the decisions and for once I just… didn’t do anything. And she paid for it.”
Derek sighs softly, shifting on his patch of moss which suddenly is less comfortable than a pile of stones.
“Stiles, I know it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders but no one your age should be expected to fight evil and win every time. Her death is not on you.”
“Spare me the patronising bullshit.” Stiles’ eyes snap open and the atmosphere changes, growing thicker and darker as if there’s now a weight pressing down on them, the wolf at the back of Derek’s mind is howling about danger and self-preservation. He ignores it for the time being, hypnotised by Stiles’ anger. “You want to fucking tell me it’s not my fault yet you sit there wallowing in your own guilt over the fire, over Kate, even though you were just another victim of hers. It’s been eating you alive for all those years so what the hell makes you the person to tell me not to feel guilty?”
“It makes me the person who knows how it feels,” Derek says simply. “I’m trying to prevent you from becoming me, Stiles.”
Stiles deflates at that and the heavy hold his magic had over the clearing in the Preserve lets go, lifts like a fog and the birds are singing again overhead in the first warm rays of the spring sun.
“Well,” the Spark says slowly. “If I’m not guilty then neither are you. Fine?”
“Fine. Hey, Stiles?”
“Yeah?”
“I pissed you off and you controlled it. Good job.”
The werewolf smiles and closes his eyes to enjoy warm sunshine on his face as the teenager flails.
When he thinks back to this moment, later, much later - Derek will realise this was the moment he actually fell in love with Stiles. He was being seen, and being so horribly vulnerable yet aware that Stiles was not going to hurt him, that the painful truth was coming from a place of care and concern. They were so goddamn similar, the two of them. One day, the realisation will absolutely floor him.
But right now it only causes a week-long crisis because Stiles is underage and Derek would rather chew his own hands off than become what Kate was. Wanting to kiss, and hold, to protect and own is inappropriate to the extreme and he’s horrified with himself. If he could, Derek would run away from this, find a deep, dark hole somewhere to crawl into and just wait for the feeling to pass. But he can’t leave Stiles with just Peter, can’t break the tentative pack bond blooming in his chest. So he promises himself to keep his hands off the boy - when they train and hang out, working through the backlog of TV shows, and when he quizzes Stiles for SATs.
One day, Derek promises himself, when Stiles is in his twenties and has had an opportunity to really explore what’s out there without the burden of fresh trauma and the sort of co-dependence that is acceptable only because they’re pack. One day, when they’re on equal footing. But not yet.
Progress is not linear. There are weeks when everything seems to be fine and Stiles makes a good effort to keep the magic calm.
And there are weeks when he wakes up screaming from the nightmares or skips sleeping at all, terrified of what he’ll see. Adderall and caffeine aren’t sustainable coping mechanisms, and sometimes Derek questions if he’s doing the right thing by trying to be a one man support system. He’s not a trauma recovery specialist, all he knows is his own lived experience and the few online courses he does out of desperation.
“This is not my body, you know,” Stiles tells him one of those nights. They’re spread on the blankets in one clearing in the Preserve, listening to the wildlife around and looking at the stars.
“Yeah. I know.”
“It made me a new one and it’s not… I’m not me in it. This is not the body my mom gave birth to. It didn’t break its wrist when I was five, it doesn’t have the burn mark on its knee from when I tried to make a stir fry after mom died and dropped the hot pan, it doesn’t have the scars, it’s not the body that survived Peter and the darach and getting drugged by lizard Jackson. Had to get new shoes because my feet don’t have the same arch I used to have. There used to be a birthmark on my hip. Everything looks the same but it isn’t, it’s not right, it’s not me, I don’t…”
When he starts to hyperventilate, Derek shifts them, bodily dragging Stiles up to sit with his back pressed to the werewolf’s chest, Derek’s hand splayed across his sternum to ground him.
“Shhh, come on Stiles, you’re safe, it’s okay, breathe in for four, yes, hold for seven, good, now can you breathe out for eight for me? And again, breathe in for four…”
It takes a while for the panic to simmer down, leaving Stiles exhausted and heavy in Derek’s arms, hovering on the edge between consciousness and sleep. Derek doesn’t mind holding him for the next hours as long as Stiles gets some actual sleep, acutely reminded of that time when Stiles held him up in the swimming pool and it seems their lives just run in parallels.
They stay like this until the sky is morning-bright.
They don’t really talk about college until Stiles has his Harvard acceptance letter and shoves it at Derek, the pang of anxiety clear and loud in his scent. Derek puts a calming hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly through the flannel.
“Congratulations. I refuse to live on campus,” the werewolf tells him flatly and that’s the entire conversation. What follows is just bickering over real estate offers and sending each other links to increasingly ridiculous houses with swimming pools and indoor saunas at 2 in the morning before they finally settle on a two bedroom apartment with a decent commute to the campus. Stiles decided to take English lit and Mythology & folklore because at this point it just feels right.
With the two of them bound for Massachusetts, Peter leaves for New Orleans with little fanfare. Derek assumes he’ll either find a pack to eventually take over, or will die trying. Peter will, in fact, become a new Alpha of the Gulf area and they’ll keep in touch via snarky WhatsApp messages every couple of months. For some reason, Derek always feels a little bit safer if he knows where exactly Peter is.
Danny will follow them to Boston, heading to MIT. Jackson writes to Derek, asking him to keep an eye on Danny - because becoming aware of the supernatural more often than not means being drawn to it, and Danny doesn’t have claws or magic to protect him, just his brain. Derek writes back to Jackson to stop being such a pompous ass. Stiles is very proud.
Scott stays in Beacon Hills for college, going into veterinary and leading his young pack. Derek is aware that the young Alpha and Stiles eventually start talking again once the deepest, darkest grief has passed - but things never go back to the way they were.
“We’re different people now,” Stiles says quietly one night at Derek’s loft, sorting through which books to take and which to send to long-term storage. They both feel they won’t be coming back to California. “Scott… he has different priorities now, I guess. It’s better this way.”
Derek doesn’t comment on the bitterness filling Stiles’ voice, the obvious distress in the lines on his face. Instead, he just nudges the other man’s leg with his, and asks what he wants to do with the three books about necromancy that he found in Peter’s room.
There are random times when it still shocks him how life turned around from grief and drama every other week to a sudden normalcy, domesticity even. The fact he has a standing invitation (which is more like an order than an option though) to a Friday night dinner at Stilinski household is one of these odd things that should never have happened, but did. And Derek is glad for them; he’s even gladder that John finally got a grip and started attending AA meetings.
“So, Derek, what are you going to do when Stiles is off terrorising the hallowed halls of Harvard? Happy to be a house husband?” The Sheriff asks over dinner two days before they’re scheduled to leave, boxes of things already shipped to Massachusetts. Stiles chokes on a bit of broccoli.
“There’s nothing wrong with house husbandry, sir,” he replies calmly, passing a glass of water to the still coughing youngest man. “But no, I’ll be actually at work. I did my diploma in architecture when I was living in New York and now I’ve found a small studio in Boston willing to take me on. We’ll see how it works out.”
From the other side of the table Stiles blinks at him, startled. That was one of those things they haven’t discussed and the werewolf is pretty proud of himself for keeping the job interview and projects he’s done for the studio under wraps. He’s not sure if being an architect is what he wants to do but if Stiles can make the effort to un-fuck his life, then so can Derek.
Meanwhile, the Sheriff looks pleased by the answer and turns to his son.
“Well, son, it looks like you’ve got yourself a keeper.”
It’s Derek’s turn to choke.
Before they leave, Stiles goes to the cemetery to say goodbye. Derek watches him from a distance, his heart heavy. Some things can’t be fixed, some scars will never stop aching.
Moving to the other side of the country isn’t some sort of a miracle cure.
Sure, having something to do as they settle in and then when the classes start is a huge help, distracting them both from the things left behind. There are new places to check out and new people to meet - Derek gets accidentally adopted by Lucille, a coworker closing in on her retirement who immediately treats them both like a part of her gaggle of seven children (family dinners included, non optional). It takes Stiles two weeks to befriend a coven of witches and a vampire hunter. Go figure.
Stiles still has worse days when Derek has to physically drag him out of bed and drive him to class but living together means he can react quicker. Waking up and padding over to the other bedroom to shake the Spark awake at the whiff of Stiles’ distress became an automatic reaction, something as natural as breathing.
They go jogging almost every morning. Stiles signs them up for a marathon as a joke but stops laughing when Derek accepts it as a challenge. John flies out just to cheer for them - they manage to complete it despite Stiles twisting his ankle three miles away from the finish line. Derek has never been so grateful in his life for the werewolf strength.
It’s easier and much harder to live with Stiles in Derek’s experience because now it’s a daily struggle to keep his feelings to himself, to not follow the instinct to crowd Stiles against the kitchen cabinets and kiss him senseless just because the Spark handed him a travel mug filled with perfectly brewed coffee. There are moments when Derek is sure Stiles knows what’s going on, hell, when he does things on purpose to draw a reaction - there’s really no need to stretch and show his stomach off, or to slowly bend over in order to pick up a sock fallen out of the laundry bin. But Stiles is usually the smartest person in the room, any room so he knows there are layers to Kate-induced trauma that Derek is yet to work through so he doesn’t force Derek’s hand - at least at first.
Stiles gives him a year.
Time runs out one morning in early summer, an ordinary Sunday just after finals - Derek is making toast when Stiles finally emerges from his 20 hour post-exam sleep marathon wearing only boxers and not a stitch of clothing more. Derek has to force himself to turn back to the counter to not stare at the hard lines of the other man’s body, the expanse of smooth, sleep-warm skin. The Spark makes a small, displeased sound and then there are arms criss-crossing over Derek’s stomach, and a body pressed to his back.
“Just so you know, I want to kiss you,” Stiles informs him seriously, breath hot against the thin cotton of Derek’s t-shirt. “I’m an adult of sound mind, not sleep deprived, not possessed, can count my own fingers so definitely not dreaming, completely and enthusiastically consenting because Derek, I’ve been wanting to do this since you shoved me against a wall that first time. It’s been years of pining. Pining, Derek! So. Turn around, please?”
How can he refuse? How long can he fight against it?
Slowly, Derek puts down the butter container he’s been holding for dear life and turns in Stiles’ loosened hold, hands already moving up to cradle the Spark’s face. The first press of lips is careful, almost chaste - but it feels like the world trembled in its foundations. Kissing Stiles feels like relief but also the sweetest form of torture; under the layer of mint Derek can taste ozone and wild magic. He gladly allows Stiles’ burning-hot hands to slide under the fabric of his shirt, letting him rip it off his body because pressing skin to naked skin in the pouring golden light of this summer morning is everything, everything. Like the reward for all the darkness they had to go through to reach this space and time.
Derek can’t say how long they just stand there, tangled together, lips touching even when they gasp desperate breaths. He just knows this is what he wants to do for the rest of his life.
*
“Where did you go?” asks Stiles softly, hugging Derek from behind and resting his cheek on the werewolf’s shoulder blade, looking down at the sleeping baby swaddled in soft lavender onesie, her tiny eyelids twitching slightly. “You seemed so very far away for a moment there.”
“I was thinking that if you told me back in the beginning we’d end up here, I’d never believe you.” Derek leans against his husband’s chest. “Why are you awake?”
“Danny texted, you didn’t hear? Little Laurel here doesn’t have anyone, he’s checked the records twice. He can start forging paperwork or find her some nice werewolf family to live with…”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Stiles laughs against his shoulder, quietly, happily. He brushes a kiss on the side of Derek’s throat in an unspoken apology.
“I already told him to start on the paperwork. Dad.”
“You’re also already designing an embarrassing dad mug for me to have at work, aren’t you.”
“You know me too well, babe.” Stiles pulls him away from the crib, hand on Derek’s ass distracting him from the list of things to do and buy he’s already mentally preparing. They’ve been sharing a bed since that first kiss so getting under the covers and finding the perfect cuddling position is just a matter of habit by now. “Come on, let’s get some sleep while the little princess is out. Close your eyes, Derek. Tomorrow can wait a little longer.”
Derek takes a deep breath - ozone, baby powder, wildfire, sweetness - and allows himself to fall asleep to the thrum of Stiles’ heart.