another name for love

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/50000098.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Past Derek Hale/Paige - Relationship
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Original Female Character(s), Sheriff
Stilinski (Teen Wolf), Scott McCall (Teen Wolf)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Single Parent Derek Hale, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski,
Age Difference, Sheriff Stilinski Knows About Werewolves (Teen Wolf),
Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John (Teen Wolf), Canon-Typical Violence
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-09-10 Completed: 2023-10-22 Words: 36,910 Chapters:
8/8
 another name for love
by endversed

Summary

“Hale, Mr Hi,” Agent Stilinski says, before visibly cringing, bringing a hand up to rub
sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I mean – shit. Hi, Mr Hale. Thanks for, uh. Thanks for
coming down.”

“It’s no problem.” Derek squints, turning his head to cast eyes around the area before
returning his focus. “Shouldn’t you be a little more aware of your surroundings, with a feral
omega on the loose?”

The guy bristles, frowning as he shoves hands into his pockets. “I wasn’t expecting you to get
here so quickly.”

“Because the omega will be sure to send an invitation letting you know to expect them,”
Derek says drily.

Derek is a single parent to a teenager. He's given up on love since losing his daughter's
mother.

Stiles is an FBI agent in town on the hunt for a feral omega. He might have something to say
about Derek's stance on love.

Notes

Has everyone seen Hoechlin's salt and pepper beard recently? It's... inspiring 👀
This is an already completely finished fic, with just a little editing needed here and there as I
post each chapter. This will comprise of eight parts; I'll be posting the first two chapters
today, and then one every Sunday for the weeks that follow.

Warning for a few very brief references to past canonical Derek/Kate.

 Chapter 1

Derek wakes up to the sound of a door creaking open slowly, a faint and careful noise
nudging into his dreamless sleep and dragging him into consciousness. He cracks one eye
open to a slip of sunlight breaking through a gap in the blinds, colouring the edge of his
pillow yellow-gold, and catches the rustling of socked feet against the floorboards for only a
second before a figure pounces onto the bed and a small, deceptively sharp elbow jams into
his ribs.

“Mommy! Daddy! Wake up!”

He groans around a smile, wrapping arms around his wriggling daughter and tugging her
down, giggling and squealing, until she is tucked against his chest, hair tickling the underside
of his chin.

“Your daughter’s awake,” he says.

A hand reaches out to card gently through his hair, a body rolling over until a soft, sleepy
face comes into view.

“She’s your daughter before seven,” Paige replies.

She smiles around a yawn, shuffling closer until he can extend an arm to curve over her
waist, hand slipping beneath her tank top to splay a palm at the small of her back, their
daughter happily trapped between them.

“I’m pretty sure she wants mommy to make her breakfast today,” he teases, smirking when
Paige narrows her eyes at him. “Isn’t that right, Trix? You want mommy’s French toast
today?”

“Nuh uh!” Beatrix declares loudly, one arm flinging out wildly and almost catching him on
the nose. “It’s Saturday. I want daddy’s pancakes.”

“Yeah!” Paige concurs, sticking her tongue out at him over Beatrix’s head.

He huffs a laugh through his nose and feels a warmth bloom through his chest as Paige
snuggles closer to Beatrix.

Beatrix looks so much like Laura did, like Cora did, when they were her age. She has the
sharpening Hale bone structure, the line of her jaw strong, the bones of her cheeks high. But
her eyes, her nose, her lips – they are all Paige. Warm, brown eyes and soft, turned-up nose
and full, smiling lips. Her dark hair is a shade between the two of them, slightly darker than
Paige’s and slightly lighter than Derek’s; a colour all her own.

Her eyes flash beta-gold as her mom tickles her sides lightly, and he allows himself a moment
to press a kiss to the crown of their daughter’s head, a moment to lean up and over and brush
his lips over Paige’s, before he heaves a great sigh and swings his legs over the edge of the
mattress.

“Daddy’s pancakes it is,” he says, getting up to grab a shirt from the wardrobe. “But we eat in
the kitchen. I could do without finding any more syrup on my pillow.”

“That was one time,” Paige argues, exaggerating a pout as she pulls Beatrix into her lap.
“Daddy’s no fun, is he, Trix?”

“No fun,” Beatrix echoes, bursting into more giggles when Paige starts kissing all over her
face.

The sound of their blended laughter follows him as he pads from the bedroom, down the
hallway, and into the kitchen. Their apartment is small, two bedrooms and one bathroom, a
crowded living room and a cramped kitchen, but it’s been their home ever since Beatrix was
born four years ago, and he loves it.

He falls into the familiar routine of grabbing utensils and ingredients to get started on the first
batch of pancakes. It’s basically habit at this point, a Saturday morning tradition that sees him
whipping up breakfast in the kitchen to the sound of his girls chatting and giggling from the
bedroom.

As he cracks the first egg against the corner of the mixing bowl, he finds himself smiling; a
small, private smile as that warm feeling spreads out even further through his chest. Nowhere
near for the first time, he finds himself marvelling at the slice of happiness he has been able
to carve for himself, the happiness he thought for so long he would never feel again.

He has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He fell for the wrong person at sixteen, shared parts
of himself with her that got his entire family killed, condemned to burn alive at the hands of
the woman who had pretended to love him. Even after Kate’s conviction, even with the
knowledge of her life sentence, he was still completely alone – still a lone alpha without a
pack.

For years he had wandered through life aimlessly; he had moved around a lot, eventually
settling in Stanford where he could find steady work as a mechanic. He didn’t need the
money, the fire came with an insurance pay-out that could last him five lifetimes over. But it
was something to do, a reason to wake up in the morning when he had nothing else.

Things changed when he was nineteen. He met a girl, a student studying English Literature at
Stanford, with brown hair and brown eyes and a smile that curved in a way that left him
breathless. A girl who laughed brightly and argued hotly and wormed her way under Derek’s
skin one car trouble at a time.

Later, she would admit to him that all of those car issues were made up as an excuse to come
see him. Even later, he would admit that he knew all along; he could hear the tell-tale skip of
her heartbeat as she said them.

She accepted him, every part of him, and he quickly realised that what he’d felt before
couldn’t have been love, because it was nothing like this.
Even when, at twenty, that pregnancy test came back unexpectedly positive – a surprise, she
had insisted, nothing like an accident – he didn’t feel scared. They loved each other, and they
would love their child, and they’d find a way to make it work so that Paige could still get her
degree, so that they could be the happy family he ached to rebuild.

Paige’s family didn’t accept their choice to keep the baby and they haven’t spoken a word to
her since the day they told them. But she always tells him that she doesn’t care, and he
doesn’t hear a single trip in her chest when she does, so he knows it’s the truth.

Here, now, at twenty-five years old, making pancakes in his modest apartment, listening to
Beatrix explain to her mom why she definitely should be allowed to wear her tutu to the park
today – his breath catches as the joy almost overwhelms him.

“How are those pancakes coming along?” Paige asks, wandering into the kitchen with
Beatrix perched on her hip.

“Almost done,” he answers, flipping one high into the air and catching it again, much to
Beatrix’s delight. “No chocolate chips today though. Think we’ve run out.”

Paige clicks her tongue, setting Beatrix down so she can clamber onto a chair by the kitchen
table. Paige opens a few cupboards to check for herself and comes to the same conclusion,
shutting the doors once again before grabbing his car keys from the counter.

“Well that just won’t do,” she says, nudging her sneakers out from underneath the table and
toeing them on. “I’ll run to the store and grab some.”

“You don’t need to do that,” he says.

She comes up behind him and wraps arms around his middle, pressing a kiss between his
shoulder blades, right where the swirling lines paint the triskelion that she has always loved.
He leans back into her hold, peering back at her with a smile as she nuzzles into him for a
second more before pulling away.

“I won’t be long,” she says, jangling keys next to his ear. “Me and the Camaro will be back
before you know it.”

“Can I come, mommy?” Beatrix asks, practically vibrating in place from her seat at the table.

“But if you come, who’s going to eat the first pancake?” Paige says, ruffling her hair as she
walks by.

“I want the first pancake,” Beatrix says, voice so serious as her eyes widen in Derek’s
direction.

Paige snorts, grabbing her jacket from the hook on the wall and blowing them each a kiss
before she rounds the corner into the hall, towards the front door.

“Make sure daddy saves me some!” she shouts out.

“Then you better hurry up!” he calls back.

The front door clicks shut behind her and Derek listens to the sound her footsteps heading
down the stairwell, her steady, familiar heart beating, until he can’t catch either of them
anymore. He grabs a plate and slides the first two pancakes in front of their daughter, turns
his back to her tucking in messily, syrup smearing all over her mouth, and pours the batter
into the pan for two more.

If he times it right, they can be ready for Paige when she walks back through the door.

Paige never walks back through the door.

The police tell him she died on impact when the other car hit her.

He should have known he wasn’t destined for that much happiness.

 Chapter 2

Eleven Years Later

Derek stands in front of the bathroom mirror and blinks at his reflection. He looks tired, he
thinks. He’s looked tired for over a decade now, truth be told. There’s more grey in his beard
than there was last week, the lines around his eyes more pronounced than he’s noticed in a
while. He looks every one of his thirty-six years and feels even more.

He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face and pushing any hint of vanity deep down. He drops
his toothbrush into the holder before unlocking the door and heading out, heading down the
stairs to reach the kitchen. The kitchen table is empty and one glance at the clock on the wall
tells him it’s just past seven.

“You’re going to be late for school,” he says.

He doesn’t raise the volume of his voice at all as he speaks. He knows Beatrix can hear him.

“Five minutes,” comes her reply from upstairs.

He elects to ignore the moody slant to her tone if not only to avoid a fight he does not have
the energy for. He knows nobody said raising a teenager was easy, especially not alone, but
part of him had hoped it wouldn’t be quite this hard.

Grabbing a glass from the cupboard, he flicks the faucet on and pours himself a glass of
water, drinks it down in four gulps and leaves it in the sink to wash later. Footsteps thunder
down the stairs at the same time his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he puts it to his ear at the
same moment Beatrix ducks into the room with an eye roll.

“Good morning, Sheriff,” he says into the phone, swapping the Pop-Tart in Beatrix’s hand out
for a plate of toast and a bowl of fruit and feigning obliviousness when she huffs at him.

“Good morning, Derek,’ the Sheriff replies. “I’m not sure how many more times I’m going to
need to tell you to call me John before it sticks.”

“Maybe today’s the day,” Derek deadpans, earning him a breath of laughter on the other end
of the line. “What can I do for you?”

He drums fingers against the kitchen counter and watches as Beatrix drops into a seat at the
table, scowling at the healthy food in front of her hands as she takes an indelicate bite out of
the corner of the bread. The share of her looks hasn’t changed one bit as she’s grown older;
she still looks so much like Laura, like Cora would have if she’d made it to fifteen, a Hale
recognisable to anyone who might have known them. But Paige is still there too, in the parts
that Derek didn’t get – her eyes still that shade of brown, her nose still that soft turn upwards,
her mouth still so like her mother’s was.
The combination makes something in Derek’s chest ache with sadness, just like it always
does when he looks at her and can’t help but see the women he has loved and lost.

Sometimes he worries that she sees it, and other times, like now, when she glances over to
catch him staring at her and her face creases even further into a frown – he knows that she
does.

“Do you think you might get a chance to swing by the station today?” John asks, breaking
Derek from his thoughts. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” Derek says. “I can stop in after I’ve dropped Trix off at school.”

It’s coming up on eight years now that Derek has been back in Beacon Hills. He’d stuck
around Stanford for nearly three years after losing Paige until he just couldn’t any longer,
until the ghosts haunting every corner where he’d ever seen her smile, heard her laugh got all
too much and he couldn’t take it anymore.

Beacon Hills still had its own ghosts, sure, but he didn’t know where else to go, didn’t know
anywhere else that could be home. He found a house for sale in a good part of town, found a
lot of land available on the edge of the Preserve that he could build his own garage on, got
cornered by the Sheriff a few years after moving back and asked if he wouldn’t mind doing
some freelance consulting on the many supernaturally inclined crimes that popped up over
the years.

When Derek had raised his eyebrows at John’s unexpected knowledge of all things that go
bump in the night, the man had just shrugged, tapped his nose, and asked Derek again
whether he was interested. He was, of course; anything to keep him busy and his brain
occupied, and he’s been a regular at the station at least twice a week for years now.

Derek likes John. Likes him a hell of a lot more than anyone else left in this town. He’s sharp
without being unkind, warm without being weak. In the years they’ve worked together
they’ve become – well, not friends, exactly. But maybe something as close to friends as
Derek has had in a long, long time.

“First day of sophomore year, right?” John asks, and Derek hums his assent. “Wish her good
luck from me, won’t you?”

“Of course. I’ll see you soon.” He thumbs to end the call after an exchange of goodbyes,
tucking his phone back into the pocket of his jeans before turning to his daughter. “John says
good luck today.”

“I know,” she says, rolling her eyes again and pushing the now empty crockery in front of her
towards the centre of the table. “I heard.”

Derek rolled his eyes a lot when he was younger. He’s not sure how much he’s actually
broken the habit now, really. His daughter seems to have taken to that particular mannerism
like a duck to water. Karmic retribution, he decided a couple of years back.

“Okay,” he says evenly. “Go grab your bag, we should get going.”
He pushes away from the kitchen counter and goes on the hunt around the house for his shoes
and jacket. He finds his shoes by the door that leads outside from the laundry room and his
jacket slung over the arm of the couch in the living room. When he comes back into the
kitchen, Beatrix is still sitting at the table, not having moved one inch. He arches an
expectant eyebrow at her.

“I don’t need you to drive me anymore,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Ella got her licence over summer. She’s picking me up.”

He pauses, one hand frozen where it’s stretched out to grab his keys from the counter.

“Oh,” he says, drawing his arm back to hang lamely at his side. “That’s – okay.”

“It’s my birthday in, like, six months anyway,” she points out. “I’ll be able to drive myself
then.”

She stands up, the chair legs scraping against the tiles with the movement, before walking
into the hall to grab her bag from the bottom of the staircase. He follows a couple of cautious
steps behind her, watching as she slips on her shoes, grabs his old leather jacket from the
hook by the door.

“Yeah,” he says, just as a car horn sounds outside.

“That’s Ella.” Her hand is on the door handle, wavy hair bouncing around her shoulders, back
already turned to him. “I’ll be home after lacrosse practice.”

Derek takes a step forward as she presses the handle down.

“Trix,” he starts, without any idea of what to say.

“Don’t call me that,” she says.

He blinks. “What?”

She exhales sharply for a moment, door ajar, letting a slight, soft breeze flow into the
entryway of the house. She tilts her chin to look at him over her shoulder, frown tugging at
the corners of her mouth.

“Trix,” she repeats. “Everyone calls me Bee.”

His mind jumps to his daughter, barely more than a tiny bundle of blankets in her mom’s
arms as Paige sat up, exhausted and beaming down at their newborn from her hospital bed.
Beatrix had been a name they’d picked out together, after so many months of late-night back
and forths until they found the name that settled in their hearts just right.

Trix had been the name Paige had said that very first day, tracing the soft curve of their
baby’s scrunched up nose, Derek’s arm around her shoulders and his lips against her temple.

“Oh,” he says. “You… didn’t tell me that.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m telling you now. Bye, dad.”

There’s no chance to respond before she’s pulling the door open fully and disappearing
through the frame. He watches as she strides down the driveway towards the street, smiling
and laughing as she climbs into the passenger seat of the car waiting for her.

Ella turns to wave at him from the driver’s seat as Beatrix fastens her seatbelt, and he puts on
a smile and waves back until the engine roars to life and the car begins to pull away.

“I love you,” he says, knowing she can still hear him.

He hears nothing back.

*****

The many scents of the Sheriff’s office are familiar to Derek by now; the sharp tang of metal
from the various handcuffs attached to various belts, the soft hint of ink from the paperwork
strewn across desks, the mostly unpleasant reek of sweat from all the bodies milling around.
He smiles at the vaguely familiar deputy sitting behind the desk in reception and gets a
genuine smile in return, follows the well-known twists and turns of the building until he can
come to knock on the door of Sheriff Stilinski’s office.

“Come in,” is called from the other side of the door. Derek acquiesces, stepping inside and
closing the door behind him, greeted by John’s warm smile. “Ah, Derek. Thanks for stopping
by.”

“It’s no problem,” Derek says, taking a seat when John gestures for him to with a sweep of
his hand. “You said you had something to talk to me about.”

“I do.” John leans back in his chair and threads his fingers together over his chest. “How’s
Trix doing? Any first day back jitters?”

Derek shrugs one shoulder, bringing up a foot to cross over his knee.

“She seemed fine,” he says. “Had her friend pick her up today instead of me giving her a ride.
And she goes by Bee now, apparently.”

John laughs under his breath, shaking his head softly.

“That age, huh,” he says, and Derek can only shrug again. “Well, I hope you trust me when I
say they grow out of it. Maybe except for the name thing. I know a thing or two about your
kid not liking the name you picked out for them.”

Derek’s never met John’s son, but he’s heard a lot about him. Derek recalls that he works for
the FBI, has lived out in DC for the past couple of years and was training in Virginia before
that. He doesn’t get back to Beacon Hills anywhere near as much as the Sheriff obviously
wants him to. A photograph sits on John’s desk of a teenager not much older than Beatrix is
now, a lacrosse stick in his hand and sporting a buzzcut; Derek assumes that that’s the guy,
years back.

“She’s her own person,” Derek says, and he hopes it’s the right thing to say.

It’s been so many years now that Derek has been a single parent that he barely remembers
what it was like to have someone by his side supporting him. The last time he had someone
to talk things through with, make decisions with, the hot topics were things like when to start
weaning Beatrix off her beloved pacifiers, or how best to set-up the milk and cookies to make
it seem like Santa had really been.

Raising a teenager, raising a little girl becoming a young woman, is nothing he could have
prepared for and isn’t something he thought he’d have to do alone the day he first held her in
his arms. He has no idea what he’s doing and can only hope and pray that he’s not
irrevocably fucking it all up.

He has thought, before, about what it might be like to not have to do this alone. He’s thought
about meeting someone, hitting it off, introducing them to Beatrix when the time was right
and building a new family unit, giving Beatrix something like two parents again.

But then he thinks back to Paige’s smile, her laugh, the feel of her lips against his. The way
they would wake up in the morning tangled around one another, the way Beatrix would fit so
snugly between their bodies, how the sound of his girls softly breathing in their sleep was the
best lullaby he’s ever heard.

He’s never been able to bring himself to look for anyone else in that way.

It’s not like he’s been completely celibate, or anything. He’d go to clubs, when he had the
chance, like when Beatrix was old enough to be left overnight with someone else and he
could ask John to babysit her on a Saturday evening, or when she got even older and started
going out on sleepovers every now and then.

He would take those opportunities to head to a dark club a few towns over, pick someone
who was, for all intents and purposes, nameless and faceless, ask to go back to their place and
invariably get a yes in return. He’d enjoy a night of strings-free sex with a beautiful woman
or a handsome guy and then leave before they could wake up and ask him for anything more.

Anything more than that, he isn’t capable of. He’s not sure he ever will be.

“They start doing that eventually,” John says, leaning forwards to rest elbows against the
shiny wood of his desk. “That’s when you really get to start spending every waking minute
wondering whether you’re doing the right thing.”

“Paige would have known,” Derek says.

Or his mom. Or maybe his sisters, he thinks. John’s smile turns sympathetic, an edge of
understanding to it.
“I used to think that about my Claudia,” he says. “She and Stiles were so close when he was
young. I thought for sure she’d have known what to do with him all the times he was driving
me crazy when he was growing up.”

“Yeah,” Derek mumbles, shifting in his seat a little.

John tilts himself even further over the desk, one eyebrow raised as he looks at Derek.

“Can I tell you what I think now?” he asks, and Derek nods slowly. “I think nobody knows
what they’re doing. We’re all just winging it. And Claudia, Paige – they would have been
too. All any of us can do is what we think feels right, and hope for the best.”

Derek swallows thickly. It’s not the first time he’s heard advice like that, but it feels –
different, coming from someone like John. Someone he trusts; someone he looks up to. It
settles a little more comfortably in his skin than it has before, and he feels a tightness leak a
little from his shoulders.

“Thank you, John,” Derek says sincerely, watching as John leans back against his chair,
shifting into business. “Was there a case you needed me to take a look at?”

John nods, removing one elbow from the desk so that he can pull a drawer open and begin
rummaging around inside.

“Yes, actually,” he says, pulling a file out and slapping it down. “Not one of mine, though.
It’s one of my son’s.”

Both of Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. “This is an FBI case?”

John nods, sliding the file across the desk until Derek can flip it open and begin scanning
through.

“There’s a feral omega crossing state lines with a string of gruesome murders trailing them.
Stiles has been tracking the case across the country for almost six months now, and the last
body was found up by the Preserve last night.”

Derek flicks through the numerous crime scene photographs, a gallery of slashed-up throats
and torn-open bellies. He tucks the pictures back into the file and folds it closed, handing it
back to John’s waiting hand.

“What can I do to help?”

“Stiles has been up by the crime scene since the early hours,” John explains. “He called me a
couple hours ago saying he could use a fresh pair of eyes and a preternatural sense of smell. I
told him I knew just the man for the job.”

“He’s still there now?” Derek asks, and John nods in affirmation. “I’ll head over before
opening the garage, then.”

John offers him a crooked smile before rising from his chair. Derek stands with him, lets
himself be led to the door with a friendly hand clapped against his shoulder. They pause
together, neither reaching for the handle just yet.

“I appreciate this, son,” John says, squeezing his shoulder. “Stiles will too.”

“Happy to help,” Derek returns genuinely. “I’ll let Beatrix know to be careful.”

“You do that. We’ll be putting out a warning for animal attacks in the area by the end of the
day.”

John lets him go with a pat on the back and a vague description of how to find the crime
scene. Derek doesn’t need it, anyway, not really; once he’s close enough, his nose will tell
him which way to go. There was a lot of blood in those photos.

*****

It doesn’t take him long at all to get where he needs to be. He parks his Toyota up behind an
unassuming black sedan with tinted windows, following the copper-rich stench of blood until
he finds a couple of Beacon Hills deputies dropping evidence markers around the forest floor
and a man wearing an FBI jacket with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows leaning against a
nearby tree as he focuses on his phone.

Above the scent of blood, the air smells like the late August heat, a hint of motor oil from the
cars zooming by on the roads just outside the Preserve. The sharp, awful smell of wolfsbane
hits him as he walks, and his eyes dart reflexively to where the FBI agent’s firearm must be
holstered on his side, beneath his jacket, the chambers packed with bullets ready for a
werewolf attack.

Leaves crunch underneath his boots as he continues to make his way over, nodding at the
deputies when they turn to acknowledge him with nods of their own. He walks past them
until he’s standing in front of the agent, who continues to keep tapping away at his phone,
completely not noticing Derek standing in front of him as the seconds drag by.

Eventually, Derek clears his throat, and the agent’s head snaps up.

“Shit,” the agent hisses.

He fumbles with his phone as he about jumps out of his skin, his heartbeat tripping before
beating into double-time, fingers scrambling for purchase but ultimately failing as the phone
drops to the floor by his feet. He swears underneath his breath again and crouches down to
retrieve it, wiping it against his thigh, leaving little specks of dirt in its wake, splattering
against his black slacks.

Standing back to full height as he slips the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket, Derek
takes him in. He’s handsome, Derek can’t help but notice. Looking at him, Derek would
guess he’s somewhere around his mid-twenties. He’s grown his hair out since that picture on
the Sheriff’s desk; what was once shorn close to his skull now a mess of brown hair sticking
up a little wildly, as if he’s had his fingers running through it for hours.

In person, Derek can see the warm brown of his eyes, the delicate upturned slope of his nose,
the moles trailing paths across his face, neck, a cluster tucked just behind his ear. He’s taller
and broader than that photograph suggested too, likely developed with age. He is almost as
tall as Derek, not quite as broad him though. But enough to hint at a lithe, leanly muscled
body underneath.

Derek quickly suppresses the train of thought before it can take him any further.

“Hale, Mr Hi,” Agent Stilinski says, before visibly cringing, bringing a hand up to rub
sheepishly at the back of his neck. “I mean – shit. Hi, Mr Hale. Thanks for, uh. Thanks for
coming down.”

“It’s no problem.” Derek squints, turning his head to cast eyes around the area before
returning his focus. “Shouldn’t you be a little more aware of your surroundings, with a feral
omega on the loose?”

The guy bristles, frowning as he shoves hands into his pockets. “I wasn’t expecting you to get
here so quickly.”

“Because the omega will be sure to send an invitation letting you know to expect them,”
Derek says drily.

The frown pulling at the corners of Agent Stilinski’s mouth tugs even further downwards, a
deep crease forming between his brows. Derek can smell the agitation coursing through him,
but instead of making him want to back down, to stop and apologise, a small, almost long-
forgotten part of him is telling him to press harder, just to see what happens.

“Not all werewolves are as creepily silent as you,” Agent Stilinski sniffs.

“Because you’re such an expert on all things werewolf.”

“Yeah, actually, I am. It’s kind of, y’know – my job.”

Derek huffs. “You’re still human.”

Agent Stilinski ducks his head at that, scoffing quietly and kicking at a patch of disturbed
earth near his feet.

“And dad said you were nice,” he mutters under his breath, before squaring his shoulders and
looking up, continuing, louder this time, “Did the Sheriff show you the case file?”

Derek nods, eyes sliding to the patches of blood drying on the leaves a few feet away from
them. Agent Stilinski follows his line of sight, mouth pulling into a grim line before he looks
back to Derek.

“This is the sixth body we’ve tied to this omega,” he explains. “They started all the way back
in Florida, then took us up to Kentucky, across to Nebraska. Then two in Nevada last month,
before showing up here yesterday.”

“And you think feral?” Derek asks.

“It’s the working theory,” Agent Stilinski answers. “There’s no pattern with the victims. This
poor girl was a student from the local community college, but the rest – different genders,
ages, races. Nothing more to link them than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. The only link we can see is that they’re all killed the same way – one slash to the throat,
multiple to the stomach.”

Derek hums under his breath, tipping his chin slightly to catch the scent in the air. There’s
nothing he recognises, nothing he can latch onto beyond the smell of damp leaves, wet bark,
old blood. The rain has long since washed away any lingering hint of the omega’s scent, and
he thinks Agent Stilinski knows that, from the disappointed look that passes over his face.

“John says you’ve been working this case half the year,” Derek says.

“Yeah,” Agent Stilinski replies, reaching up to run fingers through his hair, messing it up
even wilder. “Longest case I’ve been assigned to so far, and my partner’s still on maternity
leave a while longer. Nobody else available who’s in the know about all things werewolf –
so.”

He looks bone-tired, Derek has observed throughout their conversation. His hands shake
slightly whenever they’re not buried in his pockets, a stark purple bruising the skin beneath
his eyes. Part of Derek wants to offer him a warm tea, a soft bed to sleep in. The part of him
that’s a father, he’s sure.

He’s certain the Sheriff will have it covered. Derek can go ahead and bite back any such
offers.

“I can’t scent anything here that might help,” Derek says instead.

“Figured as much,” Agent Stilinski says, a wry half-smile touching his mouth. “Damn rain
got here before we could.”

“I’ll let you know if I pick anything up,” Derek promises. “And if you need me for anything
on the case – your dad has my number.”

Agent Stilinski nods, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as his eyebrows draw together.
He seems to wrestle with his own mind for a couple of seconds before a decision shows clear
in the slant of his features. He draws one hand out from his pocket and extends his arm
towards Derek, offering his palm out for a handshake.

Derek takes it after only a moment’s hesitation. His hand is warm; his fingers long.

“Thank you, Mr Hale,” Agent Stilinski says.

“Call me Derek,” Derek offers, surprising himself.

A real, genuine smile spreads slowly across Agent Stilinski’s lips. He lets his hand linger a
second longer in Derek’s grasp before pulling it back, leaving it to hang at his side, fingers
flexing in a way Derek isn’t sure he’s even aware of.

“Sure. Derek. In that case, you can – call me Stiles.”

Derek could leave right now. The garage is waiting to be opened, and he knows that he’ll
already have customers bitching at him for being later than usual. He could turn on his heel
right now, get back into his car, get on with the rest of his usual day, just like he’d planned to
when he woke up this morning.

Instead, he says, “Not your real name, your dad tells me.”

Stiles snorts. “God, no. You don’t want to know that monstrosity.”

“Must be pretty damn bad, if Stiles is the preferred alternative,” Derek says, allowing one
corner of his mouth to twitch up.

Stiles grins back at him. “Laugh it up, big guy. At least I don’t have an old man name like
Derek.”

That belts a little reality into Derek instantly, and he blinks, any response he might have had
getting caught in his throat as he looks at the youth in Stiles’ features. Derek must have ten
years on him, at the very least. He is an old man, comparatively. So what the hell is he still
doing here?

His thought process must be pretty clearly written across his face, because Stiles’ grin falls
lightning fast, his brown eyes widening a little before dropping to the floor. Derek clears his
throat awkwardly, turning to walk back to his car.

“I’ll be in touch if I come across anything,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Sure,” Stiles replies, voice quiet. “Bye, Derek.”

Derek resolutely does not glance in the rear-view mirror as he drives away.
 Chapter 3

Wednesday night dinner at the nearby diner has been a tradition in the Hale household since a
few months after they moved to Beacon Hills. It’s barely a five minute drive from their
house, offers local produce in its dishes, and the servers have long since given up on trying to
hit on Derek as he eats his meal, making it Derek’s favourite place to dine in town.

Over the years, Beatrix was known to exclaim, frequently and at volume, just how much she
loves it too. She would talk his ear off on the drive home from elementary school, informing
him in painstaking detail exactly what she was planning to order that night, right down to the
exact combination of sauce and sprinkles she’d have on her ice cream as dessert.

It was never quite Saturday morning pancakes, but it was something. Something for them to
do together, something to bring a bright smile to his daughter’s face, something to feel almost
like a whole family again.

Except – Beatrix’s smile on the drive over had started to wane as she neared the end of
middle school, no longer wide and enthusiastic; instead withdrawn, almost perfunctory only
for whenever Derek’s eyes were on her. By her freshman year of high school, she was barely
even bothering to curl a lip when he looked at her.

Now, she sits across from him, slumped almost completely down on her usual side of their
usual booth. She is propping her face up with an elbow leant against the table, cupping her
cheek in her palm and using her other hand to distractedly roll a mound of peas around her
plate with a fork. She barely said a word to him in the car, and even after they took their
seats, she only gritted enough out to tell the waitress her order before resuming her sullen
silence.

Derek knows that he isn’t good with words. He has known it since he was sixteen and Kate
would jeer at him for struggling to find the right words to explain how he felt, has known it
since he was twenty and Paige would offer nothing but patience and affection as he slowly
worked his way through to I love you.

He’d always thought that Beatrix took after her mom, in that respect. She never seemed to
have any trouble finding the right thing to say; to make him smile, laugh, nod eagerly along
with whatever story she was regaling him with, just like Paige.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he has cursed her with that awful, frustrating part of his
personality, after all.

“So, uh,” he starts, clearing his throat while she doesn’t even look up from her plate. “How
was school today?”

“Fine,” she replies.

She doesn’t elaborate. He shifts a little in his seat, extending an arm to rest over the back of
the bench as he turns his head slightly, nodding stiffly, plate still half-full but his appetite
fading.

“That’s good. And – when’s your first lacrosse game?”

“Dunno,” she says, somehow slouching even further, which he hadn’t thought possible.
“Soon.”

She drops her fork against her plate with a clatter, shoving hands beneath her armpits as she
crosses her arms over her chest. Her eyes are trained up toward the ceiling and her phone is
buzzing incessantly from her backpack tucked onto the booth beside her.

“I’d like to be there for it, if that’s all right,” he says carefully.

She shrugs. “Whatever. Sure.”

It’s as close to a yes as he’s going to get with her current mood, he thinks, so he doesn’t press
any more. He decides to ask again when she’s having a better day, one where she actually
looks him in the eye, maybe even smiles and converses with him. They’re not exactly rare,
nowadays, but he fears they’re getting rarer.

Her phone continues to buzz and buzz and buzz, the backpack vibrating hard enough to
almost jerk itself right off the seat. Derek arches an eyebrow towards it.

“Seems like someone’s really trying to get in touch with you,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s just a group chat, dad.”

Silence settles in; he doesn’t know what to say to that and she doesn’t seem all too inclined to
open the conversation up. He grabs his fork from the table and stabs a few more mouthfuls of
salad down, watching as she slides her mostly empty plate into the centre of the table and
glances disinterestedly around the room. When his plate only has a few leaves left, he knocks
it to join hers and picks up his glass, takes a long pull of water, just for something to do to
ease the discomfort of the silence between them.

For the most part, Derek tunes out the conversations that are happening around him at any
given time. He learnt long ago how to keep the buzzing chatter at bay, and he has passed that
skill onto his daughter, but right now, fragments of a conversation are burrowing into his ear
and snagging his unintended attention.

“How well you got them trained here, eh? Think I can get them to snitch on how many
burgers you’ve been eating behind my back?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, kid. I hardly ever come here.”

He recognises both voices as they amble casually towards the diner’s entrance. A snort
follows.

“Yeah, right. I believe that about as much as your arteries do.”

The bell above the door tinkles as it’s pushed open, and Derek isn’t surprised at all to see the
Sheriff and his son walking through. John is wearing his usual uniform, but Stiles isn’t
dressed for work this time. The standard issue white shirt and black pants have been replaced
by tan khakis and a light, cotton t-shirt, a green plaid shirt thrown over despite the summer
month.

There is a warm smile on Stiles’ face as John looks around the room at large, and Derek is so
distracted by the soft curve of those lips that he doesn’t look away in time before John
catches him staring.

He snaps his gaze away a moment too late, catches Beatrix peering at him with a frown, and
doesn’t manage to open his mouth to tell her it’s time to leave before two figures are making
their way over to them, one leading while the other trails hesitantly behind.

John comes to a stop beside their booth, smiling genuinely between Derek and Beatrix. Stiles
stands just over his shoulder, staring down at his own feet.

“Hey, good to see you both,” John says. “Wednesday night’s diner night, right?”

“Right,” Derek says.

He notes that Beatrix has sit up a little in her chair, still something of a teenage droop to her
shoulders, but definitely improvement there. She’s also unfolded her arms, now resting one
forearm against the table while the other curls a loose hand around her glass of soda. It’s not
quite a smile on her face, but her mouth isn’t the flat, tight line it was before.

“Hi John,” she greets.

John turns to her, putting on a show of narrowing his eyes, hunching down a little to take her
in.

“Almost didn’t recognise you there, Trix. You shot up six inches since I last saw you?”

“Five and a half,” she says, eyes crinkling.

“It’s Bee, now,” Derek says.

Beatrix’s mouth twists slightly at that. Derek doesn’t understand why, but maybe he’ll ask her
later, and maybe she’ll tell him. He won’t hold his breath, though.

“Sure,” John says amiably, a quick flash of understanding in his eyes as he looks to Derek,
then turning himself to lay a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and pull him to his side. “This is my
son. Stiles, you’ve met Derek, and this is his daughter, Beatrix.”

“Hey,” Stiles says, one arm flailing up at the elbow to offer an uncoordinated wave before
shoving it back into his pocket.

“You’re in the FBI, right?” Beatrix asks, shoulders wriggling as she leans forward.

“I am,” Stiles answers.

“That’s so cool,” she says earnestly. “Have you shot anyone?”

“Beatrix,” Derek mutters, frowning as he catches her rolling eyes.

John huffs a soft laugh, glancing sideways at Stiles with a raised eyebrow. Stiles’ eyes widen
slightly, his smile spreading.

“I try not to,” Stiles says, then slides his gaze towards Derek. “Your dad’s helping me out on
my current case, though. That’s pretty cool.”

She turns her eyes onto Derek accusingly. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“I haven’t actually done anything to help,” Derek points out.

“Yet,” Stiles tacks on.

The smile on Stiles’ face is still friendly, pink mouth curving brightly around white teeth, and
Derek finds himself fixed on it longer than he means to be. When he blinks away, turning to
John instead, he finds John’s head tilted in ever-so-slight curiosity, and he swallows thickly.

Thankfully John seems to decide to leave the thread unpulled, looking to Beatrix instead.

“You know, I’m surprised to see you here,” he tells her. “I thought I heard all the high school
kids were headed to the drive-in tonight.”

Derek’s eyes dart to her backpack. Her phone is still vibrating every few seconds. Beatrix is
frowning down at the table.

A look close to guilt passes over John’s face as he notices the sudden, palpably awkward
tension at the table, but before he can say anything, a server appears behind him and Stiles,
letting them know there’s a table ready for them now.

John thanks her, closes his mouth, opens it again, looks like he’s about to address the
situation anyway, but Stiles tugs him away before he can. Derek has just been watching
Beatrix stare at her lap the whole time.

“Did you have plans tonight?” Derek asks.

“Yeah,” she says, eyes flicking up to meet his. “Dinner with you.”

“Other plans,” he rephrases. “Are your friends going to the movie?”

She nibbles at her bottom lip, hands fidgeting with her napkin for a few seconds before she
speaks.

“Yeah,” she admits quietly. “But – Wednesday night is diner night.”

There is a tug at Derek’s heart and he feels the smile slowly finding his lips. He reaches out
to place his palm over the back of her hand, stilling her movements and holding there until
she raises her head, meets his gaze properly.
“I’ve heard the diner’s open other days of the week, too,” he says, lowering his voice as if to
conspire. “Thursdays, Fridays. Even Saturdays, sometimes, if they’re feeling crazy.”

He gets a smile with teeth for that, gets to see the scrunch of her nose as she breathes a soft
laugh. She rolls her eyes – again, again – but this time it’s fond, happy, and Derek’s breath
catches a little.

“Sunday’s obviously out of the question, though,” she quips back.

“Obviously.” He leans forwards, eyebrows drawing together as he looks at her. “You’re

growing up. I get it. You can hang out with your friends if you want to. The diner will always
be here when you need it.” He pauses to draw a steady breath. “I’ll always be here, too.”

She twists her hand in his, tangles their fingers for a just a second to squeeze her
acknowledgement.

“Love you, dad.”

“Love you, Tr – Bee.”

When she pulls her hand from his grasp, he leans back, watching with a smile as she slings
her backpack over her shoulder, already typing rapidly on her phone as she gets ready.

“Ella’s driving, she’ll bring me home later,” she says without looking away from the screen.

“Remember the animal attacks,” he says, waiting until she looks up at him and nods; she
knows what that really means. “Be safe. Any sign of trouble, start running and call me. Got
it?”

“Yes, dad,” she says, bouncing forwards to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug.

She glances a kiss against his cheek just before she pulls away and turns on her heel.

“And home by ten,” he reminds her retreating back.

“Yes, dad!”

The door swings shut behind her and he reaches for his wallet, grabbing a handful of bills to
cover the check and then some and placing them in the middle of the table. He smiles his
thanks to their server as he stands, collects his jacket, and makes his way out to the parking
lot.

He takes a deep breath as he steps outside, catches the nearby scent of Beatrix, Ella, new
leather seats. He hears the sound of a car door slamming shut behind his daughter’s bright
laughter and smiles to himself as his fingers close around the metal of his car keys in his
pocket. The diner door jingles open behind him just a second before a hand catches his
elbow.

Derek turns to find Stiles behind him, a faint red colouring the height of his cheeks, an
uncomfortable look on his face.
“Hey,” Stiles says, fingers still curled around him. “Sorry to catch you when you’re trying to
leave, but – we just wanted to say that we’re really sorry if we upset you and your daughter.”

“It’s okay,” Derek says.

Stiles shakes his head. “No, really, we – we need to apologise.”

“It’s fine,” Derek says. “Honestly, you – it helped.”

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up. He hasn’t moved his hand yet. Those long, warm fingers still
holding onto Derek, a heat he can feel even through his jacket.

“Something my dad said made your daughter flee dinner with you and that… helped?”

Derek shrugs. “We were finished eating anyway.”

He glances down to Stiles’ grasp on his elbow and immediately wishes he hadn’t when Stiles
pulls away from him suddenly, jerkily. He uses that same hand to run fingers through his hair
instead, looking at Derek with an odd sort of scrutiny twisting the features of his face.

“I guess I’ll take your word for it,” Stiles says haltingly, and Derek just shrugs again.

A faint, bemused smile touches Stiles’ mouth, and Derek feels his own twitch momentarily in
response, almost instinctively. Stiles’ eyes flicker to catch it, and even though it’s only for a
second, Stiles’ own smile widens; brightens.

“In that case,” Stiles starts, “can I tempt you to join my dad and me for dessert?”

Tempt is a word that Derek is trying very, very hard not to think about.

“Thanks, but I need to get home,” he says.

It’s a lie, but Stiles doesn’t have the senses to hear that.

Stiles bites at the inside of his cheek, smile dimming slightly. “Yeah, sure, of course. Well –
sorry, again, and – and have a nice night.”

Derek nods, once, in return, before heading for his car. He can still feel the ghost of Stiles’
hand on his arm as he slides behind the wheel.

*****

Derek has always found something like comfort in working on cars. If he cared at all to
psychoanalyse himself, he’d probably think to trace it back to when he was thirteen and
Laura fifteen. She’d dragged him out of bed one summer morning, marched him over to the
shed near the back of their land where a collection of cars in various states of operation sat
collecting dust, and informed him without any room for argument that he was going to be her
apprentice fixing them back up for the next few weeks.

At the time, he’d loudly huffed and puffed and made it known just how annoying he found
her and how she was totally ruining his summer. But now, and even then, really, he had loved
it – loved his big sister trusting him to help her, loved being able to quietly focus on a task, a
puzzle, being able to be so single-minded in the pursuit of that sweet roar of life as an engine
turned over for the first time in a decade.

With tools in his hands and a broken vehicle in front him, it reminds him of Laura laughing,
reminds him of their mom hugging them both to her sides as she praised their work, reminds
him of Paige looking at him shyly from beneath her lashes as she spun another story about
what was wrong with her car that day.

There’s sadness in those memories, of course, but the comfort almost always outweighs it.

Today is a quiet Sunday. There are no customer cars to work on until tomorrow, so he’s just
tinkering away with one of the old bangers to pass the time. Earlier that morning, Beatrix had
bounded into the kitchen as he was sipping his morning coffee to plead with him to let her go
to the beach with her friends.

She’d had a whole spiel prepared; a promise to share her location the whole time, a full
itinerary of their day to show him, a full guest list of every single high schooler that planned
on making their way to the lake. He’d let her get through it all, wide-eyed and beseeching,
before giving her a simple – sure.

Her beatific smile in response to his easy agreement was worth how often he’s checked up on
her location in the short amount of time she’s been gone.

From the workbench, his phone buzzes, and he pulls himself away from under the hood of
the car he’s working on. It’s a hot day out, and the air inside the garage always seems a little
clammier than outside anyway, so his shirt is off and tucked into the back pocket of his pants.
He uses it as a convenient rag to wipe his oily hands on as he walks over to check the
notification.

It’s a message from Beatrix, a photo from her day at the beach. In the background of the
picture, he can vaguely make out a group of teenage boys, looking like they’re tossing a ball
around. In front of them, in the camera’s focus, sits Beatrix and a friend, her friend smiling
while Beatrix sticks her tongue out at the camera, one eye closed, baseball cap low over her
forehead.

He smiles as he looks at it, types out a quick response telling her he’s glad she’s having fun,
until a choked noise and a stuttering heartbeat has him spinning around, mouth open a little in
shock as he sets eyes on the visitor standing in the open doorway on the other side of the
room.

“Uh,” Stiles says, a little squeaky, with a doe-eyes in headlights look going on. “Hey.”
Derek blinks at him. How the hell did he miss Stiles coming in? He must have been more
engrossed in what he’d been doing than he realised, to miss the crunch of gravel beneath tires
as Stiles drove up, the soft pad of his Converse against tiles as he walked through the shop to
the area Derek’s working in.

What he doesn’t miss now, though, is the rabbit-quick beat of Stiles’ heart, the foggy scent of
arousal that cascades off him in waves. Derek watches as Stiles’ eyes flicker back and forth
between Derek’s chest to his face and back again, Stiles’ mouth hanging open a little, tongue
darting out to wet his lips before he swallows thickly and seems to force his eyes to meet
Derek’s and stay there.

“Hi.” Derek wonders whether he should put his shirt back on. He wonders whether he really
wants to. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

A sudden smirk knocks Stiles’ head back a little, a puff of laughter working its way up his
chest to push through the pink parting of his mouth.

“There’s a feral werewolf running around town. Shouldn’t you be more aware of your
surroundings?”

Derek can’t help but crack his own smile; his own words thrown right back at him.

“I guess I deserve that,” he concedes.

“Dude, you so deserve that,” Stiles scoffs. “You’ve got those freaky werewolf senses over me
too.”

He’s dressed casually again, Derek notes. Light jeans skimming long, lean legs. A dark t-shirt
that shows the broadness of his shoulders, riding up just a little above the waistband of his
pants, hinting at a dark trail of hair bisecting his toned stomach, leading down to…

Derek swallows.

“Did something come up with the case?” he asks to distract himself. “I can get wrapped up
here in five minutes if you need me.”

That scent of arousal that had arrived with Stiles spikes again suddenly, only for a second.
Derek feels his nostrils flare reflexively, sees Stiles catch it and flush immediately red, the
colour peeking from the collar of his t-shirt and crawling quickly up his neck.

Derek averts his gaze hastily, side-stepping until he’s half hidden behind the propped-up hood
of the car he’d been working on. He grabs at his tools to shove them back into the box on the
stool by his legs, clattering them with more noise than really necessarily, before yanking his
shirt from his pocket and pulling it back on.

When he steps back into Stiles’ full view, Stiles’ head is bowed, his stance awkward for a
long moment before he raises his eyes back to Derek’s, a rueful look passing over his features
before he settles onto something like neutral.
“It’s, uh. Not to do with the case, actually.” Stiles hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “My car –
it’s been making a weird noise for a couple days now. Mostly I handle my own repairs, but
my dad mentioned you’re something like a wizard when it comes to fixing things up, so.”

“I don’t know about wizard,” Derek hedges, “but I can take a look for you.”

Stiles nods, once, jerkily, before pivoting on his heel and winding his path back the way he
must have come in. Derek allows himself a second to roll his shoulders, screw his eyes shut,
rigidly fight back any lingering thoughts of what Stiles’ flush might have looked like beneath
his shirt, before he follows an acceptable distance behind.

The sun burns high in the sky when Derek takes his first step outside and he brings a hand up
to his hairline to shield his eyes, trailing behind Stiles as he leads them towards a car parked
near the forest line, shaded by a thick row of trees. It isn’t the black sedan he was expecting,
the one he’d seen that day at the crime scene, but rather a blue Jeep, definitely old and
definitely well-loved.

Stiles comes to a stop just by the driver-side door, leans up against it with his legs crossed at
the ankles, one arm draping over the wing mirror. The hazy scent of arousal has dissipated
somewhat, covered as well by the scent of outdoors, of wood and leaves and sun-warmed air,
but Derek still stops several steps away.

“What happened to your other car?” Derek asks.

“That was my work car,” Stiles explains. “This – this is my baby.”

He runs his hand reverently along the side of the car, walking backwards with it until he’s
leaning against the trunk, an adoring smile on his face the whole time.

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Mazel tov.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, giving the car an affectionate pat before pushing himself off and walking
to stand beside Derek instead. It’s not close enough that they’re touching, not close enough
that they’re anywhere near touching, but Derek still feels Stiles’ presence next to him like a
thrum of energy, pulling at his focus, toying with his control.

They both stand facing the car for a few moments, Derek staring resolutely forward,
pretending he doesn’t notice the furtive glances Stiles is sneaking at him from the corner of
his eye.

“You said there was a weird noise?” Derek breaks the silence.

“Yeah.” Stiles’ voice cracks slightly on the single syllable. He clears his throat before he
continues. “It’s been making this kind of high-pitched noise whenever I accelerate.”

Derek hums. “Sounds like the accessory belt.”

“And you can fix it?”

“I’m a wizard, aren’t I?”

Stiles snorts and Derek has to duck his head to hide his grin.

“And I thought you were a werewolf,” Stiles says.

“I’m a man of many talents,” Derek retorts.

A quick intake of breath beside him, then mumbled, “I’ll bet you are.”

Derek feels the tips of his ears burn instantly red. It was said quietly, just under Stiles’ breath,
probably a touch too quiet for human ears to pick up. But surely, he must have known that
Derek would hear it. Derek thinks, maybe – maybe Stiles wanted him to hear it.

“I’ll grab my tools,” Derek says, already walking away and pushing that thought down,
down, and resolutely out.

He makes his way briskly through the shop, all too aware of Stiles’ hammering heartbeat,
barely quietening in his ears even as he gets far enough away to curl warm fingers around the
cool metal of his toolbox. He pauses a moment to collect himself, exhaling heavily with his
eyes shut tightly.

“Way to go, Stilinski,” he hears Stiles mutter to himself.

Another long, deep breath before Derek heads back outside, grabbing a spare belt on the way.

Stiles’ back is to him when he gets there, his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into
the pockets of his pants. His eyes are trained on where he is kicking patches of dirt around
with the toe of his sneaker, only snapping up to look at Derek when Derek’s feet come into
his downward line of sight.

“Hey,” Stiles says, an anxious crease between his eyebrows.

“Hi,” Derek replies, lifting the toolbox in front of his chest like armour. “This shouldn’t take
too long. Have you back on the road in no time.”

He avoids Stiles’ eyes as he walks past him to head for the car, but he catches the tight line of
Stiles’ mouth all the same. He busies himself with locating the release to pop the hood,
painfully aware of Stiles watching on silently, awkwardly. With the hood open, he makes his
way around to prop it that way, momentarily caught off guard as he blinks down at the sheer
amount of duct tape holding the engine together.

“It’s an old car,” Stiles says, apparently noticing Derek’s pause. “It was my mom’s, before
she…”

Derek nods, a quick sympathetic smile in Stiles’ direction. He doesn’t need to hear the rest of
that sentence to understand, and he leaves it at that and leans underneath the hood, gets to
work disconnecting the battery.

“I can see why you came to me,” he says as the wrench turns, “if duct tape is your usual
remedy.”
“Um, excuse you,” Stiles scoffs, a hint of laughter creeping into his tone, beginning to chase
away any remnants of earlier discomfort. “Duct tape has been keeping this baby going for
almost as long as I’ve been alive.”

“Barely any time at all then,” Derek deadpans.

“Hey! I’m twenty-five, I’ll have you know.”

“So – barely any time at all, then.”

Derek pulls himself away from the engine just in time to watch Stiles’ face light up with a
soft laugh.

“I’m not that much younger than you,” Stiles protests.

Categorically false, Derek thinks. Eleven years is a whole lot of much.

“Belt needs replacing,” Derek changes the subject. “I can put a new one in now, if you want.”

“I mean, as long as you don’t mind?”

Derek shrugs as though he couldn’t care less either way, even if he knows that’s not exactly
true. He moves his attention to removing the old belt, focusing on the task at hand as much as
he’s able with Stiles moving to stand even closer to him, rocking up on his toes to peer over
as Derek works. It’s a little distracting, to put it lightly, and he knows he’s working
considerably slower than his usual pace, but his hands don’t seem to want to cooperate with
his brain and work any faster.

The sun continues to beat down on him, warm against his bare forearms, and he feels a bead
of sweat form at his hairline, tickle as it runs down past his temple. He uses a free hand to
wipe any of the moisture from his face.

“Hot one today, huh?” Stiles says.

“September in California,” Derek offers back.

“Maybe I’m just used to east coast weather now.” Stiles is chewing at his lower lip when
Derek briefly lets himself glance over. “I’d forgotten how hot it gets here. Hot enough to, you
know. Need to take your shirt off. Like you did. Earlier.”

Derek says nothing. He’s almost got the frayed old belt off now.

“Makes sense, right?” Stiles presses on. “You know, when it’s – hot. To take your shirt off.”

There’s not a chance in hell that Derek trusts himself to respond to anything Stiles is saying
right now. He resolutely keeps his mouth firmly shut, dropping down to his haunches to grab
the new belt he’d picked up on the way out before rising back up to full height.

“Werewolves run hotter than humans too, right?” Stiles seems determined to keep going even
in the face of Derek’s persistent silence. “Is that why you used to run with your shirt off all
the time, even in winter?”

Derek stops where he’d been beginning to lean back into the engine. He tilts his head so that
he can turn to Stiles, his brows furrowed as he looks at the uncomfortable twist of Stiles’
mouth. It’s pretty clear to anyone who might look at him that Stiles is starting to severely
regret his recent words, and that’s even if they couldn’t scent his rising anxiety like Derek
can.

“What are you talking about?” Derek asks.

Stiles sincerely looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He
shuffles from one foot to the other, biting at his lip some more, fingers clenching into loose
fists before unclenching again. Derek just keeps staring, not willing to let Stiles find his inner
quietness now.

“I used to – see you sometimes,” Stiles says eventually. “You’d go out running with Beatrix
riding along behind you on her little pink bike. And – and you didn’t often wear a shirt, I
kinda noticed.”

Derek blinks. “That was… that would have been years ago.”

Stiles breathes out an awkward little laugh, fingers idly playing with the hem of his t-shirt,
riding it up a little further so that Derek gets another peek at the sliver of skin where his
hipbone juts out.

“Seven, eight years ago, I guess? I would’ve been in senior year of high school.”

“You knew me that long ago?”

“Knew is a strong word. I knew… of you.”

“But I’d only just moved back to town,” Derek says, shaking his head a little in disbelief. “I
wasn’t even working with your dad then.”

“You were pretty big news.” Stiles shrugs, ducking his head in an attempt to hide the faint
colour dusting across his cheeks. “Hot widower with a cute kid. All the soccer moms were
talking about you.”

That’s not exactly a revelation to Derek. Many people in town made no secret of their
aesthetic interest in him, and it took longer than he’d have liked for them all to get the
message that he wasn’t in any way going to reciprocate that interest before they all gave up.

But… somehow, still, he’s surprised that he’d been on Stiles’ radar. He’d been a high school
kid, for crying out loud. Surely he had more important things to occupy his mind than some
sad father out jogging with his daughter.

“Right,” Derek says slowly, just for something to break the silence.

“Yep,” Stiles says, unable to offer much more.

They stand like that for a little while longer, Derek watching as Stiles looks pretty much
anywhere but directly at him. He should get back to work on the car, really. All he has to do it
get the new belt fitted and Stiles will be good to go, and Derek will be able to get back to
what he was doing before Stiles showed up unannounced and interrupted his day.

“I’m not, by the way,” he finds himself saying instead.

Stiles finally looks at him, a confused tilt to his head. “Not what?”

“A widower,” Derek clarifies. “Me and Paige – Beatrix’s mom. We never got married. I’m
not a widower, technically.”

“Oh,” Stiles breathes, a sad, pitying sort of look passing over his face. “I’m sorry.”

Derek knows what Stiles has assumed – that they never married because they ran out of time.
That Paige passed away when they were engaged, or maybe even before he had the chance to
ask. But that’s not the case.

“Don’t be,” he says, letting himself lean against the car, side-on to face Stiles. “It was her
choice.”

“Who wouldn’t want to marry you,” Stiles blurts out, immediately cringing the second the
last word is out of his mouth. “Oh god. Please pretend I didn’t say that.”

Derek just laughs; a soft, genuine breath of laughter that has Stiles’ face smoothing into
something a bit more relaxed.

“It wasn’t anything like that,” Derek says, absently tapping his ring finger against his
forearm. “When we told her parents that we were pregnant without being married, they…
didn’t take it well. Pretty much disowned her on the spot.”

“Jeez,” Stiles mutters. “Don’t they sound delightful.”

“Don’t get me started,” Derek says bitterly. “Paige, she – she vowed that day that we’d never
get married. Said we’d have a million kids out of wedlock, bring as much shame to her
family and happiness to ours as we could.”

Stiles grins. “She sounds awesome.”

“She was,” Derek says, unable to stop the pang of sorrow in his chest creeping into his voice.

He forces himself to turn away from the pity etched onto Stiles’ face, opting to instead lean
into the engine and start attaching the new belt. Stiles stays silent as he works, and he can’t
help but realise that that’s the most he’s spoken about Paige in probably years. It felt nice,
being able to remind the world, even in some small way, just how amazing and brave she
was.

It’s only a few more minutes until Derek is done, tightening the last screw and checking his
handiwork over to confirm it’s safe. He finishes up with a deciding nod, letting the hood back
down and snapping it closed before turning to Stiles.
“You’re all set,” he tells him.

“You’re the best,” Stiles says with a smile, hand reaching for his back pocket to pull his
wallet out. “How much do I owe you?”

Derek busies himself wiping hands on his jeans. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No way, dude,” Stiles argues, stepping in closer. “You gotta let me give you something.”

A million different responses to that run through Derek’s head. He verbalises none of them.

“Don’t worry about it,” he repeats instead. “Honestly. It was hardly any work at all.”

Stiles reluctantly tucks his wallet back into his pants, mouth tugging down into a slight
frown.

“If you’re sure,” he says cautiously.

“I’m sure.”

Stiles nods, reaching into a different pocket to grab his car keys, twirling them around on his
index finger for a moment or two, eyes moving between his car and Derek’s face. He fists his
keys against his palm with a jangle of the metal, takes another step closer to the car and to
Derek, all in the same movement. Except now, Stiles is looking only at him.

“You’ve got a, uh,” Stiles starts, “a – smudge. On your cheek.”

He brings his hand up to his face to swipe fingers across his skin. Derek blinks for a second
before he tries to copy the action, wiping his fingers roughly against his left cheek, but
they’re clean when they come away, and Stiles makes a slightly choked noise.

“Your other cheek,” he tells Derek.

Derek repeats his efforts on his right cheek, but Stiles just makes that noise again, sounding
even more strangled this time.

“No, it’s – here, let me.”

Stiles moves forwards to close most of the remaining distance between them, reaching out to
slide the pad of his thumb across the height of Derek’s cheekbone, slowly, carefully. Derek’s
breath catches in his chest and Stiles is looking at his cheek, or his nose, or maybe his mouth,
it’s hard to tell this close up.

“Got it,” Stiles murmurs, extending his dirtied thumb to be the focal point of Derek’s line of
sight.

“Uh,” Derek says dumbly. “That’s – thanks.”

Stiles doesn’t linger, and Derek thinks he’s grateful for that. Instead, he immediately steps
back, steps away, walks around Derek to reach his car and clamber into the driver’s side with
little grace, letting out a soft grunt when his back hits the seat that Derek already knows he’s
going to replay in his mind later.

Derek watches him a little dazedly through the car window as Stiles turns the key in the
ignition and turns his head to deliver a parting smile.

“See you around?” he says, and it really sounds like a question.

“See you around,” Derek replies, not sure what kind of answer he’s given.

Twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty-five, he reminds himself as Stiles drives away.

*****

The first lacrosse game of the school year rolls around and Derek takes his seat in the stands
fifteen minutes before it is due to start. He casts his eyes over the kitted-up students taking
their places on the field until he sees Beatrix standing with a few of her friends, the number
four emblazoned on her torso and her helmet tucked beneath her arm. He raises his hand in a
wave when he manages to catch her eye, and she grins back at him, offering a wave of her
own.

“Your dad is such a DILF,” he hears one of her friends say.

“Shut up,” Beatrix responds, immediately elbowing the friend away.

Derek drops his head to hide his chuckle, but Beatrix definitely hears it anyway, because
she’s playfully glaring at him when he looks back to her. Her friends wish her good luck just
before she walks away and heads for her position in the midfield where she tucks her ponytail
into her helmet and begins running through her warm-up moves.

She doesn’t actually need to warm-up – werewolf, and all – but it’s good for show. She’s
already a little out of place as the only girl on the team, and Derek made sure to share every
trick he learned back when he played basketball at this very school to help her be able to play
the sport she loves and conceal her supernatural abilities.

Footsteps beside him draw his attention and he looks over to see John smiling down at him,
Stiles just at his side, a shy curve to his lips.

“These seats taken?” John asks.

Derek shakes his head and gestures for them to sit with a wave of his hand, squeezing a little
further up the bench to give them more room. Stiles sits first, taking the place in the middle,
while his dad perches on the end. It’s a tight fit to get them all on there, and it means that
Stiles’ clothed thigh is pressed, just lightly, against his.
A quick glance to his side and he notices immediately that Stiles doesn’t look anywhere near
as tired as he did that first day, when Derek met him in the Preserve. The colour beneath his
eyes has evened out, matching more the paleness around it, and his hands are steady where
they drum distracting beats against his knees. Some time staying at his father’s house is doing
him good, it would seem.

“Had any more trouble with your car?” Derek asks, arms folded tightly over his chest.

“Not a bit,” Stiles says, knocking his knee against Derek’s a little, and Derek can’t tell
whether it’s intentional or not. “Any high-pitched noises now are just me.”

Derek does not think about Stiles making high-pitched noises. Moaning, keening, panting.
Nope.

“That’s good,” Derek says evenly, on a slight delay.

“High hopes for the season?” John asks, leaning forwards slightly to peer around his son.

“Beatrix is confident,” Derek replies. “We practiced some over summer.”

“I thought basketball was more your game,” Stiles comments, then when Derek looks at him
oddly, “There’s a photo of you in the trophy cabinet. Or there was when I went here, at least.”

“Oh,” Derek says, a flush of – embarrassment, maybe? – running through him. “Did, uh. Did
you play?”

Stiles snorts. “Not sure you could call it that. I was on the lacrosse team, but I was a pro at
warming the bench by senior year.”

“You played, Stiles,” John argues, nudging Stiles’ shoulder with his own. “Scored a couple
goals too.”

“I was mostly trash and you just love me too much to admit it,” Stiles counters. “Doubt
there’s a photo of me in that cabinet. I think they got a good one of Scott, though.”

Scott – John’s mentioned him before. Stiles’ best friend since childhood; a werewolf as well.
Bitten at sixteen by a rogue alpha and the reason Stiles and the Sheriff know anything about
the supernatural in the first place. He runs a pack out in LA, Derek is sure he remembers
being told.

“Any progress with your case?” Derek asks.

“Nada,” Stiles says sourly. “Trail’s gone cold for now. The powers that be have given orders
for me to stay put here until any new evidence comes up. The omega’s still somewhere in the
county, far as we can tell.”

Derek nods slightly, kept from responding further when the whistle blows from the field and
the game gets off. Beatrix is just as amazing as Derek had seen when they’d spent time
practicing in their backyard over summer; she’s quick, zoned-in, always two steps ahead of
her opponents, predicting passes with such precision that she intercepts almost every one
she’s close enough to get her stick to. Stiles is clapping and hollering loudly beside him,
decibels inching up any time the ball is with Beatrix, and Derek cheers right along with him,
as does John.

By the time half time rolls around, the home side are up three to zero, and Beatrix is
responsible for two of those numbers up on the board.

“She’s incredible,” Stiles says, eyes wide with amazement.

“Told you,” John says proudly, then, “Back in a minute, I need to speak to Deputy Kennedy.”

He’s up and out of his seat quickly, leaving Derek and Stiles behind, alone together.

“I swear sometimes he thinks of your daughter as his own grandkid,” Stiles says, fond
amusement in his tone.

“He’s the closest thing she’s got to a grandpa.” It’s a thought that’s crossed Derek’s mind
before as well, and it’s not an unwelcome one. “She could do a hell of a lot worse.”

“He’s all right,” Stiles jokes, flashing Derek a grin. “Gets me off the hook, at least. If he
didn’t have her, I’m sure he’d be badgering me about settling down and having my own kids
even more than he does now.”

“You’ve still got plenty of time.”

“Tell him that,” Stiles snorts. “Didn’t you have a four-year-old at my age, anyway?”

“Having a kid at twenty-one is not generally advisable.”

“Seemed to work out pretty well for you.”

“Tell that to all these grey hairs.”

“I don’t know,” Stiles says, coyness creeping into his tone as he looks side-on at Derek. “I
think the salt and pepper look suits you.”

A heat rises on the back of Derek’s neck and he forces himself to look nowhere but straight
ahead.

“You must be looking forward to getting your case wrapped up so you can head back home,”
Derek says, jumping onto a new topic to distract himself. “Six months is a long time to be on
the road.”

“You’d think,” Stiles says sullenly, picking at a fraying edge at the hem of his t-shirt. “It’s
just… I don’t know. DC hasn’t felt like home for a while now. Honestly, I – I’m not sure it
ever did.”

“Oh,” Derek mutters dumbly. He’s not sure what else to say.
“Yeah,” Stiles says quietly, eyes cast down. “It’s hard, sometimes. Being so far away from
everyone I love – my dad here, Scott and Kira, his girlfriend, in LA. It can get… lonely.”

A heavy beat of silence passes until Derek asks, stupidly, before he can stop himself, “You’re
not – seeing anyone out there, then?”

Stiles shakes his head ruefully. “Pretty much terminally single lately. I had a boyfriend for a
couple months, but he broke up with me just before I left for this case. And way before him, I
was seeing this girl for, like, three weeks. But – nothing long-term. I guess nobody wants to
stick around.”

He follows up with a sharp, self-deprecating laugh, and Derek frowns. The idea that anyone
wouldn’t want to stick around for Stiles is – incomprehensible. But he doesn’t say that out
loud; it’s far too honest.

“You’ve still got plenty of time,” he repeats again instead.

There is a pause where Stiles chews at his bottom lip, nodding faintly in acknowledgement of
Derek’s words. After a while he glances at Derek meaningfully, releasing his lip from where
it was caught between his teeth, fidgeting with his clothes a little more urgently.

“What about you?” he asks hesitantly. “Are you… seeing anyone?”

Now it’s Derek’s turn to shake his head, but there’s no sadness in it for him.

“Even more terminally single than you, I think,” he says. “There hasn’t been anyone since –
since Paige.”

Stiles looks at him thoughtfully. “From what you’ve told me about her… I’m sure she
wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

Derek huffs a laugh. “Paige would kill me if she knew I was still single.”

A smile begins to curl at Stiles’ mouth, but before he can say anything, Derek finds his focus
being pulled by the sound of raised, incensed voices coming from the field. He blinks over to
see Beatrix going toe-to-toe with the captain of her own team, a boy in the grade above her.
She is leaning up on her toes to get as far in his face as possible, shouting loud enough that he
doesn’t even need to use his advanced senses to really make out what they’re saying.

He isn’t passing to her enough, she is yelling. She isn’t following his game plan, he is arguing
back. It’s a crappy game plan, according to Beatrix.

Their voices are getting progressively louder, progressively angrier, and Coach is just looking
on in vague bemusement, and Derek finds himself standing, ready to put himself in the
middle of things, when fingers curl around his elbow and tug him back down.

Stiles isn’t actually strong enough to really move him around, of course. But Derek lets
himself be pulled back to sitting, anyway, and Stiles doesn’t remove his hand.

“Leave ‘em to it,” Stiles says placidly.

Derek lets out a splutter of disbelief. “Leave them – that kid is screaming at my daughter!”

“And she’s screaming back,” Stiles points out, patting Derek once on the knee before folding
his hand back onto his own lap. “Relax. They’re just flirting.”

“Flirting,” Derek monotones, turning to look at Stiles incredulously. “That’s not flirting,
that’s arguing.”

Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “To-may-to, to-mah-to.”

Derek wants to disagree. He does, really. But then he thinks back to fighting with Paige;
sniping at each other when Derek’s ego got the best of him, when Paige tipped over the edge
of pretentious and started getting on his last nerve. He thinks back to how, more often than
not, barbed words turned into biting kisses, falling into bed with each other, laughing, already
forgetting whatever it was that had them so pissed off.

On the field, Coach has finally put himself in the middle of the argument, holding them both
by the collars of their shirts and instructing them to use all that passion on the field to win.
Derek can’t help the way he grimaces at the word passion.

“Trix isn’t interested in boys yet,” he says weakly.

Stiles snorts. “Sure. You keep telling yourself that.”

The game starts up again, and Derek doesn’t miss that the captain sends the very first pass
Beatrix’s way. She turns it into a goal almost immediately, and even from where Derek is
celebrating in the stands, he can see the pleased, almost shy smile on her lips when her
captain congratulates her with a lingering hand on her arm.

“It’s just,” Derek starts as they sit back down, “she’s my little girl.”

“She’ll always be your little girl,” Stiles says. “She’s just a teenager now, too.”

“I thought, I don’t know. I guess I thought I’d have more time.”

Stiles breathes a soft laugh, shuffling in closer despite the extra space on the bench that John
left. It presses their thighs together a bit more firmly, means that their shoulders brush every
now and then.

“I’m not sure how much time helps,” he says. “I didn’t bring my first boyfriend home until I
was twenty, and I swear my dad still timed it to be cleaning his guns when we arrived on
purpose.”

“I’ll have to ask to borrow those,” Derek deadpans.

“You could rip their throats out with your teeth. I’d say that’s more threatening than any
Glock.”

Derek huffs a quiet laugh. He never thought he’d be one of those fathers that got upset at the
idea of their kid being old enough, mature enough to date. But hearing Stiles say that Beatrix
is flirting, knowing deep down inside him that it’s true, he just feels – odd. He wonders how
much of that is down to his own experience of teenage dating, with Kate. But he knows that
Beatrix is far smarter than he was at that age, and at least that captain on the field is
seventeen at most, and hopefully nowhere near as homicidal.

Regardless – his issues are his to deal with, not Beatrix’s. He didn’t go through years of
therapy with Paige’s support just to fall at the first hurdle of Beatrix hitting perfectly normal
teenage milestones.

“I guess it just feels like it’s happening all at once,” Derek confesses quietly, the words
almost lost to the noise of the crowd around them, would be if Stiles weren’t leaning into
him, listening intently. “She doesn’t want me to drive her to school, she’s flirting with boys.
She doesn’t want me to call her Trix anymore.”

“Well, Trix are for kids,” Stiles says, and Derek rolls his eyes instantly, but he’s smiling, and
Stiles is grinning back. “Sorry. Had to.”

“Her mom made that joke a lot when she was a baby.” Derek pauses, a faint smile still
touching his mouth. “She came up with the nickname, too.”

The game in front of them is coming up to its last few minutes, Beacon Hills still leading by
four to none, the team taking a less intense approach to conserve their energy, make sure
there’s no last-minute injuries. Both Derek and Stiles are quiet for a long moment as they
watch on.

“Does she know that?” Stiles asks eventually.

Derek pauses. She must do, right? But then again – they don’t exactly talk about Paige often.
For a long time it was too painful, and Beatrix was too young to really understand what she
was being told. Then, after a while, it was just… habit, to avoid the subject completely.

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

“Maybe you should tell her,” Stiles suggests.

The final whistle sounds before Derek can respond. The home crowd stand and cheer, a
roaring celebration for the win, and Stiles is on his feet even before Derek, cupping hands
around his mouth to shout louder, chanting Hale, Hale, Hale along with the rest of the horde.

He watches as Beatrix is enveloped by a swarm of congratulations, and it’s when the Sheriff
finds her and gets her aside, throwing an arm over her shoulder in a hug as she smiles widely
up at him, that Stiles grabs Derek by the wrist and hauls him down the stands until they can
join them.

“You’re incredible,” is the first thing Stiles says when they merge.

Beatrix ducks her head, smiling a little bashfully. She has her helmet curled loosely in her
hand now, dangling down by her side. Her face is a healthy red, a few strands of hair
escaping their hold to stick to her sweat-damp forehead, her dark, loose curls still in a
ponytail, blowing slightly in the breeze.

Derek isn’t expecting it at all when she wraps an arm around his middle, pressing herself
against his side and staying there. She smiles up at him, then over to John and Stiles opposite
them, and Derek gets over his surprise quickly to put an arm over her shoulder, pulling her
tighter against him and pressing a quick kiss to the crown of her head.

“Thank you,” she says. “It was a team effort.”

“Please,” Stiles scoffs. “You were totally the star. You should be gloating so much right about
now.”

“Quit teaching my daughter your bad habits,” Derek says without heat.

“Just trying to live vicariously through a teenager who’s actually good at sports,” Stiles says
with a grin, then to Beatrix, “Hey, is your dad’s picture still up in the trophy cabinet?”

“Ugh, yes.” Beatrix rolls her eyes, a severe frown affecting her features. “I’m so over
everyone telling me my dad was just as hot as a teenager as he is now.”

Stiles barks out a loud, genuine laugh as Derek feels embarrassment colouring the tips of his
ears.

“I see where they’re coming from,” Stiles says, a wicked glint in his eye.

Derek knows for certain his blush is painfully visible to everyone, and he resolutely does not
look down to his daughter’s curious, assessing gaze.

“Stiles,” John mutters, and Derek can’t tell if the tightness of his mouth is because he’s
uncomfortable or because he’s trying not to laugh. “Be appropriate.”

“I am the poster child for propriety,” Stiles says, convincing absolutely no-one.

A figure bounds up towards them, stumbling to a stop just on the edge of their group. Derek
feels Beatrix begin to untangle herself from his side the second she notices, and Derek lets
her go easily.

“Hey,” the figure – kid – Beacon Hills High lacrosse captain – says, a little out of breath.

“Hey Ryan,” Beatrix says back, a touch breathless herself.

The two of them stand staring at each other for a long, uncomfortably charged moment.
Derek tilts his head to arch an eyebrow at Stiles. Stiles responds with a subtle thumbs-up, half
tucked behind his thigh, and a reassuring nod of his head.

“You played really well tonight,” Ryan says.

“Thanks,” she replies. “You too.”

“Maybe we can hang out sometime and come up with some plays together?”

The kid is aiming for casual and missing by a mile. There’s an anxious hitch to his voice, and
Derek can smell the nerves rolling off him, which means Beatrix absolutely can too. It
doesn’t seem to put her off, though, because she just smiles wider, more confidently, back at
him.

“Sure,” she says easily. “See you at school tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Ryan breathes, and the smile on his face could power ten cities. “Bye.”

Ryan glances around the adults in the group when he says his goodbye, and Derek makes
sure that the scowl on his face is extra intimidating when the kid’s eyes get to him. It’s
undermined slightly when Stiles elbows him in the side and mouths be nice, and Derek can’t
help the way his features soften.

“We should be heading off too,” John says when it’s just the four of them again.

“Thanks for coming,” Beatrix says earnestly.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, kiddo.”

John and Stiles leave with parting smiles and repeated congratulations for Beatrix. Derek
doesn’t miss the way that Stiles’ smile brightens, lingers when it’s directed at him.
Unfortunately, Beatrix doesn’t seem to miss it either. She smirks at him as the father and son
walk away.

“John’s son seems nice,” she says knowingly, far too astute for her fifteen years.

“So does Ryan,” Derek shoots back, a smirk of his own when she immediately blushes.

The whiny, petulant daaaad that earns him has him chuckling all the way to the car.
 Chapter 4

It’s coming up on two months since that first victim out on the Preserve when the omega
strikes again. Tonight’s full moon is hidden by daylight when Derek gets the call at work.

“Stiles,” Derek answers.

It’s not a social call, Derek knows already. He sees Stiles around town occasionally,
sometimes at the Sheriff’s office when Derek swings by, even at one more of Beatrix’s
lacrosse games. But they don’t go out of their way to get in touch with each other, and this is
first time Derek has seen Stiles’ name flashing up on his phone.

“There’s another body,” Stiles opens with, voice steady and grim. “In the woods by the
school. How soon can you get here?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Derek says, already climbing behind the wheel of his car. “Is the school on
lockdown?”

“My dad’s there already,” Stiles confirms, before answering Derek’s real question. “Trix is
safe. They’ve got everyone secured in the gymnasium. Feel free to speed on your way here, I
have it on good authority that the Sheriff’s department is a bit preoccupied at the moment.”

Ten and a half minutes later, Derek is walking through the trees towards a crime scene so new
that it hasn’t even been cordoned off yet.

The scent of blood is thick and fresh in the air and the death is new, the body still laid out on
the ground. This victim has suffered a similar fate to the others Derek was shown; throat
scarlet and open, stomach spilled onto the forest floor. It’s a man this time, somewhere
around middle-age, with dark hair and pale skin. His eyes are still wide open as a deputy
begins to tape around the area.

“This was recent,” Derek says as he comes to a stop beside Stiles.

“Yeah,” Stiles replies, his uniform jacket haphazard over his shoulders as though thrown on
hastily, the badge hanging around his neck caught in the collar. “One of the students followed
a scream out here and found the body, called nine-one-one after he’d stopped
hyperventilating.”

It’s a calm, warm day this time, no rain to wash away scents, and Derek gets the feeling
they’ve shown up barely thirty minutes after the attack. He curls his fists and closes his eyes,
rolls his neck and tips his head, tries to focus on the sounds beyond Stiles’ soft breathing next
to him, the smells beyond the cloying copper in front of him.

He catches something to the west.

“This way,” he says, and he doesn’t wait to see if Stiles is following before he starts moving.
“Derek,” Stiles grits out behind him, running to catch-up if his footsteps are anything to go
by. “You can’t just – slow down, Jesus Christ – you can’t just go after this thing on your
own.”

“Watch me.”

“Oh my god, asshole, I’m not telling you to wait for the cavalry, I’m just saying wait for me.”

Stiles has caught up to his side now, matching Derek stride for stride, scowling at him openly.
Derek spares him an appraising glance before re-focusing on the almost silent footsteps he
can hear somewhere ahead of them, a putrid scent trailing in the air, so faint it’s almost gone
every time before Derek can truly pick it up.

“I can’t imagine this is protocol,” Derek says.

“Protocol,” Stiles snorts. “Has my dad told you nothing about my relationship with
authority?”

Derek continues to lead them in the silence that follows, Stiles with one steady hand on his
holstered firearm, Derek with his claws almost pushing through his fingertips; both prepared
for anything and everything. The further they go, the more Derek begins to drop the scent, his
ears losing the footsteps for minutes at a time, frustration rising through him like a growl
ripping from his throat.

They come to a fork in their path of leaves, that foul smell lingering between two trees, each
with fresh claw marks torn into the bark. Derek pauses and Stiles stills beside him; watching,
waiting for the next move.

A branch breaks in the distance and Derek’s head snaps towards it.

“Go,” Stiles tells him urgently.

Derek takes off running before the word is even fully out.

It’s a blur of instinct as he runs, feet pounding against the ground, heartbeat slamming in his
chest. He sprints towards the remnants of that sound, followed by nothing but silence for him
to latch onto, running with claws cutting into his palms until he admits to himself that it’s
gone – he can’t scent anything, hear anything. All that’s left now is the outdoors and Stiles’
thudding heartbeat pursuing behind him.

His breathing is laboured when he stops, gives up, and blood is drying flakily beneath his
receding fingertips when Stiles catches up to him.

“I lost it,” Derek says bitterly, unable to look at Stiles.

“Shit,” Stiles hisses, kicking the ground in frustration.

“I’m sorry.”
“That’s a lot closer than we’ve got before.” Stiles sighs heavily, running a hand through his
hair before scrubbing roughly over his face. “Look, let’s just head back to the school. I can
speak to my dad about setting up a perimeter and you can check in with Beatrix.”

They begin the walk back in silence. Derek trails a step or two behind Stiles, staring down at
the ground as he goes, desperately holding out to catch that scent again, to latch on to hear
something helpful. But nothing comes, and Derek can only watch Stiles’ heels kick up leaves
as they walk, his teeth clenched and his jaw tight.

Something like five, ten minutes pass and Derek is mildly surprised he hasn’t cracked his
teeth yet.

“I can hear you brooding back there,” Stiles calls out, not breaking his stride.

“I’m not brooding,” Derek mutters.

“He said, broodily.”

Stiles throws a teasing smile over his shoulder, and Derek flashes red eyes at him.

“Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?” Derek asks, barely keeping his childish
sneer at bay.

“Only every other day, dude,” Stiles replies breezily. “Anyone ever told you to cool it with
the martyr act? It’s not as hot as you think it is.”

There’s a tell-tale trip of his heart over that last sentence that Derek pointedly ignores.

“That’s not – I’m not being a martyr.”

Stiles stops; a sudden, lurching movement before he spins on his heel to face Derek, one
eyebrow quirked as he regards Derek dubiously.

“Watch me.” Stiles echoes Derek’s earlier words in a ridiculous imitation of Derek’s voice.

“I don’t sound like that,” Derek snaps.

“You sound exactly like that.”

God, arguing with Stiles is infuriating. He opens his mouth to say as much.

Arguing, he thinks.

Flirting, he thinks.

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

His mouth clicks shut again.

Stiles catches his aborted retort with a sharp, analytical gaze. They’re standing a lot closer
than Derek had realised, he notices abruptly; Stiles is barely a small, calculated step out of
reach. Stiles’ brown eyes are wide, his pink mouth hanging open slightly around soft breaths.
His long fingers twitch at his sides and Derek has an almost overwhelming urge to give in
and tangle their hands together.

The beat of Stiles’ heart is so loud it’s like Derek can feel it within his own chest.

“Okay,” Stiles says quietly, tongue swiping out to wet his bottom lip, and Derek watches the
motion helplessly. “Maybe I lied earlier. Maybe it is as hot as you think it is.”

“Stiles,” Derek chokes.

“Stiles?” John’s voice calls from nearby.

Derek takes a step back from Stiles like he’s been hit with an electric current. He swallows
thickly and rolls his shoulders, eyes cast down to the ground as he steps around Stiles with a
wide berth, quickly walking the short distance it takes to reach where John is calling out
from. He’s aware that Stiles is walking only a few paces behind him, but he won’t turn
around.

“Sheriff,” Derek greets with a nod.

John raises an eyebrow at him. He had been doing so much better at calling him John lately.

He can’t help but feel a heavy thrum of shame run through him when his mind wanders back
to how close he’d been to reaching out to John’s son; John’s son who is eleven years younger
than Derek, John’s son who lives on the other side of the country and has a whole life ahead
of him to not be saddled with a sad, greying single father. It makes him avert his gaze guiltily.

“Boys,” John says, eyes darting between Derek and Stiles standing obviously apart. “My
deputies have combed the area and come up with nothing. Any luck on your end?”

“Derek had it for a while, but we lost it,” Stiles says.

“Wherever it is, it’s long gone from here by now,” Derek adds. “But I have the scent. It’ll
make it easier to pick up if they show around town again.”

“That’s something, at least,” John says with a twist of his mouth. “Come on, Trix is waiting
for you back at the school. We’ve sent all the kids home for the day.”

It’s only a few minutes to get to the school grounds, and Beatrix is waiting for him in the
middle of the lacrosse field, a group of deputies protectively encircling her as she takes
practice shots into an empty net. She’s practically vibrating with energy, pent up with the full
moon due that night, with the fear of people getting picked off seemingly at whim in their
very own town.

She looks up as they walk over, her face creased with concern as they come to a stop in front
of her.

“Animal attack?” she asks wryly.

“That’s the official story,” Stiles answers. “I don’t want you to worry about it. We’ll catch
this fucker.”

“Language,” John mutters.

Derek watches as Stiles and Beatrix share a conspiratorial smile, Stiles rolling his eyes
towards his dad which makes her huff a quiet laugh. Her face turns serious again almost
instantly afterwards.

“And you’ll keep my dad safe?” she asks.

“Don’t worry about me,” Derek insists.

“Whatever it takes,” Stiles promises easily.

Derek sees John’s head whip towards Stiles. He sees it, because his does too. Stiles tilts his
chin almost defiantly, a determinedly stubborn slant to it, and he doesn’t break eye contact
with Beatrix even as Derek and his father look at him bewilderedly.

“Good,” Beatrix breathes, and it sounds like a sigh of relief. “I hope you catch this fucker
soon.”

“Language!” Derek and John scold in unison.

“They’re so going to blame me for that,” Stiles tells her with a grin.

“Sorry,” she says unrepentantly, smiling too.

Derek takes a step forward to stand by her side and she immediately reaches out to curl a
hand around his elbow, holding on tightly as she leans into his side. Derek offers a nod to
John and steels himself to look over at Stiles and nod to him too.

Stiles is staring at him with an open face when he does. It’s vulnerable, Derek thinks, just
how much hope he can see there. He has to look away.

“You should join us for dinner on Friday,” John says. “I know the full moon always takes it
out of you. We’ll cook.”

“Beatrix probably has plans,” Derek starts.

“Sounds good,” Beatrix cuts in. “Thank you.”

“That’s settled then,” John says, clapping Derek on the shoulder. “We’ll see you at seven.”

Derek feels far from settled as he watches John and Stiles walk away, but his daughter
anxiously tugging him towards the parking lot so they can head for the safety of home
becomes his number one priority in an instant.
 *****

“You’re in high school. You seriously don’t have any better offers for your Friday night?”

“Nope. I want to hang out with my dad and his kind-of-boss and his kind-of-boss’ son.”

Derek huffs. “I think I preferred it when you were being moody with me.”

Beatrix grins. “Tell that to your heartbeat.”

The two of them stand in front of the Stilinski house, a bottle of red wine wrapped in Derek’s
hand and a bowl of potato salad balancing on Beatrix’s palm. He can make out the low
murmur of conversation coming from the house, but he gives them privacy and elects not to
tune into it. The smell of a grill firing up, smoky and thickening in the air, fills his nostrils.

Days, Derek has been dreading this. There’s no way it can be anything but awkward after his
charged moment with Stiles earlier in the week. He’s been trying to subtly hint to Beatrix that
it’s not too late to cancel, that if her friends have plans on Friday night everyone will
understand if she asks to reschedule, preferably until the case takes Stiles back out of town.
He hasn’t been subtle about it in the least if the unimpressed looks she keeps giving him are
anything to go by.

He’s just about to open his mouth for one last ditch attempt, but she cuts him off with a firm
hand grabbing him by the arm and marching him up the porch steps and to the front door. She
knocks twice while he’s still marvelling at how much she’s grown into her strength lately.

Light footsteps come towards them down the hall and then the door is swinging open,
revealing Stiles with a dishtowel thrown over his shoulder and a hesitant smile on his face.

“Hey,” Stiles says, staring.

“Hi,” Derek says, staring right back.

“Hi!” Beatrix adds enthusiastically.

“You gonna let them in off the porch, son?” John calls from the kitchen.

Stiles clears his throat, ducking his head awkwardly as he takes a step back and gestures for
them to come inside with a sweep of his arm. Beatrix is the first to breach the threshold,
marching straight to where John stands at the kitchen counter seasoning some steaks for the
grill. Derek carefully follows after her, lingering in the hallway as Stiles closes the door
behind them and turns to lean his back against it.

“We brought wine,” Derek says, shaking the bottle a little in front of his chest.

“Thanks,” Stiles says.

When Stiles reaches out to take the proffered bottle, their fingers brush, just for a second; the
tip of Stiles’ index sweeping softly against his palm. Derek hears Stiles’ heartbeat jump at the
simple touch, feels his own do the same in his chest, is painfully aware that Beatrix will have
been privy to both. He clears his throat deliberately and lets his now empty hand fall to his
side.

“Potato salad, too,” Beatrix announces proudly.

At Stiles’ raised eyebrow, Derek hurries to clarify, “It’s low-fat.”

John huffs loudly. “Then why did we even invite you?”

Derek trails after Stiles as he leads them down the hallway, coming to a stop just inside the
kitchen. Stiles places the bottle of wine on the side beside the bowl of potato salad, and
Derek watches as Beatrix grins and prods a finger into John’s ribs as he grunts indignantly.

“Because we’re your favourite Beacon Hills citizens,” she says. “Obviously.”

“What, you guys beat out his own son?” Stiles questions playfully.

“To be fair,” John says, “you don’t live here anymore, kid.”

John and Beatrix’s backs are turned to them, John still seasoning and Beatrix overseeing with
great interest. They both miss the look that passes over Stiles’ face at his dad’s statement, the
crease between his brows and the way it looks like he’s taken a punch to the solar plexus, just
for a second before he evens his expression out again.

But Derek doesn’t miss it, and he knows he’s frowning slightly when Stiles looks at him.
Stiles ignores it, forcing a too-wide smile as he claps his hands together to draw everyone’s
attention.

“So!” he starts, overly brightly. “I’ll open this bottle?”

“I’ll have a glass,” Beatrix says as nonchalantly as she can, and both John and Derek snort.

“Nice try,” Derek says, arms over his chest as he looks, unimpressed, at her sheepish smile.

“You’re not getting me in trouble again, young lady,” Stiles tells her, grabbing a corkscrew
from the drawer and getting to work on the bottle. “I got chewed out enough for that f-
bomb.”

John sighs. “You know, I always hoped the ability to control your mouth would come with
age.”

“Sorry, pops,” Stiles says, throwing a sly wink at Derek over his shoulder. “Maybe when I’m
thirty.”

Derek grins at him. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

The unabashed beam Stiles gives back to him feels like it pulls all the air from the room, and
honestly? Derek will be surprised if he survives tonight if Stiles keeps looking at him like
that.

*****

Dinner is – easy. That’s the best way Derek can think to describe it. Good food gets passed
around the dinner table, interesting conversation flows, uncomplicated laughter fills the air.
It’s the liveliest meal that Derek has had in a long time, the most fun he’s had since he can
remember. It’s the most he’s since Beatrix smile all at once in years.

After they’ve eaten, once John has regretfully excused himself to head off for his overnight
shift at the station, Derek stands elbow-deep in a sink full of soapy water. Stiles made his best
attempt to stop Derek from getting anywhere near the dishes, but Beatrix had begged him to
stay in the backyard with her to toss a lacrosse ball around a bit.

Beatrix is lucky she inherited Paige’s big, brown eyes, Derek thinks. Stiles proves as
powerless to say no to them as Derek often finds himself.

“Go easy on me a bit, would ya?” Derek hears Stiles say from outside. “Some of us are
human here. I’m pretty sure you could snap me in half if you really put your mind to it.”

“I’m pretty sure I could do it without even trying,” Beatrix says, and Derek has to bite back a
laugh.

Neither Stiles nor Beatrix speak for a little while after that. The only sounds Derek can pick
up are the back-and-forth toss of a ball whipping through the air, pitching from net to net.
Derek rinses suds from plates and cutlery and shelves each one neatly to dry on the dishrack
beside him.

He’s so focused on the task at hand that he almost misses it; the faint, sharp scent of wracked
nerves building, rolling in from outside, through the ever so slightly ajar backdoor. It takes
him a second to figure out that it’s coming from Beatrix, and he freezes, barely daring to
breathe as he waits for something to happen.

“That picture, in your hallway,” Beatrix begins after dragging seconds of worry-tinged
silence. “Is that… your mom?”

The beat Stiles pauses is so heavy, it’s almost thick in the air.

“Yeah,” he says eventually. “She, uh. She died when I was a kid.”

“How old were you?”

“Ten.”
Derek should stop listening. He should tune out immediately, or head somewhere out the
front door where he’s far enough away that he can’t hear them anymore. That’s what Beatrix
would want him to do. She asked Stiles, and only Stiles, to stay out there with her for a
reason.

But he doesn’t move one bit. The water submerging his hands begins to cool as he listens in.

“What was she like?”

Stiles sucks in a soft, shaky breath. It’s only quiet, but Derek picks it up, and Beatrix must
too.

“She was the best.” The hurt is still so tangible in Stiles’ voice, even after all these years. “I
miss her every day.”

The ball is still being thrown between them, Derek can hear, but it’s slowed down
considerably. Now more of an afterthought than anything else.

“Does your dad,” she starts, trailing off for a moment before steeling herself to continue.
“Does your dad talk about her much?”

Something in Derek’s chest constricts, aches like a hollow pain. He pulls his hands carefully,
quietly from the water and grips the side of the basin, eyes screwed shut as he breathes as
evenly as he can, which isn’t very much at all.

“Sometimes,” Stiles answers her question gently. “It – I know that it’s hard for him. But we
reminisce, sometimes. We used to make her pierogi recipe on her birthday, but… it’s been a
few years since I’ve been back here for that.”

His voice thickens as he speaks, and he clears his throat afterwards. It’s quiet for another few
long moments after that until Beatrix breaks the silence again.

“I don’t remember my mom,” she confesses quietly. “I wish I had… Even one memory,
would feel like something.”

“She sounded like a great lady, from what your dad’s told me about her.”

“He talked to you about her?”

There is shock in Beatrix’s question, something close to betrayal in the tremble of her words.
Derek feels a sting of white-hot guilt sweep through him, fingers gripping so tightly to the
sink that he has to force himself to loosen his hold because he must be so close to cracking it
into pieces.

“Not much,” Stiles says, and there’s guilt in his tone too. “Just a couple stories.”

“Oh.”

“You should ask him,” Stiles suggests. “Ask him to tell you about her.”
The ball isn’t moving through the air anymore. Instead, there’s a rustling, a shuffling of
footsteps against grass, the creak of wood as they both presumably sit down on the bench
shadowed by the treeline at the back of the yard.

“He just gets so… sad, whenever anyone mentions her. Or my grandparents, or my aunts.”

She pauses, and there’s the sound of fabric against fabric. Derek imagines Stiles wrapping an
arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side, and something in Derek’s chest
untightens, if only a little.

“Your dad has lost a lot of people,” Stiles says softly. “And you have too. It never stops
hurting to talk about them, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean he won’t
want to.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, voice wobbly with tears, and Derek feels his own eyes burn. “Thanks,
Stiles.”

“Any time, kid.”

Derek lets himself lean back to peek through the backdoor, only for a moment, and he sees
that Stiles and Beatrix are sitting on the bench, just like he’d thought. She is tucked
underneath his arm, her head beneath his chin. There’s a damp patch on the front of Stiles’ t-
shirt from her tears, and Stiles catches Derek’s eye for a split-second, looks at him openly and
sincerely, conveying so much in just the blink of an eye.

Beatrix begins to pull away from Stiles, and Derek hurries himself back to the sink,
resolutely focusing on the last remaining dishes, giving them the privacy outside that he
should have from the start. But he can’t bring himself to feel guilty for what he’s heard; part
of him wonders whether Beatrix even maybe wanted him to hear it, after all.

Minutes pass with so many thoughts swimming around in his head. He’s abruptly pulled out
of them when the backdoor is pulled to, Stiles and Beatrix stepping through, all smiles, not
even a hint of the tears that Derek can still see drying on Stiles’ shirt.

“Hey,” he forces himself to say cheerfully. “Any signs of improvement?”

“She’s already leagues ahead of me,” Stiles scoffs.

“I know,” Derek says, one eyebrow arched. “That’s why I was asking about you.”

Stiles clutches at his chest with one hand, uses the other to grab Beatrix’s shoulder, making
wounded noises until she’s giggling into her hand.

“Straight for the jugular, huh, big guy?” he says, before turning to Beatrix conspiratorially.
“Your dad this mean to everyone?”

She snorts. “My dad doesn’t speak to anyone except you and John.”

“That’s not true,” Derek protests.

It absolutely is true. He knows that, and she knows that. Stiles definitely knows that, too, if
his bright, beatific smile is anything to go by.

“It’s totally true,” Beatrix says. “And when Stiles is gone, you’ll be down to just John again.”

Another flash of hurt sweeps across Stiles’ face at the mention of him leaving, the same one
that Derek caught on him earlier when John said something similar. He schools his face back
to neutral again, even quicker this time, and Derek frowns while Stiles avoids his eye.

“I guess we should be getting going,” Derek says when the silence begins to stretch. “Thank
you for having us.”

“It was our pleasure,” Stiles replies, finally looking at Derek with a small, genuine smile.
“My dad would have you guys over every week, if you’d let him.”

“We couldn’t impose like that,” Derek says.

“Every other week could work,” Beatrix adds, rolling her eyes when Derek turns to her, a
confused crease between his eyebrows. “This was fun, but I do want to see my friends some
time, dad.”

“That’s not what I –“

“I’ll be in the car,” she cuts in.

She whirls around and flings her arms around Stiles in a quick, crushing hug. Stiles catches
her easily, blinking his shock at Derek over her shoulder the entire time he’s in her hold, even
as he hugs her back just as fervently. She pulls away almost as quickly as she’d thrown
herself into the hug, bouncing down the hall with her headphones already over her ears
before she’s even out of the front door.

The door slams behind her and Derek and Stiles are left together in the kitchen, staring at
each from either side of the small room. There’s a palpable tension in the air, enough that
Derek averts his gaze to the off-white tiles beneath his shoes.

“So,” Stiles opens with, syllable drawn out and a little nervous. “I take it you – heard, all of
that?”

Derek pauses for a second before nodding his assent slowly. He raises his eyes to meet the
edgy twist of Stiles’ mouth, to catch the anxious twitch of his fingers by his sides.

“I hope you don’t think I… over-stepped,” Stiles says.

“Not at all,” Derek says quickly. “I – you – I.” He pauses to draw in a deep breath. “Thank
you.”

Stiles lets out a small, disbelieving huff of laugh. He takes a tiny, barely noticeable step
closer to Derek, but Derek still watches it with a stutter of his own heart.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Stiles’ tongue darts out to wet his lips. “And I – maybe it’s not
my place, but… I think you should talk to her. About her mom, about your family. She –
she’s a great kid. She deserves to hear about them.”

Derek thinks, of course it’s your place.

He forces that thought away as soon as it appears.

“I will,” he says; firmly, resolutely. Truthfully.

An internal struggle seems to pass over Stiles’ face for a moment before settling on a
decision, and before Derek can catch up with what’s happening, Stiles is striding towards him
and wrapping his arms around Derek’s neck in a close, fierce hug.

Derek is frozen, stock-still, for a moment, before he comes to his senses and wraps arms
around Stiles’ middle, resting flat palms against Stiles’ back, either side of the dip of his
spine. Stiles’ fingers are warm as they trace light patterns over Derek’s shoulder blades, and
he’s pressing their temples together, and Derek feels like he almost can’t breathe.

When Stiles tips his face to press warm, dry lips to Derek’s cheek in a barely-there kiss,
Derek makes an incredibly embarrassing choked noise that he will try not to dwell on for
years to come.

Stiles untangles himself from Derek’s grasp while Derek is still trying to understand what the
hell just happened. He steps away, a faint red flush sitting high on his cheekbones, the corners
of his mouth curving shyly upwards. Derek has to force himself to look at Stiles’ eyes
instead.

“Drive home safe,” Stiles says.

“You too,” Derek says without thinking, then cringes, shaking his head slightly and clearing
his throat. “I mean – we will. I will. I – yeah.”

Derek hightails it out of there before he can say or do anything else humiliating, but he still
hears Stiles' soft laughter as he's pulling out of the driveway.
 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Beatrix trudges down the stairs the following day with wild, slept-on hair and sleep crusting
the corners of her eyes. She’s still wearing her pyjamas with one of Paige’s old Stanford
sweatshirts thrown over the top, yawning loud and big as she jumps the last step and ambles
blearily into the kitchen, where Derek sits at the table with an empty plate and a half-empty
coffee mug in front of him.

“Morning,” she mumbles, flapping a hand at him as she walks by.

“Afternoon,” he returns with a pointed look at the clock on the wall.

He catches the roll of her eyes out of the corner of his, watching as she grabs the sandwich he
wrapped up in the fridge for her and pours herself a generous glass of orange juice. She flops
down into the chair beside him and takes a long gulp of her drink, panting slightly for breath
when she puts the glass back down and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before
focusing her attention on her food.

“You know, studies show teenagers need more sleep than adults,” she tells him around a
mouthful.

“Oh, yeah?” He watches the crumbs that miss her mouth, then the plate, then the table as
well, instead falling to the kitchen floor. He needed to vacuum today anyway, he supposes.
“Do studies also show that teenagers need to stay up until three in the morning playing video
games with their friends?”

She grins. “I think I heard they’re working on that hypothesis over at Harvard, actually.”

He hides his own smile behind the rim of his raised coffee mug, taking a slow sip as she
devours over half of the sandwich in only a few bites. He sits quietly next to her, giving her
time to chew and swallow, waiting until he feels the time is right. He’s been up and waiting at
the kitchen table since just past eight this morning; a few more minutes can’t hurt.

She pushes the plate a little further into the centre of the table once she’s finished, leaning
back in her chair and curling a loose hand around the glass that still holds a few swigs of
citrus. She is sneaking furtive glances at him every few seconds, like she knows he’s got
something planned, but she doesn’t push for it. She just sits, and waits, foot tapping a half-
restless melody against the tiled floor.

“Your mom was always a lot better at talking than me,” he says after a long silence.

Her eyebrows shoot up for a moment before creasing together. The hand that was holding her
glass moves to her mouth, and she begins to gnaw slightly at her fingernails. It’s a terrible
habit she’s had for years, but has mostly broken out of by now. Usually, Derek smacks her
hand away if he ever catches her doing it, but he knows it’s a comfort thing at heart, and he
decides to let her have it, just this once.

“You heard me talking to Stiles then?” she guesses.

“I did,” he says softly. “And I’m sorry that I made you feel like you couldn’t talk to me.
About anything, but… especially about her.”

She shuffles a little in her seat, eyes down on the table as she draws her ankles up beneath her
thighs to sit cross-legged. She gives herself a moment to think by tearing her hand away from
her mouth long enough to pull her dark, sleep-messy hair into a ponytail high on her head,
using the scrunchie ever-present on her wrist. She folds her lands into her lap once it’s in
place with only a few wispy strands framing her face.

“I should’ve just asked,” she says.

“You shouldn’t have to ask,” he replies firmly. “There’s no excuse. I’m going to do better.”

He reaches across the table to grasp one of her hands in his, curling his fingers to rest against
her palm, waiting until she looks up and meets his eye hesitantly from beneath her lashes.
There is a small, painfully timid smile on her face, and it makes his heart clench in his chest.

“You look so much like her,” he says, watching with rapture as her smile grows in
confidence. “Your aunts, too.”

“Yeah.” She sweeps lightly across her cheekbone with her free hand. “Those Hale genes sure
are strong.”

“They’d all be so proud of you.” There’s a lump in his throat as he looks at her earnestly,
seeing moisture creeping into the corner of her eyes even as her smile never falters. “I’m so
proud of you.”

She chokes on a short laugh, rubbing at her face to swipe away the few tears that have
escaped to run down her cheek.

“God, dad,” she says. “I’ve barely been awake a half hour and you’re already making me
cry.”

The chair legs scrape against the floor as he stands, pulling her up with him until he can
envelop her in his arms. Her cheek is pressed against his chest and his lips find the crown of
her head, inhaling her scent deeply as she squeezes him back tightly.

“The day you were born was the best day of my life,” he tells her. “I love you so much, Tr –
Bee.”

She pulls herself away from him slightly at that slip, still holding onto the fabric of his t-shirt
as she looks up at him with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Panic begins to rise
through his veins as he fears he has of course, of course, managed to screw it all up already
when they’d been doing so well.
“Call me Trix,” she says.

He frowns. “I thought you wanted to be called Bee.”

“I was trying it out.” She scrunches her face up. “It doesn’t feel like… me.”

“Yeah,” he says, the lump in his throat thickening. “You’ve always been our little Trix. Your
mom called you that the first time she held you in her arms.”

A bright smile splits across her face. “Really?”

“Really,” he confirms, smoothing a flat palm across her temple. “She said she couldn’t wait
to see what ‘Trix’ you had up your sleeve for us.”

“Oh my god,” she laughs. “That’s terrible.”

“I know. We’re lucky you inherited my sense of humour.”

“You have a sense of humour?”

“There it is.” He presses a quick kiss to her forehead. “Love you, Trix.”

“Love you too, dad.”

They migrate from the kitchen to the living room to spend the afternoon poring over old
photo albums, cataloguing every year from Laura’s birth up to today. Beatrix sweeps reverent
fingers across the faces in the pictures, eagerly drinking in any and every detail Derek tells
her about her grandparents, her aunts, her mom and blinking up at him for more, more, more.

It hurts to talk about them all, of course it does. It’s a hollow ache in his chest that will never
be shaken, to think about everyone he has loved so fiercely and lost so quickly. But Stiles was
right – it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t; it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

Sitting on the couch, with his arm spread across the back and her tucked cosily underneath it,
her legs gathered beneath her and her happy, easy smile better than anything he’s seen in a
long time, she pauses in her string of questions. He tilts his head to look down at her, at
where an assessing gaze clouds her eyes, her finger tapping at the photograph resting on the
album between them.

The picture is from her middle school graduation. She’s a few inches shorter than she is now
in it, with uneven bangs that she’d cut herself the night before and immediately regretted. He
stands beside her, and arm around her shoulder and with considerably fewer grey hairs. They
are both smiling for the camera, a sea of other smiling families filling up the background
around them.

“You haven’t,” she starts hesitantly, taking her time to continue, “dated anyone, since mom.”

He lets a beat pass before, “I haven’t.”

She turns in his grip to look up at him. “Why?”

“I didn’t meet anyone I wanted to date,” he tells her, choosing his words carefully.

Her narrowed eyes tell him she catches it, anyway. She’s as terrifyingly good at latching onto
half-truths as she is at noticing heart trips.

“And you… still… haven’t met anyone you wanted to date?”

“Trix,” he says warningly.

She pulls herself from his side to sit up on her knees, turned to face him with a determined
slant to her pursed mouth. He feels utterly pinned by her gaze, and she has never reminded
him more of her mother than she does in that moment.

“I want you to be happy,” she says. “And if Stiles makes you happy, you should date him.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” he tries, barely suppressing a groan.

“Well, that sucks, because we’re having it,” she asserts. “You obviously like him.”

He lets the groan out this time, tipping his head back on the couch and covering his face with
his hand. He waits a few seconds, hoping maybe she’ll give up, but when he slips two fingers
apart, she is still staring at him with such single-minded focus that he knows he doesn’t have
a chance in hell of escaping.

“He’s too young for me,” he says.

“He’s not that young,” she counters. “You’re all old people to me.”

“He also happens to be John’s son.”

“So? John’s practically my grandpa anyway. This would just make it semi-official.”

“I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here,” he says with a frown. “We don’t even
know if he likes me back.”

“Ha!” she exclaims, a bright smile on her face as she points an accusing finger in his face.
“So you do like him.”

“How is this my life,” he asks the ceiling.

“Also, he totally likes you back,” she says, ignoring him completely. “He basically swoons
whenever you’re nearby. It’s super gross.”

There’s a look of disgust on her face that he reaches out to smush away, dragging his palm
over the bridge of her nose until she’s giggling and shoving him away. She evades him by
settling back against the arm of the couch, stretching her legs out and dumping her socked
feet into his lap.

“None of this actually matters, anyway,” he points out. “He lives on the other side of the
country.”
She shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe he’d move back. He seems to like it here.”

He sighs. “It’s not that simple, Trix.”

She exaggerates his sigh. “It also doesn’t have to be that difficult, dad.”

Her smile is so hopeful, so earnest. It feels downright infectious the longer he looks at her.

“I’ll think about it,” he hedges.

“Good,” she declares. “Now no more talking about old people love. It’s making me feel
icky.”

“Sure,” he agrees easily, a teasing eyebrow quirked. “How about we talk about Ryan
instead?”

“Oh my god, dad, shut up.”

*****

Only a few days later, Derek finds himself walking past the rows of desks that make up the
path through the station and up to the Sheriff’s office. Each one is decorated with various
trinkets in orange and black, similar colours theming the walls and wishing him a Happy
Halloween as he walks by. He tries to tell himself it was a completely spontaneous decision
to drop-in on his way by one afternoon, but, truly, he knows he spent the entire night
beforehand agonising about whether to take this route home from the garage today, or to go
the quickest way he usually opts for.

He knows that John has an appointment down at the school right now to talk about the
curfew that’s been put in place in the wake of the recent attacks. He also knows that Stiles has
been using his dad’s office as his base since he’s been in town.

Standing in front of the office door, he offers a slightly strained smile to the deputy that walks
by him with a passing greeting. He flexes his fingers at his sides, takes a quick, steadying
breath, and lifts his hand to knock.

Before he’s even made contact, the door flings open.

“Hi!” the person on the other side says.

“Uh,” Derek hesitates, blinking. “Hi.”

“Come in, come in,” the person – guy – alpha werewolf – neither John nor Stiles – offers,
waving Derek inside with an enthusiastic roll of his arm. “You’re Derek, right? Derek Hale?”
Derek hesitates for a moment longer before following through, letting the door fall closed
behind him. The guy is grinning at him, a smile so wide and eager that Derek can’t help but
feel a little guilty in the face of it, having absolutely no idea who he is in return.

“Yes,” Derek says, waiting a few seconds for this guy to offer his own identity, giving up
eventually to carry on with, “And you are…”

“Oh!” The guy smacks a light hand against his forehead before extending it to Derek to
shake. “I’m Scott. Scott McCall.”

Derek accepts Scott’s proffered palm with raised eyebrows.

“Stiles’ friend?” he clarifies, and Scott nods, releasing his hand again. “John told me you run
a pack out in LA.”

“I do.” Scott leans casually against John’s desk, a clear sign of comfort that can only come
from years of closeness with the Stilinskis. “I don’t get to see Stiles very often with him
living over in DC, so I thought I’d swing by for a visit. See if I can offer any help with his
case too.” His smile widens even further, which Derek hadn’t thought possible. “But I guess
he’s got you for that, doesn’t he?”

Derek shuffles a little, rising discomfort under the intensity, the scrutiny of Scott’s gaze.

“I’m sure he’d still appreciate the help,” Derek says. “Is he, uh. Is he here?”

“He went on a coffee run. I don’t think he’ll be much longer, if you can hang around.”

“I don’t want to get in the way. He isn’t expecting me.”

“Nah, man, stay. He’ll be pleased to see you, no doubt.” Scott tilts himself back even further,
arms crossed over his chest as he appraises Derek openly. “It’s really great to finally meet
you.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. “You been waiting that long?”

“Only since high school,” Scott snorts. “You were pretty much all Stiles ever –“

“Whoa-kay, buddy!” The door bangs open when Stiles bursts through, two coffee cups
balancing precariously in a holder laying on the palm of his hand. His eyes are wild and
wide, fixing Scott with a heated stare while Scott grins sheepishly back at him. “I don’t think
we need to bore Derek here with a trip down memory lane, do you?”

“I think he’d like it,” Scott says breezily.

“I think you should fuck off,” Stiles shoots back, glaring.

Derek watches bemusedly as Scott purses his lips in a mock pout. Stiles rolls his eyes in the
face of it, reaching around Scott to set the coffees on the desk, pulling one out and shoving it
against Scott’s chest before putting hands to Scott’s shoulders, attempting to bodily push him
from the office.
“You can’t manhandle me, I can bench press ten times your weight,” Scott scoffs, resisting
slightly to make Stiles huff and puff, pushing with all his might and Scott not budging one
bit.

“I miss the days when you were one surprise party away from dying of an asthma attack,”
Stiles grunts, driving his shoulder into the middle of Scott’s back.

“I miss the days when you used to doodle Mr Stiles H–“

“Get out.”

Scott finally gives in with his head tipped back in a loud bray of laughter, letting himself be
pushed past the threshold of the office door. The second he’s on the other side, Stiles slams it
closed behind him, pausing for a second to collect his panting breath before he whirls around,
his face overwhelmed a bright shade of scarlet.

He offers Derek a slightly manic smile, the scent of embarrassment rolling off him in pungent
waves. Derek has to suck his bottom lip between his teeth to fight back his own smile,
eyebrows still high on his forehead.

“Scott seems nice,” Derek says, letting the tease into his tone.

“Scott will be lucky if I let him leave this town alive,” Stiles replies, falling back against the
door and running a hand through his hair. “Any chance you didn’t pick up on those hints he
was dropping?”

“About you having a crush on me when you were in high school? Yes, I’m completely none
the wiser.”

“Oh god,” Stiles groans, sliding across the door until he can fall to sit on the arm of the couch
beside it, burying his head in his hands while the red creeps down to his neck. “This is
humiliating.”

“To be fair, you didn’t do a great job of hiding it yourself,” Derek notes, then when Stiles’
head snaps to him in disbelief, he adds, “You all but told me you used to watch me when I ran
shirtless. You asked my daughter about the picture of me in the trophy cabinet at the high
school.”

Stiles pulls a face. “Not my subtlest moments, I’ll grant you.”

Derek snorts. “I’m not sure subtle is in your dictionary.”

Stiles laughs. “I’m not sure nice is in yours.”

It settles into a silence, a silence with a tangible tension that Derek can feel thrumming just
underneath his skin. Stiles is just staring at him, slowly lifting his elbows from his thighs to
sit up straighter, looking at Derek in a way that has Derek swallowing thickly, a tremor
running across all ten fingertips.
The room feels so quiet, even though Derek is acutely aware of the buzz of chatter just
outside, the deputies going about their duties; filing paperwork, drinking coffee. But all he
can really focus on is the crackle of electricity in the air as he meets Stiles’ eyes unblinkingly.

“In the interests of full disclosure,” Stiles starts, tongue darting out to wet his lips, “I have a
crush on you now, too”

“Yeah?” Derek sounds a lot more choked than he’d like to.

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes, slowly rising to his feet. “Honestly, I’m not sure it’s faded all that
much since I was seventeen.”

Derek screws his eyes shut, that word like a punch to the throat.

“Seventeen,” he echoes, taking an unconscious step backwards. “You were seventeen. When
I was twenty-eight.”

Stiles lets out a sharp, frustrated noise. “I’m not seventeen now.”

Derek opens his eyes to see Stiles standing on the other side of the room, staring at him
imploringly, leaning towards Derek even as Derek forces himself to lean away.

“No, but you are eleven years younger than me.” He clenches his jaw. “You were in
elementary school when my daughter was born.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t meet back then, huh?” Stiles flings a wild hand in the air.
“Age gaps barely even matter at our age.”

“Our age,” Derek laughs derisively.

“Dude,” Stiles says firmly, taking a meaningful stride towards the centre of the room. “You
need to chill out. It’s not a big deal.”

“Calling me dude isn’t exactly helping to convince me that the age gap isn’t an issue.”

“Oh my god, Derek, you’re thirty-six,” Stiles snaps, taking another step forward, Derek
pressing himself back against the wall to keep the distance. “You’re not some octogenarian
yelling at the local kids to keep off his lawn. It’s really not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” Derek maintains even as Stiles rolls his eyes. “I’m thirty-six. And you are
twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five is plenty old enough,” Stiles argues, moving closer while Derek has nowhere
else to go. “My prefrontal cortex is fully developed and everything.”

Despite himself, Derek laughs. A short, surprised huff of laughter with his face ducked down
towards his chest. The wall is cold beneath his palm as he presses his hand up against it,
watching the floor with held breath as Stiles’ feet inch closer, closer, until there’s barely any
space between them at all.
He steels himself for a few long moments before he lets himself look up, before he lets
himself take in Stiles’ face, standing so close to him; his warm, brown eyes feeling like
they’re hooking themselves onto something in Derek’s soul. Derek’s breath catches in his
chest when Stiles reaches out to curl loose fingers around his wrist.

“You live in DC,” Derek forces himself to say. “And – and you’re John’s son. It couldn’t just
be a – a hook-up.”

“I wouldn’t want it to be a hook-up,” Stiles says quickly, the furrow between his brow letting
Derek know he’s taking this part seriously, at least. “I hate it in DC. I told you that. I want to
move back.”

“You can’t move for me.”

“Oh my god, get out of your ass, you narcissist,” Stiles laughs, shaking his head slightly. “I’d
move back here whether you decide to let yourself have a piece of this or not. I’ve been
thinking about it for a while, anyway.”

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it again, brows drawn tightly together. Stiles is just
looking at him, straight at him, open and honest and brave. Stiles’ hold on his wrist tightens,
only slightly, almost imperceptible, but Derek feels every bit of it as he exhales, long and
unsteady.

“There are a lot of reasons this isn’t a good idea,” Derek says, but it sounds weak even to his
own ears.

“And I don’t give a fuck about any of them,” Stiles asserts, frustration leaking into his tone.
“Look, just – do you like me, yes or no.”

Derek huffs. “Are we thirteen?”

“No, we are adults and I’m being direct with you.” Stiles’ mouth is a tight, firm line as he
pauses for a second. “I like you, Derek. I like you more than just some teenage crush I’ve
carried into adulthood. I think you’re quiet and sweet and funny. I think your daughter is
amazing. I think you’re just the right amount of argumentative to keep things interesting.
And, like – obviously the fact that you are still the hottest person I’ve ever seen in my life
doesn’t hurt things.”

“Except for the grey hairs,” Derek deadpans, a warmth blooming in his chest even as he
arches a dubious eyebrow. “And the fact that my abs were a lot better in my twenties.”

“No,” Stiles disagrees vehemently. “Especially because of your grey hairs. Especially
because of the way your body looks now. You… you’re everything I used to dream you’d be.
You’re better.”

It’s like all the air has been sucked from the room. Stiles’ gaze is focused, unwavering, his
fingers warm and steadying around Derek’s arm. Derek searches Stiles’ face for any hint of
exaggeration, any sign that he’s just really adept at saying exactly the right things, but he
comes up with nothing. All he sees is those big eyes watching him, those lips parted around
soft, shallow breaths.

He lets his gaze linger on Stiles’ mouth a moment too long and knows he’s been caught when
one corner begins to curve slowly upwards. He looks up to meet Stiles’ eye again.

“Yeah,” Derek confesses quietly. “I like you.”

“Knew it,” Stiles murmurs, before closing the distance between them.

Stiles’ lips are soft, dry as they press against Derek’s, mouths closed as they lean into one
another. Stiles’ fingers come up to cup Derek’s jaw, touch gentle as they slide along to the
hinge, fingertips resting just where the sharp bones jut. Derek holds onto Stiles at one hip,
fingers gripping into the starched material of his crisp, white shirt.

He draws Stiles closer to him with his other hand threaded lightly in Stiles’ hair, tightens his
grip of the strands ever so slightly to tilt Stiles’ face. Stiles’ mouth falls open with a breath
hitching in his chest, and he lets out this deliriously beautiful sound when Derek licks over
the seam of his lip. The sound zips directly down Derek’s spine, and he chases more with his
tongue, sliding their mouths together, open and wet and incredible.

They are pressed up against each other from thigh to chest, the wall behind Derek’s back
solid and grounding, and Derek feels the growl rumbling up his chest when Stiles’ nails
scratch through the short hairs at the nape of his neck. His fingers tighten reflexively, curving
up to grab Stiles around the waist, and Stiles sighs into his mouth, a half-roll of his hips along
with it.

Derek pushes forward without thought, chasing Stiles with an eager tongue and impatient
hands, and Stiles propels backwards, stumbling over his own feet and taking a few clumsy
steps backwards. Derek remains plastered against his front all the way, completely unwilling
to let him go even for a moment, even for an inch. Stiles hits the desk with the backs of his
legs with a surprised huff, knocked into settling on top of it, Derek crowding in between his
legs, never breaking from his mouth.

Stiles loops his arms around Derek’s neck to tug him closer, legs falling open for Derek to
settle more comfortably between. Stiles’ eyes are closed and his mouth is open, his long
eyelashes shadows against his pale skin, and he tips his head back agreeably when Derek
slants his face to mouth at his jaw, biting the curve of it, trailing down to leave open-mouth
kisses against the pale column of his throat.

The office door creaks open, and Derek yanks himself out of Stiles’ space like a guilty
teenager.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Scott says sheepishly from the doorway, “but Stiles, your dad is totally
due back any minute now. Thought you might want the reminder.”

It should be like a bucket of ice water being dropped over his head, the mention of John. But
Stiles is still half-perched on the edge of the desk, thighs parted, breathing these heaving,
panting breaths with a dazed look on his face and a kissed-red mouth. Derek has to shove his
hands in his pockets to stop himself for reaching back out for him instantly.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and it sounds choked; raw. “I – thanks, Scotty.”

“No problem.” Scott wears a shit-eating grin. “High-five later?”

Stiles tucks his chin to his chest to laugh. “High-five later.”

Scott shoots Derek a quick thumbs-up over Stiles’ head, and then the door is clicking closed,
and they are left with just the two of them again. Stiles stands, eyes cast down at where he is
pulling at his wrinkled clothing, trying to rearrange it into the half-tidy state it had been
before Derek got his hands on him.

There is a smile at Stiles’ lips when he looks back up at Derek, small and shy and private.
Derek feels his own smile curling in the face of it, and he knows the tips of his ears are
probably just as red as Stiles’ cheeks.

“I can’t believe our first kiss was in my dad’s office,” Stiles says, still sounding a little dazed.
“The many, many times I have fantasised about that, I can’t say this particular location ever
came up.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Derek teases.

“Oh, I wasn’t disappointed,” Stiles says immediately, gaze darkening. “I was dangerously
close to popping a boner on my dad’s desk just there.”

Derek sucks in a sharp breath, a fond, exasperated smile on his face as he closes his eyes and
brings up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose between two fingers.

“I’m going to leave before I let you talk me into something that will scar John for life,” he
says, peeking one eye open.

Stiles smiles crookedly. “That’s probably a good idea, big guy.”

Derek takes a few purposeful strides forward until he’s close enough to Stiles to lean in and
press a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth. Stiles’ eyes flutter closed when Derek’s
lips make contact, those lashes fanning against his cheekbones again, and it takes every last
bit of Derek’s willpower to force himself to pull back.

“I’ll call you later?” Derek says.

“Young people usually text, you know,” Stiles retorts with a smirk.

“Maybe you should date a young person then.”

“Nah. I like ‘em old and grumpy.”

Derek laughs and Stiles darts forward to press one last, quick kiss to Derek’s mouth before
letting him go, watching him with bright, shining eyes as he makes his way back through the
 station and out to the parking lot. Scott winks at him as he passes through the reception area
and Derek rolls his eyes with a smile on his face.

He slides behind the wheel of his car and gets onto the road, heading for home. Beatrix will
be happy to learn her pep talk yielded successful results.

*****

The house is empty when Derek gets there.

“Trix?” he calls out, even though he’d be able to hear, scent if she was around.

No answer comes, and he wanders into the kitchen, searching for signs that maybe she’s been
and gone. School let out over an hour ago now, and there’s no message on his phone
explaining her absence. He heads into the living room as he presses his phone against his ear,
frowning as it rings out to her voicemail message.

He thumbs to hang up, and it’s barely a second before there is frantic knocking at the front
door.

Stiles stands on the other side when Derek swings the door open, looking wild and desperate.
Derek’s heart sinks to the soles of his feet at the sight of him.

“It’s the omega,” Stiles says. “He has dad and Trix.”

Chapter End Notes

Side note: Stiles and Danny totally had a standing Saturday morning date at the local
coffee shop during their senior year of high school. The coffee shop may or may not
have been on Derek's shirtless jogging route. They were just there to chat and drink
lattes, of course. No other, very objectifying reason.
 Chapter 6

Wood cracks underneath Derek’s fingers, a deafening splinter of noise that is still ringing in
his ears when Stiles shoves past him. He turns to follow Stiles’ movements, the crushed door
closing behind them, and he watches with laboured breaths as Stiles stands in the middle of
the hallway, looking frenzied, like he’s barely holding it together.

“The omega.” Stiles talks so quickly, almost breathless with it as Derek just stares at him.
“He isn’t feral. He has them and he’s – he’s holding them as hostages unless the FBI grants
him full immunity.”

“Where?” Derek demands.

Stiles screws his eyes shut for a moment. “He said I have to go alone.”

Derek grits his teeth. “No goddamn way.”

“He said he’ll kill them if I don’t.”

A growl is ripped from Derek’s chest, harsh and loud in the otherwise silence of the house.
Stiles doesn’t cow away one bit as Derek rounds on him, feeling his eyes flash, his fangs
itching to drop, claws extending from his fingertips.

“He has my daughter. You can’t expect me to just – just sit around, waiting.”

“Fuck, Derek, I know.” Stiles’ voice is choked, broken, and he reaches out to steady himself
with a hand against the wall. “HQ won’t do an immunity deal, I’ve already spoken to them.
Scott’s trying to talk to his dad now, but it won’t make any difference, I know it won’t. I’ve
been ordered to do nothing until they can get back-up here.”

“Your orders mean nothing to me,” Derek says, voice low and cold as he stalks closer. “I’m
getting my daughter. Now, where – is – she.”

“Of course we’re getting them, you goddamn asshole,” Stiles snaps, pushing furiously at
Derek’s chest, able to send him a few stumbling steps backwards where he is so caught off
guard. “But we need to be smart about this to keep them safe, we need to think. If we just
rush in there, he’ll –“

He cuts off with a choked sound, dropping his chin to his chest and grabbing fistfuls of his
hair. Derek reaches out on instinct, tugging at Stiles’ wrist until he can pull his hand away,
leaving his fingers curled loosely around Stiles’ arm. Stiles’ head snaps up with the pull,
meeting Derek’s eye solidly.

“I’ll go alone,” Stiles says.

“Like hell you will,” Derek snarls. “We can make him think you’re alone. We can do this
together.”
“He’ll be able to pick up two scents. It’s too risky.”

“We still smell like each other,” Derek says, and Stiles’ free hand flies up to slide against his
own lower lip almost unconsciously. “It’s enough to throw him off. I can stay out of sight
until the time is right.”

A muscle in Stiles’ jaw twitches. “We’ll have to kill him. Do you understand that?”

Derek nods, once, quick and true. He hasn’t, before, but he’s been close. He’d had Kate’s
throat fluttering beneath his claws, had been less than a second away from slicing it open as
she laughed hotly into the cold night air. It was only when he began to apply the pressure that
the sirens blaring nearby registered in his roaring ears, and he had heard his family’s voices
in his mind – don’t lose your life to her, as well.

Sometimes he still regrets not taking his chance, there and then, to rid the world of her.

There won’t be any such regret this time around.

“Where?” Derek demands again.

“The Preserve,” Stiles answers. “Let’s go.”

*****

The sun is setting behind the trees as they wind their way through the forest, a blaze of
orange surrounded by darkness taking up Derek’s vision. Stiles is silent as he walks beside
him, radiating a brittle kind of energy. The car ride had been just as quiet; Stiles’ grip on the
steering wheel white-knuckle tight as both of their minds raced to what scene might lay
before them.

He doesn’t have the scent of the omega yet; that rotting, putrid smell he’d picked up near the
school. But he knows they can’t be far.

“You need to drop back,” Stiles says. “It won’t be long now.”

Derek nods. “I’ll wait for your signal.”

Stiles swallows thickly, grabbing Derek’s by the elbow, holding him still for a moment just
before Derek can slow his pace and fall into the shadows around them. He glances at Stiles
from the corner of his eye, waiting.

“Let’s not do anything stupid,” Stiles says softly. “I promised your daughter I’d keep you
safe.”

The fingers at his elbow are loose, unsure in their hold. Derek reaches up to cover Stiles’
hand with his own, tangling their shaking fingers together and squeezing for a second, trying
to convey reassurance and a need for reciprocation in that one brief moment. Stiles pulls
away first, and then Derek is slowing himself, sliding into the hidden lines of the trees,
following just far enough behind to give the illusion that Stiles really is alone.

It only takes a few more minutes before the omega’s acrid scent permeates the air, and just
underneath, almost completed engulfed, Beatrix and John. They’re close now, and Stiles must
be able to tell too from the way his pace picks up, his movements deliberate as he strides
forwards. As they approach a clearing among the trees, the scents spike, and that’s when
Derek sees them.

John is tied to a tree, his arms and legs bound and stark, purple bruising covering almost the
entire left expanse of his solemn face. Beatrix is on the other side of the clearing, untied but
trapped in a small circle of mountain ash. She looks furious, brave and strong and angry, but
the smell of fear overwhelms her.

Between them both is an unfamiliar figure, a short, snarling man dressed in filthy, ripped
clothing. His eyes are a stark blue and there’s a vicious smile on his twisted face as Stiles
walks into view. Stiles comes to a stop in the middle of the clearing, halfway between John
and Beatrix, and he keeps one hand tucked beneath his blue jacket, curled around the gun that
Derek can smell the wolfsbane bullets in.

Derek watches the scene unfold silently, barely breathing, tucked away in the shadows.

“Agent Stilinski,” the omega drawls, a horrid imitation of charm. “How wonderful to finally
meet you.”

“If only we’d been able to meet back in Florida, I wouldn’t have to kill you in front of my old
man.” Stiles pauses, eyes flicking between Beatrix and John. “You both all right?”

“I’ve been better,” John kids with a small shrug.

“I’m okay,” Beatrix says.

The omega hums, walking a relaxed path over towards Beatrix. Derek watches as her fangs
drop, her eyes flashing gold, a growl rumbling in her chest, growing louder the closer he gets.
Derek feels himself crouching instinctively, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

“Yes, it’s a shame it had to come to this,” the omega notes casually. “But you were getting
too close. Especially with your little pet alpha lending you his hand. How did you manage to
convince him to let you come here alone?”

“I didn’t. He’ll be jumping out any minute now to rip your head off.”

Stiles uses heavy sarcasm to deflect, to conceal the truth by painting it as disdain. The omega
tips his head back in a loud, malicious laugh, turning to leer at Beatrix afterwards in a way
that makes Derek’s stomach churn with acid.

“The big, bad alpha too afraid of a lowly omega making good on his threats. How pathetic.”

“He can trust me to make you worm food, don’t you worry.”
The omega sneers, riled up in the face of Stiles’ smirk for a moment before he reigns himself
in. His face twists back into that foul confidence and he wanders the length of the clearing
until he is standing only a few steps away from John. John stares up at him defiantly, eyes
narrowed and unwavering.

“Did you not think it a coincidence,” the omega begins, turning to Stiles, “that your hunt for
me led you to your hometown?”

“Awful supernatural shit has been drawn to Beacon Hills for eons,” Stiles scoffs, before
twisting his neck to smile guiltily at Beatrix. “Hales not included in that. Obviously.”

Beatrix laughs faintly. “I don’t know, dad can be pretty awful when the Lakers lose.”

“A hellmouth Beacon Hills may be,” the omega says loudly, “but I had specific intentions for
leading us here.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Oh god, here comes the villain monologue.”

“Just once I want a bad guy who doesn’t think his plan is the smartest thing in the world,”
John sighs.

“Tell me about it,” Stiles commiserates with his father.

“I needed immunity,” the omega continues as though they haven’t spoken, “and for that, I
needed leverage. What better leverage than the father of the agent hunting me down?” He
pauses, eyes sliding over to Beatrix with a manic grin on his face. “The daughter of the alpha
involving himself was just the cherry on top.”

Stiles whistles, low and long, nodding his head in sardonic appreciation.

“Excellent plan, dude, really,” he says. “Pity that big, bad alpha isn’t actually afraid of you.”

The omega’s smile drops instantly, a spike of his thundering heartbeat, and Derek is already
shifted and bounding in before Stiles even begins to yell out, “Now.”

Derek is snarling as he leaps into the clearing, vaulting across the forest floor on all fours.
The omega catches his bearings quickly, shifting with a reverberating howl, eyes locked on
Derek hurtling towards him. It’s the distraction they need, the distraction they were aiming
for, to allow Stiles to draw his gun, finger on the trigger as he aims at the omega’s head.

The click of the chamber echoes through the forest and the omega’s head snaps towards
Stiles, and he has time to jump just enough right that the bullet whips past him, disappearing
into the line of the trees. Stiles swears under his breath in the same moment that Derek
launches himself at the omega, pulling him over in a tangle of brawling limbs, a vicious
gouge of claws against skin.

Agony rips through Derek’s nervous system as the omega slashes down his bicep, the scent
of blood coppery-hot in the air as his chest is torn apart. He can vaguely hear Beatrix yelling
for him over the roaring in his ears, but he can’t focus on anything except his claws gutting
the omega’s stomach, his fangs tearing chunks from the omega’s shoulder.
He has the omega pinned underneath him, snapping teeth and thrashing body, but Derek
holds him down with claws in his arms and a knee in his stomach, blood dripping onto the
omega’s face from Derek’s bared teeth.

“Hold him still!” Stiles calls, inching closer.

“What does it look like I’m doing,” Derek snaps back.

Stiles’ fondly exasperated huff of laughter is loud where he now stands above Derek. His gun
held securely, steadily in front of him, locked on its begging, sobbing target.

“You want to do the honours, or shall I?” Stiles asks.

“Knock yourself out,” Derek says. “It should probably be you anyway. Protocol.”

“Protocol,” Stiles snorts, then buries two bullets in the omega’s heart.

The omega goes limp in Derek’s hold instantly, eyes shut and mouth open in an gruesome
imitation of sleep. Derek blinks down at the body below him for a few long moments, until
Stiles’ hand finds his shoulder, curling comfortingly and bringing Derek back to himself
enough to let go, features shifting back to human as he rises slowly to his feet, Stiles’ hand
holding firm all the way.

Derek can feel his body quickly stitching itself back together, claw marks receding until they
can become fresh, pink skin, visible through the rips in his shirt, the hole in the thigh of his
jeans. Stiles’ eyes flit from wound to wound, eyebrows raised as he watches it all heal before
his eyes.

“You good?” Stiles asks, thumb sweeping across the side of Derek’s neck for a second.

“Fine,” Derek answers, letting himself lean into the touch until they pull away from each
other.

They move wordlessly, Stiles heading for Beatrix, Derek for John. Derek gets to work hastily
untying John’s binds, accepting John’s grateful smile with one of his own, all while Stiles
breaks the mountain ash barrier locking Beatrix in place.

Derek stands, a hand at John’s elbow to help him up too, and he’s barely back to full height
before Beatrix throws herself into his arms. He wraps himself around her, pressing his cheek
to the crown of her head as she breathes heavily, shakily against his chest.

“You’re okay,” he murmurs, sliding a gentle hand down her hair. “I’ve got you. We’re okay.”

“I thought he was going to kill you,” she says wetly.

“It’s over now,” he promises, lifting her face to kiss her forehead.

Her cheeks are damp when he looks at her, but she’s smiling. Derek slides an arm around her
shoulders as she folds her arms around his waist, burying herself against his side as they turn
to face Stiles and John, just pulling out of their own embrace.
“That was kinda badass,” she aims at Stiles with a smile, which he matches in kind.

Derek frowns down at her. “Should I be worried this hasn’t scared you more?”

“I asked myself the same question a lot when this one was growing up,” John says, hooking a
thumb towards Stiles. “If you’re lucky they end up on the right side of the law.”

“I would’ve made an awesome criminal,” Stiles says, knocking John’s shoulder with his.
“Should we –“

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence.

The omega is back on his feet with a fierce, gurgling snarl, eyes shining blue and wild as he
begins to sprint over towards them. Derek acts on instinct, pushing Beatrix roughly behind
him and shifting, lunging forward without second thought. Everyone is shouting around him
as he meets the omega in the middle, claws already dug deep into the omega’s chest, but the
omega is crazed now, half-dead and feral and stronger enough that he can hurl Derek aside
without anything like difficulty.

Derek crashes into the floor with a growl, and he wrenches himself around just in time to see
the omega leaping over Beatrix, claws high in the air, only a second away from slashing
down and tearing through her neck, and there’s no time, no time for Derek to get over to her,
to push her out of the way, to keep her as safe as he promised she would be, and he watches
with stopped breath and horror coursing through him as –

Stiles throws himself in front of her, knocking her to the ground behind him. The omega
swipes down with inhuman, untamed strength, ripping through Stiles’ chest with the most
horrible sound Derek has ever heard. Crimson seeps through the whiteness of his shirt as
Stiles falls to his knees, and Derek throws himself to his feet at the same time a gunshot rings
through the air.

The omega tips to the side with a hole in his temple, blood trickling down to his neck as John
Stilinski stands over his prone form and fires three more rounds of wolfsbane into his
forehead. Beatrix is kneeling over Stiles, sobbing down the phone for an ambulance with one
hand on his forehead, black lines snaking up her arm as she pulls his pain through her veins.

Derek pulls himself from his stunned, frozen stupor as she hangs up, running to fall down at
Stiles’ other side, fingers wrapping around Stiles’ forearm to help his daughter drain Stiles’
pain. The gouges in Stiles’ skin are deep and jagged, four claw-shaped tears on one side of
his chest, and John yanks his jacket from his shoulders, bunching the material and pushing it
against the oozing blood.

“We need to get him to the edge of the woods,” John says urgently, voice breaking on a sob
before he forces himself back together and looks to Derek. “Can you carry him?”

Derek nods and immediately slides his arms beneath Stiles, one just below his shoulder
blades, the other hooking behind his knees. John and Beatrix stand with him as he lifts Stiles
into the air, John’s hand on Stiles’ cheek as Derek continues to pull as much of Stiles’ pain as
he can.
Stiles is mumbling gibberish as his head rolls until his forehead is against Derek’s chest. He’s
conscious, barely with it, his heartbeat weak and slowing by the second.

“Is he going to be okay?” Beatrix chokes, tears falling freely.

Derek doesn’t trust his heartbeat to answer her.

“I’ll get him to the ambulance,” Derek says.

“Right behind you,” John says.

Derek turns, moving as fast as his feet will take him with Stiles groaning mutedly in his arms.
John’s jacket falls from Stiles’ chest as Derek runs, and the sharp tang of more and more
blood fills Derek’s nose. He forces himself not to look down at the wounds, but he can’t help
but be awfully, terribly aware of every drop of blood that spills from Stiles’ body.

The woods are dark around them, the sun now lost completely behind the horizon, and Derek
is barely holding himself together as he makes his way through the trees, following the
distant sound of sirens speeding towards them.

“I know I used to say I could die happy if I ever got the chance to kiss you,” Stiles slurs
weakly from his arms, “but I didn’t think I’d actually have to mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Derek says sharply.

“C’mon, big guy. I want my last words to be funny.”

“Don’t say that.”

Stiles’ slow, shaking fingers find his neck, wet with blood and dirt as they slide along the
juncture of Derek’s clenched jaw.

“We’d have been good, wouldn’t we – you and me?”

“Stop talking like that,” Derek snaps, feet pounding the ground, sirens growing closer with
each second that Stiles’ heartbeat fades more and more, his eyelids drooping closed as Derek
holds him tightly to his chest. “I thought we weren’t going to do anything stupid.”

“Saving your daughter’s life was stupid?”

“You have a gun, you didn’t need to – to –“

“Are you seriously still arguing with me?” Stiles lets out a laugh, wet and choked with blood.
“I’m dying here, man.”

“Stop,” Derek begs, tears sliding down his face and vision blurring as light from the road
ahead filters into his vision. “Just – fuck – you can’t, I can’t –“

“Tell my dad I love him,” Stiles mumbles as Derek breaches the trees, standing at the side of
the road as the ambulance screeches to a stop just in front of them. “’m tired.”
“Stay awake,” Derek commands as he lays Stiles on the gurney wheeled in front of him. “Tell
him yourself.”

Derek steps back on stumbling feet to make room for the paramedics as they work on Stiles,
putting pressure to his wounds as they begin to bundle him into the back of the ambulance.
It’s only a few seconds until he feels Beatrix at his side, body wracking with sobs as she
holds onto him with trembling hands, as they both watch John follow Stiles into the vehicle.

“I’ll call you from the hospital,” John promises just before the doors are closed behind them.

Beatrix clings to Derek as the ambulance speeds away. He holds onto the fading beat of
Stiles’ heart as long as he can.
 Chapter 7
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Christmas music plays over the tinny speakers in the grocery store as Derek drops a package
of ground beef in the basket balancing on his wrist. They haven’t even passed Thanksgiving
yet, and it’s still far too early for the holiday spirit, in his opinion at least. But he’s noticed it
getting earlier and earlier with each passing year, and he’s mostly resigned himself to it at this
point in his life.

“We need to get frosting,” Beatrix says, following at his elbow and not looking up from
where she is tapping away at her phone. “And sprinkles.”

“Why?” he asks absently as they round the corner to the produce aisle.

“Stiles got out of the hospital yesterday,” she says. “I promised I’d make him welcome home
cupcakes.”

Derek freezes with his fingers curled tightly around a sweet potato. He can feel the heat of
Beatrix’s stare burning into his temple, can feel the muscles twitching in his tightly held jaw.
He blinks himself back together after a few long moments, drawing the vegetable back to
drop into the basket with a short, ragged exhale.

“Okay,” he says simply.

He turns on his heel and leads them quickly to the aisle that smells so saccharine sweet that
his teeth feel like they might rot out of his head just from standing there. He waits patiently
while she gathers an assortment of heavily sugar infused items, holding the basket out in
front of his chest to let her add whatever she wants, carefully avoiding her gaze the whole
time.

“You should come with me when I drop them off,” she suggests, forcing neutrality into her
voice even as she fixes him to the spot with her gaze. “He’d want to see you. He asked about
you every time I visited him.”

“Maybe,” he says, and his heartbeat trips just like it did every time she asked before.

*****

An evening at home alone makes up the entirety of Derek’s plans for his Saturday night. It’s
not at all an unusual occurrence for him, but it feels lonelier now for reasons he won’t let
himself dwell on.
“I don’t have to go,” Beatrix tells him for the hundredth time, standing in the hallway with a
sleeping bag tucked under her arm and a tote full of junk food at her feet. “It’s just a
sleepover.”

“You’re going,” he says firmly, a hand on her shoulder to push her towards the door. “I’m
fine.”

“Call me if you need anything. Anything.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying this to you?”

She rolls her eyes as he pulls the front door open, Ella’s familiar car pulling up to the curb at
the end of the driveway. She lifts her hand to wave happily, and Derek brings up his own
hand in return.

“I don’t like the idea of you being on your own,” Beatrix says, peering at him with furrowed
brows.

“I’m used to it,” he replies, and it only makes the crease in her forehead deepen, so he pulls
her into a hug and kisses the top of her head. “Go. Have fun. I’ll pick you up after lunch
tomorrow.”

He watches from the entryway until the car turns a corner and disappears from sight, then
slips the door closed and heads for the kitchen. He stands in the middle of the room with his
hands at his sides and has absolutely no idea what to do with himself. What was it that he
used to do when he’d get a night to himself?

There’s a new TV show he’s heard people talking about, except he’s not sure he’s got the
focus right now for it. The dryer has been making that funny sound for the past couple of
months, but he still hasn’t gotten around to ordering the part he needs to fix it properly.

It’s been a long time since he went to that club over in Redding.

That idea curdles in his stomach instantly, and he scrubs a rough hand over his face until it
settles again.

The doorbell rings; a sharp, sudden noise cutting through the echoing silence of the house,
and Derek huffs a laugh, eyes already darting around for whatever it is Beatrix must have left
behind as he makes his way to the door. The smile on his face dies a quick death as he takes
in the person standing on the other side.

“Derek,” John says, slow and gentle, like he’s speaking to an easily spooked animal.

“Sheriff,” Derek returns, swallowing thickly. “How can I help you, sir?”

John arches an eyebrow. “You can stop with all the formalities, for starters. Then you can
invite me in.”

Derek hastily steps aside, clearing the path for John to sweep through, hands in the pockets of
his uniform jacket as he idles in the hall, waiting for Derek to close the door and turn around.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Derek asks.

“I’m short on time, so I’m going to get straight to the point here,” John says firmly. “You
can’t avoid Stiles forever.”

Derek shuffles uncomfortably. “I’m not – avoiding him.”

John fixes him with an unimpressed stare. “I don’t need to be a werewolf to know that’s a
lie.”

A wince affects Derek’s features before he can fight it back. John just continues to look at
him; solid and unwavering.

“It’s more complicated than you know,” Derek tries.

“Because you kissed?” John huffs a short laugh in the face of Derek’s shock. “My son does
talk to me, Derek. And even if he didn’t – the two of you haven’t exactly been subtle.”

Derek fights the almost overwhelming urge to hide his face in his hands. He can’t help but
feel like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar under John’s intense stare, his quirked
eyebrow and pursed mouth.

“John, I’m sorry,” Derek starts.

“Don’t be sorry,” John cuts in, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Not for that, at
least. I knew all about Stiles’ crush on you in high school, and I’ve noticed the way you’ve
started to feel about each other since he’s been back in town. I’m not here to chase you off
with a shotgun.”

“Maybe you should be,” Derek says wryly. “He’s a lot younger than me.”

“He’s an adult who knows how to make his own choices,” John retorts. “And it looks like
he’s choosing you, if you’ll let him.”

Derek closes his eyes. John has no idea how much Derek wants to let him. Derek is barely
sure he’s admitted to himself just how much he wants to let him.

John’s hand on his shoulder brings his eyes back open, mouth twisted with concern as he
meets Derek’s eye. The faint tick tick tick of John’s watch is loud in Derek’s ears as the
seconds pass by, as John roams eyes over Derek’s face in search of answers that Derek has
tried to hold tightly inside.

“He’s okay,” John says gently, eventually. “He’s alive.”

Derek breathes in sharply, says nothing. It shouldn’t really come as any surprise to him that
John has taken barely any time at all to home in on the exact reason he has been keeping
himself away from Stiles this past month. There’s a reason he’s held the title of Sheriff in this
town all these years.
“I get it, Derek, I do. The idea of losing another person after you’ve already lost…” John
trails off for a moment, takes a deep breath before carrying on. “After Claudia passed, all I
wanted for Stiles was for him to grow up and get some boring desk job, settle down in a
small, safe town with a boring, safe partner. Be nowhere near anything like danger for the rest
of his long, happy life.”

He pauses, drawing his arm back to his own side and smiling a long-capitulated smile.

“But that’s not who Stiles is,” John continues. “The people who love him have to find a way
to come to terms with that.”

Derek drops his head, eyes screwed shut as he inhales, exhales. His fingers flex at his sides
and his brain rattles that word around and around inside his skull.

“I wasn’t strong enough to protect him,” he says quietly. “Either of them – I couldn’t…“

“Stiles doesn’t need us to protect him. He’s taught me that more times than I can count.”

When Derek looks up again, John is smiling at him kindly, like he gets it better than most,
more than anyone else could. Which is true, Derek quickly realises. As Derek looks at him,
he sees the lines in his face, all working to make up a portrait of years of loving Stiles
Stilinski – worry and laughter and a whole lot more worry.

It hits Derek that he would be lucky to reach John’s age and have the same lifetime of love
etched across his face.

“You can’t let the fear of losing somebody stop you from seeing if there’s a life with them.”

John’s voice is steady, firm. His words roll around in Derek’s mind for a few seconds, settling
under his skin until they feel comfortable, true, accepted. He nods his understanding, slowly
but surely.

“I’ll talk to him,” Derek says.

“Soon?” John presses, sighing when Derek raises a questioning eyebrow. “Kid’s driving me
nuts, in all honesty. Trust me when I say I would not be getting anywhere near his love life
unless he’d pushed me to my breaking point.”

Derek laughs softly, promises, “Today.”

“I’ll make myself scarce then.” John heads for the door, one hand gripping the handle before
he turns back to Derek. “I hope this goes without saying, but – you hurt him, I’ve got a stash
of wolfsbane bullets with your name on them.”

“That’s if Stiles doesn’t get to me first,” Derek says.

“Good point,” John concedes with a tilt of his head.

“I won’t,” Derek says quickly. “I wouldn’t.”

“I know, son. I know.”

Derek stays standing in the empty hallway for several minutes after John leaves, working up
the courage to keep his promise. He pulls his phone from his pocket and thumbs to Stiles’
contact, hovering over the call button for a moment before tapping into the unopened string
of messages.

They had started only a few days after it all went down in the Preserve, Stiles’ texts. A few
messages here and there, some joking, some more earnest. Promising Derek he was fine,
asking Derek how he was. It took a week of Derek not responding, not even opening them,
before Stiles gave up.

Can I see you? he types out.

The reply comes within seconds.

Look at you, texting like young people, followed by, Yeah, of course. When?

Today. Now, if you’re free. I can come to you?

Fuck no, I need to get out of the house before I lose my mind – I’ll be at your place in
twenty

Derek breathes. Let’s see if there’s a life, he thinks.

*****

The edge of the kitchen counter is sharp and mildly uncomfortable where it digs into Derek’s
lower back. Hot steam billows beside his head from the whistling kettle on the stove, and he
takes the opportunity to busy himself and his hands with pouring boiling water into two
mugs, the tag of a tea bag catching just over the rim of each one.

Stiles smiles appreciatively when Derek places the drink on the kitchen table in front of him
before heading back over to his place leaning up against the kitchen counter. They continue
to say nothing since the stilted hellos they’d exchanged at the front door ten minutes ago.

“I’m sorry,” Derek opens with, eventually.

Stiles had already been staring at Derek even before he spoke, even when all Derek would
look at were his own socked feet, flat against the kitchen tiles. But now, when Derek tips his
head up, he sees Stiles’ mouth parted, a faint look of surprise touching the features of his face
for a few seconds before he shakes his head slightly, as though to compose himself.

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly, squinting at Derek with his head tilted. “What are you sorry for?”
Derek draws in a deep breath, forces himself to maintain eye contact. The Stilinski men are
ridiculously adept at making him feel like a pinned butterfly pretty much any time they look
at him. It’s as disconcerting as always, but he pushes through.

“For avoiding you. It was – I should have come to see you.” Derek pauses, watching as Stiles
takes a tentative sip of his tea, wincing slightly as the scalding liquid burns his lips. “Beatrix
told me you – you’re healing well?”

“Yeah.” Stiles nods, setting his mug back down, fingers curled loosely around it as he smiles
a small, fond smile. “The hospital kept me in way longer than they needed to. I’m pretty sure
my dad was bribing the doctors to keep me there.”

“He was scared,” Derek says quietly, dropping his eyes to the ground again. “We all were.”

It’s quiet for a long while as Derek stares down at the floor. He can hear the fabric of Stiles’
pants rustling as he shuffles in the kitchen chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs at the
calves so loudly and so restlessly that Derek can tell that’s exactly what he’s doing without
even looking.

When Derek finally looks up, Stiles’ face is twisted, his bottom lip caught between his teeth
and a deep crease between his eyebrows as he meets Derek’s eye. His finger taps incessantly
against his half-empty cup, no hint of rhythm to the beat he knocks out.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” Stiles asks, soft but pressing. “I thought…”

He trails off, his teeth finding the corner of his lip again. Derek gives himself a second to
breathe deeply before he answers.

“I had some… things, I needed to work through,” he says carefully. “And – and I wasn’t sure
you’d want to see me.”

Stiles scoffs. “Why the hell would you think that?”

“You almost died, Stiles,” Derek says, fingers gripping the counter behind him, having to
consciously loosen his hold to avoid cracking the granite in his clutches. “You were bleeding
out in my arms, and – and I couldn’t protect you. You were hurt because I couldn’t protect
you and you put yourself in harm’s way to protect my daughter.”

Stiles stands abruptly, eyes wide and imploring as he marches up towards Derek, coming to a
stop only a few paces in front of him.

“Don’t you get it,” Stiles says urgently. “You don’t even want to know the lengths I’ll go to,
to protect the people I love. And – and Trix, and you – you’re part of that now, whether you
like it or not.”

Derek blinks. “Are you saying that you – love me?”

“I’m saying that I’m going to.” Stiles steps closer, presses his flat palms softly against
Derek’s chest, resting them there while Derek stares at him helplessly. “Maybe not yet, but –
I will.”
Slowly, so slowly, Derek brings his hands to Stiles’ hips, sliding up to curve around his
ribcage, the material of Stiles’ t-shirt bunching between his spread fingers. Stiles’ breath
hitches when Derek tightens his hold, only minutely, only enough to feel Stiles’ shaking
breaths thrumming beneath his hold.

“I – yeah,” Derek says, drawing Stiles towards him until their knees knock together. “Me
too.”

“Awesome,” Stiles breathes.

One of Stiles’ hands skims over the side of Derek’s neck, sweeping across skin to run fingers
through the hair at the back of Derek’s head.

“How pissed were your bosses?” Derek asks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Stiles laughs faintly, eyes fluttering momentarily closed with it, and Derek drinks him in,
drinks all of him in, where he stands so close, so within reach. Derek’s fingers tighten
instinctively; imploringly.

“Let’s just say I’m pretty lucky they didn’t straight up fire me,” Stiles answers. “I think being
on the brink of death helped my case a lot. And – hey. They approved my transfer out west.
Good luck getting rid of me now, big guy.”

Like Derek would want to. Like anyone could want to, he thinks.

“That’s – good,” he says out loud.

Blunt fingernails scratch lightly at the nape of Derek’s neck. Derek has to fight down the
appreciative noise that wants to escape him at the sensation. He doesn’t manage it all the way,
though; a barely audible groan just making it past his teeth. But Stiles catches it with a smirk,
absurdly pleased, and Derek quickly decides not to hold back in the future.

“You know, I have to admit, I’m a little surprised,” Stiles says. “I was expecting a full-blown
fight before we managed to get here. I’ve been practicing my arguments in the mirror for the
last month and everything.”

Derek huffs a breath of laughter, tipping his head forward until he can rest his forehead
against Stiles’.

“My Stilinski fighting quota has already been filled for the day. Your dad was here earlier to
argue your case.”

Stiles leans away as Derek talks, openly blinking his slack-jawed surprise.

“My dad was here? To talk you into dating me?” Stiles’ face is the picture of incredulity as
Derek nods his amused confirmation. “Well, shit. I guess I owe him a burger for wing-
manning me into getting laid.”

Derek’s eyes reflexively dart down to Stiles’ clothed chest. There’s a slight bump under the
material, a gathering of the fabric, and Derek knows it hides a heavy bandage, the metallic
scent of blood just faintly there underneath it. He frowns as he looks back up to Stiles’ face.

“You’re still healing, Stiles. I don’t – is sex really a good idea right now?”

“Oh no, buddy, I’m not letting you use that as an excuse.” Stiles’ fingers tangle into the
material of Derek’s shirt, tugging him forward until their noses brush together, breathing hot
on each other’s mouths. “I checked with Scott’s mom before I got discharged. She said I’m
good to go as long as we don’t make it too, uh, strenuous.”

Derek chokes. “You asked your best friend’s mother if you could have sex with me?”

“Damn right I did,” Stiles says shamelessly. “I’ve been wanting to climb you like a tree for
years. I’m not wasting another minute now that I actually can.”

Derek decides not to waste another second before pressing forward to kiss him.

Stiles’ mouth opens underneath Derek’s immediately, a soft gasp of breath before he licks
inside. His thumbs catch the ridges of Stiles’ ribs, his fingertips holding firm against Stiles’
back, splayed either side of the dip in his spine, and Stiles clasps onto him by his shoulders,
gripping tight enough to sit just on the precipice of pain.

A tiny, almost unconscious roll of Stiles’ hips has Derek groaning, a deep vibration that runs
through his chest, spilling into Stiles’ mouth, and Stiles moans in response, arms sliding over
Derek’s shoulders to wind around his neck and pull him closer, closer, closer still.

“God, you’re an amazing kisser,” Stiles pants between kisses. “Always knew you would be.”

“We really need to be careful of your stitches,” Derek breathes back.

“I really need to be doing a better job of distracting you.”

He pulls an arm back and grabs one of Derek’s wrists, tugging until he can move Derek’s
hand down, down, placing it directly over his ass and encouraging Derek to grab a handful
with a firm squeeze. The force of it grinds their crotches together for a second, and Stiles’
breath catches in his throat, eyes screwing shut and staying that way as Derek brings his other
hand down to mirror his first.

Stiles tips his head back when Derek kisses him at the corner of his mouth, along the sharp
line of his cheekbone, nipping at the hinge of his jaw, wet and open-mouthed against the
hammering pulse in his neck. Stiles’ fingers are back in his hair, carding and scratching in
equal measure, and Derek uses blunt teeth to suck and bite at the spot on Stiles’ throat,
fluttering so nicely beneath his tongue.

“Derek,” Stiles says desperately, arching into Derek’s touch. “Derek – fuck – you, you can’t
give me a hickey, dude, I’m a grown man.”

Despite his words, Stiles tilts his head further, angling to offer more of his pale, freckled skin
to Derek’s mouth, rocking himself against Derek with every small rotation of his constantly,
instinctively moving hips. Derek doesn’t let up one bit.
“Wait, seriously, god, Derek,” Stiles wheezes, shuddering beneath Derek’s fingers, Derek’s
teeth. “You have to stop, my dad will see it, your daughter will see it.”

Which – is an incredibly effective demotivator.

Derek pulls his mouth away from Stiles’ skin, brain a little fuzzy as he blinks with heavy-
lidded eyes through the almost delirious lust sweeping through him. He glances down at
Stiles’ neck and immediately knows he was a fraction too late to save them the
embarrassment from their families; the skin is wet and red and not looking like it’s fading
much anytime soon.

“Sorry,” Derek says, swallowing thickly as he meets Stiles’ wide eyes.

“It’s fine,” Stiles says, sounding breathless. “Just – maybe keep the rest of them below the
collar. I have a reputation as a mature adult to uphold.”

Derek laughs, listing forward to rest his forehead against Stiles’ shoulder, tilting his head
until he can press his mouth to Stiles’ exposed collarbone. He kisses his way back up Stiles’
neck, lingering a moment longer at the raw mark, just to hear the beautiful hitch in Stiles’
breath when he does, until he’s kissing his mouth again, biting gently at Stiles’ lush lower lip.

“I’m not sure you have that reputation with anyone in this town,” Derek teases.

“My reputation is about to skyrocket when word gets out that I’ve snapped up the infamously
single Derek Hale.” Stiles uses his hands in Derek’s hair to tip their faces apart, only far
enough that they can lock eyes, chests heaving. “You need to take me upstairs. Right now.
Before I whip your dick out in your kitchen. I am deadly serious.”

Stiles laughs in the face of Derek’s short-circuiting shock. It cuts off into a sharp yelp,
though, when Derek grabs him by the backs of the thighs and easily lifts him in place.

Legs wrap reflexively around Derek’s hips, crossing at the ankles as arms tighten around his
shoulders, gripping the collar of his shirt. Stiles turns his face into Derek’s neck to laugh
again, hitching hiccups of it against Derek’s skin, the sound of it following them all the way
down the hall, up the stairs, and through to Derek’s bedroom.

Derek is careful not to jostle Stiles with every step he takes, all too conscious of the not yet
healed injury sliced into his chest, but Stiles doesn’t seem to have the same qualms at all as
he moves restlessly, happily, manically in Derek’s arms the whole way. Once they’re inside
the bedroom he squirms himself out of Derek’s hold, kissing Derek as his feet touch the floor
again, yanking them both backwards until Stiles’ back hits the wall beside the door, pulling
Derek along to plaster up against his front.

The sound of their mouths sliding together is like a slick symphony, hot and wet and messy
as Derek crowds Stiles against the wall with a forearm resting either side of Stiles’ head.
Stiles’ hands fly to the button of Derek’s jeans, popping it open before yanking the zipper
down clumsily, hastily, shoving his hand roughly inside while Derek still feels ten steps
behind and hot all over.
“Oh my god, are you not wearing underwear?” Stiles asks, sounding equal parts scandalised
and turned-on.

Derek is finding it difficult to pin down his words. “Not – not usually – I don’t –”

He loses his train of thought with a loud moan when long, talented fingers curl around his
rock-hard dick and squeeze.

“Oh my god, Derek, what the fuck.” Stiles’ thumb sweeps over the leaking head of Derek’s
cock, his teeth finding the curve of Derek’s jaw and biting down, hard. “What do you mean
you don’t, you mean all those times I’ve drooled over you around town you’ve actually had
your dick just, what, swinging around down there? That I could have just walked over,
unzipped you, got my hand in your pants and immediately been able to wrap my fingers
around your cock?”

“Stiles, Christ,” Derek hisses, kissing Stiles’ filthy, open mouth. “This is going to be over
way too quickly if you keep talking like that.”

Stiles laughs, a hot breath against Derek’s lips. “It’s cute that you think I have any control
over the words coming out of my mouth.”

He twists his wrist as he speaks, fingers sliding up and down as much as their limiting
position allows – which happens to be barely any range of motion at all, and yet Derek still
feels like he’s going to convulse out of his skin at how good, how incredible it feels to have
Stiles’ hands on him, Stiles’ mouth against his own.

Neither of them is even undressed yet and Derek is already struggling to breathe with the
intensity of it all.

Stiles pulls his hand out of Derek’s pants almost as unceremoniously as he’d shoved it in,
bringing both of them up to shove at Derek’s chest until Derek gets the hint and walks
backwards, falling to sit on the edge of the bed when the backs of his calves meet the
mattress. He bounces on it for a disorientating moment, watching dazedly as Stiles drops to
his knees on the carpeted floor, a sharp look in his eye and a wicked curve to his smile.

“Take your shirt off,” Stiles orders with hands hot on Derek’s denim-clad thighs, and Derek
complies instantly, throwing it vaguely in the direction of the laundry basket the second it’s
over his head. “God, you are just too good to be true.”

Derek leans back on his elbows and just lets himself look as Stiles runs a palm from Derek’s
neck, over his chest, down his stomach, gaze and touch almost reverent. He can feel himself
shuddering under the gentle graze of Stiles’ fingers against his burning skin, and he reaches
out to cup Stiles’ face in his hand, thumb sweeping over the thin skin just beneath his eye as
Stiles’ gaze flickers up to meet his.

His long eyelashes sweep along his cheekbones, a slight crinkle to his softly upturned nose as
that wide, pink mouth curves into a coy smile. Derek traces the moles across his cheek,
leading behind his ear, with a gentle fingertip.
He is beautiful, Derek thinks. It isn’t the first time Derek’s thought it, and he’s sure it won’t
be the last.

“I’m not always good with words,” Derek admits quietly. “But I think… You…“

Stiles turns his face to press a soft kiss in the centre of Derek’s palm.

“I know,” he whispers.

And for the first time in so, so long – Derek feels truly understood.

“You should take your shirt off too,” he says.

“Way ahead of you, man,” Stiles replies, words already muffled by the fabric caught around
his ears.

Derek’s eyes immediately catch on the gauze taped to Stiles’ chest, a rectangle of material
just above his right nipple. He forces himself to look away from it. Later, after, he can trace
the sticky adhesive outline; later he can press thankful lips around its edges. But Stiles won’t
want that now, won’t want that yet, Derek knows, so he doesn’t let himself linger.

It’s pretty funny to leave Stiles tangled in his clothes for a second, and Derek does so,
laughing softly, happy and easy and already having the most fun he’s had during sex for
years. Eventually he relents and helps Stiles yank the shirt over his head, pitches it in a
similar direction as Derek’s before reaching for Derek’s pants with a grin.

Derek lifts his hips obligingly when Stiles starts to pull his jeans down his thighs, letting
Stiles tackle them without any finesse while he takes in the gorgeous sight of Stiles’ bare
torso. He’s just as leanly muscled as Derek expected; broad at the shoulders, narrowing
towards the waist. There is a dark patch of hair in the middle of chest, another cutting down
his toned stomach, and his arm muscles flex as he jerks the pants over Derek’s feet and does
away with them.

Stiles’ eyes travel the contours of Derek’s body hungrily, nudging Derek’s knees apart with
his shoulders as he crawls closer. He gets a hand around the base of Derek’s cock, holding it
securely as he inches close enough to lick a hot, wet stripe up the length of it.

“Fuck,” Derek chokes.

“I can’t wait to get this in me,” Stiles murmurs, fingers flexing as he fits his mouth around
the tip, suckling for a few, hot seconds before he pulls away to meet Derek’s dazed eyes.
“You’ve got lube, right? I didn’t want to jinx anything by bringing my own.”

“Nightstand,” Derek says, trailing off into a groan when Stiles rolls Derek’s balls between his
fingers.

Stiles looks at him challengingly. “So get it then? I’m kinda busy here, dude.”

Derek huffs a faux agitated breath but acquiesces all the same. He drops his back onto the
mattress and twists, feeling a pull in his side as he stretches his arm until he can yank the
drawer open, fumbling around inside until his fingers close around the mostly full bottle.
Stiles uses Derek’s distraction to rid himself of his own pants, now kneeling on the floor with
his legs tucked beneath him in just his underwear.

The boxers he wears are slightly loose and dark grey, tenting at the front where his erection
presses up towards the waistband. He is smirking when Derek shoves the bottle in his waiting
palm, entirely thrilled by Derek’s breathlessness, the way Derek’s cock bounces against his
tensed stomach with every shifting movement.

Wordlessly, Stiles uncaps the bottle and slicks up three of his own fingers, tossing it onto the
mattress beside Derek’s thigh when he’s done. Derek has two feet flat on the floor, bracketing
Stiles inside, two palms flat against the creased sheets, holding him up on shaking limbs, and
his breath stutters in his chest when Stiles bends an arm and those fingers disappear behind
himself, pink mouth falling open for a stunned second before he lunges forward and pulls
Derek’s dick between his lips.

It’s all tight, wet heat as Stiles slides up and down the length of Derek’s cock, taking as much
as he can before he has to pause, breathing heavily through his nose. Derek tentatively raises
a hand to thread through Stiles’ hair, grip tightening among the strands when Stiles moans
appreciatively, encouragingly, the vibrations running all through Derek from his scalp to his
toes.

Derek’s eyes dart between the continuous, confident roll of Stiles’ arm as he fingers himself
open, and the stretched wide state of his pink lips. His eyelashes flutter against his pale skin
as he lets every hint of sensation, of desperate pleasure show hotly on his face.

His cheeks hollow as he sucks Derek’s cock, tonguing at the underside and grabbing Derek’s
thigh with his free hand, and Derek runs his hand down from Stiles’ hair to cradle his jaw,
thumb catching just at the edge of his spit-slick mouth.

“God, Stiles,” Derek gets out between gritted teeth. “Your mouth.”

Stiles pulls off Derek’s cock with a wet pop, grinning inanely, blinking up at Derek from
beneath his eyelashes, just before he dips his head to lap at Derek’s balls with hot flicks of his
tongue.

“Your everything,” he says passionately, cutting off into a loud, panting moan when his arm
twists just so. “You ready for me, big guy?”

He looks pointedly at Derek’s cock, jerking in his hand, as he says it. Derek laughs under his
breath.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for you,” Derek says honestly, then, “C’mere.”

Stiles rears up with a grace Derek wasn’t sure he could possess, shoving Derek down onto the
bed and urging him to shift up towards the pillows by the headboard as he crawls over him.
He lets Derek settle with his head nestled in the soft cushions, keeps a knee either side of
Derek’s hips as he hovers above him, one hand on Derek’s cheek while he uses the other to
continue working himself open.
“You’re going to blow me later,” Stiles says, fingers running over Derek’s stubble. “And I’m
going to have beard burn all over my thighs for days. Days. Do you hear me?”

It’s all Derek can do to nod helplessly, gripping the sheets surrounding them as he watches
Stiles writhing, panting above him, fingernails digging into Derek’s skin and face screwed up
in slack-mouthed ecstasy, his dick hard and bouncing up against his taut, tensed stomach.
Derek is breathing so, so heavily in the quiet of the room, and Stiles opens his eyes and
blinks down at him; a slow, soft smile touching his lips.

“Put your hands on me,” Stiles orders, and Derek does so instantly, hands clutching
desperately at Stiles’ waist. “God, yeah, you – you need to get a condom on, right now.”

Derek relinquishes his hold on Stiles with one hand, only long enough to dive into the drawer
next to his head and grab a foil packet, ripping it open one-handed, half out of his mind
already. Stiles lifts himself up on his knees a little when Derek reaches beneath him, rolling
the latex over his dick as Stiles pulls his fingers out of himself with a soft hiss.

Stiles takes Derek in hand while Derek rediscovers the panting rise and fall of Stiles’ ribs
with gentle fingers, and Derek swears into the sweat-damp air around them when he rests
warm palms against Derek’s chest and starts to sink down onto Derek’s cock, taking him
slow inch by slow inch until his perky ass is settled right up against Derek’s pelvis.

It takes a second for them both to adjust, Derek’s toes curling into the sheets at the tight heat
enveloping his cock. Stiles is almost completely still above him, mouth hanging open around
little hitches of breaths. Stiles bites his lip and shuts his eyes when he starts to move; only
small, tentative rolls of his hips, grinding in Derek’s lap for a time before he starts to bounce,
shallow ups and downs that punch tiny, reedy noises from his chest each time.

“You feel so good,” Derek mumbles, slurring as he rocks up into Stiles’ body.

“You’re one to talk,” Stiles laughs breathlessly, nails scratching through Derek’s chest hair.

Derek urges the roll of Stiles’ hips with his hands, sliding them around to splay possessively
at the small of his back, just above the swell of his ass, and Stiles goes with it, clutching
Derek by the nape of the neck and leaning down to fit their mouths together, hot shared
breaths interspersed with short, sharp nips of teeth.

Stiles keens when Derek sucks on his tongue, hips jerking as he drags up and grinds down,
setting a slow, steady rhythm, completely at odds with the rabbit-quick hammering of his
heartbeat. Derek allows himself to just lie there, along for the ride, lets himself just bask in
the feeling of Stiles around him, above him, smiling against his mouth and making the most
gorgeous sounds.

Teeth close around Stiles’ earlobe when he tilts his face to drop his forehead against Derek’s
shoulder; Derek taking the opportunity presented to him and biting down, revelling in the
way Stiles tugs harder at his hair. Stiles doesn’t lose pace one bit when Derek grabs at his ass,
spreading him open in a way that must look absolutely filthy, absolutely obscene, and Derek
wishes they were some way he could see it.
Maybe next time, he thinks, or the time after that. They’re not going anywhere.

In a flash, Stiles sits back up, hips still rotating, but more stuttering now, less precise and less
careful. Derek slides his hands around to hold onto Stiles’ shaking thighs, stares up at him
adoringly, knows his open-wide heart is clear as day in the soft slant of his features. He
doesn’t care one bit. Stiles smiles lazily down at him, a cheeky lilt to its curve, his muscles
flexing and undulating as he rides Derek’s cock.

“No, seriously, you just – ah – you just lie there, old man,” Stiles teases. “Let me do all the
work. Not like you’ve got werewolf stamina or anything.”

Derek smirks, fingers tightening against Stiles for the wisecrack.

“I’ll show you werewolf stamina.”

He curves one hand quickly at the base of Stiles’ skull to flip them over, to get Stiles on his
back, legs spread wide with Derek crowding between them. Stiles is still laughing when
Derek yanks his hips up and sticks a pillow underneath them, but the laughter chokes off into
a whimper when Derek tucks his knees into the crook of Derek’s elbows, drawing his legs up
and open so that Derek can slide back into him, one fast push until he’s fully inside once
again.

“Fuck, yeah, fuck me,” Stiles breathes, arms winding around Derek’s neck to pull him closer.

“So eloquent,” Derek bites into the side of his neck.

“I can be eloquent after I’ve come my brains out, now get on with it.”

Derek does as he’s told.

He doesn’t match the slow, steady movements that Stiles started them with. He’s already too
on edge, too close to the brink from feeling Stiles’ tight heat around him, watching Stiles
move so beautifully above him. He gets them off with short, sharp snaps of his hips,
pounding into him and catching every sound that comes out of Stiles’ mouth with his waiting
tongue.

The hot coil of his orgasm starts to hum under his skin, and he tucks his nose to the underside
of Stiles’ jaw, mouth hovering over the purple-red mark he left there earlier. Stiles snakes a
hand between their bodies to wrap around his own dick, pulling and tugging to match the
insistent roll of Derek’s hips, mouth wet and open when Derek kisses his way across as much
of Stiles’ skin as he can press lips to in order to reach it.

“I’m close,” Derek breathes.

“Me too,” Stiles pants. “Just – need you to –“

He pushes at Derek’s chest with one hand until Derek is raised up on his knees, Stiles’ legs
spread so wide by the pulling breadth of his arms as Derek fucks into him, quick rolls of hips
as Stiles jerks himself roughly with one hand, caresses Derek’s chest with his other. The
 angle must be just what Stiles is looking for, because he cries out, again and again and again
when Derek keeps at it, keeps driving into him relentlessly.

It’s only a few more thrusts before Stiles is coming, all over his own hand, all over his own
stomach, choking around a shout of Derek’s name. The sight of it, the feel of Stiles clenching
around him, is enough to push Derek over that edge too, folding forward with heaving
breaths as he comes as well.

Derek lets himself stay there, probably crushing Stiles under his weight, up until Stiles starts
grumbling beneath him, pushing weakly at Derek’s chest. Derek rolls off with a faint laugh,
forcing himself up and into the adjoined bathroom so he can dispose of the condom and take
a quick look at himself in the mirror above the sink.

He looks – alive, he thinks. His face is flushed slightly red, sweat dampening the edges of his
hairline. There’s even more grey in his beard than there was a couple of months ago, some
lines creasing the edges of his eyes where he is smiling, wide and happy. But it’s okay, he
thinks. Maybe it’s even good.

Stiles is sprawled out on the bed when Derek pads back into the room with a washcloth, and
he hums contentedly when Derek cleans him up, squirming slightly when Derek runs over
the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. It would be enough to get Derek going all over again if
he weren’t, well – thirty-six years old.

Dropping the cloth onto the nightstand to deal with later, Derek climbs onto the bed to join
him. He lays on his back, head denting the pillow, arm stretched out in invitation, and Stiles
takes the bait instantly, insinuating himself against Derek’s side so easily, like he was made to
fit there. He rests his cheek against Derek’s shoulder, throws an arm over Derek’s waist and a
bent knee over Derek’s thigh, and Derek tilts his head to press a slow, soft kiss to his
forehead.

They lay in silence for a little while, Derek running a hand through Stiles’ messy hair, Stiles
tracing circular patterns against Derek’s hip.

“I probably should’ve asked this earlier,” Stiles breaks into the quiet eventually, “but – Trix
isn’t home, right?”

Derek huffs a laugh. “She’s at a sleepover.”

Stiles tips his head to look at Derek, peering up at him hopefully. “Am I… also at a
sleepover?”

Derek leans down to kiss him, soft and lingering. “Just try and leave.”

“Oh, trust me,” Stiles says, wide smile lopsided. “I won’t.”

Chapter End Notes

Next week's final update will be a time-jump epilogue 😊
 Chapter 8
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Six Years Later

The streetlights illuminate the rain-damp roads as Beatrix drives the familiar route through
Beacon Hills, the steady rumble of the car engine soothing her nerves as she turns the corner
onto the street she grew up on. Senior year at Stanford is mightily kicking her ass already,
and it’s still only a few months into the first semester. There are pumpkins adorning the
outside of every house that she passes, all of them lit up and decorated to greet the many
costumed children roaming the streets, giggling and giddy, their parents trailing exhaustedly
behind them, trying desperately to make them wear jackets over their outfits.

As she pulls into the driveway of her childhood home, she notes that the chosen theme this
year – just like pretty much every year in recent memory – is werewolves.

A skeleton wearing a dollar store wolf mask welcomes her beside the front door as she turns
her key in the lock, and she’s grinning fondly when she pushes it open.

“Hello?” she calls out as she steps inside.

“Trix!” Stiles’ head pops out from the kitchen, a wide smile on his face. “We weren’t
expecting to see you this weekend.”

“Needed a break,” she tells him, toeing her shoes off and dropping her duffel to the floor.
“Ella’s having a Halloween party at her parent’s lake house tonight, so I thought – why not.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You mean you heard Ryan was going to be there, so you thought –
hell yeah.”

She ducks her head to hide her blush, but his snort tells her that he caught it anyway. She and
Ryan have been off and on for years she’s losing count of at this point, but for the past year or
so they’ve been a lot more off than on, especially with him moving back to Beacon Hills after
graduating college a year ahead of her.

But – maybe he had texted her yesterday to see if she was coming to the party at Ella’s place,
and maybe she had amended her very casual plans on campus so that she could make the
drive back for the weekend. A fact which is her business and no-one else’s; especially not
Stiles’, who is still smirking at her.

“Screw you,” she says without heat, smiling around the flush on her cheeks.

“Language,” her dad admonishes, appearing at the top of the stairs.

“Trix!” the wriggling two-year-old in his arms shouts, still struggling with that r sound as he
slaps excitable palms against their dad’s chest. “Daddy, Trix!”

“Eli!” She beams at his squealing laughter.

Her dad shares a soft, fond smile with her for a moment before he tilts his face to press a kiss
to the side of Eli’s head. He begins to make his way down the stairs, soft pads against the
carpeted steps, Eli fidgeting in his grip the whole way. Eli gets his restlessness from Stiles,
it’s plain to see.

“That’s right,” her dad says indulgently, encouragingly. “Your big sister’s come to see us.”

She opens her arms expectantly. “How’s my little squirt doing?”

“We’ve managed to cut the bath time tantrums down to just an hour and a half now,” her dad
tells her, handing him over and dropping a kiss to her cheek. “So that’s nice.”

She hoists Eli onto her hip, blowing a raspberry against his soft cheek to make him giggle
and flash briefly golden eyes at her as she follows her dad to join Stiles in the kitchen. Eli is
already wearing a headband with wolf ears and a tiny wolf onesie, the fluffy tail tickling her
forearm as she holds him. Stiles has a matching string of fuzz tied around his hips.

“Inspired,” she says sarcastically, flicking Eli’s tail in Stiles’ direction.

“I’ll stop doing it when it stops being funny,” he says with an easy shrug, grinning when she
and her dad roll their eyes in unison.

Stiles goes back to leaning over the kitchen table, a headband similar to Eli’s lying next to the
sign he is scribbling on, instructing the local kids to take one, please. She looks over to where
her dad is sorting a plethora candy into various orange buckets, no costume in sight as he
stands in jeans and a sweater.

“And what are you meant to be?” she asks him.

“Aging werewolf,” he deadpans.

Stiles laughs, tipping his head back with it as he wanders over to wrap his arms around her
dad’s middle, smacking a kiss to his temple. Her dad leans into the touch, a faint smile
touching his lips even as he tries to force a scowl over the top of it.

“Aw, but he ages so well,” Stiles teases.

“I don’t know how you put up with this, squirt,” she says, bouncing him in her arms and
letting him tug at her hair. “They’re so gross.”

“Yeah, gross,” Eli repeats, with that adorable little w.

Her dad narrows his eyes at her. “Can’t wait to hear that every dinner time for the next
week.”
“At least it wasn’t screw,” she reasons.

“Screw!” Eli yells happily.

She winces in the face of her dad’s glare. “Sorry?”

“He’s picked up a lot worse from your dad during basketball season,” Stiles says, wandering
over to pat her affectionally on the shoulder, tickling under Eli’s chin to make him squeal.
“Don’t sweat it, kid.”

“Kid,” she snorts. “You’re closer to my age than you are dad’s.”

“By one year,” Stiles protests, heading back to help her dad dish out the candy.

“I hate it when you point that out,” her dad says grimly.

“I know,” she replies brightly. “That’s why I do it.”

“You know, Stiles,” John’s voice comes from behind her, and she twists her neck to grin back
at his soft smile as he descends the stairs and walks towards them, “I distinctly remember you
arguing with me that I shouldn’t call you kid anymore when you were around Trix’s age.”

John puts an arm around her shoulder to draw her in for a hug, keeps it there as he ruffles
Eli’s short, messy hair with his free hand, and Eli yelps delightedly in her arms at the sight of
his grandpa. Beatrix feels her own heart swell as she leans into John; even after Eli was born,
even after having a grandkid of his own, he has never once treated Beatrix as anything other
than just as much his.

“Yeah, well, maybe I get it now that I’m an old man too,” Stiles says, bumping his hip against
her dad’s. “She’ll still be kid to me even she’s forty.”

Her dad huffs a short laugh, peering at Stiles from the corner of his eye as the smile stays
curved at his lips. Their matching platinum rings glint under the ceiling lights.

“Because forty’s so old,” her dad deadpans.

Stiles grins back. “Totally ancient, babe.”

“I don’t think I want to know what you’ve got to say about sixty,” John says wryly. “We
about ready to head out?”

“I think so,” Stiles says.

Eli dials up the wriggling in her arms until she lets him down, tottering on unsteady feet
across the kitchen floor, arms raised and making grabby hands at Stiles to be picked up.

“Want papa,” he demands.

Stiles leans down obligingly and gathers him against his chest, grabbing a flailing foot and
tickling underneath the sole to make him giggle again. Her dad hooks his chin over Stiles’
shoulder to let Eli smack chubby fingers against his cheek, smiling at Eli’s string of
unintelligible happy noises.

“Do you have time to join us?” her dad asks, eyes flicking over to her.

She nods instantly. “I can tag along for a little while.”

“Did you hear that, Eli?” Stiles’ voice is high with excitement while Eli babbles away
incoherently. “Your big sister’s coming trick or treating with us!”

“Trick ‘r treat,” Eli agrees, before turning to Beatrix with a toothy smile. “Trix!”

“Nailed it, kid,” Stiles tells him.

They set into action, sliding feet into shoes and grabbing jackets to stave off the cooling
weather. Eli sits on the bottom step of the stairs, arms folded over his chest and pouting as her
dad tries to reason him into putting his boots on. He wins the argument eventually, mostly
because Stiles crouches down to join them and distracts Eli enough that her dad can shove the
boots on without further protest.

John opens the front door and Stiles follows outside, Eli clutching at his hand and walking
with wobbling steps. Her dad pauses a moment to smile at her, wrapping an arm around her
shoulders and kissing her cheek again.

“It’s really good to see you, Trix,” he says.

“It’s good to be back,” she tells him, remaining tucked under his arm as they walk out the
door. “I miss you guys when I’m at college.”

“We miss you, too.”

John and Stiles stand at the end of the driveway, Eli now sitting atop Stiles’ shoulders,
clapping his hands together excitedly at the small group approaching to join them. It’s Scott,
with his wife, Kira, and his mom, Melissa. Walking between the three of them with small
hands holding onto his mom and dad, is Scott and Kira’s four-year-old son, Alex, grinning a
gap-toothed smile in his Batman costume – Stiles’ influence, most likely.

She watches as Scott rolls his eyes at the tail wrapped around Stiles’ hips, as John and
Melissa have a very serious conversation with Alex about all the different kinds of candy he’s
going to get to eat tonight, as Kira gushes over Eli in his wolf onesie. Stiles turns to look at
them where they are still standing in the open doorway of the house, smiling openly and
honestly when her dad catches his eye.

She tips her head to look up at her dad, temple resting against his shoulder.

“Mom would be so happy if she could see us now,” she says.

“Yeah,” he replies, pulling her closer. “She would be.”

Chapter End Notes

And that's a wrap! Hope you all enjoyed 🥰

I had so much fun writing for this 'verse and I have a few ideas rattling around in my
brain for potential follow-ups - so you might see more from this AU in the future!

You can also come join me over on tumblr to shout about Sterek 🗣
Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!