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It's Deaton who tells Derek that Stiles is back in town, a broken marriage behind him, his daughter in tow. Derek half-expects a phone call – Stiles can't know that many people in town anymore, not since the pack scattered, Scott and Allison in San Francisco, Lydia in L.A., Isaac in Eugene. But no call comes, and Derek figures Stiles has gone to ground until he has his feet back under him; has to admit he'd probably be doing the same thing if he wound up back in Beacon Hills under similar circumstances.
That doesn't mean he lets the issue go. Stiles is pack; he's family, and It's easy enough to find out his address. Derek and the sheriff have a solid truce nowadays, and Stiles' dad is happy enough to tell Derek where Stiles is living. He seems glad someone's asking, and Derek thinks he's worried, though he can't coax any details from him no matter how hard he tries.
So Derek shows up on Stiles' stoop, his heart beating unevenly in his chest. He doesn't want to be an unwelcome intrusion, wants badly for some vestige of the people they once were to still exist. He knocks on the door, steps back and listens, hears someone's bare feet against a hardwood floor.
The door opens just enough to show Stiles, who looks tired and drawn. His expression changes to one of confusion before he says, "Derek?" and then he smiles as he opens the door the rest of the way.
"Heard you were back," says Derek.
Stiles looks wary. "Is that all you heard?" he asks.
Derek figures he ought to be honest. "I heard about your marriage. I'm sorry."
A muscle twitches in Stiles' jaw, then he draws in a breath and shakes his head. "I," he says, "am glad to see you."
Derek feels something lighten in his chest. "You should've called," he says.
Stiles looks at him, studying his face. He seems almost wistful for a second. "You're right," he says at last. "I just . . ." He shakes his head. "I'll do better. You want to come in?"
"I'd like that," says Derek, which is when he sees a little face peek out from behind Stiles' legs. He crouches, smiles a little to see Stiles' smile on a kid who's barely walking. "Who's this?"
"Em," says Stiles. "Emily." He looks down as she looks up, and he shrugs his shoulders, points toward Derek. "Say hi to Derek. He's daddy's friend."
Em looks at Derek, studying him thoughtfully, and when he extends a hand to her she steps out from behind her dad and grabs one of Derek's fingertips. "Ba!" she says, grinning now.
Stiles' smiles fondly down at them both. "She likes you."
"What's not to like?" asks Derek, enthralled by Emily's trust.
Stile laughs, and the sound is rusty, like he hasn't had much practice at laughing lately. He bends down and scoops up his daughter, blows a raspberry on her belly to make her shriek, then sets her on his hip. "Come in. We'll talk. Or we'll both spend our time trying to keep Em from climbing the bookshelves, which seems more probable."
Derek stands and Em claps her hands together. "Sounds great," he says, and means it – realizes he's missed Stiles a whole hell of a lot.
-----
The inside of the house is sparse and clean, save for the laundry that's piled at the bottom of the stairs and the toys that are scattered across the living room floor. The couch looks worn; there's nothing hung on the walls. Derek glances around as best he's able; there's nothing here that says the place is Stiles'. "When did you get back?" he asks.
Stiles sets Emily down and points her toward the living room. She immediately falls over, and Derek tenses for her yelling, but instead she happily crawls off toward her blocks and cardboard books. "Three weeks, a little more?" Stiles says. "Long enough to buy some groceries and start looking for daycare." He licks his lips. "I'm teaching at the high school this fall."
Derek feels his eyebrows rise. "I thought you did marketing."
"I did," Stiles nods, methodically setting a filter in the coffee maker and filling it with grounds. "But there isn't work like that around here, not right now, and I can sub without a teacher's license."
"Sub what?" asks Derek.
"English, mostly."
Derek suddenly remembers Jennifer – the Jennifer he knew before the Darach; the Jennifer who talked to him about Shakespeare and War and Peace. He studies the countertop for a long moment, willing his heart back under his control.
"You still think about her?" asks Stiles. There's no judgment in the question.
"Maybe," Derek hedges, still feeling the raw edges of having cared for her.
"Well," says Stiles. "I can promise you I won't go all Dark Druid on your ass, English teacher or no. Human sacrifices are too much damn work."
Derek smiles at the hint of Stiles' smart mouth. "Glad to hear it. It's been quiet here for a long time."
"Heard all about it from my dad," says Stiles, leaning against the counter while the coffee brews. "He suggested that if bad things started happening again, people were going to put two and two together and think it was me. I swear he still thinks I ought to have a curfew."
"He must be glad to have you home, though."
Stiles cranes his neck to check on Emily, who's happily gnawing on a stuffed toy rabbit. "I think he is."
"And you?"
Stiles sighs. "Not top of my list of places to be, no."
Derek nods, and turns his head to watch Emily. There's nothing he can say that he hasn't already said – 'I'm sorry' covers all of it, at least for now.
"But hey! Grandparent in the vicinity. A friend in town," Stiles shifts to pull down coffee mugs, and pours Derek a cup. "It could be worse."
"Thanks," says Derek dryly.
"Hey now. You are the cause of much worse," Stiles says. "Nearly all the worse in my life can be directly connected to you."
Derek grins at that, and he sees Stiles do a double-take, then relax his own shoulders and smile in return.
"BA!" yells Emily from the living room, and Stiles wanders around the kitchen island to look at her.
"'Sup, babycakes," he asks.
"Ba," says Emily solemnly, and Stiles nods with equal gravitas, walks over and sits down cross-legged in front of her, coffee still in hand.
"Really," he says, deadpan.
"Ba, ba, ba," she replies.
"Shocking," he offers. "Truly."
Derek watches them curiously. "Do you actually understand what she's saying?" he asks.
"Not a clue," Stiles says with a lopsided smile. "I wish I did. It'd make the 2am and 3am and 4am wake-ups a lot easier. Milk, dad. I had a bad dream, dad. Dad, where'd my rabbit go?"
Derek feels his lips quirk of their own accord, and he marvels a little at Stiles speaking so matter-of-factly about something as enormous as having a kid. He picks up his coffee and walks into the living room, sets his cup down on the packing crate Stiles is using as an end table, and sits cross-legged too. There's a soft blue block by his foot, and a red one at his elbow, so he stacks them, making a short, wobbly tower.
Emily looks at him out of the corner of her eye, waiting for him to make another move. When he doesn't she looks at Stiles, then grins and shifts to punch the tower, laughing when everything falls down.
"Again?" asks Derek.
She claps her hands, which Derek takes as a yes, so he rebuilds, adding a yellow and a green block this time. He looks up as she knocks it all down with gusto, sees that Stiles is half-smiling and blinking suspiciously at the same time.
"You okay?" he asks, stacking the blocks.
"Yeah." Stiles nods. "I just . . . forgot what it was like to have someone else around." He smiles as Emily knocks down Derek's efforts again. "She can do this for hours."
"I have hours," says Derek, simply, and builds the tower again.
Derek stays for dinner – pizza, ordered in, the go-to grown-up food in the house if the boxes stacked beside the garbage can are anything to go by – and is just making moves to leave when Emily starts to melt down.
"Convenient," Stiles says, picking up Em. She rests her head on his shoulder, whimpering in a language only she can understand.
"She's going to wail around me sometime," Derek says blithely.
Stiles gets a strange look on his face, says, "So I'll see you again?"
Derek can't even comprehend the question. "Of course," he says. "Because you're going to call, now, right?"
Stiles opens the front door. "I'm going to call," he nods.
"Really?"
"Pinky swear, hope to die," says Stiles, and he's smiling a little.
"Good." Derek pauses on the stoop. "It's really good to see you."
Stiles rubs Emily's back, and nods, quick and sharp. "You too," he says, and Derek's aware that Stiles watches him all the way back to his car.
-----
It's more than a week before he calls.
"My dad has the kid," he says, breathless. "I need adult conversation that does not revolve around children for at least an hour."
"On it," Derek says, and grabs his jacket. "Pick you up in ten."
"Thank god," Stiles says, and the phone call ends.
-----
Derek takes him to the batting cages on the south side of town.
"Baseball," says Stiles dryly. "You remember my history of being hit in the head by small white balls?"
"This is different," says Derek, setting up a stack of quarters on Stiles' box. "Stress relief."
Stiles swings the bat he rented. "I suppose it was a form of stress release to smash werewolves over the head with one of these."
Derek feels his mouth twitch. "Whatever gets you through," he offers, and claps Stiles on the shoulder before heading into the cage on Stiles' left.
It's soothing, the regular whip of a ball toward him, the crack of the bat as he sends the ball high and left. He's half aware of Stiles dodging the ball when he first begins swinging, then missing a couple of hits before he finds his rhythm, but soon he's making contact as often as Derek, his hits just as solid and as strong. Derek stops watching once Stiles is settled, lets himself sink fully into the sensation of bat and ball, breeze and sunlight, works his way through his stack of quarters and the two extra he finds in the pocket of his jeans.
They're both sweating when they're through, shirts damp beneath the arms, at the neck. Derek can't help but notice that Stiles is no longer the weedy little kid he'd been at sixteen. "I concede that you are smart and that that was awesome," says Stiles, grinning happily as he returns his bat.
"You're gonna hurt tomorrow."
"No doubt," Stiles agrees, twisting right to left as they walk out to the parking lot. "Worth it."
"I'm glad." Derek smiles at him, gets a smile in return, files that away as a victory. He flips the locks on his car, gets inside. "Coffee?"
"Coffee," Stiles agrees.
They head to the park after they've been to The Grind, amble aimlessly, talking about the pack. "The trainwreck of my marriage notwithstanding, Scott's about two minutes from proposing," says Stiles.
"Is that a mistake?" asks Derek.
"No. It's Allison – they've been – " he waves his hands around, slopping coffee out of his cup – "cosmically connected since the beginning, you know?"
He doesn't sound bitter, just amused. "And Lydia?"
"Last I heard she was senior editor at some fancypants lady magazine, and getting her PhD in math on the side."
"On the side."
"Yep, on the side."
"Isaac's in law school."
Stiles spit takes and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. "He's what?"
"Turned out to be some kind of savant when it came to recalling con law," Derek says. "I don't pretend to understand."
Stiles nods, "Wow." He jogs Derek's elbow. "And you?"
"Fine," Derek says. "I like working with Deaton. Cora's happy, off making art. Last I heard Peter was in Florida, horning in on someone else's territory."
"Good luck with that," says Stiles.
Derek huffs his agreement, sits down on a bench.
"You seem happy," says Stiles, sitting beside him.
Derek thinks about it, about the worry he no longer carries for his pack now that they're older and can take care of themselves.
"I mean, I've seen you twice," says Stiles. "I'm not trying to get ahead of myself, but you seem . . . looser. Less uptight."
Derek laughs a little. "Thanks."
"No, seriously, that right there. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw you laugh before I went to college."
Derek shrugs. "I'm older."
"That's it? That's your secret? You aged and magically you're laid back and cool?"
"I was always cool," says Derek, straight-faced.
Stiles pauses for a second, then laughs the way he was meant to. "Nice," he says.
They sit in comfortable silence for a long moment, before Derek can't stand it anymore. "So what happened?" he asks.
Stiles shifts uncomfortably on the bench. "I'm the wrong person to ask," he says at last. "I thought we were great together, but I guess I just wasn't enough of what she wanted. Me or Em."
"I'm sorry."
"I loved her," Stile says. "I loved her a lot. But divorce? Makes you into these people you barely recognize. A blink of an eye and she's able to hurt me quicker than anyone I know." He stares down at his coffee cup. "I don't know that I'll ever really get over that." Derek says nothing, just sits and waits, watching Stiles bounce one knee like he's still seventeen. "I hate failing," Stiles says eventually.
"You didn't fail."
"My marriage is history because I wasn't what she needed," says Stiles. "I'd say that's a pretty big failure."
Derek feels a flare of protectiveness, presses his lips together while he thinks what to say. "You tried. It's more than a lot of people ever do."
"And I wish that was some kind of comfort," says Stiles, a little bitterly. "I just . . . I fucked up just by being me, you know?"
"That's not true."
"She left because I wasn't enough for her. How is that not about who I am?"
"Did you ever consider that there might be no-one to blame?" Derek asks, trying for equanimity.
Stiles swallows hard and looks off across the park. "Has to be my fault," he says. "If it's my fault I can do something about it, change things, change me. It's under my control." He shakes his head. "If I'm not to blame then it all just adds up to bad things happening no matter what I do."
Derek nods. "Is that so bad?"
"I have a kid," says Stiles. "I want a world where nothing bad ever happens to her. I want – "
"Different to how it worked out for you?" asks Derek.
"Yeah."
"And me."
Stiles sighs. "Yeah."
"You know you can't promise her that."
"I know." Stiles chews on his lip. "But the fantasy's pretty compelling."
Derek nods in sympathy, thinks of all the times since Cora returned that he's wished he could protect her from anything and everything bad. "Does your dad like babysitting?" he asks eventually.
Stiles looks at him, confused. "I guess," he says.
"Think he could take her for an evening next week?"
Stiles shrugs. "I can ask him."
Derek squeezes his shoulder. "Because you need to get drunk."
Stiles laughs softly. "A beer'd be great."
"So it's a date," Derek says, and feels the charge of the words in his mouth, a frisson of something he can't quite name.
_____
"I've seen Stiles a couple of times," Derek tells Deaton next morning. It feels important, something he should share with someone, so he blurts it out over surgery on a tortoiseshell cat. Minnie, he remembers – her name is Minnie – she belongs to a guy who lives close by, who's lost his wife and now has nothing in particular to cling to but this sweet, sleeping cat.
Deaton looks up from where he's making precise stitches in Minnie's belly. "Oh?"
There are days when Derek hates how well Deaton can ask a leading question with a single word. "He's doing okay. Seems a little beaten down."
"You care about him." Deaton finishes the stitches, and Derek strokes a hand down Minnie's back.
"Well – he's pack," says Derek, fumbling for the right words. "I care about all of them."
Deaton nods. "But Stiles always needed that little bit of extra protection."
Derek feels the truth of that way down in his gut, but doesn't know what to do with the understanding. He cleans up the table, putting the discarded swabs in the trash, Deaton's needle on a tray to be sterilized, the antibiotic wash back in the cupboard where it belongs. "I guess I've fallen right back into wanting to look out for him," he says at last.
Deaton smiles. "I think he could use a friend like that." He raises an eyebrow. "As could you."
And Derek huffs out a breath to cover how true he thinks that is.
-----
When Derek shows up on Stiles doorstep the following Wednesday, Stiles is still wearing a shirt covered in spit-up, and his hair's a wreck, no doubt from tiny little hands grabbing it where and whenever possible. "God, it's 8 already?" he asks, tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt, scratching the back of his neck. "I lost track of time."
Derek shrugs, follows him inside. "We're not in any hurry."
"I just – she's teething again, and she wouldn't nap. When I took her over to dad's she was screaming the place down. I think he was second-guessing saying he'd take her for the evening."
Derek smiles. "It's not his first time with a kid," he points out.
"Yeah, but it's different when you have the option of giving the kid back," Stiles offers, pulling his shirt off over his head.
Derek feels his mouth go dry. "Uh." He's forgotten what they were talking about. "Sure."
"I'll just get changed – give me a second," says Stiles, taking the stairs two at a time. "Make yourself comfortable," he calls.
Derek wanders into the kitchen, which is a site of total devastation. There are dirty bottles sitting by the sink waiting to be sterilized; there's a half-eaten bowl of cereal and an empty coffee cup pushed to one side. The mail's on the counter, damp from some sort of spill, and there are – Derek counts them – six jars of open baby food, some empty, some not, all generously splattered with their own contents, a spoon sitting inside each. There's a high chair pushed over by the fridge, covered in mushed-up Cheerios and little pieces of broccoli, smeared with something that Derek thinks was maybe blueberries. There's a crumpled newspaper on the floor.
"Back," says Stiles, breathless, coming to a sudden halt at Derek's side. "Oh – yeah. I didn't have time today to . . ." He sweeps the baby food jars into the sink, runs a little water over them. "Excuse the mess."
Derek throws him a look. "I'm not judging."
"Maybe I am," says Stiles.
"Hey." Derek waits until Stiles meets his eyes. "Stop worrying."
Stiles blows out a breath and nods. "Second nature after – " he waves a hand to encompass, Derek thinks, separation and divorce and a whole lot of messed up feelings, too.
"So get your jacket," Derek prompts after a moment. "Your wallet. Your brain . . ."
Stiles maturely sticks out his tongue. "I'm ready," he says. "You're the one lolly-gagging – "
Lolly-gagging mouths Derek.
"—so just . . . shut up, get going, out out," and he chivvies Derek down the hall and out the front door, pausing only to lock it before he clatters down the steps.
"So where are we going?" he asks, and Derek realizes his hair is still pointing in sixteen different directions. It's almost cute.
"New place," Derek offers as they walk toward the car. "Dive you won't know, and I hope your dad doesn't either."
_____
They have a great time. Derek steers the conversation away from families and absent friends and anything that could make Stiles maudlin; throws out stories about the messes he's gotten himself into at Deaton's, the way the cockatoos always love him best, his personal best time across the nature preserve and back on a full moon night. Stiles seems to relax back into himself, tells pitch-perfect stories about his old job, gets off on a tangent about the Dodgers from which Derek thinks he'll never get him back. They drive to pick up Emily in Stiles' car, and Derek finds himself running a hand over the smooth interior, feeling suddenly nostalgic for Stiles' old jeep.
Emily's asleep, for which Stiles gives heartfelt, thankful praise, and Stiles' dad just laughs, says she has nothing on the way that Stiles used to yell. "You're saying this is karma?" Stiles asks, looking amused.
"If she pays you back 1/10th of the sleepless nights you cost me, I'll know the world is just," his father says fervently, and Derek laughs, takes the diaper bag while Stiles straps Emily into her car seat.
"I had fun," Stiles says when he pulls up outside his own house, putting the car in park. He doesn't make a move to get out, and Derek turns toward him, says, "Yeah, me too," and has the sudden, crystal clear urge to kiss him. He rubs a hand over his face to give himself time to recover from the thought, yawns loudly and jerks a thumb toward the back seat, says, "I should let you get inside. But I'll call you." Every word he says just makes him feel more and more awkwardly that it's been a date.
"You know," says Stiles, "I just – can I say thank you?"
"For what?"
"For showing up and sticking around and buying me beer? I don't know, all of it."
He's earnest and grateful and Derek wants to reach out and touch him so badly he's stupid with it. "No big deal," he says.
"Yeah? Well it feels like a big deal to me, so . . . thank you." Stiles claps him on the shoulder, and Derek feels the contact like a shock. He gets out of the car when Stiles does, waves with his keys in his hand, walks over to his car.
"I'll call you," he says at a safe distance of fourteen, fifteen feet.
"Counting on it!" Stiles replies, and then his attention turns back to his daughter, and his expression is utter love.
_____
It's Stiles who calls next, the following Saturday. "Oh god, I know it's early, but can you help?"
Derek peers at the clock beside his bed, lazily scratches his belly The full moon has set, but he's tired and sore. "Help with what?" he asks, barely awake.
"I have a thousand things I have to get done today," says Stiles in a rush. "I have to stop by the school – there's an orientation I have to be at by 11 – and there's paperwork I'm supposed to sign and drop off at the lawyer's, and there's no food in the house, and my dad's sick, and I called Melissa, but she's working today, and . . . "
Melissa, thinks Derek. Scott's mom. Everything is moving sluggishly through his brain. "You need a babysitter?" he asks at last.
"I really do."
"And you'd trust me with her?"
"Of course I would."
Derek blinks at the ceiling, and thinks that one, this was not the day he had planned, and two, he can't turn Stiles down. "Okay. I can be there in half an hour."
"Perfect," Stiles breathes. "Oh god, thank you." And the line goes dead. Derek looks at his cell phone for a long, long moment, then sighs and swings his legs out of bed, pads toward the shower.
Stiles looks different when Derek shows up – dress pants, a shirt, a skinny tie. "She eats two jars of baby food and you can give her Cheerios to keep her occupied while you're warming things up," he says, gathering his things from the kitchen counter, dog eared folders, his wallet, his keys. "There are bottles all prepped in the fridge, and she naps – on the good days – mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Between times it's whatever keeps her occupied – toys, a walk; she can play on her own some if you need to make coffee or a sandwich." He looks suddenly stricken. "Not that there's anything to make a sandwich with."
"It'll be fine," says Derek.
"You're sure? This is a huge ask."
"I'm sure. Go."
Stiles hugs him briefly, so quickly that Derek doesn't have time to respond, yells "see you later, call me if you need me," and the front door closes, leaving Derek and Emily alone.
"So," says Derek. "Blocks?"
Emily claps her hands and wriggles with glee.
They play blocks, and with a school bus that has pop-up, push-down people in it, and they make faces into the mirror for a while. Derek plops Emily in his lap and reads her a book about Horace the Duck, and another about Abigail the Otter, and he wonders if there's a market for one about Derek the werewolf. He changes her diaper, and thanks god she only peed. Mid-morning he heats up a bottle, gathers Emily into the crook of his arm and watches her gulp down her milk with gusto, remembers that babies have to be burped after they eat and gets a little spit-up on his shoulder for the trouble. By the time Emily rubs her eyes and whines, cueing Derek that it's time for her nap, he's more tired than he's been in weeks. He coaxes her to sleep with songs he half remembers – the wheels on the bus go round and round, but he isn't sure of the rest of the words; sings about the guy on the bus who's eating a sandwich, and the girl on the bus who's doing her homework in math. Em sacks out in his arms and he transfers her gingerly to her pack-n-play, where she sleeps for two hours, giving him time to clean up the kitchen and manfully not read the letter from Stiles' lawyer that's sitting on the counter. There's laundry at the bottom of the stairs again, so he sorts it, throws a load in the washer, throws out the last of the take-out in the refrigerator, and starts to clean the whole thing while he's at it.
His thoughts run to family as he works He remembers his younger siblings as infants, how it pained him when they yelled, how he'd ask his mom if he could make it better. His mom – she'd have known what to do with a baby for a day, how to love her and care for her the way she deserved. He feels a pang for his parents all over again, an ache of missing everyone so much that it could double him over if he let it. He wishes hard for all of them just once, then sets his jaw against feeling so much, wipes out the fridge with a dish towel and rinses it in the sink.
His work is for nothing once Emily surfaces, cranky to have missed out on two hours awake, working up a temper that he can't calm for a good long while. He tries Cheerios, her favorite rabbit, singing, more books, but it's not until he's walked her back and forth across the living room a dozen times that he realizes she's probably hungry, and deposits her in her high chair, where she promptly turns all to smiles. She eats sweet potatoes and bananas, plays with her sippy cup of water rather than drinking very much, then makes a smell that knocks Derek back on his feet. "Oh, no," he mumbles, approaching the high chair with trepidation, smelling the air close to her butt and swearing a little when his eyes begin to water. Goddamn his sense of smell. "Diaper," he says, pulling her out of the high chair without washing off her fingers or wiping the bananas out of her hair, merely settling her on his hip and rooting in the diaper bag for everything he needs. He finds wipes and diaper cream, but no more diapers; looks around and finds nothing; eventually heads upstairs.
Emily's room is the one room in the house that's had any attention paid to it, and it says so much about Stiles that Derek feels his heart clench. It's painted yellow with cheerful cartoon pictures of animals framed on the walls, and a big, wide crib with a soft, green blanket discarded at the bottom. There are diapers in the top drawer of the dresser, a big hollowed out cushion on the top that looks just right, Derek thinks, for a baby's body, and he lays her there, proud to discover he's right. Em thinks the diaper-changing process sucks, howls the whole way through, and Derek thinks he might join her when he sees the mess she's made of her butt and her back, the mess she quickly makes of her legs and her belly when he's too slow to stop her hands getting right in the middle of it all.
"Bath," he tells her, swiping at her hands before he strips her of her outfit, wiping up poop the best he can before he picks her up. She stinks to high heaven, and Derek pokes his head into the bathroom, sees a baby bathtub leaning in the corner, figures it out with a minimum of confusion, and tries not to think of the shit Em is rubbing into his shirt. It's a goner, regardless – the moment he sets her in the bathtub she splashes him thoroughly, kicking up water and smacking it with her hands. She's cheerful now, and he washes her down with the baby soap he finds in a bottle at the edge of the bathtub, soaps her into slippery spotlessness, rinses her clean. He hesitates a little when it's time to pick her up, strips off his own shirt before he does so, gently lifts her up and deposits her on a towel in his lap. She seems grizzly and unhappy, and Derek casts around for what he'd do with Cora, seizes on playing peekaboo, and soon she's laughing with glee. A diaper, a new onesie, a pair of shorts, and she's good to go. Derek, however, is still half naked, so he sets her on his hip, wanders into Stiles bedroom to find a shirt.
The bed is unmade, and most of Stiles' clothes are thrown over a chair instead of hung in the closet. There's a skateboard, of all things, peeking out from beneath the bed, and three ties on the floor – seems like someone had doubts about his outfit this morning. Derek sets Em down in the middle of the bed, hems her in with pillows, and paws through the clean laundry stacked up in the chair. He holds up a dark grey shirt, thinks ruefully of Miguel, but finds that it's not too tight when he slips it on. He smoothes the fabric over his stomach, thinks again of how Stiles has changed, then moves to pick Emily up and leaves as if he's intruding someplace he shouldn't be.
There are hours before Stiles' is due home, and Derek is exhausted just thinking about all that time. He figures they may as well go out as stay in, loads Emily into her stroller, throws the diaper bag over his shoulder, and sets out to walk the neighborhood. There are dogs and trucks and other babies and flowers to talk about. Em takes it all in, shrieks when she sees other children, and waves happily when she's waved at by an old woman tending flowers. They head home when Emily starts to droop, and Derek coaxes her to stay awake long enough to drink a little milk. But in minutes she's asleep on his shoulder, and he sits on the couch feeling too overwhelmed by the day to move. Eventually he shifts just enough to stretch out on the couch and position Emily on his chest, setting a hand on her back to keep her in place. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he wakes up when he realizes that the weight on his chest is gone. Stiles is looking down at him, the baby on his hip, his tie askew.
"Wear you out?" he asks.
Derek closes his eyes again for a second, mumbles, "and then some," before he struggles to sit up and rubs the sleep from his eyes with both hands.
They debrief about their days as they put away the groceries, talk about the poop explosion, about the other teachers at the school. "It's strange to be back there," says Stiles when they sit down on the floor with Emily between them. "I keep thinking I'll turn a corner and see myself. See Scott and Lydia and the rest."
Derek would hate to be back there too, but tries to think of a different tack. "Stranger things have happened. To both of us," he says, and Stiles smiles at some memory or another, runs a hand over Emily's head.
"You want to stay for dinner?" he asks. "I got real, honest-to-god food for once."
"Can't turn that down," says Derek. "Who knows when it'll happen again."
Emily turns herself around and crawls over to Derek, pushes herself up by grabbing at his leg, stands unsteadily, and grins right up into his face. "She's thinking of pooping," Stiles says cheerfully.
Derek sighs and looks Emily in the eye. "Are you?" he asks.
He gets a long and pungent fart as his response.
It's almost ten when Derek leaves. Stiles hugs him at the door, which is apparently a thing they're going to do now, and Derek gets in his car feeling like everything inside him is rumpled. There's so much to process – the way Stiles looks, dressed as a grown-up; the unguarded expression on Stiles' face when he looks at his daughter; the fact that Stiles smells good despite baby food and diapers. Derek sits in his car and stares at the road for a long time before he turns the keys in the ignition. He's falling for Stiles, he realizes. Falling for his kid, too.
"This can't be happening," he says to the empty space inside his car, and drives away, his heart squeezing traitorously in his chest.
_____
They see each other regularly, and Derek wonders what he did before that it's so easy to accommodate Stiles and Em now. He worked out, he remembers; he checked the borders of his territory, but that's something he still does come night. There are hours, he supposes, when he read or emailed Cora, hours when he savored that his pack was safe even if they weren't anywhere close.
"Was it hard," Derek asks one day when they're hanging out in the park, letting Emily eat dirt and grass as every kid should. "Getting custody?"
Stiles winces. "Not exactly." He leans forward and tugs Em's sunhat more firmly into place. "Amy wanted out of everything."
Derek stays silent for want of anything useful to say.
"For a while I thought it was just the stress of not knowing what the hell we were doing with a kid," says Stiles. "Thought that she'd get some space and come back to us and it would all be fine. But it never got fine."
Derek feels hot and angry, but chooses his words as carefully as he can. "I'm sorry."
Stiles smiles ruefully. "Yeah." He reaches to take a twig out of Emily's hands. "She's traveling right now, for her job. She'll get Emily every other weekend when everything's figured out; that'll be good."
"Not hard?"
Stiles shakes his head. "She's a great mom, even if she thinks she's no good at it. And Emily deserves the both of us."
Derek wishes he knew how to make it so that Stiles never had to look so sad again. He catches himself mid-wish, feels his neck flush.
"Penny for 'em," says Stiles.
Derek huffs a breath of laughter. "Going rate's a dollar."
"Oh well, then, keep your thoughts to yourself," Stiles grins. He reaches for Emily, brushes her hands off with the sleeve of his shirt. "I've been thinking about what you said, weeks ago, about no one being to blame."
"Yeah?"
"Good advice," Stiles offers, Emily on his hip as he clumsily stands.
Derek dusts his own hands on his jeans before he stands, too. He nods as if he's considering the idea. "Good," he says at last.
____
Derek catches a cold, which Stiles mocks him mercilessly about. "I thought you could heal yourself of anything?" he asks.
"Nob colds," sighs Derek, feeling stupid and too hot and crabby and uncomfortable.
"Em's in daycare. I'll come over," Stiles says, and he does, makes chicken soup and forces Derek to shower, changes the sheets and leaves tea by the bed. "You're just going to have to sleep it off," he says, wincing when Derek sneezes into his towel.
"Ugh," Derek says, falling back on the bed. It's too much, the ache in his limbs, the expanse of his bed, the close proximity of Stiles who's being so nice.
"Dramatic much?" asks Stiles.
"Shut up," Derek manages, and rolls onto his side, sighing a little at the touch of the cool, fresh sheets.
"Will do," says Stiles, and the bastard is laughing at him, but he's also covering Derek with a blanket, tucking it close and tight.
Derek's grateful. "I like you," he says, sleepy and careless, opening his eyes part way.
Stiles stiffens for a second, then seems to consciously relax. "Yeah, well, I like you, too," he offers and stands up straight. "Sleep. I'll call you in the morning."
And Derek closes his eyes, rubs his cheek against the pillow, and could swear for a moment something brushes against his hair. But then he's fast asleep and doesn't remember another thing.
_____
Melissa invites them all over for dinner, a thinly-veiled ploy to get her hands on Emily. "God, she is cute," she says, turning Emily toward Stiles' dad. "Look at that face."
"It's a good face," he says deadpan, and Melissa tsks at him, plants a kiss on Emily's cheek. "Grandpa doesn't appreciate you the way I do. You should come and visit at my house more often."
"Hey," says Stiles, perking up. "If that's an offer for unlimited babysitting, I am more than happy to . . . "
"I bet you are," says Melissa with a grin. "Jesus, sweetheart, you must be exhausted."
Stiles shrugs. "I'm fine."
"I remember what it was like to raise a kid on my own," says Melissa. "No point in putting on a brave face for me."
"It's not a brave face!" Stiles says, spreading his arms. "I think we can all agree bravery is not my shtick – I am just – "
"Smitten," says Derek before pulling at his beer.
"There's that," Stiles agrees.
Melissa grins. "All right, all right, I understand being smitten too." She rubs her nose over Emily's head. "Who's gonna take this girl while I get the pot roast out of the oven?" She hands Emily unceremoniously over to Derek without waiting for anyone to answer, says, "Help in the kitchen, John?" And Stiles' dad slips out to do "something with gravy," he mumbles as he passes, and Derek catches Stiles' eye; they laugh.
"Not exactly subtle," Derek says, kissing Emily's hand as she pats at his face. He looks up and Stiles is watching him intently, and his expression is something Derek doesn't know how to name.
Stiles blinks and seems to shake himself out of it. "Subtle? No. Never knew either of them to be subtle in their lives."
Derek grins, pushes his beer bottle out of Emily's curious reach. "How did prep day go at school?"
Stiles pulls a face. "God, I'm going to have twenty teenagers in a classroom on Monday," he says. "Why did I think this was a good idea?"
"Because it is," says Derek, firmly. "You'll do great."
"I just think of me, back then, and wonder why anyone would want to teach anyone anything if – "
"You had a couple of other things going on."
"True."
"They'll like you," Derek says confidently.
"Ugh." Stiles scrubs his hands through his hair. "Here's hoping." He reaches over and steals Derek's beer. "I'm breaking the no beer rule," he says helpfully before he takes a long drink."
Derek watches him, smiling, which somehow manages to make Stiles drink more.
"Food's up!" says Stiles' dad, carrying plates, Melissa behind him with two more. "Who's hungry?"
"No one," Stiles says deadpan. "No one, dad. We're here for the post-dinner Wheel of Fortune marathon."
Melissa sets a plate in front of him, then clips him on the ear. "I'm not that old, yet," she says, and she's smiling, and she swoops in and grabs Emily out of Derek's arms. "Let's smother you in apple sauce," she says, and sets Emily in a high chair. "Bet you can get it everywhere."
Stiles groans faintly, and Derek takes his beer back before Stiles can have more.
They leave together, Stiles swinging the car seat in one hand. "That was good," he says, rubbing his belly contentedly. "I love Melissa."
"You love anyone who feeds you," Derek points out.
"True. I am in desperate flirty love with the Thai delivery dude," says Stiles, opening the back door of his car, lifting Emily to stow her inside. Emily throws her pacifier just as he does so, and Stiles blows a raspberry at her, bends to pick it up just as Derek does too. They narrowly miss knocking heads, but as they crouch with the pacifier between them, they're awfully damn close. Derek can't help but look at Stiles' lips, then at his eyes; he realizes Sties is studying his mouth. Something flips and swoops inside him as Stiles leans forward a little, and Derek follows suit.
But then Stiles springs back, stands up, starts to babble. "Wow," He says. "Wow, I was – I just – "
Derek stands feeling suddenly and unequivocally ill. "Hey, it's okay."
"No, no, it's not okay, it's not. I mean, I like you and – " Stiles waves a hand " – kissing you would be awesome, I'm pretty damn sure, but I . . . " He presses his lips together, looks honestly upset. "I can't. It's too soon. I still . . . "
"Love her," says Derek.
"Maybe. Sort of," says Stiles, and he frowns, looks away for a second. "I don't know. And I should know before I – before we . . . "
Derek takes a step back as if he can protect himself with distance. "You're right."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"Derek."
"It's fine, I understand," says Derek, and he takes another step back, then another. "I'll call you," he says, pulling his car keys from his pocket. "Or you can call me."
Stiles nods, looking unsure of himself. "Okay."
"Okay," says Derek and opens his car door, pauses to look over at Stiles one last time, gets into the car and quickly drives away.
-----
He doesn't call, and Stiles doesn't call him. Derek misses him so hard it's a constant ache in the pit of his stomach – he wants to hear about the first day of school, and the second, and the third; wants to know how Emily's doing at daycare; wants to see Amy when she comes into town. A few days becomes a week, a week becomes two. Derek feels like a coward, but can't bring himself to call, to go back to being friends when they came so close to starting something else.
It's Melissa who calls him in the end. "It's Emily," she says, her voice urgent, brisk. "She caught a cold, then she couldn't breathe."
Derek feels stupid, as if the news is traveling over a transatlantic wire. "You're calling from work?"
"They're here. She's fine now, she's fine," says Melissa. "They have her on a breathing treatment, she's doing great. But Stiles . . . "
Derek picks up his car keys from the kitchen counter, grabs his jacket and heaves open the door to the loft. "I'm on my way."
"Don't tell him I called you . . . "
"He's going to work it out."
"Which is fine. Just don't . . . bring it up, okay?" Melissa sighs at the other end of the phone. "Whatever happened between you, just work it out."
Derek doesn't really remember the drive to the hospital, hopes he didn't run any red lights. He finds Melissa at the ER desk, gets directions to the pediatric unit, jogs up the stairs and down the hall, finds room 216. He hesitates for just a moment before he opens the door, steps inside and sees Stiles looking wretched when he turns around.
Stiles stares at him. "How did you – "
Derek fixes him with a look.
"Melissa," Stiles nods. He closes his eyes, looking pained. Emily's behind him, tiny and still in her plexiglass crib, but her color's good and Derek can see the rise and fall of her chest. He startles a little when Stiles starts to speak again. "I wanted to call you."
"You should've."
"After what I said – "
"I would always have come."
Stiles nods once, jerkily, half turns toward Emily's crib then turns all the way back around, wraps himself around Derek in a hug.
Derek's hands know what to do before his brain does – one cups the back of Stiles' head, the other rests on his back. "It's okay," Derek whispers, holding on tight. "She's okay."
"Scared the shit out of me," Stiles mumbles into Derek's neck.
"Scared the shit out of me, too," Derek confesses, and Stiles laughs weakly, pulls back just a little. "I'm sorry," he says, and Derek wants to ask what for, but the expression on Stiles' face suggests he's sorry for everything, for things he has no cause to worry about.
Derek shakes his head. "Nothing to apologize for," he murmurs, and Stiles does something complicated with his face.
"Not here," Stiles says, looking at Derek's mouth again, "but later. Later I want – "
Derek knows all about want. "Okay," he nods.
"Come see Em," Stiles suggests, and he tugs on Derek's hand, brings him over to the crib so that Derek can touch her face, her legs.
"She'll be fine?" Derek asks, because his heart is trying to beat right out of his chest with everything he feels for this little girl.
"Completely fine," says Stiles. "She's just sleeping now – she's exhausted."
"Okay," says Derek. Stiles hasn't taken his hand back, and Derek tangles their fingers. "We're okay."
Stiles squeezes his hand and doesn't say anything more.
_____
Emily's released the next afternoon. Derek follows them back from the hospital, takes the diaper bag from Stiles' hands, closes the front door behind them once they're all inside. Emily gurgles happily in her car seat. "Ba!" she says with emphasis. "Ba ba ba."
"You," says Stiles, bending to unsnap her seatbelt, "have taken years off your daddy's life."
"Ba," grins Emily.
"And you'd never know she'd been sick," says Derek with no small amount of wonder.
Stiles straightens up with Emily on his shoulder; she promptly tries to crawl out of his arms. "Breathing treatments morning and night for a week."
Derek nods. "I know."
"But yeah . . ." Stiles sets her down on the living room carpet, lets her pick up her blocks and throw them around. "Look at her."
"I'm looking," says Derek.
Stiles nods, offers a lopsided smile. Derek half expects him to scuff his shoe. "Coffee?" he asks.
"Sure," says Derek, but he grabs hold of Stiles' arm as he passes, pulls him close and says, "Now?" while looking at his lips.
Stiles doesn't say a word, just leans in and kisses him, wraps his arms around Derek's shoulders and licks at his mouth with his tongue. Derek groans and kisses him back just as fervently, feels the heat of it the length of his spine, at his wrists, wherever Stiles decides to touch. It feels miraculous, Stiles' breath, Siles' body, and when they break apart they're breathless, Derek's whole world at a tilt. He darts a look at Emily, who's unconcernedly playing with a toy cow.
"You should stick around," says Stiles. "Stay for dinner."
"It's 1.30 in the afternoon," says Derek.
Stiles smiles at him. "I know."
_____
By the time Stiles puts Emily down, Derek's primed to climb out of his own skin with want. He meets Stiles at the bottom of the stairs, leans up to kiss him, savors the momentary difference in their height. "Think you could move so that I can – " Stiles moans a little when Derek kisses him again. "So that we – " Stiles manages " – can move this to the couch?"
Derek lets Stiles walk him backwards, nips at Stiles' ear as they awkwardly move through the house. "I have thought about this so many times," he whispers as Stiles pushes him to sit on the couch and crawls into his lap.
"How many," asks Stiles, cupping Derek through the front of his jeans.
Derek bucks his hips. "Can't count," he confesses, leaning in to lick a trail from Stiles' collarbone to his jaw.
"Like this?" Stiles asks, a little breathless, tipping Derek's face back to kiss him again.
"In my bed," Derek murmurs, and feels Stiles shiver against him. "In my shower."
Stiles groans and grinds down in Derek's lap. "Me too."
Derek slips his hands beneath Stiles' shirt. "You?" Stiles' muscles bunch and shift, warm skin against Derek's palms.
Stiles pulls off his shirt, lets it drop to the floor, and Derek mouths at a nipple, feels Stiles' twine his fingers in Derek's hair. "Oh god," Stiles manages, and his breath hitches and spills. "Yes. I've thought about this."
"You could've said," Derek offers, kissing a path to Stiles' other nipple, sucking on it gently as Stiles rocks in his lap.
"Shut up," Stiles says, laughing softly. "Just – shut up and let me . . ." He slides to the floor, runs his hands up the inside of Derek's thighs, thumbing his erection through the thick denim. He quickly disposes of Derek's belt, leans in and pushes up Derek's shirt, kisses Derek's navel and drags his lips down the trail of hair below it. His long, deft fingers unzip Derek's jeans, and Derek's so turned on he can feel the press of claws at his fingertips, the desperate urge to shift, a watering in his mouth.
He lets his head thud back against the couch. "Shit," he whispers, pulling himself back from the brink, lifting his hips so that Stiles can pull down his jeans and his shorts. Stiles hums, pleased, and sucks the tip of Derek's cock into his mouth, making Derek swear and his hips buck. "Tease," Derek manages, and that's when Stiles takes him in as far as he can, begins to suck in earnest, the tip of his tongue dragging along the underside of Derek's cock. Derek rocks into Stiles' mouth, feels heat pooling in his belly. He's still mostly dressed, and the feel of Stiles' warm, slick mouth around his dick while his t-shirt rides low across his belly is an unexpected contrast that sets a fire in his blood. Stiles presses two fingers behind Derek's balls, rubs the sensitive skin, and when Derek lifts his head to watch, he can see the hollow of Stiles' cheeks as he sucks, his swollen lips, and he moans, bucks, and comes.
Stiles sucks him until Derek pushes at his shoulders, until the sensation is too much. Derek pants dizzily as Stiles stands up and slips out of his jeans and shorts, as he crawls back into Derek's lap, his hard-on rubbing against Derek's belly, his shirt. "Come on," Stiles whispers, hands resting on the back of the couch, either side of Derek's head. Derek leans up to kiss him, hungry and grateful, then he licks his hand and wraps his fingers around Stiles' cock.
It doesn't take long – just long enough for Derek to catalog the noises Stiles' makes as he's coaxed toward an orgasm, the half-moans, the choked-off whimpers, the breathless groan when he finally spills. Stiles empties himself over Derek's hand, all over his shirt, and then slumps against him, breathing hard.
"That was great," Stiles mumbles into Derek's ear.
"Yeah, it was," Derek agrees, sweeping his hands down Stiles' back.
Stiles pushes up, sways just a little, still straddling Derek's thighs. "One of us is not nearly naked enough," he says as he steals a kiss from Derek's mouth, then another, and one more.
"I have this lap full of you," Derek offers.
"I can move," Stiles says. He kisses Derek again, hums a pleased, contented noise right into Derek's mouth.
"So move," says Derek as they pull apart, and regrets it as soon as Stiles stands. "A hand here?" Derek asks, still hobbled by his jeans and his shorts, and Stiles pulls him up, slips his hands beneath Derek's come-splattered shirt and tosses it aside, pushes Derek's jeans down his legs until he can kick them and his underwear away. Derek's throat catches as Stiles wraps an arm around his waist, as he presses his lips to the skin above Derek's heart.
"Come to bed," Stiles says softly, and Derek feels his heartbeat skip before it levels. "Stay with me."
Derek follows him upstairs, lets Stiles tug him across the bedroom and into bed. They lie down together, tangling their legs, exchanging small touches against the rumpled, white sheets.
"I'm glad," Stiles murmurs, tucking a hand against Derek's hip.
"For what?" Derek asks, thinking of all the things he's glad about, all the hidden thoughts that are soothed by the trust expressed in Stiles body curled up against his.
Stiles kisses his shoulder. "For this," he replies, and lays his head against Derek's arm, closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.
-----
The morning after is different from what Derek might have hoped. He wakes when Stiles sits up suddenly, tearing himself out of Derek's arms. "She's waking up," he says, which has to be some kind of sixth sense, because it's not until Stiles is pulling on pajama pants from the pile of laundry in the corner of the room that Emily actually cries.
Derek lies in the middle of Stiles' bed, listens to Stiles hushing Emily, talking sweetly about the prosaic need for a clean diaper, and maybe a bottle of milk at breakfast. He can't help but smile as he listens to Stiles carry on an imaginary conversation with his daughter; he eases himself out of bed and rummages for pajama pants, too.
He pads over to the nursery, leans in against the door. "Morning," he says.
Stiles finishes kissing the sole of Emily's foot. "Morning," he replies, and he smiles and blushes, too.
Derek feels his stomach pitch and right itself, and he grins. "Am I decent enough?"
Stiles transfers Emily to his shoulder, comes close enough to press a closed-mouthed kiss to Derek's lips. "I'll never think of you as decent again," he murmurs, and it's Derek's turn to flush.
"Ba!" says Emily, and she leans in, too, smacks her lips to Derek's cheek, and then her hand.
Derek takes her hand and kisses her fingers. "Morning, babycakes," he says very gently.
"Ba!" says Emily, looking from her dad to Derek and back again. She claps her hands. It looks like she approves.