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“Fuck, Derek, please, oh my god, it’s your turn, please.”
It’s in the middle of the night when Derek is woken not only by the sound of Stiles whimpering at him from where he’s tucked halfway underneath his armpit, but also by the sound of a three month old baby crying. In his sleep drugged state, he can’t tell the difference between the two of them, but instinct tells him to take care of both of them.
He rumbles as he lifts himself up from bed and pulls his legs out of the tangle of sheets to sit up, Stiles burying himself at once in the warm spot he leaves behind.
It most certainly is not his turn to answer Milo’s call as he was up for most of the previous night with the baby. He’d been gassy, and fussy, and Derek’s favorite shirt had suffered the consequences, and he’d finally gotten Milo to sleep by placing him on his chest while he camped out on his back on the couch watching television until three in the morning because he was not going to risk waking him up just to move back to his own bed. It’s not his turn. But Stiles’ whimpering is so damn pathetic that whatever argument he had forming dies on his lips and he resigns himself to the task.
The loft is completely silent save for the shrill cries of the tiny figure residing in the nursery room adjacent to their bedroom. In the months preceding the baby’s arrival, Derek had devoted countless hours to fixing up the hole in the wall to make it more presentable, made an actual room and left the decorating up to Stiles when he was finished. He hadn't been able to get a word out of Stiles during the nine months of planning and then waiting that wasn't about color schemes and wallpaper - the walls were painted a lily pond blue color, the trim and ceiling an off-white, and little yellow duck patterns had been painted on - courtesy of Lydia, who looked fashionable even while wearing stretchy pants and a messy bun with yellow flecks up her arms and her hand balled into the small of her back.
The door to the nursery hasn’t been completely shut since it started housing the infant, and from the wide gap that allows him a peek inside, he can see Milo lifting his tiny arms into the air from his crib as if he knows his daddy is coming for him.
Derek pushes open the door, already a feeling of paternal gentleness settling over him and replacing his irritability. He duly reminds himself that he signed up for this long in advance, but moon help him he was going to die if he didn’t get a full night’s sleep soon.
He stands beside the veritable baby cage and peers in at the inhabitant. A small grin flickers to his lips when he sees beady almost-yellow eyes looking back up at him, tiny pink lips forming an O of surprise at seeing him. Milo won’t get anything changing but his eyes for a long while, which saves them the trouble while being out in public. Derek hadn’t grown into his own fur until he was over a year old, which gives them time to savor the freedom of exposure. But Stiles practically coos whenever he sees Milo behaving anything like Derek, from the firm pout of his lips when he was grumpy to the way he grabbed for Stiles whenever he was crying, and when his eyes had first glinted gold and bright, Derek had been forced to intervene after the dozenth picture had been taken and nearly blinded the kid. “It’d work better if you didn’t use the flash.” He’d said as patiently as he could while holding Milo at a safe distance from Stiles and his phone.
Now, Derek has the time to appreciate the sight without Stiles’ fawning, not that he doesn’t find it endlessly amusing, but Derek’s always been the quiet-preferred kind of person. Judging by how Milo’s cries have stilled, that’s one more thing the baby seems to have adopted from him.
“Baby, you’re killing your daddy here.” Derek murmurs down at him. The light beaming across the room from the Star Wars night light Stiles had placed in (the nursery was crowded with little pop culture things, clashing with the gender neutral duck theme, yet somehow making the room feel less new and more warm and homey) the corner atop the dresser makes Milo’s eyes seem brighter, gives them a luminescent quality not unlike a werewolf’s. It blends in so well with the natural golden brown of his eyes that you’d have to know what to look for to see it. It’ll get brighter as he gets older, and one day his eyes will glow all on their own.
Milo only gurgle-growls at him, unaware or unconcerned with the fact that he’s making life difficult for the adults in the house.
Derek bends down and lifts Milo from the crib, straight into the cradle of his arms, and Milo falls into place at once, staring up at Derek and making gurgling hiccups now that the need to bawl isn’t so great. If there was anything the kid could have taken from Stiles, it was definitely his attitude.
“You’re gonna be a tough teenager, aren’t you.” Derek rumbles while he pads towards the kitchen, lightly bouncing Milo along the way. He doesn’t say it like he’s not looking forward to it.
He’s got the routine down at least, unlike the first few days when he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, even if he’d spent a solid month reading the dozens of books Stiles had brought home about baby care. He gets a bottle from the dish rack, the baby milk from the fridge where it’s still defrosting, holds the bottle under the hot tap to warm it up before he pops the nipple into Milo’s mouth, and then they’re set. Milo takes to it immediately, and Derek chuckles at the hungry suckling sounds coming from his son.
It’s been hard. Of course it has. Especially between Stiles and himself. They’re depending on each other to do this right so much that sometimes it’s hard to be in the same room without wanting to argue for the sake of arguing whenever Milo is asleep or in someone elses arms, over the simplest of things. They’ve argued about baby outfits until Stiles was practically whisper-screaming in his face that “Blue is not an everyday color, Derek!” and Derek whisper-growled back, “I’m not putting the kid in fake jeans!” and they’d both stared each other down, chests heaving, until they’d both cracked and couldn’t stop laughing, until Derek had been dragged into a kissing battle that he didn’t ever want to stop.
Intimacy has been even harder between them. Not in that it was hard to be intimate; the fire between them is as strong as it ever has been. Only it’s been hard to catch a moment to fan the flames when there’s a baby between them. And when they do have it, when John or Scott comes to take the baby for the day to give them a respite, they always seem to spend most of it sleeping, or at most lazily fucking each other and trying to remember where one body stopped and the other began.
But it's been incredibly easy, too.
And Derek knows Stiles is happy. He can smell it all the time coming from him in soft waves that makes Derek’s head spin in the same instant that it makes him feel warm from head to toe. In fact, he’s smelled happiness on Stiles almost constantly over the last thirteen years that they’ve been together, stronger since they’ve been married, and even stronger and deeper now that they’ve started a family. Stiles is so happy and he doesn't hesitate to tell Derek, doesn't hesitate to kiss him breathless when he's bouncing Milo around the kitchen in arms that aren't as clumsy as they used to be, a smile so wide and genuine on his lips that Derek can never really catch his breath quick enough to answer.
Once, Derek walked in from buying groceries to hear Stiles humming to Milo as he padded around barefoot in the nursery, and he'd stood outside after depositing the bags quietly in the kitchen to listen, and had been stilled by the familiar words to their wedding song.
"Take my hand,
take my whole life, too.
But I can't help,
falling in love with you."
He'd listened for as long as he could to the timber rich sound of Stiles singing before stepping inside, feeling a funny sensation in his chest that he didn't think he'd ever be able to describe, and Stiles had been happy then as he'd turned to him, smiling wider.
So yes, Stiles is happy.
And Derek…
Derek has never been happier in his life.
It’s not just happiness, however, that makes his feet fall still in their path from the kitchen towards the couch. It’s not just happiness he feels roiling in his chest as he looks down at his infant son.
Derek has the thought, maybe for the first time in his life since the fire all those years ago, that he's where he belongs.
It’s been some time since he felt like running. Like he needed to run to escape what Beacon Hills and Stiles made him feel - trust, love, stability. It’s been some time since he’s felt like the world was going to be ripped from under his feet if he stood in one place for too long and let his guard down. He’s had his guard down for years now, and it doesn’t feel at all like he’s going to fall. He feels like he’s cemented in place, he feels like he’s home, and god he doesn’t want it to ever go away. He’ll fight anyone that ever threatens to take it from him, but mostly he’ll fight himself if he ever feels like running again.
Derek’s feet move again, spurred on by the heavy droop in Milo’s eyes, but this time he turns towards his and Stiles’ bedroom, grabbing a pacifier from the baby bag on the way.
Stiles is still asleep, but he wakes slightly at the dip in the mattress from Derek sinking into it. A lazy smile lifts his lips, and he turns onto his side to welcome baby beside him, Derek curling up on the other side. It isn’t long before both of them are falling asleep, Derek dutifully watching over them.
Milo's pacifier falls from his mouth as he shifts, and Derek quickly rescues it and pushes it back in place before he can start fussing and wake up again. It’s calm and quiet once more in their home. Their home.
Looking at Milo, his tiny round face gradually smoothing out in peace, and then turning his gaze up at Stiles in a mirror reflection of their son, both of them fast asleep without a single care in the world, Derek knows it never will go away, this feeling of warm content. This is where he needs to be.