Chapter Text
Derek slumped onto the couch and Stiles promptly collapsed face down onto him. He let out a long low groan as Derek began to slowly rub his back.
“Why? Why did we agree to babysit all six of them?” Stiles said, the sound of his voice muffled by Derek’s leg. “And at our house? So it was a freaking sleep over? With all the freaking sleep over excitement.”
“Because we’re idiots?” Derek offered.
“Hey!” said Stiles. “Speak for yourself.”
“This was your idea,” said Derek, still bristling from being told that their house would be overrun that weekend with five kids between the ages of 2 and 7 years old, whether he wanted them there or not.
“I was being nice,” said Stiles flipped himself over so that his head was resting in his husband’s lap. “They all really wanted to go to the concert and I thought, ‘why shouldn’t they get to go?’ It’s not like they get to go out much anymore with work and the kids and life. None of us do really, not all together.”
“If you wanted to all go out together shouldn’t we have gone too?”
Stiles made a snort of derision.
“I love my friends but their taste in music sucks. Imagine Dragons? They’ve not had a decent album in years! You guys have fun listening to how the mighty have fallen. I’ll stay here, thanks.”
“With the hoard of rampaging kids?”
“With the hoard of rampaging kids.”
Derek’s fingers brushed Stiles’ hair idly, a movement so familiar that neither of them noticed it. Stiles closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the moment of peace before Princess Sara Whittemore stormed downstairs demanding juice or one of the McCall twins decided to wake the other up and begin screaming for their Mommy. Bed time had been hard work but the rest of the day had actually been a lot of fun. They’d taken the hoard out a little ways into the woods, showed them an abandoned rabbit warren and looked at bugs with a magnifying glass. When the heavens had decided to open on them they came back to the house and the kids ‘helped’ make pancakes. Stiles doubted they’d ever get all of the batter from out of the light fittings but the kids had enjoyed it. The storm was still raging outside and the sound of it through the house had scared them but somehow, by some miracle, they managed to get the five of them to sleep.
He thought back to Derek standing in the living room with a twin on his shoulders, Stiles couldn’t remember if it was Kurt or Ivan, galloping around so that the child squealed in delight. The others all clamoured for a go after that, even Veronica who was currently going through a phase of wanting to be more mature than she actually was purely because she was the oldest of the pack’s children. The children had adored Derek and he them, as he always had. The man Stiles was married to was very different to the man Stiles had met in the woods all those years ago. His husband laughed and told jokes, his husband was glad to be alive, his husband lived to help others and loved with a passion Stiles was glad to bear the brunt of. But Stiles had never seen Derek as joyful as he had been today, surrounded by a hoard of rampaging kids using him like a climbing frame. Even when he was wrestling TJ into his Spiderman pyjamas while being hit over the head with a story book, Derek had looked… at home.
“You were great with them,” said Stiles. “All of them.”
The words formed on the tip of his tongue, words that both of them had danced around since their wedding, since their engagement, since even before then. Questions that Stiles knew both of them wanted to ask, that neither could bring themselves to say right now but knew that they would, in time. When they were ready. Stiles had turned thirty that year and Derek was six years his senior. True, there was no biological imperative hanging over their heads so there was no rush but Stiles doubted that he was ever going to be any more ready than he was right now.
Derek’s eyes were beginning to close in exhaustion when Stiles let the words slip at last.
“You’d be a really great Dad.”
The fingers in Stiles hair stilled for a moment and Derek slowly opened his eyes, staring out blankly. He took a deep breath, returning to stroking Stiles’ hair.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Stiles pulled himself up so that he was sitting next to Derek on the couch. He took Derek’s left hand in his, twining their fingers together so that their wedding bands sat next to each other.
“I know you want kids Derek. I remember the day Erica told us she was going to have Veronica. You were so freaking happy. I don’t think you could have been happier if it had been our kid but when I raised the question of one day having our own, you shut down. Every time one of the pack announces a new baby is on the way you are even happier than the last time and we still don’t talk about it. You always shut down. You’re so goddamn happy but that doesn’t mean I don’t see how sad you are too. And I get it, I do, but I need to talk about it Derek. I need to at least know. Are we ever going to have kids of our own or are we always going to be Unky Stiles and Uncle Der?”
Derek rubbed his thumb along the white metal of their wedding rings. When he spoke there was a slight quaver in his voice.
“I have this image in my head,” he said, “of this perfect little girl. Our little girl, with dark hair, my eyes and your nose. She’s the most beautiful girl in the world.”
He trailed off. Stiles shuffled closer on the couch.
“Is it that we can’t have a kid… together that bothers you? Is that the problem?”
Derek shook his head sadly and leant over to nestle in the nook of Stiles’ shoulder.
“No, not really,” he said. “I don’t feel like I need to carry on the Hale family line or anything. The thing about pack is that the Pack is your family. Your pack is your legacy. Blood relation has nothing to do with that so I’ve never felt like I need to, I don’t know, carry on the Hale family name. It might be different for you, but I just… I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a stupid dream in my head.”
Stiles rubbed his cheek against the softness of Derek’s hair. He was beginning to go grey at the edges, the odd hair here and there amongst all the black. Stiles made jokes about old wolves getting kicked out the pack but he had to admit he did find the distinguished look hot as hell.
“I always thought that whole ‘passing on the family genes’ stuff was bullshit,” said Stiles. “You’re parents are the people that raise you. There are plenty of kids out there in the world that need homes. I was talking to Angela. She said when something bad happens to a pack, hunters or turf wars or whatever, there’s nearly always a kids gets left behind. They can’t just put them into foster care because they’re werewolves, what happens when they start shifting, so they have to find people who know about all this to take care of them. People like us.”
Derek twisted his head to look up at Stiles.
“You’ve always got to have a plan on your hands, don’t you? You’ve been really thinking about this for a while.”
“Not really,” Stiles admitted. “She came up to me and just said it. A small prod in the right direction. I think she wants to be a great aunt or whatever.”
Derek smiled before shaking his head and settling back down.
“What if next time we’re the pack that something bad happens to? What if they get left alone again? If you keep losing the people you love… it’s not good. Trust me.”
Werewolves healing may fix even the most horrendous wounds but it did nothing for scars below the surface. There were deep wounds in Derek’s mind that Stiles had learned would never heal.
“We’re the Beacon Hills Pack, Derek. No one’s messed with us in over a decade. You forget you’ve got me watching your back, Stiles Stilinski, supernatural police agent extraordinaire.”
“Stilinski-Hale,” Derek muttered quietly making Stiles laugh. “What if something happens to us at work though? Neither of us have particularly safe jobs.”
“Yeah, okay. One of us might get shot, or stabbed, or sacrificed to the great God Imhotep as part of a resurrection ceremony but you know what? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. So could you, though I think the bus might come off worse in that scenario. Bad stuff happens, there’s nothing that can stop that, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t be happy.”
“I’m not sure I get to be-”
“Oh my god, if you say ‘I’m not sure I get to be happy’ I will actually, literally punch you in the face right now. I don’t care if I break my hand doing it.”
Stiles sat forward looking at the half pinched laugh behind Derek’s lips. Oh for the love of… Stiles was pretty sure that they had a rule about Derek not being allowed to tell jokes because he wasn’t funny.
“Fine,” said Derek. “I get to be happy. I mean I am at the moment but I… I’m worried I’m going to screw up this tiny little person’s life.”
Stiles didn’t draw attention to the fact that Derek had said I’m going to rather than I could. He just filed it away in his brain and carried on.
“How exactly? By loving them to death? If there is one thing you know how to do, oh husband of mine, it’s how to love. You might not be able to talk about it and it might make you behave like a dumb ass sometimes but you love like no one I have ever known. You care about me and the pack and the kids. So we might screw up a couple of times but name me one parent who hasn’t. I know mine did, I’m sure yours did to.”
Derek looked across at him.
“You really want to do this don’t you?”
“Yeah. And so do you.”
Stiles could see the beginnings of a smile begin to trace along Derek’s lips. He could feel the hypothetical situation shifting into being a lot less hypothetical. He lifted their hands to his lips, kissing their alternating knuckles.
“So, in this picture in your head,” said Stiles, “is there just one little girl? No sister? No strapping young boy you can play catch with on the weekend?”
Derek raised an eye brow at Stiles.
“I can play catch with a daughter, Stiles. It’s not like it’s physically impossible to play catch if you have a vagina.”
Stiles slapped him on the arm.
“You know what I mean! I want to know all about this family of ours you’ve been hiding in your head.”
Derek rolled his head and then pulled Stiles in close to him again.
“We have three kids. You’re Daddy and I’m Papa. Oh and we have a dog. Probably a Great Dane because they don’t mind werewolves so much. Our youngest girl is called Laura. She totally takes after her namesake, a complete trouble maker and you always have to watch out for her. The middle is our son, Rafe, who is always reading twelve books at once like you and the oldest is another girl, who was going to be called TJ but we’ll have to rethink that now Erica and Boyd have stolen it.”
Stiles looked at Derek. How could he have had this whole life planned out in his head and Stiles not know a single detail of it? He wanted to know everything about it. He wanted to know all about the birthday parties Derek had imagined, the first bike rides, the Christmases, all of it.
“What was TJ going to stand for,” he asked.
“Talia-Jane,” said Derek.
Both of their mother’s names twisted together. Stiles choked back a sob.
“And I’m the one making plans? You’ve been putting all that together without me knowing.”
“Yeah. Guess I kinda have.” Derek turned to Stiles, lit with hope. “Let’s just do it.”
“Seriously,” Stiles baulked. “That’s how we decide to have kids. Let’s just do it?”
“You got a better plan?”
“No. No I really do not. Okay then. Let’s just do it. Let’s… get ourselves a baby, Papa.”
Derek kissed Stiles, holding him tightly and clinging on in affirmation. The two of them fell backwards, lying across the couch. Stiles knew that they had a long road ahead of them, that it wasn’t as simple as just ‘getting ourselves a baby’ but it was a start. Together he and the man he loved were going to have a family. They were going to raise a child, perhaps several, and all was well in the…
It came as a blistering lance through his body, the great, sudden sense of wrongness. Stiles jerked sideways, doubled over in pain as he sprawled himself across the floor. He could feel Derek’s hand upon his back, coaxing him through whatever brand of vision was currently ripping through him.
“Something changed,” said Stiles. “Something… Something happened. Random. Unpredictable but… oh god. It’s wrong, it’s so very, very wrong.”
Stiles managed to stagger over to the waste bin before he threw up. Derek handed him a glass of water. It washed away the taste of bile, but there was something else left behind. A bitter taste, a physical manifestation of whatever great ill had happened in the world.
“What’s wrong?” Derek asked.
“I don’t know,” said Stiles, “but I think it’s something close to us. Something personal.”
Derek’s phone trilled.
“Answer it,” Stiles said hoarsely.
Derek answered and Stiles could hear Isaac’s voice on the other end of the line. He was shouting, panicked and unsettled as Derek tried to calm him down enough to find out what happened. All Stiles could make out were the names Boyd and Erica and the same phrase repeated over and over.
“Dead, Derek. Oh god, I think they’re dead. They’re dead. He’s dead. Boyd’s dead.”
Stiles eyes were drawn towards the door to the hallway where he could see TJ standing, his stuffed toy dragging on the floor. He must have been woken by the noise of Stiles realising something terrible had happened to his parents.
“What’s wrong Unky Stiles?” he said.
Stiles could only hear Derek’s half of the conversation but he didn’t even need to see his face to realise that the worst had happened.
“Nothing,” said Stiles walking towards TJ, scooping him up and hugging him close as he carried him. “Go back to bed. Everthing’s going to be okay.”
He ventured one last glance back at Derek, slumped against a wall in shock. Derek looked up at him and Stiles knew without doubt that everything was not going to be okay. It was probably never going to be okay ever again.