Chapter Text
"Well, it was a beautiful service. I didn't know that's how they met."
"Oh, and that story about Paris?"
The group of Erica and Boyd's former neighbors stood close to the catering table, holding their plates and chatting quietly.
"What's gonna happen with the baby? Do we know?"
Diane waved her hand dramatically. "You didn't hear?"
"No."
"They named one of their friends. The single boy who bakes."
"And the super-hot one that always smells like, so good and sweaty," Ted added. "That guy."
"That's interesting."
"Melissa, thank you for being here, I couldn't have done it without you," Stiles smiled wearily at his best friend's mother. She had Emma seated on her lap, reading a children's book.
"You're welcome."
"Mind watching her for another minute? I gotta talk to Derek."
"Sure, okay. Your father said he'd bring us some of the delicious food, right little one?" she asked Emma, but the little girl was squirming, clearly uncomfortable in her dark grey dress.
"Thanks." He gestured for Derek to go with him. "There's a lot of them."
He nodded. "We just need to find one."
"So, I understand you're Vernon's second cousins?" Derek asked the married pair nonchalantly.
"Hey, don't climb that!" the man shouted at a five-year-old boy trying to scramble up the banister. "Who's that, Tyler?"
"Mason," his wife quietly corrected him.
"Mason, take a seat right now. Let's go." He turned to Derek. "Eight kids," he sighed.
"Eight kids? You guys have eight kids?"
"Nine, dear," the woman corrected him once again, looking somewhat embarrassed.
"Nine, right. Baseball team."
"I had to come, for Erica."
Stiles nodded, smiling softly at the dark-haired woman. "Yeah, thank you."
"And I was on tour through California, so..." she shrugged.
"Oh, on tour. Are you performing anywhere that I would know?"
"I'm dancing at Juggles tonight and then Bush League Thursday through Monday."
"Oh, how exciting. That's really exciting. Yeah." His eyes were already scanning the room for the next subject for his interrogation.
Stiles sat at the end of the couch next to Derek, Emma resting on the carpet, her back against his shins as she toyed with his shoelaces. "It's really good for Emma to get to see her grandfather."
"She looks just like Vernon," the man on the other couch gave them a small smile.
"I think she looks just like you," Derek stated.
"So, you have a house in Miami now?" Stiles asked, incessantly watching Emma as she crawled forward.
The man inhaled to speak but Derek beat him to it.
"Yeah, because we, you know, were hoping, given that Emma is your only grandchild, that-" he looked at Stiles who nodded encouragingly. "Well, it seems to make the most sense that you'd be-"
His words were cut short by a wheezing sound and Emma's excited squeal. Both her hands were firmly gripping onto the narrow plastic tube her grandfather needed to help him with his breathing.
"Oh, God!"
Both Stiles and Derek immediately rushed for them, Derek pulling the little girl to him while Stiles struggled to get the tube to the man's nostrils.
"I'm so sorry," he muttered. "You okay?" Emma's grandfather nodded. "Fine. Good as new!"
"Still breathing!" Derek waved the girl's hands in celebration.
"Yay!" Stiles mirrored the gesture with his own hands.
"Well, we could go with the nine-kids family," Derek said as he handed Stiles a beer. "I mean, they clearly know how to keep a child alive."
They both had lost their ties, jackets, and shoes, lying spread out on a sofa.
"The stripper seemed nice."
Stiles was silent, staring at the wall. He could feel Derek's gaze on him, but when he didn't say anything, the other man just sighed.
"Yeah." He took a sip. "And the grandpa's a definite no?"
Stiles nodded.
"We're screwed."