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Derek can hear barking.
He doesn't own a dog.
No one in his building owns a dog.
This is a pet-free building.
He should not be hearing barking.
Tilting his head and straining his hearing, Derek figures it sounds like the barking is out in the hallway. And coming closer to his apartment. Slightly apprehensive, he puts down the dish he'd been cleaning and goes over to his door to investigate.
He opens the door slightly and peeks his head out. He quickly spots Stiles and Scott heading towards him, walking quickly and making shushing noises at the wriggling lump under Stiles' hoodie.
Derek opening his door must catch Stiles' attention because he looks up from his hoodie and spots him.
"Oh good, you're home!" He says.
"Please tell me I'm not going to regret that," Derek says. A door opening down the hall has Stiles and Scott hurrying towards Derek, who moves out of the way to let him in once they reach his door. Derek closes and locks the door behind them all before turning to the other two men.
"Explain," he says. Scott reaches under Stiles' hoodie and pulls out a wriggling Golden Lab puppy. He presents it to Derek while Stiles makes jazz hands at it.
"Ta-dah!" He sing-songs. Derek stares. The puppy yips.
"Why do you have a puppy?" Derek asks.
"It's actually a funny story, really," Stiles says.
"Oh, Jesus," Derek sighs. "Hold on." He moves past Stiles and Scott, giving the puppy a brief pat as he goes, and drops down on the couch. He waves a hand at Stiles to continue.
"So Jackson Whittemore, right?" Stiles says. Derek drops his face in his hands and groans. "I feel I should be offended at how little faith you have in me, dude."
"Stiles, sweetheart, love of my life," Derek says, voice muffled in his hands. "I have seen you and Jackson in action. I'd have to be an idiot to not immediately start expecting red flags when you start a story with 'So, Jackson Whittemore'."
"Okay, fair," Stiles says. "But listen, though." The couch shakes as Stiles jumps onto the cushion next to Derek's, and then he's crawling into Derek's lap. Derek loops his arms around Stiles' waist to keep him from tipping over backwards. Scott, puppy still in his arms, takes a seat in the spare armchair.
"In Stiles' defense," he says, "everything about this is above-board."
"I find that hard to believe, but alright," Derek says.
"Rude," Stiles says with a light smack to Derek's shoulder. "So, anyway, Jackson wanted to get Lydia a puppy for their anniversary."
"I thought she didn't want another dog?" Derek asks. He'd heard through Stiles, not being particularly close to Jackson or Lydia himself, that Lydia hadn't shown any interest in replacing her dog Prada, who'd been hit by a car a few years ago.
"She doesn't," Stiles says. "There was a bit of a misunderstanding, but Jackson only found that out after he paid for the dog."
"Of course," Derek says.
"It turns out that he couldn't just bring the dog back," Scott jumps in. "The breeder, or whoever, wouldn't return the money or take the dog."
"I feel like that particular aspect of things might not have been above-board," Stiles says.
"Definitely not," Derek says. "So where do you two come into all of this?"
"Jackson came by our place and dumped the dog on us," Scott says. "Like, ten minutes ago. It is now officially our problem."
"What did he expect you two to do with it?" Derek asks. "Unless you're both running an animal shelter out of your basement that I don't know about."
"Tempting, but no," Stiles says. "You'd be the first person we told. I think we're the only people he knows that he could dump this on and not go directly to Lydia to tattle on him."
"And how long did it take Scott to convince you to not immediately go to Lydia to tattle on him?" Derek asks, arching an eyebrow.
"It took him about five minutes to think to use the puppy as a bribe," Stiles says. Derek looks past Stiles to the puppy sitting in Scott's lap. It seems to feel Derek's attention on him and lets his tongue flop out happily. Derek looks back to Stiles.
"When you say bribe..." He says.
"He very helpfully pointed out to me that if I never mention anything about this to anyone ever again, no one could take this technically abandoned puppy away from me should I decide to keep it," Stiles says.
"We all know Lydia doesn't want a dog, and Jackson pretty much dumped this one in our laps," Scott says. "He needs a home."
"Okay, so why bring it here then?" Derek asks.
"Well, Derek," Stiles says. "You may have noticed that our apartment is not entirely pet-friendly." Scott and Stiles have shared a cheap apartment since they started college. Dubbing it 'not entirely pet-friendly' is putting it lightly. The place is barely even people-friendly. Derek spent the night once and then never set foot in it again. He's not sure how Stiles and Scott stand it, though Stiles does tend to spend most of his time either at the college, the library where he works, his father's house, or Derek's apartment.
"I definitely have noticed that," Derek says. "And I'm sure you've noticed that my building doesn't allow pets."
"I have, it's a travesty," Stiles says. "So that's why I've been thinking... Scott and I's lease is up at the end of the month, and he's moving in with Allison so we aren't renewing."
"Really?" Derek asks, looking over at Scott. Scott shrugs his shoulders and smiles goofily.
"Really," Stiles says. "I was thinking that we... you and me could live together? With the dog?" Derek blinks dumbly at Stiles, mouth dropping open.
"My building still doesn't allow pets," he says.
"I know," Stiles says. His cheeks are bright red but he's still looking Derek straight in the eye. "I mean in a completely different place. We can go look for one together? Ourselves? Maybe not, like, an actual house or anything. But a nice apartment? That takes pets?"
"I... yes? Yes, definitely, let's do that," Derek says. Stiles' apartment is a shithole, Derek's own apartment is nice but he's not particularly attached to it (certainly not as attached as he is to Stiles). Honestly, going apartment-hunting with Stiles sounds like a great idea. He has a brief fantasy of what it would feel like to wake up next to Stiles every morning, maybe with the dog lying across the foot of the bed, a shaft of sunlight peeking in through the curtains to provide mood lighting.
It's a nice image.
It's a nice image that disappears when Stiles lurches forward and seals his lips over Derek's. Which brings up some images that are a different kind of nice.
Nice, and definitely not appropriate thoughts to be thinking when Scott and a puppy sitting not even two feet away and watching. Derek separates his lips from Stiles' and is rewarded with a blinding smile.
"Aww," Scott says. His eyes are shut and he has one hand over the puppy's eyes. "That’s adorable. You, like, house-proposed with a puppy."
"Hell yeah I did," Stiles says. "And he said yes!" He swivels around to do a fist-pump in Scott's direction and nearly topples from Derek's lap. The puppy yips.
(And when Derek marriage-proposes a few years later it's by handing Bucket – no longer a puppy at this point – over to Stiles with a ring hanging from his collar.)
(He's the ring bearer at their wedding.)