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–
It all starts when Stiles trips on a rock in the forest.
As always, Derek is the one walking closest to him and he manages to catch him by the collar of his shirt, using a combination of werewolf reflexes and years of knowing Stiles.
Stiles hangs in the air for a second before Derek shoves him back on his feet, Stiles swearing colorfully at the rock the whole way up. The rest of the pack keeps gossiping about the new restaurant in town, walking away from them both without a look backward.
All in all, it’s a Monday as usual.
Until the rock at their feet swears back.
Well, squeaks. In an angry way.
Derek looks down at the very boring, big, grey rock that tried to break Stiles’ neck. The rock looks back with one tiny, golden, disturbingly-out-of-place eye.
“That’s one creepy rock,” Stiles whispers from the corner of his mouth, not breaking the staring contest.
Derek comes from a long line of supernatural predators. Somehow, it didn’t prepare him in any way for a rock that stares. The urge to simply kick it away and deny ever seeing it is hard to fight down.
They stay there in silence for what feels like hours. The rock squeaks again and keeps watching them.
“This is horrifying,” breathes Isaac, first one to finally turn back to look for them. Behind him, Boyd hums in uneasy agreement.
Surprisingly, the eye in the rock doesn’t look at them, only focused on Stiles and Derek.
Derek steps to the side to test it. The eye starts jumping left and right between Stiles and him, again and again and again. Somehow, it’s even more unnerving than the staring, so Derek moves back closer to Stiles.
“What. The fuck.” Jackson’s breathes, face all crunched up. Scott is silent but almost vibrating in his curiosity.
A sudden noise makes them all jump up. Weird as it is, it looks like the rock just sneezed. Smoke surrounds it quickly, lazy curls obscuring their view of the ground.
After only a few seconds of weird special effects, the air takes a hazy, purple quality and small cracking noises roll off the smoke, like the sound of broken twigs or bones. They all step back as one in precaution.
The smoke clears, crawling slowly over tree trunks and the moss, as if reluctant to go. It reveals a small crater of burned leaves and blackened earth in front of their feet and, in the middle of it, a now half-burned rock.
Well. Half-burned egg.
“Is that… a worm?” Asks Erica, frowning.
The thing still stuck in the shell is kind of sausage shaped, blue grey and covered by a gelatinous substance that apparently filled the egg. Its snout is long in a round face, adorned with tiny brightly pink scales sprinkled all over his body. Flopping out on the side of the egg, a very wet wing stirs up the dirt. It’s all leather and bones, like a bat’s, and too small to be of any use.
The thing starts feebly wiggling, trying to squirm out of the egg. With only one very short and pudgy leg out, the efforts are pathetic looking. It’s also still staring straight at Derek and Stiles, now with two round golden eyes.
“You’re magnificent,” breathes Stiles, immediately kneeling close to the lizard-rock-potato hybrid.
The thing starts wiggling harder, trying to reach him. A big piece of eggshell sticks to its neck, half blinding it when it turns its head too quickly. Stiles coos and, like the crazy person he is, gets it off.
The thing drools cheerfully and droplets hit the ground with a hissing noise, the few leaves left melting and the earth sizzling.
So, the lizard-rock-potato spits acid. Marvelous.
Derek hates Mondays.
“We have to keep it!” Stiles yelps, looking at the still foaming happy face then up at Derek with his own pair of big, golden eyes.
These particular eyes, Derek doesn’t know how to say no to.
–
So apparently, the lizard-rock-potato thing is what dragons look like in the real world.
Derek should remember that the universe likes to disappoint him in numerous and creative ways.
Based on Deaton’s words, it could be a male, due to the violently pink color dotting his scales.
Adult, it should reach the size of an extremely muscular moose with a wingspan longer than a truck and acid corrosive enough to devour concrete. It could be as intelligent as humans, could use basic magic and live for more than two centuries.
There is a distinct lack of helpful, reliable facts in Deaton’s explanations, which is apparently to be expected when people happen to trip and get imprinted on by a member of an extinct species.
Derek blames Stiles entirely.
Deaton gifts them both with a pot of magically enhanced burn salve before leaving with a placid smile, at peace with the uselessness of his intervention.
Stiles and Derek are left alone with the bewildering task of co-parenting the most destructive reptile on the continent –Jackson included— and no idea on how to proceed.
Derek decides to make coffee, because everything looks brighter from the other side of a rush of caffeine, even for werewolves.
Derek loses half of his coffee machine when the dragon decides to lick the shiny metal. There is now melted coffee machine all over Derek’s nice new kitchen counter.
Derek should be sad, or mad, but the baby dragon is ridiculously awkward and it wobbles when it walks.
Derek can’t be mad at something that wobbles.
Also, three scales on the top of its head are now raised up in alarm and Derek wants to pet them back.
“I shall call him Ender-of-Worlds,” Stiles declares pompously, after a long moment of silence.
Liquid coffee machine is now dripping steadily on the kitchen tiles. The baby creature is pawing at Derek’s sleeve, looking up at him with big bright eyes.
“So, what? Andy for short?” Asks Derek, distracted.
He puts the baby dragon slowly on the floor, trying to avoid any unnecessary release of acid. Once on the ground, it stumbles decidedly in Stiles’ direction, its little butt with the tiny scales and the small tail wiggling in the air.
“Yep,” Stiles nods, staring at the dragon with obvious adoration. Newly minted Andy slows down when he has to negotiate the transition from tiled floor to carpet to reach Stiles. The tiny claws immediately get stuck in the fibers and it whines, worried. “Andy! Come here!” Stiles calls, voice overly enthusiastic and kneeling on the floor to distract the baby dragon from its impending melt down.
Andy drools in happiness and jumps on Stiles.
And misses, muscle control still hazardous only few hours after hatching.
Derek loses a carpet and an inch of floor in the process. Stiles has to tear his shirt off in a hurry to avoid being burnt by the flying drops of acid.
Somehow, Derek is pretty ok with it.
–
Stiles announces to his father that he’s leaving home and moving in with Derek without even raising his nose from where he’s nuzzling Andy’s belly.
The look the Sheriff sends in Derek’s direction is a monologue in itself. One that somehow implies that Derek is a bad boy wrapped in leather that coerced the Sheriff’s poor underage son into raising a child out of wedlock.
Which is all kinds of awkward since Stiles is twenty-two, the baby can chew through steel and Derek would propose in a heartbeat if he’d any chance at all with Stiles.
None of his answers would really help the situation, so Derek only lowers his head in penitence and carries the closest box to the guest room upstairs.
Stiles takes to his new home and their cohabitation like a duck to water, spreading his smell and things all over the house. Derek is luckily distracted from the madness of it all by the difficult process of organizing their life around what is basically a tube filled with acid and opinions.
Lots and lots of opinion. Most of them on the subject of Derek or Stiles leaving Andy’s very limited field of vision; a few others on raw chicken and baths.
At first, they try to use safety gates to contain Andy, but they quickly grow tired of wiping off melted plastic from every corner of the house.
After a few days of their home filled with toxic melted plastic fumes, they finally admit that the easiest and least destructive way of moving around is by carrying him.
They fall into a routine, each of them swiping the little dragon from any surface he happens to be on when they have to leave the room, his body stuck under one armpit, butt and head hanging down limply in the air. They pass him from hands to hands through the day, Andy looking like this is the best thing to ever happen to him the whole time.
In the evenings, they sprawl together on the couch, Andy wrapped in towels between them to limit any acid-related accident. He always falls asleep belly up, snoring lightly.
Derek had no idea supernatural creatures could come in this flavor of disgrace.
Derek loves this stupid baby so much he would kill anybody even hinting at taking him away from them.
–
The first few weeks of the Stiles-and-Andy chapter of Derek’s life are spent scooped inside together, the dragon too anxious for them to leave behind and obviously impossible to explain to random strangers.
Their days are similar to those of a young couple with their newborn, all panic, sleepless nights and almost constant physical contact.
It does things to Derek’s head.
Things that are not helped by the soothing cadence of Stiles’ babble in the night, the smooth line of his neck draped against the back of the couch or the warmth of his body, standing too close in the kitchen waiting for their morning coffee around the new machine.
Stiles the Asshole has always been beautiful to Derek.
Soft Stiles is a whole new level of excruciating, and may honestly be a little too much to bear some days.
He’s sure that the Sheriff knows, because he’s stopped sending Derek looks during his numerous visits, and started to send new ones Stiles’ way.
Derek has no idea what these looks mean, but since they make Stiles break eye contact and fiddle with anything in reach, Derek usually prefers to leave the room in self-protection.
The rest of the pack visits them almost daily, invading their house in their usual chaos of laughs and bickering. Andy likes to run toward the door when he hears the commotion, only to rush back to them when the pack actually towers over him.
He likes them all, but he’s still shy and wary of anyone who isn’t Derek, Stiles or –in a lesser extent—the Sheriff.
Still, the pack brings food, distraction and new bundles of cheap clothes to replace their ever-melting wardrobes.
Stiles makes stripper jokes and learns to tear his shirts off in less than four seconds.
Derek fails to learn to tear his eyes away from him in less than three.
–
They are nearing Andy’s second month when things slowly change.
On a Sunday, Andy starts using his wings. They are still ridiculously undersized for him, unable to carry his weight. Still, he can hover, his back bowed in the air, legs and tail dragging on the floor.
It gets him from one furniture to another, even if Stiles and Derek spend the first few times crouching on the floor with their hands under him just in case.
On a Tuesday, he tries to vocalize. His vocal cords are nothing much yet, and may not be able to form words for years, but he doesn’t let that fact stop him from expressing his thoughts.
Stiles is now a high, excited “tiiiii” hissed between small teeth while Derek is a rumbling sort of a purr, all “r” from deep inside his chest. Food is a series of clicks mimicking the noise of cutlery in a drawer and wanting to be carried is an adamant “Meep”. The Sheriff, Andy’s favorite human outside of Stiles, is now named “Po”, which the Sheriff accepted with a hug and not a look back for his slightly melting jacket.
They answer all of his babblings very seriously, and soon the meals turn into a mess of half-cut sentences, crackles of various noises and laughs.
On a Friday, Stiles finds an old Scottish witch specialized in familiars online.
The package she sends arrives the next week, Stiles thanking the delivery man while trying to keep an excited Andy hidden behind the door with the tip of his socked foot.
Inside, they discover a powdered blue collar and pages of various spells.
Derek knows he should be grateful, and he’s somehow eager to get out again. But he can’t help being a tiny bit disappointed. He doesn’t want to share Stiles back with the rest of the world. He’s ashamed of himself.
So Derek forces a smile on his face and watches Stiles close the enchanted collar around Andy’s neck.
The next instant, the awkwardly shaped reptile on their coffee table turns into what looks like a hairily challenged poodle, with body proportions that are just a tiny bit wrong.
Stiles is proud. Derek is torn.
Still, they decide to go to the market, because it’s a beautiful day and Andy is always in need of more meat.
In the market, people stare immediately at them and their weird dog. Derek can hear the whispers, catch the double takes. Some kids even elbow each other and point in their direction.
But Andy is busy observing everything with round eyes, his head turning left and right furiously as if afraid to miss anything.
Stiles carries him in the crook of his arm, making him smell anything that catches his fancy, leaving Derek to pay for the fruits Andy decides to take a bite off of.
The sun is high, the sky blue with only a few clouds. While they wait for the butcher to give them their four chickens, Stiles leans against Derek’s side and Andy mouths at Derek elbow.
The fabric smokes a little and Stiles pats him down with a laugh.
Derek leans back and smiles.
–
On their pack’s first full moon run since Andy’s arrival, the baby dragon categorically refuses to let Derek go.
They try to explain to him that his legs are too short for him to run with them and that Derek can’t carry him the whole run, but Andy only gets grumpier and grumpier.
They lose a chair, two shirts, a pair of gloves and the bottom of their front door in the temper tantrum before Derek accepts that this is not a fight they’ll win.
A surprised but amused Sheriff arrives to the house only forty-five minutes later, a dusty box in his hands.
Derek get harnessed by Stiles without a word, trying not to glance at Stiles’ delicious smile from up-close, nor at Jackson laughing so hard he has to rest against the nearest tree.
When they are finally ready, Andy is bundled securely against his chest in Stiles’ old baby sling, several washcloths wrapped around his snout to limit any flying acid.
Stiles takes all the pictures, muttering all along, his hands flailing uselessly around Derek’s torso as if unsure of what to do with them.
–
Peter comes back unexpectedly when Andy is only three months old. Derek is cooking, and he can see from the kitchen the smirk forming on his uncle’s lips when he opens the door to a house drenched in Stiles’ scent.
Derek growls, instinctive and protective, and puts the bowl down forcefully on the kitchen counter.
Andy jumps from the table, wings batting frenetically in the air before landing awkwardly. He waddles quickly toward the hallway, tiny claws clicking on the tiles.
He raises his big, golden eyes toward Peter for one second then bites him, his jaw now big enough to engulf Peter’s entire ankle.
The teeth and acid go so deep in Peter’s leg that it takes him five hours to heal and he has to be sent to Deaton.
Stiles laughs so hard he cries, and he cradles Andy to his heart for the rest of the afternoon.
Derek goes out to the overpriced farmer market to buy some Kobe beef.
–
“My dad thinks I should make an honest man out of you,” Stiles declares without warning, a few days before Andy’s fourth month.
They are sprawled on the couch, Stiles mostly on Derek and Andy splayed on the small of Stiles’ back. It’s getting late and Derek has been thinking of going to sleep for the last half-hour but has been unable to tear himself away from Stiles’ heat.
His brain is listing once again all the reasons preventing him from petting Stiles’ hair, so it takes him a few seconds to change gear.
“…what?” he croaks, voice breaking.
Stiles doesn’t raise his head, but Derek can feel his foot batting against the armrest, betraying his agitation.
“Well, you have to understand my father. His only son has been living with you for months now, and we are raising a small creature of darkness together,” Stiles continues, trying for lightness but stumbling into nerves.
Said creature of darkness snores happily on Stiles’ back. Stiles’ fingers tap a nervous rhythm against Derek’s left pectoral.
“Your fath—Stiles. What are you saying?” Derek lowers his head, trying to catch his eyes. It sounds like everything Derek never even dared hoping for, despite their recent weeks spent in domestic bliss.
Stiles breathes deeply, ribcage expending against Derek’s, his heartbeat racing in his ears.
“This is important to me,” Stiles says finally, voice stripped raw and eyes still lowered. He moves his chin delicately, the small movement somehow encompassing the whole room around them.
The TV is on low on the new episode of their TV show and there are three plates piled up on the coffee table from their dinner. Andy’s toys littered the floor, all of them half-destroyed despite being imbued with protective magic. There is a picture of Claudia and John in a frame next to the picture of the pack on the full moon. In their bookcase, Derek’s novels share space with Stiles’ Sci-Fi adventures. They bought the afghan draped on the couch together just three weeks ago. They both wear socks and shirts that came from the same packaged bulk.
“You are very important. And I’m okay with things as they are, I am,” Stiles continues, “I like my life right now. I would spend the next months or years exactly like we did, and I’d wake up just as happy every single morning. But I don’t know. I guess I just—I wanted you to know that the offer was on the table? Just in case you, you know. Wanted it. One day.”
“Offer?” Derek parrots, because this is too much information and emotions for what was supposed to be one of his usual night of bad TV and silent pining.
“Me,” Stiles answers simply, with a shrug, like it’s not a big deal. Like it’s not the most beautiful thing to ever happen in Derek’s life.
Derek is saved from answering to the most important question of his life with a whining pleaseyesthatplease by his lips crashing into Stiles, his body tired of waiting for his brain to do something useful.
Wanting Stiles is muscle memory at this point; kissing him something he’s imagined so often it doesn’t require any higher thoughts.
The noise Stiles makes against his mouth is surprised and pleased and hungry all at once, like he didn’t really think this would happen. Like he could have said all that to Derek, only for Derek to go away.
Derek bites Stiles’ lower lip, soothes it with his tongue before licking inside his mouth. One of his hand closes around Stiles’ waist, trying to bring him ever closer, wanting to imprint himself bone deep.
Derek loves Stiles. It’s been a fact of his life for a long time, one he learned to hide from fear of losing it all.
But now, with Stiles against him but afraid, the idea of Stiles ever doubting his real place in Derek’s life rings like a tragedy.
Derek draws back, only a few inches, forehead pressed against Stiles’ temple and mouthing at his cheekbones. Stiles is panting, fast and hot against his skin, just a touch of noise in his breath. Derek’s fingers run blindly against his jaw, tracing the curve of bone. He marvels at the sensation of stubble and the softness of the corner of his lips on the pads of his fingers.
Derek wants to kiss him there, and bite him, and mark him.
Now that he’s finally allowed to touch, he has no idea how he’ll ever stop.
“You are my family,” Derek says simply once their breaths slow down, because it’s the most dangerous, precious truth he has to offer him.
Stiles’ voice and his smell in their house, the dinners with his father and the softness of his eyes when Derek’s appears in the front door, the cut of his hips when he takes his shirt off and the curve of his spine when he falls asleep on the couch.
Stiles is so tangled in Derek’s happiness that Derek has no idea which shape it could ever take other than Stiles. Take Stiles away and his life would be gutted once again, all the soft, alive parts carved out.
It should be frightening. It did terrify Derek some mornings spent spying Stiles with Andy and trying to breathe through it.
Now, with Stiles’ face so close and his smile so beautiful, it seems like a gift.
Derek has to kiss him again, softly, trying not to damage his smile. Stiles’ mouth opens instantly, inviting, both of his hands burying in Derek’s hair. His body ripples closer, presses harder, his nose dragging against Derek’s almost painfully.
They are both smiling too much and it makes the kiss awkward, wonderful. Everything is warm, Stiles is wonderfully heavy and his elbow is pressing painfully against Derek’s ribs and Derek never wants to do anything else.
This is it.
He has found his true calling in life, and it involves never, ever letting Stiles go.
Two yellow eyes appear between them perched on the back of the couch, followed by a loud chirp. They both draw back a little in surprise.
The eyes jump from Derek to Stiles, Derek to Stiles, before Andy lets another high thrill escape, his mouth opens in a toothy, excited smile.
Derek loses part of his couch and Stiles has to strip out of his shirt.
Derek is ok with it.
--
Thanks for reading! You can find me here on tumblr (and also other OS and ficlet not published here).
Have a great night/day darlings <3