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“You want Barney?” a kid asks incredulously.
Derek barely manages to stop his eyes from twitching. It is hard to be the perfect toy and remain still when everyone keeps confusing you with a certain purple dinosaur. Just because he has a purple coat, more stuffing than necessary and can sing the ‘I Love You’ song…okay, so he can understand the misperception. However, he has always been and always will be a dragon. A dragon who currently wants to glare and growl at someone in particular yet can’t because he is on a table with other ‘For Sale’ objects. It’s good that the price tag is a piece of paper attached to a loose string around his neck and not those sticky ones they slap on you; those things itch.
“Barney is a dinosaur, Scott. That toy is a dragon,” another boy corrects. Now this is a first. No one has called Derek that since-
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
“Dragons have wings, Stiles. That doesn’t!”
He used to have wings but then they were ripped off by the girl he thought loved him. He was her favorite toy, with her since she was a baby and she was a relatively good kid – also the first one he knew - until she started liking stupid Barney. Except, when her parents didn’t give her what she wanted, she decided to turn Derek into what she wanted. She didn’t even pretend to put him to sleep before she tore off his purple wings, horns and stuffed him with more filling, in addition to her voice-recorded version of ‘I Love You’. Up until then he always believed that he made her happy. Sometimes he even thinks that the process of being modified hurt less than the fact that it was her doing it.
He tries not to think about that, though. Contrary to popular belief, wingless dragons do not make dinosaurs.
“Look at its spine. And here!” the Stiles kid points. Derek almost flinches. “There’s stitching. Someone must have taken his wings off. Hey, doesn’t it look like the dragon I got last year?”
Derek freezes.
Well, more than he has been.
The thing that is worse than being brutally mutilated by someone he loved was having to see her burn his family. When she grew older, she came home from school one day, took the box full of dragon plushies from the attic and made a bonfire out of them, with help from her friends. Derek didn’t even know what was happening until it was too late and all he could do was watch from the window of her upstairs bedroom, unable to stop it. He ran away that night and kept running (he didn’t want to be anyone’s toy again) but regret eventually weighed him down. They were trapped inside that box while…he should have tried to do something. Derek was lying on the road, planning on being run over by a truck, when someone grabbed him and he found himself in this yard sale.
He tries not to think about that either. There probably aren’t any toy dragons that look like him.
“Maybe. But Stiiiiiiles, it still looks like Barney. A scary Barney.” A finger pokes Derek’s belly.
Oh no. “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too.”
“Hmm…weird,” Stiles picks Derek up gently and pushes his thumbs on his green tummy.
“I love you, you love me, we're best friends like friends should be, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won't you say you love me too.”
“Dude, that’s creepy,” the Scott kid whispers.
Derek agrees. He and other Barneys are most likely the only toys that should come with a ‘Do Not Press Me’ sticker.
“Yeah…”
Silence.
“Mooom, I want this one!”
-
Derek is surprised that someone bought him; dirty, disfigured and disturbing him. What is even more surprising is Stiles playing with him on the car ride home, animating every movement with sound effects and words. Derek is being held up, moved in smooth swirls and turns, as if he is actually flying through the air like a dragon would. He tries not to get lost in the feeling, especially since he probably won’t be here for long. Eventually the kid will realize that he is just a useless toy.
They reach the house quicker than expected. As soon as the car is parked, Stiles runs inside with Derek swinging from his hand and starts heading up the stairs.
“…Stilinski, where do you think you’re going?” the mom calls, her voice more clear as she comes closer to the bottom of the steps.
Stiles pauses. “Going to my room to play with my new toy?”
“You can do that after dinner.”
“But Mom!”
“You heard your Mother, Stiles. Leave your toy upstairs and come down for dinner,” the dad says.
The boy sighs but continues up the steps, leaving his parents chatting behind.
“I wish you would use his real name.”
“You know that it’s hard for me to pronounce, Claudia.”
-
Derek waits until the door closes before he stands up on the bed and stretches. Pretending to be lifeless all day would make anyone feel stiff and sore. As he’s looking around the room he realizes that while there are comic books, a video game console, and a few posters on the walls (one of which is of a dragon), there are no visible toys. Maybe there is a toy chest somewhere that he’s not seeing.
“Derek!”
He turns around to see-
“Laura?”
“I missed you so much,” his sister suddenly hugs him but he’s too stunned to return it.
Derek holds her in front of him, slowly checking to make sure that this is real. She is alive. He never thought that he would see her again but she’s alive and she looks good, well taken care of. Actually, Derek doesn’t remember her blue fleece being this clean before. “What are you-? How-? I thought you were…”
His sister looks at him sadly. “I was on the roof that night when…I tried to find you and ended up following you since you couldn’t hear me calling out to you. Then I got stuck in some bushes and well, here I am.”
In the old house, Laura had the habit of sneaking outside the attic window to stare at the sky. Their mother would always tell her off, afraid that one of the humans would notice, but she did it anyway. Derek was the only one who had to remain on the bedroom bookshelf, isolated from everyone else. That was then, though.
Derek is the one to initiate the hug this time, squeezing Laura tight, somewhat too choked up to say anything. He missed her too.
He hears a cough and it’s only then that he realizes the crowd of toys peering at him from behind her.
She pulls back, “Oh yeah, let me introduce you to the pack.” At Derek’s puzzled expression she continues, “It’s what we call each other.”
She pulls him towards them.
“So everyone this is my brother, Derek. Derek this is…”
His sister starts telling him their names but he forgets most of them halfway through. He knows the quiet G.I. Joe doll in the middle is Boyd, the blonde cowgirl on his right is Erica and the plastic Tyrannosaurus rex is Isaac (at least he’s not a Barney dinosaur). There are a few Star Wars toys, some Lego men, alien triplets and a small, blue Wrangler who seems to be the only non-talking one of the group. Derek grunts or nods in return when they greet him. It has been so long since he was surrounded by so many toys, he feels awkward in their presence. They give him a tour of the room and show him where the toy chest is (at the end of bed which he couldn’t see when he was on the bed) all the while explaining how they came to be here, with Stiles – who apparently is really sweet and fun and plays nice – when they hear the kid’s footsteps approaching.
They quickly go to lie where they were.
-
It turns out that the pack is right about the mole-faced, mop-haired boy.
Stiles plays with them every day. He even shows Derek off to his friends at school when it is ‘bring a toy to school’ day (consequently arguing with a schoolmate named Jackson who makes fun of him for liking ‘Barney’), he takes Derek with him when visiting relatives or his best friend Scott and he cuddles up with him (and sometimes Laura) when it’s time to sleep. Derek is with Stiles most of the time and he begins to really enjoy the attention despite his previous apprehension. But his good mood drops when Erica teases him about becoming the kid’s favorite. The last time he was someone’s favorite…
“Not all of them are like her. He’s not like her, trust me.” Laura tells him.
He does.
-
He wakes up on the bed and feels different somehow. He remembers playing with Stiles; something about how the powerful dragon needed to have a power nap and pretending to go to sleep. It seems like he actually fell asleep. Derek gets up, feeling heavier than usual but lighter at the same time, and turning his head, he sees the hint of something familiar but…it can’t be. He jumps onto the toy trunk and then the floor, passing by the pack.
“Oooooooooooooooh,” the aliens say in unison.
“Whoa, you look different,” Isaac drawls.
Boyd nods in agreement.
Erica gapes at him.
They all follow him as he heads toward the closet mirror.
Derek grumbles but immediately stops when he is faced with his reflection. He…he has wings? He turns this way and that to get a better look, and even twirls. He has his purple wings back. They’re a different shade from the rest of him and a slightly different style from the ones he used to have but they are dragon wings and there, as if they have always belonged. He also has horns again; these ones matching the color of his wings. He looks like a real dragon and the fact that he seems to have less stuffing than before makes him think that he will not be singing the ‘I Love You’ song ever again.
It is so strange yet finally right, seeing himself like this.
“Stiles did this?” He asks in amazement.
Laura smirks, “Told you so.”
-
Stiles is playing with the whole pack and him when Derek has his little moment of clarity.
It seems that he still has something in common with Barney, other than his color.
“…and the mighty dragon lets out a screech,” Stiles makes the sound effect as he lifts Derek higher up in the air, “to warn off all of his enemies…”
He's happy.