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It's a few months before their wedding when Stiles comes home with a toddler attached to his hand.
“Stiles….” Derek warns, voice low.
“I know, I know! We’re not even married and we just got the apartment furnished and I just finished graduate school and in no way at all are we equipped to be parents, but….” Stiles looks down at the tiny child, his face smeared with dirt and clothes baggily hanging off of him. “He needs us.”
Derek can see it in Stiles’s eyes. He can’t imagine exactly where the kid came from, but he knows that Stiles is always talking with the homeless people outside of the university, giving them food and books and blankets. He knows that Stiles can’t say no to helping another human being. It’s one of the reasons he’s going to marry that man. And it’s probably the reason there’s a small child, covered in filth, standing in their living room right now.
“Well, it's a good thing my second book just got published,” Derek says, and Stiles's smile widens considerably.
“Should I start looking for houses?”
Derek glances at the tiny child, whose eyes are too big, who is entirely too silent, whose hand is gripping Stiles's like it's his lifeline. “We'll do it together.”
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They’ve found the perfect house--some old, apparently haunted, falling-apart house that Stiles looks at and immediately calls home--when they somehow obtain two more children.
“How does this keep happening?” Derek shakes his head, looking between the two newest members of the clan and Stiles, who has that sheepish smile on his face again. The kids are four and five, cousins or something, with dark eyes and light hair. They’re sitting on the couch, where Stiles had plopped them after introductions. The girl is staring right at him, her cheeks a ruddy red, and the pink ribbon tied up in her hair droops. Derek is already way too in love.
“Fuck it,” he says, then mentally berates himself for cursing in front of children. God, he’s barely an adult himself, how can he be expected to parent? He looks down at them and recognizes the lost look in their eyes. Maybe they just need someone to love them. He crouches down to look at the two of them. “Welcome to the family.”
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Derek shouldn’t be surprised when they get another: but this one finds them before they can find her. She shows up on their doorstep, eyes downwards, as she asks in a low voice, “Is this the safe place?” Her voice is broken and ragged, her clothes torn, and Derek is gone.
He opens his arms to the little girl and she runs into them, tears streaming down her face in utter relief, and he hugs her as tightly as he can without crushing her. Their little family suddenly isn't so little anymore.
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Derek surprises himself by bringing home the last and final member of their family. A tiny boy at the police station, bruises covering his body, cheekbones too prominent and eyes too big. With permission from the state, he had gathered the child in his arms and taken him back to their home, now teeming with life. And Derek finally understands what Stiles had meant all those years ago about found family.
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Derek's parents love being grandparents way too much. An almost scary amount. And ever since the wedding -- has it really been only two years? -- they’ve seemed to decide to team up with Stiles's parents to create what Stiles sarcastically calls “The Parenting Dream-Team.”
All four grandparents relentlessly bother Derek and Stiles for updates, taking their kids out for lunches and dinners and desserts and buying them toys and spoiling them with pets. Derek would complain, but he himself remembers how fun it would be to be whisked away by his grandparents for the day, exploring the zoos he rarely visited, the mall his parents never took him to, and the skating rinks his sisters hated. He remembers the mysticality of eating dessert first.
So they don't complain much, letting the grandparents spoil their children, as if they don't do it enough.
“Do it!!!!” Derek hears a delighted scream from downstairs, and he's immediately alarmed at the pure amount of joy in Hayden's voice. He hurries to the stairs and hears Stiles's father say, “Go ahead, Corey,” and Derek turns the corner into the living room just in time to watch with pure morbid intensity as Corey, the shyest of their clan, strikes a match at his cousin’s and grandfather’s insistence.
Derek smells the gasoline too late, and he doesn't have time to cry out in alarm before Noah Stilinski is up in flames. Mason, the last to join their crazy family but the first to jump in at any sign of trouble, notices Derek first and immediately begins spraying his grandfather with the fire extinguisher.
Derek spares a glance at his father-in-law, who is red as a lobster but grinning from ear to ear, before descending upon his children. “What did I tell you about setting people on fire in the house?” He asks, voice chillingly calm. It has the effect he was hoping for, because his kids all avoid eye contact, each of them having the decency to look mildly ashamed. “I'm waiting for an answer,” he reminds them.
“To only do it in the basement,” they mumble in practiced unison.
“Exactly. How many times do I need to remind you? I'll take away your match privileges, all of you!” He looks at them all sternly, heart filling with warmth at their solemn little faces. He deflates slightly. “Now go get dinner started. Pops and I will join you in a minute.”
They all scurry off, and Derek holds out a hand to Noah. “Ah, for them to be young again,” Noah says fondly, letting Derek help him up from the reclining chair. “Don't be too harsh on them, Derek. Don't want them to lose their wonder of the world!”
“I dunno,” a voice from behind them says, and Derek turns to see Stiles slinking towards him. He places a gentle hand on Derek's bicep, drawing him near. “I like it when you get all authoritative.”
Noah rolls his eyes as they embrace. "Kids these days."
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“Who’s next?” Derek murmurs, shifting so he can lean over Stiles’s shoulder to take a look at the parent schedule.
“Kira,” Stiles answers.
“Ah, a good one then.” Derek grins back.
“Or so we think,” Stiles says off-handedly, standing as the teacher’s classroom door opens and the other parents who had the meeting slot before smile at them. Derek sighs and follows Stiles into the room. This was their third of five conferences total. They had talked about dividing and conquering, but Derek isn’t sure he has the patience to do this without Stiles. Besides, isn’t parenting a team sport?
“Hello, Mr. and Mr. Stilinski-Hale. I’m Mrs. Wells.” The woman is fairly young, has a kind smile, and is wearing a lot of yellow that compliments her fiery red hair.
“Nice to meet you!” Stiles says enthusiastically, shaking her outstretched hand with zeal. Derek merely gives her an efficient pump of the hand and a quirk of the lips.
“Let’s talk about Kira. Lovely girl, I look forward to seeing her smile every day. Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed how shy she can be around other kids. It’s not something I’m particularly worried about, but it is something to watch. She seems to have plenty of friends right now and is happy when I see her. Right now…” Mrs. Wells paused to look at her computer screen. “She seems to be doing well in all her subjects. English looks to be her problem spot, though. Has she talked with you two about reading and writing?”
Stiles looks over at Derek, who gives him a wink. He turns back to the teacher. “We do seem to help her a lot with that homework. Any advice you can give us?”
Mrs. Wells continues with the briefing, and as she does Derek takes a moment to look around the classroom. Kira’s sixth grade classroom looks a lot different than Mason’s eighth grade or Corey’s fourth grade one, but it’s still bright and happy with lots of windows. He can see a tiny terrarium in the corner of the classroom. “Excuse me,” he says when he sees an opening, “but could you tell me about your project over there?”
Mrs. Wells laughs in surprise. “Oh! We’re learning about ecosystems in science. The children got to go outside and pick out living things, bugs and plants and things, to put in the class project. I remember Kira wanting to put a large wolf spider in there, but it scared some of her classmates too much to keep it.
“That’s our Kira, ever the spider-fiend.”
“She takes after her Aunt Lydia too much,” Stiles sighs in fake disappointment.
“You love it,” Derek nudges him slightly. Stiles shrugs as if to agree.
He turns back to Mrs. Wells. “We love hearing about how wonderful Kira is, especially since we have Liam’s teacher next, but we’re more interested in one answer,” Stiles says offhandedly, and the teacher looks intrigued.
“Please, ask anything.”
“Is she a good person?” Derek asks.
Mrs. Wells blinks. She obviously wasn’t expecting that question. “What?” she asks intelligently.
“Is she a good person?” Stiles repeats, leaning forward in his chair to hear her answer.
Derek knows she needs more clarification. “Is she kind to other kids? Does she say please and thank you because she’s genuinely thankful, or because she has to?
“Does she lie or cheat or steal?” Stiles pipes in.
The teacher frowns. “No. I mean yes! I mean…” She breathes for a moment, getting her bearings. “Kira is a lovely young student. She is bright, and thoughtful, and kind. She is definitely a good person.”
Derek catches Stiles’s eye, and they share Derek’s favorite smile. It’s all stars and moon and love. “Good,” he says softly.
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Derek never thought he’d be much like an Addams. And it didn’t start that way. But now...well, now he wears dark suits every day without fail. And if that didn’t say Addams, he isn’t sure what does.
He saunters into the kitchen, where three of his children have taken it upon themselves to make dinner. He watches as Liam makes a blind grab at a creature that’s trying to scurry away, but misses. “Fine! You can live to see another day!” Liam shouts after it, his tiny voice barely raised over the sounds of bubbling cauldrons and the other kids.
Stiles comes dancing in through the doorway, onions in his hands. “Just like you wanted, Hayden.” He gives the little girl her onions, and she starts chopping them excitedly.
Corey bashfully holds up a wooden spoon full of some kind of goop for Derek to taste, and he scoops it into his mouth without hesitation. “How did our little chef-in-the-making do?” Stiles asks, wrapping an arm around Derek’s waist. Derek turns his head and pulls his husband in for a long, deep kiss.
“Mmm. Bittersweet,” Stiles muses, licking his lips. “Could use some salt. Great job, Corey.” He ruffles the kid’s hair and presses a kiss to his forehead.
“Where’s Kira and Mason?” Derek asks. It’s usually never a good thing when his kids decide to split up.
“Laura and Isaac are with them in the sitting room,” Stiles shrugs, opening the fridge and producing lemons, which make Hayden squeal louder. Derek can see Liam grab one from the corner of his eye, and he excitedly squirts the juice into one of Hayden’s many cuts on her fingers. She hisses, wielding the knife at her brother and chasing him around the kitchen.
“That spells disaster,” Derek rolls his eyes. He wanders out to check on them. When he walks through the threshold, he sees Laura’s eyes glinting wildly as she looks down on the coffee table where Isaac is lying quietly. “Isaac, Laura. When did you two get here?” Derek asks, attempting to approach. His view is mostly blocked by the larger furniture pieces in the room, courtesy of Lydia.
“Nothing!” They chorus, and Derek’s heard that enough from his own children to know that he needed to follow up. He charges further into the room, only to see that Laura has Isaac cut all the way open with a Y-incision, and that they had dragged another coffee table into the room so that Kira and Mason could mimic them. Kira looks way too giddy standing hunched over Mason’s scrawny body.
“How many times have I told you that the sitting room is for sitting?” Derek huffs.
“C’mon little brother, we’re just having some fun,” Laura grins evilly, holding up one of Isaac’s lungs. Isaac doesn’t look half as worried as Derek feels he should.
“I hate this family,” Derek grumbles. He catches sight of a few of Mason’s organs sitting on the loveseat and he groans. “And stop cutting your brother open, one day you’re going to lose something vital.”
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Derek is sitting on their couch, feeding their bear-skin rug as Stiles tells the children their nightly bedtime story. Even Kira, who thinks she’s too old for stories, sits in the overstuffed chair and listens, though she’s pretending not to.
“And then Uncle Fester electrocuted her! The electricity ran up the wire with an unchallenged speed and traveled through her veins like blood. It raced to her heart, where the electrical shock pushed through the normal one that kept her heart beating. The two shocks battled, but Uncle Fester’s won! And she dropped dead, falling to the ground like a log, her skin smoldering.”
Derek hums contentedly as the kids cheer. Stiles wraps up the story with Gomez doing something romantic, and Derek stands up. He kisses each of their heads. “Off to bed, now.”
The kids whine appropriately, but trudge to their bedrooms. Derek knows they won’t go to sleep yet--they’ll keep each other entertained for at least another hour with stories about ghosts and dentists.
“Think they’ll try to smother us in our sleep again tonight?” Stiles asks, watching them all hurry to their beds.
“We can only assume,” Derek responds fondly.
“Derek,” Stiles says, drawing out his name. Derek turns to see Stiles spread out on the couch, eyes dark and full of want. “Now that the kids are asleep….” He raises his eyebrows expectantly.
Derek feels something in his chest flutter. God, every time he looks at Stiles it’s like he’s seeing him for the first time. Derek holds out his hand. “Come for a dance in the graveyard with me?”
Stiles doesn’t hesitate taking his hand, and the two of them sweep outside, enjoying the moonlight. Derek can hear the whistle of wind as it blows against the house and through the trees as they sway towards the graveyard.
“How long has it been since we’ve danced?” Stiles murmurs, clutching Derek’s hands tighter.
“Since last night.”
Stiles moans. “Too long.” He takes the lead, pushing Derek towards the fountain. It has a lovely statue of a man slitting his wrists in the middle, and the water pours from his wrists, dark as blood in the night.
If Derek inhales, he can smell the must of the graveyard, tainted with the sickly sweet aroma of decomposition. Rats and mice scurry around their feet, taking up their own kind of dance, and Derek sees more than one big beetle fly into his view. He looks at Stiles, perfectly haloed in the moonlight, and he realizes something. He is utterly, completely, wonderfully unhappy.