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Laura stood firm where she was blocking her brother from entering the living room fully. Derek’s eyes flashed in annoyance at the blatant attempt to stop him from seeing Stiles.
“He doesn’t need to see you.”
Derek scoffed and looked past her to his mother whose full body was resting on the couch with her husband and brother, seemingly relaxed. To Derek though, she was clearly ready at a moment’s notice to jump in, as were the rest of the wolves on the couch.
“Pup,” He gruffed out in a not-quite command, eyes flickering above his mother’s head, knowing exactly where his pup was.
A split second later a head popped out from behind the couch, the tuft of brown hair grown out bounced lightly. A slight skittering sound as if it were a surprised question accompanied the tuft before bright amber eyes widened at the sight of the man in the doorway. Less than a moment later, shouts of annoyance and flaying limbs abound, the man looked at his sister.
“Doesn’t want to see me, huh?”
Laura said nothing as the lanky boy scrambled around Talia, rubbing over her and shifting his head to be under her chin and looked at the man. Derek took a step forward and startled as the boy snapped his maw out at him from where he sat. The expression on her brother’s face, confused betrayal, eased an eyebrow up sardonically on Laura’s face.
“Clearly.”
Derek glared at her and Laura growled out, “What the hell did you expect, Derek? To him, you left him to fend for himself. Whatever bullshit reason you had, the pup couldn’t understand anything other than who was supposed to be his didn’t want him.”
“You know that’s bull, of course I want him!” Derek shouted out, causing Stiles to pull back his lips to show teeth as he snarled out at him.
Laura rolled her eyes and picked a surprised Stiles up by his upper arms and shoved him forward, pulling a confused yip from him, “then tell him that, like you should have, idiot.”
Derek blinked back as Stiles stood disgruntled, “but I did-”
Laura huffed in anger, “You idiot, I have to literally spell this out? Scent. Mark. Him. You never left your mark or something to remind him of you by.”
Derek frowned, “Our room should have been enough?”
“Honey, you left the door shut,” His father started scolding him from his spot, “like when he couldn’t use knobs and scratched at the door to let him in? And you taught him to wait for you to open it. He whined and batted us away when we tried to go for the door as if we were going to swat him away.”
Talia rubbed her hand down Stiles back from where he was standing perplexed by the others in front of her as she started to tell her son what happened after that.
“The one time Cora got the door open before he came up, he was so excited to see that you were back. He was so happy, Derek, that once he didn’t see you from the hallway, well… We learned to stop trying after the howling cries and whimpering. Devastation is not a good sound.”
“Jesus, Stiles,” Derek mourned the boy’s misunderstanding, before trying to croon softly at the boy mere centimeters in front of him, “I left the door closed so that no one else but you went in.”
Stiles rumbled in confusion as he was tempted by the croon of Derek before turning around and took a few heated steps back into the living room proper where he promptly nose-dived into the arms of Peter. He shoved himself into Peter’s lap, head butting into his abdomen, and pulling Peter’s shirt over his head in a pout. If that didn’t tell Derek the state of his puppy, nothing would.
Peter smiled sadly down at the boy he’d gotten to know intimately after Derek left, before looking in patronizing amusement, and with a healthy dose of disappointment at his nephew as if to say, ‘Well? How are you fixing this, Nephew?’
Derek let out a distressed sigh, before knowing that he had to grovel for his unknown mistake. Well, he knew now it was a mistake and if he could, he would have made absolute sure that Stiles understood why he was doing what he was doing despite the current language barrier.
“Stiles,” Derek crooned softly, coming closer to the pouting boy, “Pup, please let me see you.”
Stiles pulled the shirt up so his narrowed eyes flashed and a tongue stuck out. With a dismissive snort, he tugged the shirt back over his head.
“Well, he did what you asked,” Peter chortled softly, “Intentionally or not.”
Derek withheld the urge to flash his eyes at his uncle before reaching to rub Stiles’ upper arm. He was swatted away with two flailing limbs.
“Pup, my sweet pup,” Derek murmured deeply, “soft, pretty, fluffy puppy. Please?”
Stiles mumbled sullenly from his hiding place, arms crossing over his chest. It was a ridiculous sight, but Derek couldn’t be more enamored with the endearing sight.
“Oh gag,” Cora scrunched her face up, “your face-”
“Hush, Cora,” Lydia reprimanded in the background.
Erica chirped up from underneath Isaac, and over Boyd’s head where they had been sprawled and enjoying the show on the plush carpet near the fireplace, “Yeah, Cora. Let Derek be gross.”
“Lord knows he doesn’t do it often as it is,” Isaac put his two-cents in.
Derek ignored them and did the only other thing he knew he could do. He laid down next to Stiles, a passing disgusted thought to how close to his uncle’s junk he was getting, and maneuvered to cradle Stiles in his arms, holding fast around his waist as Stiles flailed in a shouting chitter, whacking both Peter’s face and thigh. Peter grumbled annoyed, before pulling away, and standing.
Stiles squirmed and rolled in Derek’s arms to try to break his hold before begrudgingly giving up and finally tucked his way into Derek’s throat with a drawn out whimper and tightening fingers around his shirt. Derek silently acknowledged his mess up with a low rumbling growl and rubbing his hands up and down Stiles’ body to scent mark him. If he felt the moisture of tears soaking into his skin, he chose to let them flow as he pressed his face, and by extension his lips, against Stiles’ hair. This was the beginning of a long and needed apology.