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Derek unlocked the front door to the house, opening his mouth to call out to his husband when his nose was assaulted by a stringent odor that made him sneeze. As soon as the sound escaped him, he heard cursing and scrambling and apologizing coming from the bathroom on the second floor followed by childish giggling. Fondness washed over him as he sneezed again, dreading what he was going to find as he climbed the stairs towards the noise.
He was greeted by his five-year-old son, Avan, at the top of the stairs, grinning at him and waving a hand. There was a streak of something brown on his forehead as he started to ramble a mile-a-minute about something his pet bunny had done. Shaking his head, he scooped him up into his arms, nose wrinkling as the odor intensified and he realized it was coming from the streak of color. Sniffing again, he soon identified what the substance was but couldn’t figure out what it was doing on his son’s forehead.
Walking towards the bathroom, his son started screeching in a way he hadn’t since he was a baby. “No, Papa! We have to go to my room so you can see BunBunBinks!” He was scrambling and Derek actually struggled to keep him from leaping out of his arms.
Derek kept walking, his curiosity growing as he heard his teenage daughter, Eliza, the girl they’d adopted just a few months earlier laughing uncontrollably. Avan’s shouts grew louder as Derek pushed the slightly ajar door open completely and sneezed three times in a row as the odor of hair dye became overwhelming. He was amazed that Avan wasn’t sneezing as well, but his senses were still only slightly better than a human's.
Stood in the middle of the bathroom, shirtless and with more dye on his body than in his hair was his husband, skin pinking under Derek’s gaze. Eliza was shaking her head and using a makeup wipe to rub at the skin on Stiles’ face. “Do I even want to know what happened?”
“Tata sucks at reading directions,” Eliza said, nodding towards the counter which would most likely have to be replaced unless they wanted brown spotted countertops in the black and white room and spotted an open box that used to contain hair dye and next to it was three bottles with differing levels of liquid in them.
“Well, he was never very good at Chemistry,” Derek commented, smirking when Stiles flailed and squawked, sending even more droplets around the bathroom. “Eliza, take your brother and check on the rabbit.”
Grinning, Eliza ran out of the room, scooping Avan up into her arms and spinning with him down the hall, the both of them laughing and whispering teasing words about their silly Tata as they went. Turning his attention back to Stiles, he chose to ignore the tears that were in his husband’s eyes as he got out another makeup wipe and lifted it to rub at the dye above his eyebrows.
“You’ve been dying your hair for a couple of years now without incident. What happened?” Derek asked, stepping back when Stiles sputtered a protest. “I can smell it on you,” he said simply, stopping Stiles mid-sentence.
He hung his head and pulled away from Derek. “Gonna shower. Maybe I can salvage it,” he muttered, reaching to pull his shirt off and Derek stopped him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Feeling stupid. Remind me to ask Melissa before she goes out of town to dye my hair next time,” he said, shrugging. “I forgot and didn’t think I could let my roots go another month while she and my dad traveled Europe.”
“Or you could just not dye it,” Derek suggested, gesturing to his own greying temples. “You like mine.”
“Yours looks distinguished like a college professor or something. Plus you’re in your forties! I’m still in my thirties and I look like someone dumped a bunch of flour on my head.”
Stiles pulled away again, turning his back on Derek and he took it as his cue to leave. He headed down the hall and leaned in the doorway watching Eliza and Avan play with the rabbit. “Going out for a few minutes,” he told them.
“I don’t think flowers are going to fix this one, Papa,” Eliza said.
“Was thinking something else,” Derek told her, moving to press kisses to the tops of both of their heads and whispering to them both, smiling when they nodded and jumped to their feet to follow his instructions.
When Derek got back to the house, shopping bag in one hand and a case of beer in the other, he smiled at Erica getting out of her car when she spotted him. “Thanks for taking the kids.” The words were barely out when the door to the house opened and Eliza and Avan ran out, backpacks over their shoulders and pillows in their arms, neither one of them could ever sleep without their own.
After the kids were gone, he went into the house and found Stiles slumped on the couch, black beanie pulled low over his face. “Got you something,” Derek said, tossing the bag at him and setting the case of beer down on the counter.
“Don’t want it,” Stiles huffed, reaching for the bag anyway and pulling out the box inside, giving Derek a glare.
“It’s the brand Melissa uses. She said the smell isn’t quite as harsh, which is true,” he explained. “And I have detailed instructions.” He pulled out his phone to show him the text thread he’d had with Melissa while at the store. “If you really want to do it, let me help, but know you don’t have to do it.”
Stiles looked at the box and then at the case of beer and back to Derek. Sighing, he grabbed a beer and twisted off the cap and rose to his feet. “No, I really have to,” he said, pulling the beanie off and Derek couldn’t help the laugh that escaped at the dark spots covering Stiles’ head. “It’s either this or a buzz cut,” he said, lips quirking in a smile, too, as he took Derek’s hand and led him to the bathroom to fix his hair.