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It’s not like he hadn’t babysat before. He has. He has cousins. He’s never had to babysit a tiny Kanima though. Who even knew kids could be Kanima. He held the kid by the scruff of his shirt and raised an eyebrow. The kid—Jackson—hissed at him as he was half-transformed. “Really?” he asked with a sigh.
Jackson smacked at his hand until he was dropped, rather than using his paralyzing claws, which Derek was thankful for. “How are you even real?” he asked as Jackson ran off, probably to terrorize Scott. Derek sighed as he followed after him.
He should never have asked his parents for a summer job idea. Who knew there were so many supernatural families in the Beacon Hills area? He should have stayed at school in New York. While griping about his poor life choices, Scott started crying. He should’ve put an age limit of at least 8, rather than accepting 5 year olds to watch.
“What do you want, squirt?” he asked with an unimpressed eyebrow raise.
“Allisonnnnnnnn!” His wail was impressive; if Derek’s ringing ears were anything to go by.
“Who?”
“His girlfriend,” Vernon answered cheekily. Scott glared at him but made no move to retaliate, as he continued moping with a teddy bear he had found. Derek ignored that it was his childhood teddy bear and refrained from snatching it away from the booger-oozing child.
Jackson was back, fully human again and staring at Scott with a pout. “I want Danny!” he whined. Derek quickly counted to ten, but not before Jackson added, “And Lydiaaaaaa!”
He sighed as he dropped his head back. “And who are they?”
“Lydia’s his girlfriend.” Vernon said with a grin.
Derek gave him a deadpan look. “Really, Vernon?” Vernon shrugged with a grin.
“He wishes she was his girlfriend!” Erica said loudly as she traipsed into the room with her colouring book and crayons. He was wondering what she was doing, and then had to go quickly check if she had coloured on the walls, rather than her book.
She hadn’t, but when he came back, Jackson was pulling faces at her and her lip was awfully wobbly. “How about we stop wanting people, and go have some lunch?” he asked, pulling their attention towards him.
“I WANT GRILLED CHEESE!” Scott screeched, abandoning the bear and clawing up Derek’s leg.
Derek barely bit back a growl as claws sunk into his leg, before he was basically being piled on by the rest of the suddenly rabid children. Walking wasn’t an issue, it was making sure none of them fell off him and cracked their head open on the hardwood.
He swears if Jackson chews his head one more time, he’s quitting.
He grilled the cheese sandwiches as best as he could and made sure none of them burned, or he’d have Armageddon on his hands. He’s learned since the last time he’d attempted to make them grilled cheese. No longer does he make them have the least bit of dark brown on it.
Spoiled brats.
Putting the plates in front of each child, he made sure they were all situated with a glass of milk and a side of carrot sticks before he went to make his own food.
The second time a carrot hit his head was one too many times. Yes, he let the first time go. Turning to glare at the lot, they were eating their sandwiches innocently. Scott was chewing on a carrot with a false innocence. The increased heartbeat from him kind of gave him away as well.
“Why do you keep throwing things at me?” he asked while his eyes flashed blue.
Scott’s bottom lip wobbled before big crocodile tears rolled down his cheeks and he started sobbing loudly into his sandwich. Derek closed his eyes to count down from ten. “I want Allison! She never gets mad at me! And Stiles makes my sandwich into dinosaurs!”
Erica was the next one to whimper. “I want Isaac!” she exclaimed. Her eyes were amber as she started sniffling. “Isaac needs me!” she added when Derek made no move to do anything. He turned back to the stove and attempted to ignore their crying. He knew who Isaac was. A young werewolf, but his brother had said no to Derek’s babysitting because Isaac wouldn’t want a new babysitter after having his old one for so long.
His ignoring them lasted all of ten minutes before he was turning around and throwing his arms into the air. “If we find these kids, can you shut up?!” they all silenced and stared at him with round eyes. He let out a long breath through his nose. “Where do we find these kids?” he asked with a forced calm.
“Stiles!” Vernon said with a bright smile.
Derek pursed his lips at the kid. “Who?”
“Stiles!” Scott reiterated. “He’s so cool, he’s my big brother!”
“Nuh-uh! He’s my big brother!” Jackson said with a haughty harrumph. Scott glared daggers at him.
Derek sighed and pulled his sandwiches from the pan, making a face at the burned sides. He fell into the chair beside Erica. “Who is he, really?”
“He babysits us when you’re not here,” Erica supplied as she bit into a carrot. “He is so cute,” she added with a blush as she ducked her head. Derek raised an eyebrow at her but she refused to resurface from behind her mane of blonde curls.
“Alright. I’ll try to find out more about this Stiles kid and we can maybe set up a time to go to the park together, if you listen,” Derek said as he looked between the kids seated. They all nodded readily and Derek nodded his head once more before starting to eat his food. The kids followed suit.
-0-
He almost forgot about asking who Stiles was by the end of the week, but thankfully Laura reminded him. He hopes his sarcasm was palpable.
“Hey, kid, how was your first week babysitting?”
“I never want to do it again,” he replied with a groan.
She snorted as she fell onto his bed and wrapped her arm and leg around him. “They’re not that bad, are they?”
“No…they listen fairly well,” he made a face as he tried burying his face into his pillow more. “Just, I had to bribe them…” he sighed. “Do you know who Stiles is?”
She looked surprised but grinned. “Yeah, Sheriff’s kid,” she nudged him. “Did you bribe them with you going on a date or something?”
“What?” Derek opened an eye to look at her. He tried to convey all the judging he was doing. “No, they want me to ask him-.”
“On a date! He’s adorable, you know—cheekbones and moles and big brown eyes…you’d like him,” she beamed.
“They want me to call him to ask if we can meet up with the kids together…they all miss someone Stiles is watching,” he sighed. “I promised if they were good, I’d get a hold of this kid…”
“He’s 18 and perfectly legal, you know,” Laura said while poking Derek in the side.
“No.”
“Come on!” Laura whined as she carded her fingers through his hair. “One bad experience shouldn’t sour your love-life.”
“It could if that bad experience almost…” he turned his head away from her instead of finishing.
“So we almost died—point is, we didn’t!” she rolled on top of him. “Now, come down and help me with dinner.”
“I just got home,” he said with a whine. He would deny it later, but it was definitely a whine.
-0-
He poured over the phone book, glaring at every S until he reached Stilinski, J. It was the only Stilinski in the phonebook, so he dialled and waited as each ring hurt his ear.
Hello?
He nearly choked on his own spit. “Hi. I’m looking for Stiles…?”
Speaking!
“Right…um, I took over watching some of your kids, I think? Erica, Boyd, Jackson and Scott…?”
Oh yeah! How are the monsters?
“Monsters?” his voice was sharp and he felt his defenses rise.
Uh…yeah…the kids. They’re little brats when it comes to some things. Ergo, monsters. It was silent for a moment before there was a whoosh of breath. Oh God, no! I didn’t mean because they were…supernatural that they were monsters, just general monster-child-endearments…?
Derek felt himself relax. “Oh…anyways, they miss some of the kids you’re watching now—an Allison, Lydia, Isaac, and Danny?”
Oh yeah, they were all inseparable when I was watching them…Isaac’s been crying for Erica and Boyd to be honest, but I didn’t know who was watching them, so I just promised I’d use my dad’s resources to find this person—but you found me first! So, great! Listen, I watch them all week, from 8 am to 5 pm—can we meet up at a park or something and hang for the day? It’d mean a lot to-
“Yeah, that’s why I was calling. I promised if they behaved I’d find out who you were and call you to see if we could do that…how about Monday, if it’s sunny?”
That’s perfect! Gimme your number and I’ll text you if we can make it.
Derek did so and he could practically hear the grin from down the line as the boy repeated his number back to him.
Until Monday, kid stealer!
The dial tone was what pulled Derek out of his surprised stupor. He didn’t even have a chance to defend himself.
-0-
He received a text from Stiles, saying they would be there by 1, and that it promised to be sunny for the day so to forgo sweaters and bring sun block.
He told the kids and they reacted strongly. So strongly, he was still on the floor five minutes later under a pile of kids who wouldn’t stop hugging and kissing him. He allowed it to happen, doesn’t know why, but he did.
By the time he got all of them ready, with snacks and their sweaters (just in case) on hand, he arranged them into a line and handed them a rope he brought along for walks. They dutifully held on as they headed to the park. Once reaching the park, their dutiful listening came to an abrupt stop and they ran wildly towards the other group of children. He had to jog to catch up to them.
The oldest, and most likely candidate to being Stiles, beamed at him, and Derek had to take stock in his rising heart beat and nervous scent. “I’m Derek.”
“Stiles!” He replied, while his voice was a tad high before he cleared his throat and extended his hand to shake Derek’s. He dropped Derek’s hand a moment later and turned to look at the kids all hugging and talking animatedly to one another.
Derek watched as Scott smiled dopily at a pretty little girl with long black hair and dimples to die for, while she smiled back. He looked at Jackson, who was talking to another little boy—also black haired—and they kept shooting glances towards the strawberry blonde girl who was standing by Scott and the previously mentioned little girl.
“How bout I tell you who’s who,” Stiles suggested, nodding his head towards the group of children. Derek nodded and followed him. “This is Allison, and Lydia,” he pointed to each girl in turn. “That over there, talking to Jackson, is Danny,” he turned around to look for the missing trio before spotting them all huddled in a cuddle. “That little blond, curly haired boy is Isaac…he’s like the baby of the group, and Erica is really motherly towards him.”
Derek nodded his head and tried to smile at each kid who looked at him. It probably wasn’t working, considering Isaac started crying.
“Dude, put away the teeth.” Stiles muttered. “Just cause me and my dad know, doesn’t mean all humans know, here.”
Derek closed his eyes to breathe and calm himself. “Sorry, just…a lot of noise…”
“Yeah, and smells, and if I can smell the cat poop from the sand box, it must be completely horrible for you guys, right?” Stiles shuddered. “By the way, no one is allowed in the sandbox, that’s rule number one at the park,” he added.
Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “Any more rules?”
“Sharing swings and the slide, or you get a five minute time out at the picnic table.” Derek nodded his head slowly. “When snack time comes around, you come as soon as I call you, or I get your juice box and you eat the veggies by themselves.”
“That’s diabolical,” Derek said.
Stiles snorted. “That’s the point.”
Derek smiled slightly. It was really just a twist of his lips, because Stiles was amusing. Stiles beamed in response and ducked his head.
Scott ran up to them and jumped Stiles, causing the boy to fall backwards. “Dude!” Stiles groaned, but he was laughing nonetheless as he sat up. He sucked in a breath. “You’re getting huge, man, you can’t keep tackling me, or you might break something,” he added.
Scott pouted at him.
“He does that to me, except there are claws involved,” Derek pointed out.
“Yeah, well, you can heal. I’ve got like weeks with bindings last time I was tackled by the kids,” Stiles retorted as he picked Scott up to stand and then pushed himself up. He walked away to go to each kid that Derek was watching to give them hugs and kisses. Derek noticed Jackson got a bit of a longer hug than any of the others, and pondered why, to himself.
He and Stiles reconvened to the picnic table, where they continued to watch the kids play with one another. “They really do need to be around each other more—Isaac cried at least once a day for Erica and Boyd.”
“Why?”
Stiles shrugged. “They were all turned about the same time. I suppose their inner wolves are telling them that they’re basically triplets or something? I talked to your mom about that, she seems to agree.”
“Why were they turned, at all?”
“Erica had seizures, and Isaac’s dad used to hit him—hurt him really bad once and it was either try turning him and have him heal, or watch him die in the hospital…” Stiles’ face twisted into a scowl temporarily. “His dad doesn’t take care of him anymore, thankfully…spending five years in jail, too…woulda been longer if he didn’t ‘heal’ so quickly,” he shook his head. “If you-,” he stopped and bit his lip. “I can’t talk around them—bunch of wolves listening in,” he made a face, “Anyways, Boyd was sick in the hospital—pneumonia—serious case, so his parents asked your mom to change him, because his mom heard your mom talking to Isaac’s brother and Erica’s mom about their responsibilities and obligations to bring the kids to your pack every week to teach them how to control their wolves and stuff?”
“How do you know all that?”
“Well, one, I watch them, and two, my dad told me,” Stiles shrugged lazily.
Derek frowned at him. “How’d you find out?”
“I listen in on conversations, duh,” Stiles snorted with a laugh. Derek merely raised an eyebrow at him, but he was still amused.
Derek opened his mouth to say something, but turned to the trio. “Vernon!” He called in admonishment. Vernon dropped the lock of Erica’s hair he had in his hand with a guilty smile.
“He likes being called Boyd, more, you know,” Stiles commented.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Stiles beamed at him as he leaned back against the table.
“Boyd.” Stiles nodded his head. “Okay.”
-0-
“You haven’t been able to get that grin off your face all week, Dere-bear,” Laura said in a singsong voice as she sat in the chair opposite of Derek at the kitchen table.
“It’s been a good week,” he replied as he stabbed a potato onto his fork.
“Does it have anything to do with a specific senior high school student with a penchant for plaid?”
“No.”
“Riiiiight,” she smirked at him and he gave his mom an exasperated look.
“Laura, stop bugging your brother about his obvious crush on the Stilinski boy,” his mother admonished. Laura grinned in response before stuffing her mouth with potato.
Derek gave his mom a glare but went back to eating his food. His dad wasn’t any help with his barely smothered snort. His phone chirped and he pulled it out of his pocket to stare at it. He never got texts.
Stiles
Hey sourwolf! Wanna hang out tonight? We need to bro out if we’re gonna be watching the kids together next week cause honestly? Can’t hold convos by myself!
He bit back a smile and replied with a positive. He stuffed his phone back into his pocket and ate his dinner hurriedly. “Going to Stiles’,” he said as he stood and basically ran from the table. He didn’t need to play 20 questions with his sister.
He heard Laura mutter, “Knew it!”
He didn’t know what she knew, but that didn’t cause him to pause as he stuffed a pair of sweat into a bag and grabbed his jacket and jogged out of the house.
He ran to Stiles’, because he didn’t feel like going back inside to ask for the keys to Laura’s Camero.
-0-
The night consisted of greasy pizza, xBox, and a lot more swearing from both of them when it came to certain games.
Stiles leaned his head back to glare up at Derek, as he had migrated to the floor to be at Derek’s feet, and said, “I can’t prove it, but you’re cheating.”
Derek smirked down at him but didn’t reply as he restarted the game with a quick press to Stiles’ start button. “And there’s another head shot,” he said as he leaned back. Stiles fell back a bit more to hit the chair as Derek’s legs splayed open.
“No, seriously, do you even own an xBox? How the hell are you beating me at my own game?” Stiles asked as he leaned back to glare at Derek once more.
Derek had frozen and shrugged his shoulders jerkily. Stiles sat up with a frown as he jammed his fingers against the buttons of his controller. It took every bit of Derek’s control not to move over and away from Stiles. He took a few breaths and discreetly closed his legs again. Too close, he thought and nudged Stiles over so he was sitting on the floor beside him.
-0-
It took them another three weeks. Three weeks, after the initial two of summer vacation, and said summer vacation was more than half way over by the time one of them made a move.
It was Stiles, in the end, who did it. Just as they were gathering the kids together to head back to their respective houses, Stiles had leaned over and pressed a quick, closed-mouth kiss to the corner of Derek’s mouth. “Right. If that wasn’t okay, then ignore it and we’ll see each other tomorrow for the park play date, and it won’t be awkward. If it was okay, come to my house when you’re done your babysitting.” He shepherded the kids away as quickly as they could move, without looking back.
Erica was staring at Derek with wide eyes. She reminded him of Stewie in that one Family Guy episode Stiles forced him to watch. He returned the wide eyed look.
“You know you gotta go see him after,” Scott said as he climbed up onto the picnic bench and leaned against Derek’s back.
“I know.”
“So you’re going to go see him?” Erica asked.
“Is that okay with you?” he asked in return.
She seemed to think of it as he handed her her part of the rope. After they were half way back to her house, after dropping Boyd and Scott off, she nodded, “I guess its okay. I’ve got Boyd and Isaac.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
She gave him a confused look. He merely smiled and knocked on her door. Her mother opened it, thanked him, and let him and Jackson walk away. Derek wrapped the rope around his arm before putting it in his bag, and took Jackson’s hand as they walked.
“Do you like Stiles?” Jackson asked as they neared his house.
“He’s a great guy.”
“He is.” Jackson nodded his head and went to the door to knock himself. “If you hurt him, I’ll make sure you never feel your feet again!” he called as his dad opened the door. Derek merely stared after Jackson in surprise. His dad looked apologetic but ushered Jackson inside nonetheless.
“What a morbid kid,” he muttered and made his way to where he knew Stiles lived.
When he got there, Stiles opened the door and looked truly surprised. “Oh god,” he said and slammed the door shut. It reopened a second later and he gave Derek a guilty smile. “Sorry…I didn’t think you’d actually come over—I mean, I didn’t even clean any. It’s a mess because my dad’s at a conference and I haven’t had time to clean, so…” he made a face. “Sorry, that was really rude,” he opened the door and Derek walked in. They stood awkwardly in the main hall before Stiles threw his hands up. “Okay, listen. I like you. You’re a really appealing dude, with a great personality and you’re surprisingly good with those kids and that’s hot, I’m not gonna lie, so there’s me laying that all out for you to deal with.”
“Deal with?” Derek raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, deal with.” Stiles nodded his head resolutely. “Having me crush on you is a horrible thing, I’m not kidding. There was this girl in middle school that I was convinced I loved for like, four years—it was horrible for the both of us.”
Derek snorted and stepped closer to Stiles. “I like you, too,” he said.
“Oh.”
Derek nodded slowly and then leaned forward to press his lips against Stiles’. “I really like you,” he said firmly.
“That’s great,” Stiles said and pulled Derek back in for another kiss. “But I was serious. This house is a mess and you are not going anywhere deeper into said house, or my dad’ll be on my ass about inviting someone over while it looks the way it does.”
Derek smiled into another kiss, “Fine.”
-0-
The next three weeks were fraught with kids, bruises for Stiles in the form of being tackled more than once (and maybe a bit of a too rough push into the wall for a quick make out or two), and weekends spent together.
By the final Friday of babysitting, they were all at Scott’s house. Stiles and his gang couldn’t make it, so it was just Derek and the monster children from hell.
Derek was sorely missing Stiles. Erica was whining that Jackson broke her green crayon, while Jackson continuously repeated, “It was an accident! I’m sorry!”
He let his head fall back and closed his eyes for a moment. His nose twitched and he looked around him. He swore he smelled Stiles nearby. He sat up and he sniffed the air again.
“What are you smelling?” Boyd asked, smelling the air as well. Erica and Jackson copied him.
“I thought I smelled Stiles…” he trailed off, expecting them to give him funny looks. They didn’t, and continued smelling the air.
Scott ran out of his room, looking flushed. “It’s nothing!” he said, hands waving around.
Derek crouched down and sniffed at him, his hair and face. “Why do you smell like Stiles?”
Scott opened his mouth, closed it, and then seemed to think of an answer. “I…hugged Stiles?” he knew lying to a werewolf was useless, but he tried anyways.
“Scott.”
“I have one of Stiles’ sweaters…”
“And he calls me creepy,” Derek muttered as he stood, “Why do you have Stiles’ sweater?” he asked.
Scott shrugged. “I get nightmares sometimes…his scent is nice,” he scuffed his foot against the carpet.
Derek nodded his head. “Does he know you have his sweater?”
“Yes,” Scott nodded his head proudly.
Derek frowned and nodded as well. “Alright.” He dug his phone out of his jacket and checked the time. “Alright, come on guys, time for me to start bringing you back home,” he said, much to the dismay of the kids.
The usual process went by much the same way, except as he was bringing Scott home to his waiting mom, Stiles met them half way there and attached himself to Derek’s side. “Sup, bro?” he ruffled Scott’s hair with a grin.
Scott shrugged his shoulders happily in response.
“So, since it’s your last night here, I figured we could hang out, watch a movie, maybe make out a bit?” he said. Scott made a face at them but otherwise didn’t say anything.
Derek rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless. “Sure.”
-0-
After thoroughly debauching Stiles, and as he lay there panting for breath, he said, “I need to tell you something.”
“You’re not actually 18?” Derek, of course, had dreaded that ever since Laura had kept giving him these looks.
“What? God no, I am. I am 18, Jesus.” Stiles laughed to himself as he sat up and tried to appear more put together than he actually was.
“What is it, then?”
Stiles wrung his fingers together and made a face as he thought his answer over. Derek could smell the anxiety rolling off Stiles in waves. “Okay, so, before I say it, I just want you to know that this decision was made way before I met you, and I’m not a creepy stalker, or obsessed with you—well, I kind of am, but not in the creepy stalker way.”
“What is it?”
“No, I gotta get this straight before I tell you. I’m not creepy, this decision was made before I even met you, and I’m actually a brilliant person, okay? This adorable face?” Stiles motioned to his face, “Completely brilliant.”
“Okay?” Derek raised an eyebrow at him and waited.
“I’m going to NYU Law.”
Derek paused, eyebrows pulling together. “What?”
“Yeah…dad doesn’t want me to be a cop, so lawyer was next best thing?” Stiles made a face. “You mentioned a couple of days ago that you attend NYU School of Medicine? And I Googled where that was, and it’s like a 30 minute bus ride from the school I’m going to—and I realize I should have left like days ago but I had prior commitments watching the kids, and I had that thought like ‘oh my god what if he thinks I decided to go to NYU Law because I’m crazy obsessed with him or something’? And I just wanted to let you know that I’m not stalking you, and if you thought this was going to be like, a summer fling and that’s it, I understand—we can totally not see each other in New York if you don’t want that, but yeah, I’ll be in New York, like you, and I just wanted to get that out of the way, because I’m driving myself there…tomorrow…” he trailed off.
Derek took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then let it out. “You mean to tell me that I’ve been worrying over asking you if you wanted to go long distance, this entire time, when you’ll be less than half an hour away from my school, because you thought I wouldn’t want to date you in New York?” he said slowly.
Stiles opened his mouth, closed it, and then nodded.
“I thought you said you were brilliant?”
“Hey, I am totally brilli—wait. You…you want to date me in New York? You wanted to go long distance?” he licked his lips and nodded excitedly. “Of course—wait, you’re not asking. I mean yes I’ll keep dating you in New York, or—whatever it is you’re asking, of course.”
Derek grinned and pulled Stiles towards him for another long, deep, kiss. “You’re telling your dad, though.”
“I already did, jackass,” Stiles replied against his mouth.
“Bit presumptuous of you.”
“I’m a bit psychic, what can I say.”