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Isaac and Derek sat watching intently the trio of boys near the Preserve’s tree line.
Teo and Gus, Teo’s school pal, were crouched at a spot of ground that absorbed their attention. Maddox had been crouched there too, but now stood up.
The two werewolf dads had already heard the heartbeat changing in the youngest boy, as the frowning Maddox came walking back to where his father sat.
Teo looked up and called his best friend’s name, but Maddox kept walking away.
When he got to Isaac he clambered into his daddy’s lap. Isaac curled a protective arm around him and lowered his head to hear Maddox’s grumbled, "I don’t like him."
Teo was there almost immediately.
"Maducts, you forgot you’ rock," he said.
Maddox pouted still but took the offering.
"Teo," Derek called his son to him. "Come inside and get something to drink." He invited Gus in too for some lemonade but went ahead indoors with Teo first.
"Maddox is upset. Why is he sad?" Derek asked.
Teo looked surprised, puzzled, troubled, all at once. "I don’ know." He moved as if to rush back outdoors but Derek stopped him.
"Come here. Lets wash your hands and I’ll get your lemonade." While he helped Teo clean up he resumed his questioning. "Were you and Gus ignoring him?" And before Gus arrived in the kitchen: "Did someone say something mean to him?"
"No, Daddy, no!" Teo looked distressed enough to start crying himself.
Derek helped Gus wash the soil from his hands then poured three cups of lemonade. Gus insisted he could carry his cup back outside but Derek carried the other two since Teo was clearly distracted.
He didn’t even take his lemonade once outdoors again but hurried to where Maddox still sat in Isaac’s lap.
"Maducts, are you sad?"
Maddox nodded, pouting even more.
"Why?" Teo sounded close to distraught.
Maddox only buried his face in Isaac’s chest.
Crouching beside his child, a reassuring arm around his small shoulders, Derek was relieved of having to probe deeper into the mystery by the return of Stiles and Scott from wherever they’d wandered.
Scott scented the distress in the air right away. Stiles had only to see the looks on his husband’s and son’s faces to know something was wrong.
Scott kept calm. Softly he asked Isaac, "What’s happened?"
"Not too sure," was his answer.
Stiles plunged right in, also hunching down by his kid, thumbing away the two tear trails from Teo’s cheeks.
He saw the rock still in Maddox’s grasp.
"Did you find some nice new rocks today?"
Teo had become a rock collector ever since a day-trip to Redding, where hiking the outskirts of the town they’d found a dry stream bed layered with stones worn flat, smooth and round.
But his papa’s question was having its intended effect. Teo nodded, keeping silent.
"Maddox, can I look at your rock?" Stiles asked enthusiastically. It was a large pebble, splotched with rusty red, probably a renegade from a garden plot, but being smooth and rounded, it counted as a collectible in Teo’s estimation and therefore in Maddox’s too.
Maddox stared soberly as Stiles exclaimed, "That is a real beauty!"
"It’s Madductses," Teo explained in an urgent tone, still seeming uncertain about the abrupt change in mood.
Stiles wasn’t stopping. "Did you find rocks too?" he asked Teo, who only nodded again, raising his arm to point where they’d been digging, then wiping his eyes with it.
"OK, we’ll get them later, for your collection."
Teo’s "collection" was a pile of rocks in a wooden crate in their backyard at home. Only a few special select ones made it indoors to a shelf in Teo’s room.
"What about you, Gus? You find some rocks?"
Gus had taken a seat at the picnic table, outside the preceding drama (which he hadn’t even been aware of.) He answered Stiles with a "yeah," but rocks didn’t excite Gus. He’d have rather climbed even one of all the trees there, but hadn’t been allowed to.
With Teo’s emotions settling, Derek let him gulp some lemonade. Maddox drank some of his too then deemed it time to leave his daddy’s lap.
Teo took Maddox’s hand and they ran back to their dig. Gus, who’d drained his glass of lemonade, announced he had to pee, so Derek took him to the bathroom.
Stiles prepared to follow the other two to their rock excavation, to keep a repeat of whatever had happened from happening again.
"Stiles, wait," Scott requested quietly. "I still want to know—"
"Yeah, me too," Stiles interrupted.
They both looked at Isaac, who raised his eyebrows, held out his empty palms.
"All I can think is, this is the first time that kid—"
"Gus," Stiles supplied. "I told you he’s Teo’s good friend from school."
"Yeah, well," Isaac continued. "Maddox said he didn’t like him."
Raised eyebrows were Scott’s only reaction. He looked from Isaac to Stiles.
"Growing up—it sucks sometimes," Stiles declared and headed out to the little hole in the ground and the two youngsters poking at it with sticks. Talia Hale was very indulgent of her grands and the pack pups, but Stiles preferred teaching them some respect for the pack grounds too, especially if they were digging holes into it.
When Gus returned Derek came with him and the wiry boy once again asked if he could please climb a tree. Derek, relenting, held him up so he could hang from one of the lower sturdy branches. The five-year old already demonstrated considerable strength as he lifted himself into a pull-up, though Derek stopped him from actually climbing onto the branch. Who knew what he’d do from there.
Then Teo had to try hanging from the branch too, his claws protruding by necessity, though after just a few seconds it didn’t seem like that much fun after all—not if Daddy wasn’t letting them go higher.
Fortunately Scott had followed Derek and now held Maddox above his head, playing airplane, Maddox expressing no desire to hang from a tree branch despite Teo’s doing it.
Maddox turned airborne airplane into bird, flapping his arms.
Stiles filled in the little hole and tamped it down, after retrieving the rocks Teo had deemed worthy of keeping, stowing them in his pocket.
Teo knew you could play airplane by just running with your arms out, so he started doing that and once Maddox saw him he wanted to join in back on the ground. Their faux engine roars drew Gus’s attention and soon all three boys were running around in inter-looping circles.
Maddox had no trouble keeping up with that, though he preferred flapping his arms every now and then. He liked being a bird.
Scott and Stiles looked on for only a minute or two before jumping in, arms extended. They’d swoop in to scoop up one of the boys under an arm, adding shrieks and playful protests to the airplane sounds.
Teo, seeing his daddy standing to the side of the fun rushed at Derek and clasped his knees, trying to drag him into the fray. Stiles joined him, which resulted in all three on the grassy ground.
Gus, though not knowing Scott at all, was one of those kids not intimidated by adult strangers, not when they were pack, and, following Teo’s example, attempted to tackle Scott, who went down easily, always the fun dad.
Maddox, the only one left standing, dove onto his papi.
The sounds of gasps for breath (Stiles) and giggles (everyone else) were all Isaac heard, after he’d wandered over to the scene. (The truth was he couldn’t resist a puppy-pile.)
Scott reached up for him, offering a hand to his husband, who, careful to get no grass stains on his pants, lowered himself to his knees. Maddox flashed him a smile reserved exclusively for his dads.
Seven figures sprawled in the grass was the sight greeting Lyra Moody, Gus’s mom, when she arrived to take her son home.
"Mami! Mami!" Gus shouted as he charged her, to be caught, hugged and kissed, while she called him "Augusto, mi bebé."
They spoke in Espanol, Gus apparently out to tell his mother everything at once.
Whispering, Stiles asked Derek could he understand what Gus was saying.
"Why do you want to know"? Derek asked in return, impugning his husband’s respect for others’ privacy.
"Just in case he’s telling her something about—whatever happened before."
"He’s telling her," Derek resumed in a hushed, very low voice, "how much fun he had here and he wants to come back again."
"Maybe Tay can learn Spanish from Gus," Stiles proposed.
"I can teach him!" Derek reminded.
"Whoa," was Stiles’s response. "Down, big boy.—Now help me up."
"I’m on the ground too," Derek complained, but got to his feet and did as instructed.
"C’mon, Tay, we have to say goodbye to Gus."
"I know!" Teo answered, already zooming to his friend.
Lyra hugged and kissed Teo in greeting too. He laughed and shivered in reaction.
With everyone gathered together there were friendly hugs all around.
Derek watched when Teo hugged Gus. Gus returned the hug as sincerely, both boys clinging together, reveling in the scents of grass, trees and earth on one another.
Something made Derek look to Maddox too, standing by his daddy’s knees. Maddox stared at the long hug in progress, his expression inscrutable.
Derek glanced at Scott and Isaac, to see if they were noting anything going on, but they seemed aware only of Stiles’s conversation with Lyra.
At that moment Talia and Malcolm returned from shopping, the pick-up loaded with groceries.
There was plenty of help carrying the groceries indoors, so Talia invited the Moodys to dinner but Lyra graciously declined the Alpha’s invite since their dinner was already underway at home, she explained.
Meanwhile Malcolm fired up the grill, readying it for burgers and steaks.
Once they’d become grandparents to toddlers Talia and Malcolm had bought swing sets, slides—a small playground’s worth of things to keep all the pups entertained.
At that moment Teo and Maddox had it all to themselves, while Isaac kept a careful eye out with Scott, who’d brought two chairs with him when he’d joined his husband.
Stiles, stopping his duties setting the tables for their al fresco meal, was remembering his and Scott’s early days, long ago in grammar school, when random circumstance tossed them together but something even more inexplicable bound them like brothers.
Hearing the indistinct chatter but definite laughter of his son and his son’s best friend, Stiles realized Teo and Maddox would always have known each other for longer, starting from a time neither might be able to even remember.
Lasting friendship was no less a mystery than love.
As if profound thoughts caused a discernible scent, Derek was suddenly beside Stiles.
"We have a happy kid," he said.
Stiles kissed him then looking back at the giddy youngsters sighed, "I wish that it never ends."
"Well, their bond may never."
Later on, over the remnants of dinner the adults watched the pair of boys carefree in their private bubble, at their own little picnic table. Usually Maddox never ate any meal without some assistance but Teo, being inclined to feed the ones he loved, had been entrusted with that task—of course not without the vigilant observation, even at some little distance, of all four dads.
Their five new rocks, washed and laying on a napkin before them, were no longer the primary topic of discussion, which, from what Derek could hear, had turned to how good ketchup tasted.
Maddox’s heartbeat was steady, the rhythm of contentment.
Talia Hale, having learned of the afternoon’s upset, had surmised, "Their connection is very strong. Until Maddox gets accustomed to sharing Teo’s attention, he’s not going to like it."
"Teo’s not going to like Maddox’s not liking it, either," Stiles commented.
"Teo didn’t even know what was happening, or why," Derek added, still feeling his little son’s distress from hours earlier.
"They’ll be fine," Talia assured him. "Look at them. They don’t even remember it happened.—You remember it more."
"It smelled like jealousy," Isaac confirmed, looking grave.
But then the happy twosome were leaving their seats, Teo helping Maddox up.
"Papa we’re done!" he announced, approaching the big peoples’ table.
"I’ve got fruit ice for them," Talia whispered.
"Oh god," Isaac groaned. "I am definitely helping him eat that. He’ll have more on him than in him otherwise."
"It’s in cups, Isaac," Talia said.
"Makes no difference."
"Just half for each of them, please," Stiles requested. "Teo on a sugar-buzz at night is scary."
"Stiles, I don’t feed my babies bad treats. These are fructose only."
"Then I want one too!" Stiles cried.
Derek rolled his eyes.
"I’m surprised you’re still awake, Madd-Man," Scott said to his boy.
"’M not tired, Poppy," Maddox replied, yawning immediately and without any awareness of contradiction.
Isaac, under his breath, murmured to Scott: "Soon as we get in the car…" He tilted his head to one side, eyes closed.
Teo had three rocks in his hand. He’d given another one to Maddox, who handed off his two to his dad.
"Have you thought about getting them some actual minerals?" Malcolm asked. "Have they ever seen quartz crystals?"
"We’ll see if this interest lasts, Dad," Derek told him. "Then we’ll see about getting him the real thing."
"But ‘the real thing’ now might encourage the interest."
"If you know where to get some crystals…" Derek huffed, resigned.
"Oh, I know," he was guaranteed.
As Isaac accurately predicted Maddox fell asleep in the car on their drive home. He even slept through his removal from his car seat and was barely awake while Scott put him in his pj’s.
Teo, his new rocks clean and dry, was allowed to take his treasures into bed with him, where he communed with them till he fell asleep.
Not a week later an after-dinner text from his dad informed Derek: I’ll be there in a few minute. OK?
Grandpa Hale had a present for his youngest grandchild. He handed Teo a tissue paper wrapped lump.
"Be careful with it," he advised.
With Derek looking on, Stiles helped the unwrapping process. It revealed a chunk of quartz crystal, clear as glass, with large facets and a prism point.
Teo stared at it, comprehending only how pretty it was.
"It’s a rock, Tay. For your collection," Stiles explained.
"Not going in the crate, though," Derek added parenthetically.
Teo still stared. "It’s a rock?"
"It’s rock crystal," Malcolm further clarified.
Stiles held it up to show, "Look, Tay, you can see through it."
"I think he’s in awe," Derek surmised when Teo seemed able only to stare at it, not speaking.
"And I’ve got one for your friend too," Grandpa Hale continued, ever the source of endless wonders.
"Madducts?" Teo cried excitedly.
"That’s who," Grandpa answered. He unwrapped a second lump from its paper, offering Teo another crystal chunk.
"For Madducts?" Teo started hopping up and down. "Papa, can I show Madducts now?"
"How about I take a picture and send it to Uncle Scott? It might be Maddox’s bed time now.—Thank your grandpa!"
Teo flung his arms around the older man’s neck. Malcolm stood up with the boy latched to him, hearing the little one’s thanks spoken against his skin.
"You’re welcome, Teodor. And when you get a little older, we’ll go excavating, dig up some crystals ourselves."
Teo had no idea what "excavating" meant but if Grandpa was doing it, then it would be great, whatever it was.
Meanwhile Stiles whispered to Derek, "Did it look to you like Teo was more excited to have something to give Maddox than he was getting his own crystal?"
"I really think he was just amazed at first," was Derek’s reply. "But when it comes to Maddox we probably shouldn’t be surprised by anything Teo does."
And that was truth. Allowed to take the crystals into bed with him (he’d really begged to) Teo informed his papa and daddy, coming in for lights out, that he’d named them.
"This one’s ‘Madducts’ an’ this one’s ‘Teo,’" he decreed.
"But you’re still giving Maddox his, right?" Stiles asked, before realizing that Teo had named his crystal "Maddox" and the other one, for Maddox, he’d named "Teo."
"Yes!" Teo answered. "’S very ‘portant, Papa."
"We know it is, Tay," Derek assured him, looking Stiles right in the eyes.