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Okay, so Stiles would be the first one to admit -- grudgingly, and with a tone of defeat -- that college has made him lazy. Without Scott to drag him to lacrosse practice, and without the daily routine of rushing around the high school just to get to his classes on time, Stiles had no reason to maintain a regular exercising schedule. Sure, he’s still skinny -- his body isn’t built to be any other way -- but he knows he’s severely out of shape.
He hasn’t tried to keep fit for aesthetic reasons either, because his workload in college was enough to keep him occupied in ways that didn’t allow for relationships. Hookups that happened at the occasional party he attended didn’t require all that much effort, he found. Stiles somehow managed to become interesting to his fellow students, at least enough that he wasn’t short on one night stand possibilities.
“Dad, I won’t manage the academy’s entry test,” he tells the Sheriff when he gets back after getting his law degree, and his Dad very unsubtly suggests that Stiles try out for the force. “There are like, a million of fitness parts to it, and you know how out of shape I am.”
“Time to get back into shape then, kiddo,” John tells him, and then leaves Stiles alone at the kitchen table to ponder the conversation.
It takes about five minutes of mulling it over before he picks up his phone, scrolls to Lydia’s name and calls her. Another few minutes later, they’re on Skype, even though she’s busy writing her current article for something Stiles doesn’t remember, but he knows she told him about it before.
“It’s a good idea, career-wise,” Lydia tells him when she hears the Sheriff’s suggestion. “I know you don’t want to be stuck in an entry-level position at some uppity law firm, and having field experience with the Sheriff’s department, or even just the Police Academy would give you massive advantage in finding better work.”
“But exercise,” Stiles says, and he’s aware of how whiny he sounds. “Also, there isn’t a gym here, since the last one went bankrupt on account of no one wanting to actually use it.”
“You can always go for runs out in the Preserve like you used to do with Scott,” Lydia suggests, smirking at him through the screen. “You can even go snoop around the old Hale place when you’re there, like you…”
“We didn’t snoop!” Stiles interrupts her. “The house was abandoned and perfect for horror story research. Who wouldn’t be curious?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe the rest of the town?” Lydia snaps at him, and Stiles doesn’t need to ask to know that she’s not impressed with his interrupting, or with his and Scott’s admittedly childish habits from their high school days.
“Okay, okay, we were little shits,” he admits grudgingly. “But I’ve grown up since.”
Lydia actually snorts at his words, tells him to get out of the house and go for a run, and then she hangs up before Stiles can even start protesting. He’ll never admit that she’s right, but he does end up digging out his one pair of running shoes -- he’s already dreading having to go buy decent new ones -- and decides to see if his jogging stamina has died completely or if he stands a chance to survive the entry test for the police academy. To avoid prying eyes and potential embarrassment -- he does remember his attempts at cross country running that the lacrosse coach pushed on them -- he ends up running towards the Preserve.
He’s not sure where the Hale property boundaries are, though he’s aware that some of the area isn’t owned by the county, so he just keeps running and hopes that no one shoots him for trespassing. Or well, he tries to run, but really he mostly walks the paths that are steeper than he remembered. It’s when he stops to re-tie one of his shoelaces that his breath slows and quiets down enough for him to hear the noises around him. It turns out he should’ve been paying more attention, even though his heavy breathing drowned out a lot of the surrounding noise, because when he catches his breath, he doesn’t miss the sound of twigs cracking under someone’s feet.
He’s up on his feet faster than he thought he’d manage, and turns around towards the source of the sounds. He finishes spinning just in time to see a man emerging from the shrubbery that’s lining the path Stiles is on, and for a second, both of them are frozen.
“I’m sorry, man, I’m probably way off the public tracks,” Stiles rambles before the other man can say anything. “So if you’re here to yell at me for trespassing, I’ll be on my way.”
“That’s a big assumption,” the guy says, and Stiles’ shoulder sag in relief at the amused tone in his voice. “What if I’d been a serial killer on the prowl for unsuspecting joggers?”
“You’d be a rather stupid one,” Stiles shoots back. “I don’t think anyone ever comes running here, so you’d be old and grey before you found a victim.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
“True, but it’s not like I regularly go for runs here. Or well, I might soon, because I need to get some exercise, but you’d be a murderer with a really big stroke of luck, since it’s my first time out running here in years,” Stiles rambles. “Also,” he smirks and nods towards the man’s hand, “I doubt that many serial killers go around carrying a pink safety blanket. Or a teddy bear. Though they would make for an interesting case for the local detectives. And my Dad, seeing as he’s the Sheriff.”
“Stiles? Stiles Stilinski, of course,” the man says with a tone that sounds like exasperation to Stiles’ ears. “I should’ve known.”
“And you are?” Stiles frowns, unsure what to make of the stranger knowing his name.
“Derek Hale,” comes the answer, and Stiles’ eyes widen in shock.
“Wow, man, didn’t recognize you at all,” Stiles blurts out, and Derek’s eyebrows perfectly convey the unspoken ‘No shit, Sherlock’. “I didn’t know you were back in town, Dad never said anything. I mean, not that he had a reason to, but…”
“He did, actually, seeing as I work with the department,” Derek says with a smirk. “But I’ve only been here a few weeks.”
“Whoa, wait, you are the new consultant whom Dad’s been raving about?” Stiles asks. “He’s being talking about this new guy who’s already solved like, a bunch of cases that the department was completely stuck on.”
“Two,” Derek interrupts, and Stiles doesn’t miss the pleased expression nor the faint blush on Derek’s cheeks. “I’ve helped with two cases so far.”
“Well, you’ve made an impression,” Stiles tells him. “Dad’s seriously in awe.”
“Good, that means I’ll keep the job for another while,” Derek replies with a soft smile, and what sounds like relief in his voice.
“So, sorry if I’m crossing lines,” Stiles says, his curiosity getting the best of him. “I mean, besides the property ones, which I”m not even sure I did cross. But what’s with the, um, accessories?”
Derek laughs as he looks down at the blanket and toy in his hands.
“They’re my daughter’s,” he says, and Stiles’ eyes blow wide open. “We were out for a picnic earlier, and had to leave a little abruptly, and these were left behind. So I had to go find them, or she wouldn’t sleep tonight.”
Daughter, Stiles thinks, trying to wrap his mind around the fact. Of course, he would never expect someone like Derek -- because Stiles didn’t miss how attractive Derek is -- to be single. Still, the idea of the man in front of him with a child is blowing his mind a little. He also doesn’t miss that there doesn’t seem to be a wedding ring on Derek’s hand, though.
“I’d better get back, actually, I left her with Cora and as much as she’s a loving aunt, I think she most enjoys the part where she gets to hand Lia over,” Derek says, rolling his eyes fondly.
“Yeah, sure, of course,” Stiles says, his mind still stuck on imagining Derek with a baby girl and trying to process that mental image.
“I’ll see you around, I guess,” Derek says, already walking across the path in the direction of where the Hale house is.
Stiles is still too in shock from the information he just received to even start wondering why Derek is heading there, or to say anything about Cora being back in town. He remembers her a little better than Derek, because she was in his year in school before they moved away. It’s only when he gets back to his run and gives himself time to think that more and more questions flood his brain.
When he’s home and has washed away the sweat and dust layer from being out, he dials Lydia’s number.
“Did you know the Hales were back in town? And that Derek has a kid? And that he grew up to be devastatingly handsome? And he’s in law enforcement?” Stiles blurts, barely letting Lydia get a greeting in.
“No, yes, I wouldn’t know, yes,” Lydia rattles off the answers, laughter coloring her voice.
“Wait, you know? Why didn’t you tell me?” Stiles asks, knowing that he sounds more offended than surprised.
“Well, I didn’t know you’d be interested after all these years,” Lydia says, still chuckling. “I mean, I remember your little crush, but I thought you were past that, like the one you had on me back then.”
“That’s… different,” Stiles protests weakly. “And beside the point. I don’t know why Dad didn’t say the new guy was Derek either.”
“Probably because he wanted to prevent you freaking out about it,” Lydia says.
“Who’s freaking out? I’m not freaking out,” Stiles tries, but then lets his head fall onto the back of the couch he’s sitting on. “Okay, fine, freaking out a little. But it’s Derek, Lyds.”
“Oh I know,” Lydia says, laughing again. “I was there when you had your sexuality crisis, remember?”
Stiles cringes, because that wasn’t his proudest moment, though he still thinks asking her for a kiss to “determine if he’s into girls” was a good strategy. Lydia didn’t think so then, and he doubts she’d say anything else now.
“Anyway, now that you called, I remembered that I have something to send you,” Lydia tells him, and Stiles can hear the clicking of a keyboard in the background. “Since you need to start exercising, and I know your attention span can be a menace, there’s this one video I found that might help you.”
“It’s not pole dancing, is it?” Stiles asks.
“No,” she says. “There, sent. It’s nothing that would get you injured, so no pole dancing. I do know how bad your coordination is. It’s just exercise made a little more fun, that’s all.”
“Okay, I’ll check it out,” Stiles says. “But don’t think you’re off the hook with the information withholding.”
“Go, watch the video, Stiles, I have more important things to do,” she tells him dismissively, and then the call ends, leaving Stiles muttering at his phone with indignation.
He does go to his laptop and opens the email Lydia sent him though, and then clicks on the YouTube link, because his curiosity isn’t something that can be beaten down, no matter how angry he is. Lydia hanging up on him ranks low on the scale of rage-inducing events anyway, after years of their friendship and multiple occasions of her cutting off their phone calls. It’s something that Stiles did to her almost the same amount of times, although his reasons vary from serious interruptions to random distractions.
The video has his attention almost immediately after he starts playing it, because the exercises in it do seem fun and less frightening than his own research brought up. But then something catches his eye in the suggested videos on the sidebar.
“Workout routines for Dads,” Stiles reads out loud, and his mind immediately jumps back to his earlier encounter in the Preserve.
Maybe it’s because he’s already thinking about Derek that causes him to choke on air when the video starts playing. Or maybe it’s the sight of Derek in workout clothes, doing push-ups on the small screen, hovering just above a baby with a red bow around her head and kissing her cheek every time he’s close. She looks to be a few months old, and her hands reach up to Derek’s face every time he lifts his body up and away from her.
The video comes to an end all too quickly, and Stiles doesn’t think twice about clicking on replay. It takes another two plays through the adorable video before he even looks to see the channel name, and notices that it’s Derek’s name. When he checks it, there are various regular workout routines, demonstrations of simple exercises, but then there’s a playlist named “Dadcercise”.
Stiles swears to himself that he’s not going to mention to anyone ever that he watches each and every one of those. There’s Derek doing sit-ups with his knees serving as a chair for his daughter -- Lia, Stiles thinks -- and a video with her strapped to Derek’s back as he does pull-ups. There’s even a video of Derek out jogging in what looks like Central Park, Lia in a stroller in front of him, and one where he’s pulling the stroller attached to his waist with straps that look homemade and improvised.
Stiles doesn’t know how many videos he’s watched by the time the front door slams and his Dad calls out that he’s home.
“Hey Dad, I’ll be down in a minute,” Stiles shouts as he’s bookmarking the page, not wanting to lose it.
“We brought take-out!” John’s shout carries up the stairs.
Stiles freezes for a moment in the doorway at both the mention of what’s likely to be unhealthy food and the “we” in the sentence. He thinks back on their talk over breakfast in the morning, but there’s nothing he can recall that would hint at his Dad mentioning visitors. Figuring it’s probably one of the deputies -- Jordan Parrish was over a few times over the past week because of a case the department is working on -- Stiles rushes down the stairs, ready to complain to his Dad about the food choice.
His mouth is half open when he reaches the kitchen, but the words freeze on the tip of his tongue when his eyes land on the extra person in the kitchen.
“Hey Stiles, hope the rest of your run went okay,” Derek says, his lips turned up in a smirk.
“I… what… yeah, no more random serial killers,” he blurts the first words that come to his mind.
John looks up from the paper bags on the table, and first frowns in confusion at Derek, then follows it up with a “what did you do?” look in Stiles’ direction.
“I went for a run, since you know, the whole academy thing?” Stiles tries to explain, but he’s still flustered from Derek’s presence in his kitchen.
“Do I need to book him for trespassing?” John asks Derek then, amusement in his voice.
“Dad!” Stiles shouts in protest and shock.
“It’s okay, it’s not like there’s anything out there,” Derek says, shrugging, and smiles. “Besides some random joggers and a house that will soon be torn down anyway.”
“Wait what? Why? It’s…” Stiles starts, but he freezes as his father looks at him again, this time less exasperated and more genuinely irritated.
“Yeah well, if you ever decide to film a horror movie, it will have to be somewhere else,” Derek says, still smiling. “That place is not safe anymore, not even for kids who are too curious for their own good. Especially for those kind of kids.”
“What? How? How did you…?” Stiles is lost for words, something that doesn’t happen too often, and he can hear his Dad pointing it out to Derek.
“Stiles, everyone knew you and Scott used to go out there to ‘location scout’,” Derek says, including the air quotes. “Cora used to tell us every time she heard you talking about it in school.”
“Crap,” Stiles mutters.
“On that note,” John interrupts, and shoots Stiles a glare that says ‘we will talk about that later’, “let’s dig in boys, before we all starve.”
“About that,” Stiles says quickly, happy about the change or topic. “You shouldn’t eat take-out, you know what the doctor said.”
“To eat healthy, yes,” John smirks as he’s putting plates and napkins on the table. “It’s a good thing Derek here pointed me to a place with food that perfectly fits into the restrictions. It does mean that you’re not getting curly fries either though,” he adds and Stiles deflates a little. “Then again, if you want to get fit, you should change your eating habits too, son.”
“If you need help with that, I can give you some pointers about exercise and food,” Derek says, piling what looks like salad onto his plate.
“Yeah, no, thanks, I’ll figure it out, thanks though,” Stiles mumbles, his mind flashing back to the videos he spent his afternoon watching.
He decides that eating and not letting himself talk is probably in everyone’s best interest, and the food turns out surprisingly delicious. Dinner passes by fast, Derek and John barely talking and Stiles still on a self-imposed time-out from putting a foot in his mouth, and when it’s over, he dashes up to his room with a rambled excuse about having to call Scott.
Once in his room, Stiles boots his laptop up again, and looks up the YouTube channel, muting the sound at the first beat of the autoplay video. There are several links in the channel’s description: one for Derek’s Facebook, but it’s mostly locked besides the videos linked from YouTube; another one to an Instagram that has multiple short clips that look like outtakes of the videos.
Stiles calls Lydia again as he’s scrolling through the photos and videos, and she huffs when he tells her why he’s calling.
“Really? He’s in your house, why are you talking to me?”
“Because… I don’t know, he’s just… Lydia I can’t just talk to him,” Stiles says, grinning helplessly at a clip of Lia rolling away from under Derek as they were filming the push-up video.
“Never seemed to be a problem for you with anyone else,” Lydia tells him, clearly amused by the way he’s reacting.
“Yeah well, look where that got me until now,” Stiles huffs. “I can’t tell him I saw the videos. Or the Instagram. Or like all his photos on here. He’d think I’m a creep, or a stalker.”
“Well, you kind of are,” Lydia chuckles.
“Lydia, please, you’re supposed to be helping me, not mocking my pain!” Stiles says, and cringes at his own whiny tone.
“Oh, was that in the small print? I forgot to read that, let me just make sure I didn’t actually sign this friendship agreement,” Lydia says, now openly laughing. “You could ask him for advice on training, you know. Just a thought.”
Stiles, already lost in thought prompted by the video he’s playing where Derek’s lifting Lia up on his shins and she’s giggling in delight, says absent-mindedly, “maybe I can ask if I could borrow his kid for those exercises.”
“Don’t,” Lydia says immediately. “Seriously, do not do that.”
“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Stiles says mournfully.
“Seriously, just go downstairs, talk to him, it will be fine,” Lydia tells him. “You can even mention his videos, just say you found one by accident and go from there.”
Stiles agrees, though he’s still hesitating, but he finishes the call and shuts down his laptop. By the time he’s heading down the stairs though, the front door shuts and his Dad walks back into the hallway.
“Oh, did Derek leave?” Stiles asks when his Dad raises a questioning eyebrow.
“Yeah,” John says. “Sorry about not letting you know he’s coming over, we’re stuck on this case, and I didn’t think it’d be a big deal to have him over for dinner.”
“No, it’s fine, I was just surprised,” Stiles says and follows his Dad towards the couch. “I didn’t know he was back in town.”
“Oh, I thought I mentioned him.”
“You did, kind of a lot, actually, you just never said your whizz kid consultant was Derek Hale,” Stiles tells him, and he tries to steal the remote control out of John’s hands.
“You have a problem with him, son?”
“No, not at all, no problem whatsoever, Dad,” Stiles says, and then whoops victoriously when he manages to get the remote. “Oh look, baseball!”
With his Dad sufficiently distracted -- Stiles wonders for a moment if he should worry how easy it was, but then lets it go -- they fall into silence for the evening. Later, Stiles goes back to his room and glares at the temptation that is his laptop and all the videos he hasn’t watched yet. He falls asleep trying to think of ways to approach Derek about it all, because he has to admit that Lydia has a point: Derek obviously knows about training, and Stiles’ attempt to go for a run earlier that day proved how painfully out of shape he really is.
With the case that his Dad and the whole department is working on, he doesn’t get a chance to try out any of the ways to ask though. They’re all working overtime, because there was a wave of forest and house fires that aren’t accidental. He hears that Derek is working on the case too, but there aren’t any more random dinner visits over the next week, so that doesn’t help Stiles’ mission to talk to him either.
Eventually, his Dad runs out of staff that could process paperwork, and Stiles gets roped into filing and sorting old cases that are similar to the current ones. He’s at the station for his first “shift” -- really, a volunteering session, no matter how much his Dad tries to make it look otherwise -- when Derek barges in the door, looking rumpled and stressed.
“Hey, Derek,” Stiles calls out from behind the piles of documents he’s about to start sorting. “You okay?”
“Yeah, no, kind of, is your father here?” Derek says, his eyes darting around the room.
“He’s out getting coffee, said he’d be back soon,” Stiles glances towards the front doors. “I’m guessing he’s sneaking a donut on the way, so about another five minutes or so?”
“Okay, yeah, good,” Derek says, and he sighs, then pulls the jogger Stiles remembers from his videos in through the doors. “I can wait that long, I guess.”
He’s looking into the stroller, a worried look on his face, and Stiles can’t help but try to peek in. Lia is curled up under the pink blanket from the day Derek was out in the Preserve, and even with no baby experience, Stiles can see she’s flushed and sweating.
“Is she okay?” He asks carefully, worry coloring his voice.
“She has a cold, so the daycare wouldn’t take her today,” Derek says. “And Cora had an interview this morning. I’m just here to tell the Sheriff I can’t be in today. We were supposed to go to the old house, but there’s no way I can with her.”
“Oh yeah, Dad said there were ties to…” Stiles freezes, not sure whether to bring up what his Dad told him.
The day before, Stiles came across an old file on the house fire that turned the old Hale house into what it was now: a shell that looked like a horror movie location. He mentioned it to his Dad, mostly out of curiosity because that fire had been arson, but one they never found the culprit of. It was completely by accident that Stiles mentioned the wiring type used in the Hale house fire, because he didn’t know then that the same wiring was being used in the house fires they were investigating now.
“Yeah, we were going to run over the evidence and some other things, go back to the house while it’s still standing,” Derek says, and he falls into the chair opposite Stiles’ desk.
“Well, if you’d be okay with it, I mean, I don’t have much experience, but I’m not completely incompetent,” Stiles blurts, an idea crossing his mind and his brain too distracted by Derek’s presence to keep it in. “They do let me in here and handling official files, that has to have some weight. But, what I’m saying is, I could watch her for you? While you go out to the house at least? That shouldn’t be all that long, right?”
When he looks up, Derek is staring back, dumbfounded and a little confused, like he doesn’t know whether Stiles is serious or joking.
“I get that you don’t know me, man, but when Dad gets here, he…” Stiles pauses and then shakes his head. “Yeah, on second thought, don’t ask him for a reference, he’s biased. And holding a grudge for the trouble I caused him back when I was in high school.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t arrest you yet,” John says from the front door.
Stiles immediately makes a “shhh” sound and frowns at his Dad’s loud voice. Derek’s eyes widen a little, but then a smile tugs on the corners of his lips, and Stiles blushes in response to that. He turns to the piles of documents to pretend being busy so he can compose himself before he talks to either his Dad or Derek again. While he’s shuffling the piles around, he hears Derek explaining why he has Lia there, and then John hums when Stiles’ offer comes up.
“He did babysit my sister’s kids years ago, so he’s not entirely clueless,” John says, making Stiles look up in surprise. “We should only be out for maybe an hour, so if you’re okay with it…” he drifts off, glancing to Stiles.
Derek is frowning again, but it doesn’t look like he’s worried, more like he’s thinking it over. His eyes dart to the sleeping girl, then he looks up at Stiles who can’t help but offer a smile that he hopes is reassuring.
“Yeah, okay,” Derek finally says, still frowning.
Then he turns to pick up a bag from the bottom of the stroller, and hands it to Stiles over the file-filled table. Stiles listens as Derek tells him about the supplies in it, and what to do in case Lia wakes up before they get back. And then, before Stiles can do more than nod, Derek is rushing out of the door, like he’s afraid to change his mind if he lingers any longer.
Stiles puts the bag down by his chair, and he walks around the desk to turn the stroller towards him, then he turns back to the files he still needs to sort. For a while, there’s no noise in the empty station besides the static from the dispatch radio and quiet noises from Dennis, the dispatcher, that sound a little like snoring. Stiles is moving the documents around quietly, smirking to himself at Dennis, and smiling fondly when Lia shuffles around in the stroller a little.
Then, just as he’s about to check if it’s time for Derek to get back, he hears an unhappy sniffle from the stroller, and he immediately glances over, alerted. Lia looks up from below the blanket, and her eyes widen at his face.
“Hey girl,” Stiles tells her when he moves closer. “How come you’re awake? Derek said you’d be sleeping while he’s out.”
“Ba?” Lia asks, and her face immediately scrunches unhappily when a look around gives away that Derek isn’t there.
Uh-oh, Stiles thinks when he watches her panicky glances. She pulls herself up in the stroller, and her eyes scan the room -- or what she can see of it, at least. He’s about to say something else when the crying starts, and Stiles sees Dennis snap out of his snooze just to glare at the disturbance. With a hasty “sorry, man”, Stiles grabs the bag off the floor and then reaches for the stroller’s handle so he can push it into the break room. Lia is quietly crying all the way there, and Stiles rummages through the bag for the bottle Derek mentioned.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, Derek… Daddy will be back soon,” he talks at her, and gives himself a moment to think how odd and yet natural the words sound. “Are you thirsty, baby?” Stiles asks and offers her the sippy cup.
She bats it away, and though her cries are already quieter, she still doesn’t look anywhere close to happy. To Stiles’ surprise, instead of shying away when he steps closer, Lia holds her arms out to him. He figures she wants to be picked up, so he gets a firm hold on her and pulls her into his arms. She’s still upset when she wraps her arms around him, but her crying has subsided to sniffling and quiet mumbles of “Ba?” that might not be her asking for Derek, but Stiles can’t decipher it for anything else. Really, he’s mostly surprised that she’s considering him safe enough to be held by, and that her crying isn’t any louder.
“Hey, sweetie, it’s okay, Daddy’s coming back,” he tells her, trying to rock her gently.
He shifts her to his hip then, and watches as she takes in the room, settling another tiny bit as she seems to recognise it. Stiles figures from her reaction that it isn’t the first time she’s there, and guesses that it’s why she’s not more upset about Derek’s absence. When he tries to put her into the stroller again though -- his arm is getting tired -- she wails again.
“Okay, okay, I won’t,” he says as he pulls her close again. “I knew the attempt to work out was going to bite me in the…” he mumbles and bites back the last word.
After a few minutes of rocking her, Stiles can feel the burn of his muscles, but he powers through it, because any attempt to put Lia in the stroller or even near it results in her getting more upset. He finds out a little while later that putting her down on the table is something she finds more acceptable, and he keeps his hands on her sides as she looks around. She gets restless soon though, and he has to lift her again. That’s when he spots something in the corner of the break room that wasn’t there when he used to hang out in the station as a kid.
It’s a little space with a newly laid bright blue carpet, and a few books are on a bookshelf next to it, along with a pile of paper and a small box of crayons. Stiles smirks, because that wouldn’t have been able to entertain him when he was small, but he guesses it helps others, if there are ever any kids around. He grabs Lia’s bag and walks over to the corner with her, then he sets her down on the carpet.
She’s okay for a while, until she spots the crayons and in a blink she’s crawling towards them. Figuring that she’s likely to use them as chew toys, Stiles darts forward to move them out of her reach. Unfortunately, that sets her off, and she starts crying again.
“Oh no, no sweetie, you can’t have those,” he tries to soothe her, but she keeps crying. “Come on, Lia, look,” Stiles pulls her teddy out of the bag where he managed to stash it earlier. “Teddy?”
She gives it one look -- giving him a moment of relief -- and then the cries start again. It’s when he leans forward to sneakily push the stack of papers out of her sight that she goes quiet. He’s on his hands and knees, and the movement is similar to doing push-ups. Lia’s silence gives him an idea then, and he lifts up first, moves her until she’s on her back looking up at him, and then he leans over her.
The first giggle comes after a clumsy attempt to do a push-up. His arms are burning at even the little effort it takes, but her laugh makes him almost forget the pain. He tries again, this time dipping lower, and Lia giggles again, her hands reaching up to his face.
“I won’t be able to do this for too long,” he mutters, but does another one, this time low enough that their noses touch.
She’s giggling loud enough now to drown out all other sounds, at least to Stiles’ ears. So he misses the click of the break room opening, and looks up only when it bangs closed again. When he looks up from Lia, he’s faced with the shocked expression on Derek’s face.
“You…” Derek starts, then he pauses and frowns. “How did you know to do that?”
Stiles can feel his cheeks burning, not only from the effort of the few push-ups he just did, but also because he knows that his secret is out.
“I was,” he says, sitting up, “remember how I was going to work out? Well, I was looking up routines on YouTube and somehow I happened to find yours,” he tells Derek, face still warm with a blush.
“Oh,” Derek says, and he bends down to pick Lia up.
“This was kind of by accident though,” Stiles admits. “I was trying to move those,” he waves at the papers, “and she laughed, so I tried to keep going. I think I killed my arms, though,” he finishes with a wince.
“I could help you with the working out, if you want,” Derek says after a few beats.
Stiles blinks up at him, and tries to think of the appropriate response. Before he finds it, Derek sits down on the ground next to him, Lia on his lap, but reaching her hand out towards Stiles.
“She likes you,” Derek whispers, his expression and tone showing his surprise. “She hasn’t… she doesn’t tend to like new people.”
“Oh,” Stiles says back, just as quietly.
“Would you… I actually wanted to ask you when we met on the running trail, but…” Derek says, still keeping quiet. “Would you like to go for coffee sometimes? With me? Without this one?”
As if knowing that Derek’s talking about her, Lia whimpers a little, and stops when her hand finally manages to grab on to Stiles’ T-shirt.
“Ba,” she says, seemingly satisfied with having a hold on both of them.
“With her is fine too,” Stiles says with a small smile. “I’d like that,” he then answers Derek’s question.
He’s rewarded with a smile he hasn’t seen outside of the videos, and somehow in person, it’s even more beautiful.