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Derek had just finished clearing away the last of the dinner dishes when he heard Claire's deliberately heavy footsteps coming up from behind him. He would've been able to hear them if she had walked normally, anyway, but his human daughter liked to be as dramatic as possible when she was trying to make a point.
And he knew exactly who to blame for that little personality quirk.
When Derek ignored the footsteps, they were followed by a long, loud sigh. When he still didn't turn around, she finally spoke, "Daaaaad!"
Derek hid his grin as he turned around. "Yes, Claire?"
"It's after 7:30," she said, waving a hand at the glowing numbers on the microwave. "We need to get in there!"
Derek gave her a look and dried his damp hands against the denim of his jeans. "Why can't you tell time this well when I need you to? Like...bed time? Or school time?"
Claire rolled her eyes even as she grabbed his hand. "Come on!"
Derek dutifully let himself be dragged toward the small "office" he had set up in the apartment, mostly a desk with a computer and a printer. Characters from Claire's favorite animated show flashed across the screen as its screensaver, followed by a photo of the two of them from over the summer, from their visit to Disneyland of all places. Stiles had insisted and it wasn't as if Derek had learned to refuse him over the last few years, not when Claire threw in with him.
Claire scrambled into the chair and woke the screen up, seemingly unaware that her dripping hair was leaving long, wet lines on the back of her nightgown. Ever since Allison had gotten a bob haircut earlier that year, Derek had hoped Claire would decide to follow suit. As yet, long hair remained the style of choice for elementary-aged mini-sourwolves.
Even thinking of one of Stiles's many terms of endearments for Claire made something clutch in Derek's chest, both warm and cold. He pushed it away, instead searching around for a brush or a towel -- something that could tame the soppy tangle of Claire's post-shower hair. He finally decided to snag a clean dish towel and mop at it as Claire frowned and tried to weave away from his efforts.
"Ow," she said, even when she knew very well he hadn't hurt her. "You can do that later."
"Later and it'll be all over my chair," he pointed out, refusing to give up.
Claire clicked on the video chat icon on the computer desktop as the clock blinked to 7:38PM. She folded her hands and waited, staring back at the video of herself that the cam fed in as it waited for a request to connect. Derek laid aside the towel and came back brandishing a sparkly purple brush by the time the clock was at 7:43PM. Claire hadn't moved a muscle, hands leaning on her hands as she waited.
When it hit 7:45PM and Derek had actually brushed most of the snarls out of her hair, she turned to him with a frown. "Where is he?"
Derek pulled his phone from his pocket, checking for a text or a missed call. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe he got tied up."
"He promised," Claire said. "Every Tuesday, every Thursday. Seven thirty on the dot."
"I know," he said, running a hand over her hair, this time for comfort and not tending. "But stuff happens. I'm sure he'll call me later and you can talk to him."
"He's supposed to call me," she told him. She had crossed her arms and her face was stormy -- an expression of grumpy outrage that Stiles said she couldn't have inherited from anyone but Derek.
As Derek watched her expression grow more and more stormy, he remembered that Claire had had two major periods in her life of outrageous temper tantrums and both of those had had to do with Stiles. The first had been the summer after she'd first come to him, when they had moved out of the Stilinski house and into their own small place, one where Claire didn't have constant access to Stiles or, as he had come to be called, her Grandpa John. They were currently in the second major period -- Stiles having gone away to college.
Stiles hadn't wanted to, even though he had managed a very nice scholarship through a Sheriff's organization that John belonged to, even though he had had superior grade and his pick of a school. He had wanted to stay in Beacon Hills or at least close to it, where he wouldn't feel like he was abandoning Claire and Derek after two years of being a constant in their little family. He had wanted to give up the kind of opportunity he should've been jumping at and it was exactly the kind of thing that Derek couldn't let him do. His objections to him and Stiles had always been that he hadn't wanted to be the reason that Stiles missed out on anything, that he missed out on a chance at growing up because, at eighteen years old, he had already committed himself to a seven-year-old and her entirely-too-old-for-him werewolf alpha father.
Derek would've never forgiven himself and the Sheriff would've never forgiven Derek or Stiles; in the end, Stiles went, but not without objection.
Claire had objected the loudest.
"Honey," Derek began, thinking of whatever he could offer her to stave off the fit she was about to throw. "I'm sure..."
He was saved from having to finish because the trilling sound of the chat software alerting them that they had a request for a video chat conference. Stiles's name with a little icon of him popped up and Claire almost broke the mouse trying to mash it as fast as she could.
A few seconds later and there was Stiles's face, filling the screen, smiling his usual goofy smile and Derek had the feeling again, the hot and cold one, the one that he always felt when it came to Stiles coupled with the chill of the distance between them. Claire wasn't the only one who missed Stiles now that he was hundreds of miles away instead within arm's reach.
"Hey there, munchkin!" Stiles said in greeting. "What's shaking?"
"Stiles!" she squealed, practically nose-to-nose with Derek's computer monitor. "You're late!"
"I know, kiddo, and I'm sorry," he said, eyes darting up to include Derek in the apology. "There was kind of a wreck right in front of the school? And I was on a laundry run and there was no way around it. I tried to get back as fast as I can."
"It's okay but don't do it again," she said, her smile like sunshine. "I have to tell you what happened today."
"What happened?" Stiles asked, as if there wasn't anything he wanted to hear more. Knowing him and how ridiculous he was, there probably wasn't.
"Jacob Linnear told Aubrey that she looked like a goldfish because she's all bug-eyed," Claire explained, widening her eyes comically as she said bug-eyed. "Aubrey got mad and told him he was ugly because his face was squashed and then he called her ugly and she pushed him off the slide."
"I always knew Aubrey had it in her," Stiles said. "And then?"
"The teacher came and made them both go to time-out and recess was boring because Audrey was gone," she finished with a sigh. "But then, we had a special program after lunch. Do you want to hear about it?"
"Of course I do," Stiles said. "Lay it on me."
Derek -- who had heard all of these stories over homework and then again at dinner -- didn't pay much attention Claire went through the ups and downs of her day for Stiles's benefit. Instead, he found himself watching Stiles's face on the screen, each expressive little tick or quirk as he reacted in all the right places to Claire's stories. It was the same face he'd seen ever since he'd come back to Beacon Hills those few years ago, mobile and entirely too guileless-looking but it also wasn't. Stiles's hair was a little longer and there was more of a shadow across his chin since he hadn't shaved since that morning. The curves and angles of his face were slowly reshaping, losing the last trace of boyishness.
Stiles was growing up and as much as Derek had all but shoved him out of the door, he couldn't help but worry that he'd never come back.
If Derek let her, Claire would talk for hours as long as Stiles would listen, so he cleared his throat and shooed her off after a half-hour. "Go brush your teeth," he said as she whined. "I'll come get you settled after I tell Stiles goodbye."
Her eyes were doing that sad puppy thing that Stiles most certainly taught her but Derek was mostly immune. He finally managed to get her away from the computer by 8:30, at which point he took her vacated seat, suddenly eye-to-eye with Stiles's visage on the screen.
"Well hello there," Stiles said with another goofy grin, this one a little flirty and only meant for Derek. "Come here often, big guy?"
Derek snorted. "I thought she was going to mutiny when you were late."
Stiles winced. "I really am sorry about that."
"It's fine," Derek told him. "You have a life there. You're supposed to."
Stiles rolled his eyes. "Seriously, not this again," he said, face soft and serious. "I miss you guys like crazy. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," Derek said, that same warm/chill in his chest. "But you shouldn't. We'll...be here. You don't have to miss out on friends and everything just because."
"I don't know what kind of wild and crazy time you had in college, but all I do is study and sleep," Stiles said. "My study partners -- the closest to friends I have time for -- are divided between me having some kind of creepy high school girlfriend I'm ashamed of -- Claire -- and me just having made you both up completely. Nobody believes the hot boyfriend at home story."
"That's what you get for doubling up on your course load," Derek told him, ignoring everything but the most salient part of Stiles’s rambling. "If you flunk out in the first semester, it won't have done you any good to go."
"I am brilliant," Stiles said. "I'll be fine." He paused, looking uncertain. "You're still coming down this weekend, right?"
"Yeah, Saturday morning," he said, "You don't want us to?"
"No, no, absolutely not!" Stiles said. "Claire just didn't mention it, that's all."
"I didn't tell her," he said. "If I had, I wouldn't be able to get her to do anything between now and then. I'll surprise her Saturday morning." Derek looked away from Stiles's big brown eyes. "She misses you."
"I miss her, too," Stiles said. "I hope she's not the only one."
"You know better than that," Derek said, standing up. "I better go, she's too quiet. She's probably climbing out the window and trying to hitch to your school."
Stiles laughed. "Like father, like daughter, I guess." Then he sobered a little. "I hate this," he said. "College is great and all, but...I miss you."
Derek didn't even realize he'd reached out to where Stiles's cheek would've been until he felt his cool screen under his fingers. He jerked his hand back. "Same here," he said. "We'll see you on Saturday."
Stiles said his goodbye and the chat disconnected, leaving Derek in the lit-screen silence of the empty room, that sweet ache still heavy in his chest. With a sigh, he tried to ignore it and headed off to make sure Claire wasn't actually planning her escape two days ahead of schedule.
**
It was a Friday night and most people that Stiles knew on campus were getting ready to party hard and drink themselves into a stupor. Stiles, on the other hand, was going to try and do as much homework as possible while his roomie was out boozing so that he could concentrate on spending time with Derek and Claire when they got there on Saturday.
He was seriously old before his time.
Stiles had already dropped his books off at his room before he'd headed over to the cafeteria to make use of his scholarship-provided meal card but now he was on his way back, armed with several sodas for the caffeine boost. He knew Alex, his roommate, and his girlfriend were probably chilling in the room before they headed out about 8ish so he wasn't in a hurry as he headed back, stopping on one of the women's floors to snag some notes from one of his classmates in Organic Chemistry. It was amazing how much more he loved the subject now that he wasn't subjected to Harris.
He was already thinking about three of the assignments he planned to plow through that evening by the time he reached his door, so it surprised him that Alex, Tisha and Tisha's friend Sonya were all standing outside of the room when he got there.
"Guys?" he asked, and they all turned to look at him, all three with a weird expression on their faces. "Um, something wrong?"
"Yeah, uh, no, I mean," Alex started. He jerked a hand toward the almost-closed door to their room. "It's just? There's a guy. Here. To see you. He's kind of, uh..."
"Hot," Sonya finished. "But scary."
"I was going to say suspicious," Alex said. "You don't owe anybody any money, do you?"
Stiles shook his head to indicate that he wasn't in debt to any loan sharks, but his heart was hammering in his chest because, really, there was only one person who'd show up and intimidate his roommate while fanning Sonya into lust. Stiles had dealt with both of those aspects of a certain werewolf's personality during the length of their acquaintance, although mostly he worried about the lust part these days.
He pushed by Alex and into the room and there, like a vision, like something conjured up out of his homesick fantasies was Derek, standing a little uselessly in the middle of his dorm room, looking every inch of scary but hot from the toe of his boots to the sleeves of his leather jacket and all the way up to his messily perfect hair.
"Derek," he said, and his voice was a little shaky and he might've been embarrassed if it hadn't been two whole months since they'd been in the same city. "What the hell, man?"
Derek paused in whatever action he had been about to take. "What kind of greeting is that?" he asked.
"You scared my roommate," he said. "What did you say?"
"I'm here to see Stiles," Derek repeated. "Do you know where he is?"
"But did you say it scarily? Obviously, you did," he said. "I wanted you to make a good impression, although now I wonder why I thought it was possible because, hello, this is you we're talking about."
Stiles had a lot more words on the subject because it was the only way he could think to stop himself from jumping Derek in front of the three closest things he had to friends on the campus but Derek apparently wasn't in the mood -- even though he still hadn't explained why he was there a day early and without Claire -- because he stepped forward and wrapped his big hands around Stiles's biceps and kissed him quiet. The sound muffled between their mouths very quickly went from indignation to an embarrassing noise of approval as Stiles stepped even closer, pressing against Derek everywhere he could, until his hands clenched in the fabric of Derek's T-shirt just above the waistband of his jeans.
When Derek finally broke away, Stiles might've whimpered, much to his eternal mortification. But since he was too busy being really turned on because, god, had he missed everything about touching Derek, he settled for a very eloquent, "Hey."
Derek snorted but it was his amused snort. "That's an improvement, anyway."
"Oh my god, the hot boyfriend was true!" Tisha said and Stiles jumped a little because he'd almost forgot that they had started making out in front of his roommate and his friends. "Damn, I owe Mel, like, twenty bucks!"
"I told you I didn't make him up," Stiles felt the need to point out. "I even offered to show you pictures! What about this face says dishonesty to you?"
"Then who's Claire?" Alex said. "Because I heard you on the phone with her more than once."
"Claire's -- Derek's daughter, who's seven," Stiles said. "Oh and um, by the way, this is Derek, guys. Derek, this is --"
"Alex, Tisha and...Sonya?" Derek guessed.
Sonya looked impressed. A little too impressed, from Stiles's perspective. "Hot, scary and attentive. I approve, Stilinski."
"Yes, yes, he's great," Stiles said, finally untangling from Derek enough to wave his arms and herd his friends out of the room. "Go me a solid, okay, and get the hell out and stay there? Like, all night. There will be a tie on this door, if you come back, I swear to god, Alex, you'll never have sex in this room again."
Alex grimaced. "I didn't need the details, dude."
"Yeah, whatever, we had the big bisexual talk at orientation," Stiles said. "Good night."
Tisha smiled. "Later, Stiles."
"See you on Monday," Sonya said. "Have fun!"
Alex settled for a careless hand wave which Stiles didn't bother returning before he shutting the door and locking it behind them. Very emphatically. "You didn't have to do that," Derek said. "I have a hotel room."
"And as much as I would love to have sex in an anonymous hotel room, I have other ideas," Stiles said. "But first, where's Claire?"
"With your dad," Derek said, with the same distinctly ill look he got every time their sex life was referenced too closely to a mention of Stiles's dad. "Scott is going to bring her here tomorrow on his way to go see Allison."
"You dumped the munchkin with the in-law so we could sex it up, huh?" Stiles asked with a laugh. He abandoned the solidarity of the door behind his back for the solidarity of Derek's body, leaning in and running his hands over Derek's leather-clad shoulders and chest before he slid underneath them beneath the jacket to start stripping it off of him. "I approve."
"We're not married," Derek protested, but the last word trailed off in a groan because Stiles rocked at multi-tasking, which meant he could work on removing Derek's jacket and press his mouth against any bit of stubbly skin he could reach. "You're only eighteen."
"Oh right, we're mates," Stiles teased, letting his teeth sink in a little where he licked at the taut skin of Derek's throat. Derek growled and Stiles's knees shook a little because this part of them -- the physical part, the sex part -- was still so new and it had been torture to have it for a few months and then college had happened, taking him away from the people he loved most, a list which definitely included Derek and Claire. "And that age argument loses validity every passing day."
Derek obviously didn't want to have this fight again, either, because he dragged Stiles up for another kiss once the jacket was gone, tossed somewhere, and Stiles didn't complain as he wrapped arms and legs around Derek, only a little surprised when he found himself hoisted up and backed against the wall. Derek had always had a thing about walls. "Those plans I had? Totally included the bed," Stiles admitted in breathy pants. "But the wall works, too."
Derek didn't say anything in response but he kissed him again, this one soft and slow, like the first time he hadn't kissed Stiles, like he was afraid he was going to break something if he pushed too hard. Stiles had been in love with him for over two years and he still didn't understand what went on in his head when it came to Stiles and sex and his past, but Stiles didn't push, enjoying the soft glide of their mouths, savoring the feel of Derek's chest against his, the way his hair felt when Stiles gently curled his fingers into it. This time when Derek broke off the kiss, he pressed his forehead to Stiles's. "I missed you," he said quietly.
"Never thought you didn't," Stiles promised, risking a quick kiss against Derek's too-serious mouth. "I missed you, too, you know. I didn't want to leave in the first place."
"Stiles," Derek sighed and he closed his eyes, nose brushing against the curve of Stiles's cheek. "I don't want you to miss out. Because of me."
"What I'm missing is you and Claire," Stiles said. "But...I'm doing this college thing. For you. If that's what it takes for you not to think you held me back."
Derek didn't say thank you -- because that was completely not his style -- but he kissed Stiles again and the next thing Stiles knew he was being pressed down onto his mattress with Derek settling over him and then there were the pull-and-tug that got Derek out of his shirt and then Stiles out of his, followed by everything else. Stiles knew that Derek still had trouble with words and he still had trouble with touch, even after two years of Stiles heaping both of them on him, and he knew what it meant that Derek was trying to give him both, whispers in between the frantic slide of their bodies.
And since Stiles was brilliant, he didn't need anything else.
**
The sun was all wrong when Derek finally drifted out of sleep and, for a second, there was a flash of panic because he couldn't hear Claire's heartbeat; but then Stiles's sharp-bright scent hit him and he could hear the other heartbeat that managed to calm and he remembered.
He and Stiles were tangled up on Stiles's much-too-small dorm bed which Derek had protested since he had a hotel room, but Stiles had said it was part of the college experience to have sex in an uncomfortable dorm bed, so he had given in, like he always did. Now he wasn't even sure he minded since Stiles was practically draped over him, nothing but skin between them as they slept. Stiles's face was serene and his hair was beyond messy and he still looked entirely too young when Derek saw him like that, enough that it still brought heat to his throat; but he wouldn't have traded it for anything, his arms around Stiles and Stiles's scent everywhere. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with it, as he let his hand idly stroke up and down Stiles's back.
Before he knew it, though, the sound of his trilling phone broke the silence and Derek shifted from beneath Stiles to find his phone, still in the pocket of the jeans that he had so hastily removed. The noise had been a notification of a text message and it was from Scott, warning that he and Claire were about thirty minutes away from Stiles's campus.
"Ugh, tell them to shut up, whoever they are," Stiles grumbled, burying his face in his pillow now that Derek wasn't an option.
"It was Scott," Derek said, pulling on his jeans. "He and Claire are almost here."
Stiles looked up, still bleary-eyed. "Yeah?" he asked, a smile on his face. "It'll be good to see her. Scott, too, even if it's just for a minute."
"You should probably get dressed, then," Derek advised, mostly because Stiles and rumpled sheets in the light of a crisp autumn morning were very tempting after two months apart. "No need to scar Scott."
"Yeah and I should probably let Alex know it's safe to come back," Stiles admitted.
"He'd probably appreciate it," Derek said.
By the time he'd tracked down his socks, shirt and jacket, Stiles had managed to get dressed, too. When Stiles looked up from the mirror where he was losing a battle with his hair, he smiled a little, strangely shy. "What?"
There was a lot Derek could say about the things in his head, about how he felt about Stiles and the moment and how much he'd missed him, but he just shook his head. "Nothing," he said.
Stiles's grin just widened as he sidled up to Derek and wound his arms around his neck. "Yeah, yeah, love you, too, sourwolf," he said before he kissed him. "I hope you didn't leave your wallet at home, cheapskate. You're buying me and Claire pancakes."
Before he could say another word, Stiles had laced his fingers with Derek's and was tugging him along, out of the door, mouth going a mile a minute. And just like when Claire did, Derek didn't protest -- he just followed along, heart bursting full with all the love he'd once thought he'd never have again.
**