I was kind of lacking inspiration for what to send, but my neighbor decided to play tropical music from the 90s and 00s, so today's theme is...
Heat wave
That being said, Alex, being a true Samaritan, decided it was his civic duty to shoot everyone with his bubble gun (a gift from Mark) because it's refreshing but it's only slightly inconvenient since it doesn't get you wet like a water pistol.
(I fully zoned out yesterday sorry haha)
He definitely originally starts doing it with a water pistol, but theres only so many timeouts even Alex can stand before he gives up, Mark sees him sulking and gives in because with anyone but Jackson he gets to be a fun uncle not a responsible dad, so he gets him a bubble gun, tells him multiple times that if he gets it in peoples eyes then he’s going to be getting multiple lectures from Owen which Mark will personally make sure is a quiz as well so Alex has to pay attention which he truly thinks is a fate worse than death.
Eventually when no one can argue that the bubbles technically help cool people down Alex ends up getting a whole collection of them nearly every time he goes to the store
Though if the cousins all end up together then they may get out of hand, which so long as they didnt do it at work or in the houses, then the parents cant really argue too much so the kids end up with all of these
The parents all agree that at least it keeps the kids cool and more importantly they got tired out from all of the running around which is a god send in the days that the sun didn’t set until very late
Not really a question, but something I was thinking about. Meredith gets jealous when Alex finally chooses his specialty. She's not like Derek, she's not offended that Alex decided to pursue other paths but...
The cacophony of the cafeteria was enough to hide Meredith's grumbling from prying ears, but not from Cristina Yang. Seeing her friend practically butchering the salad bowl, she sat down expecting the worst.
"What did Derek do this time? Did he fill the entire bathroom shelf with his hair products? I've told you, never trust a guy who has a more structured hair care routine than you."
Meredith shook her head, stabbing the lettuce.
"No, Derek didn't do anything this time. It's Robbins, she kidnapped my son."
"Doctor Smiles on Wheels kidnapped Alex? I'll need more context to help you plan the rescue."
Cristina was confused but not at all alarmed, knowing that the situation was probably less bad than Meredith tended to make it seem.
"Alex chose to go to Peds. Peds. A copy of general surgery in glitter and plush. Arizona definitely offered him something, coffee, an energy drink, I don't know. But when I find out, I'm going-."
"Wait, are you sulking here because your son, who took a long time and still hasn't fully accepted that he's a Little, decided to work in the area where he'd have the most contact with Littles? Meredith, are you Are you really angry that he chose that area, or are you jealous that Robbins will be spending every day with him and you won't?"
"That's ridiculous, I'm not jealous."
Because, of course, Meredith Grey never got jealous, as we know very well...
Omg yes like Meredith refuses to admit that she gets jealous about anything, but she gets jealous when its someone who’s not Derek who Alex is deciding is the best person alive, like shes fine sharing with Derek thats part of their marriage, but when Alex decides that Robbins is awesome?!?!? Nah thats her baby.
Meredith goes up to whoever the head of gen surgery is and is like “hey so anytime Robbins needs a consult call me”
“What no we just call whoevers available”
“Well im telling you ill always be available”
Then when she does get sent for a consult its just Robbins and no alex and shes like “er…. Wheres Karev?”
“Huh?”
“My son, robbins, where is my son?”
“Oh well its his naptime so i sent him there”
Meredith scoffs, “and he just went?”
“Yeah? Hes a doctor he understands that he needs naps, in fact hes been a really good influence on little patients here, he pointed out that he has to nap too, its great, why?”
“Nothing… he naps easily for derek and i too, he never complains, its fine.”
“Are you sure…?”
“Im fine doctor robbins, wheres your patient?”
And every time alex excitedly talks about robbins and her amazing procedures which are groundbreaking and all the cases he gets to help her on meredith is like trying so hard not to be jealous but also complains yo cristina every time, but its not like she wants to let out to alex because she knows he’ll take it as her not wanting to hear about the cases he works when she really does
Eventually her derek amelia and addison start a group chat to complain about their kids not being in their specialties which is enough, cristina also gets added but only cause she likes to try and wind them all up and loves the drama of it lol
They were grumpy and wanted to spend more time with their children, but unfortunately, they have to be healthy parents who give them autonomy and the right to choose.
Yes!!! Its the fact that Jack was close to choosing neuro which Derek would have found absolutely hilarious, but now his kid is with someone else and Meredith is like ‘you jinxed it you or i could have had him’
They also fond out that robbins keeps stickers and lollipops and are like ’this is starting to make sense’
I feel like the jealousy mostly fades after theres a massive thing happening and they see Alex and Robbins working together and theyre like ah fuck okay i guess weve got to be fine with this’
At least Alex made up his mind; every time I try to think about Jo, I remember she's the female version of Ben Warren. The girl went to orthopedics, then general, then research, then obstetrics; her inability to choose a specialization reflects the lack of awareness about the future she had while growing up... And I just realizing that this makes for a terribly sad plot for a fanfic
LET'S TALK ABOUT HAPPY THINGS
Mark and Owen are holding back from laughing at the others since they have their children nearby. And I think it only works because Jackson idolizes Mark and because April clashes with Owen, otherwise it would never work.
Yeah Jo finds it very hard to be able to settle into just one, its the first time that she has so many people believing in her too, and like with that she feels like she cant settle on one as she'd be letting down the people she connected with and who believed in her like truly so bittersweet, and like you said she had the kind of childhood which would definitely add to all that
one hundred percent! And then one day both Jackson and April are pissed off with their dads due to working close with them and something happening and as soon as Owen and Mark try to get support or encouragement from their friends and literally all of them are like 'Nope you deserve this for getting to be with your kids all the time'
Not really a question, but something I was thinking about. Meredith gets jealous when Alex finally chooses his specialty. She's not like Derek, she's not offended that Alex decided to pursue other paths but...
The cacophony of the cafeteria was enough to hide Meredith's grumbling from prying ears, but not from Cristina Yang. Seeing her friend practically butchering the salad bowl, she sat down expecting the worst.
"What did Derek do this time? Did he fill the entire bathroom shelf with his hair products? I've told you, never trust a guy who has a more structured hair care routine than you."
Meredith shook her head, stabbing the lettuce.
"No, Derek didn't do anything this time. It's Robbins, she kidnapped my son."
"Doctor Smiles on Wheels kidnapped Alex? I'll need more context to help you plan the rescue."
Cristina was confused but not at all alarmed, knowing that the situation was probably less bad than Meredith tended to make it seem.
"Alex chose to go to Peds. Peds. A copy of general surgery in glitter and plush. Arizona definitely offered him something, coffee, an energy drink, I don't know. But when I find out, I'm going-."
"Wait, are you sulking here because your son, who took a long time and still hasn't fully accepted that he's a Little, decided to work in the area where he'd have the most contact with Littles? Meredith, are you Are you really angry that he chose that area, or are you jealous that Robbins will be spending every day with him and you won't?"
"That's ridiculous, I'm not jealous."
Because, of course, Meredith Grey never got jealous, as we know very well...
Omg yes like Meredith refuses to admit that she gets jealous about anything, but she gets jealous when its someone who’s not Derek who Alex is deciding is the best person alive, like shes fine sharing with Derek thats part of their marriage, but when Alex decides that Robbins is awesome?!?!? Nah thats her baby.
Meredith goes up to whoever the head of gen surgery is and is like “hey so anytime Robbins needs a consult call me”
“What no we just call whoevers available”
“Well im telling you ill always be available”
Then when she does get sent for a consult its just Robbins and no alex and shes like “er…. Wheres Karev?”
“Huh?”
“My son, robbins, where is my son?”
“Oh well its his naptime so i sent him there”
Meredith scoffs, “and he just went?”
“Yeah? Hes a doctor he understands that he needs naps, in fact hes been a really good influence on little patients here, he pointed out that he has to nap too, its great, why?”
“Nothing… he naps easily for derek and i too, he never complains, its fine.”
“Are you sure…?”
“Im fine doctor robbins, wheres your patient?”
And every time alex excitedly talks about robbins and her amazing procedures which are groundbreaking and all the cases he gets to help her on meredith is like trying so hard not to be jealous but also complains yo cristina every time, but its not like she wants to let out to alex because she knows he’ll take it as her not wanting to hear about the cases he works when she really does
Eventually her derek amelia and addison start a group chat to complain about their kids not being in their specialties which is enough, cristina also gets added but only cause she likes to try and wind them all up and loves the drama of it lol
They were grumpy and wanted to spend more time with their children, but unfortunately, they have to be healthy parents who give them autonomy and the right to choose.
Yes!!! Its the fact that Jack was close to choosing neuro which Derek would have found absolutely hilarious, but now his kid is with someone else and Meredith is like ‘you jinxed it you or i could have had him’
They also fond out that robbins keeps stickers and lollipops and are like ’this is starting to make sense’
I feel like the jealousy mostly fades after theres a massive thing happening and they see Alex and Robbins working together and theyre like ah fuck okay i guess weve got to be fine with this’
Not really a question, but something I was thinking about. Meredith gets jealous when Alex finally chooses his specialty. She's not like Derek, she's not offended that Alex decided to pursue other paths but...
The cacophony of the cafeteria was enough to hide Meredith's grumbling from prying ears, but not from Cristina Yang. Seeing her friend practically butchering the salad bowl, she sat down expecting the worst.
"What did Derek do this time? Did he fill the entire bathroom shelf with his hair products? I've told you, never trust a guy who has a more structured hair care routine than you."
Meredith shook her head, stabbing the lettuce.
"No, Derek didn't do anything this time. It's Robbins, she kidnapped my son."
"Doctor Smiles on Wheels kidnapped Alex? I'll need more context to help you plan the rescue."
Cristina was confused but not at all alarmed, knowing that the situation was probably less bad than Meredith tended to make it seem.
"Alex chose to go to Peds. Peds. A copy of general surgery in glitter and plush. Arizona definitely offered him something, coffee, an energy drink, I don't know. But when I find out, I'm going-."
"Wait, are you sulking here because your son, who took a long time and still hasn't fully accepted that he's a Little, decided to work in the area where he'd have the most contact with Littles? Meredith, are you Are you really angry that he chose that area, or are you jealous that Robbins will be spending every day with him and you won't?"
"That's ridiculous, I'm not jealous."
Because, of course, Meredith Grey never got jealous, as we know very well...
Omg yes like Meredith refuses to admit that she gets jealous about anything, but she gets jealous when its someone who’s not Derek who Alex is deciding is the best person alive, like shes fine sharing with Derek thats part of their marriage, but when Alex decides that Robbins is awesome?!?!? Nah thats her baby.
Meredith goes up to whoever the head of gen surgery is and is like “hey so anytime Robbins needs a consult call me”
“What no we just call whoevers available”
“Well im telling you ill always be available”
Then when she does get sent for a consult its just Robbins and no alex and shes like “er…. Wheres Karev?”
“Huh?”
“My son, robbins, where is my son?”
“Oh well its his naptime so i sent him there”
Meredith scoffs, “and he just went?”
“Yeah? Hes a doctor he understands that he needs naps, in fact hes been a really good influence on little patients here, he pointed out that he has to nap too, its great, why?”
“Nothing… he naps easily for derek and i too, he never complains, its fine.”
“Are you sure…?”
“Im fine doctor robbins, wheres your patient?”
And every time alex excitedly talks about robbins and her amazing procedures which are groundbreaking and all the cases he gets to help her on meredith is like trying so hard not to be jealous but also complains yo cristina every time, but its not like she wants to let out to alex because she knows he’ll take it as her not wanting to hear about the cases he works when she really does
Eventually her derek amelia and addison start a group chat to complain about their kids not being in their specialties which is enough, cristina also gets added but only cause she likes to try and wind them all up and loves the drama of it lol
alex rediscovering his stims 🥺 ? (if u saw this in the wrong blog inbox no u didn't) 🤫
Another fic I've had written literally for 2 years at this point and just forgot to post!!
It was Alex's first time working under Derek since they had started to foster him a month before, and it was...... awkward....
For example they were in a room, just the two of them, looking at the CTs of a patient Derek was fairly certain they would end up operating on.
Alex was sitting on an office chair while Derek double and triple checked the scan, and Alex was spinning - not in full circles just from left to right 90 degrees each way.
The thing was it didn’t seem like Alex was bored, when Alex was bored he made it everyones problem, Derek had known that since Bailey had ranted to him about it after Alex’s first week as an intern, Meredith and Bailey both sharing his group… Meredith had told him too, of course, but she already had a suspicion that he was a little so she had bigger things to be worried about.
“Is that IIH?”
That was it then, Alex definitely wasn't bored he was just... restless? Impatient to get out of there maybe? Derek wasn't sure.... maybe it was just a side effect of his classification, or maybe he needed to drop later.
"That's what I'm thinking," Derek answered. "Are you okay?"
"Huh?"
"You're spinning in your chair," Alex immediately stopped and Derek felt a little bad at it, even if it was important to address for various reasons, "If you need to drop then you know that you have to tell me."
"I'm fine." Alex's voice was solid as concrete.
"Alexander-"
"I'm fine, Doctor Shepherd, I was just turning in my chair, I won't do it again, jeez."
"That's not why I was bringing it up," Derek sighed, "I was just..." he shook his head, "I had to check, it's my job as your foster parent and as the head of neurosurgery."
Alex didn't say anything, he was completely still, and sitting stiffly in his seat, as though any movement would have Derek forcibly making him drop and putting him in daycare.
Derek looked him over while Alex didn't make any eye contact with him at all: he wasn't any smaller, he wasn't acting younger, other than the spinning in the chair.
Derek would keep an eye on him.
So instead, he continued, "What are the risk factors surrounding idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension?"
Alex didn't hesitate, "Women of childbearing age, especially those who are overweight, which our patient is."
"Correct. How should we go about treating it?"
"A shunt or a stent- or an optic nerve sheth fenestration, which is really cool, is she gonna need-"
"-It's cool, but what are the possible complications of ONSF?"
"She could have temporary or permanent double vision- diplopia, or less frequently issues surrounding the various parts of the eye."
"And if the cons outweigh the pros of every type of surgery?"
Alex frowned, "Then we refer her back to neurology to manage her symptoms."
"Yeah," Derek could tell his displeasure in it. "You need to remember that this isn't about what surgery is the coolest, it's about what's best for the patient. Here take a look at this scan, tell me what you think is actually best for her."
They were at the birthday party of someone who was in Alex's daycare class, it was both of their first experiences taking Alex anywhere like this, they knew that it was a whole class party, which was why Alex had been invited, as he had only joined three months ago, it also explained why Alex had been so nervous about it - it didn't help that Alex was one of the youngest.
It was a big indoor playground thing, a soft play, not the first time they'd been there, normally they were having to stop Alex from trying to get to the 'big kids' area, but instead today he was not far from them, in the baby area alone, spinning in circles.
Meredith and Derek sent each other a look before both moving over to Alex's side. Meredith placed her hands on his sides, stopping him from spinning, he smiled at them nervously, still rocking in her hold, brimming over with energy.
"Hey," Meredith smiled soothingly, "are you dizzy?"
Alex paused for a second, then nodded his head.
"Why are you spinning around, little monster?" Derek asked using the nickname which had quickly become one he used on Alex all of the time.
Alex shrugged his shoulders, "Dunno? Why?"
"You don't want to go and play with your friends?"
"Jack Jack no here..."
"No," Meredith agreed, "he had to work today."
"An' Apes too?"
"And April had to work too," she agreed again. "But you have other friends in your class, the ones who came over to ask you to play with them before. Look they're over there." She pointed over at the group playing on the slide, "and look, they're going to slide into the foam blocks."
Alex looked over at them when she had said it, but Alex rocked more.
"Alex, are you okay?" Meredith sent Derek a worried look, not sure when in their fostering journey that these maternal took over her.
Alex looked back at them. "I gotta go there?"
"Not if you don't want to." Derek told him firmly, crouching at Meredith's side who nodded in agreement. "You're just rocking a lot, we want to make sure that you're okay.... Are you nervous about playing with the others?"
Alex immediately chewed on his bottom lip, Meredith gently tugged it back out, as she often had to, and she even more often had to stop herself from doing it when he was big and they were doing rounds while Alex was deep in thought.
Alex looked at Derek, still not stopping from rocking, "You my friend too?"
Derek smiled, he pushed Alex's wavy hair out of his eyes, "Yeah, Alexander, I'm your friend too. Me and Meredith are both your friends."
"Otay.... you play there with me?"
Derek was a little surprised by that, but he covered up his surprise quickly, knowing how Alex was someone who rarely asked for extra, and when he did it was something they tried to embrace.
"I can go over there with you, your friends look like they're having fun, I'm sure that they're excited to play with you."
"Mmm..... maybe.... you wanna spin?"
Derek and Meredith shared a quick look, before he returned his attention to Alex, "If you want to spin then we can. Do you like spinning?"
"Gotta."
"You gotta like spinning?"
Alex whined loudly, "Der, c'mon, le's'go."
Derek took hold of his outstretched hand, "Okay, buddy, let's go."
Meredith and Alex were walking around the grocery store, they both got off their shift around the same time, while Derek was supposed to be but he was still in surgery, apparently he would be for a while, he'd asked the receptionist in the neurosurgery department to let them know to go home without him.
Meredith was running off of machine coffee and adrenaline, while Alex was nursing a soda, a choice he'd made as soon as she had seen his hand hovering over the button for one of the energy drinks which weren't suitable for Littles bodies. it was the longest shift either of them had worked since Alex had come to live with them three months ago. Alex was mixing between being tired and being excitable, so Meredith figured she'd use the time which they were still awake to grab groceries, before they all started putting off going again.
"Derek told me we actually don't need broccoli."
"Uh huh," Meredith smiled as she added it to the cart, "sure he didn't. When was it he told you this again?"
Alex let out a halfhearted puff of air, "Telepathically?"
Meredith laughed, continuing to push the cart. "Nice try. You need to grab something for lunch when you have skills lab."
Alex groaned, "Skills lab is so boring, can't you get me out of it?"
"And you say that Jackson and April are nepotistic..."
"They are, I'm just..... adorable?"
"Sure," she said, but they both knew that she agreed with him about it. She added a few bags of ready made salad bags into the cart, along with more things to add to them, she ticked them off the app on her phone, and was about to push the cart on when she heard Alex say something.
"Huh?"
"Habada badag."
"What?" Meredith frowned looking at him as his cheeks began to pinken. "Are you okay? Did you hit your head?"
"What? No! It's," his hand ruffled the back of his hair, "It's just a video, Dog of Wisdom? I... Wait, look."
He dug his phone out of his pocket bringing up a video of a cartoon dog on a plane. As soon as he pressed play the dog began to make weird noises, apparently 'talking'.
Meredith didn't think much of it- it wasn't her sense of humor, but Alex was beaming at it, so she forced a smile onto her face.
"It's er, it's a dumb video, I know."
"It's cute," she told him instead, "Wait, did you find that on tiktok?"
"Nah," he tucked his phone back into his pocket, "Jackson sent it to me.... I guess it just got stuck in my head, sorry."
"It's fine," she told him, watching him as he necked his can of soda; So long as it wasn't on a social media they didn't know about then it was fine, even if she didn't get it.
"I got one line from one of Derek's favorite songs stuck in my head for a twenty hour shift once," she offered.
"I mean, at least with it being one of Derek's favorite songs you knew it though?" he offered in return.
"I do now, but at the time we'd not long met.... our second date was me yelling at him over it, the third he took me to see a really bad tribute band of theirs."
Alex laughed easily, his fingers tapping on the can of pop.
The two of them continued through the store, Meredith mostly kept to the list, while Alex added a few extra bits, mostly trying to sneak things into the cart, Meredith let him most of the time, periodically, Alex would repeat that same noise he'd shown her from the video, she'd paid attention at first, before thinking about how he would often do the same thing when he was dropped, at first they'd been worried or at least concerned, but he seemed happy enough.
She came to a sudden stop.
God she was a doctor and she didn't realize....
Alex was halfway down the aisle by the time either she or he had realized that she stopped walking. He looked back at her, his head tilted to the side in surprise, the way which both she and Derek had immediately found adorable.
"What's wrong? Do you, are you okay? What's-"
She quickly smiled at him, closing the distance. "Nothing's wrong, I was just..." No, she'd talk to Derek about her suspicion before talking to Alex about it, knowing that her foster son would just suppress everything he could again like he had when they had first taken him in.
"I was just thinking that there was a new Krispy Kreme opened near here, and I know we have cereal and stuff at home, but you and I could go there for breakfast, if you want?"
Alex's face of confusion fully dropped, he stood up straighter, his face lit up and a wide smile spread across his face. "Derek's gonna kill us if we do, I mean that as a positive."
"He'll understand, and he's not too bad on you about food anymore, just... he worries."
"He worries a lot, plus vegetables are gross."
"I know that's your catchphrase. Anyway this breakfast will have no vegetables. Sound good?"
Alex nodded his head so eagerly that she would have thought she'd put a time limit on answering. "And coffee-"
Meredith let out a single loud laugh.
"-It was worth a shot, right?"
"Sure, I mean the answer to coffee for you is always going to be no... but still I admire you tenacity."
Derek found Meredith standing with Alex at a nurses station as Meredith went over some things in a patients file, beside her Alex was fidgetting and clicking a pen faster and faster. Meredith had been the one to text him, asking him for help, because the pen clicking was driving her mad, and she really didn't want to end up yelling at Alex.
"Hey," Derek smiled easily at the pair, "having a good day?"
"Why do we even have to do paperwork?" Alex didn't bother with the greeting, his clicking of the pen just got faster, "Isn't that what machines are for? I mean we have all these readouts, and electronic records, but we still have to have paper as well? This is dumb!"
Derek and Meredith exchanged a look, Derek could tell that Meredith was tiring of this argument, he wasn't sure how long it had been going on, but it was probably a while. "Do you want an actual answer to that, which I'm sure Meredith has already given you, or are you just wanting to blow off steam?"
Alex paused for a second. "Whichever answer gets you to give me a lighter to set fire to this thing."
"You really think Derek is more likely than me to give you something with fire?" Meredith smirked as Alex pouted.
"What if I say please?"
Derek chuckled and shook his head, "As you'd be breaking about seventeen felonies I'm going to say no. Plus I'd trust you to do surgery on me, but I wouldn't trust you with fire, sorry bud."
He and Meredith shared a silent conversation before he looked back at Alex.
"Hey, you know how we talked about the whole autism and adhd thing-" Alex groaned but Derek continued, "Well, you clearly need a break from this, so why don't we go to blow off some extra energy?"
Alex dropped the pen like it was burning, suddenly aware of his clicking. "I don't have a diagnosis."
"Well yeah, but I'm head of neurosurgery, and Meredith is just generally in charge of you-"
"-and of you-"
Derek rolled his eyes, "-Which has some benefits. So do you want to come with me to the gym? Do a super quick workout?"
"The gym you go to?"
"The one here, I mean you can come with me anytime you want to my gym, but right now while you're on shift we're just stuck to the hospital one."
Alex's eyes flickered to Meredith, back to Derek, then back to Meredith, his cheeks reddened. "I've been annoying you, haven't I?"
Meredith didn't nod straight out, "I've worked with Derek a lot, so trust me you're not as annoying as him."
"Hey! What did I do?"
Meredith ignored her husband. "But you need to get rid of some of your extra energy, so go do a run, don't come back stinking up the place though, okay?"
Alex chewed his lip, used it it by now when Meredith reached out and gently pulled his lip from under his tooth. He sent her a nervous smile. "I'm sorry for bugging you."
"You didn't bug me," she told him firmly, "I'm more than fine with you getting out your energy - stimming," she used the word which Alex had been repeatedly avoided letting them us, "is fine, it's normal, and you need to do it. It's just we need to figure out the best ways for you to do it. Clicking a pen is usually fine, I just need to think for a few minutes. And maybe once you're back you can use one of those fidgets we got you, try them out?"
"I guess...." he looked to Derek, "are you being forced to babysit me?"
"I can't be forced to do anything." Meredith laughed loudly. Derek rolled his eyes, "I'm not babysitting you," he amended, "anyway I just got done in surgery, but my brains still going and I need to do some something. Plus your foster mother is picking on me, so I'm breaking you out of her evil grip."
"I'm also his resident, Shepherd, I don't have an evil grip on him."
Alex got to his feet, ducking his head to hide his amusement at seeing them interact.
"I'm your attending, your head of neurosurgery, how come I don't have any influence over you?" Derek questioned.
Meredith smiled at him before pulled him down by his scrub shirt, "I think you know why."
Alex made a loud noise of disgust, "Gross! I'm going with Derek just so I don't have to see y'all doing this."
Derek and Meredith laughed, Derek wrapped his arm around Alex's shoulder to stop him from storming off alone. "We'll be back in twenty."
before/after the adhd diagnosis, alex coming home from daycare and just being an adhd terror at home for the first few hours, once he feels truly safe to express himself at home. m&d kind of handle it wrong initially until they realise that this is Not on purpose, and he's not tantruming and throwing things just because.
So it turned out that I've had this written literally since March 2024, but for some reason I left it in my drafts???? I think I was going to make a photoboard for it and then just forgot... ooops, I guess its ironic considering this is a prompt about adhd
anyway, fic under the cut
(I love this scene how Derek's like okay I got my son, then puts him in time out)
Derek was having to wrestle Alex out of his car seat, the Little wasn't making it easy in the slightest.
"I do! I do!"
"You can't do it, Alexander," he said, not for the first time, "you know you can't baby, it wont let you when you're little."
"I tan I tan! I know how do it daddy!"
Derek took a deep breath, "I'm sure you do," he said evenly, "but the seat knows that you're dropped, so it won't let you monkey."
"I tan! I tell seat I still big."
"It doesn't work like that buddy. C'mon, can you be a big brave boy for me and move your hands please?" Alex whined loudly, his feet were still kicking, like they'd been doing the entire way. Derek tried to keep cool about it, he knew that Alex was just being... well, Alex, but it should be easier to just get him inside.
"Alexander, no more kicking, understand?"
Alex whined loudly. Then kicked the seat in front of him, hard.
"Alex!"
"Di'nt kick! Jus' punched wif my feets."
"Alexander." Derek's voice deepened, "You know: no kicking or punching or anything like that, you don't do that, you know better than to do things like that. Now sit still or you're going straight into time out when we get inside the house."
He felt his heart sink as Alex did as he was told - he sat still, only to start crying loudly. Derek wanted to comfort him, but he knew from experience that it was only a matter of time before Alex started up the kicking and squirming around again. He quickly undid him, placed him onto his hip. He slammed the door closed, grabbed their bags from the trunk, and managed to make it into the house before Alex started squirming and his cries turned more frustrated, then angry.
He locked the front door just in time for Alex to squirm out of his hold, and start having a tantrum in the entry.
Derek just sighed heavily.
Meredith came down the stairs, she'd been in work for the previous twenty-four hour shift, and had been sleeping all day, Derek would have felt bad at the possibility that they'd been the ones to wake her up, had he not just felt absolute relief that he had some backup.
Meredith sighed just as heavily as Derek had.
"Hey."
"Hey." They both watched Alex on the floor for a second. "Has he been like this all day?"
"I didn't get to talk to the people in daycare much, Mx River wasn't there, there was a sub, I've got his book though, it's in his backpack. Do you want to deal with him while I look-"
"-Coward," she retorted playfully, but she crouched down beside Alex, careful to give him enough space. "Alex, come on baby, can we try and do our calm down activities?"
"Nooooo!"
Derek sighed, feeling bad as he listened to Meredith try and calm Alex down, feeling guilt at the fact that he was just glad that she was doing it rather than him.
He hunted for the behavior book, the one which filled in all caregivers on their Little's day at daycare. Derek flicked past all of the familiar writing to today's entry. He doubled, then triple checked the date. He only just finished making sure when Alex's tantrum kicked up a notch. He left the book on the side table and helped his wife with their son.
It wasn't until bath time that Alex finally calmed down: dinner had been a struggle, throwing food, screaming, not using his inside voice even when he wasn't tantruming and was playing, throwing things everywhere, demanding to play with toys... yet more tantruming. He was finally exhausted enough to relax, but they hadn't been able to actually spend any meaningful time together, nor were any of them in a great mood.
Alex played sleepily with the bath toys, just moving them around the bubbles, while both Meredith and Derek sat on the floor of the bathroom watching him, just as tired as he was.
"Do we need to start sending apology cards into daycare with him?"
"Hmm?" Derek blinked as he took his eyes off of Alex, he looked at Meredith for a second before he realized what she was talking about. "Oh, no, no, they said he'd be really good... again."
"So it's just for us he acts like this?"
Derek felt her lean heavier against him, he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "It's just... it'll get better."
"When, exactly?"
Derek sighed heavily. "I..." he let out a sigh. "I don't know. I don't know what we're supposed to do, it feels like we've tried everything: time outs, taking stuff away from him, limiting screentime... everything."
"I was hoping you'd have some smart idea." She sent him a small smile.
"I'm fresh out, I've had them all kicked out of me tonight." He sent her a small smile in return and watched a laugh play around her lips.
"Mama, you has coffee?"
Meredith and Derek both looked towards Alex, holding out a plastic teacup full of bathwater and bubbles.
Meredith smiled, taking it from him she pretending to drink it, "Delicious, thank you baby."
"Dada you has too?"
"I would love some bubble coffee, thank you bubba."
"Alex," Derek chided, he looked into the rearview mirror, meeting Alex's eyes in the mirror mounted to the backseat so they could see him when his carseat was rear facing. "If you kick the back of my seat you're going to be helping clean it when we get home, understand?"
"Not gonna kick daddy," Alex answered quickly. "Just restin' my feets."
"You're just resting your feet on it?"
"Uh huh, theys just needa be there."
"Okay," Derek relented, aware that he was probably giving Alex more of an out than he should. "That's good, because if you did kick you will help daddy clean it."
Alex was quiet for a minute, except for the constant click of the stimboard which was in front of him. "Daddy?"
"Yes Alexander?"
"Where we goin'? Not goin' home?"
"Not just yet, we're going to the dream house buddy."
"We gon' build it?"
"No, buddy, that's not safe for us to do. We're going to go to the field of the new house, and we're going to run around and around and around."
"Really!" Alex squealed with excitement, "Why? We not gotta meet mommy? She gone work?"
"No Alex, I just..."
It had been his therapists advice, after he was finally diagnosed with adhd, when they had asked for advice for the hell which the time after daycare had become. They'd blamed themselves, they'd told them everything they tried to do to stop it from being an hours long hyperactive tantrum.
It turned out it wasn't what they had been doing wrong, it was the exact opposite- they were clearly a safe space, where whenever he was dropped or whenever he was big he didn't have to surpress everything like he still felt like he had to everywhere else. It didn't fix the issues Alex was having, but it made sense, it was a compliment, in a way.
The therapist had suggested taking Alex to the gym after daycare, and Meredith had tried that once, it had just made Alex more shy, surpress himself more, not even feeling like he could use a stim toy despite them being in the Little specialist section.
Derek had come up with the idea of taking him out somewhere in nature, it always worked for him, after all. Apparently Alex was more like him than big Alex would willingly admit, because he loved being out near their house which was being built, getting to run, scream, shout, roll around, all of that.
"Mommy's at home," Derek answered finally, "we're going to see her soon, I just thought maybe you wanted to play tag with me?"
"Tag!?"
"Yeah, do you know how to play?" He beamed as he watched his baby squirming in excitement.
"Uh huh! I best daddy! I wun you get me?"
Derek smiled as he pulled up into the empty field, nowhere near the house, he was having fun playing rough and tumble with Alex, but he was a worrier when it came to Alex, so there was no way he was going to be near anything which could possibly hurt him.
"I'll catch you, and when I do I'm going to tickle you." Alex's excited squeal was piercing and louder than it should be considering he'd been running around all day at daycare.... but it was much better than the tantrums, and the fact that Alex had been so unhappy.
alex rediscovering his stims 🥺 ? (if u saw this in the wrong blog inbox no u didn't) 🤫
Another fic I've had written literally for 2 years at this point and just forgot to post!!
It was Alex's first time working under Derek since they had started to foster him a month before, and it was...... awkward....
For example they were in a room, just the two of them, looking at the CTs of a patient Derek was fairly certain they would end up operating on.
Alex was sitting on an office chair while Derek double and triple checked the scan, and Alex was spinning - not in full circles just from left to right 90 degrees each way.
The thing was it didn’t seem like Alex was bored, when Alex was bored he made it everyones problem, Derek had known that since Bailey had ranted to him about it after Alex’s first week as an intern, Meredith and Bailey both sharing his group… Meredith had told him too, of course, but she already had a suspicion that he was a little so she had bigger things to be worried about.
“Is that IIH?”
That was it then, Alex definitely wasn't bored he was just... restless? Impatient to get out of there maybe? Derek wasn't sure.... maybe it was just a side effect of his classification, or maybe he needed to drop later.
"That's what I'm thinking," Derek answered. "Are you okay?"
"Huh?"
"You're spinning in your chair," Alex immediately stopped and Derek felt a little bad at it, even if it was important to address for various reasons, "If you need to drop then you know that you have to tell me."
"I'm fine." Alex's voice was solid as concrete.
"Alexander-"
"I'm fine, Doctor Shepherd, I was just turning in my chair, I won't do it again, jeez."
"That's not why I was bringing it up," Derek sighed, "I was just..." he shook his head, "I had to check, it's my job as your foster parent and as the head of neurosurgery."
Alex didn't say anything, he was completely still, and sitting stiffly in his seat, as though any movement would have Derek forcibly making him drop and putting him in daycare.
Derek looked him over while Alex didn't make any eye contact with him at all: he wasn't any smaller, he wasn't acting younger, other than the spinning in the chair.
Derek would keep an eye on him.
So instead, he continued, "What are the risk factors surrounding idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension?"
Alex didn't hesitate, "Women of childbearing age, especially those who are overweight, which our patient is."
"Correct. How should we go about treating it?"
"A shunt or a stent- or an optic nerve sheth fenestration, which is really cool, is she gonna need-"
"-It's cool, but what are the possible complications of ONSF?"
"She could have temporary or permanent double vision- diplopia, or less frequently issues surrounding the various parts of the eye."
"And if the cons outweigh the pros of every type of surgery?"
Alex frowned, "Then we refer her back to neurology to manage her symptoms."
"Yeah," Derek could tell his displeasure in it. "You need to remember that this isn't about what surgery is the coolest, it's about what's best for the patient. Here take a look at this scan, tell me what you think is actually best for her."
They were at the birthday party of someone who was in Alex's daycare class, it was both of their first experiences taking Alex anywhere like this, they knew that it was a whole class party, which was why Alex had been invited, as he had only joined three months ago, it also explained why Alex had been so nervous about it - it didn't help that Alex was one of the youngest.
It was a big indoor playground thing, a soft play, not the first time they'd been there, normally they were having to stop Alex from trying to get to the 'big kids' area, but instead today he was not far from them, in the baby area alone, spinning in circles.
Meredith and Derek sent each other a look before both moving over to Alex's side. Meredith placed her hands on his sides, stopping him from spinning, he smiled at them nervously, still rocking in her hold, brimming over with energy.
"Hey," Meredith smiled soothingly, "are you dizzy?"
Alex paused for a second, then nodded his head.
"Why are you spinning around, little monster?" Derek asked using the nickname which had quickly become one he used on Alex all of the time.
Alex shrugged his shoulders, "Dunno? Why?"
"You don't want to go and play with your friends?"
"Jack Jack no here..."
"No," Meredith agreed, "he had to work today."
"An' Apes too?"
"And April had to work too," she agreed again. "But you have other friends in your class, the ones who came over to ask you to play with them before. Look they're over there." She pointed over at the group playing on the slide, "and look, they're going to slide into the foam blocks."
Alex looked over at them when she had said it, but Alex rocked more.
"Alex, are you okay?" Meredith sent Derek a worried look, not sure when in their fostering journey that these maternal took over her.
Alex looked back at them. "I gotta go there?"
"Not if you don't want to." Derek told him firmly, crouching at Meredith's side who nodded in agreement. "You're just rocking a lot, we want to make sure that you're okay.... Are you nervous about playing with the others?"
Alex immediately chewed on his bottom lip, Meredith gently tugged it back out, as she often had to, and she even more often had to stop herself from doing it when he was big and they were doing rounds while Alex was deep in thought.
Alex looked at Derek, still not stopping from rocking, "You my friend too?"
Derek smiled, he pushed Alex's wavy hair out of his eyes, "Yeah, Alexander, I'm your friend too. Me and Meredith are both your friends."
"Otay.... you play there with me?"
Derek was a little surprised by that, but he covered up his surprise quickly, knowing how Alex was someone who rarely asked for extra, and when he did it was something they tried to embrace.
"I can go over there with you, your friends look like they're having fun, I'm sure that they're excited to play with you."
"Mmm..... maybe.... you wanna spin?"
Derek and Meredith shared a quick look, before he returned his attention to Alex, "If you want to spin then we can. Do you like spinning?"
"Gotta."
"You gotta like spinning?"
Alex whined loudly, "Der, c'mon, le's'go."
Derek took hold of his outstretched hand, "Okay, buddy, let's go."
Meredith and Alex were walking around the grocery store, they both got off their shift around the same time, while Derek was supposed to be but he was still in surgery, apparently he would be for a while, he'd asked the receptionist in the neurosurgery department to let them know to go home without him.
Meredith was running off of machine coffee and adrenaline, while Alex was nursing a soda, a choice he'd made as soon as she had seen his hand hovering over the button for one of the energy drinks which weren't suitable for Littles bodies. it was the longest shift either of them had worked since Alex had come to live with them three months ago. Alex was mixing between being tired and being excitable, so Meredith figured she'd use the time which they were still awake to grab groceries, before they all started putting off going again.
"Derek told me we actually don't need broccoli."
"Uh huh," Meredith smiled as she added it to the cart, "sure he didn't. When was it he told you this again?"
Alex let out a halfhearted puff of air, "Telepathically?"
Meredith laughed, continuing to push the cart. "Nice try. You need to grab something for lunch when you have skills lab."
Alex groaned, "Skills lab is so boring, can't you get me out of it?"
"And you say that Jackson and April are nepotistic..."
"They are, I'm just..... adorable?"
"Sure," she said, but they both knew that she agreed with him about it. She added a few bags of ready made salad bags into the cart, along with more things to add to them, she ticked them off the app on her phone, and was about to push the cart on when she heard Alex say something.
"Huh?"
"Habada badag."
"What?" Meredith frowned looking at him as his cheeks began to pinken. "Are you okay? Did you hit your head?"
"What? No! It's," his hand ruffled the back of his hair, "It's just a video, Dog of Wisdom? I... Wait, look."
He dug his phone out of his pocket bringing up a video of a cartoon dog on a plane. As soon as he pressed play the dog began to make weird noises, apparently 'talking'.
Meredith didn't think much of it- it wasn't her sense of humor, but Alex was beaming at it, so she forced a smile onto her face.
"It's er, it's a dumb video, I know."
"It's cute," she told him instead, "Wait, did you find that on tiktok?"
"Nah," he tucked his phone back into his pocket, "Jackson sent it to me.... I guess it just got stuck in my head, sorry."
"It's fine," she told him, watching him as he necked his can of soda; So long as it wasn't on a social media they didn't know about then it was fine, even if she didn't get it.
"I got one line from one of Derek's favorite songs stuck in my head for a twenty hour shift once," she offered.
"I mean, at least with it being one of Derek's favorite songs you knew it though?" he offered in return.
"I do now, but at the time we'd not long met.... our second date was me yelling at him over it, the third he took me to see a really bad tribute band of theirs."
Alex laughed easily, his fingers tapping on the can of pop.
The two of them continued through the store, Meredith mostly kept to the list, while Alex added a few extra bits, mostly trying to sneak things into the cart, Meredith let him most of the time, periodically, Alex would repeat that same noise he'd shown her from the video, she'd paid attention at first, before thinking about how he would often do the same thing when he was dropped, at first they'd been worried or at least concerned, but he seemed happy enough.
She came to a sudden stop.
God she was a doctor and she didn't realize....
Alex was halfway down the aisle by the time either she or he had realized that she stopped walking. He looked back at her, his head tilted to the side in surprise, the way which both she and Derek had immediately found adorable.
"What's wrong? Do you, are you okay? What's-"
She quickly smiled at him, closing the distance. "Nothing's wrong, I was just..." No, she'd talk to Derek about her suspicion before talking to Alex about it, knowing that her foster son would just suppress everything he could again like he had when they had first taken him in.
"I was just thinking that there was a new Krispy Kreme opened near here, and I know we have cereal and stuff at home, but you and I could go there for breakfast, if you want?"
Alex's face of confusion fully dropped, he stood up straighter, his face lit up and a wide smile spread across his face. "Derek's gonna kill us if we do, I mean that as a positive."
"He'll understand, and he's not too bad on you about food anymore, just... he worries."
"He worries a lot, plus vegetables are gross."
"I know that's your catchphrase. Anyway this breakfast will have no vegetables. Sound good?"
Alex nodded his head so eagerly that she would have thought she'd put a time limit on answering. "And coffee-"
Meredith let out a single loud laugh.
"-It was worth a shot, right?"
"Sure, I mean the answer to coffee for you is always going to be no... but still I admire you tenacity."
Derek found Meredith standing with Alex at a nurses station as Meredith went over some things in a patients file, beside her Alex was fidgetting and clicking a pen faster and faster. Meredith had been the one to text him, asking him for help, because the pen clicking was driving her mad, and she really didn't want to end up yelling at Alex.
"Hey," Derek smiled easily at the pair, "having a good day?"
"Why do we even have to do paperwork?" Alex didn't bother with the greeting, his clicking of the pen just got faster, "Isn't that what machines are for? I mean we have all these readouts, and electronic records, but we still have to have paper as well? This is dumb!"
Derek and Meredith exchanged a look, Derek could tell that Meredith was tiring of this argument, he wasn't sure how long it had been going on, but it was probably a while. "Do you want an actual answer to that, which I'm sure Meredith has already given you, or are you just wanting to blow off steam?"
Alex paused for a second. "Whichever answer gets you to give me a lighter to set fire to this thing."
"You really think Derek is more likely than me to give you something with fire?" Meredith smirked as Alex pouted.
"What if I say please?"
Derek chuckled and shook his head, "As you'd be breaking about seventeen felonies I'm going to say no. Plus I'd trust you to do surgery on me, but I wouldn't trust you with fire, sorry bud."
He and Meredith shared a silent conversation before he looked back at Alex.
"Hey, you know how we talked about the whole autism and adhd thing-" Alex groaned but Derek continued, "Well, you clearly need a break from this, so why don't we go to blow off some extra energy?"
Alex dropped the pen like it was burning, suddenly aware of his clicking. "I don't have a diagnosis."
"Well yeah, but I'm head of neurosurgery, and Meredith is just generally in charge of you-"
"-and of you-"
Derek rolled his eyes, "-Which has some benefits. So do you want to come with me to the gym? Do a super quick workout?"
"The gym you go to?"
"The one here, I mean you can come with me anytime you want to my gym, but right now while you're on shift we're just stuck to the hospital one."
Alex's eyes flickered to Meredith, back to Derek, then back to Meredith, his cheeks reddened. "I've been annoying you, haven't I?"
Meredith didn't nod straight out, "I've worked with Derek a lot, so trust me you're not as annoying as him."
"Hey! What did I do?"
Meredith ignored her husband. "But you need to get rid of some of your extra energy, so go do a run, don't come back stinking up the place though, okay?"
Alex chewed his lip, used it it by now when Meredith reached out and gently pulled his lip from under his tooth. He sent her a nervous smile. "I'm sorry for bugging you."
"You didn't bug me," she told him firmly, "I'm more than fine with you getting out your energy - stimming," she used the word which Alex had been repeatedly avoided letting them us, "is fine, it's normal, and you need to do it. It's just we need to figure out the best ways for you to do it. Clicking a pen is usually fine, I just need to think for a few minutes. And maybe once you're back you can use one of those fidgets we got you, try them out?"
"I guess...." he looked to Derek, "are you being forced to babysit me?"
"I can't be forced to do anything." Meredith laughed loudly. Derek rolled his eyes, "I'm not babysitting you," he amended, "anyway I just got done in surgery, but my brains still going and I need to do some something. Plus your foster mother is picking on me, so I'm breaking you out of her evil grip."
"I'm also his resident, Shepherd, I don't have an evil grip on him."
Alex got to his feet, ducking his head to hide his amusement at seeing them interact.
"I'm your attending, your head of neurosurgery, how come I don't have any influence over you?" Derek questioned.
Meredith smiled at him before pulled him down by his scrub shirt, "I think you know why."
Alex made a loud noise of disgust, "Gross! I'm going with Derek just so I don't have to see y'all doing this."
Derek and Meredith laughed, Derek wrapped his arm around Alex's shoulder to stop him from storming off alone. "We'll be back in twenty."
before/after the adhd diagnosis, alex coming home from daycare and just being an adhd terror at home for the first few hours, once he feels truly safe to express himself at home. m&d kind of handle it wrong initially until they realise that this is Not on purpose, and he's not tantruming and throwing things just because.
So it turned out that I've had this written literally since March 2024, but for some reason I left it in my drafts???? I think I was going to make a photoboard for it and then just forgot... ooops, I guess its ironic considering this is a prompt about adhd
anyway, fic under the cut
(I love this scene how Derek's like okay I got my son, then puts him in time out)
Derek was having to wrestle Alex out of his car seat, the Little wasn't making it easy in the slightest.
"I do! I do!"
"You can't do it, Alexander," he said, not for the first time, "you know you can't baby, it wont let you when you're little."
"I tan I tan! I know how do it daddy!"
Derek took a deep breath, "I'm sure you do," he said evenly, "but the seat knows that you're dropped, so it won't let you monkey."
"I tan! I tell seat I still big."
"It doesn't work like that buddy. C'mon, can you be a big brave boy for me and move your hands please?" Alex whined loudly, his feet were still kicking, like they'd been doing the entire way. Derek tried to keep cool about it, he knew that Alex was just being... well, Alex, but it should be easier to just get him inside.
"Alexander, no more kicking, understand?"
Alex whined loudly. Then kicked the seat in front of him, hard.
"Alex!"
"Di'nt kick! Jus' punched wif my feets."
"Alexander." Derek's voice deepened, "You know: no kicking or punching or anything like that, you don't do that, you know better than to do things like that. Now sit still or you're going straight into time out when we get inside the house."
He felt his heart sink as Alex did as he was told - he sat still, only to start crying loudly. Derek wanted to comfort him, but he knew from experience that it was only a matter of time before Alex started up the kicking and squirming around again. He quickly undid him, placed him onto his hip. He slammed the door closed, grabbed their bags from the trunk, and managed to make it into the house before Alex started squirming and his cries turned more frustrated, then angry.
He locked the front door just in time for Alex to squirm out of his hold, and start having a tantrum in the entry.
Derek just sighed heavily.
Meredith came down the stairs, she'd been in work for the previous twenty-four hour shift, and had been sleeping all day, Derek would have felt bad at the possibility that they'd been the ones to wake her up, had he not just felt absolute relief that he had some backup.
Meredith sighed just as heavily as Derek had.
"Hey."
"Hey." They both watched Alex on the floor for a second. "Has he been like this all day?"
"I didn't get to talk to the people in daycare much, Mx River wasn't there, there was a sub, I've got his book though, it's in his backpack. Do you want to deal with him while I look-"
"-Coward," she retorted playfully, but she crouched down beside Alex, careful to give him enough space. "Alex, come on baby, can we try and do our calm down activities?"
"Nooooo!"
Derek sighed, feeling bad as he listened to Meredith try and calm Alex down, feeling guilt at the fact that he was just glad that she was doing it rather than him.
He hunted for the behavior book, the one which filled in all caregivers on their Little's day at daycare. Derek flicked past all of the familiar writing to today's entry. He doubled, then triple checked the date. He only just finished making sure when Alex's tantrum kicked up a notch. He left the book on the side table and helped his wife with their son.
It wasn't until bath time that Alex finally calmed down: dinner had been a struggle, throwing food, screaming, not using his inside voice even when he wasn't tantruming and was playing, throwing things everywhere, demanding to play with toys... yet more tantruming. He was finally exhausted enough to relax, but they hadn't been able to actually spend any meaningful time together, nor were any of them in a great mood.
Alex played sleepily with the bath toys, just moving them around the bubbles, while both Meredith and Derek sat on the floor of the bathroom watching him, just as tired as he was.
"Do we need to start sending apology cards into daycare with him?"
"Hmm?" Derek blinked as he took his eyes off of Alex, he looked at Meredith for a second before he realized what she was talking about. "Oh, no, no, they said he'd be really good... again."
"So it's just for us he acts like this?"
Derek felt her lean heavier against him, he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "It's just... it'll get better."
"When, exactly?"
Derek sighed heavily. "I..." he let out a sigh. "I don't know. I don't know what we're supposed to do, it feels like we've tried everything: time outs, taking stuff away from him, limiting screentime... everything."
"I was hoping you'd have some smart idea." She sent him a small smile.
"I'm fresh out, I've had them all kicked out of me tonight." He sent her a small smile in return and watched a laugh play around her lips.
"Mama, you has coffee?"
Meredith and Derek both looked towards Alex, holding out a plastic teacup full of bathwater and bubbles.
Meredith smiled, taking it from him she pretending to drink it, "Delicious, thank you baby."
"Dada you has too?"
"I would love some bubble coffee, thank you bubba."
"Alex," Derek chided, he looked into the rearview mirror, meeting Alex's eyes in the mirror mounted to the backseat so they could see him when his carseat was rear facing. "If you kick the back of my seat you're going to be helping clean it when we get home, understand?"
"Not gonna kick daddy," Alex answered quickly. "Just restin' my feets."
"You're just resting your feet on it?"
"Uh huh, theys just needa be there."
"Okay," Derek relented, aware that he was probably giving Alex more of an out than he should. "That's good, because if you did kick you will help daddy clean it."
Alex was quiet for a minute, except for the constant click of the stimboard which was in front of him. "Daddy?"
"Yes Alexander?"
"Where we goin'? Not goin' home?"
"Not just yet, we're going to the dream house buddy."
"We gon' build it?"
"No, buddy, that's not safe for us to do. We're going to go to the field of the new house, and we're going to run around and around and around."
"Really!" Alex squealed with excitement, "Why? We not gotta meet mommy? She gone work?"
"No Alex, I just..."
It had been his therapists advice, after he was finally diagnosed with adhd, when they had asked for advice for the hell which the time after daycare had become. They'd blamed themselves, they'd told them everything they tried to do to stop it from being an hours long hyperactive tantrum.
It turned out it wasn't what they had been doing wrong, it was the exact opposite- they were clearly a safe space, where whenever he was dropped or whenever he was big he didn't have to surpress everything like he still felt like he had to everywhere else. It didn't fix the issues Alex was having, but it made sense, it was a compliment, in a way.
The therapist had suggested taking Alex to the gym after daycare, and Meredith had tried that once, it had just made Alex more shy, surpress himself more, not even feeling like he could use a stim toy despite them being in the Little specialist section.
Derek had come up with the idea of taking him out somewhere in nature, it always worked for him, after all. Apparently Alex was more like him than big Alex would willingly admit, because he loved being out near their house which was being built, getting to run, scream, shout, roll around, all of that.
"Mommy's at home," Derek answered finally, "we're going to see her soon, I just thought maybe you wanted to play tag with me?"
"Tag!?"
"Yeah, do you know how to play?" He beamed as he watched his baby squirming in excitement.
"Uh huh! I best daddy! I wun you get me?"
Derek smiled as he pulled up into the empty field, nowhere near the house, he was having fun playing rough and tumble with Alex, but he was a worrier when it came to Alex, so there was no way he was going to be near anything which could possibly hurt him.
"I'll catch you, and when I do I'm going to tickle you." Alex's excited squeal was piercing and louder than it should be considering he'd been running around all day at daycare.... but it was much better than the tantrums, and the fact that Alex had been so unhappy.
little alex dealing with sensory overload, or big alex regressing due to sensory overload and having no idea how to deal but meredith and derek manage to make it all okay :)
It's been literally a million years since you sent this so I'm so sorry!!! but I finally wrote it! I hope you like it :D also i love the profile pic
fic under the cut
Everything was pissing Alex off today, and he didn't even know why, sure work had been stressful, and he'd been working longer than he probably should have, and he didn't even get to cut anyone up, he was stuck on the ward, dealing with about a million different post-op issues, and Meredith had got April to do a surgery with her not him. It was bullshit.
He was still in work now, because he had to wait for Meredith to finish up, and Derek was doing paperwork in his office so had asked Alex to not hang out.
The label on his shirt scratched the back of his neck, and he'd tried to adjust it but it hadn't made shit better. He opened his locker, hoping to magically find something, but there was nothing at all in there, other than a molding apple. He slammed it shut as another group of interns walked in, they were all loud, shouting, laughing, one jeered, and another walked to the light switch and flicked it on and off, making someone else scream and the others laugh and shout.
"Jesus fuck!" Alex shouted, he slammed his hand into his locker. He felt all their eyes on him, which just made everything worse, and sure it was probably natural to look at him, but he didn't want them to look at him.
He stormed out of the room, his eyes already watering, shoulder slamming into two of the guys in the dark, he heard laughter as the door shut behind him. Now tears fell down his eyes, he knew that he would have to deal with all of them another time, but for now he just fell to the floor, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, he could hear the flickering of the fluorescent lights and the constant fucking beeping.
"Alex!"
Alex didn't look up despite hearing his mom's voice, instead he just cried, he knew she was talking to him but words were too much for him right them, so instead he just cried.
He was scooped up as soon as he started to kick at the floor, he wiggled automatically, but his mommy held him tight, and the two of them started to move.
He kept his head tucked into her neck, but she didn't smell good, she smelt like blood and bodies and iodine and not like the good mommy smell. He let out a whine as he heard more voices, he felt the elevator move and he whined again.
"It's okay, we're going to find daddy," Meredith told him quietly, he hand rubbing circles on his back.
"Noooo," Alex whimpered through his cries. "Nononononono."
Derek looked up as the door to his office opened. He had a smile ready when he saw his wife, though she was covered in blood from surgery, but then he realised that she was carrying Alex, and that Alex was crying. He stood up so fast that he knocked a pen pot over, but he didn't care about that. "What's going on?"
"I found him outside his locker room on the floor crying, he's not calmed down," she explained quickly.
"Shi-..." Derek cut himself off and held his hands out towards Meredith, "do you want me to take him?"
Meredith really looked like she didn't want to hand him over at all, she bit her lip, and reluctantly nodded her head, "I just need all the blood off me, I would have changed first but he was crying and couldn't or wouldn't communicate."
"He seemed fine earlier," Derek accepted his son into his arms, who cried but then immediately clung to him, Derek held tight to him, rubbing his back like she had been doing, "I sent him to take a break, I was going to make him nap but it seemed too late for that, I figured you'd be done soon and we could head home."
Meredith sighed, "Yeah, it ran over."
Derek frowned looking at his wife, he knew that look, the look of someone who'd lost a patient, Meredith just gave him a small shake of her head, and he nodded in return, he knew that she'd talk to him about it when she was ready, but she would probably just need some time. Death hit them all hard.
"Did he lost someone too?"
Meredith shook her head, "I think he was just doing post ops," she frowned, "I'm going to get changed," Alex cried loudly and Meredith looked torn.
"I'll take care of him, try to figure out what happened to make him drop hard like this," Alex wiggled in his arms still crying but every so often whining in frustration, mostly when they talked. "Go shower," he told his wife, "you know he hates the smell of iodine."
That was enough to make her nod and leave, Derek felt bad he knew that she wouldn't want to leave him in this way, but also that it probably wasn't helping Alex right then.
Derek went to sit on his couch only for Alex to cry even louder and cling to him. "Okay I guess we're standing then," Derek started to pace his office, rubbing Alex's back. "It's okay baby... can you tell daddy what happened?"
He didn't get an answer, in fact he didn't even get a hint of one, so instead he just paced, he grabbed the remote from his desk and clicked it to turn on the two lamps in his room. Immediately he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.
"Fu-! shi-," Derek winced, cutting himself off before he finished each of the curses, he expertly slipped Alex's mouth off of him, "No biting, Alexander," he told him firmly. "No."
Alex wiggled again until Derek was forced to put him down. He ran towards the door, Derek quickly slipped between him and the door. "Alexander, no, do not run off, you're staying with daddy." He sighed as Alex threw himself on the ground. He flicked the lights off, what he'd been about to do before he'd been bitten. Alex's cries immediately softened.
Derek crouched beside him realisation dawned on him, "You're overstimulated, huh, baby bear?" His baby let out a small whimper. "I'll take that as a yes, bub," Derek whispered. He took a look at his face and saw how miserable he looked. "Can I pick you up? You don't have to talk," he reassured him, "just shake your head or nod."
Instead Alex tried to pull his shirt off, making noises of frustration as soon as it got stuck on his head.
"You don't often wear this tee," Derek pointed out, helping Alex get the shirt over his head, as soon as it was Alex's hand rubbed his neck hard, Derek firmly took it away. "Did the shirt feel uncomfortable?" Alex gave him a look which clearly screamed 'finally', Derek ran his other hand through Alex's hair. "Sorry, baby, silly daddy, huh? Let's get you sorted out," Alex whined again, "I know," Derek told him though he didn't even slightly know, but he scooped Alex up, who immediately decided to suck on Derek's shirt, which Derek would never admit was adorable because they were really trying to stop Alex from chewing and sucking on random things, especially in the hospital.
Derek let him for now, moving over to the cupboard grabbing out the diaper bag he kept in there, it was nearly empty, he needed to restock it, he guessed it would be coming home with them. Luckily there was a diaper in there, and a sleepsuit which he pulled out, along with a little bag of goldfish and a juice box.
"mama."
"Mama will be back soon," Derek promised him, "she just needs to stop smelling yucky. "
"mama," Alex whined again.
"I know, I know," Derek soothed, helping Alex out of his shoes and the rest of his clothes. He quickly got the diaper on him, Alex started to whine when Derek was getting him into the sleepsuit, but as soon as he was in it Derek burrito wrapped him in a blanket, compression was good for over stimulation.
"Daddy's going to give you some juice and feed you some goldfish," he told him, Alex whined and Derek shook his head, "I know, daddy's so mean, but you need a snack. Do you want to wear daddy's airpods is noise too much?"
Alex nodded his head sadly, "Beep beeps," he said by way of explanation.
"Yeah, lots of beeping in the hospital, isn't there" Derek soothed, grabbing his airpods and sticking them in Alex's ears, he quickly pulled up the 'brown noise' playlist he kept on his phone for Alex, knowing that it was supposed to be helpful for adhd, he wasn't sure if it was or not, but he'd try anything.
Meredith walked in having quickly showered and grabbed Alex's bag from where he'd abandoned it in the locker room. Her mouth was set in a thin line, which softened when she saw her baby in her husbands arms, napping wrapped in a blanket.
Derek sent her a soft sympathetic smile. "What-"
"-Overstimulation," she told him.
"I figured that."
"Well, what you didn't figure," she said softly, reaching out to run her hand through her sleeping baby's hair, "was that it was probably made worse by a group of people acting like idiots in the locker room, shouting and flipping the lights on and off."
Derek sighed and shook his head, "Fuckin' idiots," he whispered. He locked eyes with his wife, "I'm guessing you yelled at them?"
She crossed her arms over her chest, "They were acting like he was being obscene for dropping hard, like he was the issue, one of them said that he should have known he was dropping." Her mouth was pressed back into a thin line.
"Did you already hand their ass to them or can I go down?"
"They're going to be finding it hard to breathe out of their nose," she told him seriously, "I think they got the point."
Derek smiled at her, he wasn't surprised that she'd dealt with it, he made a mental note to send a message to Richard about it all, though he doubted that Webber would punish Meredith for that, not when it could be argued that the residents were deliberately forcing a little to drop, which might not be the true but Derek really didn't care about it, he cared about how they hadn't helped with Alex's overstimulation, had been a cause in it, had ignored the fact that a little who they knew dropping.... If Meredith hadn't been there....
"I'm going to set him up a meltdown kit, Addie told me about what they put in Jackson's," she told him, "and he's wearing the band for a while, that way we'll know if he suddenly drops."
Derek smiled.
"What?"
"It's just nice that I'm not the one sounding overprotective now."
Meredith rolled her eyes, "He's adorable, if he drops without us knowing he could be kidnapped."
"He'd probably just bite them."
Meredith hesitated, then sighed, "Did he bite you again?"
Derek shrugged, looking down at his sleeping baby, Meredith was still stroking his hair, which he knew was helping him even though he was asleep. "It was my fault, I turned the lamps on before I turned the 'big light' off, this was before I realised he was overstimulated," he added quickly, "and I told him no... We'll throw some of his teething toys in that kit you're making."
Meredith nodded her head, making a mental note of it as she stared down at Alex, swaddled like a baby in the blanket which had once been in Derek's trailer.
"Do you want to take him?" Derek offered, only looking a little upset that he had to share their baby, "I'll pack up the things we need and we can take him home, I already fed him a snack."
Meredith took him, he whined in his sleep and she shifted him to get him comfortable, Derek carefully took the airpods from his ears, and Meredith made sure Alex could hear her heart, she knew that helped him. She swayed a little, and kept a tight hold of him, knowing the pressure would help.
Like if he gets antagonised or worked up does he bite himself/whoever’s working him up?
If yes, what do the fam do to look for signs of him biting and if not, what does he do when he’s worked up/overwhelmed?
Alex is a big biter, like he has a real reputation for it at daycare, luckily with him being the youngest in his class the teachers can focus on him as he's the only consistent biter
He gets very overwhelmed, or he wants to just bite something for the like texture. Meredith it turns out was a biter when she was a toddler, which Derek finds hilarious because he insists Alex takes more after her than him (despite that not actually mattering considering they aren't biologically related)
But we all know that Ellis Grey and Thatcher Grey didn't deal with her biting in the best ways, so Meredith and Derek are more than willing to get advice from literally anyone, they get a lot of books, and try and teach Alex to do literally anything else to get his excitement out, and they already have to put in so much effort into him redirecting his anger spurts, so this is kinda just another part of it, and then he also does it when he's overexcited
They actually get even more concerned if he bites himself, because this is Alex who when he's frustrated hits out at everyone else, but when he's struggling he hits out at himself, so while they watch out for signs the whole time they keep an eye out for the
They find that toddler chew toys (as Jackson refers to them as which makes Alex threaten to bite him because 'I'm not a dog dude!') are a god send, they try to keep some at home and in Derek's office,
he loves the keys as they get put in the freezer and they get to be cool which helps him reset, but he also loves the giraffe as it's something he can also cuddle when hes frustrated
but for more subtle things I think Alex has a lot of chewy stims, which he uses when he needs to stim rather than when he wants to bite himself when he's big
Derek sees him chewing on his stim when they have to deal with a vip patient as the patient is obnoxious and he lowk wants to just let Alex bite them
I think he tends to go for these sort of ones, he likes that they're subtle enough to not get clocked from a distance, plus he likes the shark tooth style as he
side note daycare has a lot of these which get filled out and a lot of times the cause is definitely Alex
I'm going to defend your son here, because I have a headcanon that my daughter Jo is similar, so I have to play devil's advocate.
And to say that not every bite is a sign of frustration, and that some children bite when they are happy too. I got bitten in the face like that, poor kid, so much euphoria and not knowing how to express it. So while chew toys are a great option, teaching alternative means of communication/expression is also a good idea. Whether it's jumping, clapping, or, when the little one is able to, speaking.
I'm saying all this just because I want to put it in your mind that Alex bit April, and at first she's torn between being angry and crying, but then she does to him what she does to Jo, which is to call him over and grab Their hands are there so they can jump until the animation slows down and they can return to what they were doing before.
So, what can bite, stomp its feet, is fluffy, and jumps high? Exactly, bunnies. So that's what they are.
Oh 100% he definitely bites when hes just overexcited too - i always think of jo and alex as being like veryyyyy similar, like in terms of personality and how they deal with things - i love the idea that april is the one who taught him to jump instead of bite, especially doing it together because thats her baby cousins, and then when Alex feels like that anytime after he only wants April because shes ‘the bestest’ at it
Also them calling it like bunny time ahhhh my heart dude
Like if he gets antagonised or worked up does he bite himself/whoever’s working him up?
If yes, what do the fam do to look for signs of him biting and if not, what does he do when he’s worked up/overwhelmed?
Alex is a big biter, like he has a real reputation for it at daycare, luckily with him being the youngest in his class the teachers can focus on him as he's the only consistent biter
He gets very overwhelmed, or he wants to just bite something for the like texture. Meredith it turns out was a biter when she was a toddler, which Derek finds hilarious because he insists Alex takes more after her than him (despite that not actually mattering considering they aren't biologically related)
But we all know that Ellis Grey and Thatcher Grey didn't deal with her biting in the best ways, so Meredith and Derek are more than willing to get advice from literally anyone, they get a lot of books, and try and teach Alex to do literally anything else to get his excitement out, and they already have to put in so much effort into him redirecting his anger spurts, so this is kinda just another part of it, and then he also does it when he's overexcited
They actually get even more concerned if he bites himself, because this is Alex who when he's frustrated hits out at everyone else, but when he's struggling he hits out at himself, so while they watch out for signs the whole time they keep an eye out for the
They find that toddler chew toys (as Jackson refers to them as which makes Alex threaten to bite him because 'I'm not a dog dude!') are a god send, they try to keep some at home and in Derek's office,
he loves the keys as they get put in the freezer and they get to be cool which helps him reset, but he also loves the giraffe as it's something he can also cuddle when hes frustrated
but for more subtle things I think Alex has a lot of chewy stims, which he uses when he needs to stim rather than when he wants to bite himself when he's big
Derek sees him chewing on his stim when they have to deal with a vip patient as the patient is obnoxious and he lowk wants to just let Alex bite them
I think he tends to go for these sort of ones, he likes that they're subtle enough to not get clocked from a distance, plus he likes the shark tooth style as he
side note daycare has a lot of these which get filled out and a lot of times the cause is definitely Alex
Does Alex have a comforter? (I was on Pinterest and found out comforters are like a plushy like thing attached to a blanket of sorts) and i wa sleek, I wonder if Lexie has one?
this literally was sent years ago at this point, sorry about not replying, but I love this idea
I see Carolyn Shepherd buying these for her little grandkids, Alex gets Tigger which he adores before he loves how bouncy he is, Jackson gets eeyore, Jo gots pooh, and April gets piglet
Alex's ends up the rattiest first, he chews it a lot (before his parents realise and replace it with a pacifier) and also because he takes it everywhere, even to work, which he protests is just because it takes up less space than his stuffies and it'll help him nap, everyone is just like uh huh yeah sure bud we all believe you....
It was a bit of a hectic day, so I was a little late, but we're back to our normal schedule.
The Tree House project
Inspired by canon and Derek building the dream house, imagine Derek and Alex building a treehouse. I think Derek is more excited than Alex, but Alex likes that it's something he can do with his dad and that it's hands-on, making him capable.
Ah I hope it was at least a good kind of hectic! I was so excited to see I got this!
"Why are you doing this again?"
"All kids should have a treehouse, Mer," Derek says as he moves around the garage, hunting out all of the tools he'd made a list of, "it's a right of passage."
"You grew up in a Manhattan apartment, Derek," she raises a brow, "you didn't have a tree, let alone a tree house."
"Well, yeah... but this one also doesn't need a tree, it's a freestanding one-"
"-Because you don't trust Alex to be near a tree, but you think it's fine for him to be 13ft off the ground in a random wooden structure which you're building yourself.... And this is because you think Alex wants one, and it's definitely nothing to do with the fact that you only got to build of deck of our house and had to leave the rest up to the actual professionals?"
Derek pauses, ".... I got the plans and all the instructions from our contractor, it's safe, and it's not building a whole house or you know part of the house, if you want to be specific-"
"-What?-"
"-I get to do this with him, you know? It's something I can supervise, I'm not going to be too busy doing the work so I can have Alex help and I can supervise him.... Normally I'm the guy who's always telling him something's not safe for him to do, about everything, because he's Alex, but I can built this with him, I'll get someone to professionally add some electrics, it'll be a place he can hang out with his cousins, and it'll mean that we can have the house all to ourselves for at least an hour at a time..."
"Okay, you should have led with that part, we wouldn't have had to have this whole parenting conversation," she smirks, rolling her eyes, because they both know that wouldn't have stopped it, but she doesn't hate the sound of it, not at all.
Alex spend a lot of time outside as a kid, it was miles better than being in the family's trailer, and in the summer if his dad was being violent, if his siblings were away at friends, he'd sleep in the park... he didn't see what was so amazing about a treehouse.... but Derek seemed really into it, and he said he'd let him use a hammer.
Within two minutes he was already sick of having to do all the math, it was the worst part of his job, and the fact Derek was making him measure things and do addiction and subtraction and division while he's at home is essentially child abuse. which he says multiple times, mostly when he has to work harder at the math, Derek's encouraging but also refuses to just do it for him.
Once he gets passed the whole math of it, he actually enjoys it, mostly because he barely got to help on the dream house deck, in fact he'd barely done anything to help that, and because he got to have soda in a coffee cup while Derek drank coffee in his, and Derek and he made a playlist on spotify - doing that spotify jam thing, Alex is surprised and beyond impressed when Derek knows songs which Alex put on there, though Derek points out that a lot of the old R&B songs were out when Derek was in college or med school, or even when he was in his own residency
Derek ended up doing most of the work once they got into it, Derek could see him getting tired and took the tools off of him, but let Alex hang out with him so long as he led on the cushions from the deck couch, so before long Alex was napping, and Derek did the things which he was more nervous about Alex doing, because he stopped him from hitting his thumb and fingers about 18 times already.
Alex is surprised when he gets to choose what the inside of the treehouse is like, and even more so when his parents agree that he can have a fridge in there, though they will be checking to make sure it has drinks which he can have regularly, so don't even try it Alexander.
Alex is even more surprised that he genuinely loves the place. He's always insecure about being a little, and feels jealousy for his own dropped self sometimes, so when Derek and Meredith are both like 'no this is just for you when you're big, you can have all your preteen things in it' he's so surprised he doesn't even complain about being called a preteen.
It becomes thee cousin hangout in the summer, they all have a lot of various boardgames, mostly gifts they got from their extended families and they start to set up base in their treehouse and play a lot of games, they start playing very simple dnd games in there, like a lot of ttrpgs, which they find out both Derek and Mark used to play, Mark insists it was to flirt with nerd girls 'Because they deserved it too', while Derek is like 'at first yeah, then he got hooked and I was dating someone in it and he can't cope without me' so they teach them some of it, and sometimes it causes arguments between the kids but they're just kids it's to be expected
And when Alex, after a massive blowout argument and meltdown destroys the treehouse Derek promises that he'll fix it... because that's what dads do, and to be fair to Alex his meltdown was caused by his brother randomly appearing and being a bit of a dick
It's for a good reason, but it kept me quite busy, so I couldn't answer asks at 2 AM like I normally do. (That's when my creativity flows best 😂)
I think my favorite type of story, and headcanon in general, is like that. It has things, but it's not about things. Does that make sense? Yes, we started with something that was a treehouse, but it could have been anything. Because in the end it was about the characters, their feelings, and how that influences the relationships between them.
I think Derek dreamed of having a treehouse so he could escape his four crazy sisters. And he wanted a safe place for Alex, a place where Alex would have something of his own. Because Littles are cute, but it's also kind of debilitating. The classification strips a person of autonomy and individuality that can reach high levels. So, for Alex to have something that is his own and that isn't about him regressing, is something very emotional and beautiful to me.Alex deserves to have good and beautiful things, both as an adult and as a baby.
2am is also the start of my creative time fr! like its the time it finally hits
Yes! like it's about the things but it's not really it's about the characters more than anything else! I really couldn't have said it any better myself!
Derek definitely wanted a treehouse when he was a kid, to escape his sisters and to have his own space which wasn't his bedroom, I imagine his grandparents living not in the city but the ny suburbs, and his grandfather saying he'd build him a treehouse but he ended up either dying or moving into a home due to his age before he did.
I nearly wrote about how Alex had his bedroom but it's not like he can have an apartment anymore, being a little means he needs so much more help, but that takes away his personal autonomy, and he's probably always scared that if he can't do his job anymore he would completely lose any autonomy at all.
I literally love this so much like you got exactly what I was thinking, like same brain fr
It was a bit of a hectic day, so I was a little late, but we're back to our normal schedule.
The Tree House project
Inspired by canon and Derek building the dream house, imagine Derek and Alex building a treehouse. I think Derek is more excited than Alex, but Alex likes that it's something he can do with his dad and that it's hands-on, making him capable.
Ah I hope it was at least a good kind of hectic! I was so excited to see I got this!
"Why are you doing this again?"
"All kids should have a treehouse, Mer," Derek says as he moves around the garage, hunting out all of the tools he'd made a list of, "it's a right of passage."
"You grew up in a Manhattan apartment, Derek," she raises a brow, "you didn't have a tree, let alone a tree house."
"Well, yeah... but this one also doesn't need a tree, it's a freestanding one-"
"-Because you don't trust Alex to be near a tree, but you think it's fine for him to be 13ft off the ground in a random wooden structure which you're building yourself.... And this is because you think Alex wants one, and it's definitely nothing to do with the fact that you only got to build of deck of our house and had to leave the rest up to the actual professionals?"
Derek pauses, ".... I got the plans and all the instructions from our contractor, it's safe, and it's not building a whole house or you know part of the house, if you want to be specific-"
"-What?-"
"-I get to do this with him, you know? It's something I can supervise, I'm not going to be too busy doing the work so I can have Alex help and I can supervise him.... Normally I'm the guy who's always telling him something's not safe for him to do, about everything, because he's Alex, but I can built this with him, I'll get someone to professionally add some electrics, it'll be a place he can hang out with his cousins, and it'll mean that we can have the house all to ourselves for at least an hour at a time..."
"Okay, you should have led with that part, we wouldn't have had to have this whole parenting conversation," she smirks, rolling her eyes, because they both know that wouldn't have stopped it, but she doesn't hate the sound of it, not at all.
Alex spend a lot of time outside as a kid, it was miles better than being in the family's trailer, and in the summer if his dad was being violent, if his siblings were away at friends, he'd sleep in the park... he didn't see what was so amazing about a treehouse.... but Derek seemed really into it, and he said he'd let him use a hammer.
Within two minutes he was already sick of having to do all the math, it was the worst part of his job, and the fact Derek was making him measure things and do addiction and subtraction and division while he's at home is essentially child abuse. which he says multiple times, mostly when he has to work harder at the math, Derek's encouraging but also refuses to just do it for him.
Once he gets passed the whole math of it, he actually enjoys it, mostly because he barely got to help on the dream house deck, in fact he'd barely done anything to help that, and because he got to have soda in a coffee cup while Derek drank coffee in his, and Derek and he made a playlist on spotify - doing that spotify jam thing, Alex is surprised and beyond impressed when Derek knows songs which Alex put on there, though Derek points out that a lot of the old R&B songs were out when Derek was in college or med school, or even when he was in his own residency
Derek ended up doing most of the work once they got into it, Derek could see him getting tired and took the tools off of him, but let Alex hang out with him so long as he led on the cushions from the deck couch, so before long Alex was napping, and Derek did the things which he was more nervous about Alex doing, because he stopped him from hitting his thumb and fingers about 18 times already.
Alex is surprised when he gets to choose what the inside of the treehouse is like, and even more so when his parents agree that he can have a fridge in there, though they will be checking to make sure it has drinks which he can have regularly, so don't even try it Alexander.
Alex is even more surprised that he genuinely loves the place. He's always insecure about being a little, and feels jealousy for his own dropped self sometimes, so when Derek and Meredith are both like 'no this is just for you when you're big, you can have all your preteen things in it' he's so surprised he doesn't even complain about being called a preteen.
It becomes thee cousin hangout in the summer, they all have a lot of various boardgames, mostly gifts they got from their extended families and they start to set up base in their treehouse and play a lot of games, they start playing very simple dnd games in there, like a lot of ttrpgs, which they find out both Derek and Mark used to play, Mark insists it was to flirt with nerd girls 'Because they deserved it too', while Derek is like 'at first yeah, then he got hooked and I was dating someone in it and he can't cope without me' so they teach them some of it, and sometimes it causes arguments between the kids but they're just kids it's to be expected
And when Alex, after a massive blowout argument and meltdown destroys the treehouse Derek promises that he'll fix it... because that's what dads do, and to be fair to Alex his meltdown was caused by his brother randomly appearing and being a bit of a dick
