This one’s for the anon who prompted me with Stiles and Derek as five year olds. All together now: awwww!Â
It’s been a long time since John Stilinski woke up to the sight of Stiles streaking naked around the living room. Although, if he’s honest with himself, it hasn’t been that long. It’s Stiles, after all. But it’s been a long time since Stiles was running around naked and he only came up to John’s waist.
“Stiles?” John asks, jaw dropping. His eighteen-year-old son doesn’t look a day over five.
“Daddy!” Stiles dives into his lap, bare knees squeaking against the worn leather of the chair.
John runs his hands down his cold back, and stares helplessly over his shoulder at Scott, who suddenly appears in the doorway.
“Um,” Scott says. “So there were these witches…”
It’s really dark. Derek isn’t scared of the dark, because he’s an alpha and he’s not scared of anything. He has claws and red eyes, and he’s the scariest thing in the dark! He’s much scarier than the bogeyman. He prowls back and forth on the cold floor for a little while, making practice growls and pretending to fight bad guys, but then he finishes doing that and it’s still dark, and now he’s hungry too, and there’s nothing in his refrigerator except some eggs and some powder stuff in a tin that tastes really gross.
Derek’s tummy growls, and he stands on his tiptoes to see if there’s anything in the cabinets. Then, because he’s still not tall enough, he gets a stool and clambers up on that instead. There’s some stuff in the cabinets, but Derek’s not super great at reading yet, and he doesn’t recognize any of these labels. None of them are peanut butter, that’s for sure. Maybe alphas don’t eat peanut butter. Maybe grownups don’t. Derek isn’t really sure of the rules.
He wishes his mom was here.
Derek’s tummy hurts and it’s not just because he’s hungry. It’s because he knows that this is supposed to be where he lives except nothing here feels right. He wants Mom and Dad. He wants Laura. He wants to be sitting at the kitchen table, swinging his legs and watching eagerly while dinner gets made. This cold dark open space isn’t his home.
He knows he should remember, but it’s really, really hard.
It’s like the longer he stands here in the dark, the harder it gets.
“Mom?” he whispers in the dark. “Momma?”
Derek can hear the people arguing as they come up the steps.
“You left a kid on his own?” a man demands, and he sounds angry.
“It’s Derek!” a younger man says. “He told us to leave him the hell alone!”
Derek ducks down behind the couch and hides.
He sort of remembers that younger guy from earlier. And Derek did tell him to go away and leave him alone. He didn’t say hell though. That’s a bad word. Anyway, the guy was already dealing with this other little kid who was bouncing around and yelling, and it was weird because part of Derek wanted to growl at the other kid to be quiet, but when he tried his alpha growl came out a little too soft and a little too squeaky, and why was everyone else so tall? And why was his jacket so big?
The door to the loft makes a screechy sound as it’s rolled open, and Derek covers his ears with his hands.
Someone turns on the light, and Derek remembers that he’s an alpha, and he’s not scared. He peers out from behind the couch.
There’s a man standing there. He’s tall. He’s wearing a uniform and a badge and a gun. He’s also wearing the same sort of smile Derek’s dad gets when Derek is trying really hard to be brave but it’s not quite working. Maybe all dads can tell, because this man is someone’s dad as well.
The kid from before is staring at Derek from behind his dad’s legs.
The younger man—the one Derek remembers from before—is looking at him with his face all screwed up and worried.
Derek tries to remember how to look like a tough alpha, but his leather jacket is kind of really too big and he can hardly see out of it. He tries to growl anyway.
The man in the uniform doesn’t look very scared of him. “Derek, I think you’d better come with me.”
“Are you a policeman?” Derek asks warily.
“He’s the sheriff!” the other little boy yells.
The sheriff pats the other little boy on the head. “Yes, I’m the sheriff.”
Derek thinks about that for a moment, and then trails forward. “Can you help me find my Momma?”
The sheriff exchanges a look with the man he was arguing with when they walked up the stairs. Then he smiles again. “Let’s get you some dinner, son, and then we can figure it all out, okay?”
“Okay,” Derek says, and moves forward to take it.
Stiles is really annoying and bouncy, and also he gets a green bean stuck up his nose at dinner like he’s a stupid dumb baby or something. Also he talks a lot. Like, he never shuts up, not even when his dad is helping him get the bean out. They have ice cream for dessert, and then the sheriff runs a bath so they can get all the ice cream off.
Stiles is really annoying, but he makes Derek the best bubble beard and then squeals with laughter.
Derek climbs into Stiles’s bed, and Stiles’s dad tells them a story, and the only time Stiles actually shuts up is when he finally falls asleep with his face smooshed into his pillow.
In the morning, Stiles’s dad sits them both down at the kitchen table and asks them if they remember what happened. Derek kind of remembers something about being out in the woods in the night, but he’s not really sure because Mom says he’s not supposed to go with strangers, and Derek thinks the people from last night were strangers.
Stiles says he remembers fireworks. He claps his hands and makes fireworks noises.
“Where’s my mom?” Derek asks at last.
Stiles looks at him, and then looks at his dad, and wrinkles his snub nose. “Is Derek’s mom with Mommy? Are they gonna come home soon?”
The sheriff frowns and tries to rub it away with his thumb. “Aw, hell.”
Derek doesn’t like the story the sheriff tells him. He crawls under the dining room table and doesn’t come out forever.
Well, until he gets hungry at lunchtime.
Scott brings over a bunch of clothes that smell like Goodwill, but at least they fit. Derek and Stiles get into a fight over who gets the wear the shirt with the wolf on it. Derek thinks he should, because he’s a wolf. Stiles thinks he should, because Derek is already a wolf.
Derek pops his claws and growls at him, and Stiles screams and runs away, but then comes back and hits Derek on the head with the remote control from the TV, and everyone cries, and the sheriff sends Stiles into time out.
On Tuesday night the pack comes over. Derek’s pack. They’re like really big kids, and Derek doesn’t exactly remember them, but he can feel the pack bonds. He knows he’s supposed to know them. So he stares up at them, frowning, while they stare down at him.
“He’s so…” a curly-haired boy says.
“Freaking adorable,” a girl in a black leather miniskirt finishes. She looks like she’s going to bend down and pinch his cheeks, so Derek growls at her.
It’s such a squeaky growl that Derek’s betas all snicker.
Derek lunges at them, teeth and fangs bared.
“Holy crap!” the biggest one says, a hand planted on Derek’s forehead to keep him at arm’s length. “Little help?”
“Hey!” Stiles yells suddenly. “Leave Derek alone!”
The big guy hardly has time to look up before Stiles is rushing toward him. He skids to a stop, his amber eyes blazing, and flings up his little hands. A ball of light shoots out across the room, and hits the big beta square in the chest. It sends him flying back against the wall.
The betas stare, jaws dropped.
Stiles stares down at his hands, wide-eyed. “Daddy!” he bellows suddenly. “Daddy, I’m like Harry Potter!”
Stiles is a wizard, which is totally unfair because Derek wants to be magic too.
“I’m going to get a wand,” Stiles whispers loudly to Derek, holding his hand tightly as the girl with the red hair tries to explain. “And an owl.”
Derek tries hard not to show how jealous he is.
“Stiles,” the girl says. “You’re not a wizard, you’re a spark. It’s different. And, until the other night, we didn’t even know you could do proper magic. But when the witches attacked, intending to hurt you, you obviously did something that turned you and Derek back into children.”
Stiles wrinkles his nose at Derek.
“Do you remember what you did?” Lydia asks.
Stiles chews his bottom lip and squirms.Â
Scott gives him an encouraging smile. “Come on, Stiles. I really need my best friend back, okay?”
“Ew,” Stiles says, reaching out and taking Derek’s hand. “Derek is my best friend.”
Derek smirks at Scott and flashes his best red alpha eyes.
A week later and John Stilinski is still raising his five-year-old kid. Again. Plus another kid. Who is a werewolf. Because what the hell is his life? And not that it isn’t great to see Stiles so happy—the last few months have been rough, and John hates to see his kid looking so damn tired all the time—but can’t he be happy and quiet? John’s already raised his hyper little monster once. He’s not sure he’s got the energy to do it again.
And at least Stiles didn’t have goddamn magic powers the first time around.
John takes the steps two at a time when he hears the bang. He makes it to the boys’ bedroom just in time to see the curtains explode into glitter, making it rain for the two little boys dancing underneath the window.
“Didn’t I put you two to bed an hour ago?” John asks them. “Twice?”
“Derek’s an alpha wolf and alpha wolves don’t have to go to bed early!” Stiles says. “If you try and make him, he’ll probably rip your throat out. Right, Der?” He elbows Derek in the ribs. “Right?”
Derek goes pink and stares at the floor.
“Growl at him,” Stiles demands in a stage whisper.
“Bed,” John says sternly. “Both of you. Now.”
He doesn’t care if one of them is a spark and one of them is a werewolf. Nobody outranks the dad at bedtime. Not ever.
Scott definitely doesn’t like Derek. Derek can tell. Derek hasn’t decided yet if he should challenge Scott to a fight or not. The alpha wolf in him says he should. But also, Scott is kind of big? But also also, Derek has more betas. So maybe he would win? He’d not really sure. In the meantime, he preens a little whenever Scott frowns at him, and makes a show of holding Stiles’s hand whenever Scott is around. And, after all his betas have picked him up so he can scent them properly, he hugs Stiles again until Stiles is the one whose scent is strongest.
“Do you want to be a grownup?” Stiles asks him one afternoon.
Derek flicks through the photos on Boyd’s phone. Derek looks really scary as a grownup alpha. Big and growly and awesome. He’s not a very smiley alpha though, like Mom is. Was.
Thinking about Mom makes Derek’s chest hurt.
There are pictures of Stiles on Boyd’s phone too. He looks kind of stupid. Stiles always looks kind of stupid. With his stupid grin and his stupid magic, and his stupid game where he needs to kiss Derek five whole times before they go to sleep at night.
Stiles is stupid, but Scott can’t have him.
Derek shrugs and keeps flicking through the photos. “Do you?”
“If I was a grownup, I could drive my Jeep,” Stiles says, and lifts his shirt up so he can lick the spot he dropped ketchup on earlier. “And also I could say rude words.”
“You have to be over thirty to say the f-word,” Derek tells him knowledgeably.
“What’s the f-word?” Stiles asks, wide-eyed.
“I don’t know it yet,” Derek says. “But you have to be over thirty to say it.”
Stiles leans against him for a moment, and they look at pictures of themselves. “Were we best friends when we were grownups, Der?”
“Yes,” Derek says with certainty, because he can’t imagine it any other way.
“We have a solution,” Lydia announces.
Stiles tries to see around her legs, because his cartoons are on. His cartoons!
“The witches hit you with a death spell,” Lydia says. “But it was a very specific sort of death spell. Without getting too complicated, the spell works by aging you rapidly until you die. You’ll age decades in seconds. You’ll be dead in less than a minute.”
“But Stiles,” Lydia continues, saying his name like it’s a spell itself. Stiles looks up with a smile. “Stiles did something very amazing. He reversed the spell as they cast it. Except he reversed it just a smidgen too far.”
Stiles inspects the scab on his knee.
Lydia produces a spray bottle from her handbag. “Once we isolated the spell, Deaton was able to come up with antidote. One little spray of this, and by tomorrow you’ll both be back to normal.”
“Stiles was never normal,” Daddy says wryly from the couch, and reaches out to scruff Stiles’s hair. Then he scruffs Derek’s too.
Stiles giggles, and launches himself into Daddy’s lap for a hug.
Lydia puts the bottle down, and leaves them to it.
“Do you want to be grown up again?” Derek asks that night when they’re sharing a bubble bath.
Stiles makes a cone head out of bubbles. Maybe it’s supposed to be a wizard’s hat. “I want to know what the f-word is.”
Stiles’s dad snorts from the doorway. “I told you, kiddo, it’s fudge.”
Derek laughs and blows Stiles’s wizard’s hat away.
“Daddy?” Stiles splashes around for a second. “Are me and Der best friends when we’re grownups?”
Stiles’s dad leans in the doorway. He folds his arms over his chest and smiles. His eyes crinkle at the corners. “Best friends? You boys are something, that’s for sure.”
Derek doesn’t really know what that means, but he likes the way Stiles’s dad is smiling when he says it.
Stiles’s dad reads Little Red Riding hood to them that night, except it’s a version where Little Red Riding Hood is a boy who does magic, and the wolf isn’t really big and bad, although he likes to pretend he is. Derek leans up against one side of Stiles’s dad, and Stiles leans up against the other side. Derek makes growly noises and flashes his eyes red, and Stiles makes the air sparkle like fireflies. And Stiles’s dad does all the voices.
“Love you, kiddo,” Stiles’s dad says, planting a kiss on Stiles’s forehead when he’s tucking them in. Derek gets a kiss as well. “Love you too, kiddo.”
He holds the spray bottle out.
Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and grins.
The spray smells a little bit like lavender.
Nothing magic happens at first. Not like growing years in second or anything, but Stiles’s dad says they might be grownups in the morning. He tucks them in with the comforter, and Stiles puts his skinny arms around Derek’s neck.
“Kisses,” he demands.
He always demands kisses, and Derek knows he won’t shut up until he gets them. He’s so annoying he makes Derek’s wolf all growly. Stiles says he makes his wolf purr, but that’s dumb. Wolves don’t purr.
Derek kisses him on the forehead, and then the left cheek, and then the right cheek, and then on the nose. He saves his last kiss for Stiles’s lips. Stiles tastes like toothpaste.
“You’re my best friend ever,” Stiles whispers to him.
Derek goes to sleep with a smile on his face.
Derek wakes up to the rasp of Stiles’s stubble against his throat. Derek tries to roll over to get free, and almost rolls right out of the bed. When did the bed get so narrow?
When two adults tried to share it.
Derek stares down at his body. And also Stiles’s.
The jostling has woken Stiles as well. He blinks himself into wakefulness and makes an odd squeaking noise when he sees they’re both naked. He flings himself off Derek. “Pretty sure you weren’t this distracting when we bathed together last night!”
“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek mutters, and cringes a little as he thinks of everything that’s happened in the past week or so. The shared bubble baths. The digging holes in the garden like a pup. Forcing his betas to give him piggyback rides. But mostly the shared bubble baths. Derek forces himself to sit and swings his legs over the bed. The carpet is warm against his feet.
He just woke up naked with Stiles.
Derek has no idea how to even begin processing that.
Behind him, Stiles scrambles out of bed, dragging the comforter with him. “Um. Clothes. We definitely need clothes, right?”
He trails across to his dresser, and wrenches open the top drawer. Then slams it shut again when it turns out it’s full of clothes that would fit a five-year-old. He grumbles under his breath, pulls open the second drawer, and a moment later a pair of sweatpants hit Derek in the face.
Derek pulls them on quickly, his face burning.
“So, um,” Stiles says at last. When Derek risks a glance, he sees Stiles is also wearing sweatpants. “Awkwardest morning after ever, or awkwardest morning after ever?”
Derek can’t stop the wry smile from spreading over his face. “Yeah.”
“Okay, but it doesn’t have to be weird,” Stiles says. “Like, not totally weird. We’re friends, right?”
“Best friends,” Derek murmurs, and then flushes as he realizes what he’s said.
“Yeah.” Stiles scratches his cheek and looks at the floor. When he looks up again, he’s smiling. “Sure. Why not? Best friends. I mean, I gave you half my last peanut butter cup.”
Derek huffs out a laugh. “Yeah.”
Stiles moves closer, and punches him gently in the shoulder. “So, best friends.”
Derek rises to his feet, reaching out to curl his fingers around Stiles’s slim hips.
Stiles’s face is bright red, his eyes wide.
Derek leans in slowly and presses his mouth to his forehead. Then his left cheek. Then his right cheek. Stiles is grinning widely by the time Derek kisses his nose. And then that grin has vanished, and he’s tilting his mouth up to meet Derek’s. The kiss is warm and sweet and Derek feels stiles shiver as their mouths open and their tongues meet.
“Best friends,” Derek whispers as he ends the kiss.
Stiles smiles, then laughs, then hides his red face against Derek’s neck.
The sheriff is just leaving for work when Derek treads downstairs.
“Derek. Good to see you being you again.” He claps a warm hand on Derek’s shoulder.
“Thanks.” The word comes out a little stilted. “For, um, looking after me. I didn’t have anyone and—”
“You always have someone here, Derek. Okay? Always.” The sheriff’s expression is stern and fond at the same time. He smiles. “Besides, you were a hell of a lot easier to handle than Stiles.”
Derek ducks his head and smiles.
“Dinner’s at seven,” the sheriff tells him. “You and Stiles are cooking. You owe me.”
Derek figures that’s the truth.
He doesn’t remember where he parked his car the last time he drove it, and someone’s probably moved it by now anyway, so Derek heads off for the loft on foot. He hasn’t even cleared the Stilinskis’ front lawn when he hears Stiles’s bedroom window opening.
He turns around to see Stiles waving at him frantically. “What?”
“The f-word!” Stiles yells out, face bright with a grin. “It’s fuck!”
“I know it is, Stiles,” Derek tells him.
“I’m yelling it even though I’m not thirty! Fuck!”
“I can hear you yelling it,” Derek tells him. “So can your neighbors.”
“Fuck!” Stiles’s laugh is loud. “Fuck!”
Derek turns and leaves before someone calls the cops.
And he’s all Derek’s.
Derek grins to himself as he heads for the loft.
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