Chapter Text
Chris was seated at the kitchen table reading through the ridiculous amount of emails that had flooded his inbox since that morning. Whoever recommended that he should work in the Human Resources department for the Beacon Hills School District was an asshole.
He startled slightly when familiar hands landed gently on his shoulders and moved down his chest. Peter leaned down to press a kiss behind his ear and said, “You need to come to bed, Sweetheart.”
“I need to respond to these.”
“No one is going to see your responses at nine-thirty,” Peter insisted. “Turn the computer off like a normal human and come up to bed.”
“Noah will be here in less than an hour for Stiles--we should probably wait.”
“Noah has a key and I told him that Miecz is in Derek’s room. I have full faith that he can find his way without us.”
“When did we start going to sleep so early?” Chris chuckled, tilting his head back a bit to look up at his husband. “We’re only twenty-seven--we should be able to make it to ten o’ clock.”
“I don’t recall saying we were going to sleep--I said you should come to bed,” Peter whispered, then slowly dragged his lower lip up the outer shell of Chris’ ear, his breath ghosting lightly over the sensitive area and causing an involuntary shiver to run down Chris’ spine. Peter pulled back and started for the entryway as he said, “Don’t keep me waiting too long--patience is not a quality I'm known for.”
“I’m aware,” Chris mumbled, shaking his head. He looked back at the table and found with surprise that his laptop was missing. “Sneaky bastard.”
He stood up and stretched his back out, his muscles sore from sitting there for so long, before heading in the direction Peter went. He took to the stairs quietly, not wanting to wake any of the kids up. He noticed that Derek’s bedroom door was open the way it always was when Stiles was in there, so he couldn’t help but peek in as he passed.
Derek immediately looked up at him when he paused in front of the doorway and saw Chris’ eyes flicker down to Stiles beside him. The five-year-old was fast asleep, only his face visible in the mound of blankets and pillows all around him. His mouth was wide open and a soft snore-like sound was coming out.
“Like an angel, huh?” Chris snickered. He hadn’t spent a whole lot of time looking at the way Stiles slept, but seeing it now...it really was the same way Noah slept. Chris and Peter used to take turns throwing little balls of paper at his open mouth in high school, whenever they’d crash at each other’s houses. It was funny how mannerisms like that --which didn’t seem as if they could possibly be hereditary--somehow were.
“He’s lucky there are no flies,” Derek said, looking down at Stiles.
Chris couldn’t help but laugh, because...since when did Derek joke ? Chris had never been sure of the idea that mates were truly made to make the other better --he really didn’t know any other mates besides himself and Peter, and they were ready to kill each other almost as much as they were in love-- but it seemed to be true in this case. Derek wasn’t the same person around Stiles as he was when he wasn’t around.
“Noah will be here within the hour...he’s just running late at work tonight and Claudia is sick with whatever Stiles had, so--”
“Uncle Peter told me.”
“Okay.” Chris nodded, then added, “You take good care of him.”
Derek shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the book in his lap. “He needs it.”
“It doesn’t have to be you, though. Peter or I would do it, but you usually beat us to it.”
“It’s fine.”
“I have to say, I’m impressed that you can handle him all the time,” Chris said, leaning against the doorframe. “He’s got a very...taxing personality at times.”
“It's not hard,” Derek disagreed.
“He never bothers you?”
“He does, but he’s…” Derek said, his eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he seemed to struggle with coming up with the right words. “He’s under my skin.”
“In a good way?” Chris asked him.
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “I just know ...like, inside...when he needs something and I…I can’t ignore him.”
“You don’t need to explain it,” Chris told him, knowing that his nephew was uncomfortable with the topic by the way he started shifting around and moved the book up higher, as if trying to put a barrier between himself and Chris.
Derek had never been good at putting things into words. Talia frequently tried to get him to talk more and open up, but that ultimately made him pull away from her as he got older. Chris and Peter made a point to make him as comfortable with them as possible and it gained them more trust than Derek gave the others, which they were grateful for.
Derek was different, but he didn’t deserve to be pressured into other people’s expectations of him--especially by his own pack.
Besides, Chris knew exactly what Derek was referring to. He didn’t need an explanation. Since Chris started dating Peter as teenagers, Peter had always known when he was upset or hurt and he always knew exactly how to help him. It wasn’t a surprise that Derek was the same way with Stiles.