Tumblr prompt from swingsetindecember.
i.
Derek's mom tells him that it really is okay that he's kind of clumsy on two legs.
"Your grace is all in your wolf, honey," she says gently when he comes home from his first day of middle school with a flush in his cheeks that won't go away and the laughter of the other children ringing in his ears.
His dad claps him on the shoulder and Derek catches the toe of his shoe on the edge of the hallway rug. He tries to get his feet back under him, getting no traction when he finds floorboards and the slippery end of the rug instead, and ends up sprawled in the doorway of the kitchen. Laura crows with delighted laughter and Cora looks at him in wide-eyed alarm as she slides out of the toddler seat at the island.
Their uncle Peter hauls Derek up and holds out a finger for Cora while Talia tries to hush Laura who can't seem to stop laughing. Derek's entire body is hot and aching with embarrassment.
Peter leads him, Cora stumbling alongside, into the study. He bumps his knuckles under Derek's chin and smiles the smile that makes Derek kind of wary.
"I'm going to teach you something," he says and Derek narrows his eyes while Cora starts babbling excitedly.
ii.
A week into middle school Derek is completely distracted by the smell coming from the cafeteria and his shoulder catches the edge of a block of lockers. The girl behind him walks right into his back and he goes flying forward.
Uncle Peter's advice rings in his ears as the floor surges up to meet him and he tucks and rolls, with every intention of coming up stable and on his feet, but forgot the fact that there were dozens of other bodies to take into consideration.
The girl behind him faceplants into the floor when he isn't there to break her fall and his own tuck and roll's effectiveness is ruined by the fact that he ends up rolling into the legs of another group of students. There are tears and general confusion and Derek shuts himself in the bathroom for the entire lunch break in spite of the smell.
His mother laughs behind her hand when she comes to pick him up from school and practically reads the story from his expression. Uncle Peter frowns thoughtfully and says "We'll work on it," while Derek wishes the floor would open up and eat him.
iii.
Derek gets the hang of it by the end of middle school. He jumps down the entire staircase just as often as he uses it properly and starts acting like it's a deliberate thing. Laura rolls her eyes and messes up his hair but Cora taps the side of her nose with one finger, like they've got a secret language, and grins. Uncle Peter winks at him when no one else is watching and there's the faintest surge of a secret kind of pride beneath the embarrassment.
High school starts with a bang when he lets himself get talked into trying out for the lacrosse team with his classmates. People have started laughing and clapping him on the shoulder by that point, the evidence of his clumsiness erased by the flashy acrobatics he covers it with now, when he tries to convince them that he really doesn't have the coordination necessary to wield a stick and run at the same time.
He ends up starting, first line as a freshman which is unheard of, when he can't stop in time to avoid a collision or dodge properly and practically uses a mountain of a junior as a springboard to snag the ball out of midair and take the shot for goal on his way down. The goal goes in, mostly because the goalie was too busy gaping, and just like that Derek becomes a lacrosse player.
iv.
Derek will never admit it but the diving meet in his sophomore year so very nearly ends in disaster. The swimming coach won't take no for an answer, "I've seen those flips you pull off on the lacrosse field, Hale, don't even try and convince me you won't be able to make magic in midair off a proper spring," and he ends up on the diving board in far less swimwear than he'd like.
Everything is wet and he swallows thickly, prays for his werewolf reflexes to save this situation, as he takes painfully slow and measured steps to the edge of the diving board. He slips right at the last step, because his life is stupid, and tucks himself into a tight ball with a sounds of distress that he knows won't have escaped his family's hearing. He can hear their laughter underneath the rushing of blood in his ears as the water approaches far too quickly and barely manages to straighten out in time to break the surface.
Peter whoops and hollers and Cora shrieks his name while Laura and his mother laugh themselves stupid and his father, aunt, other uncle and cousins clap enthusiastically. Derek is never listening to his teachers ever again, he vows, not even when he places second.
"You lost points for your entrance," Cora tells him seriously. "You splashed a lot.
v.
Derek and Laura are in the gym they've joined in New York, a fancy building made of glass and steel with top of the line machines, when his complete lack of coordination on two feet makes a sudden (hilarious, if you ask Laura, but Derek calls it vengeful) reappearance.
Sweaty and pleasantly achy, Derek is halfway down the flight of stairs from the weights studio to the lobby and twisting backwards to talk to Laura when his foot comes down further over the edge of the step than he was intending. He overbalances and Laura's eyes widen in alarm but she's too far back to reach as he tips forward.
There's no option but to bend his legs and spring down the rest of the flight (he doesn't have a clue how he got out of it without knocking half the other population of the staircase off) to land in a low crouch. Laura's laugh is long and genuine and delighted. Derek gets a job offer as an instructor with the gym's bootcamp.
Derek cancels their memberships and avoids stairs for an entire month afterwards. Laura is still laughing about it six months after that.
vi.
Derek both loves and hates his werewolf powers when he comes across Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski in the preserve that day.
They're the only reason he can smell the curiousexcitedIrecogniseyouholyshit practically rolling off the teenager who he remembers as a wide-eyed kid better than he'd like to admit. They're the only reason that the sharp burst of arousal is even recognisable and completely to blame for him not watching where he went when he turned his back on them.
He kind of loves them at the same time though because they make it so much easier to disguise the stumble by putting on a burst of speed and basically disappearing. The flush in his cheeks doesn't die until hours later.