July

Stiles hums softly to himself as he slathers a healthy dollop of peanut butter across the surface of a nice, fluffy pancake. He follows that with two slices of turkey bacon and, still humming tunelessly under his breath, grabs the glass bottle sitting on the counter in front of him and lets the thick, dark liquid dribble out onto the peanut butter. He smacks his lips a little as he rolls the whole thing up into a delicious breakfast package and takes a huge bite, ignoring the soft gagging sounds coming from the two people seated at the island.

"Stiles…you know that was A1 sauce and not pancake syrup, right?" Allison asks delicately, from her perch on the counter by the coffee pot. At the island, Lydia shakes her head, pressing her face against Jackson's shoulder.

"Oh, he knows," she mutters, "he knows."

"Shut up all of you, it's delicious," Stiles says, and takes another large bite just to prove it. Scott, leaning against the counter Allison is sitting on and holding her so close there's not even a sliver of light between their bodies, snorts in amusement.

"Okay, seriously, how are you not bothered by this? He was dipping grapes in the hummus last night," Jackson demands, craning his neck to look at Scott over his shoulder. Scott just shrugs a little.

"I've known him since diapers, man…this is not the grossest stuff I've ever seen Stiles eat," he says easily, and goes back to carding his hand through Allison's hair.

"I still maintain that the world just wasn't ready for how amazing M&M Mac n' Cheese is," Stiles says, sniffing with false affront. He goes back to happily munching on his breakfast (technically his second breakfast, because he's found that breaking breakfast, lunch, and dinner into about seven smaller meals throughout the day keeps the worst of the heartburn at bay. Hobbits, man, they're visionaries.) and just enjoying having his entire pack close and together for the day.

Allison is home visiting for two weeks before she goes back to school for a final two summer classes. After that, she has one more fall semester of student teaching, and she'll graduate with a freshly minted elementary teaching license. Stiles kind of pities all the little boys (and girls, who knows) who are going to walk into Allison's classroom and immediately fall in love. On the other hand, it's going to be hilarious to watch her deal with all the puppy love crushes she'll inevitably be the object of. Scott had been nearly impossible to be around in the week leading up to Allison's arrival back in Beacon Hills…one would think that they hadn't seen each other in years, instead of having been visiting every other week. She's here now, though, and it makes Stiles' heart hurt a little bit to see how much happier and more content Scott is being able to see her every day. Allison too, for that matter.

He's jolted out of his thoughts when Allison claps her hands like a little kid, a sunny smile lighting her face. "So, Stiles, have you two decided how you want to decorate the nursery?" she asks, and Stiles shares a commiserating eyeroll with Scott and Jackson as Lydia immediately sits up with a light in her eyes that Stiles had learned to fear when he was in fourth grade.

Allison had begged for them to wait until her summer break to decorate the room across the hall from his and Derek's bedroom for Tadpole. Lydia and Erica had wanted to start on it pretty much the instant Stiles and Derek had brought home the first ultrasound pictures…but not even Lydia could resist a pleading Allison. It would have been like saying 'no' to a Disney Princess.

Honestly, since Lydia had preemptively nixed anything Star Wars, Star Trek, or Star-Anything related, Stiles wasn't really too bothered about the nursery décor…he knew his girls would make it beautiful. Besides, he doubted very much he'd give a rat's ass what overexposed characters were dancing across Tadpole's walls when he was changing a dirty diaper or stumbling out of bed for two am feedings. Lydia, Allison, and Erica were excited, though (and Isaac and Boyd had been a little suspicious in their enthusiasm when they had volunteered to paint), and Stiles was perfectly happy to let them knock themselves out.

"I dunno…Lydia emailed you those sample pictures, right? I liked the teddy bear one, but Derek really wants the 'under the sea' thing. He doesn't want anyone to know he thought the seahorses were adorable, though, so pretend to take him seriously when he throws up his hands and threatens to paint the whole thing black, okay?"

Jackson snorts into his coffee, and Stiles can practically see Lydia filing the information away to tease her Alpha with later.

"Oh, I thought you'd go for the circus theme for sure," Allison says, sounding a little disappointed, and Stiles can't help it when his eyes dart to Scott.

They try to resist, they really do…but they can't help it. Lydia groans and lets her head thump down on the island as—

"Da da da-da-da-da-da da da circus! Da da da-da-da-da-da da da afro! Circus! Afro! Circus! Afro! Polka-dot, polka-dot, polka-dot, afro!" he and Scott sing together, at the top of their lungs. Allison's eyes go wide as she looks between Stiles and her boyfriend in horrified fascination. Lydia thumps her head on the island a few times before looking up and glaring at Stiles.

"And that is why there will be no circus theme in the nursery," she says acerbically. "You do realize that movie came out almost a decade ago, right?"

"You do realize that moment will never not be awesome, right?" Stiles shoots back, finishing the last bits of his pancake sandwich and taking his plate over to the kitchen sink.

"I can't believe you two, sometimes," Allison mutters, sliding her arm around Scott's shoulders nonetheless and resting her head against his.

"Too late now!" Stiles sing-songs. "You're stuck with us foreverrrrrrrrr!"

He realizes his mistake a heartbeat after the words leave his mouth. He winces, turning just in time to see a shadow flit across Allison's face. She schools her features almost immediately…but Scott has never mastered that particular trick. His best friend swallows hard, glancing at Allison with such longing that Stiles wants to avert his eyes for a moment. He rallies quickly, though, a strained smile stretching across his face.

"Six more months," he says, trying to inject a note of brightness into his voice. Even to Stiles' human ears, though, it rings false. Allison sighs as her arm tightens around his shoulders.

Neither Scott nor Allison have really talked about it to the rest of the pack…but Stiles is Scott's best friend. He knows that Allison's parents have now started making noise about not wanting Allison and Scott to get engaged or move in together until Allison finds a teaching job and Scott gets his veterinary license. Oh, they're wrapping it in perfectly logical arguments—but Scott and Allison both know they're really just hoping that Allison will wake up one day and decide that oops! She really doesn't want to spend her life with a werewolf.

And it's not like it's going to work. Allison and Scott are just as forever as he and Derek are…and Allison is not a teenager anymore. Scott and Allison don't need the Argents' permission to do anything.

They just really, really don't want Allison to have to choose between her family and Scott.

None of the pack want her to have to choose between her family and Scott.

More and more, though, it's looking like her parents are going to force it to that point. She and Scott are ready to be together—ready to move in together, ready to get married, ready for Allison to officially be accepted in the pack as Scott's mate (however much it would only be a formality). And Stiles has caught her watching him a few times with a slightly wistful expression that suggests to him that she and Scott are ready for more.

He presses his lips together, forces a smile that looks much more genuine than his two friends', and gives a discreet nod of acknowledgement to Lydia's pointed look. "All right…I think Derek and the others have enough of a head start. Time to go fetch!" he says brightly. Derek, Erica, Isaac, and Boyd had left nearly half an hour ago, scattering out around Derek's property. Scott, Lydia, and Jackson are supposed to try and track them before they can make it back to the house.

Derek claims it's a time-honored traditional exercise to help werewolves (and werelizards) hone their senses. Stiles privately thinks he just likes the excuse to play a giant game of hide and seek with his pack.

"Allison, you wanna run into town and help me get everything for dinner tonight?" he continues, and immediately waves the other three off when they freeze in the act of heading out the door. "Guys, seriously? We're going to the grocery store! Besides, Allison has three weapons on her, and those are just the ones I can see!" He turns to Allison with mock-solemnity. "Allison, if we get jumped in the cereal aisle, do you promise to let me hide behind you while you kick ass?"

His words have the desired effect, and she giggles sweetly. "Only if you promise to make brownies for dessert tonight," she answers, her voice just as mockingly serious.

"Shit, Stiles is making brownies? Let them go! Let them go!" Jackson starts pushing Scott and Lydia out the door onto the back deck, leaving Stiles and Allison to just grin and shake their heads.

"I feel like I could have avoided so many problems in high school if I'd known what a choc-a-holic he is," Stiles mutters, escorting Allison to the front door and snagging the keys to his jeep off the hook board hanging beside it.

They decide to each drive their own car into town. It'll probably make Derek grumble (and Stiles knows better than to hope that he just won't figure out that they drove separately), but even the jeep's cargo space isn't going to be big enough to fit enough groceries to feed the entire pack for an extended period of time. They're going to need Allison's RAV4 just to haul all the meat home.

He's more than a little amused by the looks they get, each of them pushing a shopping cart that's full to bursting, and the eyes of the kid behind the butcher counter get so wide when Stiles rattles off his order that Stiles is somewhat surprised that they don't fall out of his head. Allison is laughing as they shop, though, chattering about her classes and some of the stranger kids she's worked with in her various placements and observations. By the time they check out (and dear God, Stiles is glad Lydia made Jackson insist on letting them use his credit card to pay for food while everyone is staying at his and Derek's place…because damn.) the shadows have vanished from Allison's eyes entirely.

So he doesn't say anything when he spots Chris Argent walking into the hardware store just a few buildings up from the grocery while he and Allison are wrestling the various bags into their cars. Allison is preoccupied with trying to collapse her back seat to make the trunk bigger, and Stiles is almost positive she doesn't see her father.

He worries his lip, eyes darting back and forth between Allison and the hardware store. It's technically none of his business…and he knows neither Scott nor Allison would want him to get involved. He's tired, and he really, really wants to just go home and watch his pack unload all the groceries while he sits on the couch and rests his aching back.

But he can't stop thinking about their faces this morning. He can't stop remembering the expression in Scott's eyes last month when he'd dragged Stiles into the jewelry store and finally put his money down for a simple white gold band set with a small, but beautiful, diamond.

"She's going to pick me, Stiles," he'd said, turning the black velvet box over and over in his hands as they drove back to the house. "If it comes to that, I know she's going to pick me…but it's going to hurt her so much."

It wasn't his business.

Except Allison was his friend, and Allison was pack. Scott was pack. Scott was his brother in all the ways that counted, and Stiles never has been very good at just standing by while something was hurting the people he loved.

"Hey, my dad's shift is almost over…I'm gonna swing by the station and see if he wants to come out for dinner tonight, okay?" he says as he slams the jeep's trunk shut. Allison arches an eyebrow at him.

"You sure? I thought Derek and the others were being kinda weird about you being by yourself right now," she says hesitantly. Stiles smiles at her winningly.

"Oh, they're being unbelievably psycho about me being by myself right now…but I'll only technically be by myself for, like, five minutes and then I'll be surrounded by armed police officers who have either known me since I was in diapers or directly answer to someone who's known me since I was in diapers. And all of them answer directly to my father. What could happ-you know what? No, I'm not even putting that out into the universe. But you know what I was gonna say."

Allison laughs again, shaking her head. "You know they're only doing it because they love you. You and Tadpole," she says gently. Stiles grins ruefully.

"I know. Believe me, I know, and that's why I'm not arguing with them about it. But it's just—"

"A little claustrophobic?" Allison asks playfully, and then leans in to peck him on the cheek before he can answer. "Go ahead. I'll stop by Lydia and Jackson's place and use my emergency key to raid their wine collection."

"You're the best!" he says, and he really means it. He climbs into his jeep, and waits until Allison has left the grocery store parking lot before climbing back out and locking the doors. He turns toward the hardware store and inwardly steels himself before setting off at as brisk a pace as he can manage.

"Okay, kiddo…this is either going to work out totally awesome, or make things ten times worse and get Uncle Scott and Aunt Allison pissed at me. Unfortunately, Daddy's plans usually turn out brilliant or horrible. Not a whole lot of middle ground."

He doesn't let himself think too hard about what he's about to try and do, or how angry Derek is going to be when Stiles comes home smelling of the Argents. He's not even sure what it is he's going to do…he just knows he can't leave this situation alone. He takes one moment to swallow hard as he pulls the door to the hardware store open, a little bell tinkling overhead as he does, and remind himself that Allison's father is pretty much the least crazy of Allison's relatives and also the least likely to try and do Stiles bodily harm in a public place.

He finds Chris Argent standing in the yardcare aisle, looking thoughtfully between two brands of weed killer. It's such a normal, mundane thing, and for some reason Stiles thinks he might start laughing at the picture. He must make some sound, because Argent glances up at him…and just like that, any mundane normalcy vanishes from his expression and his posture. The man's pale eyes turn wary, and Stiles can tell just from the fall of his jacket that he's carrying.

Great. Just great.

Argent looks him up and down, his eyes lingering for a bare moment on Stiles' abdomen. And at just over eighteen weeks, Stiles isn't huge or anything…but yeah, there's no mistaking that he is anything but pregnant. He lifts his chin a little as Argent's eyes track back up to his.

"Stiles, isn't it?" Argent says finally. "Allison mentioned your…news. Congratulations." Argent's tone is blandly polite, but he still manages to make the word sound just a little bit ugly. Stiles ignores it, letting the insult roll right off his back.

"Thanks," he says brusquely. "Look, I get that pretty much the only contact you want with us is a mutual pact of non-aggression, but I'd like to talk to you." He doesn't miss the way Argent tenses when he says 'us,' and he spares a brief moment to hope like hell that Allison has also mentioned the fact that he's still human. Argent is already shaking his head, though, abandoning the weed killer to stride forward like he's going to brush right past Stiles.

"We don't have anything we need to say to each other. If Hale has something he needs to discuss with me, he can damn well come to me himself."

Stiles' eyes narrow slightly, and his mouth is open almost before he can think about it. "No, see, that's where you're wrong. And for the record? Not a lackey, here…Derek doesn't work that way, and I think you know that by now."

Argent snorts and doesn't slow down.

Stiles thinks of the sadness in Allison's eyes and throws caution to the wind.

"I get it, okay? Hell, I thought Allison was too good for Scott in high school. Now? She's still so far out of his league it's not even funny." Not in a bad way, of course. Just…watching Scott and Allison sometimes put Stiles in mind of those fairy tales where a lowly peasant tried to woo a princess. It was a ridiculous idea. Except for the fact that the peasant was always the princess's true love.

Argent freezes when Stiles mentions Allison, and for a brief instant he thinks the man is about to punch him. Stiles has never been one to back down from a little intimidation, though, and he stands his ground like he always does; plunges on. "I get it…but you and your wife have to know that you're not gonna break them up. They've been together since they were sixteen! All you're doing is hurting her."

"You listen here, you little bastard," Argent begins, his voice a low, icy hiss. "What goes on between my family and McCall is none of your damn business—"

"Scott and Allison are my business," Stiles interrupts, stepping forward and drawing himself up to his full height. "The pack is my business. And whether you like it or not, your daughter is part of our pack. She loves Scott, and he sure as hell loves her. And they've been bending over backwards for you and your wife because they don't want her to have to lose you to be with Scott! If you can't see that..." he trails off, shaking his head in disgust.

Argent grits his teeth. "What, you think we should be happy she wants to spend the rest of her life with a bunch of monsters?" he spits, but his voice wavers just the tiniest little bit on the last word. Barely perceptible, but living with Derek has turned Stiles into an expert on picking out subtle little nuances in tone. What he hears in Argent's tone…it isn't hatred. It isn't revulsion. It isn't any of the hundred things Stiles expected to hear. It's concern. It's worry. It's fear, yes, but it's the fear of a parent for his child, the same kind of fear he heard in his own father's voice when he finally sat his dad down and read him in on what was really going on in Beacon Hills. It was the desperate fear of a father worrying that his baby was getting into something they weren't going to be able to handle.

Despite himself, Stiles feels a stab of sympathy.

"Mr. Argent," he says quietly, "you know I'm with Derek, right? Like with-with. I mean Allison told you, or your freaky hunter spy network or something, right?"

"It's a little hard to miss now" Argent admits dryly, his eyes darting down again to the swell of Stiles' stomach. Which, point. The tense set of Argent's shoulders relaxes slightly, some of the hostility smoothing out of his expression. "What's your point?"

Stiles gets the feeling he better arrive at that point quickly, or the hostility is going to come back full force.

"So, you know what that means, right?"

"It means he's declared you his mate." Stiles tries not to be insulted at the way Argent spits the word out. "You're just as high up in the pack hierarchy as Hale is. Still waiting for a point." Argent sounds like he's reciting from a textbook (or a bestiary), bare facts and nothing else.

"My point is…you're wrong. It means that I'm Derek's whole world. Well, me and Tadpole, here, now." Argent looks confused at the name, but Stiles just presses on, the words falling from his mouth in a steady, instinctive rush. "He loves us more than anything else in the whole world, and he'll die before he lets anything hurt us. It means Derek will never leave me, or purposely do anything to hurt me. He couldn't. And it means the pack is my family. I'll always have them, and they'll always take care of me; they'll always take care of my kid. Even if…even if something happens to Derek, we're never going to be alone. And I feel the exact same way about Derek. About the pack." He takes a deep breath, looking Argent directly in the eye. "And that's how Scott and Allison feel about each other. She's part of our family and no, we don't expect you to be happy about it…but we hope you can find a way to be happy your daughter found someone who loves her that much."

Argent is staring at him, a strange, unreadable light in his eyes. "And Hale's just fine with you staying human? He doesn't want you to be like him?" It's supposed to come off as flip and a little insulting, but Argent doesn't quite manage it.

"I've been keeping up with them just fine since high school. Maybe I'll want Derek to bite me, someday…but he'd never do it unless I asked him to. I mean, yeah, he'd do it if I was bleeding out on the ground in front of him, or something, but we talked about that when I moved in. There is definitely an 'arterial spurt' clause in the No Bite Agreement. But barring mortal injury? Only if I want it. And, uh, only if she wants it, which is what I'm guessing you were really asking in the first place."

"You know there's no chance your baby isn't a wolf...not even a chance they'll carry it as a recessive gene. Not an Alpha's child." Argent's voice has gone quiet, that odd light still in his eyes. Stiles just shrugs mildly at the out-of-left-field statement.

"True. And believe me, the thought of puberty with fangs is quite possibly the scariest thing I've ever faced…but that's my life."

"And you're…happy with it?"

Stiles knows in an instant that it's not his happiness Argent is asking about.

"I wouldn't trade it for anything," he says quietly, sincerely. "Not one single thing."

He does indeed go to the station after he leaves the hardware store, and calls Allison on his father's desk phone to tell her not to bother trying to stall any longer. She has all the perishables in her car, and Derek is going to be pissed, no matter what. Scott won't let him get too angry at Allison, though, and Stiles will make it up to him later tonight.

One thing he definitely has to admit…pregnancy hormones are an awesome addition to the bedroom.

He hangs out for the last half hour of his dad's shift, letting all the women who work at the station coo and fuss over him. He passes Tadpole's latest ultrasound pictures around and confirms that yes, he and Derek are definitely finding out what they're having. Dr. Evers was going to try to see at Stiles' next appointment, but had warned them that it might take a few weeks, yet. His father has plans to go out with a few of his deputies that night, so Stiles heads back out to his jeep as soon as his dad's shift is over.

He's not entirely surprised to find Derek leaning against the hood of his vehicle when he exits the station.

Derek looks a little annoyed as Stiles approaches, but not truly upset. Then the wind shifts a bit, and Stiles can see it when Derek picks up the traces of Argent's scent still lingering on him after their encounter. Derek throws himself away from the jeep and darts toward him, barely remembering to restrain himself to human-like speed out in the parking lot with all its security cameras.

"Okay, before you flip out here, I just want you to know that I went looking for him and nothing bad happened," Stiles says. "Also, you love me and I'm totally carrying your child right now. Just throwing that out there!"

"Stiles," Derek interrupts gruffly. "What did you do?"

"I just…talked to Allison's dad, okay? Nothing spectacular. We just stood in the garden aisle at the hardware store and talked. And I know, I shouldn't have gone alone, but c'mon! He wasn't going to do anything to me in the middle of the day."

Derek sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I swear, I'm going to get you a leash," he mutters.

"Getting the kinky stuff in before Tadpole's here?" Stiles says, before he can stop himself. "Sorry," he adds immediately.

"Just…just try not to—" Whatever Derek is going to say is interrupted when both their phones start going off at once. They share one wide-eyed look before immediately diving into their pockets for the devices. Derek gets his out first, of course, but Stiles is seconds behind him. Derek puts his phone to his ear as Stiles thumbs his screen, calling up the text message that Erica just sent.

"They what? Did he go?! Shit…all right, just stay there. Stiles and I will be back in twenty minutes."

Stiles looks up from the text message telling him that the Argents just called Scott and politely demanded his presence at their house. Only Scott.

"Okay, I'm ninety percent sure that this is nothing to worry about," Stiles says, as Derek holds out his hand silently for the keys, glaring. "Maybe eighty-five. A solid seventy, at least," he babbles, handing the keys over without an argument and scrambling around to the passenger side.

They make it to the house in twenty minutes, and only the bone-deep knowledge that Derek would never actually do anything to endanger either him or Tadpole prevents Stiles' life from flashing before his eyes the whole drive. He's fairly certain he left finger marks in the dashboard at one point.

The whole pack is gathered in the living room, grouped loosely around Allison. She's sitting on the couch next to Lydia, trying (and failing) not to look worried. She doesn't look scared, though, and Stiles can see Derek relax minutely as that detail registers with him as well. So…Allison doesn't think Scott's in any danger from her parents.

She just thinks they're going to try and ruin her relationship with him, again.

He bites his lip a little, exchanging a silent look with Derek, shaking his head a little at the questioning tilt to one of Derek's eyebrows. He doesn't want to rehash his entire conversation with Argent until he has a better idea of what this is all about.

Allison is looking a little too brittle for his liking.

He slips over to the couch quietly, sitting down on Allison's other side and sliding an arm around her small waist. Immediately, she sinks against him a little, laying her head down on his shoulder. She doesn't say anything, though. Derek hovers by the door a moment longer, before huffing to himself and stalking over to the couch, sitting down next to Stiles. He opens his mouth to say something, but Stiles puts a quelling hand on his knee.

He can see it in the bleak look in Allison's eyes, feel it in the way she's holding herself so tightly, even though she's leaning against him. She's bracing herself, gathering the incredible strength that has always shone out of her like a torch to do something she knows is going to hurt like hell. She's finally reached her breaking point, he realizes, reached the point where she finally feels that she has to choose.

And Scott had been right, all those weeks ago. If it comes to it, Allison is going to choose him, and their life together, over her parents.

Stiles can only hope it doesn't come to that.

All told, they wait almost two hours. Lydia gets up at one point, and she, Isaac, and Erica head into the kitchen, murmuring that they'll make sandwiches for everyone. Allison barely moves the entire time, just reaches up to wrap her hand around the one Stiles is resting on her shoulder. She stares at the front door as though it holds the answers to the universe (and in a way, he supposes it does, for her), and when they finally, finally hear tires crunching their way up the drive, she closes her eyes briefly and squeezes his fingers.

Scott opens the door quietly, and the pack is practically vibrating with their need to surge forward, to make sure he's really okay, to demand answers from him. They restrain themselves, though, as Allison rises silently from the couch, her hand slipping free of Stiles'. Scott is just staring at her, a dazed, stunned expression on his face. She takes a few steps forward, and Scott seems to shake himself.

"They…it's okay," he says, whispering as though he can hardly believe what he's saying. "It's all okay."

Then, he smiles.

He darts forward, seizing Allison around the waist and lifting her off the ground. "Marry me," he says breathlessly, and twirls her around and around. "Marry me, marry me, marry me," he chants, laughing and gasping all at once.

And then Allison gets it, realizes that whatever her parents had said to Scott, the end result is that she doesn't have to choose between them. She throws her arms around Scott's neck, her own laughter joining Scott's. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" she cries, and kisses him soundly.

Stiles watches them, happiness and a sense of completion bubbling up inside of him. He hears Derek sigh softly beside him, and knows the pack is feeling it too, an actual sensation of a puzzle piece finally clicking into place. Scott finally sets Allison down, pulling her close against his side as he kisses her again, and again, and again until…

"Oh crap! The ring! I don't have the ring!" He pulls back from Allison, looking comically horrified. "Shit, I had this whole speech…and I'm supposed to be on one knee, aren't I?" He actually makes a move to kneel in front of Allison, before popping back up as he realizes he still doesn't have a ring. Allison is laughing helplessly, tears (that Stiles sincerely hopes are tears of joy) gathering in her eyes.

He sighs, and levers himself off the couch. "Well, we were having a really nice moment, there. Scott, calm down before you start hyperventilating. Isaac, would you run up to his room and grab the ring box out of the nightstand? Scott, you have thirty seconds to remember your speech…and if we're doing a 'take two,' I'm gonna record it for the wedding video, okay?" Isaac scurries up the stairs after the ring, as the rest of the pack dive for various purses, pockets, and jackets and start whipping out phone cameras.

Stiles shakes his head as he heads for the closet they keep the digital video camera in. Derek, unsurprisingly, follows him, stopping him just before he opens the closet door and crowding him against it, instead.

"That must have been some talk you had with Argent," Derek says, and Stiles hears the note of admiration in his voice loud and clear. He grins a bit, sliding his hands up Derek's shoulders.

"Well, talking is kind of what I do best," he says. Derek snorts in amusement, leaning down to rest his forehead against Stiles' for a moment.

"You did a good thing for them," Derek says quietly, kissing him lightly before pulling back. His lips curl up into a teasing smirk. "But I'm still getting you a leash."

"Getting the kinky stuff in before Tadpole gets here?" Erica calls from the living room. "Good idea!"

Stiles buries his face against Derek's shoulder and groans.