A/N Thanks always to Katieepretzel who is the best beta ever.

I own nothing

Between this chapter and the next, please keep your hands inside the car at all times, the safety harness is there to protect you...

So here's the thing. He tried, alright? He really honestly tried to get Stiles to understand that he wanted him, wanted a relationship with him, wanted a family WITH HIM, just, wanted everything with him, but by the time they got situated at Stiles' house and in between the light, innocent touches and Stiles' ubiquitous murmured sarcastic comments about anything and everything, somehow what ended up coming out of his mouth was 'Our schedules just don't work' and that was it. He's spent the last month kicking himself over it.

It was technically true; their schedules right now didn't work and they both knew it. The next time they had any amount of time with each other was the 4th of July and the All-Star break, and that was more business than pleasure. Wii baseball for charity again, this time supporting the firefighter's widows and orphans fund. That wasn't actually the name of it, but it was most definitely the charity that would get Derek to agree to what could potentially be a huge fiasco. He doesn't mean to sound like he's trying to brush Stiles off, but Derek suspects that's exactly what he thought was going on.

Things have been noticeably off between them the last few weeks. Granted, Derek was busy as all get out and Stiles was promoting one movie while getting ready to film another and most of their free time was spent divided between pups and Charlie. That being said, Stiles wasn't as…cuddly? He texted occasionally, but they were more 'checking in about Sasha' texts or 'look at how adorable the niece is' texts as opposed to 'Sasha tried and failed to take your side of the bed from me' and 'I miss you, look at this cute picture of our niece' texts. Derek didn't even realize how ingrained Stiles was in his life until he started to back out of it.

And it hurt.

Like a bitch.

It also hurt that Stiles response to the Conversation That Wasn't was 'I agree, we just don't have time, Derek.' Not Bear, Wolfman or any other of a million things Stiles could have called him, no, just Derek. He hadn't called him just Derek in months, not since they because whatever they were, friends or…more. Derek knew he had to fix it, fix their friendship first and go from there, but he didn't know how. He had roughly twenty-four hours before Stiles was home for a weekend that ended with the Wii event, and he wanted to have a game plan before then.

Admittedly, what he did next was not the smartest nor smoothest move he'd ever made. But in his defense, he didn't exactly have that many other viable options, so yes. He called in reinforcements and figuring Stiles-specific relationship advice was the most valuable to him, gathered, at one time, in one location, Erica, Lydia, Allison and Mel. Because he was crazy. (He didn't call Kate because she would tell Peter, not like Lydia and Erica wouldn't, but he just…she didn't know Stiles and him the way everyone else did.) Thus began the great Derek Hale Interrogation, the second biggest mistake he'd made in all of this.

"Derek. What. Did. You. Do?" Lydia seethed.

"I know what you did, butthead, I just don't understand how or why." Erica snarled, actually snarled.

"What am I missing?" Allison asked, getting ready to nurse Charlie.

"Derek, mijo, just tell Mellie-mom what happened and I'll make it better, as long as you aren't a giant dick…although given the subject at hand…"

"Melissa!" Derek finally snapped. That's it, he instantly regrets this. He took a deep breath, then another, wondering why it smelled so much like Stiles all of a sudden. Then he realized he'd accidentally called them to Stiles' house. Not his, Stiles'.

Fuck.

"Okay. So, uhm…Beer is in the fridge for anyone who wants it. Allison, I got some of that juice you wanted but I have it on good authority that one beer right after nursing won't harm Charlie, and Erica, the lemon water is for you." Okay, breathe in, breathe out, and go. "Melissa, Lydia there's wine in the fridge and on the counter, but I don't know if I want Mel drinking…"He stalled, decided getting a beer was a good way to go. Probably the only way to go, judging by the devious look on Lydia's face.

"Derek, why does Stiles have your beer in his fridge again? Although the better question would be why are we at Stiles' house? You do know you don't actually live here, right?" Lydia asked after following him into the kitchen and pouring wine for herself and Melissa, presumably.

Hopefully.

Yes, beer is definitely the way to go.

"That's why I have you here, I guess." Sighing, he uncapped his beer, drank most of it in one go, and grabbed a second just to be safe before he sat back in the living room. "After Charlie was born, I told him we needed to talk and-"

"Oh, Derek…you don't talk so good, you know this." Erica sighed. "You didn't actually say 'we need to talk' did you?"

"Yes…was that bad?"

"Derek, son, can I call you that? I'm gonna call you that." Melissa spoke softly. Derek looked to her and saw her glass was empty already. That bode well for the rest of this afternoon…sheesh. "So, it's obvious that you've never had a real relationship. 'We need to talk' is the death knell. 'We need to talk' is a well-known secret code for 'I am dumping your ass, you have a son who is a potato and his annoying hyperactive little friend is always around too'."

"Wow…that seemed oddly specific Mel…more wine?" Lydia grabbed Mel's glass without waiting on a reply and returned with a full glass, the open bottle, a closed bottle, and a corkscrew. Jesus.

"I appreciate lemon water Der, especially since you seem to have…made it yourself, but I'm going with wine," Erica said while heading to grab her own glass.

"Grab me lemon water… and a beer for when I'm done nursing Charlie. I think I'm going to need it!" Allison piped in.

"Derek, what exactly did you say to him, and please, for the love of Prada, what did you want to say to him?" Lydia sounded suddenly sympathetic. Derek knew enough to know that a sympathetic Lydia was a scheming, conniving Lydia intent on ruining him.

"I was trying to find out what he wanted and if our schedules would allow for it, if I was worth it, and then-"

"What did you say?!" Lydia snapped.

"I said 'our schedules just don't work', alright?" Derek shot back, exasperated.

"So what, you said that after you started talking about it?" Allison asked.

"No, no, that was the talk, right there, I said our schedules just don't work, and he said 'alright then' and that was it." Derek was spinning the cap from his second bottle on the table, then Melissa reached out and covered his hand.

"Tesoro…nooo, please tell me you didn't. I need you to be honest with me now, okay? I know this is gonna be hard for you Su, but you need to tell me so I know if I should help you, or kill you and make it look like a medical mistake. Do you just want to find out how many licks it takes to get to the middle of my Stiles' tootsie pop, or do you want to eat those fluffy and heavenly pancakes of his every morning after waking up tangled together?"

"Fucking hell, Melissa! You're cut off. Lydia, take her wine, or stop pouring her wine, Jesus how can…you haven't been here long enough…" Derek stuttered and felt the blush creep up his neck.

"Sorry, we went out for brunch first." Allison said, not looking sorry at all. She'd moved Charlie into her bouncy seat, and was now sipping a beer. "We may have let her have a little too much Sangria, like a pitcher… There are worse things, you know. Scott called me once, super serious. Demanded, DEMANDED Derek, this is Scott, remember, that we needed to talk, and I needed to come to his place because he just couldn't do it over the phone and it had to be face to face." Allison took a larger draw from her bottle. "I was terrified. He and I, we'd only been together a few months at that point. I thought it was over."

"What happened, how did Scott fix it?" Derek asked, peeling the label off his bottle.

"I showed up, terrified and shaking, convinced he was about to dump me and fully prepared to beg him not to, speech planned and everything, and he was holding up two shirts, asking which he should wear to meet my dad. It took me outright crying on the floor for him to figure out he'd done something wrong, and even then I had to tell him what he'd done." Allison shot him a look that seemed to say 'I can't see either of you crying on the floor.'

"Matt… that was his way of telling me that I did something really, really wrong. It generally meant I was about to be yelled at, or worse." Erica spoke so softly Derek wasn't even sure at first he'd heard her. Melissa had, though, based on the say she was now holding and quietly sushing to comfort her.

"Jackson's never said it. I used it with him though, first when I broke up with him and a second time when we got back together," Lydia said, drawing Derek's attention back away from Erica. "The thing is Derek, as much as it's not a good way to start a talk that isn't a breakup, it can be worked with. I'm willing to work with you, but I need to know what you want."

"Okay," Derek pinched the bridge of his nose, screwed his eyes shut and started talking. "I think I want to have more with him than what we do now. I know I do. We have awful schedules though, and there's so much at risk if it doesn't work, and what if he doesn't want me like I want him. I don't know if I can… I don't know if I can try and have it not work. I don't know how we'll come back from that."

"Derek, honey, if you want to talk to him, really talk to him, I can make it happen," Lydia smiled widely. It reminded him of a shark.

"Yeah, yeah, I think I do. Can you help me not ruin it this time?"

"Nope, that's all on you. I think I can juggle some scheduling though, if you're willing to suffer a little."