Within A Week's Time
"I'm Stiles, by the way." He says and gives a cautionary smile.
"Derek Hale, and this is Arty." Derek says as he walks away, he signs Stiles to follow him.
They walk out of the office, walk into the elevator, go to the first floor, walk out of the building, secure Arty in her baby chair, and drive away.
"Okay…" Stiles says as he turns front the co-pilot chair to look at Arty fighting with her double cross seatbelt.
"Are you talking again at some point?"
"How much experience do you have with werewolfs babies?"
"What a funny question." Stiles tries to make a natural sounding laugh, but Derek gives him a stare that could kill assassins. "We are talking about my daughter."
Almost on cue Arty starts to cry, Stiles tries to distract her but he is badly failing.
After that they listen to Arty cry until the car parks (though she continued to cry, but not wholeheartedly as she was moments ago).
Stiles looks at the shiny building in front of him open mouthed.
"Are you sick?"
Stiles turns surprise by the question,
"ah..?"
" .Sick?" Stiles isn't sick, and he is sure he has done nothing to make the other man believe so…
"You smell like...chemicals, is it medicine?" Derek eyebrows frown at the other possibilities.
"Oh, no. I mean, yes. Yes it's medicine, but no I'm not sick. It just helps me concentrate." Stiles finishes a bit embarrassed, but his answer seems to do the opposite of appeasing the werewolf.
"You had troubles keeping focus..?" Stiles looks at the baby, Arty who is pulling her fathers tie, and he understands that is the worst quality that a babysitter could have.
"No! I mean when I don't take my dose I get a little extra active, but nothing to worry about-as you say, 'I smell like medicine.' I take it, and know my stuff"
Derek doesn't seem convinced, but he walks away and Stiles follows.
Derek is trying not to freak out, or at least stop torturing himself by thinking that he is so desperate to just hire such an unqualified person to look over his baby, -he is so not fit to be a parent, maybe he should had allow Arty to stay with his mother…- He hears Stiles sigh. This cannot be a good idea.
"Wow!" Stiles says as he walks through the door of Derek's apartment. The place looks like one of those rich single generic apartment that you see at the movies but also like someone had a mismatch baby shower that exploded. Yes, that is exactly how the apartment looks like.
The werewolf suddenly aware of how messy his place is, he walks away embarrassed. Arty doesn't care about the mess, but her little mind recognizes where she is being carry to and the growing rambling on her belly. She calls for her food on her well practiced baby vocals. Stiles follows avoiding a little baby tent, (translucide walls and puffy orange-white-polka-dot pillow) and another little baby tent (blue version this time).
"Omg." Stiles exclaims as he sees the kitchen, if he didn't know better he would think Derek was running a daycare by the full -full sink! - with baby bottles. The man in question gets a new one from the cabinet (with more baby stuff in it). Derek's cheeks were getting redder as Stiles keeps softly exclaiming.
Stiles sees Arty stretching her small arms towards him, and Stiles picks her up from the fuschia cat chair she was sitting on. He walks around with her, until Derek takes her away to feed her.
"She likes you." Derek says softly.
"I like her too" Stiles smiles, and for a moment Derek seems to relax. Derek doesn't mention how she cries on her grandmother's arms (and her Alpha's) but somehow she doesn't even seem to care being carried by a stranger, instead he asks Stiles if he could watch Arty for a couple hours.
It is a sudden and irresponsible request, but if Derek doesn't get sleep soon he might just collapse.
"Sure...yes, of course, that's what I'm here for!"
"I'll be on the other room resting." Derek hasn't step away when he turns to Stiles.
"Makes sure to get ...all the gas out. Then she'll want to crawl around, let her." Stiles nods and starts positioning Arty for her pats on her back.
"If she feels like sleeping let her too, but stay with her -she wakes up a lot."
"Okay."
"She is very picky where she sleeps, so you might need to look for the bed she wants."
Stiles just listens until Derek finally makes it into his room.
Arty crawls through the whole living room, almost climbed the leather sofa, chewed on a teddybear, and finally falls asleep on a big purple pillow that was under the living room table. As Derek warned him, she would only sleep for 5, 15, 30 or 45 minutes before waking up and searching for her dad (a blue wolf that Stiles found under the sofa was a great replacement).
She was the second baby who he knows about who would sleep in the same specific time patterns. The first one was Stiles himself, or that's what his dad had told him.
Stiles himself was very sleepy.
...
Stiles wakes up at the sharp noise of Arty's cries. He sits up immediately as his brain tries to remind him of the last events that had occurred within his interview day.
Breakfast, medication, preparation, dress-up, 'wow, big fancy place,' interview, huge mess-up, crying baby, hot dad, scary businessman, hot werewolf-dad, car, grumpy hot werewolf dad, apartment-baby-explosion, baby.
"Okay…" Stiles whispers as he picks up Arty.
"It took you sometime." Werewolf hot dad speaks. Stiles might had expressed on ways a person shouldn't infront of babies, but Arty won't remember.
Derek lifts an eyebrow.
"What is that suppose to mean?"
"Pick her up. It took you some time." Derek answers.
"How long had I been working at this...three hours...are we counting the time I slept and the drive here?" Stiles sprouts as he bounces the baby on his arms.
"This is for you." Derek hands Stiles a pastel yellow folder. It contains a schedule, rules, a list of books, a list of parks and more.
"Go home, get ready for tomorrow."
…
Scott laughs through all of Stiles' story.
Stiles researches all he could about freaking werewolf babies.
…
Day 2
Derek seems satisfied that he show up in time the next day (seven a-clock), but the father stay around until he was late for work.
Taking care of a baby is hard, they should have had teach how in his University. Since they didn't teach him how to get a job as a lawyer!
Day 3
"Have you… taken her to a doctor?" Stiles whisper-asks Derek as he holds Arty, who is sleeping on his arms. Derek didn't need any further explanation, he knew Stiles was referring about her crying.
It was the second day and Stiles was already thinking of quitting...just like the other useless human sitters.
Derek stands from his desk, and ignores the work papers falling on the floor.
"You think I haven't?" Stiles steps back.
"No… I just ...was worried that s-she might be on pain."
"She is not"
Day 4
Stiles is scared of Derek, and Derek is being unnecessarily overprotective of his territory. But, it might have to be because of his Alpha wants to meet the human babysitter that is being hired through the company. Which is understandable...
Day 5
Stiles has decided that Arty likes crying. Maybe that is not the right way of phrasing it, but she is not on pain and at least that she is annoyed by everything on a random evil basis ...she just cries just to cry. So, in an act of solarity Stiles mumbles and screams with her. Arty seems to like it because she laughs when Stiles does it. But Derek saw them and Stiles is not sure how to explain it.
Day 6
Stiles cleaned all the whole apartment, because is Saturday and tomorrow is Stiles' day off. So, well deserved day off. Stiles leaves at eight, 30 minutes after his bye-I'm-free-bye hour.
"This place better be just as clean when I come back!"
Sunday
Stiles is gone. Derek can literally feel Stiles' bright energy missing, and his scent weakening through the apartment. A deep instinct on him tells him to find Stiles, but Derek knows that is just Stiles' day off. Tomorrow they, Stiles, Derek and Arty, will submit Stiles' contract to Peter. The contract would be approved, Stiles could ask for a yacht in the shape of an elephant and the contract would be approved. The human has become in so little time essential for Derek -and the balance of Arty, work and sanity.
Stiles is gone, but it's just for today. Yet, nothing on the apartment can explain Arty that.
Derek had never seen his baby thrown such an incredible tantrum. Artemis screams, with her almost mighty tiny lungs, and all the words (parts of words) she knows. She reaches pitches so high that not only shouldn't be possible for a baby, but that are impossible for humans or werewolves to create. She claws covers, pillows, bed sheets, toys, her father, and anything on the reach of her tiny baby extra sharp claws. Arty decided not to sleep, and see for how long could she scream.
The sunrise came, and Arty could only sob with her tired throat. Derek holds her and kisses her forehead, feeling too tired, too heartbroken and unsure of what to do. Only two things were clear. He would be a soft dad, most likely. And, Stiles cannot have another free day.
At the moment it seems like the only sensible solution.