Chapter Text
“Derek, how’s that fucking Mercedes coming along? I’ve got a Mrs. Whittemore bitching in my ear and I don’t know what to tell her,” Frank yelled out from the office. Derek snorted and wiped his hands on the towel tucked into his back pocket. He had been consistently working on this Mercedes SLK for the last two days and it was almost done, the damn bushes and trunions had to be overnighted from a dealership down south. The owner, a wealthy woman from the outskirts of town, had been calling every day- several times a day- since the car came into the shop five days ago.
“Jesus H. Christ. Tell her she can pick it up later today, around 4,” Derek answered, annoyance clear in his voice. He had to finish installing the new rear suspension and do a quick oil change before he could send it home. He knew he would be cutting it close, but he wanted this woman out of his hair as soon as possible.
Frank grunted in affirmation and shut the office door. Just as Derek went to get back to work on the SLK, the shop’s tow truck came into the lot. Boyd honked and shut the truck off. Derek came over and saw the truck was towing a beat up blue Jeep. “What the hell is that?” Derek scoffed. Boyd grinned at him and jerked his thumb behind him. Derek looked back at the tow truck and saw a man walking towards the garage with two kids. The man was tall and lanky, with broad shoulders and short brown hair. He had a toddler on his hip and another clinging to his pant leg.
“Umm, hi,” the man greeted Derek with familiarity and a smile, “I don’t really know what happened. She kind of just…died on me.” The man gestured to the blue monstrosity of a car on the tow truck’s bed. Derek looked the man over now that he was close enough to really inspect. Damn, Derek thought to himself, hello to you, too. Now that Derek could see the man properly, he looked far too young to have two children- but maybe he was an older brother or a nanny. Derek nodded to the man and motioned to Boyd to bring the car over. Boyd and the new mechanic, Greenberg, took the Jeep off the hitch and pushed it into the available carport next to the Mercedes in Derek’s working space. Derek raised an eyebrow at Boyd, his face plainly displaying his irritation. “Of course I get to work on the dinosaur,” Derek growled at Boyd, who chuckled in return. Derek flipped him off.
“I can take over the SLK, Hale. Why don’t you go ahead and take a look at Mr. Stilinski’s Jeep,” Boyd stated, walking over with such forced casualty that Derek wanted to punch him right in his smug face, “Well, I’m sure at once upon a time it was a Jeep. Derek, here, will take care of your deathtrap, Mr. Stilinski.” Boyd shook the man’s free hand and walked into the office, Greenberg right behind him. Stilinski, Derek thought to himself, As in Sheriff Stilinski? That make him the Sheriff’s kid? Derek's train of thought was interrupted by a huff of frustration from the insulted young man beside him.
“Hey, now. That Jeep’s been good to me. I’ve had it since I was 16,” Stiles mumbled indignantly, eyebrows furrowing in the middle of his face. The man pulled the toddler on his hip off and onto the ground. Derek huffed out a loud sigh then. Of course it had died on him- the ’78/’76 CJ5 was probably ancient under the hood. Derek sighed again in annoyance as he thought of all the things he was going to have to do and pushed his sleeves up on his forearms. He looked up at Mr. Stilinski and motioned him over to the Jeep. The young man, in turn, motioned for the little girl and little boy at his legs to sit over in the chairs on the side of the garage. They looked solemnly at him and scrambled over to climb on the plastic chairs.
“How long have you had it, exactly, Mr. Stilinski?” Derek asked, hoping the question was subtle enough. Derek didn’t usually care too much about the customers that came in, but he found himself wanting to know more about this Mr. Stilinski. He saw this as the perfect opportunity to find out how old he was…not that I care, he reminded himself. He walked over to the Jeep and, since it was an older car, popped the hood himself. Lifting it up and placing the prop, he began to inspect it.
“Well, a while,” Mr. Stilinski mumbled, embarrassment flushing his cheeks and neck a dark pink, “It’s been good to me for the past decade or so.”
Derek thumped his head on the lid of the hood when he reared upwards in surprise. The prop slipped from under the hood and it clattered closed. Derek had a split second to pull his shirt from the hood, before it could close on it. He rubbed the back of his head viciously as he scowled at the car. The children were giggling in the background, all sounds of climbing and horseplay gone. Derek looked over at Mr. Stilinski, who had flailed violently at the sound of his head smacking into the hood and saw he was now staring at him, mouth and eyes agape in surprise.
“S-sorry, I just,” Derek started, the words stumbled on his tongue, “There’s no way. You-you’re…you can’t be older than like, 20.” Derek was trying to salvage what little dignity he had left after the scene he had made. He was torn between running into the office and demanding Boyd deal with the young man and crawling inside the Jeep’s hood to escape from the situation.
Stiles lowered his hands and his eyes widened further, more than Derek thought humanly possible. Derek felt his ears and neck turn red. Please don’t laugh at me, please. The Stilinski kid choked on his laughter as he cackled. Derek was just about to say something when a crash resounded from the side of the garage.
“Damnit, Erica. I just know that was you,” Stiles groaned, “No, no, no, don-,” Stiles half screeched, half choked out as more tumbling and giggling sounded from the side of the garage. He scrambled in the direction of the noise, before Derek reached out and stopped him.
“It’s fine. They can play over there. There’s nothing they can hurt themselves with in that part of the garage,” Derek assured the young father, grateful for the sudden distraction. “When my niece comes to work with me, that’s where she plays.” Stiles glanced at the hand on his shoulder and blushed a deep scarlet. Derek, startled by the sudden realization he was actually touching the man’s shoulder, slowly slid his hand off. If he did so slowly while surreptitiously feeling the muscle and warmth of the man’s back, it was purely accidental. Derek hadn’t noticed how close he was to the man. Now that he realized his proximity, he noticed everything else he failed to see before. Full chapped pink lips. Pale skin dotted by moles sporadically placed like brown ink spots. Thick eyelashes that framed warm, wide amber eyes. A button nose dusted with freckles in between the most expressive thick eyebrows Derek had ever seen. Well, apart from his own. Derek was so taken aback by the beautiful man in front of him, he hadn’t realized the man was speaking.
“I-I’m sorry. What was that?” Derek cut him off mid-sentence, trying to regain his composure. He moved back to open the Jeep’s hood again. This time, the man followed him and leaned against the workbench on the wall. Derek could feel the man’s eyes on his back and he flexed instinctively. He never felt this anxious in front of someone he found attractive. Mr. Stilinski had barely been there five minutes and he was already driving Derek crazy.
“I said my name is Stiles. These,” Stiles motioned to the children running over to him, “are my little boogers. Erica,” Stiles picked up the little girl and shifted her onto his hip, “and Isaac.” He swung the hand holding the little boy’s and smiled down at the child. Derek wasn’t sure if he should introduce himself to the children. He crossed his arms firmly for a moment, before smiling nervously at the family and offering his hand to the little boy.
“I’m Derek,” Derek said gruffly bending over the boy, “It’s nice to meet you, Isaac.” When the boy shied away from his hand, Derek furrowed his eyebrows and cleared his throat. Stooping down to sit on his heels in a crouch, he softened his smile and looked up at Stiles anxiously.
The boy nervously released his father’s hand and shook Derek’s, smiling shyly at him from beneath thick black lashes. Isaac was a handsome little boy, all soft brown curls and big blue eyes. After a brief handshake, Isaac released Derek’s hand ran behind his father’s legs, tangling himself in Stiles’ limbs. Derek stood up and offered his hand to Erica, noting the way she studied him with eyes as big and brown as her father’s. The resemblance between the children and their father was striking.
“And nice to meet you too, Erica,” Derek said quietly, taking the girl’s hand.
“You’re pretty. Really pretty,” Erica replied eagerly as she vigorously shook Derek’s hand. She smiled at him, wide and white with the two front teeth missing. She let go of his hand and shook her wild blonde curls, giggling as Stiles put her down on the floor again. As soon as she was on the floor, she ran to the side of the garage- dragging Isaac behind her. Stiles reached to grab the both of them, stumbling as he flailed toward them. Giving up when they ran out of reach, Stiles sighed and turned back towards Derek.
“Thanks, for that,” Stiles smiled and put his hands in his pockets, “They can be painfully shy sometimes. It’s nice to seem them feeling…comfortable.” Stiles shifted against the workbench as Derek turned back to the Jeep.
“I’m gonna, um, look at your Jeep now,” Derek muttered out of the side of mouth, silently thankful Stiles couldn’t see the blush creeping into his face.
“How’s that Jeep coming along, Derek?” Frank asked from somewhere to Derek’s left. “Didya finally figure out what’s wrong with it?”
Derek cleaned his hands and closed the hood of the car the shop had fondly nicknamed, “the Blue Dinosaur”.
“Yeah. Turns out the distributor trigger and the ignition module needed replacing. So I went ahead and replaced the cap, rotor, plug wires…everything. The rest of it looks pretty good, but I cleaned up a few things inside, too. I’ll call Stiles, erm, Mr. Stilinski. He can pick it up today.”
It had been over a week since Derek had met Stiles. Since then, Derek hadn’t been able to get him out of his head. Boyd had made sure to take over working on the SLK, so Derek had been diligently working on Stiles’ Jeep. Every morning when Boyd came in, Derek was already in the shop fixing up the Dinosaur. After less than a week, the car was ready to go. But Derek had continued to work on it, replacing the axles and the outdated power steering box mount. The replacements hadn’t come cheap, but Derek had paid for it out of his own pocket. He told himself they were absolutely necessary fixes in the restoration of the car; that the car wouldn’t make it out of the shop unless he did them. But, if he were being honest with himself, it was because he was making sure the car was safe to drive, considering Stiles had two five year olds in the car.
Derek didn’t know why he was so invested in this family he barely knew; he had made a habit of keeping to himself, rarely leaving his bubble of security to visit his sister and her daughter. But invested he was. Every morning Derek woke up, he decided he would call Stiles and tell him the Jeep was ready. But every morning when he got to the garage, he found himself opening the hood or sliding underneath the car and finding something to fix or replace. Every day Frank would open the office door and ask how the Jeep was coming along, and every day Derek would grumble out a, “Almost done. Still working on some things,” in response.
Derek closed the hood, finally having run out of things to tweak and restore. Boyd smirked at him and leaned against the Jeep. “How’s the Blue Abomination, Hale? Finally fixed everything you could?” Boyd preened, voice dripping in saccharine sarcasm.
Derek growled in response and elbowed him on his way to the office. Walking over to his desk, he shuffled through the papers on his desk until he found the receipt with ‘Stilinski’ scrawled across the top. Dialing the number, Derek nervously shifted in his seat and waited to hear someone answer. What if a woman picks up? He has kids who look like him, he has to be straight. What if a man answers? What if his kids are from a surrogate? Derek thought up a thousand questions, each one resounding more and more frantically in his head. Just when he thought he would hang up and purposely rip a hose or break off a part of the clutch, just to have an excuse to work on something, the ringing stopped.
“Umm, hello,” a little voice giggled into the receiver, “This is Daddy’s phone. Who’s this?”
More giggling came through the receiver and Derek breathed a sigh of relief. Kids. I can talk to kids. This isn’t hard, Derek steadied himself and cleared his throat.
“Hi, Erica, right?” Derek tried to sound as kind and kid-friendly as possible.
“Yep. Who’s this?” Erica responded bossily.
“This is Derek. Remember? I’m fixing your ca-,” Derek was immediately interrupted by a squeal and more giggling.
“Hi, Mr. Derek! Is Babe ready?” Erica squealed excitedly. There was movement and things crashing in the background. Derek assumed someone was trying to take the phone away.
“Hello? Sorry,” Stiles apologized surprisingly calmly, considering the screaming and laughing of two five year-olds in the background, “I was in the shower.”
“Hi, Mr. Stilinski. This is Derek Hale from Hale Motors. I wanted to let you know the deathtrap you call a Jeep CJ5 is ready,” Derek answered, a chuckle betrayed the sarcasm in his voice.
“Rude. I can pick it up at around 3:30 today, after I pick up my other son from school. Is that okay?” Stiles retorted with amusement in his voice.
“Uh, sure,” Derek choked out in surprise, “Yeah. I’ll see you then.” There was more crashing and laughing before Stiles hung up, excitedly squawking at his children.
Other son? Derek thought to himself. Jesus, three kids before thirty? He has to be married. Fuck. Derek hung up his phone and leaned back in his chair. The first person he felt attracted to in ages and of course it was a married father of three.