Chapter Text
“Salem Society,” Stiles echoed, holding the bright, glossy pamphlet. He looked shrewd, like he was judging Adrian for the Papyrus font, like Adrian issued the stupid thing himself. “You mean like...the Salem Witch Burnings, Salem? That Salem?”
“No. Salem, Ohio obviously.” He paused, shrugging. “There is power in death.” Stiles already knew this, personally and in great length. “The site is steeped in blood magic. It’s a great place to meet.”
“Salem.” Stiles said again ,this time softer. There was something calculating in his voice, but then, there always was. “Salem, Massachusetts.”
“Yes.” Adrian refused to sigh. “Salem, Massachusetts. I speculated you might harbor some inclination to join me given that the Society holds their convention thirty minutes from MIT.” Not, Adrian would like to emphasise, that was the reason he was interested in bringing the boy. He just knew it was suitable bait.
“You like me. You wanna take me to see my boyfriend who lives six billion miles away. I knew it.” He looked very pleased with himself. Adrian couldn’t stand it.
“Hardly. I want to show off my progeny at the Salem Society. I want to see their sad faces fall when you open a portal in the space time continuum or reanimate some kids pet gerbil.”
“I can’t do the time thing,” Stiles argued, because Stiles was Stiles and that was the soul of him, arguing. “I keep trying. I don’t know. I feel like it’s right at my fingertips, but I can’t reach it.” He scratched at his chin, the pathetic stubble sprouting there in a sad, patchy attempt of a beard. This child could destroy the world but could not yet grow facial hair. Adrian refused to sigh, dammit. Of course, Stiles could will a beard to grow, should the fancy strike. He chooses not too. He likes to do things organically. Adrian gives into temptation and sighs deeply, maddenly, endlessly into the abyss that is his life now . “Anyway, you know only about twenty percent of my magic comes from you.”
“Yes,” Adrian grins at that, unrepentant. “I know that. You know that. They do not know that. And besides it’s twenty percent of infinity, which is infinite in itself. I’m allowed to be smug.” He clapped his hands once, and collected the pamphlet back. “We leave in three weeks time. Please discuss all necessary details with your father.” Other father, his mind betrays him. Adrian has not yet accepted the realities that come with Stiles being his biological extension. There is a three letter word for it that he has not yet come to terms with.
“You’re buying my ticket,” Stiles told him firmly, but he looked pleased. Adrian knew he’d only get one solid day of the kid at the Convention before he hoofed it to see Danny ,but a
day was all Adrian needed to show those blow-hard hippies what the Harris name produced.
“I wouldn’t need to buy tickets if you’d figure out how to open up a portal through the space time continuum.” He’d already purchased two tickets, though he’d never tell the boy. “Our emphasis at the convention is in plants, obviously. Unfortunately it’s a segment over populated with hedge witches and herb flingers.”
“What’s your shtick, then?”
Adrian watched as Stiles rummaged through his cupboards, stealing a glass from above the sink. He sniffed the slightly turned orange juice in the carton, and Adrian could taste the magic in the air as he shook away the time it took to turn sour. That. There. Stiles was sure he couldn’t alter time, and here he stood, jiggling the orange juice fresh again, three or four days younger. The house liked him, warming in a way that told Adrian it missed him when he was gone. How embarrassing. “Over the years I’ve been working to perfect hybriding into one or two plants. Hyacinth, rosethorn, and ivy for example.”
“That’s half of like three potions. Compounds. Whatever.” He blinked. “I have that in three different hex bags. Are you simplifying compounds?”
“Into one plant, yes. That is the idea. So far I’ve only ever succeeded once, and the subsequent failure has irked me since. I combined hollyhock, larkspur and babies breath.” The resulting flower was pale purple, with small open petals and branching stalks that could, combined with other elements, drop a three hundred pound man in thirty-seven seconds for eight solid hours. Prepared differently, it was also great for fertility. It had taken him years to perfect, and he had yet to reproduce the effect with any other combination.
“You want me to look at it?” He hesitated, like he knew Adrian well enough to find that idea repulsive.
“I would rather succeed on my own at something impossible than have you defy the laws of life, magic and the great beyond to make it so.” Organically, a voice within his head that sounds terribly like Stiles says. “However, if you have any suggestions as to how I might go about it...I’m amenable.”
“I can take a look, yeah. Can I see the hollyhock hybrid? Do you want me to start some seedlings for the convention? I could hold them in stasis at different stages of growth and show where you start the hydriding process.”
“That would be helpful, actually.” It would also serve to make for a better presentation, something Adrian had no flair for. Holding multiple seedlings at varying stages of growth was also a delightful power display he was not in the least opposed of. Let them see how true the Harris line threw.
*
They did hyacinth, rosethorn and ivy. Adrian knew without a doubt that Stiles could simply will the plants to marry, but he seemed absolutely excited by the idea of fostering the bond naturally. That was his way through, Adrian would admit. Stiles was capable of anything. The world was his possibility, and beyond. But he was not a megalomaniac. He was not ripe and rampant with power. The boy didn’t even need to tie his own shoes, could do them with a thought, and still he tripped on his laces.
“Okay so.” He laid out his plant samples on Adrian's kitchen table. “Instead of slowly growing them in stages, I forced all three of these to grow to maturity, and then scaled them back.” He waved his hands over the little mountains of dirt like it was nothing to reverse time and creation. “So I could watch for parallels. At first I was just looking for structural parallels, like when they split, or leaf, or bud. Those would be your hybrid entry points,right?”
“Yes. It’s very specific, they need to parallel down to the most minute chlorophyll.” It had taken ages to foster the first success, and hundreds of cuttings. Adrian could speed growth, but only so much, and he couldn’t ungrow a plant like his heathen offspring.
“Exactly,” Stiles grinned. “So I had an idea. What if instead of finding structural parallels, you found magical parallels?”
“These are benign plants.” There were magical plants of course, but they were finicky and easily offended. And awful to use in magical compounds because they could change their structure at will. You think you’re mixing something for hair growth and it suddenly you have live, prehensile tentacles growing out of your face.
“Well yes. But, they have elements of energy right? All living things do. And what is magic but energy? Hear me out; find the parallel in the energy fluctuations during growth and merge them at those stasis. There’s more wiggle room.”
More margin for error, Adrian wanted to say but he was struck by the idea. It was clever, to focus on the benign energy rather than the mundane stages of growth. It was a surprisingly magical theory from a boy who regularly forgot he could destroy the world. “Have you tried it?”
Stiles hesitated. “Ah. No. You know I can’t...I’m not really good at seeing magical signatures.”
Because everything looked magical to him, Adrian recalled. Stiles could see the most benign levels ofs magic and energy in everything. And it left him blind to threats, but at the same time....nothing was a real threat to him.
“I...suppose you could control the growth while I gauge the parrales.”
“...I mean, I understand if you don’t want my help. You said you wanted to do it naturally---”
“Stiles.” Adrian fixed him with a stare reminiscent of chem class. “I asked for your assistance, I’d be remiss to turn it away when you offer. When I said I wanted to do it naturally, I only meant....I want to know why it’s happening.”
“Fair.” Stiles nodded. “So....scale back or fast forward.”
“Scale back.” There wasn’t any reason to it really, except that it filled him with a strange sense of something to watch Stiles bend time.
“Or what if....” Stiles bit his lip. “What if I let you control when we stop growth?”
“We’ll have to go forward and I’m much slower.” They could, Adrian reasoned. There wasn’t any reason not too.
“No I mean, what if I controlled the growth, but you controlled where we stop.” He reached out and grabbed Adrian by the elbow - and...and there it was. A tugging sensation as Stiles latched onto his magic. It was terrifying, to feel someone else touch it and he knew that Stiles wouldn’t hurt him but the fact that...that....
It really felt like Stiles could.
But then.... Adrian felt something else. Something old and vast and wild and he knew in his heart that this was Stiles. This was the Nexus and Nemeton and Old Harris Blood and it crashed between them like lapping waves, gentle and constant and firm.
Adrian could feel it in his bones.
“That could work,” he said faintly, feeling it twine with his own, braiding seamlessly at the edges where they shared blood and magic. Hybriding itself.
****
“It worked.” Adrian stared at the plants. “It fucking worked.”
Stiles twitched beside him, shifting from foot to foot. Adrian caught him just as he tripped on his own shoelace and nearly face planted into the greenhouse door frame “...did....did you not think it would? Or?”
“I’ve been working on this for fifteen years,” Adrian confessed, staring at the buds. “I’ve been a laughing stock in the garden community for about twelve. I...And. You.”
“But! But it was your theory! And you...I mean. You found the parallels. I would have never found them. I couldn’t see them, for one.”
“Even if I had thought to examine benign magical energy, I don’t have the power to grow and merge. I couldn’t have forced them to grow all at the same pace while searching out parallels in energy fluctuations.”
To his confusion, Stiles seemed to sink in on himself. “Okay, but are you like? Mad? That I kind of railroaded your project? Because you did the work. I provided the battery if nothing else.”
“Mad? No! No, do you know what this means for potions creations? Compounds could be simplified into one or two mixtures. The time required to make them reduced. Efficiency increased. Not to mention the space it’ll save. Complete bases could be grown in a single plot and... the shelf life alone is worth it. They’re good as long as they’re alive. No more back stock and--- Am I mad? No. Stiles, I don’t think you’ve realized what we’ve just accomplished here.” A frisson of smug satisfaction encased him. “And we’re going to tell the world exactly how we did it.”
“We are?”
“Yes. Reverse growth, combined with benign magical parallelling. No one else besides you could ever dream of accomplishing it. I’ll enjoy watching them fail.”
“You and I,” Stiles corrected. “I couldn’t have done this myself. They all just look like magical plants to me.”
“You and I,” Adrian conceded and felt no anger at sharing the glory. None at all. In fact.... He felt proud.
With Stiles, Adrian didn’t even need to ship seedlings ahead of time. He pocketed the appropriate seeds, camouflaging them behind a veil of spells to prevent TSA of accusing him of drug transport, and contained his glee beneath a veil of contempt.
The renown alone was enough to have his spirits sailing. This would put the Harris name on the map, wipe away all the smudges of his reputation and restore him in the magical botanical community.