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It all started when Stiles decided to change the wallpaper on Derek’s laptop from the standard green meadow with a blue sky to a picture of Stiles wearing a birthday hat and his arms thrown wide open in an anticipatory hug.
Not that Derek really cared. Stiles was looking his stupidly charming self and his eyes were shining with happiness. It was a good look on him, but the photo was an old one. Derek knew because Stiles hadn’t looked like that in a long time.
Derek continued to stare at the smile he had never seen up close. At first Stiles was more likely to frown or scoff at him than smile, and by the time they had settled into a more comfortable, friendly manner around each other, Stiles had become incapable of smiling without the omnipresent wistful shadow hovering over his eyes.
He wondered why Stiles had chosen that particular picture, because nothing was random about him anymore. There was always a reason. Probably one Derek wouldn't be able to figure out.
Still, he couldn’t let it go.
Maybe Stiles was waiting for a reaction. What kind, Derek didn’t know. He chose to ignore the joke, not even sure if he was the culprit. Derek's apartment smelled of pack and the strongest scent lingering on his laptop had always been Stiles’, because he used it as his own.
Stiles said nothing the next time he came to the loft, didn’t even look twice at the laptop. But when he went to the bathroom, leaving his phone on the coffee table, Derek picked it up. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, but he thought it was strange, that Stiles had left it there. At night, at school, in the shower – the phone was always within reach, because these days Stiles always expected emergency calls. He had chargers hidden all over Beacon Hills, one at home, one at Derek’s loft, one at Scott’s, two at school and even an extra battery in a waterproof bag.
Maybe Derek picked it up because he thought this was Stiles’ way of showing him what kind of reaction he wanted.
Scott frowned as Derek scrolled through the photo gallery, looking for the stupidest picture he could find. Stiles had a lot to choose from. In the end, he selected one that someone else must have taken. Stiles had straws up his nose and a hand in front of his mouth. There was liquid dripping down the straws and between his long fingers, and from the looks of it he was probably in the middle of choking on something., while Erica, blurred in the back, laughed, mouth wide open. The picture was disgusting. It was perfect.
Scott mouthed “Dude” at him, but Derek ignored him as he put the phone back on the table.
When Stiles returned, he never once looked at his phone and after he left, Derek didn't hear from him.
Until two days later, when Derek returned to his apartment after a job interview at the animal shelter to find his loft completely decorated with the same picture he had chosen as Stiles’ new wallpaper.
He must have left only about an hour before Derek had arrived, because the air was still thick with mischievous amusement and sincere glee.
Rolling his eyes at the new decor, Derek retaliated by changing the time on Stiles’ alarm clocks and hiding them all over his room. At four in the morning, Derek received a slurred voicemail that insulted him for over a minute in colorful stream of profanities, with Stiles getting more creative by the second. The message ended with an outrageous scream and a thud as another alarm went off in the background before the connection was cut.
It was harmless.
It shouldn't have gone any further.
But of course Stiles wanted revenge.
The next time Derek picked up his phone to call Cora all his contact information had been named after characters from X-Men. It was probably the only time he regretted insisting on an older model, just because he kept losing or breaking his phones after a few weeks anyway. On the plus side, he didn’t have that many phone numbers saved to begin with. Scrolling through names like Beast, Sean Cassidy and Nightcrawler, he was certain that there was a system behind these, but he wasn't able to figure it out. So in the end, he punched in Stiles’ number and when the phone dialed, he was directed to the name ‘Doctor Nemesis’.
“Hey Derek,” he was greeted with a drawl, “how’d you find my number so fast?”
“The name was pretty expressive,” Derek lied, because he didn't want to tell Stiles that after all those years of running to each other for help, he could recite the number in his sleep.
“Sooo, what do you want?”
Derek hesitated at the barely concealed eagerness and frowned at himself. He was about to ask Stiles what was going on, what he was expecting to come out of this, but something stopped him. Probably the little nagging voice in his head telling him that this was what Stiles wanted, maybe even needed. Not necessarily with him, but with someone. It made him wonder how many pranks Stiles had played on the rest of the pack, wondered how many had reacted and not just chalked it up to Stiles being stupid.
“Derek?” Stiles asked, interrupting the silence, worry edging into his voice.
“It’s war,” Derek declared and cut Stiles’ astonished laugh by hanging up.
He wasn’t a prankster, had never been. Not even in his teenage years. He didn’t even know pranks. Cora and their cousin, Hayden, used to drive the whole family nuts by putting tape over the faucet aerator, hiding annoy-a-trons all over the house or hard boiling eggs before placing them back in the box.
But now he had gone and declared war on Stiles.
Derek seriously questioned his own sanity, because he was beginning to develop a troubling quirk, gradually starting to act more and more out of character.
Clearly, Stiles made him stupid.
And Derek found himself caring less and less.
Which was the only reason, he buried his dignity in a safe place were it could hide out until the storm was over. And then meticulously replaced the creme in Stiles’ Oreos with toothpaste.
As pranks went, it was immature, childish, harmless and innocent. Most of all because Derek referred to his childhood memories of Cora and Hayden as a guideline and inspiration.
The next day, Stiles made fake orange juice out of Kraft Mac and Cheese.
When Derek hid two walkie-talkies in Stiles’ room, making strange noises at night which drove the other almost insane, the teen rain-x-ed all the glass in Derek’s bathroom, leaving creepy messages and crude drawings. Derek hid Orajel in the bristles’ of Stiles’ toothbrush as revenge, rendering him unable to speak for about half an hour and Stiles created shortcuts in Derek’s new smartphone.
Somewhere between permanently rebooting laptops and irritating phone conferences with himself, the beta had stopped using his sister as reference, mostly because he was running out of memories to use and he wouldn’t call her and ask for inspiration. For one, because she had sort of turned into a female version of himself and therefore probably didn’t play pranks on anyone anymore, and two, because he really didn’t need her to know he was behaving like a five year old for Stiles’s sake. And his own. He was man enough to admit that. At least to himself. Stiles probably knew too, because whenever they met, he would give him that knowing smirk and Derek would return it with lifted eyebrows and Stiles would avert his eyes, private smile playing on his lips, which the older man mirrored, whenever he thought no one else was looking.
There had been one time when Stiles wanted to talk about the pranks, after one had collided with a surprise visit of a… something. It had pointy teeth and a big mouth and wanted to kill werewolves. Derek had been distracted by prank arrangements when it suddenly appeared in the clearing, completely out of nowhere—and if asked, he would claim it had used some concealing magic or was beamed there, because he was too embarrassed to admit that he had not heard its approach—and attacked him. Stiles felt conflicted and guilty and started to stammer something about stopping, but before he could continue to mutter more nonsensical crap, Derek unceremoniously tripped him into a pond.
Evidently, the crude message got through. A few weeks later—because Stiles had caught the flu (Derek had been on self-imposed guilt ridden soup duty during that time), and then Stiles had been busy with exams and then Derek had been busy with a winged snake woman—Stiles duck-taped harmonicas at the bottom of Derek’s car. Derek followed by hiding glitter in all of Stiles’ clothes’ pockets. The brunette exchanged all of Derek's ring tones, alarm songs and notifications tones with suggestive moaning. Derek stole a deactivated security sticker, activated it with a magnet and hid it in Stiles’ wallet, which was particularly amusing when Stiles was shopping with the girls. In retaliation, Stiles installed a remote access program to Derek’s laptop and whenever he was working on it, started to mess with something. Derek zip-tied everything in the Stilinski house and left the scissors, handle zip-tied as well, in the middle of the living room. Stiles emptied Tylenol capsules and replaced the powder with a mixture of Alka-seltzer and kool aid, before placing them in Derek’s shower head.
It was getting remarkably out of hand.
The pack stayed out of the way, usually just watching from the sidelines. It had taken them a while to realize what Derek’s and Stiles’ strange behavior had been about, but as soon as they had put two and two together, they had been very vocal about not intervening, ever, because clearly, there was never a winner in a prank war.
No, they really didn’t want to get involved.
At all.
It didn’t stop them from enjoying the show, though.
Scott was the only one who watched them with concern most of the time. “This is going to end in tears,” he told Derek while he watched the man easily lifting Stiles’ desk up with one hand and driving nails into the ceiling with the thumb of the other. “Probably mine.”
“What are you doing here, Scott?” Derek asked, not bothered the least by the Alpha’s presence.
The floppy haired boy just blinked at him. “I saw your car in the driveway,” he said as if that explained anything. The beta just hummed, before he carefully took his hand away from the desk, then took a step back, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
He wasn’t smirking, but he was sure he was oozing self-satisfaction from every pore.
Scott silently eyed the achievement, when the Sheriff strolled by the room, did a double-take, stepped back and peaked inside. Both werewolves turned around to greet him with a nod. The Sheriff looked at the desk and then at Stiles’ bed, the first furniture Derek had nailed to the ceiling.
“I don’t even want to know,” the older man declared, and continued along the hallway, down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he made himself bacon with eggs. He probably figured Stiles would be distracted enough by his new room arrangement to care for his father’s diet.
“Are you going to do that with everything?” Scott asked.
Derek checked the time. Stiles was shopping with Lydia. It would probably take them hours to be back. Especially since Stiles still hadn’t figured out where Derek had hidden that security sticker and therefore was most likely triggering every alarm in the mall as they spoke.
“No,” Derek replied. “Just what he needs the most.”
Scott rolled his eyes. “Tears, I just know it,” he said and marched out of the room.
Derek wasn’t worried about tears. They were both surprisingly attuned to each other's boundaries and limits, always knowing how far they could go, where to stop, what to never touch with a ten pole stick because it was hitting too close to home. Neither of them would end up sobbing on the floor with the other feeling sorry or chanting apologies.
Derek was sure of that.
Two weeks later, Stiles’ responded to the furniture uplift.
As soon as Derek saw his Camaro he couldn’t even hide the surprised snort, colorful post-its in different patterns all over his car. People in the street were already taking pictures when Derek approached, walking around to spot a wolf made out of pink post-its surrounded by yellow sticky notes on his back wind shield and the message ‘What’s inside matters most’ on his front window shield.
Derek wasn’t ashamed to realize that they were by now going through every college prank in the book. When he removed the post-it from the keyhole to unlock the car he was already bracing himself for styrofoam. However there was nothing but another post-it hefted on the steering wheel.
Not here it simply read.
Derek slammed the door shut and walked to the back of the car.
He would never understand the logistics behind what Stiles had done with the trunk, how he had even gotten the keys to get in there. He felt mostly sorry for the two goldfishes that were happily swimming in circles around each other. Then again, he knew Stiles was still close, watching him, so they couldn’t have been in there for long.
His suspicion was confirmed when his phone moaned once with a deep husky male voice, that made the older woman closest to him blush. Derek didn’t even get his phone out, instead just turned around and sniffed Stiles out from the mass of people, who were slowly inching closer to see the small pond with artificial flowers and fish fodder in his trunk.
“Get over here, asshole,” he called out into the mop.
Leisurely, confident, with a smug smirk on his lips, the boy shoved his way through the people, strolling as he approached Derek, who tried to keep his expression completely blank, maybe with a tint of anger because he was probably supposed to be angry at the mess this could have become.
“Don’t worry,” Stiles said, affectionately bumping their shoulders together as if he had read Derek’s mind. “It’s triple layered enforced water resistant pool liner. There’s no way in hell I’d screw up your car by getting the whole thing wet. I will, however, sit here and watch you figure out how to clean this up. Because that’s the fun, really.”
Stiles looked like he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep that night, a little pale and tired, but he was reeking of amusement, satisfaction, happiness and a whole bunch of other pleased emotions, Derek had come to miss on him after all the shit that had been going down in Beacon Hills.
Getting Stiles back together was probably worth a car covered in sticky notes and a trunk full of water and fish.
* * *
Derek Hale was the Antichrist.
Because he let Stiles stew. Every day that went by without a revenge attack from Derek, it drove him more and more into a corner. He started to suspect that doing nothing and watching him get increasingly paranoid was the real joke.
If it was, it worked.
Stiles was nervous, jittery. And utterly, ridiculously excited.
He was sure he was driving Scott nearly insane with hypotheses of what Derek might be planning. The Alpha usually rolled his eyes at him, but his annoyance was always ruined by the soft look he kept giving Stiles when he thought no one was looking.
Stiles may or may not have become slightly paranoid, too, suspecting Derek behind everything occurring around him. Like that time when someone ordered pizza in his name. Turned out it was Erica who came by a few minutes later, snatching the pizza out of his hand, thanking him for treating her. He had been glad it was the blond, because he expected better from Derek. At the same time he had hoped it had been Derek, because it meant the werewolf was still interested in doing this—whatever this was—with him.
After weeks of waiting he was about to give up.
Which was unfortunate, because Stiles had reveled in his new favorite past time. It finally felt like it used to before all that werewolf crap invaded his life. He wasn’t bitter, or traumatized. Much. But for the first time in a long time, he finally found himself earnestly, genuinely, unexpectedly enjoying something again.
With Derek.
Who was showing him a side, nobody else had probably ever witnessed outside of his family. Stiles maybe cherished this more than anything else. Not that he was going to tell Derek that.
And now it was going to end, because Derek was off somewhere, doing whatever it was he was doing when he wasn’t plotting revenge in the name of Loki.
Stiles entered his room, dragging his feet behind, because yes, he was kind of disappointed and sad and wanted to sulk for a while. He dropped down on his chair, booted his laptop and waited while playing with a pen. Something yellow caught his attention out of the corner of his eyes and for a second he thought, yes, Derek’s back! But when he turned his head around, there was nothing.
He gave his room a tentatively hopeful once-over, but when he couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary, he returned to his laptop, typed in the password and started to click through some wikipedia links, resuming the research he had started on Aztec mythology. Just in case something from them could be real. Last week, he had started going through different cultures, beginning with ‘A’, compiling a list of what might be out there and how to kill it, comparing it with the Argent’s bestiary at the same time.
He was just reading about a water-proof dog thingy with a monkeys hand as a tail, when something like a choked giggle interrupted his concentration. He whirled around on his chair, observing the room. For a second he thought Derek might have hidden walkie-talkies in his room again, but doubted Derek was so lame as going for the same trick twice. And giggling was something he really couldn’t associate with the other man anyway.
It made his brain hurt.
It wasn’t until he faced his laptop again that he was absolutely, positively sure something really strange was going on.
The hint being a tiny androgynous graceful pixie looking at him with wide eyes, bright smile and rainbow colored wings.
“No!” Stiles shouted, reeling back on the chair and almost toppling over, before he jumped up and tried to catch the pixie. It was out of his reach before he had even touched it. “Why, Derek, why?” He whined into the empty room and folded his arms on the table. In his head, he pictured Derek laughing his ass off.
Stiles had always believed that he could hate nothing more than pixies. Because pixies were annoying, clingy, mischievous, loud, brightly colorful, giggly, super-duper disgustingly happy little monsters feeding on magic like parasites.
They were harmless.
To humans.
His father wouldn’t even be able to see them.
It made them the perfect little buggers to settle into Stiles’ home, to drive him nuts.
Stiles bedded his head on his arms, groaning and self-pitying himself for a few seconds. He couldn’t believe Derek had let a pixie run free in his own house. Why couldn’t he have done something normal? Like mice? Or cockroaches? Termites?
Noooo, of course not. It had to be a fucking annoying, little prankster trying to leech on his magic.
After another round of self-pity, he eventually dialed Scott’s number, and started to look for a jar he could use, when suddenly a pink little man with blue wings appeared in front of him, moving close, almost touching his nose to Stiles’, then getting some distance between them again before cheerfully swaying from left to right.
This wasn’t the one Stiles had seen.
“Oh my God, Derek!” he cursed, the second Scott picked the phone up.
“What about Derek?”
“That motherfucker let pixies in my room!” Stiles growled, placing the phone between chin and shoulder while he tried to catch the little bugger. The sprite just grinned and turned around. Stiles froze mid-movement.
It had #2 written on its back.
God, nooo!
“Why would he—oh. Oh, no,” Scott groaned, wrenching him out of his stupor. “Is this about your prank war?”
Stiles blinked. Then: “You have to help me find them! Do you remembered the last time we had to deal with these things? They made you kiss Isaac! With tongue!”
“I remember.” Stiles could practically see Scott pulling his face. “And forget it. I won’t chose sides in this war,” he finished, then hung up. The teen stared at the phone for a moment, then back to where #2 had been but now was gone.
It wasn’t the brightest idea, but Stiles was desperate. He sent a group message, requesting aid, went downstairs to retrieve two big glasses and two cork coaster and got to work. By the time Erica called, Stiles had caught the first pixie. The pink and blue one, innocently sitting on his bed, doing something. Probably something evil. With a swift movement he pulled the glass over the creature, closing the glass with the cork. It was simply luck, but he gave himself a moment to preen. And he may or may not have cackled in evil delight at seeing the pixie trapped, while the little thing blinked at him with huge purple eyes.
Stiles glared at it. He wasn’t going to be fooled.
He fumbled for his phone as he set the sprite down on his desk. As soon as he answered Erica’s call, she laughed down the line for a very, very long time before hanging up without saying anything else. Allison replied to his message with a frown emoticon, telling him she would have helped but considering she was human and couldn’t see them there was nothing she could do. Isaac replied by sending a picture of Nelson Muntz. Jackson high-fived it. Cora simply asked ‘again?’. Lydia remained suspiciously quiet. It was understandable. Not even Lydia Martin would mess with pixies.
“I hate you all,” he mumbled to himself and threw his smartphone on the bed.
He wanted new friends, and he wanted them now. Instead he got the first pixie getting comfortable on his shoulder, hugging his neck. Stiles groaned into his hand. The pixie sighed contently and sucked a tiny hickey into his skin.
Stiles flailed, slapping after the beast, but it just flew away with a high pitched laugh.
He hadn’t caught the number on its back but he sincerely hoped it was #1 and therefore the last he had to catch.
The next pixie he found appropriately twenty minutes later innocently sleeping in his underwear was a disgusting little sickly green hairy one, more imp than pixie and therefore a vicious little fighter with a lot of spirit. And—because Derek was apparently evil incarnated—had #8 written on its back.
Stiles stopped to process for a moment.
Derek couldn’t have let eight pixies run free, could he? No wonder it took him weeks to get back at Stiles. It wasn’t like you could buy those things on the black market. Actually you could, but the beta probably wouldn’t.
Stiles spared a moment, reveling in the idea that Derek had invested so much time in single-handedly catching those little buggers just for a prank with Stiles, before he scowled again, because, still, pixies.
Pixies loved to play. Most of all hide and seek. Loved to dance. Loved to sing. Loved to keep Stiles awake for hours because they simply wouldn’t shut. up. with their chanting in the middle of the freaking night.
The first time he had met them, he had been delusional and thought they were cute. It was about the time Deaton trained him in magic and they sorta got attached to him, following him around. At the beginning it was fun, but there were more and more of them with every passing day and it got creepy really soon and then they settled into his home, into his room with no intention of leaving. And Stiles had been in dire need of sleep.
After a few days he finally broke down, confessing his little vermin problem. Scott did some Alpha thing Derek had taught him and they left, scared out of their wits.
He didn’t need a repeat of that.
Stiles was going to go insane if he didn’t find all of them.
He placed #8 next to #2, who had its eyes impossible wide, puppy dog eyes rivaling Scott's but Stiles wasn’t being swayed. He knew they would drive him nuts if he let them free. Turning his back on them, he realized that by now his room looked like a war zone, books cramped out off the shelves and carelessly dropped to the ground as he had looked behind them, his clothes were messily spread on the bed, including batman underwear and spider man socks.
Determined he followed along the hall, opening the cupboards with the towels and bed-sheets, stuffed them back in haphazardly when he didn’t find anything, moved the cupboard to look behind it and then headed to the bathroom, pulling out cleaning utensils, detergent, shampoos, soap - searching every nook and corner.
Once or twice he spotted something out of the corner of his eyes, or heard a muffled laugh or caught a flicker of sparkle. By now the remaining pixies must have noticed that he was looking for them, thought that he was playing with them. Stiles was so far from playing, he contemplated burning them on his barbecue grill to get rid of them. Not that he would follow through with this plan, but he was tempted. Bad past experiences had shaped him somewhat.
#3 was completely lilac, no neck, limbs short, making it almost look like a ball. It was probably the ugliest pixie he had ever seen. He found it hiding between the cushions of their couch together with long forgotten chips, a ten dollar bill and Stiles’ old Pokemon Gold game for the Nintendo.
#1, the rainbow-colored one, had idled by every once in a while, tugging on his hair, poking his sides, generally making fun of him and being a nasty little bitch. It was the most annoying of the bunch so far. He lured it in with a promised bite of his magic. It laughed at him and dashed away. In the end he caught it between his hands by pretending to ignore it. In its attempt to get his attention it had become careless.
Stiles was one hell of an efficient pixie hunter.
Even if it had taken him two and a half hours.
He arrested #1 together with #3, the most docile one, floating around in his entrapped glass like it couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge the situation.
But so far, Stiles had seen nothing from #4 to #7, but they might be shy. Or nocturnal. If they were, Stiles was going to have easy game with them, because they had a deep slumber. He would just have to find them before they woke up.
Which was easier said then done. After he had searched the whole house, he flopped on the couch, tired and sweaty and exasperated and still four pixies short.
Screw this, he decided and cuddled into the cushion. He would just wait for them to make an appearance and then chase them down. In the meantime he would just play some video games. Like Heavy Rain. Yes, he could entertain himself with Heavy Rain. He still had some endings open and it wasn’t like it could get worse than Ethan hanging himself in a prison cell. At least Stiles hoped it couldn’t get worse.
Forty minutes into his play, though, he let his eyes wander around the room aimlessly, re-checking places the evil things could sleep or hide in, before he determinedly forced his eyes back on the screen.
Ten minutes and some serious jitterbug later, Stiles resumed his search in the garage, back yard, front yard, again living room, kitchen, headed back upstairs and stared a long time at his father’s bedroom.
It smelled of human in there. Pixies wouldn’t be interested in humans. They avoided them like the plague, but got pretty comfy as soon as magic was involved. Stiles knew if he wouldn’t abandon them at least fifty miles from where he lived they would come back with a certainty of two-hundred percent. And they would bring friends.
Lots of friends.
And then they would keep him awake with their singing. And their giggling. They would dance around his head, play pranks, live in his socks, braid his hair, when he was sleeping, tie his shoelaces and nestle into his closet and spawn like jirds. Worse than jirds.
By the time Stiles' father came home from work, the house looked like a hurricane had passed through; like it was turned upside-down; rugs coiled, cushions on the ground, furniture moved, every kitchen ware set out on the table, cupboards wide open and empty.
Stiles was sitting in an armchair, taking a break, panting heavily and close to an aneurysm because he just. couldn’t. find the last pixies.
When his father entered the living room he took in the mess with one long look, shook his head. “Still don’t wanna know,” he decided and went into the kitchen, ignoring the chaos in favor of making himself a sandwich while maneuvering through the hardware with an easy grace Stiles was hoping he would someday call his own. “I’ll be upstairs,” his dad informed him, and with a pointed look at … everything, skipped telling Stiles to clean up after he was done. With whatever.
Stiles just rammed a fist into a pillow.
His distress must have signaled half through town or maybe Derek The Creeper had been lurking around his garden, like the friendly neighborhood voyeur that he was, because just a few minutes later the werewolf stood at his door.
“You’re outrageous,” Stiles snarled incredulous, throwing his hands in the air. Derek looked at the room with bemused amazement.
“How many did you manage to find?”
“Four,” Stiles shouted, arms flailing. “Just four, goddammit! They’ll be the death of me! You do know they are technically hermaphrodites?”
Derek was silent, before he weaseled his way through the room, careful not to step on anything before he gracefully sat down on the couch. Of course gracefully. Because everyone in his life had more grace than Stiles could dream of.
“I’m missing half!” Stiles explained, like he had to clarify his problem.
Derek hummed in understanding. “I assume it looks the same upstairs?”
Stiles dropped down on the couch next to him, hands between his spread legs as he whipped back and forth on the heels of his palms, pulling at his lips with his teeth. “You can smell them. Tip me off!”
“No.”
“Dude! The last time I had them, they made you dance polka!” he said, emphasizing every word. “With Boyd! As the male lead!” Stiles worked hard in getting all these italics across because Derek couldn’t have forgotten that. Stiles had exhausted the whole memory space of his phone to capture every glorious second of it and re-watched it whenever he had a moment of solitude.
He probably watched it once a week.
Okay, once a day.
Derek made a noncommittal noise, not even slightly bothered by the remaining plagues, shoving a pillow to the side with the tip of his toe, before he kicked it up and caught it with practiced ease.
“Show off.” Stiles rolled his eyes.
“Why do you think there are eight?” Derek suddenly asked, pushing the pillow behind his back.
“Because of the—” Stiles stopped mid-sentence, frowning at Derek, before he jolted up. “You didn’t!”
“Didn’t what, Stiles?”
“You're getting comfortable.”
“Yep.”
“You’re not worried about them doing something,” he realized, pointing an accusing finger at Derek, who just blinked innocently.
“No.”
“What the fuck?” Stiles jumped up, picking the first thing he could find from the ground and throwing it at Derek. Turned out it was another pillow. Derek caught it easily. “You fucking asshole! There were never more than four!”
Derek tilted his head, face unreadable.
“And you numbered them #1, #2, #3, #8!”
The asshole didn’t even try to look guilty. “Don’t mind me,” Derek pushed the second pillow behind his back as well. “I’ll just sit here and watch you clean. Because that’s the fun, really.”
Stiles growled at him and hit him in the face with another pillow. Derek didn’t even bother to intercept him this time.
* * *
Derek woke up feeling crowded, a little off. Like something was invading his subconscious on a subliminal level, not really nasty, but bothersome. Uncomfortable. Restrictive.
He groaned into his sheets at his own early morning thoughts. As he reached for his nightstand his hand bumped against a wall. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, confused, before he lifted himself up on the elbows, looking around, making sure that he indeed was still in his room.
He was.
The nightstand was to his right like it used to be.
His floor, however, had black lines all over it.
It took Derek’s clouded brain a long time to realize what was going on, but at least he didn’t need to check twice to know the lines were made of mountain ash. And that they were segregating him not only from his night stand but every-fucking-thing.
“That little shithead,” he growled, and dropped back into the bed.
He knew Stiles had been up to something, that he had eyed Derek’s loft with a measuring beyond mere interest for buying new curtains.
What he wasn’t prepared for was a fucking labyrinth.
At least it looked like a labyrinth but usually you could get in and out. Derek opened his eyes again, rolled to the side of the bed, following the paths of the lines. It took him a few seconds to find the beginning of the maze sprinkled on his floor board, almost a minute until he finally figured out how to get to the nightstand and therefore to his phone. Which was frustratingly right. next. to. him.
He had to run in tight circles, stop every few feet to get back on the right track and after five minutes, he finally reached his phone and punched in Stiles’ number. The sound of vibration came from his living room and Derek snapped his head up.
“What’s up, buddy?” Stiles called leisurely up the stairs. Soon after, Derek could hear the padding of feet on wood, then on the stairs until they stopped right in front of his bedroom. “Need anything?” Stiles opened the door, leaning against the frame.
Derek was only ten feet away from him. But instead of aggressively lunging for Stiles like he wanted to, he had to stop and think about the fucking way to his own bedroom door. Stiles had his arms crossed in front of his chest, one eyebrow raised.
Derek wanted to hurt him.
“Open. The line.”
Stiles smirked. “Nope.”
“Stiles!”
“I’ll be downstairs if you need anything!” He turned around with a twist of his hand, but his dramatic departure ruined, when he bumped his hip against the frame. “And I fed Ernie and Bert already, so don’t worry about them!”
“Stiles, get back here!”
Stiles didn’t come back.
Derek let out a stream of insults, before he finally traced the lines back to get out of the room and down the stairs. The paths were narrow and Derek had to squeeze through some passages. Stiles left some ways open were he might have gotten through if he had the built of a toddler and not a two-hundred pound werewolf. Then there were wider paths which led to a dead end.
By the time he had gotten to the stairs – albeit running in circles for a few minutes – Derek noticed nature’s call. He groaned into his hands and decided that he would not piss in any plants he would come by no matter the pressure. No, he wouldn’t. Least of all because Stiles had his phone firmly in hand, thumb hovering over a button Derek was sure activated the camera and therefore recorded the whole thing.
If it didn’t already.
He was sure there was some humor in seeing Derek squeeze through invisible walls that the other pack members would love to witness.
“Seriously Stiles, the whole loft?” Derek asked in disbelief, staring down the spiral staircase. He was about 1 % proud and 1 % amazed, though nothing he would ever – ever – admit to anyone. And 198 % pissed. If it hadn’t been Derek at the wrong side of this joke he would have probably shared it telepathically with Stiles, who would have replied with a proud expression, going yes, I know, right?.
At least the stairs were blissfully mountain ash free, however at the bottom were five paths leading to somewhere. Where, Derek didn’t know and he really was in dire need of the one to the bathroom. He turned to face the bathroom door and followed the lines back to his own position.
Apparently he had to walk completely along the walls of the living room, taking a detour around the couch, and circling what Stiles used to call the Round Table. It wasn’t round. It wasn’t even a table. But it was where they stuck their heads together, listening to whatever crazy idea Stiles would come up with to prevent demonic world domination or yet another apocalypse or whatever, as Stiles loved to say, ‘the monster of the month’ was. Derek had stopped counting around the time he almost got eaten by a wolf-orca or whatever the fuck that thing had been. Maybe they should make a calender, like Stiles had suggested. Not that he was that keen on remembering the monsters, but it sure would help keeping track of them. What he did like to remember, though, was the thrill of Stiles’ heartbeat always next to him, pulsing fast and harsh, letting him know that Stiles was alive and mostly well.
“Fucking kill you for this,” he muttered under his breath when he walked past the teen sitting on the couch, unable to reach through the barrier to punch him in his smirking face.
For a moment Derek stopped and contemplated the route to the front of the couch so he could pummel Stiles to the ground; debated with himself whether is was worth an aching bladder.
He decided against it. He had the whole day for that.
When he finally arrived at the bathroom, he… he didn’t know what he had expected. Not more mountain ash, though. “Fuck, Stiles,” he roared. Stiles cackled in delight. Derek couldn’t even close the door behind himself because he had pushed it over yet another line and it would take him halfway through the apartment before he could reach it and push it back.
So, he just left it open when he relieved himself and ignored Stiles’ gurgled yelp.
“Dude—”
“Screw. You,” he just bit out.
After three hours of on/off ahead planning whenever he wanted to go somewhere to decimate the amount of time he would spent running through his own damn apartment, Derek was pissed beyond repair. The maze had stopped being funny after the fifth time he had to walk back through a hellish amount of circles Derek wouldn’t ever have expected fitting into his living room to get something to drink out of his freezer.
And whenever he was close enough to finally punch that shithead, Stiles just took one step to the side, preventing Derek from reaching him. It would take him ages to get back to him.
At one time Derek had been about to take a bite out off an apple when he stopped, thought better of it and instead of eating, threw it at Stiles’ head in a fit of calculated fury.
It had taken him half an hour to get that apple.
It was totally worth it, though.
Stiles was going to sprout a nice shiner and he had lost his dopey, screwed grin for all of three minutes before it was back and he laughed at Derek, pointing out that he had just thrown his lunch away.
“Hate. You. So. Much,” he growled out.
What frustrated Derek more than the walking, the circles, the narrowness—more than anything—was how Stiles always knew where to place his limbs, how to hold them so that Derek was able to feel his body heat, but completely unable to touch, brush a hand over Stiles’ arm, lightly flick a finger against his skinny frame or bump their shoulders together. Derek hadn’t known how tactile he was until he couldn’t touch anymore.
Stiles must have noticed too, at some point, because when Derek passed him behind a line he had shifted his elbow a little, allowing Derek to reach him. He could have easily snapped the arm and hauled Stiles over the couch. Instead Derek brushed the tips of his fingers over the skin in silent acknowledgment and left it at that.
He was still angry, but the emotion was… stilted.
It took Derek an embarrassing amount of time to realize that Stiles could not have mazed the whole world and that he might have to stop at some point – which incidentally should be Derek’s elevator.
As soon as Stiles realized that Derek was walking up and down the living room, trying to get as close to the elevator as he could to backtrack the steps and turns he needed to take, Stiles pushed the laptop to the side, hunching forward, watching him with unrestricted glee.
Stiles had been not necessarily surprisingly quiet while he had paced the apartment, aggravated, pissed and a tiny bit – yes, he still couldn’t resist that adoring thought of pride about Stiles’ antics – impressed.
“How did you even plan this?” Derek asked, still facing the elevator.
“I know this loft better than my own room,” Stiles confessed. “And, blueprints, dude.”
Stiles had always been and would always be resourceful. He still wouldn’t tell Derek how he had gotten into his car for the trunk prank, nor was he ever going to reveal how he had gotten Derek’s neighbors to hug him whenever they saw him, so yes, Derek wasn’t even remotely surprised that he had acquired the layout of his loft.
He really wasn’t.
Stiles was like Professor Moriarty. He could steal the most famous painting or get into Fort Knox and be out of there without anyone noticing if he set his mind to it. Though Derek wasn’t sure who the Sherlock was in this equation. Clearly, the werewolf fit a lot of profiles, but not that one.
In retrospect, Stiles had gone through great lengths to make most of the apartment accessible. He couldn’t reach everything, either because Stiles hadn’t thought his pull-up bar was important enough – and by now Derek was itching for some stress relief – or because he hadn’t gotten them quite into the layout. Which explained why he had taken the time to feed the goldfish Derek had kept from the trunk prank.
Only Stiles could come up with a way to annoy the living hell out of him, while still showing how much he cared.
His thoughts were interrupted by banging against the steel door he had forced in front of the elevator. Maybe it was the mountain ash, maybe the betas around him finally learned to use their brains and hide their smell and heartbeat, whatever it was, Derek hadn’t noticed their presence before the knocking.
“Yo, Derek, can we come in?”
Before he had even formulated a hostile reply, the door was pushed to the side and Isaac, Erica and Boyd stared open mouthed at the room, before they erupted in different degrees of mirth. In Boyd’s case it was only a thin lipped smile, but the crinkle at his eyes was a dead give away that he was internally rolling on the floor, howling with laughter.
“You really pulled it off!” Erica squealed.
“It’s kind of awesome,” Isaac added with a nod, then tentatively took a step forward. “How did you make Derek sleep through the whole thing?”
Stiles squirmed in his seat at the question and Derek turned to him with raised eyebrows, because how indeed.
“Uhm. Not gonna tell,” he replied, hand rubbing the back of his neck and for the first time he looked like he felt guilty for this whole labyrinth prank. Though Derek really wasn’t sure whether Stiles wasn’t inclined to tell because he wanted to keep it a secret or because he wanted to avoid the betas getting nasty ideas.
Probably both.
“You really can’t touch anything,” Erica realized, reaching her hand out, then looking around the room and following a path without even thinking about it, turning and twisting and squeezing through narrow passages. Derek didn’t know how, but she ended up in his unused store room.
As it looked, Erica didn’t know either.
Isaac had chosen the second path leading in circles back to the elevator after he had passed Derek about three times in varying distances. Boyd, the smart bugger, only watched them and didn’t take a step further.
“Derek must have gone mental,” Erica yelled from the balcony, God only knew how she had gotten there, because Derek had tried to get out and just jump from the balcony.
“Derek's most of the time sitting in his armchair,” Stiles called back.
“I know. I saw the tweets,” Erica came back in, looking around in bewilderment before she tried to backtrack her steps.
“Tweets?” Derek asked, passing the kitchen on his way back to the couch and, as an afterthought, hit the loo and earned himself three identical surprised gasps. Derek ignored them, because he just wasn’t going to take any chances. By the time he had made it back to his armchair with three bottles of water, every energy bar he could find and a yogurt, Erica was back at the entrance and the remote control had been snatched by Stiles, who had his legs probed up on the couch table, laptop on his thigh.
“Live-blogging,” Stiles replied, waving his mobile at Derek, who just groaned as he rolled his head back. Erica tried a second time to get to the couch but was hopelessly lost. In the end she snarled at and threatened Stiles, until he gave her instructions and finally found her way back by following Stiles’ instructions.
For a second Derek had assumed Stiles had the whole maze mapped in his head, until he spotted part of a map on Stiles’ screen. Probably the plan he had worked after.
After Erica had finally found her way back out, she dragged Boyd on his arm out of the building. Isaac stayed behind, something about waiting for Scott. Derek didn’t bother to listen to him. Currently, he was preoccupied by bickering with Stiles over the remote and the channel because he couldn’t stand watching another rerun of Scrubs while Stiles reasoned that it was simply impossible to have too much of season two.
Isaac groaned and stalked off only to return five minutes later with Allison, Lydia and Scott in tow. The girls threw themselves on the couch next to Stiles and Derek still suspected foul play that a banshee was immune to everything, even mountain ash.
Scott and Isaac remained at the entrance.
Derek couldn’t hold it against them.
If he could he would have been there with them.
Instead, he was forced to watch JD and the Janitor going at each other for the whatever-millionth time with no way to change the channel because he still hadn’t figured out how to get the remote back and the TV was completely surrounded by mountain ash, which prevented even manual switching.
Scott and Isaac left halfway through the episode, never once taking a step into the apartment and Derek left the two and a half humans to their own devices, ignoring their snorts while he tried to find his way back to the staircase.
He passed them several times, cursing under his breath, realized he forgot his water, stormed back, retraced his steps before he finally reached the stairs.
As soon as he was back in his room and had found the way to the bed he dropped dead on the sheets, more exhausted than he thought possible.
When he opened his eyes hours later Stiles was sitting next to Derek on the king sized bed, reading something on his tablet.
Derek wasn’t sure whether he wanted to punch him or simply touch him because he finally could.
“How long?” Derek asked, voice heavy with sleep.
“The maze?”
“Yeah.”
The sun was setting outside, so Derek had slept for maybe two hours.
Stiles closed the fake leather cover of the tablet and placed it on the night stand. “Well, let’s see, how long did it take to clean my house?”
“A week,” Derek replied dryly.
“That’s not—wait—okay, I guess, true.”
“A week, because one of the pixies escaped again and made you pay for the imprisonment by turning your room into an aquarium.”
“That’s nice,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “Thanks for reminding me.”
Derek tucked the bed cover free before pulling it over their legs. Stiles scooted down a little, rolling on his side.
“Got a job interview on Monday, so make sure it’s gone by then,” he warned, watching the other intently. Then: “So, how did you?”
“Did what?” Stiles asked, confused.
“How did you make me sleep through it? Drugged me?”
Stiles grew restless on the bed. “No, I didn’t,” he finally replied, jaw clenched. “I mean, I thought about it, you know? But I just couldn’t. Not for something like that.” Derek narrowed his eyes, squinting at the boy in the low light, making out his face. “You just got sleepy, and went to bed. I knocked once at your door, you mumbled something, I entered, you noticed it was me and just fell asleep again.” Derek snorted. “I waited a few minutes, talked to you even, but you slept like a baby. So I figured, if you wake up, when I do my thing, I’ll just throw mountain ash at you and have you wait while I continue to prepare the maze.”
Stiles was silent for a moment, before he pulled a cloth bag from the night stand. “I’ve removed the mountain ash when you were sleeping.” The brunette looked worried now. “You believe me, right? You know I wouldn’t ever—” Derek stopped the oncoming ramble by lifting his hand. Stiles let his mouth snap shut and Derek dropped the hand between them.
Stiles’ heartbeat was hammering in his chest. Derek knew why. Because they had started off shaky and continued on trembling legs until it turned into a tentative band of trust earned by snarling at each other in dangerous situations, telling the other to go die and then make a hundred-eighty and save the other’s stupid ass.
And now they were trapped in a frugal limbo between friendship and more.
“It’s fine, Stiles,” Derek assured, trying to calm him down.
“Derek, I really—”
“I trust you,” Derek interrupted him again.
Because he did. Because there was a reason Stiles had stayed the whole damn day, and it had nothing to do with tweeting each and every one of Derek’s moves. He had checked. There had only been three tweets all in all and they were about him being all right. No. Stiles had stayed to make sure Derek wasn’t going berserk, to make sure Derek was able to handle the narrow space and loss of control.
Stiles blinked at him, a shy smile on his lips, heartbeat slowing down, when his hand moved over to Derek’s, interlacing their fingers.
“Yeah?” he asked, the warmth in his eyes belying the teasing tone in his voice. “Wanna do trust falls tomorrow to check if you really should?”
Derek shook his head. It took only so many times to save someone’s life to know they would catch you even if they were crushed under your weight.
“Just go to sleep, Stiles,” Derek muttered, threw half of the bed cover other Stiles’ face, muffling his laughter.
The next day, Stiles jumped from Derek’s balcony. Frantically, the werewolf sprinted down the walls and caught him halfway down, yelling at him for the remainder of their fall while Stiles, arms tightly wrapped around Derek’s neck, laughed into his shoulder.
“It’s mutual, you know,” Stiles chuckled, after they landed, tipsy on adrenaline.
This time, Derek did punch him in the face.
* * *
Derek Hale was not the Antichrist.
Derek Hale was worse.
Stiles wasn’t exactly sure what was worse, it probably depended on the religion he was going for and seeing as he wasn’t religious anyway he would just stick to Christianity. So maybe Judas? Judas was commonly hated for betraying Jesus, so there it was. Although recent scientists had discovered some sort of new book that portrayed Judas as some kind of hero who was only misunderstood and had tried to help. And wasn’t that fitting now?
It related to Derek so well, Stiles made himself sad.
Anyway. Derek Hale. Worse than a pixie.
Because right now?
Right now, Stiles was digging through the dumpsters of the school canteen, trying to find his camshaft or valve cover or whatever, because Derek fucking Hale had completely and thoroughly disassembled his fucking engine and hidden the parts all over town. And the only leads he had were little notes attached to his recent find, leading him to the next, like some freaking scavenger hunt.
Stiles was not amused.
And Derek was evil, trailing behind, jiggling his car keys, looking for all the world like the unapproachable and grumpy douche he wasn’t, even though he was cracking up on the inside. Stiles knew from the glint in his eyes, the way his shoulders were relaxed, and his lips quivered like he was forcing his smirk down.
Asshole.
“The AMC 6-cylinder 4.2 L engine of the CJ-5 jeep has about fifty parts,” Derek suddenly spoke up from behind Stiles, closer than the last time, when he had turned around to glare at the werewolf with all the fake hatred he could accumulate. “If you want to be done by the end of the weekend, you’d better hurry.”
Stiles, normally not shy of words, refused to acknowledge the blatant show-off.
Oh, so Derek Hale knew his Jeep better than Stiles did? Like intimate? So what if Stiles hadn’t even known he had an AMC whatever engine in his jeep? It was enough that he knew the engine was a freaking beast and driving faster than sixty rendered almost every conversation impossible. At least until he had found someone to cover it with a hard top, which dampened the outside noise at least a little so he didn’t have to scream What did you say? from the top of his lungs whenever his passengers opened their mouths.
He knew that his driver’s windshield tended to fall off every couple of days and he had to screw it back on repeatedly. He knew the door had been replaced because some jackass had torn it off three days after Stiles had gotten the jeep.
He knew that it had taken him ages to get used to the seat that wasn’t allowing any recline, that his baby preferred him parking in gear, instead of neutral and handbrake, because for whatever reason it tended to stuck and driving with a stuck handbrake, yeah, not gonna happen. He knew that shifting into third gear was always a little rocky and that stalling the engine – for whatever reason - happened during driving instead of, like say, when he started.
So yes, he knew all that even if he didn’t know how to replace a fanbelt with a pantyhose, or even if he could stare at an engine all he wanted and for the life of him not figure out what the hell had happened that it broke down on him, neither could he disassemble his whole fucking engine and least of all reassemble it.
“Stiles,” Derek said, probably picking up on his raging heartbeat while staring at what could be the cylinder head or a connecting rod for all Stiles knew about cars. “Just worry about finding the parts,” he continued, eyebrows drawn close together.
“Why? You gonna put it back together?”
“If you ask nicely.”
Stiles knew he was overreacting, but leaving the school and seeing his car hood open reminded him a little too much of the day Peter had trapped them in the school building and removed his battery. The only reason he didn’t panic was Derek leaning against the car and he had just known it was a prank – thank goddess.
Derek didn’t know the details of that night. He had been kind of preoccupied with not dying and Stiles gave him that. And anyway, this was Derek. He didn’t look down on Stiles’ car even though it was worth less than a tenth of the Camaro. It had saved their lives numerous times. Derek knew and appreciated that. And Stiles knew that Derek knew and yeah, they were officially all in the know.
The worried crease between Derek’s eyes, though, told Stiles that he was about to call the whole thing off.
Stiles didn’t want that.
Stiles really wasn’t that upset.
“No, I won’t,” he replied firmly, stepped on a yogurt pot on his way out of the dumpster, getting white spots all over his jeans. The brunette only stared at the blue sky with a ‘why me expression’ before he finally climbed out, extracted the clue before pushing the see-through bag at Derek’s chest, spirits lifting when some leftovers of today's set meal ended up on the leather jacket. “But you will show me how to do it.”
“Sure,” Derek answered easily.
Stiles squinted his eyes at him, before he looked at the note.
Then groaned.
“And bring me to the gym.”
Derek raised both eyebrows at him. Stiles ignored it and just climbed into the Camaro. Derek hadn’t said he would bring him to the locations, but it would take him ages, if the brunette had to walk all over town to find approximately 50 parts of his engine – and he doubted Derek had really stolen all of them, because such an engine could easily weight 500 pounds, at least he assumed. And not even a werewolf could lift something like that out of the car. He probably had only removed important part.
Anyway, if Stiles was expected to run across the town for this, he wasn’t going to do it by foot. And it wasn’t like Derek hadn’t been offering, in his own way. Meaning hovering around, glaring at him.
After a moment, Derek simply shrugged and threw the bag into the trunk of his Camaro.
Stiles hid his smile, the second Derek got into the car and started the engine.
As soon as they arrived at the local Gold’s Gym, Stiles really didn’t have to search for the hiding place. He could exactly pin point it by a certain strawberry red-haired goddess, leaning against the entrance to the women’s changing room.
“Seriously?” Stiles asked, mouth opening and closing, before he turned around, pointing an accusing finger in Derek’s direction. “How did you even—you know what? I don’t wanna know. But you,” he turned around, pointing at Lydia now. “What are you doing here?”
Lydia was typing away on her phone, not even looking up.
“Lydia,” Derek repeated, and that’s great. At least Derek was as surprised about her presence than Stiles was. At the older man's word, Lydia raised her eyes, faux surprise written all over her face.
“Oh, why, hello Stiles,” she greeted with a smile. “You need anything?”
“I see,” Derek said, and Stiles knew he must have smelled or heard something. Right now, he couldn't be bothered with it, because he had to find out how to get this car piece out of the changing room.
“Lydia, love of my life,” he started with more enthusiasm than was probably legal, throwing one arm over her shoulder. “My helping angel,” he continued and Lydia scrunched her nose like she had smelled something nasty. Probably his ulterior motive. “Would you pick something up from somewhere in there for me?”
Lydia smiled slowly, confident and charming, as she returned his half hug. “No,” she answered sweetly, squeezing the hand on his hip once before letting go.
“I so hate you all,” he singsonged with a big fake grin and dropped his arm, glaring at Derek.
This was the women’s locker room.
Maybe he should dress like a girl? With a wig. Curly blond hair would totally suit him. Probably. He couldn’t pull off a minidress, and his shoulders were a little to—oh God dammit. He would just walk in there. How bad could it be?
If he was lucky it was empty, he told himself. How many people went to the gym on a Friday afternoon? And then he chuckled to himself, when he was struck by the sudden realization, that Derek had to have gone in there to hide whatever it was this time. And now he pictured Derek in a black-haired wig, all stubble and thick eyebrows and growly expression, while wearing a sunny yellow summer dress.
Stiles’ face must be red from trying to stifle his laughter. Though he still continued to entertain that thought until his spirits were lifted somewhat, and then he threw the door open with the determination of a Bieber fan. Luckily, the only girl in the room was Erica.
And, what, Erica?
And, maybe not, he corrected when he noticed the steam from the showers.
“I’ll come back later,” he mumbled and took a few steps back, then another, before throwing the door shut again, spinning around on his feet.
“I can’t do this Derek!” Stiles cried, earnestly. “Why here?”
Derek just shrugged. “I like to see you flustered.”
Stiles mouth dropped open, then he closed it again before something stupid like ‘there are other ways’, ‘sexy ways’, ‘like including you and me in your shower sexy ways’ could tumble out.
“We all do,” Lydia agreed, snapping a picture of his face. A few seconds later his mobile vibrated in his pants and he knew the girl had probably sent it around in a group message. Stiles didn’t even dare to check how stupid he must look on that photo.
Luckily, the entrance to the men and women changing room were next to each other. Secondly, they were a little out of sight, hidden from the reception counter by a separation wall. Which was probably the only reason no one really bothered them while Stiles was running up and down in front of the changing rooms, with Lydia watching him and Derek frowning at the door, probably at Erica who may or may not keeps saying stuff to him.
A couple of minutes later, Scott and Isaac came dashing around the corner and Stiles knew they had been lured in by whatever Lydia had written in the group message. “What’s this about Stiles and a women’s changing room?” Scott asked, incredulous, glaring at Derek.
Derek blinked like the picture of perfect innocence. Before anyone could reply, the door was thrown open and Stiles was yanked into the room by his arm. “Get in here, you sissy!”
“Erica!” he cried out, then heard a shriek from one of the lockers and when he turned around—oh god, most stupid idea of ever—there were real boobs right there! In front of time! Reachable! The woman covered herself up with a towel, glaring at Erica instead of Stiles, which, hey, awesome! He had a scapegoat!
The blond dropped his arm, pushed him forward on his shoulder. “It’s somewhere here. Go find it, before I grow old!”
“What’s he doing in here?” the woman hissed. Stiles covered his eyes with one hand, holding the other in front of him before he could run into a wall, while keeping his eyes cast down. He decided he could yell at Erica later. After Derek had dealt with her. Because the pack wasn’t supposed to meddle.
Eventually, he unintentionally squeezed one woman’s boob, got slapped twice, was hit on once – which was a creepy first, considering it was a fifty year old lady with more muscle than he would ever dream of having – stumbled and crashed over benches more often than he liked to count before he finally found the engine part at the very back of the locker room, right next to the showers.
God fucking Derek freaking Hale.
The second he had the bag with the next clue he dashed out of the locker room, mumbling apologies at everyone he not-saw because he had his eyes determinedly on the floor, before he threw himself against the door to finally get out of there. Back in the hall he tried to catch his breath. When he looked up at the tell-tale silence he saw his friends hunched over Lydia’s phone. Scott was visibly shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Oh my God, Erica did not—”
“—record everything with her camera and live streamed the videos? No, of course not,” Lydia interrupted him, not even looking up from whatever she was still watching.
Eyes wide, Stiles snatched Derek’s arm and dragged him down the hall and out of the gym.
“I didn’t—” Derek started, but Stiles just tugged once at his arm to shut him up. He knew he had nothing to do with that.
“I hate you so much right now,” Stiles exclaimed, not meaning it at all. Derek made a sound that almost sounded like a chuckle, but they were in public and Derek didn’t do happy in public.
“Whereto next?” he asked instead, proforma, because he absolutely knew.
Stiles crossed his arms in front of his chest when he threw himself into the passenger seats.
“The sewers,” he replied, when Derek started the wonderfully working and not disassembled engine of his perfectly fine Camaro. Stiles kicked against the dashboard for good measure. A second later he felt sorry for the car and rubbed the dirty footprint off. “Entrance close to the cinema. I think,” he added.
Because he wasn’t sure and Derek wasn’t going to tell him if he was right, but he was still kinda driving him all over town.
Thankfully Derek did not completely tear the engine apart. He had taken out ten parts. And hidden them in the strangest places he could have come up with. The sewers weren’t even the worst. They were awful, because: smelly, and dirty, and cold and wet and he really didn't know how Derek could stand the smell, looking completely unperturbed. Stiles thought his nose must have fallen off. Though of course Derek didn't really enter the sewers. Stiles wrestled with the sewer lid for about ten minutes and eventually gave up, because there was no way in hell he could open that.
Derek took pity, snorted at him, before lifting the cover.
With one finger.
Fucking asshole.
Stiles climbed into the sewers, and called Derek every name under the sun, keeping his limbs close to his body, rendering himself unable to touch anything. Because gross, really.
He found the whatever part in a bag stuffed in an outflow pipe. He took the next clue, letting his eyes wander over it.
The clues were kind of riddle-y. Not like real riddles, more like a word or two to point him somewhere.
Fun center however was ridiculously specific.
When they entered the closed building through a window, standing in the huge hall, Stiles let his eyes wander over the gazillion play options and he kind of knew why.
“Derek,” he started, the person in question standing beside him, hands pushed into his pockets. “You didn't, did you?”
“I don't know,” Derek replied, while Stiles continued to stare at the ball pit in horror.
And anticipation.
And excitement.
“You are so coming with me,” Stiles decided, tugging on Derek's elbow because holy fuck. Ball pit! Derek had to have been in there to hide the something to begin with and Stiles seriously wanted pictures. It wasn't even funny how much he wanted them. It made breaking into the fun center unbelievably worth it. The werewolf followed him, compliantly. Stiles didn't care that the ball pit was usually for little children, he was so going to enjoy this! Before he dove in, he pushed Derek in the direction but the spoilsport resisted.
“Come on Derek! Get in there!”
Derek heaved a heavy sigh. Stiles shoved again and, to his surprise, Derek budged and half fell, half lazy jumped into the ball pit, hands stubbornly kept in his pockets. It seriously looked like Stiles had just pushed a grumpy looking statue in. He shrugged, and jumped in after Derek with a squeal, body curled together like he was doing a cannon bomb.
He didn't even look for the whatever engine part for the first ten minutes. Instead he was throwing balls at Derek, diving under them, pretending to be a shark and Derek laughed.
Stiles had to stop for a second at the vibrating sound, quiet and subdued with a little snort at the end, but unmistakably the Derek equivalent of a laugh. It was the most adorable sound Stiles had ever heard. He wanted to kiss him, or hug him, or pin him to the ground or sprout poetry or do all of the above. He settled for maniac cackles as he pushed several balls down Derek's shirt—and then literally stumbled over something hard in his attempt to run away from the revenge.
He made a moue of disappointment, when he dove down and retrieved the bag, then turned to Derek, showing it to him.
Derek just cocked his head to the side, a sly smirk on his lips, before he took the bag out of Stiles’ hand, carefully placing it outside of the ball pit. Stiles was about to climb out, when a hand wrapped around his ankle, pulling him back in, shoving him down and then it was on.
Stiles was literally over the moon at seeing Derek behave like a six year old. It was mind-boggling, a teeny-weeny bit scary, and a damn lot contagious. Stiles wasn’t sure if anyone had ever seen Derek this way before and the fact that he was showing this side to Stiles, so open now and not in the form of childish pranks, was gut wrenching in a totally good way.
They spent another twenty minutes or so in the ball pit and Stiles was going to have many, many bruises but he was high on dopamine and therefore didn't give a fuck.
He sobered up almost immediately, though, when his next clue lead him to the police station.
The hiding places apparently weren't about a certain gross factor. It was simply about being completely uncomfortable for having to get in there and explain. Like the police station. Under the ever scrutinizing look on his dad's face. His father was smart, he was the freaking Sheriff so he was supposed to be smart. He must have figured out what was going on between Derek and Stiles, though Derek was careful never to include the Sheriff, or get him accidentally involved.
There had been that glitter incident that kind of wasn't really Derek's fault, because Stiles had decided that in order to get rid of the fucking pesky glitter he would just use his washing machine. End of story, when his father threw his uniform in there to wash it, he had glitter all over the fabric and the guys from the police station made fun of him for a day. Until his dad went to the washing saloon around the corner and made Stiles pay.
Stiles really didn't know how Derek had found out about that, but he had paid half of the bill by leaving the money on Stiles’ desk.
Stiles was still keeping it separate in his wallet, trying to work his nerves up to ask Derek out with it. For curly fries. Or ice. Or milkshakes.
“Why didn't you sneak in like you usually do?” his dad asked, lifting his eyebrows and damn, of course he knew.
“Uhm, just wanted to pick it up?”
“Where is it?”
“Evidence room?” Stiles guessed because he seriously didn't know. “Unless, of course, you happen to have stumbled over a plastic bag with a car engine part in it. Like in one of your holding cells? Or the women’s toilet?”
His dad's eyebrows, if possible, shot even higher and Stiles opened his mouth to explain, when he held his hand up to silence him. “Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.”
It was in the evidence room and his dad was polite enough not to question how it had gotten in there in the first place, though he kept muttering under his breath about tightening security and maybe making it werewolf-proof. Stiles suggested mountain ash in a tiny voice, before he grabbed the bag and dashed out of there.
On the other hand, some places were almost impossible to reach and just plain annoying. Like the bag hanging from a tree in the park. Stiles had to climb it and noted with gritted teeth that Derek was nice enough to pick one with reachable branches he could use as some form of ladder. It was still tiring. It was hot outside, he was sweating, it was getting dark and hard to see and he wanted to be back in the ball pit with Derek and his stupidly perfect playful tiny almost inaudible laugh and glowing face and the twinkling eyes, hands all over Stiles’, albeit clothed, body when he pushed him between the balls.
Stiles glanced at Derek, sun glasses slightly crooked over his nose, eyes determined on the street, one hand on the steering wheel while the other tapped out a rhythm on the gear stick. When he noticed him watching, Derek simply smiled, eyes never leaving the road though.
Stiles turned his eyes away, looking out of the window.
But this was good, too.
Another part was hidden on the playground. Underneath a merry-go-around. He wasn’t sure why Derek had chosen that place. It wasn’t difficult to find, the park was scarcely lit by street lamps but Stiles could still see well enough.
He climbed on the monkey bars, bounced on the spring rider and on the dome jungle gym while retelling stories of his childhood. How he had met Scott in a sandbox by peeing on his sand castle. How his mom and Melissa met that very day and hit it off immediately and that Scott and Stiles didn’t even like each other until they realized they were kind of stuck with each other because of their mothers.
Derek listened, once or twice starting to add something, but closing up before he did. Stiles didn’t prod. Never would. They stayed on the merry-go-around long after Stiles had found the part, looking up at the dark sky, barely there stars staring back at them.
If Stiles didn’t know better, he would think this was kind of a date.
The last part was hidden in the church.
Stiles wasn't sure if it was a bad joke, but he would have taken grave yard over church any day because surprisingly, the empty building with the high walls, the creepy dead Jesuses hanging around and the colorful glasses made it the most creepy place he had ever been to. Derek had decided to wait outside and Stiles didn't really mind, because it was the church, a place for holy everything. But either he was completely ruined by the media or simply paranoid, because he flinched at every noise. Stiles was just waiting for the organ to start playing on its own.
He out there faster than humanly possible.
In the end, they had eleven parts from ten hiding places and Derek did help him rebuild the engine. They were standing in companionable silence on the school parking lot, street light bright enough for Derek to see what he was doing, while Stiles hovered over him, trying not to screw anything up with his two left hands, by simply not touching anything. Besides Derek's shoulders as he leaned over him to see better, probably blocking out the light, but Derek didn't complain. He was sort of surprised how well Derek's fingers worked, like he had done this a million times and Stiles wanted to know if it had to do with the Camaro or if he had worked as a mechanic in New York or if it was a natural talent.
He asked neither, instead leaned back to back against Derek’s broad shoulders, listening to him work, while planing his revenge.
Which came in the form of bunny teeth and ears.
Derek was so in for the shock of his life.
Even though he probably had to thank him for the suddenly surprisingly silent engine and the fact, that his windshield hadn’t dropped off once ever since Derek had laid hands on the jeep.
“Stiles, it’s ass o’clock in the morning! Why are you dragging me to Derek’s apartment?”
“Because you have to see this!” Stiles pointed out, squealing once in excitement. He even had stolen Allison’s camera because he had to, compulsively needed to take pictures and film it and he would have to get Derek to shift because holy fuck, Derek in werewolf form with rabbit ears and teeth.
He, yeah, he needed that like he needed air.
Which he realized when he stopped breathing in anticipation, so he took a deep breath in.
Scott was trotting beside him when they went up the stairs to the building, remained silent but for about three yawns he exaggerated to show that it was eight in morning. Which totally was an appropriate time to be awake. Derek usually came back from his morning runs at around eight, though Stiles had a suspicion he had skipped that one today.
When the elevator eventually reached the top apartment, Stiles was squirming in his skin, checking the batteries of the camera for the fifth time.
“Derek?” Stiles called out, when he opened the gate with his key, barely containing the glee in his voice. “Are you in?”
Silence greeted them. Stiles assumed Derek was just ignoring him, but Scott sniffed the air.
Then looked somewhat worried.
“What?” Stiles asked.
Scott just shook his head and they walked down the three steps into the living room. The first thing Stiles noticed was Derek’s jogging clothes, spread on the floor. Then, a few feet away, a small fluffy something, that—“Oh my God!” Stiles let out, dashing towards the little ball of fur, almost tripping over his own feet until he really stumbled and plumbed down hands first to the ground. When he opened his eyes, he came face to face with the most adorable, most intimidating, most judgmental looking rabbit he had ever seen. And he was on tumblr. Maybe he was just prejudiced, because forget grumpy the cat, holy mother of fuck, this was grouchy the rabbit and it was… hilariously awesome.
“Stiles, what did you do?” Scott groaned from his side.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Stiles whined back, voice cracking over excitement, delight and adoration. “Oh my God! He looks like the jack rabbit manip I’ve seen once!”
“Stiles!”
Stiles picked himself and Derek up from the floor, lifted the animal further up, Derek’s paw touching his nose and he literally melted. “Look at these tiny ears! And he’s all black! And that disapproving look. Oh God, Derek, can you hear me?”
Scott sniffed at the animal once. “It smells strange.”
“Does it smell like Derek?”
“Yes?”
“Then it’s probably the magic,” Stiles explained, still not over how cute Derek looked. “This is the best prank, ever. I mean, it wasn’t supposed to happen but it’s Awesome. Capital A!”
“We should go see Deaton,” Scott advised, because Scott was a killjoy.
“What? Why? It’s just for one day,” Stiles argued, nuzzling his nose against Derek’s, caressing the weeny paws with his thumb.
“Yeah, but Stiles, you said it wasn’t supposed to do that. What exactly should have happened, anyway?”
“Buck teeth, and bunny ears,” Stiles explained, ears burning.
Scott leveled him with a disapproving scowl. Like he couldn’t believe Stiles. “He already has buck teeth.”
Stiles just rolled his eyes at him, before he returned his attention back to the glaring rabbit, twitching his nose in the most adorably grumpy fashion ever. “I want to keep him!”
“Is your father allergic to rabbit and dog hair?”
Stiles just laughed. “Hey, buddy, can you hear me?” He tried again, but it wasn’t like he was expecting Derek to talk or do anything, really. There was some tiny snuffing noise that almost made Stiles purr in adoration—he was going to abuse that word for the rest of the day, he just knew it—but besides the incredible disapproving death glare he received, Derek refrained from further communication.
Same as always, then.
“Stiles, I really think we should go to Deaton,” Scott tried again, but Stiles just waved him off.
“It’s fine, I’m sure.”
“You wanted buck teeth and bunny ears! What you got was—”
“Buck teeth and bunny ears,” Stiles said, petting the petite ears between thumb and index finger, trying to keep a straight face. Stiles was going to die of the cuteness. It was glorious. “Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my spell?”
Scott sighed in exasperation. “You take care of him,” he finally decided, pointing at his best friend. Like Stiles was ever going to give Derek up without a fight. Derek was snuffing his neck!
He still nodded in affirmation, because it looked like Scott needed one before he stormed off.
Stiles set Derek down and let him scamper through the apartment, while he collected the discarded clothes and folded them on a pile on the couch. He took the smartphone out of Derek's pocket and placed it on the table, before he sat down on the couch watching the rabbit sit in the middle of the room, fore legs stretched, eyes wide and ears up. Ten minutes later and Stiles grew a little restless watching Derek The Rabbit. It was a bit unnerving and insulting how Derek looked like he was constantly on alert. Even though Stiles was there. Derek should know Stiles was going to take care of him as long as he was stuck in that body. Instead the asshole looked like he was carefully gauging Stiles' every movement, ready to bolt any minute. As payback, Stiles started a photo session with Derek and sent the pictures to his friends.
An hour later, when Stiles finally realized that Derek must be starving, he prepared a salad of carrot, broccoli, celery and spinach, while the pack strolled in one after the other.
Stiles tried to ignore how everyone was suddenly all over Derek, Allison cuddling him to her chest until someone—okay, he—pointed out that there was still a semi-human male under all that fur. She blushed furiously and handed the bunny to Lydia.
“I want to skin you and take your fur for a scarf,” she cooed at Derek.
“Look! Look at that!” Erica crowed. “That growl! That's definitely Derek in there.” Stiles walked around them, a dopey smile on his lips when he saw the brow going down, staring at them unimpressed. He took Derek out of Lydia’s hand and sat him down on the couch table, pushing the bowl in front of him.
Lydia took her phone out, pointing it at Derek, posting it to the group, writing Derek eating.
It only took minutes for Jackson to reply. Stilinski’s doing I assume
It was disappointing how Jackson wasn’t even surprised about anything anymore. After Lydia had swallowed her pride and contacted him after what had been going on with the Alpha Pack and the Nemeton, she filled him in in what he had missed, and kept him periodically updated. It was the only reason the chat group was even established.
Apparently, as soon as Jackson was legal he was planning on returning to the US without his parents. Everyone told him to stay the fuck away, because hell mouth wasn’t even a passable description anymore. Jackson hadn’t said it in so many words, but he was probably going wherever Lydia was planning on studying and they were kind of going steady, the long-distance relationship doable for another few months.
Stiles watched Lydia’s glowing face as she replied.
They were kind of perfect for each other.
The novelty of Derek turned bunny soon lost it’s appeal to the pack when they realized he wasn’t doing much. And watching Derek albeit as a little ball of fur, was still as exciting as watching Derek reading a book on his couch.
Meaning utterly boring to everyone except Stiles.
Because if there was something Stiles could do for hours on end it was watching Derek; when he was working out, when he was sleeping, when he was cooking or when he was reading a book, turning pages. Stiles would always carefully study his face and it was borderline creepy and he wasn't even sure if Derek knew because he was usually so engrossed in reading, he could completely tune out everything around him. It was Stiles guilty pleasure, but he didn't care because with every day he watched Derek, his face became more and more expressive. Stiles started to notice the lift of his eyebrows when something in the book surprised him, the tiny scowl when something bad happened, the upward tilt of his lips and Stiles would just knew there was something good in the story.
Stiles was, yeah, probably obsessed.
After another photo shoot session with Derek in ridiculous positions, the whole pack kissed the rabbit on the nose good bye, while Isaac, wolfed out, pretended to eat Derek’s paw, and then they finally left them alone again. Back on the couch, with Derek racing around at high speed, jumping up on the armchair, leaping in the air while twisting and kicking feet, Stiles skipped through the photos he had made.
Allison lifting Derek up to his pull-up bar, paws on the metal like he was doing his work out. Derek dressed in over-sized Henleys. Derek stuck in one of his socks. Scott high-fiving the paw with a wide grin. Lydia draping Derek around her neck. Stiles imitating the Pride Rock Scene from Lion King. A video of Boyd taking one step back, when Derek hoppled closer. A video of Isaac stopping Erica from putting lipstick on Derek—and really, Derek had black fur, it wasn’t like they would have seen it, but the blond probably only wanted to scare Derek.
When he couldn’t take the cuteness anymore, Stiles decided it was time for pizza.
Which was the first time he did start to worry. A little. Maybe. Derek said ‘no’ to a lot of things, but not to pizza. You simply didn’t say ‘no’ to pizza. It was like some unwritten law and the fact that Derek just ignored his slice almost sent Stiles into a fit of panic.
For a few seconds.
Until he realized that Derek was probably only incapable of stomaching that stuff. Stiles wasn’t sure, but he did turn Derek into a rabbit and probably rabbit Derek was smarter than human Stiles by realizing it could upset something in his digestive system.
Stiles petted Derek on the head, cooing at him for being such a smart little boy with a sickeningly cutesy voice.
The glare Derek gave him made Stiles squee once and rub his cheek all over the soft fur.
It wasn’t very manly, but who cared?
Stiles certainly didn’t.
The day went by rather uneventfully after the pack had left, though. Stiles watched Derek watching TV shows while sitting on the couch right next to him, washing his face with his front feet, pulling the still tiny ears down to lick them.
Stiles was going to have a severe case of diabetes after this day.
It was totally worth it though.
Until he noticed the lack of human behavior in Derek’s, well, behavior. Little things.That almost made him die of second-hand embarrassment. Then he forcefully lectured himself that he was not going to judge Derek for anything he did while in rabbit form. No, he wouldn’t.
Instead of heading to the bathroom, where cleaning was actually simple, because tiles, Derek chose a corner behind the couch to urinate. For a few minutes Stiles entertained the thought of just leaving it like that for Derek to clean since it was… well… his stuff. But he dutifully wiped it off anyway. Another time he watched in utter disbelief and mortification, as Derek ate his droppings. On another occasion Derek looked up at him, head on the ground and there wasn't much Stiles knew about rabbits but he was certain that was a sign for affection. Or more like, for getting affection.
He googled it.
It was.
Stiles practically showered Derek with love after that. He even learned, that when Derek wanted to get petted he would nudge Stiles’ hand. Stiles didn’t realize what was going on until Derek had turned to nibbling softly.
Most of the time, though, Derek sat like a ball, legs tucked under his body, ears at rest, changing his position into lying on his tummy sometimes, legs apart then. Whenever there was a noise, he would stand on his hint legs, looking around, flapping his ears.
Sometime he was doing bunny flops.
It was adorable.
Stiles took several pictures and three videos.
He could just imagine Derek’s embarrassed face when Stiles was going to show him. Maybe in a slide show. Maybe he could rent a beamer from somewhere and but it on a wide screen. Maybe he could rent a whole cinema!
He kept feeding salad to Derek, preparing a dish of water. The first time Derek put his front feet on the edge of the dish he tipped it over the floor and himself. Stiles laughed for nearly ten minutes straight and took a picture before he started to dry him. After that he looked for something that could withstand the weight of the rabbit. The funny thing was, that even while Derek did the cutest, most adorable things ever, he did it with that judgmental, disapproving scowl, eyes narrowed, looking at Stiles like he wanted to bite his head off, with tiny buck teeth and sharp claws.
And sharp they were.
He had been introduced to them, when Peter dropped by and Derek thumbed his leg down hard on the floor and dashed under the couch. It took Stiles ages to get him back from under there, and when he finally had, Derek was biting and scratching on his arm until Stiles had eventually sent Peter away.
Peter had looked somewhat disappointed.
But Stiles knew that Derek hardly wanted his uncle around when he was in his real body. Peter always looked like he was planning something, but all in all they knew he was working on some form of amendment. Which was kind of impossible, unless he brought Laura back to life.
At the end of the day, when Derek still hadn’t turned back, Stiles sent his dad a message, telling him, that he was sleeping over at Derek’s. Then he fed Ernie and Bert and went to bed with the rabbit, a little scared that he would crush him under his weight. But Derek was a freaking werewolfrabbit. If at all, Stiles had to be afraid of not getting maimed in his sleep when he finally transformed back.
Stiles didn’t crush Derek.
And Derek didn’t turn back.
Stiles went to Deaton.
Deaton looked at the rabbit, then at Stiles’ worried expression and beckoned them in.
“You are telling me you turned Derek into a rabbit?” Deaton asked slowly.
“Yeah,” Stiles answered, waving his hand at the bunny, ears straight and curious as he stood on his hint legs, head whipping around.
Stiles explained the spell he had used, all the while refraining from looking at Deaton who would just judge him without looking like he judged him. And anyway, Stiles had given himself Deaton’s presumably less verbal diatribe on his way to the clinic. “I didn’t teach you magic for something like this, Stiles,” he had berated himself in his best Deaton impression. “I’m disappointed, Stiles. Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your rabbit!”
Of course, Deaton said neither of those things.
“I have to perform some tests first,” the vet explained instead. Stiles nodded in understanding. Deaton did some probing, got some blood samples, threw some dust on Derek. Derek sneezed. Stiles took a video of Derek sneezing for about a minute and sent it to the whole pack, even Peter and Cora, the latter calling back immediately, gushing into the speaker and demanding to being put close to Derek, so she could talk to him.
Stiles tried not to listen to her monologue, because obviously Derek couldn't answer, but the squealing was pretty hard not to overhear. Deaton frowned at him and the phone, but Stiles didn’t remove it. Maybe because he hoped hearing his sisters’ voice was kind of pushing some buttons to turn Derek back into a human.
It didn’t.
Deaton sent them home.
Stiles slunk back to his own house and decided to confront his dad with the situation rather sooner than later. When Stiles held the bunny up in his arms, about to explain, his dad just sat down on the couch, shaking his head.
“Really don't want to know,” he remarked, and both watched a football game in companionable silence, with Derek hopping through the room, sniffing, checking out the area and choosing the corner leading to the back door as his litter box.
“You're going to have to train him,” his dad said, turning away from where the bunny was leaving a smelly stain in the wood.
“Derek will love that,” Stiles replied solemnly.
His dad just nodded, stopped, looked at him, then back to the rabbit, before returning to stare at the TV. “Explains the resemblance. I thought you bought him as some form of Derek substitute for your affections you are probably never going to act on.”
“Nope, it’s Derek. The none-existent eyebrows but still impressively frowning expression kinda gives it away.”
“It does,” his father replied simply and that was that.
The pack grew a little worried about Derek’s lack of transformation, but they still cooed over the pictures and videos Stiles sent. It was probably a tie. Erica hoped that when the spell was broken, Derek would change into a rabbit instead of a wolf and Lydia promised she would look into it to make it possible.
Stiles brought Derek back to the loft for the night, in case he changed back and needed his clothes. And anyway, Derek had peed on the sheets during the night and Stiles really didn’t want to have that happen to his own bed.
“I’m really, really sorry, Derek,” Stiles said, lying on his back and lifting the bunny up with his arms. “If there’s no way to change you back, I’ll take care of you. I let you live with me and my dad, feed you, pet you as much as you want, train you to use the litter box, buy you the most expensive toys. I can take you running through the woods on full moon, if you want that. We could exercise together, I looked it up. It won't be so bad, I promise.”
Derek just twitched his nose, glaring at him.
Stiles hugged him to his chest.
“Don’t worry. We're going to find a way to turn you back,” Stiles assured him. “No matter what it takes.”
The next day, Derek was still a bunny.
Stiles wasn’t even happy about this prank anymore.
When Stiles admitted to maybe having screwed this up to Scott via mail, Scott texted back, Don’t cry, or I’ll make rabbit stew and feed it to you!
Stiles, in all his years of knowing his best friend, had never been this scared of him. It was probably because Scott had been telling them, repeatedly, that this prank war was not a good idea, and that someone would end up crying.
About now it felt like Stiles was the one.
It wasn’t until lunch time, when he finally received a call from Deaton that he started to breathe easier. “I think I know what the problem is,” the vet said, “but you have to bring him here. I have to do one more test.”
Stiles almost dropped his phone in order to get out of the apartment, before remembering Derek and dashing back in to pick him up. Later, he would probably have to face his father’s inquisition regarding his speed limit transgressions on the way to the animal clinic.
But right now?
He couldn’t care less.
* * *
When Derek woke up and felt something strange in his mouth, he left the bed and looked at himself in the mirror. There were long, fluffy bunny ears sticking out of ruffled hair and elongated incisor teeth poking against his lower lip.
Derek blinked at his reflection, then calmly put on a beanie—a remainder of Stiles and their last B&E into whatever warehouse—to hide the ears, covered the teeth with a scarf—Isaac’s—and left the house in order to find a pet shop already open at six in the morning.
He didn't, of course.
Instead he found a rabbit farm just outside of Beacon Hills. He rattled the owner out of his bed and offered him triple the price of a normal rabbit. The owner forgave him in face of his generosity and threatening glare and brought him to the stables, assuring him that all his rabbits where tame and used to humans, because his children were allowed to play with them.
Derek told the man he wanted the meanest looking, black rabbit he had.
When presented, it was so perfect Derek paid without looking for anything else, drove back to his apartment, dropped clothes on the ground and put the rabbit among them after cuddling the hell out of it to get his scent all over its body.
Shortly after half past seven he left the apartment with a little cash in his jeans and nothing else and, spontaneously, went camping.
Derek really enjoyed the quietness on the edge of the preserve, spending the day in his barely-there wolf form, away from prying eyes. He knew Laura and his mother had been able to turn into real wolves. It wasn't limited to Alphas of the Hale pack, it was simply easier for them to achieve. Derek had the same blood, had once been an Alpha himself, however never actually tried it out before. Now he had the time and solitude to practice. Late afternoon, when he returned to his make-shift camp, he could smell Scott all over it. But there was only a note attached to his clothes, anchored by his phone.
I’m the only one who knows. If he panics, you take care of him
The reception in the preserve was lousy. However he did notice the pack was sending quite a lot of pictures and videos Derek couldn’t download because the connection wasn’t stable enough. As soon as he was back in town, he would probably get them, so he didn’t worry about it. However he received at least the messages, whenever they came through.
Every three hours or so.
In the end Derek muted his phone, only left Stiles’ number on sound and went back to his well-deserved holiday.
With buck teeth.
And bunny ears.
They even stayed when he shifted.
It looked ridiculous.
Thankfully, they were gone after the first day, but Derek decided to stay away longer. The messages didn’t stop coming in, but when he read that Stiles was taking Rabbit Derek to Deaton he knew Stiles had figured out something was off. Considering the amount of heart and kiss face emoticons behind everything Stiles wrote in relation to Derek, he figured Stiles’ wasn’t worried enough yet.
Eventually, he packed himself up, when Erica inquired about how Rabbit Derek was doing and Stiles answered with a simple ‘badly’.
The first thing he noticed when he arrived at his loft was Stiles’ jeep but lack of Stiles’ presence. Derek knew that if he needed to, he could have picked the teens heartbeat out from a million people and pin-point his location. But there was nothing. Derek tried to listen harder, even as he approached the elevator and all the way up.
When he pushed the metal door back he didn’t expect to find Stiles, not really, but there he was, frantic, red spots spread over his clothes, part of his face, the couch, on the ground and there was something on the ceiling, Derek probably didn’t want to know. Stiles was running up and down the apartment, arms flailing.
“Don’t worry, Derek,” he uttered, panicked, though it sounded more like he was talking to himself. “We can heal that. I’m sure I can heal it.” For a minute Derek had thought Stiles was talking to him, but he didn’t seem to notice Derek standing at the entrance, occupied with scrapping whatever that was on his couch table into a bowl. “This is just a scratch… a flesh wound, we can do this. You have survived worse.” His voice hitched, and Derek noticed belatedly that Stiles was right in front of him, but he couldn’t smell him, not like he usually could, neither could he listen to his heart beat.
“Stiles?”
The boy stopped in his rant, body freezing in an awkward position. And then he slowly turned his head around, eyes widening, relief and surprise and anger and desperation and disbelief written all over his face. And it was disturbing how Derek couldn’t pick up anything from him.
“Derek?” Stiles screeched, “What? But—Why?”
Derek took a hesitant step into his own apartment. “What happened?”
Stiles’ face fell, then lightened, then dropped again, until he approached Derek and pulled him in a tight embrace. “Oh my God, Deaton said it wasn’t reversible. But I tried anyway and then you exploded and I thought I had killed you, but why are you, what are, how, I mean—”
Derek pushed Stiles away on his shoulders. “You did what?” he asked, far too calm even to his own ears, until it hit him. “Wait, the rabbit did what?” Stiles’ eyes darted around and his fingers twitched and so did his eyebrows and he looked only short from a heart attack.
“Oh my God, are you a ghost? Are you coming to get revenge? I didn’t mean to kill you, I really—”
“Stiles, shut up. That wasn’t me,” Derek growled, finally putting two and two together. The fleshy things on his wall were rabbit innards. The red stains on Stiles were rabbit blood. Stiles had just killed a rabbit, trying to unspell Derek.
Derek dropped his hands from Stiles’ shoulders, entering further into the room to look at the … stuff… on his walls, on the ceiling, on the furniture and on the glass ceiling.
“Stiles. Just. What?”
“I didn’t mean to!” Stiles whimpered.
Derek blinked, before he turned on his heels and dropped down on the couch. Stiles remained in the middle of the room, looking unsure. Derek just needed to process. For a while.
He had rabbit on his walls.
“If that,” Stiles started slowly, swallowing hard, his Adams apple bobbling in his throat, “wasn’t you… what exploded?”
Derek slapped his hand over his face. “A rabbit from the rabbit farm out of town.”
Stiles was silent for a moment, looking at Derek, shoulders easing for a brief second, before tensing again, mouth dropping open.
“I killed a rabbit!” Stiles realized, snapping his mouth shut. “I killed. A rabbit,” he repeated, hands running through his short hair. “Oh. My. God. I just killed an innocent, cute little bunny!” Now his voice was picking up in volume and dropping in range.
“Stiles—”
“I’m the worst,” Stiles continued, walking up and down, tearing on his hair now and Derek got up from the couch.
“Stiles you didn’t.” Because if anyone, Derek should have foreseen that Stiles would go to all lengths to return him to his original body and wouldn’t stop at anything. Part of him was glad, that he really wasn’t stuck in that body and therefore he wasn’t decorating the walls of his apartment now, another part felt equally bad for subjecting another animal to this fate.
“What do you mean I didn’t?” Stiles yelled now, and Derek wanted to tell him, that it was just a rabbit but he was pretty sure Stiles would kick him in the face for it.
Then again.
“It was just a rabbit, Stiles,” Derek said, hands up and about to land on his shoulder, but Stiles twisted around, pushing against his chest.
“Fuck you!” Stiles' long fingers fisted into his shirt, pulling him close again. “This was you! For me, that rabbit had been you. It’s not just some fucking stupid useless bunny to me, you asshole.”
Maybe Derek shouldn’t get flattered over the fact that Stiles got all worked up over a rabbit, because he had thought it was him, but, there he was, feeling guilty and at the same time happy.
Conflicting feelings like that should be humanly impossible.
“It’s not, I understand,” Derek tried again, placing his hand on the other’s chest, because Stiles needed to calm the fuck down, because Stiles’ heart… was not beating through his rib-cage in panic?
Derek squinted at the teenager, furrowed his brow, trying to listen.
It took him an embarrassingly long time to pick up a scratching noise from the bathroom. He wasn't even sure how long, but it had been on the back of his mind since he had entered the apartment, but his brain had sort of been on overload. Now, though, he was made aware of it as he tried to get the mental capacity back to actively listen to it. Narrowing his eyes, he let go of Stiles, then marched over to the bath door, opened it.
He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Maybe an enchanted toothbrush or a dancing towel because of whatever the hell Stiles had intended to do with the spell besides letting innocent wood creatures explode.
When he opened the door, he wasn’t expecting the black rabbit he had bought bouncing between his legs and into the living room.
Stiles laughed. Loud and sharp and gleeful.
Derek just stood there for a while, staring at Stiles, before he turned and flopped down on the couch. Stiles plopped down next to him, petting his knee with a satisfied smirk, before he removed a talisman he had around his neck and suddenly Derek could smell the boy, hear his heartbeat, take in every thing that he had thought had been blocked out by whatever magic Stiles had used. And Stiles didn’t smell of panic or fear or distress, his heart wasn’t beating to his throat.
“You totally believed me,” Stiles said with a smug grin.
“I did,” Derek replied, staring at a spot of whatever right over his head.
“I’m an excellent actor!”
“You are,” Derek agreed again, absentmindedly. Because there was stuff on his walls. And stuff in Stiles face that, came to think of it, didn’t smell of copper and iron and human or animal. He could guess, instead he gave in and waved at his ceiling.
Stiles followed his eyes.
“Oh that,” he huffed. “Frozen rabbit. I bought in the store.”
The werewolf repeated the words in his head. He wasn’t even surprised. Was it a bad sign that he wasn’t even fucking surprised about anything anymore?
"When did you find out?"
Stiles shifted a little on the couch. "Deaton did, actually. He told me, straight faced, that asshole, that there was nothing we could do. And then he showed me the… well… nether regions and explained to me in simple words, that I simply couldn't turn you into a sprayed female."
Derek snorted and ignored the flush over Stiles’ neck.
“And then I noticed, that your mobile was gone," Stiles continued to explain, grabbing at the change of subject like a drowning man clutching at every straw. "I knew I had put it on the couch table after sifting through your clothes so I guessed you either came back for it or someone brought it to you. Used GPS and there you were, in the preserve.” He waved at his laptop. “When I noticed you were heading back, I got ready.”
Derek watched the rabbit scuttling through the room, watching them with an impressive amount of decrial.
“I guess that's the end,” Derek finally said, lifting his arm over the back of the couch behind Stiles, who leaned in a little, albeit unintentionally.
“What? Why?”
“Stiles,” Derek stated calmly. “I have frozen rabbit meat staining my wall. Do you really have to ask why?”
Stiles pushed his lower lip forward, before he shrugged. “Guess you’re right. It’s not like either of us can top this.”
“Neither do I want to.”
“Oh, hey! That means I win!”
“What?”
“I pranked you and you used my prank to prank me back and then I used your prank to prank you so this totally makes me the winner!”
Derek had stopped listening by the time the third ‘prank’ had left Stiles’ mouth and only watched his eager expression, happy and gleeful like he used to and Derek had to resist the urge to pull Stiles into a crushing hug, because that was the expression everyone had been waiting for: relaxed, unguarded, happy, content, smug, innocent wide brown eyes.
Derek tore his eyes away.
The rabbit hoppled up to them, sitting down between Stiles’ legs, grunting at him and Stiles bent down to pick it up. When he leaned back again, he threw himself flat against Derek’s side, bodies touching from shoulder to hip.
“Are you going to keep it?” Derek asked, while Stiles absentmindedly pulled on the ears.
“Yeah, I guess. Kinda got attached. And when I told dad it was you he said we could build a hutch in our backyard. Especially since we would have a hard time litter training you. Considering who was at fault for your shape.”
Derek raised his eyebrow in question.
Stiles laughed. “He said you would pee on everything as revenge.”
Derek snorted.
“And then he said I would let you without getting angry because I’d feel guilty and he really didn’t want a house drenched in rabbit piss. So you were backyard doomed, whether you wanted or not.”
The fond expression Stiles was giving the animal on his lap had Derek resisting a smile.
“I guess she needs a name then.”
Stiles turned to him now, with a dazzling smile. “Got one! It’s Derek 2.0.”
“But… it’s… a girl?”
“Still,” Stiles insisted.
Derek rolled his eyes. “And you need a partner for her. You can’t keep it alone.”
“We’re going to buy her one, then, right?”
Derek didn’t comment on the ‘we’, instead just resettled on the couch, while Stiles continued to pet the animal. “We could go back to the rabbit farm, if you want.”
“Yeah, I'd like that,” Stiles replied.
They were silent for several moments, Derek contemplating calling a professional cleaning agency to get rid of the stains, when Stiles piped up.
“You know what?”
Derek hummed in acknowledgment.
“I really would have loved to see you with bunny ears in your wolf form.”
“It was a sight to behold,” Derek agreed.
“Too bad there aren’t any pictures,” Stiles continued, wistfully.
Derek kept quiet.
Stiles turned his head to stare at him. “There aren’t, right?”
In reply, Derek pulled his mobile out of his pocket and handed it to Stiles. The boy’s eyes went wide when he disposed the rabbit on Derek's lap, took the phone instead and opened the camera folder.
“By the way,” Stiles started before he could click through the pictures. “Deaton doesn’t want to teach me magic anymore.”
“Because you misused it for a prank?”
“Nope.” Stiles heaved a deep sigh as if he was steeling himself, ears turning red at the tips and Derek watched him curiously. “When Deaton wanted to check your gender to prove his suspicion, I got kind of very protective over your junk.” Derek just looked at Stiles’ face, flushing a deeper shade of red. “Very,” he added for emphasis. “I may have punched him.”
Derek did smile at the last words, chuckled even, slow and amused and probably disgustingly enamored. Stiles cleared his throat, then finally skipped through the selfies Derek had made in wolf and human form, complete with bunny ears and bunny teeth.
Stiles almost choked on air and then forgot to breathe.
Derek rubbed the thumb of one hand over Stiles’ neck to remind him of the importance of oxygen, while he petted the bunny on his lap with the other.
“Oh my God,” Stiles suddenly blurted out when he reached the end of the album with growing excitement. “I think I wanna marry you!” Derek knew it was supposed to be a joke, but the second those words tumbled out of Stiles’ mouth, his shoulders stiffened and Derek could feel the rising panic bubbling up. To prevent a complete freak-out, he dropped the hand he had around the neck and put it on Stiles’ hip instead, pulling him impossibly closer.
“Yeah. Me too,” he replied, earnestly.
Stiles’ body relaxed and he melted into Derek’s half hug with a tiny smile.
* * *
“And that, kids, is how Papa and Daddy got together,” Stiles told them, arms wide open after finishing his tale.
“Somehow I doubt that,” Scott said from his side, narrowing the eyes at his two friends in disbelieve. “You totally skipped the dating! Who proposes before even dating? And I’m fairly convinced there was more drama involved with you two! There’s always more drama with you! Like Derek freaking out because of the age difference, and you freaking out about not being good enough – which would be totally wrong, just to make this clear. And—”
“First: That’s how it happened,” Stiles insisted. “And that’s how I’ll keep telling it to anyone who wants or doesn’t want to know. Right, Derek?”
“Yep,” Derek replied, turning a page in his book, not looking up.
The rabbits, sitting in front of Scott and Stiles, one black with narrow mean eyes, the other chocolate brown with wide amber eyes, just twitched their noses, before they hoppled of together over the green lawn of the Stilinski backyard.
“Second, as long as he hasn’t put a ring on this,” Stiles wiggled his ring finger at Scott, “I’m not engaged.”
“Oh,” Derek said from his position on the porch swing, putting his book down. “I forgot.”
Scott could hear Stiles’ heartbeat speeding up immediately, eyes going wide as he watched Derek pushing himself up on the swing, hand vanishing into one of his jeans pockets and Scott had to suppress a groan.
God no, Derek’s proposal wasn’t going to be as anti-climatic as the whole god damn story, was it?
Stiles shifted on his legs, leaning forward, eyes hefted on Derek’s hand, almost toppling over, mouth open, breath stuck in his throat and Scott was about to tell him breathe, Stiles, breathe, but he was kind of distracted with trying to catch his own breath, because this was his best friend, and stupid or not, he was about to get engaged and he could taste the excitement.
And then Derek smirked, extracted an empty hand and fell back onto the swing, picking his book up.
Scott and Stiles stared at him in confusion.
“Stiles,” Derek started, “when I propose, I won’t do it in your backyard, dressed like a lumberjack. Just for your information.”
Scott had felt Stiles’ concealed disappointment and scowl vanish at the word ‘when’, making room for a very badly hidden grin, and seriously, Stiles wasn’t even in his twenties, how could he even think about getting engaged at such a young age? How could Derek promise him that he was going to propose anyway? Scott… Scott decided that he simply didn’t want to know.
He was saved from his thoughts by the Sheriff, yelling Stiles’ name from inside the house, before he stepped on the porch. Stiles looked at his dad, face glowing in sickeningly happiness and for a moment the older man was thrown off, furrowing his brow, before he apparently remembered why he had called his son in the first place. “Clean Derek’s cage. It stinks. I won’t let my grandson sleep in there.”
“Grandson?” Scott asked, raising both eyebrows.
“God knows it’s the closest I will ever come to get grandchildren with those two,” the Sheriff answered, looking fondly at the animals, suddenly running over the lawn, leaping around and twisting mid air.
Stiles rolled his eyes.
“We can adopt,” Derek offered with a shrug. “Or ask someone to be a surrogate mother.”
“I’m too young for wolf children!” Stiles called back, as he marched into the house. “I haven’t even finished college! Give me at least four more years, alright?”
Derek didn't answer, instead smiled at the pages and Scott was sure it had nothing to do with what he had read on them.
“I meant,” he started again, clearing his throat, “aren’t they both girls?”
The Sheriff just looked down on him, before he waved him off. “They are named Derek 2.0 and Optimus Stiles,” he pointed out before he returned inside. “I refuse to call them daughters with names like that.”
As soon as Stiles and the Sheriff were back in the house, Derek turned a page in his book, smirking as he muttered ‘I win’ under his breath.
Scott just lifted both eyebrows at him, but true to form, was ignored. Therefore he looked around, watching the rabbits playing with each other in the backyard, Derek quietly reading on the porch swing, listened to Stiles mumbling under his breath as he cleaned the cages in his room, while the Sheriff just snorted in amusement.
Then he heaved a deep sigh.
“At least it didn’t end in tears,” he muttered to himself.