Work Text:
Stiles drifts awake with a groan, a sharp pain lancing through his head to match the dull ache radiating from his right shoulder.
Going out last night had been a terrible idea.
He never should have let his roommate talk him into it, but he’d been so convincing, and it really had been too long since the last time they’d just met up with all the guys and blown off some steam at the club. They’d both been so buried in classes, studying, and term papers that a chance to cut loose had been exactly what they’d needed. Ryan had talked it up so much: going on about how their college days will only last so long, so they have to make the most of it before it’s all over, and how they needed to rediscover their wild freshman days before they prematurely let themselves get old and boring now that they're sophomores. Ryan had talked a big game, and Stiles had been powerless to argue.
He’s totally regretting that now.
How much did he even have to drink? He tries to think back on the night, but his memory goes fuzzy somewhere around the second bar, and he doesn’t remember anything at all after that.
He groans again, rolling onto his back and off his aching shoulder; it’s at this point that he starts to realize that something isn’t quite right. The surface underneath him isn’t the familiar, soft give of his comfortable mattress - it’s hard and unforgiving, not to mention cold. No wonder his shoulder is hurting if this is where he decided to fall asleep. Why is it so hard for him to just fall asleep on a nice soft bed when he gets home from a night out?
He gingerly cracks open an eye, braced for the assault on his hungover senses by the bright sunlight that usually streams through his bedroom window and directly into his face. This definitely isn’t his bedroom, though, as he quickly realizes when the onslaught of light doesn’t come.
It’s so dark that Stiles can barely see anything, in fact, and it’s at this point that he starts to panic.
It’s not unheard of for him to wake up somewhere stupid after drinking. He’s woken up in the bathtub at a random frat house before, and spread-eagle on his kitchen floor underneath the dining table. On one memorable occasion, he’d woken up on a bench in the quad with one shoe missing and a squirrel perched on his chest, staring at him with eyes full of judgment. It hadn’t been his finest hour, and some of Ryan’s friends still call him “Squirrel” even now.
This doesn’t feel like any of those times.
He racks his brains harder to try and remember any more details from the night before, but he keeps drawing a blank. The more he tries to think, the more his head hurts, a sharp pain stabbing through his skull that has him clutching at his forehead with a groan of misery.
Come to think about it, this isn’t how his hangovers usually feel either.
“Stiles?”
The voice comes from a few feet to his right, and Stiles scrambles back in surprise until his back hits a rough concrete wall. He can feel the cold of it seeping through the thin fabric of his t-shirt and it sends a shiver through him that makes his shoulder twinge in pain again.
“Stiles, is that you?”
He recognizes that voice. He doesn’t know why he’s hearing it here though, in whatever cold, dark cave he’s found himself in. The owner of that voice is supposed to be miles away, back home in Beacon Hills. Unless Stiles is the one that’s ended up further from home than he could possibly have predicted.
“Derek?!”
“Yeah, it’s me. Where the hell are we? You’re supposed to be in Berkeley.”
He can hear the sound of Derek shuffling closer, until he feels an arm brush against his, warm in a way that makes Stiles want to press himself right up against it to steal some of that heat for himself. It really is freezing down here, now that he’s awake enough to notice.
“I have no idea, man. I was in Berkeley. The last I remember, I was at a bar with some of the boys. The next thing I know, I’m waking up here with a raging headache and the worst crick in my neck of all time.” Stiles rolls out his neck with a groan, trying to ease out the worst of the stiffness.
“You must have been out for a while. I’ve been awake for at least a couple of hours, and you were unconscious the whole time. I nearly tripped over you while I was trying to get my bearings in the room.”
“What do you mean you nearly tripped over me? Aren’t your magical werewolf eyes supposed to see in the dark?”
“They aren’t working properly,” Derek growls lowly. “My senses are dulled, and I don’t have my usual strength. I didn’t even realize it was you until you started making noises.”
“Shit,” Stiles groans, thunking his head back against the wall in an ill-advised move that sends another jab of pain coursing through his head. “Well I think we can safely assume that whatever we’re being kept here for isn’t anything good”
“Probably not,” Derek agrees – Stiles can picture the raised eyebrow even if he can’t see it. He can practically hear it in Derek’s tone.
“Right. So we need a plan. What do you remember before waking up here? How about the room? What did you discover when you weren’t busy tripping over my unconscious self?”
Derek’s quiet for a moment. Stiles can hear his fingers tapping against his knee, as he presumably tries to recall any information that might be useful from the night leading up to them being here. “I don’t remember much. I went to the grocery store and headed back to the car. The next thing I know, I was waking up here.”
“And your wolfy senses were all still working fine before then?”
“Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“And the room? Did you find anything when you were checking it out?”
“No obvious escape routes. It’s not very big - a few feet in each direction. No windows, so most likely in a basement of some kind. Only one door, which is bolted shut; I tried to get it open but it wouldn’t budge. There’s a bucket in the corner which I assume is supposed to be our toilet.”
“Oh, so we have a considerate kidnapper then?”
Derek snorts a laugh, shifting a little so that he’s more firmly pressed up against Stiles’ side as he feels Stiles start to shiver, a firm wall of heat against Stiles’ body.
“First things first,” Stiles says, leaning shamelessly into Derek’s warmth, “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve got something I could work the lock with?”
“Sorry. I guess I forgot to take my lockpick to the grocery store with me.”
“Damn.” Stiles grins, nudging Derek’s shoulder with his own and immediately regretting it when he’s quickly reminded that it’s his sore one, “You really need to work on that forgetfulness, big guy.”
“I assume you forgot to bring yours on a night out too?”
“‘Fraid so.” Stiles sighs as he tries to rub some warmth into his hands. “I’m guessing it’s too much to hope that they left our cell phones with us?”
“Yeah, apparently our kidnapper does have at least one working brain cell,” Derek confirms. He slides an arm up to wrap around Stiles’ shoulders and tuck him against his side. “You must be freezing.”
“Unfortunately, I decided to dress for the club rather than the cold, dank kidnap basement. I’ll try to think ahead next time.”
“Probably a good idea.” Derek huffs out a laugh. “So what’s the plan? Any ideas?”
“The way I see it, we have two choices,” Stiles says, shamelessly leaning further into the warmth of Derek’s side. “We can sit here and wait for whoever took us to come back and monologue their nefarious plan at us while you look for an opening to take them out.”
“It is a classic plan,” Derek agrees. “Might not go so well without the werewolf strength, especially if there’s more than one of them. They most likely have magic if they’ve managed to do something to my ‘werewolfiness’, as you put it.”
“Which brings me to option two,” Stiles continues with a flourish. “I try using my Sparky magic to whammy the door open, and we get the hell out of here before whoever took us decides to show their face.”
“Can you do that?” Derek’s tone is more curious than disbelieving, which gives Stiles a pleasantly warm and tingly feeling in his chest. He’d assumed Derek would dismiss the idea from the get go, since Stiles has never attempted anything so advanced up to now.
“Honestly? I have no idea. I figure it’s worth a try. Deaton says it’s all about visualization and force of will. My will to get out of the creepy kidnap basement is definitely up there.”
“Is it safe? I know you’ve been working on the spark thing with Deaton recently, but how much control do you have over it?”
Stiles shrugs, jostling the arm that Derek has around his shoulders. “Not entirely safe, but it can’t be any more dangerous than whatever Kidnap McCreep has planned for us, right? To be honest, the bigger concern is that I won’t be able to do it. I’ve only managed to manipulate mountain ash and light candles so far. Unlocking a door is pretty major league stuff comparatively.”
“Okay.” Derek squeezes Stiles’ uninjured shoulder in reassurance. “I think you should try it. Do you need me to do anything?”
“No, just, uh, maybe don’t get too close? Just in case.”
Stiles pushes himself to his feet, using Derek’s shoulder as a support to stop himself from tipping back over while he works the stiffness out of his limbs. Turns out spending however many hours on a hard concrete floor isn’t so good for the body.
He blindly gropes his way toward the opposite wall, hands outstretched until his fingertips touch rough concrete. He uses the point of contact to feel his way across, sliding his hands along with each step until the gritty texture of the concrete gives way to the smooth metal of a sturdy door. Their kidnapper clearly wasn’t taking any chances when they chose this prison for them.
He slides his hands down, searching for the handle, then uses that to feel his way to the lock underneath.
Time for the moment of truth.
He takes a deep breath to steady himself as he does his best to focus. Visualization and willpower. That’s what Deaton always says. It’s all about visualization and willpower.
He does his best to picture it. He feels the cool metal underneath his fingertips and imagines what the lock must look like from the inside, calling up images of the diagrams he’d looked at when he taught himself to pick locks. He pictures the different parts, tries to feel them in his mind as he visualizes the lock mechanism shifting, turning until it clicks open, just like it would if he were doing this the manual way. Once he’s got the image clear in his mind he tries to push his will into it – imagines himself convincing the metal to bend to his command as he conjures up as much determination as he can, channeling it all through his hands and into the lock.
Nothing happens.
He swears under his breath, then tries it again. Then again, and again, and again until his head is pounding and all he can do is shout and kick the door in frustration.
This has to work. They need it to work, or God knows how they’ll manage to get out of this. Whoever took them clearly knows what they’re doing if they knew how to suppress Derek’s abilities, and they clearly had a reason for taking Stiles and Derek specifically when they went to so much trouble to kidnap them from totally different parts of the state.
Stiles can think of a few scenarios for why that might be and none of them are anything good. He really doesn’t want to stick around and find out what they’re planning to do with them; from past experience he has a horrible feeling it’s going to involve pain and torture, and he’s not at all certain that they’ll be making it out of here alive.
Fuck.
He takes a deep breath and tries to focus again, tries his best to ignore the building headache that’s pounding in his temples and lancing through his skull. He goes through the process again, visualizing each step until it’s clear in his mind, then he dredges up every ounce of will and desperation he can muster to throw at it. He needs to do this. Derek’s relying on him. For once, this is something only Stiles can do, and he’s going to get them both out of here if it’s the last thing he does. He has to.
He distantly hears a voice saying his name. A warm hand clasps his shoulder, and suddenly a wave of pure power seems to explode out of him, burning hot as it travels through his bones and outwards, through the lock and the door and Derek in a flash of bright, golden light. And just like that, it’s gone.
The door swings open to reveal a dimly lit corridor and Stiles sways dangerously on his feet. He only has a second to appreciate the fact that he actually did it before he’s falling back into Derek’s arms and the world goes black once again.
Everything around him sways, and Stiles’ whole body feels like lead. Everything aches, the pain set deep into his muscles and right down to the bone in a way that he’s never experienced before.
His head throbs with unrelenting waves of agony, pulsing with each beat of his heart.
It feels like someone’s taken a baseball bat to him, then knocked his head against a stone wall a few times for good measure. That’s twice in a row now that he’s woken up feeling like death warmed over, and it isn’t any better this time around. In fact, it’s definitively worse.
Stiles groans, opening his eyes only to slam them immediately shut again as the bright sunlight pierces directly into his brain, burning his retinas and turning that pulse of pain into something so intense he can hardly breathe for a minute. Even with his eyes closed, he’s painfully aware of the shift in light through his eyelids, brightening to a warm orange and darkening again in a way that makes him think he must be outside – under some trees, perhaps, the light dappled by leaves.
It feels like there’s something he should remember, something important lingering on the edge of his mind, but his brain is sluggish and he can’t pull the thought into focus. The harder he tries to think, the more the pain in his head intensifies. So he lets himself sink into the haze of pain and exhaustion instead, just dimly aware of the world around him in this moment. Worrying is for later.
He can feel his body shifting through no effort of his own, rocking slowly back and forth in time with the steady footsteps that echo in his ears, and it makes him distantly aware of the fact that he’s being carried – hitched up in strong arms that hold him in an impressively secure grip considering he’s a total deadweight right now.
There’s a breeze whispering across the bare skin of his arms, and it reminds him how cold he is. He’s not quite as cold as he had been before, but he’s not sure if that’s down to the fact that he’s not in the basement anymore, or if it’s because the person carrying him is a veritable furnace. The cold air against his skin should have him shivering, but his body doesn’t seem to be capable of even that right now.
He can barely move his limbs at all, no energy left in him to do more than twitch his fingers, but that and his groan of pain are apparently enough to alert the person carrying him to the fact he’s now awake, because the world stops swaying and he’s being set down on the ground, propped up against something that pokes roughly against his back through the thin fabric of his shirt. Probably a tree, he thinks, rough bark pressing into his skin. He would complain, but it’s pretty clear that it’s the only thing stopping him from just flopping straight onto the ground right now.
Derek.
Stiles had been with Derek.
They had been trapped together, and Stiles needed to get them out. If the way he feels now is anything to go by, he used every last bit of energy he had left in him to do it.
A hand grasps his own and another one rests on his forehead, warm and gentle against his skin. Pain starts to drain out of him, flowing out through those two points of contact in a sudden wave of relief that leaves him breathless. The abrupt lack of pain makes the difference all the more stark, and he whimpers a little at the sensation of it, but Derek quietly shushes him, his thumb softly rubbing the frown from his forehead.
“You’re okay,” Derek murmurs. “You got us out. Just rest for a minute.”
Stiles groans again, flexing his fingers and toes to work out some of the numbness and then squeezing the hand holding his own. “Where are we?” he croaks out, only for Derek to shush him again.
“I’m not sure. Somewhere in a forest, but it’s not the Preserve. I think we’re closer to Beacon Hills than Berkeley. Don’t worry about it. You got us out of the cell, so I’ll do the rest. Just focus on getting your strength back.”
“Wha’ happn’d?” Stiles slurs as he slowly cracks open one eyelid to look at Derek. From what he can tell, Derek looks normal, not at all battered and bruised like Stiles feels – not even stiff from hours spent on a cold basement floor. Those are the perks of werewolf healing, Stiles supposes, but then again Stiles suspects his current state is more of his own doing than anything else. Stiles has never experienced total magic exhaustion before, and based on this experience, it’s not something he wants to try again in a hurry.
“I don’t know,” Derek answers, squeezing his hand. “It worked though, whatever you did.”
“Aww yeah!” Stiles grins, listing to the side a little before Derek shifts to prop him back up again. “I’m fuckin’ Batman. Savin’ th’day.”
“Whatever you say, Stiles.” Stiles can hear the long-suffering fondness in his tone, can imagine the roll of his eyes and the hint of a smile that he knows must be on Derek’s face right now even as Stiles’ eye slides back shut again. “We should get moving. Do you think you can hold on to me if I pick you up again?”
“I can walk,” Stiles mumbles. “Jus’ need a minute.”
“We might not have another minute.” Derek starts to stand, pulling Stiles with him as he slides an arm around his back and hitches him back into a bridal carry. “We’re not far enough from where we were being kept, and I don’t know when our kidnapper will be back. I’d prefer to be as far away as possible when that happens.”
“‘Kay.” Stiles agrees, letting himself be manhandled into position with his arms around Derek’s neck. He doesn’t have it in him to move his arms there himself, though he just about manages to hold on. He can barely even stay awake, much as he tries to keep his concentration on the world around him. He fights to keep his eyes open, but the forest keeps sliding in and out of focus and he knows it’s a lost cause when his eyelids start to droop shut.
It’s like his body knows that it’s safe for him to rest here, even if his mind doesn’t want to slip away just yet, and he can feel himself growing more limp with each passing second. Stiles does his best to hold on, even as consciousness starts to slide back out of his grasp, his fingers tangling in Derek’s shirt.
He just about manages to mumble out a warning before he loses the battle and any hope of staying awake slips away entirely. “G’na pass out again.”
He drifts in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of their movement as Derek carries him further and further away from their prison. Stiles doesn’t know if it’s been minutes or hours by the time they finally stop moving. He has no sense of the route they’ve taken or the passing of time except in the cadence of Derek’s footsteps. He peers out through heavy eyelids to see where Derek has chosen to stop, trying his best to pull himself back towards full consciousness.
At some point, Derek must have found the edge of the woods and decided to follow the road until he hit civilization. It’s a solid plan, because Stiles can see a gas station in just about in view through the cover of the trees, and Stiles assumes that’s what Derek is heading toward in the hopes that it will offer them some way to contact the pack for help.
“Why d’you stop?” Stiles asks, tongue heavy in his mouth with the bone deep exhaustion he can’t seem to shake. “Not there yet.”
“Can you walk if I support you? It’ll look suspicious with me carrying you like this.”
“I can try,” Stiles agrees with a nod, fingers gripping Derek’s shoulders tightly as Derek sets him down, strong arm firm around his waist.
His legs give out almost immediately, and it’s only Derek’s grip on him that stops Stiles from crumpling to the ground. It probably won’t look any less suspicious if Derek has to drag him over to the gas station on feet that apparently don’t want to work.
“Maybe not,” Derek’s tone is light, but Stiles can hear the slight tremor of stress in his voice as he’s forced to think up another plan.
“Jus’ leave me here,” Stiles offers, turning his face into Derek’s shoulder, “it won’t be f’r long.”
“No.” Derek’s voice is resolute. “I’m not leaving you alone until we’re far away from here. It isn’t worth the risk. Can you hold on enough for me to give you a piggyback? We can just play it off like you’ve hurt your ankle if anyone says anything.”
“Yeah,” Stiles confirms, letting Derek manhandle his useless limbs into position. What he really needs right now is a nice soft bed and a week-long sleep, but for now it’s time to stay awake and focus on not sliding right back off Derek’s back again.
He does surprisingly well. Luckily, there aren’t many people around, and they manage to get all the way to the gas station’s payphone without any strange looks. Derek sets him down, holding him up with a firm arm around his waist while he slides his wallet out of his pocket with the other hand.
It strikes Stiles as kind of strange that the kidnapper chose to leave their wallets with them. They obviously must have gone through their pockets to take their phones, so it seems like an odd choice not to take everything else, but Stiles can’t manage to summon the mental energy to think too much on it now. Mostly he just feels an overwhelming sense of relief as he listens to the steady metallic thunk of Derek feeding coins into the machine.
He drifts a little, too exhausted to stay fully awake as Derek cradles the handset between his shoulder and ear, stabbing at the buttons until the phone starts to ring. The grip on Stiles’ waist tightens as Stiles slumps against Derek further, the effort of trying to stay upright draining what little energy he’s managed to claw back. “Sheriff? It’s Derek. I need your help.”
Stiles doesn’t catch most of the conversation, only hearing parts of it in snatches, but it’s enough to reassure him that his dad is on his way as he does his best to stay awake.
Derek hangs up the phone with a sigh of relief, arm around Stiles' waist hitching him back up.
"Your dad’s coming to get us. How are you doing, Stiles? Do you think you can walk? We could do with some food and water if you think you can make it around the store."
"M'fine," Stiles mumbles, doing what he can to try and get his feet under him as he clings to Derek a little tighter. "Just don't let go."
It's an effort, but they manage to make it around the store without Stiles collapsing. By the time they've paid and made it back out to the treeline to wait out of sight, Stiles is exhausted, just barely managing to cling to consciousness as his fights to keep his eyes open, limbs growing increasingly leaden as he tries to think through the haze of exhaustion that pulls at him, begging him to just give in and sleep.
"Come on, Stiles." Derek's voice is mostly calm, but Stiles can hear the slight frantic edge to it as he gets Stiles settled, propped up against a tree. "I know it's difficult, but try to stay awake a little longer. You need to drink something. It'll help."
Stiles nods, blinking heavy eyelids back open as Derek presses the hard plastic of a water bottle against his lower lip so he can take a sip.
He didn't know water could taste this good, and he gulps it down greedily until Derek pulls the bottle away so he can drink some of it himself. Derek was right – he does feel a bit better already. Now that Stiles thinks about it, he has no idea how long it's been since either of them last had anything to eat or drink. He has no concept of how much time has passed since he was taken from Berkeley, but from the position of the sun in the sky it must have been at least twelve hours, if not more.
The last thing Stiles had must have been a whiskey and coke at whatever bar he'd been taken from – not exactly optimal in terms of hydration – and it's been even longer since he had anything to eat.
As if he's read Stiles' mind, Derek rummages in the plastic bag and fishes out a sandwich. He quickly unwraps it and brings it up to Stiles' mouth, like he's concerned Stiles is going to fall asleep again before eating any of it if he doesn't get it in him quickly
It's a valid concern, but the sensation of cold water flowing down his throat and pooling in his belly has helped him to wake up enough to eat a little, and Derek heaves a sigh of relief as Stiles manages to finish half of it in a series of small, careful bites.
"Okay," he says, bringing the water bottle up to Stiles' lips again, "a few more sips of this and you can sleep. You did good."
Stiles does as he's told, letting Derek help him to finish off the bottle of water, and then he gives in to the bone deep exhaustion that's been pulling at him ever since he woke up.
Stiles next drifts into a hazy sort of consciousness when he feels himself being moved again. Derek's arms are secure around him, lifting him up gently in an attempt to not disturb him too much. He's in a strange sort of space, lingering between sleep and wakefulness, but he's aware enough to wind his arms around Derek's neck as he's lifted in an attempt to himself less of an awkward load.
He tucks his face against Derek's collarbone with a sigh. He probably shouldn't feel as safe here as he does - not when they're still so close to their makeshift prison - but something about the way Derek holds him, the masculine, woodsy scent of him filling Stiles' nose, makes him feel protected.
"What happened to him? Is he hurt?" His dad's voice is urgent, panicked, and Stiles feels a comforting touch brush against his shoulder, the same touch from every time he got sick as a kid.
"We should take him to Deaton, but I think he's ok. He's just exhausted. Whatever he did to get us out of there drained him, but he's been in and out of consciousness. I managed to get some food and water into him the last time he was awake."
"M'fine," Stiles murmurs, lifting his head slightly from its position against Derek's clavicle. "Just tired. Stop worrying."
"Okay, Son," his dad sighs, opening the car door so that Derek can lower Stiles into the back seat. "Get some rest. We've got a bit of a drive."
Stiles mumbles his assent, already halfway back to unconsciousness as Derek climbs into the car next to him, maneuvering them so that Stiles' head is pillowed on his thigh.
"G'night."
Stiles wakes up with a groan, pressing his face into the soft pillow underneath him and stretching out all of his limbs. He feels like he's slept for a week, and his head is muzzy with it, his brain still half lingering in a dream. Honestly, he thinks he could sleep for another week, the way he's feeling, but his bladder is full to bursting and there's no way he can sink back into oblivion until that situation has been rectified.
He sits up with a yawn, rubbing his eyes blearily as he swings his legs out of bed. It's only when his feet hit the cold ground rather than the carpet that he's used to that he realizes something is amiss.
This isn't his bedroom.
He squints, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the dark before the room comes into focus and he realizes that he's in Derek's loft. Derek himself is crammed awkwardly into a chair next to the bed, his head lolling to the side in a way that makes Stiles wince at how uncomfortable it looks.
His brain is still groggy, more asleep than awake, but as he looks at Derek, brow furrowed in a frown even in sleep, everything starts coming back to him.
It wasn’t a dream.
The abduction and escape had actually happened. He can feel the echo of his spark burning through him, can still see the ghost of the blinding golden light that had exploded into the room, a wave of pure energy bursting out, right from the very core of him.
No wonder he's so exhausted. Stiles didn’t even know he had that kind of magical energy within him – expending it all at once must have done a number on him.
Derek shifts, rolling his neck with a crack that has Stiles wincing again as Derek opens his eyes.
"You're awake." Derek's voice is still thick with sleep, but he rises to his feet with a grace that Stiles knows he’ll never be able to achieve so soon after waking.
“Yep,” Stiles agrees with a yawn. “Just about. I think I’ve still got a solid few days of sleep left in me as soon as I’ve used the bathroom, though.”
Derek nods, reaching down to help Stiles stand up in a move that has Stiles glaring at him.
“I’m not an invalid, Derek. I’m just tired. I think I can go to the bathroom on my own.”
Derek raises an eyebrow but says nothing, taking a small half-step back to give Stiles room.
Stiles rises to his feet and immediately rethinks his previous statement as the room starts to spin and all the blood seems to drain from his head, leaving him dizzy. He feels Derek’s hand on his shoulder as he starts to sway backwards, and he can already hear the silent ‘I told you so’ that Derek is apparently too polite to actually say.
“Okay, maybe I could do with a tiny bit of help getting there,” Stiles amends. “I draw the line at you coming in with me, though. I can manage that bit by myself – I just need a minute to adjust to being upright again.”
They make it to the bathroom without any further incident, Derek’s grip firm on Stiles to stop him from toppling over. By the time they get there Stiles is feeling steadier on his feet, and he manages to relieve himself without any kind of disaster.
When he leaves the room, Derek is still lingering right outside the door, eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“Dude. I’m fine, I swear. You don’t need to hover.”
“No,” Derek says, giving Stiles a look that he can’t quite read. “That’s not it. Something’s off.”
“What do you mean ‘something’s off?’” Stiles sways slightly on his feet, hand coming up to grip the door frame for balance.
“I’m not sure. It felt like I was being tugged in your direction somehow, but I don’t know why.”
Stiles frowns. Now that he thinks about it, he’d felt something similar, but he’d just put it down to the dizziness. There’s no reason that Derek should be feeling that too, though. “How much distance is there between the toilet and the bathroom door? A few feet, if that?”
Derek nods. “Yeah, why?”
“Since we got out of that basement, have we been further away from each other than that at any point?”
“No,” Derek says, frown deepening. “I’ve been right next to you the whole time. Why?”
“Try walking away from me now.”
Derek glances at where Stiles is holding on to the door frame, as if to reassure himself that Stiles isn’t about to fall over, then slowly starts to walk toward the other side of the loft.
Everything feels fine for a moment, but as soon as Derek moves a few feet away, Stiles starts to feel the tug.
Derek takes another step, but Stiles can see that he’s struggling to make it, like some sort of forcefield has sprung up around them. He tries harder, forcing his foot past whatever invisible barrier has appeared, and the movement sends a sharp, stabbing pain tearing through Stiles’ head.
He doubles over, a shout tearing itself from his throat as the pain radiates through his skull. It’s unrelenting, the agony building with each second that Derek stays there until Stiles can hardly breathe.
By the looks of it, Derek’s experiencing the same thing, face deathly pale and his hands coming up to clutch at his head. He quickly retreats back toward Stiles, and just like that the pain abates, leaving Stiles gasping in relief and meeting Derek’s concerned gaze.
“I think we need to talk to Deaton.”
It feels strange to just go back to bed after discovering some weird kind of magical tether between him and Derek but Stiles reluctantly agrees that it isn't urgent enough to wake everyone up when Derek and his dad had already arranged a meeting with the full pack in the morning.
Still, Stiles tosses and turns for a while as his brain mulls over the information that he knows, trying to figure out what kind of spell could have caused it and why on earth their kidnapper would have wanted to stick him and Derek together like this.
If it weren't for the lingering magical exhaustion, Stiles is pretty sure he wouldn't have managed any more sleep that night, but his body requires rest even if his brain isn't on board with it. He can't help but feel guilty that Derek is stuck trying to sleep in the chair next to the bed, but Derek hadn’t made any moves to share with him and the couch is too far away to reach.
They should probably have moved it closer, but the thought hadn't occurred to him before, and it's too late to make that suggestion now. Sleep is creeping in, pulling Stiles under as his limbs grow increasingly leaden and his thoughts become harder to grasp the threads of.
When he wakes in the morning, Stiles feels surprisingly well-rested. It makes a nice change to wake up without a general sense of fear, confusion, or utter exhaustion. He can tell he's not at one hundred percent yet, but the hours of rest have done wonders; he's pretty sure he’s reached the point where he can at least walk across the room without worrying about his legs giving out on him.
"How are you feeling?"
Stiles startles at the sound of Derek’s voice next to him. He'd almost forgotten about their predicament, but the sight of Derek in the chair next to him, still rumpled around the edges from an uncomfortable night's sleep brings it all flooding back to the surface.
"A lot better, actually. I guess a good sleep was exactly what I needed." Stiles yawns, drawing his shoulders back in a stretch that eases some of the lingering tightness in his muscles.
"I'm not surprised," Derek says, carefully dog-earing the corner of the book he's holding and placing it back on the nightstand. "Whatever you did to get us out of there was powerful. It must have taken a lot of energy."
"Yeah." Stiles winces. "I might have overdone it a bit."
"You got us out of there. Using that much energy might not have been ideal, but it worked."
"I guess so," Stiles agrees, a hint of a smile on his face as he basks in the feeling of having done something right with his spark for a change. It might not be much, but from Derek, that was practically a compliment.
"So," Stiles says as he swings his legs out of bed. "What's the plan? There's a lot we need to figure out here."
Derek sighs, pushing himself out of the chair and stretching out his limbs in a way that makes his joints pop. Stiles definitely isn't letting him sleep like that again; they'll have to work out another arrangement.
"The Pack's meeting here in about an hour. We'll talk through everything with them first and go from there."
"What are we going to do about being stuck together, though? I have class! I have to get back to Berkeley."
"Hopefully Deaton will know how to get us unstuck. If not, we'll just have to work it out."
"Work it out," Stiles grumbles. "How the hell do we work out not being able to move more than a few feet away from each other when we live in totally different cities? This is a disaster."
Derek raises his eyebrows at him, and Stiles sighs.
"Sorry. I'm just not feeling great about being magically messed with. I’m sure you're not any more enthusiastic about this than I am."
"No," Derek agrees, "but we'll make it work if we have to. With any luck, Deaton will have a fix and it'll be a non-issue anyway."
"Sure. Because we're both so well known for being lucky," Stiles mutters, and Derek winces in response. He kind of has to give Stiles that one, past circumstances considered.
"Sorry,” Stiles sighs. “You're right. Maybe we'll get it fixed right away, and I'll be straight back to school without a wolf-shaped shadow. For now, we just have to get through this morning. How much distance do you think there is between your bathroom door and the shower?"
Not enough, is the answer to that question. They try it, but as soon as Stiles gets a few steps away from the shower he starts feeling the tug back toward Derek and he knows that any further will mean excruciating pain for both of them.
"It's no use," he groans, "it's too far away. You're going to have to come in here."
Derek pushes open the door with a sigh. "We could just wait until everyone has left. Maybe this will be undone by then."
"Dude, no! I haven't showered since before we got kidnapped. I reek of stale beer and kidnap-basement. No way am I waiting any longer. You'll just have to stand over there and stare at the wall until I'm done."
"I'm not staring at the wall, Stiles."
"Well you're certainly not staring at me," Stiles fires back, arms crossed self consciously over his chest at the very thought of it. He might not be a blushing virgin anymore, but he does have some shame, and he’s definitely not about to put on a show for someone as unfairly attractive as Derek.
"Obviously not.” Derek rolls his eyes. “Can I at least get my book or something?"
"Oh. Yeah, that sounds fair," Stiles acquiesces, firmly quashing the unreasonable little part of himself that’s almost disappointed.
They detour back to the bedroom, and Derek fishes some spare clothes out of his dresser for Stiles while they're there. It feels ridiculous, having to move around the loft in tandem like this, and Stiles has no idea how they’re possibly going to be able to live like this if Deaton doesn't know how to get them separated. The thought of one of them having to stop what they're doing and move every time the other person wants to go to the bathroom or grab a snack from the kitchen is absurd.
Derek probably goes out running. He probably spends long hours out communing with nature. Stiles realizes that he has no idea what Derek usually does with his days, but he's not sure he wants to be dragged along for all of it. He's pretty sure Derek doesn't want to be dragged along for Stiles' daily activities either, because he has a horrible feeling that the mundanity of their daily lives isn't especially well-matched.
This is going to be a disaster.
The shower is awkward.
There’s no two ways about it. It’s incredibly weird to strip off with a werewolf lurking in the corner of the room, pointedly staring at his book in a way that Stiles supposes is meant to reassure him that Derek’s not about to try and take a peek.
It’s probably for the best, because as soon as Stiles steps under the spray, he can feel his dick start to plump up in a mortifying sort of pavlovian reaction. He’s been at college for just over a year now, and that first year of sharing a room means that the shower has become his prime location for personal Stiles-time. Now all it takes is the sensation of hot water against his skin for his body to light up in anticipation.
It really doesn’t help that Derek’s the one he’s got tethered to him.
If this was Scott, he’s pretty sure he could will his boner away in a matter of seconds, but the knowledge that it’s Derek who’s just a few steps away makes it even worse. The thought that Derek could turn around at any moment and see is horrifying and tantalizing in equal measure.
He rushes through the shower with a brisk efficiency that’s usually reserved for the days he’s rolled out of bed too late to do anything else. Generally, he prefers to drag it out, to luxuriate in the delicious burn of nearly-too-hot water cascading over his body as the steam rises around him and his skin flushes with the heat.
There’s none of that today.
He twists the shower dial as cold as he can take it and washes as quickly as he can, until he’s refreshed and more awake than he’s felt in days.
Derek stays steadfastly facing the other way until Stiles is dried and dressed, scrubbing a towel through his hair to soak up the worst of the water.
“All done,” Stiles says needlessly, more for something to say than anything else.
Derek nods, folding the top corner of his page to mark his place and pressing the book into Stiles’ hands. Before Stiles can question why he’s suddenly holding it, Derek’s dragging his shirt over his head and unbuttoning his jeans in a deft motion that has Stiles gaping at him, not sure where to look with so much tanned skin and all of those abs suddenly on display.
Derek raises his eyebrows and gives him a meaningful look. Stiles flushes, snapping his mouth shut where it had fallen open and whirling around so quickly he’s surprised he doesn’t give himself whiplash.
“Oh.” His voice is about an octave higher than he’d like, but he’s just heard the sound of Derek’s jeans hitting the floor so Stiles is pretty sure it would be unfair to judge him on that right now. “Right. Of course. Obviously you need to shower too. Yep. I’ll just stand here and hold your book. Nothing weird about this at all.”
“Shut up, Stiles.”
“Right. Yeah. Shutting up now. You just go ahead and do your thing.”
Stiles is fairly certain Derek’s rolling his eyes at him right now, but mercifully he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, Stiles gets the torturous experience of listening to Derek shower and trying not to imagine exactly what he looks like while he’s doing it. It would be so easy for him to turn around right now, but Stiles isn’t that kind of creep. There’s a part of him that’s tempted, sure – more specifically, the part of him that has him chubbing up again in the confines of his borrowed sweats – but he would never actually do it.
That doesn’t stop his brain from conjuring up all sorts of pornographic images involving a very wet, naked Derek.
He really should have brought a book to read, too.
It’s a blessed relief when Derek finally shuts the water off after what’s possibly the most torturous ten minutes of Stiles’ life.
It’s less of a relief when it dawns on him that this might be life for them now. Showers from now on will be a matter of awkward efficiency and a severe case of blue balls, until they find a way to break the spell.
The blue balls aren’t just limited to the shower, Stiles realizes with a dawning horror. There’s no way he’s going to be able to jerk off with Derek a few feet away from him at all times. He’s barely gone so much as a day without beating one out since he discovered what his dick was for, and now he’s going to have to go cold turkey with the subject of his wet dreams permanently in his vicinity.
Forget disaster – this is going to be a nightmare.
“So basically you don’t know what’s causing it.”
Stiles looks at Deaton with a rising sense of horror. Sure, he’d known that this situation might not be fixed immediately, but he’d expected Deaton to at least have an idea what had happened to them. To maybe even have a ballpark figure on how long he and Derek are going to be attached at the hip.
“I haven’t heard of anything quite like this before.” Deaton looks way too calm about the situation. This is not a time for calm. Stiles is pretty sure there should be more panicking, and he’s more than happy to up the panic quota for everyone because there’s no way he can be stuck to Derek for the rest of his life.
“So what, me and Derek are meant to just live like this forever? I shouldn’t have to tell you why that isn’t going to be possible, because I think it should be pretty freaking obvious that it isn’t going to work. I have to go back to Berkeley. I have exams! I don’t think they’re going to let Derek just sit right next to me while I take them. He might not even be allowed to come to class! And that’s if he even agrees to come to Berkeley with me. Oh God, I’m going to have to drop out. I have to drop out of college, and neither of us are ever going to be able to get a job because who’s hiring someone that doesn’t have a degree and comes with someone else permanently attached to them? And I’m going to be single forever because no one is ever going to date me when someone this much more attractive than me is right there.”
“Calm down, Stiles.” Derek’s hand is heavy on his shoulder, the weight of it just about comforting enough to snap him out of the oncoming panic attack that he can already feel clawing at his edges. “You don’t have to drop out. I don’t mind coming to Berkeley – school is important. And it won’t be forever because everyone’s going to keep working on a way to undo this. Aren’t they?”
He directs the last bit directly at Deaton, his voice hard, and an obvious challenge set in his features.
“Of course. We’re not giving up, Stiles. I just can’t give you any answers until I’ve done some research. It would help if we knew exactly what spell you were hit with.”
“Unfortunately, whoever kidnapped us didn’t pass on the memo for that one.” Stiles is aware that he’s being petulant. He thinks he’s probably earned that, though, all things considered.
“That’s another thing we need to figure out,” Stiles’ dad interjects. “I don’t like that we still have no idea who took you and why. For all we know they’re out there right now planning a second attempt.”
“He’s not wrong,” Derek agrees, mouth flattening into a grim line. “We’re going to need to watch our backs.”
“Right.” Scott stands up from his seat on the arm of Derek’s couch. Half the pack is crammed in there, Boyd, Erica and Issac all squashed up against each other while Allison perches on the other arm, somehow still managing to look graceful as she balances there. “As I see it, we have two major problems. We need to figure out who took Derek and Stiles, and we need to work on getting them unstuck in case the kidnapper ends up being a dead end. Maybe we need to divide and conquer.” Scott looks to Stiles for confirmation, a habit that he’ll probably never break even though he’s been the Alpha for a while now.
“That’s not a bad idea.” Stiles nods, tapping his foot absently against the footrest of the bar stool he’s sitting on. “It’ll probably be easier if we each focus our efforts on one thing or the other.”
“I’m the obvious choice to start investigating the kidnapping,” the Sheriff says. “Derek and Stiles can walk me through what they remember to see if we can find where they were kept, then I could do with a couple of wolves coming with me to check it out. It might be an idea to see if Argent can help out, too.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Scott agrees. “We need a group on research too. Obviously Deaton, then I guess it makes sense for us to get as many eyes on it as possible. Everyone not looking for the kidnapper can be researching the spell whenever they get the chance. It should be easy enough for Stiles and Derek to do that from Berkeley too.”
“We should pull Lydia in, too,” Allison chimes in. “She might be on the other side of the country, but she’ll want to help, and she’s the best when it comes to translation. I’ll get her up to speed as soon as we’re done here.”
“Great. Sounds like we have a plan of action for now. Everyone keep in touch. We can’t rule out the kidnapper coming back, and since we don’t know what they’re planning, we can’t rule out them trying to take someone else. Watch your backs.”
That seems to be everyone’s cue to leave, each of them moving into action. Allison’s already bringing up Lydia’s contact on her phone as she heads for the door, absently waving a goodbye over her shoulder, closely followed by Isaac.
Derek catches Boyd’s arm on his way past, muttering something in his ear that has Boyd nodding and clapping him on the shoulder, much to Stiles’ bemusement. Then Boyd’s filtering out the door with everyone else until it’s just Stiles, Derek, and the Sheriff left in the loft.
“What was that about?” Stiles wonders, glancing between Boyd’s retreating back and Derek.
“I just asked him to keep an eye on the loft while I’m away. He’s going to pick up a couple of cell phones for us too, since ours are probably long gone by now.”
The Sheriff makes a considering noise, already reaching for his notepad. “It might be worth us trying to get a trace on the phones. Either your kidnapper still has them and we can use it to track them, or we might be able to get a last known location that we can use.”
“I like it. Good thinking, Dad.”
“It is my job, Son.” The Sheriff shakes his head fondly, muttering something under his breath that has Derek’s mouth twitching in amusement.
“Touché, Daddio. So, where should we start?”
It takes a while for them to go over the kidnapping. The Sheriff has them go over the events leading up to being taken and everything they remember from the basement, and then he spends a long time questioning Derek about what happened after they managed to escape. By the time they’re done, his dad’s notepad must be halfway to full, and Stiles’ stomach is starting to protest with a series of loud grumbles.
“Okay,” his dad finally says, rising to his feet, “I think I’ve got everything I need for now. How about we go and get some lunch? It’s a while since we last went to the diner. My treat.”
“Sounds good, Dad,” Stiles agrees with a grin, already fantasizing about the generous portion of curly fries he’s going to devour. They just don’t make them the same in Berkeley.
Derek shrugs, standing up as well. It’s not like he can stay behind, and Stiles knows he’s a soft touch at heart. He wouldn’t deny Stiles time spent with his dad, especially when it’s so infrequent nowadays.
Lunch is surprisingly enjoyable with just the three of them. Stiles doesn’t know what he’d expected, but he’s pleasantly surprised by the way Derek joins in the conversation. It doesn’t feel like there’s an interloper in his father-son bonding time – Derek seems to slot into their dynamic with ease, and it feels almost like they do this all the time.
Maybe they will be doing this all the time from now on, but Stiles finds he doesn’t mind that thought too much. Perhaps he’ll still invite Derek along sometimes if they manage to get unstuck. No. When they manage to get unstuck. He’s determined to remain positive about this as much as he can.
Stilinski goodbyes are always a heartfelt affair. They hug each other tight even though they already know they’ll be seeing each other again in a week or so for Thanksgiving break, and Derek stands to the side awkwardly as he waits. He looks a little taken aback when Stiles’ dad turns to him and slaps him fondly on the back too, telling him to look after himself and not let Stiles get into too much trouble, but Stiles sees the pleased little smile on his face as the Sheriff walks away.
Yeah, he’ll definitely still be inviting Derek along sometimes. He may as well consider himself part of the extended Stilinski family now.
All that remains to be done when they get back to the loft is to pack Derek’s bags. Boyd must have come by at some point while they were out, because their new cell phones are waiting for them on the counter. Stiles makes a headstart on setting them both up as he trails around the loft after Derek, letting the sensation of the tug between them guide him in the process as he focuses his attention on the phone in his hands.
By the time he looks up from setting up the second phone, Derek’s bags are neatly stacked next to the front door, and Derek is glancing around the loft with an unreadable expression.
“Ready to go?” Stiles asks, handing the phone over.
“I guess so.” Derek takes the phone from him, slipping it into his pocket absent mindedly. “We should swing by Deaton’s on the way and pick up some of those books.”
“Let’s hit the road then, big guy.”
Luckily, the magical tether stretches just far enough for Stiles and Derek to get in the car normally rather than one of them having to climb across from the opposite side. That would be awkward to explain if anyone saw what they were doing, so it’s a relief that at least this feels relatively normal.
Their visit to the vet clinic is quick. Stiles says his goodbyes to Scott while Deaton talks Derek through the books, and then it’s just the two of them and the open road.
Stiles expects the journey to drag, but he falls asleep again about twenty minutes outside of Beacon Hills and sleeps right through until Derek pulls over for a pit stop half way through the journey. Deaton had warned him that there was likely to still be some lingering magical exhaustion, and he wasn’t wrong.
It takes seconds for Stiles to slip back into sleep again as soon as he’s back in the car after a quick bathroom and coffee break, and he stays that way until Derek nudges him awake to the sound of his new phone ringing shrilly from his pocket.
Stiles groans, rubbing a hand over his face and wriggling down in his seat so he can fish out his cell and accept the call with a clumsy swipe.
“What’s up, Daddio?” he says around a yawn, tapping the screen to put the call on speakerphone.
“How are you two getting on? Are you nearly there?”
Stiles blinks blearily out the window, taking stock of the scenery that’s familiar from the many times he’s done this drive before. “About half an hour away. We’ve made good time.”
He sees the corner of Derek’s mouth quirk up, though he doesn’t take his eyes off the road, and it has Stiles smiling in return, distracted from the call for a moment before the sound of his dad’s voice registers again.
“Okay, that’s good,” his dad says, pausing with a sigh. “Look, I don’t want to worry you, but we managed to track your phone and it’s not where we expected to find it. We’re not sure what’s going on but-” His dad pauses again, and Stiles can imagine the way he’s probably rubbing at his forehead the way he always does when he’s stressed. “Son, it looks like it’s in your apartment.”
“Okay.” Stiles frowns. “That’s not that unusual, right? Ryan probably found it and brought it back. I was pretty drunk, so I could’ve left it somewhere. I might even have given it to him for safekeeping.”
“That’s what we were hoping, but-” his dad lets out a sharp breath and Stiles can picture the concerned frown on his face. It’s not any more reassuring in his imagination than in real life. “Stiles, Derek’s phone is there too.”
Derek’s fingers immediately tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white as his lips press together in a grim line. He looks about as happy about this revelation as Stiles’ dad sounds.
“Right. Okay, that’s pretty weird. You’re not doing so well with the whole not worrying me thing there, Dad.”
“Sorry, Son. Just promise me you’ll be careful when you arrive. I want you to check everything out and report back as soon as you get there.”
“Yeah, of course,” Stiles agrees, tapping the fingers of his free hand against his knee in a nervous pattern. “We can do that.”
“Alright, I’ll talk to you soon. Love you - please be careful.”
“Yeah, we will. Love you too, Dad.”
Stiles hangs up and turns to look at Derek, whose expression has barely shifted through the rest of the conversation. “So,” he says, worrying at the edge of his sleeve, “that could’ve been better news.”
Derek grunts a noise in answer, fingers flexing around the steering wheel as he takes the turn-off for Berkeley.
“Oh good, we’ve gone subvocal. You’re really filling me with confidence here, big guy.”
“What do you want me to say? I don’t like this, Stiles. There’s no good reason for my phone to be at your place, and I don’t like that we’re most likely walking into a trap.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that from the murder expression and the death grip you’ve got going on with the steering wheel. It’s fine. We’ll get there, you’ll use your super senses to check everything out, and then we’ll either discover things are good or we’ll book it and go crash with some of my buddies for the night.”
Derek’s face does something that Stiles can’t quite describe. He sort of manages to look furious and horrified at the same time, with the most minute movement of his facial muscles. “No,” he says, shooting Stiles a look. “I’m not crashing on the lumpy, stained couch of some frat boy. We’ll get a hotel.”
“Dude, you lived in an old train car and the burned ruins of your family home. Don’t tell me you suddenly have standards now.”
Derek shoots him another look, and Stiles raises his hands in surrender, “Fine! I’m fine with the hotel as long as you’re paying. And I’ll have you know that barely any of my friends are frat boys. And the ones that are are perfectly nice and hospitable, so less of your judgment, please.”
Derek just raises his eyebrows and turns his attention back to the road without a response, clearly satisfied to consider this particular conversation over. Stiles just sighs and lets the worry build as he listens to the GPS guiding Derek through the familiar streets until he’s pulling up outside Stiles’ apartment building and reversing the Camaro into the empty space next to the Jeep.
By the time they arrive Stiles is practically vibrating with nerves, fully convinced that they’re about to walk into an ambush; from the way Derek’s looking around, he must be thinking the same thing.
Nothing looks out of the ordinary from the outside, but that doesn’t stop Derek from pushing Stiles behind him with a hand against his chest, head cocked in that way all the werewolves do when they’re trying to listen for something.
“What is it? Can you hear something?” Stiles peers over Derek’s shoulder, looking up at the illuminated living room window as Derek shushes him so he can listen some more. Ryan must be home, Stiles thinks, wondering what the hell he’s going to tell his roommate about all of this.
Oh, shit. Ryan.
How the hell could he have forgotten about his roommate in all of this? The roommate that he didn’t even bother to call after learning there had been an intruder in their apartment. The roommate who could, at this very moment, be caught up in whatever’s going on with no knowledge of the supernatural or Stiles’ relationship with it.
“There’s someone in there,” Derek says, glancing at Stiles as he picks up on the tells of the panic that’s rapidly creeping over him.
“Just one someone? Or more? I don’t suppose you can tell if that someone is a six foot three lovable idiot of a roommate who definitely hasn’t just managed to get caught up in whatever bullshit is happening with us at the moment?”
“Not from here, no.” Derek brings up a hand to rest on Stiles’ shoulder in a move that Stiles is quickly learning works wonders for helping to stave off panic attacks, the comforting weight of it helping to pull him back from the edge. “We need to get closer. Just stay behind me.”
He squeezes Stiles’ shoulder gently before slowly heading toward the apartment building, with Stiles a step behind him.
It takes Stiles a moment to realize that he doesn’t have his keys. That’s another thing that the kidnapper must have taken from his pockets while he was unconscious, and Stiles doesn’t know how he didn’t realize it before now.
“Hey, how did we get into the loft?” he whispers, suddenly overcome with the urge to be quiet now that they’re closer to the building. “Did you have your keys with you?”
“No,” Derek says, looking at Stiles like he’s gone slightly insane – it’s an expression that Stiles is a little too familiar with. “I used the spare. They were gone when I woke up. Why?”
“Because I don’t have mine either.” Stiles replies, looking meaningfully at the locked door.
Derek groans, looking at the buzzer with Stiles and Ryan’s name marked next to it in Ryan’s distinctive chicken scratch handwriting, then giving the door a look that Stiles is pretty sure means nothing good for the relationship between him and his landlord.
“I’ll try calling Ryan. Hopefully he’ll answer. Please don’t break my door down, I’m kind of attached to this place, and I’d really like to avoid getting evicted for property damage.”
Derek sighs, gesturing for Stiles to go ahead as he keeps his eyes and ears firmly locked in the direction of Stiles’ apartment.
Each ring of the phone has Stiles increasingly convinced that Ryan is incapacitated somewhere. A pool of dread grows in the pit of his stomach until he’s almost ready to tell Derek just to break the door down and be done with it.
On the eighth ring, the call connects and Stiles holds his breath, half certain that it’s going to be their kidnapper on the other end of the line.
“Stiles! Is that you? What the hell happened to you man?! You had me worried.”
“Hey Ryan,” Stiles breathes a sigh of relief, trying his best to calm his racing heartbeat now that he knows his friend is safe. “Sorry, man. It’s kind of a long story. You home? I lost my keys, so I need someone to buzz me in.”
“Yeah, I’m here. You can’t be disappearing on me like that though, bro. I was about ready to call the cops but Troy said he thought you’d scored and were probably shacked up with some girl for the weekend. Didn’t want to ruin the mood, you know?”
“Sorry, dude, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’ll explain everything when I get up there.”
“Sure thing, bro.”
Stiles hangs up and steps forward to press the buzzer to his apartment, Derek looming over his shoulder in a way that tells Stiles he’s not about to let his guard down. It rings a couple of times before the lock clicks open, and Derek’s darting ahead of him to push the door open, shooting a look at Stiles that says he better not even think about trying to go first.
Stiles sighs, shaking his head as he falls into step behind Derek, muttering something under his breath about overprotective werewolves that has Derek shushing him again as they make their way up the stairs.
They come to a stop outside Stiles’ door, and Stiles waits while Derek takes his time to assess the situation. It takes a few minutes but eventually Derek seems satisfied, turning to Stiles with a nod.
“I can only hear one heartbeat. Sounds normal, no elevation to indicate stress. It’s possible that whoever took us is using magic to conceal themselves, but we won’t know until we’re in there; don’t let your guard down.”
Stiles nods, taking a deep breath to ground himself and letting it out before reaching up to knock on the door.
He hears movement from inside, and then the door swings open and Stiles is being pulled into the bro hug to end all bro hugs.
“Stiles, my dude! Seriously, I can’t believe you had me worried like that. You need to quit it with the disappearing act on nights out, man. I can’t take the stress!”
“Sorry, man. It was kind of a wild night.” Stiles reaches up to slap Ryan’s back, giving himself over to the bro hug until Ryan decides it’s time to let him go, standing back and immediately stumbling over his own feet as he notices Derek for the first time.
“I guess Troy had it wrong, huh? It was some guy you were shacked up with, not some girl. Nice one Stilinski.” Ryan holds his hand up for a high five, and Derek’s nostrils flare dangerously. Stiles meets Ryan with a half-hearted hit, not one to leave a bro hanging even if he’s got the wrong end of the stick.
“No, that’s not- this is Derek. He’s a friend from home. He might be staying for a while.”
“Well hey there, Derek, Stiles’ friend from home.” Ryan winks, as if that’s clearly code for something else and Stiles is just being a gentleman. “Come on in. Mi casa es su casa.”
Stiles rolls his eyes and steps inside, Derek following closely behind him. The place looks just like it always does, the usual clutter strewn about the place, the usual stack of dishes waiting to be washed by the kitchen sink. There’s nothing abnormal at all, and somehow that makes Stiles feel even worse than if there had been obvious signs of an intruder.
“Hey, are you guys hungry?” Ryan asks, throwing himself onto the couch. “I was about to order takeout.”
“Yeah, I could eat.” Stiles says, trying not to be too obvious about the way he’s scanning the apartment for changes. “Derek?”
“Sounds good,” Derek agrees distractedly, still on high alert.
Luckily for them, Ryan seems content to let their weird behavior slide. Either that or he’s totally oblivious to it, because he’s entirely unaffected as he settles into his usual spot, sprawled over the ugly brown couch they’d picked up at a garage sale when they first moved in. “Pizza good?”
“Yeah, pizza’s good,” Stiles agrees, edging toward his bedroom. “You go ahead and order. I’m going to give Derek the tour.”
“Any requests, Derek?” Ryan is staring down at his phone, already tapping in the number for their usual pizza place.
“Whatever you usually get is fine.” Derek shrugs. “Just order double. I’ll pay.”
“Derek eats a lot.” Stiles offers in explanation, tentatively reaching for his bedroom door.
“I’ll bet he does,” Ryan says, shooting Stiles a sly wink that Stiles is pretty sure he thinks is subtle, though in reality it’s about as subtle as a brick to the face.
Derek looks distinctly like he regrets everything that has led him to this moment, and honestly Stiles can’t blame him.
Stiles grasps the handle, glancing over at Derek who gives him a slight nod as Ryan reels off their pizza order in the background. It’s now or never, and he turns the handle, pushing the door slowly open and reaching in to flick on the light.
It looks exactly the same as he left it, with clothes strewn across the floor from when he’d been getting ready for the night out, half empty beer can still sitting where he’d abandoned it on the windowsill, and the usual mess of books and papers covering his desk.
It’s uncanny, the way nothing seems to have been touched, except for the one glaring difference that Stiles’ eyes have locked on to. His phone and Derek’s are neatly lined up on top of his pillow with the missing house keys carefully placed next to them.
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah,” Derek agrees. “Is everything else how you left it?”
“Yeah,” Stiles confirms, narrowing his eyes at Derek. “Don’t judge. It’s coming up to exam season, I’ve got a lot on my plate.”
“I’m just checking.” Derek rolls his eyes, taking a careful step into the room so he can look around, and immediately making a beeline for the closet so he can check inside. “Take some pictures and send them to your dad. He’s going to want to know about this.”
“Yep,” Stiles agrees, trailing after Derek. “Just as soon as you stop walking in the opposite direction.”
Derek pauses for a second then, a slight flash of embarrassment crossing his features before he clearly decides to play things off as though he hadn’t just temporarily forgotten their situation. “After we check the rest of the room.”
Stiles smirks but doesn’t say anything, just follows after Derek as he does a sweep of the room, checking for any other signs of an intruder.
There aren’t any, which is creepy in itself. There’s not a single trace of anyone else having been in here, and it’s unsettling to realize that they would never know of the intrusion were it not for their kidnapper choosing to let them know. It leaves a sense that the kidnapper could come back at any time, or that they could be nearby watching, and Stiles would be none the wiser – and neither would Derek if they have the magical means to mask their presence.
The thought of it sends a shiver up Stiles’ spine, and he can’t help but wonder if that offer of the hotel room is still on the table. Not that it would be much use – if the kidnapper managed to steal both of them off the street and break into Stiles’ apartment without leaving a trace, Stiles is pretty sure a hotel room would be no match for them either.
Derek’s expression is grim, so Stiles is pretty sure he’s come to the same conclusions, but neither of them say anything. Stiles takes some photos on his phone to shoot off to his dad, and then the two of them continue their sweep of the apartment under the guise of Derek’s welcome tour.
There isn’t anything else to find. It’s all unnervingly normal, which has both of them feeling more on edge than they have since they first discovered the tether between them.
“Do you think the kidnapper was ever actually here, or did they just magic our stuff onto my pillow? And how did they know we were going to come back here rather than staying in Beacon Hills?”
“I don’t know,” Derek replies, eyebrows drawn together. “They had your keys, so it would have been easy for them to get in. They could have just covered their tracks.”
“Do you think they’ve been watching us the whole time? Maybe that’s how they knew we’d come back here. They followed us to Beacon Hills and bided their time to see what we would do.”
“I don’t know, Stiles.” Derek’s frown deepens, and there’s a hint of growl in his voice that would probably have put an end to this line of conversation were he talking to anybody else. Derek has never liked being in the dark about things, and that clearly hasn’t changed since Stiles left for college.
“I still don’t understand why they took us in the first place. What did they want us for? Why give our stuff back now? Maybe that means they aren’t going to try and take us again. Or maybe they will and they’re trying to lure us into a false sense of security – which, let me tell you, isn’t working because I’m feeling anything but secure right now.”
“Unless they’ve already achieved whatever it is that they wanted,” Derek says darkly, looking at the space between them. “Though I have no idea why they would want the two of us permanently attached.”
“Maybe they wanted to kill us but didn’t have the stomach for it. Probably figured a few days in each other's pockets would be enough to make us murder one another for them.” Stiles snorts a laugh and watches the corner of Derek’s mouth turn up as he shakes his head in fond amusement.
“Or maybe,” Stiles says, suddenly serious as an idea begins to dawn on him, “they just needed to draw you away from Beacon Hills for some reason. Beacon Hills hasn’t been without a Hale in how long? Even after the fire, Peter was still there. Comatose but there. What if that’s it? Derek, if they’ve lured you away for a reason then we need to go back. I can defer or something, but we need to go back.”
“No.” Derek’s voice is firm, though there’s a hint of something in his eyes that says he’s worried Stiles might be onto something. “You’re not deferring. We can work something out.”
Stiles is ready to argue but the pizza chooses that moment to arrive and Derek takes the opportunity to stride back toward the living room, Stiles towed along in his wake. Apparently that’s the end of that conversation.
Ryan doesn’t seem to notice that Stiles and Derek are all but attached at the hip – or perhaps he just doesn’t care. One of the things Stiles has appreciated most about his roommate since the first day they met, is the fact that nothing ever seems to phase him. Stiles has never known anyone else that could be so laid back about absolutely everything, but Ryan has it down to an artform.
Whether or not it’s easy acceptance or total obliviousness, Stiles has never truly been sure, but he definitely considers it a blessing now. Anyone else would have a million questions to ask about their roommate going missing for a few days and reappearing with a surly six foot limpet in tow, but Ryan just assumes Stiles has met the love of his life and says he can stay as long as he wants.
Stiles thinks about trying to correct him, but he doesn’t bring it up again, and it’s hard to pull him aside for a private conversation when there’s no such thing as privacy in Stiles’ life anymore. He half-heartedly tries to ignore the not-so-subtle little looks between them and winks that Ryan keeps shooting at him, but there’s no questioning the fact that Derek has noticed it too. If there was any doubt about that, it would be completely shot when Ryan gives him a double thumbs up as soon as Stiles says they’re going to his room and reaches for his noise-canceling headphones, winking at Stiles again for good measure.
“Your roommate thinks we’re together,” Derek says as soon as they’re back in the privacy of Stiles’ room.
“Yeah,” Stiles sighs, reaching for his phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell him. It seemed weird to just say it outright with you right there. I’ll send him a text.”
“No,” Derek frowns, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed where their old phones and keys are still laid out on the pillow, untouched since they got back. “No, it’s fine. It’s probably the best cover story we’ve got.”
“Are you sure? We don’t have to. You can just be my cousin Miguel again or something.”
Derek huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “That didn’t work the first time, it’s definitely not going to work now. Plus, you’ve already told Ryan I’m your friend Derek.”
“True,” Stiles agrees, taking a seat next to him. “But Derek the friend works too. It’s true, after all, right?”
“But it doesn’t really explain why you went missing for a whole weekend, or why we’re sharing a bed and showering together.” Derek frowns. “It’s fine, we can just tell everyone else I’m your friend from home, and let Ryan know that we want to keep our relationship private for now.”
“Yeah, okay. Only if you’re sure, though. I don’t want to make this weirder than it already is.”
“It’s fine, Stiles. It’s not like we have to try and sell it, we’re just letting him keep assuming what he already thinks is true.”
Stiles nods, already starting to tap out a message to Ryan. It feels wrong lying to his friend about something like this, so he tries to avoid it as much as possible, retyping the sentence about ten times, until he’s confident he has something that skirts around the truth without outright lying before sending it off.
“I told him the situation is new so we’d appreciate it if he helped us keep it on the down-low for now,” Stiles says with a groan, throwing himself back onto the bed. “I hate lying to him about stuff like this. It feels gross.”
“You’re a good friend, Stiles.” Derek says, shooting Stiles another one of those unreadable looks that Stiles never knows quite what to do with.
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Stiles mutters.
Their first evening in Berkeley doesn’t go too badly, all things considered. They comb through their returned cell phones for clues to little avail, and Stiles calls his dad to give him an update, while Derek contacts Deaton about Stiles’ theory on the kidnapper’s plan to see if it might hold any weight.
Unfortunately they don’t end the night with any more answers than they started with. Deaton promises to look into things, and suggests in the meantime that they either convince Malia to take a break from traveling so she can return to Beacon Hills in Derek’s absence, or they’ll have to call Peter or Cora in instead.
“I’ll call Malia,” Derek says decisively, not willing to even entertain the notion of dragging Cora back to Beacon Hills or getting Peter involved in the situation. That never ends well, and this time isn’t likely to be an exception.
“Nah, man – I’ll do it. No offense but she’s more likely to say yes if I ask.”
Derek looks like he does, in fact, take a little offense at that, but Stiles isn’t wrong and they both know it.
Luckily for them Malia is fine with heading back for Thanksgiving a week earlier than planned, especially when Derek tells her he’ll pay to move her flights and she can stay in the loft if she wants.
With that sorted, there’s nothing else for them to do but get ready for bed, shuffling around each other in and out of the bathroom as they brush their teeth and take it in turns to use the toilet and get changed. Stiles has never much thought about the layout of his bathroom before, but he finds himself exceptionally glad that the toilet is close enough that they can still put a door between them for that. Showering in the same room was bad enough – and Stiles is already certain he’s out of luck on that front here too – but having to take a dump in the same room as each other crosses a line that can never be uncrossed.
Stiles can’t lie, he drags the process of getting ready for bed out as long as he possibly can, until Derek starts looking at him like he’s gone insane. Derek is all quick efficiency, taking the least possible time to complete each step. Stiles spends at least ten minutes flossing his teeth with an attention to detail he never knew he possessed until this exact moment.
He knows it’s stupid, but he’s been dreading this. Last night was easy – Stiles was dead to the world, Derek was in the chair next to him, and there was no awkwardness to worry about aside from a little guilt on Stiles’ part. Tonight he knows he’s going to be sharing a bed with the star of his wet dreams, and Stiles is pretty sure his sleeping self can’t be trusted not to make this weird.
“So,” he says as they stand awkwardly next to each other in front of his bed, determinedly keeping his eyes off Derek’s bare chest because of course Derek sleeps shirtless. “Do you want the left side or the right side?”
“It’s your bed.” Derek raises an eyebrow, looking at Stiles like has no idea why he’s making this such a thing. “Which side do you normally sleep on?”
“Sort of just sprawled across the whole thing?” Stiles risks a glance at Derek and immediately regrets it. There’s way too much bare skin on display for him to be attempting that. “Sorry dude, I’m kind of a starfish. Feel free to shove any stray limbs back where they belong at any point.”
“Noted.” Stiles can hear the amusement in Derek’s voice, and immediately he knows he’s going to regret giving Derek permission. “You take the wall side, then. I prefer being closer to the door.”
“Werewolfy predator putting himself between the weak human and danger?”
“No,” Derek lies, “I just don’t want you to shove me into the wall in your sleep.”
“Ah, but I’ll be sleep-shoving you out of the bed instead. Is that really better?”
“I’ll take my chances,” Derek answers, gently pushing Stiles toward the bed in a not-so-subtle hint to just get in already so they can both go to sleep.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Stiles lifts the covers and slides in, pretending he doesn’t notice the way his heart rate picks up at the idea of Derek sliding in next to him. He pats the mattress next to him, smiling up at Derek in a way that he suspects is bordering on demented. “Come on then, big guy. Make yourself comfy.”
Derek rolls his eyes but does as he’s told and climbs in, turning on his side so that Stiles is faced with the broad expanse of his back and reaching over to flick off the lamp on the nightstand, plunging the room into darkness.
“So, this is nice,” Stiles says into the dark, because apparently his mouth doesn’t know when to stop talking. “Not awkward at all. I’ll definitely be falling asleep any minute now.”
“Shut up and go to sleep, Stiles.”
Stiles thinks that’s probably going to be easier said than done.
Stiles wakes muzzily to a mouthful of hair, a heavy weight half on top of him, and with the distinct impression he might spontaneously combust from how freaking hot he is. He shoves ineffectually at the body that’s pressing him against the wall with a groan.
“G’off. Too hot.”
The body on top of him groans in response, rolling away so that Stiles can breathe again. It only takes a second for a shiver to run through him at the sudden change in temperature, and Stiles immediately finds himself grabbing for the heat source he so stupidly got rid of just a moment ago as the cool air hits his skin.
“No, wait, come back. M'cold.”
He tucks himself against the warm back and sighs contentedly. The heat is much less oppressive when it isn’t mostly on top of him.
“Make your mind up,” the body mumbles around a yawn, and Stiles shushes it. This is too much talking for this time of the morning, and Stiles is of the opinion that more sleep should be happening now that he’s no longer being crushed.
Unfortunately his alarm clock has other ideas, and as soon as Stiles is most of the way back to sleep it starts blaring with an obnoxious klaxon sound that’s impossible to ignore.
“Make it stop,” Stiles whines, grabbing his pillow so he can pull it over his head to shut out the noise. “S’too early.”
The alarm shuts off, but apparently sleep is about to become a thing of distant memory because the shift of the mattress tells him that the body beside him is sitting up, and sure enough the pillow is being wrenched away from Stiles' head a moment later.
“You have class. I didn’t come all the way to Berkeley just for you to skip.”
Stiles cracks open an eye to shoot a glare at Derek. “I have at least eight more alarms to ignore before I actually have to get up.”
“No," Derek says simply, swinging his legs out of bed and extending his arms above him in a languorous stretch, before reaching over to yank the covers off Stiles while he's still distracted by the play of Derek's back muscles.
"Oh my God," Stiles gripes, reaching out in a fruitless mission to try and pull the covers back out of Derek's grip. "Is this what mornings are going to be like with you? One alarm and you’re just awake?! You're evil."
"You can sleep in on the weekend." Derek stands up, reaching down to wrap his fingers around Stiles' wrist so he can drag him along too. “Up.”
"Evil."
Stiles finds himself shuffled through his morning routine by a distinctly more awake Derek. The shower situation is significantly less awkward when he’s barely conscious, and he even manages to fit in a little cat nap against the wall while he waits for Derek to finish getting washed.
He stumbles along behind Derek in the kitchen as Derek does things with eggs and pans, and the ancient coffee machine that Ryan had mysteriously acquired at some point in their first few weeks of freshman year. The appliance acquisition is only mysterious because Ryan has steadfastly refused to tell Stiles where the thing came from ever since he brought it home, which Stiles takes to mean he probably fished it out of a dumpster.
He should probably be more disgusted by that thought than he actually is, and he immediately resolves never to tell Derek about it, because he suspects Derek’s opinion on dumpster coffee would be significantly less accepting than Stiles’.
By the time he’s shoveled his breakfast and dumpster coffee down his throat Stiles is feeling a lot more alive, and a glance at the clock hung crookedly next to the fridge tells him that they still have twenty minutes before they need to leave for class, which is pretty much unheard of in Stiles’ life.
“Okay, I take it back. You aren’t evil. You might actually be magic. I’ve showered and eaten breakfast, and I’m not running out the door with odd shoes on? You don’t understand how impossible that is, Derek. You’re performing miracles here.”
“It’s called getting up when your first alarm goes off.” Derek rolls his eyes, but that doesn’t stop Stiles from noticing the pleased little look he tries to hide by looking down into his half-empty mug.
“I cannot stress enough to you exactly how much I have never actually done that, big guy. Hasn’t happened in a year and a bit of college until today.”
“Good job I’m here then.”
“I’m not about to disagree with you,” Stiles says with a shrug, downing the dregs of his coffee and standing so he can go and pour the rest of the pot into two mismatched travel mugs. “Though I do think the level of proximity is overkill. A nice private shower shouldn’t be too much to ask for.”
Stiles is surprised by how easy it is for him to settle back into his usual routine pretty much immediately. He goes to his lectures and Derek does a good enough job of glaring everyone into silence that no one asks any questions about who he is and why he’s there. He shows Derek all his favorite places: the little coffee shop just outside of campus that sells the best brownies he’s ever tasted, the big tree he likes to sit under and study in the summer – all the little hidden gems he’d discovered over his first year at college.
It’s kind of nice to be able to share all of this with him, even if Stiles knows that it’s not where Derek really wants to be. It feels like he’s getting to share a side of his life that isn’t consumed by the supernatural, and he finds himself hoping that Derek likes what he’s built here. Maybe if he likes it, Derek won’t feel so bad about being forced to stay.
“Thanks for agreeing to come here.” It’s their third day in Berkeley and Stiles and Derek have been holed up in the library ever since his last lecture finished so Stiles can study and get in some research for his Greco-Roman Magic term paper.
Derek shrugs, briefly glancing up from the laptop in front of him. “It’s fine. It’s easy enough for me to work here too.”
“Not the library, dumbass.” Stiles rolls his eyes, tapping his pen idly against the desk. “Berkeley. You could have easily said no, so thank you. I know none of this is ideal.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s kind of nice to get away from Beacon Hills for a while.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Stiles leans back in his chair, his work forgotten for the moment. “Don’t get me wrong, I miss everyone and Beacon Hills will always be home, but it’s kind of a relief to just get to be normal for a change. Current situation aside, obviously.”
Derek snorts a sound of amusement. There really is nothing normal about Stiles having Derek along for the ride, even if it’s somehow managing to feel less and less weird by the minute.
“I think I’m ready to call it a day if you are?”
Derek jerks his head in a brief nod of agreement, shutting his laptop and stuffing it into the messenger bag that Stiles still can’t get over seeing him with. Such a small thing shouldn’t make such a difference, but that more than anything else seems to make Derek look like he has his shit together. Apparently nowadays he has things he needs to carry that don’t just fit in the pockets of his impressively tight jeans. There’s a laptop and books and papers, because it turns out that Derek needs those things for his job. The job that he apparently has, which Stiles knew nothing about until Derek opened up his laptop to start doing it.
That probably shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to him. There’s still a part of Stiles that looks at Derek and sees the guy that he was when he first got back to Beacon Hills – the guy who didn’t have time to worry about normal life things like houses and jobs because he was too busy trying to not die and to not let a group of idiot teenagers get killed at the same time.
They’ve both come a long way since those days.
Stiles’ phone buzzes in his pocket and he fishes it out to see a message from Ryan lighting up the screen.
“Apparently Ryan and some of the guys are heading to that burger place I showed you yesterday. You in?”
“I could eat.”
Dinner with the guys is fun. Ryan seems to have primed everyone on the situation before Stiles and Derek arrived because they get greeted with a chorus of ‘What’s up Stiles?’ and ‘Hey, friend-from-home Derek!’, while Ryan shoots them another one of those unsubtle winks that Stiles is pretty sure are quickly becoming a thing.
Stiles' friends accept Derek’s presence easily, like it’s totally normal for a bro to suddenly have a ridiculously attractive guy following him around campus, and Derek seems comfortable enough with them even if he doesn’t talk much. It’s nice. It’s normal, and Stiles is quickly realizing that Derek hasn’t had much normal in his life for a very long time.
They’re just finishing off their burgers when Derek frowns, nostrils flaring and head shooting up to look around the room in a way that has Stiles’ whole body tensing, suddenly on full alert as he picks up on Derek’s cues.
“What is it?” he hisses under his breath, hoping that the guys haven’t noticed anything off.
“Peter.” Derek’s voice is pitched low but it holds the edge of a growl, and Stiles is pretty sure that his eyes would be flashing blue were his control not impeccable.
“What, here?!”
“Over by the bar.” Derek says through gritted teeth, and sure enough when Stiles looks over Peter’s sitting right there with a glass of whisky in hand, his entire person radiating its usual air of smug creepiness as he smiles at them and waves.
“What the hell is he doing here?”
“Nothing good,” Derek replies, and despite not yet having a single clue what Peter is here for, Stiles is pretty sure that’s accurate.
He shoves the last of his curly fries into his mouth as Derek pulls out his wallet to throw enough bills to cover them and then some down on the table.
“Sorry to run guys, we’ve got a thing. Catch up with you later.”
The guys wave them off, unfazed, and Stiles and Derek make a beeline for the door. Whatever it is that Peter’s here for, they’re not doing it in Stiles’ favorite burger joint.
“Nephew! Stiles! What a coincidence! Great little place, isn’t it? Do you come here often, Stiles?” Peter catches up to them as soon as they’re out the door, and Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes at him.
“What are you doing here, Peter?” Derek folds his arms over his chest, stepping ever so slightly in front of Stiles in a way that definitely doesn’t go unnoticed by Peter.
“I could ask you the same thing, Nephew. I wasn’t aware you’d started graduate studies.”
Stiles steps out from behind Derek to stand next to him, rolling his eyes again as a low growl rumbles through Derek’s chest. “Just get to the point, Peter. You’re obviously here for a reason, you might as well cut the shit.”
“So suspicious, Stiles! Who’s to say I’m not just here to visit my nephew and my favorite human?”
“When have you ever paid either of us a visit without some kind of ulterior motive? Plus, most people call first.” Stiles narrows his eyes at Peter, as he tries to figure out what his game is. There definitely is one – there always is when it comes to Peter. It’s just a matter of weeding through the bullshit to find it.
“Fine,” Peter concedes, looking almost disappointed that Stiles and Derek are so unwilling to give him even the slightest bit of trust. “I heard about your little situation and thought I would come and see for myself. How did you manage to escape so quickly?”
“That’s what you want to know?” Stiles frowns, glancing at Derek. “I would have thought that was the least interesting thing about this, all things considered.”
For the briefest of moments, a confused expression flits over Peter’s features. He’s quick to school his face back into its former state of amused intrigue, but it’s too late and the alarm bells are already ringing in Stiles’ head. Something isn’t adding up here.
“As I understand it, you don’t have many answers for the rest of it just yet.” Peter says, a little too quickly. He’s choosing his words carefully, not mentioning any details, and it has Stiles wondering how much he actually knows and where he heard it from.
“As I understand it, we didn’t tell you about any of it,” Stiles says, eyes narrowed as he watches Peter carefully. “How exactly did you find out?”
“Oh, I have my sources.” Peter waves a hand vaguely. “I was surprised to hear that my daughter was back in Beacon Hills so early. I was under the impression that she wasn’t going to be flying in until next Monday.”
“So you didn’t hear it from Malia?” Derek cuts in, eyebrows furrowed as he keeps his senses trained on Peter for any little tells.
“Funny you ask that, Derek,” Stiles says, “because I was thinking the exact same thing. If you didn’t hear it from Malia, then who? We haven’t told anyone outside the pack, and none of them would have contacted you about it unless they absolutely had to.”
Peter pauses for a second too long, glancing to the side like he’s assessing his escape routes, and that’s all it takes for Stiles to add up the clues and come to the only conclusion that makes sense.
“You,” Derek growls, eyes glowing electric blue as he reaches the same conclusion as Stiles. “You did this.”
“Now, Nephew, let’s not-” Peter starts backing away, glancing toward a shiny black sedan that’s parked just down the street like he’s judging if he can get there before Derek has the chance to catch him.
“Why?” Stiles interrupts whatever bullshit excuse Peter’s about to try and sell them. “And more importantly, how do we undo it?”
“Undo it?” Peter pauses, seemingly forgetting about his escape plan as he looks at Stiles like he’s gone mad. “Undo what?”
“The spell,” Derek growls, clenching his fists in a way that tells Stiles he’s only barely keeping his claws hidden.
“What spell?” Peter looks genuinely confused, and Stiles suddenly gets the feeling that they’re missing half the picture here.
“The spell keeping us stuck together,” Derek says through a jaw clenched so hard Stiles is surprised he hasn’t cracked a tooth. “What spell do you think?”
“Unless you’re trying to tell us you’re not the one who abducted us and had one of your witchy friends work their voodoo on us?” Stiles adds.
“No,” Peter says, looking between the two of them like he’s finally starting to make some sense of all of this. “I mean yes, but also no. Do you mean to tell me you’re both in Berkeley because Derek physically can’t leave your side?”
“Yes,” Derek says through gritted teeth. “Why else would I be here?”
“Gee, thanks,” Stiles mutters. It might be true, but that doesn’t mean Derek has to say it.
It’s at that point that Peter starts to laugh, and, from the look on his face, Derek starts contemplating murder.
“Oh, this is too good,” Peter wheezes. “This is even better than anything I could have-”
“So you didn’t permanently attach us to one another?” Stiles asks, in the vain hope that stopping Peter from laughing might prevent Derek from tearing his face off.
“I wish I had,” Peter says, smirking at them. “But sadly, no. That wasn’t part of my little plan.”
“And what was your plan exactly?” Derek growls, clenching his fist so hard Stiles expects to see blood dripping through his fingers at any moment.
“Now that would be telling, Nephew.” Peter winks at them, and Stiles immediately rethinks the need to stop Derek from ripping his throat out.
“Come on, Peter. I know this is hilarious to you and all, but I have exams coming up and I’m pretty sure they’re not going to let Derek come in to take them with me. We need to undo whatever this is. It’s bad enough that you decided the leadup to finals was a good time to abduct me, but this is ridiculous.”
Peter has the good sense to look slightly abashed at that, and he holds his hand up in surrender. “I can ask my contact, see if she knows anything. Now, as lovely as this has been, I'd better be going. Things to do, people to see.”
“What?! you’re just going to leave? You’re not going to tell us what the hell you’re up to?”
“What would be the fun in that?” Peter winks at them again, smirk firmly set on his face as he strides off toward his car. “Have fun, boys. See you at Thanksgiving.”
They watch as he climbs in, giving them a little wave as he drives away, leaving them reeling in the wake of that entire conversation.
“I’m going to kill him.” Derek says through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, that makes two of us.”
‘Witchy friend’ not behind it. No idea what you’ve managed to do, but she was as surprised as I was. Promise not to kidnap you again until after finals ;)
The text comes in the next day, just as Stiles and Derek are leaving Stiles’ last lecture of the afternoon, and it immediately kills any last vestiges of hope that Stiles had been clinging on to. How do you counter a spell when you have no idea what the spell is or how it happened?
“Shit.” Stiles mutters, showing the text to Derek and watching as his expression darkens.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t figure it out. It might just take a little longer.”
“Or we might never figure it out, and this is it for the rest of our lives.”
Derek’s mouth flattens into a grim line. They’re going to have to start accepting that it’s a possibility, and as much as they’ve been managing their situation so far, it hasn’t even been a full week yet. It was a lot easier to deal with when they had thought it could be resolved by finding their kidnapper, but now the only tangible thing they can do is research magic, and even then it might take them months to find the answer, if not years.
Stiles’ sour mood bleeds into the rest of the evening, and even Ryan seems to notice that something’s up after a few solid hours of moping.
“Dude, you both look like someone just ate the last brownie at the bakery. What’s up, man? Did you guys have a fight or something?”
“No,” Stiles says with a sigh, glancing over at Derek. “It’s nothing like that. Finals are just getting to me.”
Ryan nods in understanding, reaching over to slap Stiles on the shoulder consolatorily. “I get it, bro. It gets to the best of us. You’re going to do fine, though. There’s still plenty of time, and you’ve been working hard all semester. You’ve got this man!”
“Thanks Ry,” Stiles sighs, leaning back into the sofa and looking up at the ceiling just so he doesn’t have to look at anyone else.
“And what’s got you all mopey, Derek my dude? We seriously need to do something about the energy in this apartment. How about we head into town, have some drinks, take the evening off?”
Stiles groans, thinking back to the last time Ryan managed to talk him into a night out, and how that night is exactly how he ended up in the predicament he’s in now. “Absolutely not. Have you already forgotten how that went last time? No way. Nope. Not doing it.”
“What, you mean you disappeared for a weekend and reappeared with Friend-From-Home-Derek in tow?” Ryan winks, just like he always does. “Sounds like it went pretty well for you last time to me, bro.”
“Yeah, well this time I’m exercising restraint,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “I think I just need an early night, Ry. I’ve been working too hard, I’ll feel better after some rest. We’ll go out after finals, yeah?”
“I’m holding you to it.” Ryan leans over toward Stiles, reaching out to him with his pinky finger outstretched. Stiles accepts, locking their fingers together in the most sacred of vows. The pinky promise is a cornerstone of his and Ryan’s friendship, and it’s not something to be taken lightly.
Ryan turns to Derek next, pinky finger outstretched once again. “Will you accept, sir?”
Derek raises an eyebrow, looking first at Stiles, then at Ryan’s finger.
“Don’t accept it lightly, Derek,” Stiles warns, face serious. “Once you’ve made the pinky promise that’s it. No take-backsies.”
“I know the rules, Stiles.” Derek looks him dead in the eye, a challenge in his gaze as he reaches out his own pinky to link it with Ryan’s.
“We’ve got ourselves a night out!” Ryan crows, throwing his hands in the air before reaching for his phone. “I’m texting the boys. Celebratory-slash-consolatory post-finals night out with Stiles and Friend-From-Home-Derek is go! Rally the troops!”
Stiles laughs, surprised to find that he actually does feel a bit better.
Stiles is still surprised by how easily he and Derek have managed to fall into a routine. There are certain things that they just don’t talk about, for fear of making it even more weird than it already is. Each night they fall asleep next to each other with as much space between them as they can feasibly manage, only to wake up pressed together in a tangle of limbs, both doing their best to ignore any natural bodily responses that may have occurred in the night.
Showers haven’t gotten any less awkward. If anything, they’re even worse – a cruel and specific form of torture designed to drive Stiles completely insane. That first morning in Berkeley when Stiles had barely been awake had been the only bearable one, and that’s only because he was napping against the wall for most of it.
Apparently, he’s adapted to Derek’s morning routine as much as Derek has adapted to Stiles’ class schedule, because he now finds that he’s mostly awake from the moment Derek drags him out of bed. It’s good for his concentration in class. Less good for not losing his mind whenever there’s a wet, naked Derek a few feet away from him, especially considering the fact that Stiles hasn’t been able to jerk off in almost a week.
It’s getting harder to will away his boner by the day, particularly because there’s nothing he can do about it. There’s no relief to be found, and while he knows that Derek is in the same boat, he doesn’t seem to be struggling with it to the same degree that Stiles is.
Stiles isn’t sure how much longer he can take it, particularly if this predicament ends up being permanent.
“Hurry up. We won’t have enough time for breakfast at this rate,” Derek grumbles, snapping Stiles out of his thoughts and spurring him to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. He looks down at his dick, standing proudly out in front of him as he tries his best to glare it into submission, thinking all of the most grotesquely unsexy thoughts he can come up with until finally it starts to subside, and he can breathe a sigh of relief.
Maybe a break in routine will help. They’re traveling back to Beacon Hills for Thanksgiving break as soon as his last class of the day is over, and Stiles is wildly hoping that the distraction of being home – and, more importantly, the cock-blocking presence of his dad – will help him to chill the fuck out.
He shuts off the water and steps out of the cubicle, grabbing his towel from the rail and dragging it over his hair before tucking it securely around his waist, glad that this particular torture is over for another day.
The rest of the day goes by in a blur of classes and studying, until finally Stiles and Derek’s bags are packed up in the Camaro, and they’re on the road back toward Beacon Hills. The last few days since they arrived back in Berkeley have gone quickly, and yet it feels like a lifetime ago that they were doing this drive in reverse, scared of what they were going to find when they made it to Stiles’ apartment.
It’s a relief not to worry about their kidnapper lying in wait anymore – though Stiles is still trying to figure out what Peter’s end game is. Weirdly, even though he doesn’t trust Peter as far as he can throw him, he actually does believe that Peter will stick to his word and not do anything else at least until finals are out of the way.
The drive goes more slowly this time – probably because Stiles is actually conscious for it – but he makes use of the opportunity to get some study time in, idly chatting with Derek and working over concepts from this week’s lectures with him. Stiles had sort of assumed that Derek had just been working on his own stuff rather than listening to the lectures he sat in on, but from the insights that he shares, he’d been paying more attention than Stiles had thought. He has some interesting ideas, and they send Stiles off on a tangent that keeps him occupied for most of the journey home as he figures out how he can work some of them into his term paper.
Finally, after a solid few hours of driving, Derek is pulling into the Stilinski driveway and Stiles is flinging himself out of the car and into his dad’s arms for a proper Stilinski hug.
“Stiles.” Derek’s voice is strained, and when Stiles looks back at him he’s leaning uncomfortably across the center console of the Camaro, eyebrows drawn together in an unimpressed expression.
“Oh, shit! Sorry.” Stiles steps back toward the car with an apologetic shrug as Derek shakes his head, climbing out and walking around to stand next to him before gesturing to the Sheriff.
“By all means, go ahead.”
Stiles grins, pulling his dad back into a tight hug. “Missed you, Dad.”
“It’s only been a few days, Son. Surely you didn’t have time to miss me that much.” His dad hugs him just as tightly, slapping him on the back before stepping away and turning toward Derek, hand outstretched. “Good to see you too, Derek. I hope he hasn’t been causing you too much trouble.”
Derek grips the Sheriff’s hand in a firm handshake as Stiles squawks his offense. “I’m a delight, I’ll have you know.”
“I think we’ll let Derek be the judge of that one, Son.”
“We’ve been managing,” Derek answers diplomatically, and Stiles can’t really argue with that, so he just contents himself with grumbling about rude fathers who should be nicer to their children as they grab their bags out of the car and head inside.
Thanksgiving break is exactly what Stiles needs, and it passes far too quickly. He spends a lot of his time buried in books – both for school and for supernatural research, to see if he can find any answers on what it is that’s keeping him and Derek stuck together – but he does his best to make time to relax and spend time with his friends and his dad too.
Back when this first happened, he’d been so sure that it was going to be a total disaster. In some ways it is, particularly when he thinks about the long term consequences on both his life and Derek’s, but in the short term it’s surprisingly not that bad. The two of them have fallen into life together with an ease that Stiles would never have been able to predict.
Derek makes his life easier, in many ways. It’s like having a permanent accountability partner, and Stiles has never been so productive both when it comes to schoolwork and when it comes to household chores. Sure, it’s annoying when he’s mid-flow on an essay and he has to pause because Derek needs to pee, but all things considered he can’t complain; Derek has surprisingly few annoying habits, and he takes all of Stiles’ eccentricities in his stride.
At least, Stiles hopes that he does. For all Stiles knows, Derek is suffering in silence, praying for the day that he can finally get away from him and never have to see him again. He hopes not, though. God, Stiles really hopes not, because the thought that Derek is finding this whole experience completely unbearable is surprisingly gutting.
He doesn’t seem to hate it, at least.
He joins in with the Stilinski Thanksgiving traditions without protest, and every time Stiles sneaks a glance at him, he notices that Derek looks relaxed – content, even. He helps Stiles with all the prep for Thanksgiving dinner without even being asked. He watches the game with them and joins in on the age old tradition of shouting at the TV when the plays aren't going their way. He sits around the table and makes conversation with Melissa and Scott and Malia as they gorge themselves on turkey, and when they go around the table saying what they’re thankful for, he ducks his head and quietly says “I’m thankful for today.”
It hasn’t been that long since all of this started, but Stiles thinks they’ve been doing okay. It’s been getting a little easier each day as they learn each other’s little quirks and habits. He’d worried about how things might be different being back in Beacon Hills compared to Berkeley, but if anything things feel even less complicated here – perhaps because they don’t have to worry about having to explain anything to anyone who might notice how weird it is that they’re never more than a few feet apart.
There’s one thing that isn’t getting any easier, though, despite what Stiles had been hoping. In fact, Stiles is pretty sure it’s getting worse, and he’s fairly certain he’s going to snap at some point and there won’t be anything he can do to stop it.
The fact that Stiles hasn’t had an orgasm in approaching two weeks – along with the fact that the person permanently in Stiles’ vicinity is the person he’s been lusting after since he was sixteen and he’d discovered that being held up against his bedroom wall in a strong grip could lead to some very interesting fantasy fuel – means that Stiles is pretty much in a permanent state of arousal.
It takes almost nothing to set him off at the moment: a mildly raunchy scene on the TV; a slightly suggestive song lyric; the sight of the box of tissues next to his bed. And the worst thing is, there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s experiencing a level of sexual frustration he didn’t know was possible, and he really isn’t sure how much longer he can cope with it.
He accidentally turns around while Derek’s changing his shirt one morning, and he genuinely thinks for a moment that he’s going to cream his jeans just from a glimpse of those chiseled abs.
It’s a problem.
The only solutions he’s managed to come up with so far are distracting himself with the presence of other people, and throwing himself into studying and research until he’s so exhausted that he’s too tired to be horny. It’s not ideal, but it’s all that he’s got.
The one saving grace in all of this, is that Stiles is so busy worrying about inappropriate erections, he’s finding it hard to worry about anything else. He knows that there are other more serious effects that the spell is having on their lives. He knows that he might not be able to take his exams, or get a job that isn’t remote working, or make any decisions without having to take Derek into account. It’s just kind of hard to remember all of that when he’s so busy wondering if he’ll ever be able to enjoy an orgasm again.
By the end of Thanksgiving break they’re still no closer to finding any answers, and Stiles is so sexually frustrated that he can hardly focus on his research, let alone his schoolwork. When he climbs into the Camaro to leave Beacon Hills it’s with an air of despondency, and an overwhelming sense that there’s something obvious that Stiles is missing because he just can’t concentrate.
Stiles and Derek arrive back in Berkeley to an empty apartment and with enough leftovers to keep them going for the next week. The journey isn’t that long really, but something about the drive always takes it out of Stiles, and he’s tempted to just fall into bed fully clothed, everything else be damned.
“Come on,” Derek says, nudging Stiles toward the bathroom. “Go take a shower. You’ll feel better.”
Stiles highly doubts that, but then again he’s pretty sure Derek hasn’t realized exactly how torturous this particular part of his day is, and Stiles isn’t about to enlighten him.
“You go first,” Stiles says with a sigh, already resigned to his next inappropriate boner. He can already feel his dick starting to plump up in the confines of his underwear, and that’s just from the thought of Derek showering in the same room as him.
He grabs one of Deaton’s books and brings it with him into the bathroom in the vague hope that he might be able to distract himself, but he knows it’s a lost cause. Stiles ends up reading the same paragraph six times without taking in any of the words, too focused on his failed attempts at willing his boner away as he tries to ignore the sound of water hitting slick skin in the background.
After fifteen never-ending minutes, the water finally shuts off, and Derek steps out of the shower, his feet slapping wetly against the tiled floor.
“Your turn,” Derek mumbles as he appears next to Stiles, clad only in the towel tucked securely around his waist. At some point, this had become the norm. They don’t get dressed in the bathroom anymore; one of them just stands around in a towel until the other is done showering, and they go and dress in Stiles’ room instead.
It’s like Derek’s actively trying to drive Stiles insane.
Stiles makes a noise of acknowledgement, dropping the book into Derek’s hands and tugging off his shirt as he walks toward the shower and out of Derek’s line of sight. He can’t help the hiss that escapes him when the waistband of his underwear catches on his straining dick as he pulls them off, and he hurries to turn the water on and get inside the shower before he can embarrass himself any further.
There’s no way Derek didn’t hear that. He can probably smell it too. He’s probably been smelling it this whole time, and there’s no way he’s missing it now – not with how keyed up Stiles is. The room is probably bursting with the thick scent of Stiles’ arousal, and the very thought of it makes Stiles’ cock twitch.
It shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t, but the thought that Derek has known what this has been doing to Stiles for days and has just stood there smelling it does something to Stiles. His cock twitches again, a bead of precome forming at the tip, and he knows it’s a lost cause.
“Fuck it,” Stiles groans, bracing a hand against the wall to steady himself. “I’m sorry. I can’t take it anymore. Close your nose and your ears or something. I just-”
He reaches down, fingers curling around the base of his dick and squeezing gently. He can’t quite bite back the moan that spills out of his mouth, and there’s a sharp intake of breath behind him. Stiles’ cock throbs in his hand at the thought that this could possibly be affecting Derek as much as it is Stiles and he tries to hold in a whimper.
He strokes himself once, grip firm as he slides his hand up the shaft, twisting slightly at the head just the way he likes it, and it’s a blessed relief. God, he missed this. There’s no stopping the breathy gasp that escapes him as he does it again, and Stiles isn’t sure why he’s even bothering to try and hold the noises back at this point.
“Fuck,” Derek hisses from behind him, and Stiles hears the sound of footsteps quickly approaching. Before Stiles knows what’s happening, there are fingertips grazing the skin of his hip, asking a question through touch. He can feel the soft puff of Derek’s breath against the back of his neck, and Stiles’ cock spurts out another drop of precome at the sensation.
“Can I?” Derek’s voice sounds wrecked, and that in itself is almost enough to finish Stiles off.
“Yes,” Stiles pleads, jerking his head in a nod to make sure Derek gets the picture. “Fuck, yes. Please.”
Apparently, that’s all Derek needs to hear. Suddenly, there are miles of hot, wet skin pressed up against Stiles’ back, a thick cock resting against his ass crack, and Stiles’ hand is being batted away so that Derek can replace it with his own, his fingers wrapping tightly around Stiles’ cock.
Stiles is amazed he doesn’t just come right then and there, because this has to be the singular hottest thing that’s ever happened to him. The only reason he manages to hold it off is his desperation to see where this goes; he doesn’t want this to be over before it’s even begun.
Derek’s arm clamps around Stiles’ torso, holding him tightly in pace against Dereks’ broad chest. Stiles gives himself over to it, letting his head roll back to rest on Derek’s shoulder as Derek pumps his cock firmly, his grip just the right side of too tight.
“Fuck.” Stiles bucks into his touch, and Derek nips the side of Stiles’ neck lightly in reprimand with blunt human teeth, soothing the sharp pain with a brush of lips that has Stiles going weak at the knees.
Derek sets a steady pace, hand moving in sure, unrelenting strokes that have Stiles moaning unabashedly. He’ll probably be embarrassed about this later, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. Not when Derek’s hand is on his dick, and he can feel the slight rolling shift of Derek’s hips as he finds his own pleasure against the cleft of Stiles’ ass.
The tip of Derek’s thumb flicks over the head of Stiles’ cock, and that’s all it takes. He’s coming in thick spurts over Derek’s fist, his release splashing obscenely against the tile of the shower wall, as Derek works him through it, holding him up as Stiles’ knees go from underneath him, and his vision goes white with the most intense orgasm he’s had in years.
It doesn’t take long for Derek to follow, and Stiles feels as much as hears the low groan that vibrates through his chest as he comes between them, hot wetness painting Stiles’ lower back as Derek’s hips give one last series of jerky thrusts.
Afterwards, they just stand there for a few minutes, catching their breaths as they come back down to Earth.
Stiles can feel the rise and fall of Derek’s chest against his back, the softening shape of Derek’s dick against his ass, and he realizes that he has no idea what he’s meant to do now. What do you do after you just got off with the guy you’re permanently stuck to, and who you never thought you had a chance in hell with?
“So,” Stiles says, immediately regretting it when he feels Derek tensing up behind him. “That happened.”
“Yeah,” Derek agrees, voice quiet.
“Is that- I mean-” Stiles bites his lip, willing himself to somehow stay cool. “Is this maybe a thing you wouldn’t be averse to happening again?”
Derek huffs an amused sound, tracing the tip of his nose along the side of Stiles’ neck in a way that has Stiles wondering how quickly Derek might be up for Round Two. “I could probably be convinced.”
After that it’s like the floodgates have opened. Restraint goes out the window, and suddenly shower time goes from the thing Stiles dreads the most to being the highlight of his day.
Stiles and Derek immediately form an unspoken agreement that there’s no point in doing the stupid dance of showering separately anymore, so they just climb under the spray together, and from there it’s a frenzy of hands and dicks and bodies pressed together as they bite back moans.
They don’t talk about it.
It feels like the kind of thing they probably should talk about, but Stiles finds himself slightly terrified that if they start talking about it it’ll stop happening, so he just lets it be the elephant in the room and takes Derek’s lead. If Derek isn’t going to discuss it, Stiles isn’t going to be the one to bring it up.
It’s driving him a little bit insane, truth be told. The first morning that Derek sinks down on his knees and takes Stiles' cock into his mouth leaves Stiles reeling, mind spinning with questions that he can’t bring himself to ask out loud. What are they doing here? Is it just a means to an end, or could it be something more? God, he wants it to be something more, but he doesn’t want to freak Derek out by suggesting it.
There’s awkward, and then there’s bringing feelings into your convenient fuckbuddy relationship with the guy you’re permanently attached to.
And that’s another problem. Stiles still has no idea why he and Derek are stuck together, and with finals rapidly approaching he’s finding it hard to make the time to research that around his schoolwork.
His days seem to merge into an amorphous blob of classes and studying and not enough sleep, with Derek pulled along for the ride. Stiles still doesn’t know how the hell he’s going to take his exams with Derek not allowed in the exam hall with him, but that’s one problem too many for him to worry about. He’s still holding out the vain hope that someone back home will come through on the research before then and it’ll be a non-issue, though with each day that passes he knows it’s becoming increasingly unlikely.
As it goes, the answer to that question comes to him in the form of a text from Peter a week after Thanksgiving break.
The exam problem is sorted – check your email. Tell Derek congratulations on his new job. You’re welcome.
Stiles scrolls to his email, and sure enough there it is waiting for him. The school has received his application and the letter from his doctor, and he has been granted permission to take his exams in a separate room with his emotional support animal in attendance. Who the hell does Peter know?
He frowns, scrolling back to his texts so he can reply, but his eye catches on the last text he’d received from Peter a few weeks ago, right after he’d come clean about his part in their kidnap.
‘Witchy friend’ not behind it. No idea what you’ve managed to do, but she was as surprised as I was. Promise not to kidnap you again until after finals ;)
No idea what you’ve managed to do.
Shit.
All this time Stiles has been operating under the assumption that this whole situation is down to some outside magical fuckery, but what if it isn’t? How could Stiles have overlooked the fact that he’d done magic that day too?
“Derek?” Stiles’ voice is shaky as he looks over at Derek sitting next to him, laptop open in front of him as he works on whatever it is he’s been busy with for the past hour.
Derek looks up at him, eyebrow raised in question, and Stiles finds himself slammed by a sudden wave of guilt. This is his fault. He’s the one that did this to them, and Derek’s the one who’s had to upend his entire life because of it. His stomach churns at the thought of it, and for a brief moment Stiles genuinely thinks he might be sick.
“What do you remember from when I whammied us out of the kidnap basement?”
Derek frowns, closing his laptop and sitting forward in his seat a little. “Why? What are you thinking?”
“Peter’s witchy friend didn’t do this. He already said that, but we’ve still been working under the impression that it was someone else who did this to us.” Stiles looks down at the floor, too much of a coward to look Derek in the eye as he says the next part. “Derek, I think it was me. I did this.”
Derek is silent next to him, and Stiles thinks that might be worse than if Derek had got mad about it. He glances up, bracing himself for the horrified, betrayed expression that he’s certain must be on Derek’s face, but instead he’s greeted by a confused frown.
“No,” Derek says, tapping his fingers against his closed laptop as he thinks, “I think we did this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember? It was right when I touched you, Stiles. That’s when the spell finally worked.”
He’s right.
Stiles had barely registered it then, so focused on trying to visualize the outcome he was trying for, but Derek’s hand had come to rest on his shoulder and that’s when Stiles’ spark had finally come to life, bursting through him in a bright flash of gold.
“So how the hell do we undo it? I don’t know how I managed to do it in the first place.”
“Visualization and willpower?” The corner of Derek’s mouth turns up in amusement, and Stiles snorts a laugh.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t visualizing this.”
“We’ll talk to Deaton. Now that we know what caused it in the first place, that should help him to narrow down the research. This is a good thing, Stiles. At least now we know what we’re working with.”
“It doesn’t feel like a good thing.” Stiles groans, sliding down in his seat as he brings a hand up to rub at his face. “Derek, doing this in the first place used everything I had. I can’t drain my energy like that again – not right now. I probably haven’t even finished building my reserves back up yet, not with the way I’ve been spreading myself so thin lately.”
“It’s fine, Stiles. We’re not in a rush. We’ll get you through finals first, then we’ll think about breaking the spell – one thing at a time.”
“Speaking of finals...” Stiles looks over at Derek, slightly uncertain about how he’s going to react to this next bit of information. “How do you feel about being my new emotional support wolf?”
The next few weeks pass in a haze of books, term papers, and exams. Stiles and Derek split their time between the library, Stiles’ favorite coffee shop, and home – mostly just for a change of scenery so that they don't go completely stir-crazy.
The thing Stiles doesn’t expect is the way Derek steps up now that the pressure of school is really starting to hit. Apparently when he’d said that they’d get Stiles through finals, he had truly meant it. Derek seems to have decided that it’s a team effort, and that his role in all of this is to make sure that Stiles is properly looking after himself.
Usually when exam season hits, Stiles ends up living off energy drinks and instant noodles until it’s over, but Derek looks positively offended at the idea of it. Instead, he sits Stiles down at the kitchen table with his books and laptop and tells him he can do his work there while Derek cooks something with actual nutrition.
And he does.
Every mealtime, Derek makes something for the three of them and forces both Stiles and Ryan to take a short break so they can eat properly and not burn themselves out.
Stiles has never realized before now exactly how much he usually neglects himself when exam period rolls around, but Derek is determined not to let Stiles get away with any of his usual bad habits. There’s no more falling asleep at his desk, no more skipping mealtimes, no more all nighters. Derek implements a strict routine and a truly innovative blowjob reward system that Stiles thinks might single handedly get him through this semester with the best grades he’s managed in his time at college so far. What can he say? He’s a very reward motivated kind of guy.
Finally, after a few solid weeks of stress, they emerge at the other side of exam chaos, a little exhausted but mostly unscathed.
“Are my favorite roommates ready?” Ryan greets them as soon as they come through the door after Stiles’ last exam with a case of beer and a level of enthusiasm that only Ryan can achieve.
“What, now?” Stiles groans, accepting a beer and cracking it open anyway.
“No time like the present, my dude.” Ryan presses a beer into Derek's hand as well, then grabs one for himself.
“We did promise,” Derek points out, much to Ryan’s delight.
“Yeah, but I thought maybe I could have a nap first,” Stiles grumbles, though it’s half-hearted at best.
Truth be told, he’s been looking forward to this. Stiles has been under so much stress lately that the thought of finally being able to let loose and have fun without any guilt is a blessed relief.
“You can nap tomorrow,” Ryan decrees, holding his beer aloft, “for today we party like men!”
“Like men!” Stiles holds his beer up in response as he echoes Ryan’s battle cry, then turns to look at Derek expectantly.
Derek just shakes his head, biting back a laugh as he raises his beer in the air as well.
Apparently this is good enough for Ryan, because he immediately fishes his keys out of his pocket, stabs a hole in the side of the can and shotguns it. “Drink up, men,” he says, as soon as the can is empty. “The rest of the crew are waiting for us at Kip’s.”
Not one to disobey a direct order, Stiles drinks – albeit not as enthusiastically as Ryan had. He downs about a quarter of the can, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he holds in a burp and looking over at Derek who is sipping his far more sedately.
Ryan cracks open another one, waving them off as he flops down onto the couch. “Go and get ready. Time and beer wait for no man.”
“What does that even mean?” Stiles mutters as they head to his room, with Derek snorting a laugh next to him.
Kip’s is packed when they get there, filled with what seems like every student that’s just finished their exams. Nevertheless Ryan quickly spots the rest of the guys over in the back corner, crowded around a table that’s already overflowing with empty glasses.
They all head over to join them, after a quick detour via the bar, and the group cheers their arrival in a way that makes it clear they’re already more than a few drinks into the session. Stiles glances over at Derek, slightly concerned that Stiles and Ryan’s rowdy friends will have him looking like he wants to run for the hills, but Derek just smiles back at him, nudging him toward the group who are already shuffling around to make room.
Stiles ends up crammed in between Ryan and Derek, his leg pressed flush against the warm length of Derek’s thigh in a way that has him struggling to think about anything but the points of contact between Derek’s body and his own.
They still haven’t talked.
It’s been weeks now since they started getting off together, and Stiles still has no idea what’s going on in Derek’s head. They haven’t taken it any further than handjobs and blowjobs so far, but as they sit there, bodies pressed close, Stiles can’t help but imagine more.
He imagines what it would be like to have Derek press a finger inside him, working him open slowly with sure hands. He imagines the way Derek would push into him, careful at first, then unrelenting as he takes his pleasure from Stiles’ body. He imagines the way Derek’s face would look as he comes inside, the way he’d moan against the skin of Stiles’ shoulder, like he’s only just stopping himself from biting his mark into Stiles’ skin.
A hand comes to rest on his knee, squeezing firmly, and Stiles flushes as he realizes that Derek can smell his arousal. His friends are all still talking and laughing around them, none the wiser to the way that Stiles just zoned completely out of the room, and Derek leans a little closer so that he can talk into Stiles’ ear.
“Later,” he murmurs, squeezing Stiles’ knee once more before picking up his half empty glass to take another sip.
Stiles reaches for his own, desperately in need of something to ease the sudden dryness of his throat. Derek doesn’t know what he’s just promised, but Stiles hopes beyond anything that he’s going to be on board.
They only stay for a couple more rounds before Stiles puts in their excuses. A part of him feels guilty; it’s been so long since they last had a night out like this, and they don’t get to do it as often as they used to, but Stiles’ head just isn’t in it tonight. He doesn’t want to stay out until the early hours. He doesn’t want to get wasted. There’s only one thing on his mind, and now that he’s thought about it his brain won’t let him think about anything else.
Ryan shoots him a knowing wink as they leave and, unlike when Derek first arrived in Berkeley, this time he isn’t wrong.
The whole cab ride home Stiles is practically vibrating out of his seat, so full of anticipation that he can’t contain it, all while Derek sits there next to him, bemused as to what’s gotten Stiles so riled up.
“I want you to fuck me.” It only takes him a matter of seconds to say it once they’re finally through the front door of the apartment, like the words have been waiting impatiently on his tongue until he was in a place where he could finally unleash them.
Derek’s eyes go wide in a way that tells Stiles that wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and suddenly Stiles wishes he could take the words back. Handjobs and blowjobs are one thing, but sex is something else entirely, and now Stiles is bracing himself for the inevitable rejection, because in all this time, Derek has never hinted that he wanted anything more from Stiles than what they’ve already been doing.
“Stiles.” Derek’s voice comes out lower than usual, a hint of gravel to it that Stiles hasn’t heard before, and Stiles is already turning away, wishing he could make a proper escape from Derek even though he knows it’s impossible.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have- I don’t know why I even-”
A warm hand grasps his shoulder firmly, turning Stiles back around to face him. “You didn’t let me answer.”
“Oh.” Stiles blinks, staring back at Derek with wide eyes. “Sorry. Yeah, um. Go ahead?”
“I didn’t realize that was something you would want.”
“I do. Want it, I mean. I want you to.” Stiles is babbling. He knows it, but he can’t stop himself and the words just keep tumbling out. “I haven’t done it before, but I’ve been wanting to, you know? I mean I’ve had sex, obviously. I’ve done that, but I’ve never had anyone fuck me. It just doesn’t feel like a one night stand sort of situation, because, you know, I can’t imagine letting someone I didn’t trust do it, especially the first time. But you’re you, and obviously I trust you so… Yeah. I want you to.”
Derek looks a little shell shocked, but his hand is still on Stiles’ shoulder, so Stiles is hoping he can take that as a good sign. “You would trust me with that?” he says after a moment, once he’s taken the time to process everything that Stiles has just said.
“Well yeah, of course.” Stiles shrugs. “So, would you…?”
“Yes,” Derek says, quickly enough that Stiles feels a little smug about it. “Yeah, we can definitely do that.”
The short walk through to the bedroom is charged with an energy that has Stiles vibrating out of his skin again. It’s kind of bizarre, starting things like this. Usually when they get off together it starts more organically, either in the shower where it’s already anticipated, or in the heat of the moment in Stiles’ bedroom just with a touch.
They’ve never actually had any sort of conversation about it first, or indeed at all, for that matter, and it leaves Stiles floundering somewhat. He doesn’t know what to do with himself if he’s not just diving into action, so it comes as a blessed relief when Derek just cuts right to the point and pulls off his shirt as soon as the bedroom door is locked behind them.
Stiles follows suit, tossing his own shirt to land on the desk chair and half tripping over his feet in his haste to toe off his shoes. He catches a glimpse of an amused smile on Derek’s face, but it’s gone as soon as it appears, and Stiles is quickly distracted by the shift of Derek's arm muscles as he reaches to unbutton his jeans. It doesn’t take long after that for Stiles to find himself lying back on the bed clad only in his boxers, watching as Derek settles on top of him, arms braced on either side of his head.
“You’re sure about this?” Derek’s voice is low and intense, the barest hint of a growl creeping through in a way that shows Stiles just how affected he is by this.
“Yep.” Stiles nods, trying not to look too eager but probably failing if the quirk of Derek’s mouth is anything to go by. “Totally sure. Sure like you wouldn’t even believe.”
“Good,” Derek cuts him off before he can ramble any further. “Just let me know if you change your mind at any point. We’ll take it slow.”
“Dude, it’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t experimented on my own before, I’m not a total beginner.”
Derek raises an eyebrow and Stiles sighs, rolling his eyes.
“But yes,” Stiles adds, “I will let you know if I change my mind. Now can we please get on with it?”
Derek smirks, shifting so that his body is flush against Stiles’, the bulk of him pressing Stiles down into the mattress as he rolls his hips in a dirty little grind that has Stiles biting back a moan. Lips graze against the shell of Stiles’ ear as Derek leans in to murmur his response. “I think that can be arranged.”
He shifts his hips again, applying delicious pressure to Stiles’ rapidly hardening cock just for a moment before he moves away, leaving Stiles to whine out his protest.
“I thought you wanted me to get on with it?” Derek smirks, far too pleased with himself as he starts to trail his lips down the column of Stiles’ throat, leaving little nipping kisses across his clavicle, before working his way further down Stiles’ chest.
Derek takes his damned time.
It drives Stiles insane, but Derek is an immovable object when he wants to be, and apparently he’s decided that now is the moment to map out Stiles’ torso with his teeth and lips and tongue, searching out all the little sensitive places that have Stiles bucking his hips up into thin air in search of some kind of relief.
Finally, finally, he curls his fingers around the waistband of Stiles’ underwear, tugging them slowly down so he can watch Stiles’ cock spring free to slap wetly against his stomach. It’s obscene, how turned on Stiles is by this already, but Derek seems to revel in it, licking a stripe up the underside of Stiles’ dick with the tip of his tongue before sucking the head into his mouth, tongue flicking across the slit in that way that he already knows will make Stiles howl.
He doesn’t linger there any longer, though. As good as it feels, that’s not what tonight is about, and Stiles takes the opportunity to catch his breath as Derek sits up and reaches over toward the nightstand so he can grab the lube from its hiding spot in the drawer.
Just the sight of Derek holding it has Stiles’ cock twitching against his stomach, blurting out a little bead of precome into the line of dark hair there. He knows what comes next and he’s desperate for it. He’s fantasized about it for years, and now finally he’s about to get the real deal.
“You ready?” Derek asks, voice gentle as he settles between Stiles’ legs, slicked fingers coming to slide against the tight furl of his hole, not pushing in just yet, because Derek is clearly on a mission to drive Stiles out of his mind with frustration.
“Yes.” Stiles hisses, spreading his legs further in a move that makes Derek’s breath hitch.
Apparently that’s all Derek needed to hear, because Stiles immediately feels a gentle pressure against his entrance and just like that Derek’s fingertip is sliding in.
Stiles has done this to himself before plenty of times – and he’s had it done to him by someone else on occasion too – but somehow this is the most intense it’s ever felt. Maybe it’s just because it’s Derek, and Stiles has wanted him for so long, but as Derek slowly pushes his finger inside of him, moving at a glacial pace that has Stiles ready to start begging for more, he already knows he’s ruined for anyone else.
“Fuck,” Stiles groans, fingers clenching in the sheets beneath him. “Come on Derek, please.”
“Please what?” Derek asks, leaning down to press a kiss at the hinge of Stiles’ jaw in a touch so tender it catches Stiles off guard.
“Please, just- Fuck!”
Stiles’ hips hitch, and he bites out a curse as Derek's fingertip slides over his prostate, applying a firm but gentle pressure that has him seeing stars. “Yes! Fuck, right there.”
He feels Derek smirk against his skin, but Stiles doesn’t have the mental capacity to snark at him for it because Derek is pushing in another finger now, and the stretch feels so fucking good that he doesn’t care if Derek’s being smug about it. As long as he keeps doing exactly what he’s doing he can be as smug as he wants, as far as Stiles is concerned.
Stiles is a panting and shaking mess by the time Derek slides in a third finger, working him open with an attention to detail that seems designed to completely take Stiles apart. He trails kisses down the side of Stiles’ neck, just barely a brush of lips against skin that has Stiles shuddering at the contact.
“Derek please, fuck, I’m ready. Please, I need it.”
Luckily, Derek doesn’t seem inclined to make him beg any more than he already has. Stiles would – God knows he would – but Derek takes pity on him, pumping his fingers one last time before pulling them out in a move that has Stiles whimpering at the sudden sensation of loss.
“Shhh,” Derek murmurs, brushing a gentle kiss against Stiles’ hairline as he reaches for the lube again, and God, this is it. Stiles already feels wrecked, but he’s pretty sure it’s nothing compared to what’s about to come next.
“You good?” Derek asks, trailing a hand down Stiles’ side in a gentle caress.
“Yeah,” Stiles breathes more than actually says, and Derek takes that as his cue, hitching Stiles’ legs up to curl around his waist, and lining up his cock so that it nudges at Stiles’ hole.
“Ready?”
“Fuck, yes. Come on, Derek. Please.” Stiles flails for something to hold onto, and Derek catches his hand, pressing it down against the bed as he twines their fingers together and finally, finally does as he’s told. Stiles feels the blunt pressure of Derek’s cock at his entrance as he slowly pushes in, giving Stiles time to adjust with each careful inch.
It’s ridiculous, the care that Derek takes with him. Stiles can see the strain it takes as he holds back, fingers squeezing Stiles’ tightly, his lower lip bitten red as he works to keep control, and it’s without a doubt the hottest thing Stiles has ever seen.
Derek leans down, pressing their foreheads together as he hitches Stiles’ legs a little higher to create a better angle, and then he’s sliding in deeper, right to the hilt, and the stretch feels so fucking good despite the slight edge of pain.
Stiles will never get over the way Derek feels inside him. He didn’t know that it was possible to feel this full, and it’s overwhelming in its intensity. Derek seems to feel it too; he just stays there for a minute, hips flush against Stiles’ ass as he catches his breath, not moving an inch.
“Fuck, Stiles,” he breathes, and they’re so close that Stiles feels the shape of the words against his lips.
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. Because that pretty much sums it up. He has no words, and Derek isn’t even moving yet.
“You okay? Can I move?”
“Yeah. S’good.”
He starts slow. Just a gentle rock, barely even moving in and out, but it’s enough to have Stiles moaning in pleasure, free hand coming up to grip tightly at Derek’s back as his cock pushes into him. It doesn’t take long for him to set a rhythm, rolling his hips in slow, deep thrusts that manage to hit Stiles’ prostate with an unerring accuracy.
It’s everything.
Stiles didn’t know he could feel like this, but the sensation of being enveloped like this by Derek’s body, the stretch of him deep inside, the brush of Derek’s lips against his skin as he buries his face in the crook of Stiles’ neck makes him feel alive.
It’s sex, but it feels like so much more than just that.
It wouldn’t be like this with just anyone.
Stiles is sure of it.
He claws at Derek’s back in a vain attempt to pull him closer, needing more and more and more, and Derek obliges, picking up the pace until he’s pounding into Stiles in a merciless rhythm, and all Stiles can do is cling to him tighter.
“Fuck,” Stiles gasps as he feels his orgasm building. “Fuck, Derek I’m close.”
It only takes a couple more thrusts and Stiles is coming with a shout, head thrown back in pleasure as his cock paints their stomachs with his release.
“Fuck,” Derek groans as Stiles clenches around him, mouthing gently at Stiles’ shoulder in just the same way as Stiles had imagined earlier when they’d been out at the bar. “Stiles, fuck.”
That’s all it takes and Derek is coming too, with one last hard thrust that has Stiles’ vision blurring. He can feel the pulse of Derek’s cock inside him as his hips shift in a series of jerky little thrusts, and the sensation of it is enough to make Stiles’ cock twitch with one last weak pulse of come.
They stay like that for a minute or two, just wrapped up in each other, too fucked out to do anything else until finally Derek regains control of his senses and starts to pull out slowly.
Stiles winces at the sensation of it. The strange feeling of sudden emptiness followed by the wet slide of come dripping out of his hole isn’t quite like anything Stiles has experienced before, and it’s definitely nowhere near as pleasant as everything that came before it, but he finds that he kind of likes it regardless.
He should probably do something about the mess, but he’s too tired at this point. The bone deep exhaustion of finals is catching up with him, and all he wants to do is sleep. Derek seems to be on the same page, because all he does is flop onto the bed beside him and reach out to pull Stiles in close, tucking him up in the curl of his body in a way that makes Stiles feel safe, his lips pressed against the nape of Stiles’ neck in a ghost of a kiss.
The drive back to Beacon Hills for winter break is awkward.
After the intensity of the night before, it’s like neither of them know how to talk to each other anymore - their usual easy conversation replaced with a stilted reluctance to say anything at all. Stiles is still reeling from the whole experience, and try as he might, he can’t get a read on what’s going through Derek’s head right now.
Last night had been incredible. Stiles has no idea what he had been expecting from sex with Derek, but the reality of it had blown all fantasy out of the water. He keeps playing it over and over in his mind, each brush of lips against his skin, every touch, the way Derek had entwined their fingers as he pressed slowly in.
Stiles knows sex. He’s done his fair share of experimenting – he knows what a casual fuck is like, and that hadn’t been it. Last night had been more. Stiles is sure of it. Mostly sure, at least. Or maybe Derek is just that good at it; so good that it has Stiles thinking it meant something that it didn’t.
Fuck, Stiles has no idea what to think – all he knows is that he wants to do it again. A lot. Preferably every day for the rest of his life.
The drive home seems to take longer than it ever has before, and it’s a relief when they finally pull up outside the Stilinski house, both of them climbing out of the car in silence and heading toward the front door.
It opens before they even have a chance to knock, and Stiles is immediately being pulled into a tight hug that he returns with equal enthusiasm.
Thankfully the presence of his dad chases away the worst of the awkwardness, and it’s easy to focus on catching up and talking about school until eventually his dad stands with a yawn and heads up to bed.
“We should probably head up too,” Stiles says, and Derek nods his agreement in silence. They go through the motions of their usual bedtime routine, and it’s painful. Stiles is practically bursting out of his skin with the need to say something, but he manages to hold it in until they’re laid in bed next to each other in the dark.
“So,” he starts, staring up at the ceiling. “We had sex.”
“Yeah,” Derek agrees.
“We should, uh, maybe talk about that.”
“What’s there to talk about?” Derek replies, and Stiles feels that like a stab in the gut.
“I don’t know, it’s just made things kind of awkward, you know? I don’t want things to be weird between us just because we had sex – really great sex, for the record.”
“Yeah?”
Stiles can hear the hint of a smile in Derek’s voice and he rolls his eyes even though he knows Derek can’t see.
“Yeah. Don’t get big headed, you know it was good.”
Derek huffs a laugh, turning onto his side to face Stiles. “Sorry, you’re right. I don’t want things to be weird either.”
“Cool. So we’re agreed. No more awkward.”
“No more awkward.” Derek agrees.
“Great.”
Silence falls back over them, though Stiles can feel Derek’s eyes on him, like he knows that Stiles isn’t done. He’s not wrong – there’s a question dancing on the tip of his tongue, just daring him to ask it even though he knows it’s almost definitely a terrible idea
“So,” Stiles hesitates for a moment - tries to hold it back even though he knows it’s a lost cause. “Can we do it again?”
Derek laughs, and for a second Stiles’ heart sinks. Before he has the chance to react, there’s a hand sliding across Stiles ribs, reaching to tug him into position against the broad wall of a firm chest, and he immediately feels stupid for thinking that the laugh was unkind because this is Derek. Derek who he knows and trusts, and who would never be so casually cruel. Not toward Stiles.
“Yes, Stiles. We can do it again.”
Things feel different between them after that, but not in the awkward way from the day they left Berkeley. It’s like something has settled between them in a way that Stiles can’t quite explain. It feels like they’re closer, more in tune with each other, and from the looks that his dad keeps giving them he’s pretty sure he’s not the only one that’s noticed.
From the start Stiles had been surprised by how comfortable he was with Derek’s presence in his life, but that feels like it’s increased tenfold now. It’s like he fits there perfectly, slotting into Stiles’ life with such ease that Stiles can’t imagine him not being there anymore.
Stiles had been so sure that he and Derek were too different from each other. He’d been positive that they would drive each other insane, that they would build up a resentment toward each other that might be too strong to ever get over even after the spell was undone.
He’d been wrong.
Navigating the world together is like second nature to them now, and Stiles increasingly finds himself thinking that this might actually be okay. They’re making this work, and even if it takes months for them to figure out how to undo the spell they’ll continue to manage.
That doesn’t mean he stops trying, though.
Now that Stiles doesn’t have school to focus on, he turns his energy to fixing things. He pores over every book about spark magic that he can get his hands on, and when that doesn’t bear any concrete answers he turns back to the spark fundamentals for lack of any better options. Visualization and willpower. That’s all there is in the end.
He sits and visualizes until he can’t see straight and his head is pounding, a steady thrum of pain that taunts him with the knowledge that for all of his effort, he’s no closer to a resolution.
“Stop,” Derek says one day, when Stiles has been trying to focus his energy for an hour. “Come on, Stiles, you need a break. This is hurting you.”
“I can’t keep you trapped like this, Derek. It isn’t fair to you.”
Derek frowns, reaching out a hand to pull Stiles to his feet, “Stop blaming yourself. We both played a part in this, remember? Come on, we’re going outside.”
“It’s the middle of the night!” Stiles protests as Derek drags him toward the back door.
“Well spotted.”
Stiles rolls his eyes but goes with it despite his objections. “Why are we going outside?”
“Because we’ve barely left the house in three days and I’m going stir crazy.”
“You need to go and commune with mother moon, huh?” Stiles grins as Derek rolls his eyes at him, tugging him out onto the deck.
“Do you actually hear the things that you say?” Derek shakes his head in bemusement, shutting the door behind them and coming to stand next to him. “There. Now be quiet and look up.”
“Why?” Stiles frowns, looking at Derek in askance.
Derek’s only answer is in the form of a raised eyebrow, so Stiles sighs and does as he’s told, looking up toward the sky. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but after a moment he realizes why Derek has brought him out here.
“Oh.”
“The Geminids,” Derek murmurs in a somewhat redundant explanation, as Stiles watches the meteors streak across the sky.
“It’s beautiful,” Stiles whispers, leaning over so his shoulder nudges against Derek’s. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Derek nudges his shoulder back against Stiles’ in return, and they’re silent for a while, entranced by the spectacle going on above them.
“It really is fine, you know.” Derek says eventually, voice quiet. “Even if we never undo it, that’s okay.”
Stiles is ready to protest, but he looks at Derek –properly looks at him – and the words die on his tongue. He doesn’t see a lie. Derek honestly is okay with it if this is them for the rest of their lives.
The realization feels like a weight has been lifted off of him, and Stilse can finally breathe properly for the first time in weeks. He’s been buried in the guilt that he’s the one that did this - that he’s the one who trapped Derek and dragged him away from his life just so Stiles can live his.
But that’s not how Derek sees it. Derek doesn’t feel like his life has become less; it’s become more.
Stiles looks at Derek, and for the first time since this happened to them, he truly accepts that even if they never manage to reverse the magic that’s holding them together, that would be all right. Maybe it would even be better.
He doesn’t want to be living a separate life to Derek. Sure, it would be nice if they could have a slightly longer tether just for practicality’s sake, but if it’s a choice between this and not having Derek with him anymore, Stiles would take the magical super glue any day.
Incredibly, he thinks Derek might do the same.
He doesn’t know what’s happening at first. There’s a warm sensation trickling down from his hairline, slowly rolling down his forehead, across his cheek, down the side of his neck, and when he looks over at Derek Stiles realizes that the same thing is happening to both of them. The liquid looks like molten gold, but it shines with a bright, unnatural light as it creeps over his skin, sliding down the side of his face and tracing the bridge of his nose until it forms a drip that splashes to the ground with a bright flash before disappearing altogether.
Stiles is transfixed. He watches as a stream of molten gold light works its way down Derek’s neck, over his collarbone and continuing out of sight under the neckline of his shirt.
“What is that?” Derek asks, fingers coming to hover just over the skin of his neck where the golden light is still flowing.
“I think it's the spell.” Stiles can hardly believe it, but there’s something in him that knows that it’s true.
“But how?” Derek asks, eyes still wide in wonder. “What did you do?”
It takes a moment before the answer dawns on him. The fix was so simple, and yet it was the hardest thing he could possibly be asked to do.
“I accepted it.”
“What?”
“I stopped fighting it and accepted that if we never managed to undo the spell I would be okay with it. More than okay with it. I would be happy, because even without the spell I would want to be with you.”
Derek looks stunned for a moment, then Stiles watches as a disbelieving smile creeps onto his face. “You accepted it.”
“Yep.” Stiles confirms with a bright smile of his own.
“Fuck it,” Derek says, and Stiles barely has time to be confused before there’s a hand cupping his jaw and pulling him into a kiss, and it’s perfect. Fuck, it’s perfect, and Stiles never wants it to stop. He wants this forever. He wants Derek's fingers in his hair, Derek’s lips dragging against his own, Derek’s tongue swiping at his lower lip for the rest of time.
He just wants Derek.
“I love you, in case that wasn’t clear,” he says against Derek’s lips, and Derek laughs, pulling him back into another kiss that Stiles could happily lose himself in for an eternity.
“Yeah,” Derek agrees, pressing his forehead against Stiles’ as he catches his breath and the golden light slowly starts to fade away. “I love you too, idiot.”