Chapter Text
It was with no small amount of surprise that Derek found himself slowly drifting back into consciousness. Last night, wrapped around a damp and shivering Stiles, Derek’s senses had been on high alert. Though Derek’s rational brain knew that Stiles’ reactions were from a psychological threat — the memory of pain and violation — not a physical one, his instincts told him that he had to be on guard. He had to be ready to protect and defend. He had to stay awake and alert to keep Stiles safe.
But the question of how he’d managed to fall asleep despite all that was quickly pushed to the back burner by the feeling of long fingers stroking his palm. The touch was light and gentle; a soft movement that felt pleasant in the soft city pre-dawn light.
“Stiles?” Derek grunted, voice rough. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, letting them adjust to the almost-dark before turning his head to peer across the bed.
Some time in the night, Stiles had somehow managed to slip free of Derek’s protective embrace to slouch down the mattress. He was bare-chested and sleep-disheveled, eyes bright despite the hour. The tangled mess of blankets around his lower half created an illusion of nudity that Derek had a hard time ignoring, despite knowing that Stiles had slipped into a pair of Derek’s own pajama bottoms after last night’s shower.
“I love it here, in New York,” Stiles admitted quietly, eyes focused on where he was stroking Derek’s palm. “It doesn’t ever really get dark here, does it?”
Derek shook his head, skin tingling as the friction of his hair on the sheets sent sparks of electricity running through his body.
“And it feels safe. Not just the building, though I do have to admit I love the safety of all the wolves in the building. Even if they hate people like me. But here, on your bed, next to you… I just feel safe.”
When Derek shifted so he could turn more fully towards Stiles, he tried to keep his movements fractional enough to avoid startling him. There was no magic in the air, no singe of ozone nor crackle of extra energy, but it still felt like Stiles was weaving a spell just for them. Derek didn’t want to break it. He didn’t want to move his hand, to do anything that might cause Stiles to stop touching him.
“You have a really long lifeline,” Stiles declared, voice quiet and reverent as he traced the crease in Derek’s palm. There was a long silence, where Derek had nothing to distract him from the feeling of Stiles’ finger rhythmically brushing over his palm. “I’m not reading this wrong, am I, Derek? I don’t think either one of us could easily go back to outright dislike or, worse, indifference.”
Heart hammering in his chest, Derek shook his head. No, Stiles wasn’t reading this wrong. Not that Derek intended to do anything about it, or let Stiles do anything. Whether Stiles wanted to acknowledge it or not, what happened with Christine — what happened before she tried to kill him — wasn’t okay. What happened with a lot of Stiles’ past instructors wasn’t okay. Stiles was a 17 year old kid who’d been trained to think that every useful act offered to him required a trade. Derek didn’t think Stiles would consciously trade sex for comfort as some sort of repayment for Derek helping him through the past several days, but he couldn’t risk it. Hell, Derek himself wasn’t sure where the possessiveness and protectiveness ended and the affection began.
“We’re going to finish this. We’re going to track that bitch down, take back my amulet, fix Delia,” Stiles continued. Then he turned his head slightly and, looking up at Derek through thick eyelashes, brushed his mouth against Derek’s palm. “Then, after that’s all done, we’ll talk about everything else. Okay?”
Derek inhaled sharply when Stiles’ mouth brushed his skin for a second time, the touch so light that he barely felt it. He couldn’t think of a thing to say, except for a stupid acknowledgement, like ‘okay’, which wasn’t right for the situation at all. So instead of responding verbally, he reached down and pulled Stiles up the bed. He rolled Stiles to face away from him so they were pressed chest to back, just like they had been the entire time Stiles had been recovering. It felt right on more levels than Derek was willing to acknowledge in the moment, and — for once — he didn’t feel like there was something to feel guilty about.
“You really like it here?” Derek asked, the words pressed into Stiles’ skin where Derek’s mouth was close enough to feel the heat.
“I do. The hum of the city, the constant light, the knowledge there is always someone alert, awake, and nearby.”
“I didn’t mean the city,” Derek grumbled, though he was secretly, deeply pleased.
“I know.” Stiles curled his fingers around where Derek’s arm was pressed to his chest. “Yes, Derek. I like it here. A lot.”
Derek exhaled in relief. When Stiles liked something, he chased it with a single-minded, selfish focus that was almost enviable. Derek wasn’t some passing interest, some little crush Stiles might get over while Derek waited for him — waited for him to get his mind straight, to change the path he was on, to grow up a little. And Stiles, if he cared for Derek even half as much as he’d cared for Lydia, would let him wait until they were both ready.
It seemed reasonable to think that Stiles cared for him, Derek thought as he tugged Stiles just a little closer. Derek was his anchor, for the love of god. That meant something.
~~~
“Hey Dad,” Stiles said softly. Derek blinked slowly awake, nuzzling groggily into the pillow that still smelled like magical teenage boy, who was now in the kitchen, drumming his fingers on the table nervously. “How are you?”
“Stiles? Jesus Christ, Stiles, where in the hell have you been?”
“I’m fine, Dad. I, uh… I’ve been in New York,” Stiles answered hesitantly.
“New York?!” the Sheriff shouted back, the anger in his voice no less terrifying for the cellphone speaker’s tinniness. There was a long pause during which neither Stilinski said anything, and Derek heard the Sheriff take a deep breath. “It’s been days, Stiles, and — last I knew — you were supposed to be in Transylvania County, North Carolina.”
Stiles swallowed so loudly that Derek though he might have been able to hear it even without wolf hearing. “I was. Things didn’t, uh, go well. With the witch. I kinda had to leave suddenly.”
“So, let’s go through this list of transgressions of yours so we know just how deep in the hole you’ve dug yourself, and how much grounding it’s gonna take to get you out, shall we? Rule number one was that you give me at least a couple days’ notice before going anywhere —”
“I know, Dad, I’m sorry, I just —” Stiles started to interrupt. The Sheriff made another angry sound, and Derek smirked at how Stiles instantly stopped talking. He couldn’t imagine how tough it must have been to raise someone whose mind and body refused to be silent ninety percent of the time. He wondered if, someday, it might be wise to talk to the elder Stilinski to get tips on how to deal with Stiles.
Then he rolled over again, face down into the pillow, and groaned at all the implications of that sort of thinking.
“Rule number two —”
“Never allow myself to be left somewhere, therefore unable to get away if I need to. Pretty much no longer applicable,” Stiles offered in a hopeful voice.
“Uh huh,” John replied, clearly unimpressed. “Rule number three? Can I assume at least that Delia is safe and by your side?”
“She’s here. She’s fine. Fit as a fiddle,” Stiles said, shifting at the table. His heart tripped over the lie, but his voice was steady. Derek hated how skilled Stiles had become in the art of deception, and loathed the day he might be even be able to cover his heartbeat with magic.
“When you say New York, I don’t suppose you mean the lovely and only sparsely populated upstate area, do you?” the Sheriff asked, sounding nothing but resigned.
“Right, because Beacon Hills, for all its unpopulated, rural glory is just a safe haven of calm and tranquility,” Stiles replied sardonically.
“I’ll take that as a no, then.”
“Dad, I’m fine,” Stiles sighed, his heart hammering at the deception. “I’m in a building full of werewolves, actually, so probably the safest block in all of the city.”
“A building full of werewolves? Werewolves, I presume, you don’t know from Adam.”
“Uh, actually, I’m staying with, uh, Derek and Cora Hale. In their apartment. In an apartment building for werewolves.”
“Derek and Cora Hale,” John repeated. “Really? And how, exactly, did you get from a cottage in the Blue Ridge Mountains to an apartment building in New York City?”
Derek sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, focused entirely on Stiles. He knew that Stiles had gotten away with his self destructive behavior not by hiding it, exactly, but by telling factual truth while leaving out the emotional honesty. And while Derek understood it — hell, he was all about avoiding the tough conversations — he hoped maybe this time Stiles would actually tell the whole truth. Make use of his support network, for once.
“It’s… complicated,” Stiles replied carefully, and Derek shook his head and got up to dress. “But it was a bad situation, Dad. The witch turned out to be a not-so-good person, and I had to get out of there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, son. I know how excited you were to learn to use, uh... telepathy...”
"Precognition, dad."
John sighed. “But I still don’t see how this ends with you in the Hales’ apartment in New York City.”
“That’s something I’d rather not explain over the phone. I needed help, and Derek was basically the only person with the tools to help me, so I came here,” Stiles explained wearily.
Something in Stiles’ tone must have given his father enough pause to not immediately curse out his son. “Son, are you okay?” he asked instead.
“Fine. I’m, uh… I’m coming home soon. To stay. For awhile, anyway. I think I’m done with the whole apprentice thing for awhile.” There was the sound of shuffling and something hitting the wood of the tabletop.
Cards, Derek realized as he got dressed. He’d never seen Stiles play cards; had never even seen him with a pack of them. They had to have been Stiles’, though, given that Derek didn't own even a Bicycle pack.
“Well, I should hope so,” John replied gruffly as the whispering of paper on wood played a curious background sound. “School starts in three days.”
“There is a lot I can learn in three days,” Stiles objected with a chuckle. “Now that I can basically apparate —”
“Apparate?”
“Uh, transport myself? You know, like, ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’, except without Scotty, or science. Well, unless you count the magical but obviously still very scientific powers of the universe. Which, you know, you should, because, just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s not science —”
“Son,” John cut him off, sounding fond and perhaps even a little relieved at the nearly incoherent rambling that was the norm for Stiles. “When should I expect you?”
“I don’t know,” Stiles sighed. “I’m still not feeling up to par, and there are some things I need to figure out.”
“Like what?”
“Like how to sort out this mass of visions in my head so I can know what’s relevant and what’s not. ‘Cause let me tell you, some of them are scary, Dad.”
“Scary how?”
“You don’t want to know. Though I promise to tell you if you actually do need to know.”
“Stiles —”
“Fire,” Stiles said suddenly. Derek froze where he was standing, though his body felt like a violent shiver wanted to run through it. Whether it was at the word itself, or at the almost vacant tone in Stiles’ voice, Derek didn’t know. “Ice. Darkness. Monsters. Death.”
“Stiles.”
With a shuddering breath, Stiles stopped his low recitation of what had apparently been haunting his imagination. Derek listened as Stiles scooped up the cards he’d laid out on the table. “I don’t know anything yet. Like I said, I need to sort it out.”
“Right,” John huffed, resigned. “Is there anything I actually can help you with?”
“Got any ideas on how I can drag Derek back?” Stiles asked cheerfully.
“Seriously?” The Sheriff didn’t sound surprised, but Derek sure as hell was.
“Yeah. I mean, I was thinking a —”
“Stop!”
Stiles chuckled at the interruption. “What, pops?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“While Hale is only three years older than you, I’ll ask you to remember the fact that the age of consent here in California is still 18. Which means, Stiles, that you’re still a good eight months away from being able to tell me anything that might, at present, force me to arrest him.”
“Seven and a half months, technically, but I get your point.”
For a moment, only the sound of shuffling cards reached Derek’s ears as he simultaneously juggled the thoughts that a) Stiles was out to his father, b) Stilinski knew that his son was sexually active, and c) they both were assuming things about Derek that he’d never admitted to either of them.
Then Stiles cleared his throat mischievously. “What’s the age of consent in New York?”
“Shut up, Stiles,” John sighed. “Why do you want him here?”
“I need his help.” There was no blip in Stiles’ heart, and Derek felt a little disappointed.
“In the same capacity as he’s helping you now?”
“We’re not actually like that,” Stiles chuckled. It might have been wishful thinking, but Derek thought Stiles maybe even sounded regretful. “As far as I know, he’s only dated women.”
“As far as you know, he’s only dated serial killers,” John pointed out helpfully, and Derek winced.
“So maybe I should be happy he isn’t attracted to me?” Stiles asked, and this time John laughed.
“Should I clear out the guest bedroom?”
“I don’t know. Derek hates Beacon Hills. He’s come back a couple times to help with, uh, pack stuff, but he never actually stays.”
“How long would you need him in town for?”
“I have no idea,” Stiles confessed.
John sighed, and Stiles made an irritated sound in return.
“Look, Dad, I freaking just got this particular set of powers —”
“Powers, really?” John scoffed.
“Oh my god, Dad,” Stiles whined, sounding, for the first time in the conversation, every bit the petulant seventeen year old he was.
“I’ll make up the guest bedroom,” John replied definitively. “Whether he comes here or not, whether he stays somewhere else or not, let him know he’s welcome here.” Then he paused. “In the guest bedroom,” he added clearly.
Stiles’ groan would have made Derek snicker if he wasn’t too busy having a minor breakdown. It wasn’t just the obvious green light from both Stilinskis on any relationship he might want to pursue with Stiles, though that was enough for him to chew on for awhile. It was also about how Stiles seemed to be convinced that he needed Derek — though for what, Derek wasn’t sure. The conversation hadn’t revealed whether it was because Stiles needed Derek as his anchor, or as an ally to fight against whatever Stiles was having visions about.
But just as the thought of returning to Beacon Hills for more than a day or two threatened to overwhelm Derek with anxiety, Stiles made a sound of relief that was genuine. Grateful. It made Derek immediately decide that he’d go back with Stiles, no matter how much he hated the idea of getting sucked back in. Not to stay — he just didn’t think he could do it — but to support Stiles until whatever threat he was seeing was resolved.
A tiny voice in the back of his head made Derek wonder if threats would ever be fully resolved, but he pushed it away. The fact was that Stiles couldn’t stay there forever. He had one more year until he’d be gone, off to college, which would buy Derek four years’ reprieve. Even if Stiles didn’t choose to come to New York, at least there was nothing but a community college in their hometown.
“Thanks, Dad,” Stiles sighed as he quit shuffling and started laying out cards again. “I’ll see you soon. Probably before sunset tomorrow.”
“Not earlier?”
The sound of cards hitting the table stopped. “No. Not earlier.”
~~~
Stiles hung up with his father and stared down at the spread in front of him. Christine had given him a well-loved, traditional Rider-Waite deck, and after several minutes of feeling out its energies, he’d reassured himself it wasn’t spelled against him. In fact, it felt old. Very old. Christine’s dark energy was just a watercolor of black through the swirl of colors leftover from its former, better-intentioned owners.
The designs on the cards, though familiar, weren’t something that he understood academically. He had a general idea of interpretations; he knew the symbolism behind each of the major arcana cards and the general meanings behind the four suits, but that’s where his knowledge broke down. And that made interpretation, well, frustrating. Not to mention the fact that Christine had told him not to trust them. He figured a liar warning him not to trust something… well, there was something meta in that and he was just going to take it at face value.
Every time he touched a card, a vision flashed in his head of what it was trying to say. Fire. Ice, Darkness. Monsters. Death. Over and over and over again. He didn’t let himself be truly frightened, though; not yet, anyway. Those were all things that had pretty prominent slots in his memory as The Worst Things Ever. And though he was aware that each place in the spread had a different meaning (past, present, future, influences on each, etc.), he wasn’t aware of them enough to know which was which. He needed to go home and check out his books on the subject, but not now. First things first.
A hiss of water and the rattle of pipes sounded from somewhere behind the kitchen wall, and Stiles realized that Derek must finally have gotten up. But even the thought of naked, wet Derek couldn’t pull his attention away from the cards. The longer he stared at them, the more they seemed to blur together into a blackness that was very familiar. Cor Tenebrae, she’d called it.
Christine. Stiles hadn’t recognized the voice when it was in his dream, but he knew instinctively that it was her.
He sighed and stood up, looking away from the cards to start hunting for coffee supplies. He didn’t think it’d be hard to find out what place he’d seen/felt/heard in his vision. Second deepest hole on Earth, she’d whispered in his dream. A quick internet search should solve the mystery.
After a few minutes of snooping through cupboards, he found coffee and filters and started brewing enough for both him and Derek. He wasn’t in any rush to to find the hole, knowing damn well that it was a trap. So he turned to the fridge and started hunting for breakfast.
When Derek finally emerged from his bedroom, Stiles had two plates of scrambled eggs with sausage on the table, a full carafe of coffee ready, and was in the process of coring a couple of apples. The look Derek gave him was almost suspicious, but Stiles ignored it in favor of shamelessly appraising freshly-showered morning hair and the way Derek’s jeans and thin t-shirt clung to his damp body.
“Dude,” Stiles couldn’t help but chuckle. “I thought it took lots of product and some serious mirror time to achieve the trademark Derek Hale hair.”
Derek stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Towel drying now, some gel later before I go out. But now that you know my secret, I’m going to have to kill you.”
“Let me eat breakfast first?” Stiles pleaded with a smirk.
With a noise of agreement, Derek slid into the chair opposite Stiles.
“What’s all this for?” Derek asked as Stiles pushed the carafe towards him.
Stiles sighed, not answering for a long moment as he started to eat his eggs. “It’s what I call a heart attack special,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t make it often, my dad’s cholesterol levels being what they are. Just be thankful I left off the cheese.” Comfort food, he didn’t say. He didn’t need to, though, because something in Derek’s expression seemed to soften, and he nodded.
They ate in silence, Stiles too distracted to be much for conversation. The window that Christine had helped Stiles look through, helped him open, was also turning out to be a little bit more of a pain in the ass than he’d anticipated. Everything he touched seemed to give him a flicker of something. Tiny, minute insights into the object’s lifespan kept sparking through his imagination. The way Christine had made it sound, he would have to work hard at pulling visions out of things, using tools like mirror, crystals, and so on to clarify them. But perhaps having already had that window into his mind opened meant that the visions came easier.
No matter the cause, the visions started to come faster, clearer, the longer he spent in bare-skin contact with certain objects. He ended up having to set down his fork (used, formerly owned by a woman who’d got the set as a 25th anniversary present, whose husband died after he had eaten his 82nd birthday dinner with this very fork) to eat with his fingers. But, as Stiles quickly realized as flashes of a pig’s life flashed through his eyes, eating sausage with his fingers wasn’t the best idea, either.
“What?” Derek asked. Stiles looked down at his hands, which had been still for far too long.
“Nothing. Just, uh…” Stiles pushed the half-full plate away, giving Derek a rueful smile. “You know how I can’t eat processed crap? Apparently I’m a vegetarian now, too.”
Derek stared at him for a moment, eyes traveling between the plate and Stiles’ face. Finally, he chuckled. “Well, that sucks.”
“It really does,” Stiles agreed. He stared for a moment at the coffee cup, trying to school his magic into place. He concentrated on visualizing a flame as a way of calming and centering himself, the way David had showed him. It worked.
“So, I’m going to get out of here in a just a little bit. I, uh, cleaned up last night. Obviously. But if there’s anything else I can do for you…” Stiles drifted off, blinking down at his plate.
“You don’t have to do anything for me, Stiles,” Derek said, and Stiles smiled up at him.
“I know,” he replied, grinning. “I know I don’t have to do anything for you. Which pretty much is why I want to. Well, not really. I mean, not the only reason. Just one of the many. Which, uh, I should probably shut up about.” Stiles chuckled nervously, then stood and rubbed the back of his neck.
Stupid, idiot, stupid, Stiles cursed himself. A damn powerful witch, or so everyone kept saying. Incredibly powerful. Probably enough to nuke a city if he wanted to. Raise the dead. Hell, he could see the fucking future now — or, once he got a good enough handle on his newfound power he would be able to. But he still couldn’t handle his own tongue.
After scraping the rest of his plate in the garbage, Stiles turned to start the dishes. It didn’t take long for Derek to finish his meal and bring his plate and mug to the sink, but when Stiles turned to try and take them, Derek shook his head and set them on the counter. He stepped into Stiles’ space, bracketing him with his arms, pressing his chest against Stiles’ back.
“I know what you meant,” Derek said, voice a pleasant, low rumble at Stiles’ ear.
“I was pretty smooth last night,” Stiles chuckled in embarrassment. “I don’t know what happened.”
The clack of claws on the linoleum caught Stiles’ attention, and looked down to see Delia make her slow way across the kitchen to sit at their feet. She leaned heavily against both their legs, looking up with most of the past days’ misery finally gone from her eyes. “Lazy beast,” Stiles chastised fondly. He shook the bubbles off his left hand to reach down from within Derek’s almost-embrace to scratch behind her ear.
“Stiles,” Derek said, reaching down to scratch Delia as well. “You want to ask me something. I can practically feel you vibrating with it.”
Stiles sighed and leaned back against Derek a little more firmly. How the hell had Derek intuited that? Stiles himself hadn’t even thought this through yet. He’d only just started to phrase the question in his own head before everything else started getting in the way. And now the visions had quieted; the world had been made silent by the weight of having his anchor pressed against him.
“I don’t want to leave,” Stiles surprised himself by saying. “I don’t actually like the werewolf building all that much, mostly because they hate me, but I like it here with you. Not having to worry about things trying to kill me. Kill my father. Kill my friends.”
“But,” Derek offered, the regret heavy in his voice.
“But I can’t leave them. All of this, everything I’ve done, was for them. To make them safe.”
“So you’re going back.”
Stiles held his breath, waiting for Derek to pull away, but he didn’t. “I am. But not right away,” he said. “Well, right away by my standards.”
“What do you mean?” Derek asked, hooking his chin over Stiles’ shoulder. It was the sort of comfort and physical affection Stiles didn’t actually know Derek was capable of. Was it being here in New York, away from the stresses of Beacon Hills that made it possible? Was it because they’d spent two full days being wrapped up in each other as Stiles healed? Either way, unless Stiles went for the impossible choice, it didn’t matter. He was about to ruin it.
“After I do a little bit of research, I think I’ll know where we need to go next.”
“We?”
Stiles swallowed, and wrapped his hands around Derek’s forearms, using the contact to calm himself. “Me, and Delia. And, uh, you. If you still wanted to help.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Not yet,” Stiles admitted. “But I will. I’ll ask everyone I know to help. They’re just as invested in getting rid of someone like Christine as we are. Probably more, really. I mean, someone like her is incredibly bad for the community.”
“All right,” Derek said, and Stiles was glad Derek couldn’t see the surprise on his face. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy.
“So you’re coming?”
Derek pulled away and crossed into the living room. “I said I would. But we can talk about conditions after we’ve figured out where we’re going, and what we’re doing.”
Stiles turned, eyebrow raised, as he watched Derek retrieve his laptop off the coffee table. “Conditions?”
Derek gave him an unimpressed look. “You have your resources, I have mine.” He brought the laptop to the dining room table and pulled out the chair, looking pointedly at Stiles. “You research. I’ll do the dishes.”
Behind his back, Stiles scooped up a handful of suds, the bubbles popping pleasantly on his hand. “Sure thing, Derek,” he said, striding up to the table.
The look on Derek’s face when Stiles blew the bubbles at him — part incredulous, part horrified, part fond — was worth being tackled to the kitchen floor in retaliation.