Chapter Text
~ Two Years Later ~
The bell above the door has been ringing nonstop since Stiles got here at 9:00. Customers in and out. Lots of sales.
It’s Beacon Hills’ annual days celebration, and tourism is booming.
Erica is sitting on a stool, drawing caricatures for $5.00 a picture. Boyd is in the back, stocking inventory. Isaac is hiding in the café area, mixing concoctions for free samples.
John is in his office reading the first official draft of This Faerie Tale Lyfe by Mischief Gajos.
Stiles is busy, busy, busy, and quite happy too. He’ll be glad when the day is done, but for now, the temptation to hover over his father is negated by his need to keep ringing up sales.
The past two years have been kind of fantastic. John went from being a foster parent to an adoptive parent. Boyd is sixteen and trying out for the varsity basketball team come winter. Isaac, not quite fifteen yet, managed to steal the top ribbon in the rose contest this year. John got second, so he was still happy. Erica, fifteen and proud of her learner’s permit, has an internship with an art studio and they’re letting her have a show in about three weeks.
Things are great.
He read all his mom’s journals, had to to write his manuscript. Turns out he has the gene for frontotemporal dementia. The doctors are keeping an eye on it, but he’s doing okay. As far as he figures, the teens could remember Derek because they weren’t born when Derek was cursed. The Argents hadn’t been retroactive or proactive with their magick. As long as everyone in Beacon Hills, especially the Hales, forgot Derek, they were satisfied.
The only thing that still bothers Stiles these days is the fact that he hasn’t seen or heard from the Hales in two years.
The red string still dangles from his heart, and sometimes he can feel a faint plucking, like Derek’s trying to play guitar. Sometimes it glows brighter, but most of the time, it fades into almost nothingness.
Talia tried once to reconnect again, but when they met, Stiles could see the guilt and anger weighing on her and opted to decline any further invitations.
There’s only one Hale he’s invested in, and that Hale won’t give him the time of day.
Allison and Scott are still dating. Stiles moved into the garage—John renovated it for him so that it doubles as a small studio apartment—and Allison moved into the apartment with Scott.
Overall, things are okay. John was right, as usual, that time would be good to them.
What Stiles hates is that every time he sees Allison, she gives him a look like he’s not trying hard enough or that he isn’t really working toward resolving the lack of connection he and Derek supposedly share.
“I need some coffee,” Stiles declares when they finally have a brief respite. The only customers are a mom and two kids browsing the fairytale section.
One day, Stiles hopes to have his book on the bestseller list. For now, he’ll take his dad’s approval.
He heads into the café area and accepts the frothy, sugary drink Isaac thrusts at him. It’s neither good nor bad but it’s cold and liquid, and he drains about half of it in one go.
Isaac looks at him expectantly.
“Needs more flavor?” Stiles tries. “Or less sugar. But it’s a great start.”
One thing he has learned with his siblings is that they need encouragement. It’s okay when he tells himself that his ideas are stupid or they aren’t working, but when he passes that negativity onto his siblings, he can see how it crushes them.
And okay, maybe he’s being a little nicer toward himself these days. He thinks his manuscript is pretty okay. He doesn’t hate it, and he hopes his dad doesn’t either.
Erica is a fantastic artist, Boyd is a superb basketball player, Isaac is a top-notch gardener. And John is a great dad.
The bell rings again, and Stiles hopes that means the mom and her kids have left. It probably actually means that there is a new customer. Still, Erica should be able to handle it.
Then the string vibrates violently, shaking him to his core. Stiles stares down at it. It’s bright red now.
“Hey, Stiles?” Erica calls uncertainly. The string pings again. Stiles strums it right back, shooting a thought of “Fuck you, Derek,” after it.
Then, he steps out of the café and comes face to face with Derek Hale.
He’s wearing a leather jacket even though it’s like 85 out, and his face is flushed. He idly plays with the string, either unaware or uncaring that it’s making Stiles’ heart jump like he’s being electrocuted.
“Stop it,” Stiles says, pissy.
“Sorry,” Derek apologizes, giving the string one last twang. He lets his hands fall to his sides, and Stiles notices that his fingernails are bitten to the quick. His lips are chewed, raw and red-looking. He looks, if Stiles is being honest, like a mess. And not a hot mess. He looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in about seven years. He hasn’t shaved today, and his face is covered in stubble.
“I’m sorry that it’s taken this long to get back to you,” Derek starts. “My therapist said that I have to take things at a slow pace, and I was kind of scared that you hated me.”
“Why would I hate you?” Stiles asks. “I thought you hated me?”
Derek shakes his head. “I just blew you off. I was supposed to contact you, but the longer I didn’t, the easier it was to pretend that you were just—” Derek waves his hand in some unquantifiable way “—you were. You were just someone that I crossed paths with. And I know you saved me, but I couldn’t handle being tossed into a relationship right away like that.”
“Me either,” Stiles admits. “I wanted to give you time. I wasn’t sure if you hated me because I wouldn’t give you your wings.”
“A little. I mean, I know that you needed them, and ultimately you helped me, but I was mad because it didn’t seem like you were listening to me.”
“I don’t think we would have been any good for each other then.”
Derek shakes his head. “But,” he says, quietly, leaning in a little, fingers coming up to play with the string, “I’d like to try now. I think I’m ready. Are you?”
Stiles covers his hand to stop him from touching the string. “I don’t know. I mean, on one hand, emphatically yes. But on the other, more important hand, no.”
“No?”
“No, dude. You look little ill. Like maybe you haven’t been taking care of yourself properly. What’s your therapist say?”
Derek blushes. “That I’m not taking care of myself,” he mumbles. “It’s hard sometimes. I still have some magick, but my parents get really mad whenever there’s a reminder of what happened to me. It’s like, if I turn a page without touching it, I get yelled at, so I feel like I’m always hiding a part of myself. And I don’t fit in with my siblings. Like, at all. I mean, most of them are out of the house and living their own lives, but the younger ones? They all look at me like I’m some usurper, come to steal away my parents’ affection.”
“Wow,” Stiles says, “that’s a lot to be dealing with. And you’re sure you want to try dating me?”
Derek shrugs. “Can’t be any worse than I feel right now.”
“Ouch.”
Derek smiles ruefully. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He sighs, grabbing a fistful of hair. “I just. I don’t even know what I want but I know that I want you to be there. When I’d lost all hope of being returned to my family, you were there. You figured out how to help me. Now that I’m lost again, I want you by my side, helping me again. And,” Derek adds, almost whispering, “I want to be that for you too. I want to make things better for you.”
“That’s actually kind of sweet.” Stiles glances around. The shop is still mostly empty. “Hey,” he tells Erica, “I need to step out for a bit. I’ll be back in just a few minutes. Can you hold the fort?”
“I’ll call Boyd if I need help,” she promises, waving him away.
Good enough, Stiles decides. He takes Derek’s elbow and leads him outside to the patio seating area.
“Wanna take off your jacket? It’s way too hot to be wearing something like that.”
“Yeah sure.” Derek slips it off and lays it across his lap. “My therapist says I’m using it like armor. Like, if I have it on, then nothing can get to me.” He looks down at it, tracing a pattern only he can see on the fabric. “I think she’s right.”
“Therapists usually are,” Stiles agrees sagely. “So, why do you want to try connecting with me now?”
Derek rolls his shoulders. His strange shrug. Stiles didn’t realize how much he’d missed talking to and interacting with Derek. He’s glad though that Derek is still human-sized. He isn’t sure he wouldn’t be tempted to put Derek in his pocket again if he were small.
“What’s changed now?”
Derek’s mouth flattens. “I hate myself,” he says, and it’s like it’s dragging all his insides out. “I can’t stand the way I don’t understand the world around me. I hate that my siblings hate me. I hate that I can’t be myself around my parents. At least when I lived in that aquarium thing with you, I knew what to expect. You wanted to study me or maybe keep me like a pet. I was used to that. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do except that I’m not doing it.”
“It was a terrarium,” Stiles finally says after a few minutes of silence have passed. “I mean, the aquarium thing. It was a lizard enclosure.” Derek rolls his eyes, but he smiles too, so the sting isn’t there. “I did want to study you. My mom kept journals of her encounters with you. She documented everything, and I wanted to be close to her, so I decided that I’d do that too. And then I realized that you were a real person with real feelings and that I would be just as much of a monster as the faeries that kidnapped you if I didn’t attempt to return you to your rightful home.”
“You weren’t a monster,” Derek says. “You never intentionally hurt me.”
Stiles reaches up to cup the string. “You wanna try having this thing tie us together or do you want to believe it away so that we can start fresh?”
In answer, Derek sticks out his hand. “Hi, my name is Derek Hale. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I live on the edge of the preserve with my parents and three of my six siblings.”
Stiles takes his hand. “Stiles Stilinski. I live in an apartment that used to be a garage and I have three adopted siblings. Nice to meet you, Derek.”
“Nice to meet you, Stiles.” The smile that Derek gives him is genuine, blinding. Beautiful.
Stiles touches the string one last time, closes his eyes, and wills it to go away.
When he opens his eyes, the string is gone, but Derek is still sitting there, smiling at him.
“You’re cute,” Derek says, ducking his head, his smile getting bigger.
“So’re you,” Stiles counters, feeling his own smile growing.
“Hey, Stiles, wanna go on a date tonight?”
Experimentally, Stiles tries to ping the string, but it’s well and truly gone. Now comes the true test of if they ever should have been burdened with it in the first place.
Stiles knows his answer. He takes Derek’s hand, squeezes it gently, and says, “Yes. I’d love to.”
~ The End ~