Chapter Text
“Fuck, what is this, the Dick Down a DILF Ho Down Saloon?” hissed Stiles, lips parting as he pushed Scott before him like a shield. “Look at the bartenders!”
“You’re not gay,” protested Scott.
“Not the point,” murmured Stiles, eyeing up the two men at opposite ends of the long, scarred wooden bar. The nearer one looked scruffy and lean, a tall drink of something rough, and the sheer contrast between him and the poised, coiled, perfectly pressed and dressed for success Sugar Daddy 3000 at the end of the bar was unfair to do to Stiles’s libido, which kept hopping anxiously from one eyeful to the other.
“Wait, doesn’t DILF stand for-“
“Scotty, I love you,” interrupted Stiles, nodding once as he made up his mind before stepping forward eagerly towards Mr. Rough Love, “but shut up, buddy. You’re going to hurt yourself. Hello! I-“
“You’re not here to have a drink,” drawled the scruffy man with narrowed eyes, his cool expression dismissive and firm at the same time.
Stiles reconfigured his approach on the fly. “... no, we are not. We’re meeting a friend here and I-“
“Anyone,” sneered the other man from the opposite end of the bar, as the bar flies ignored the conversation, their eyes glued to the television screens, “who told you to meet them here is not your friend, kiddies. Go home.”
“Peter’s right,” the first man said bluntly. “Go home. I got the cops on speed dial for underage idiots trying to get my liquor license pulled.”
Stiles blinked at that, quickly running the numbers on whose jurisdiction they were standing in and how fast Dad would find out.
“Run along home to Daddy,” invited Peter, smiling nastily. He frowned abruptly. “Or Daddies, you don’t look like brothers.”
“We’re not,” offered Scott helpfully.
Which was not helpful in this particular situation, thought Stiles, rolling his eyes. “Cops won’t come out here for at least an hour,” he told the unidentified bartender confidently. “Not all the way out here and not for an underage citation or two, max. We don’t want to drink, we just- need to talk. To our friend.”
The first barkeep held up his phone and yup, that was Dad’s office number all dialed in and ready to call. Stiles ignored the frisson of fear. There was nothing illegal about standing in a dive bar and not requesting a drink.
“You feeling lucky?” asked the bartender, raising a steady eyebrow.
Not particularly, no. “We can wait outside- we don’t want any trouble, it’s just, our friend, we don’t know what he-“ how to phrase this in a way that didn’t sound crazy though… “I mean, we know him, he’s our friend, we’ve just never-”
“They’re here for me,” said a voice behind them, making both teens whirl. Stiles’s jaw dropped. What, was every guy in this bar fuckable? Did they have to pass a Chippendale’s entrance interview? Completely unfair. “I didn’t realize they’d be so... young, uncle, or I’d have picked a different meeting place.”
“Another research project?” sneered Peter.
Stiles narrowed his eyes at the hulking, beautiful piece of man flesh who must be LoneWolf226 and answered, “Yeah, close enough.”
LoneWolf226 was as unsmiling as his avatar. Great. Good. Awesome.
Let’s get this done, thought Stiles grimly. He and his left hand had a date with a hot shower and some pretty uncomfortable scenarios about all the things he’d like to be true about the men in this bar.
He really should do something about the deteriorating morals in his fantasies. When was the last time he’d fantasized about good old fashioned vanilla sex with a supermodel? Concerning.
“This way,” said LoneWolf226 in a voice graveled enough to be a growl. He gestured to the far wall and a door marked Employees Only.
Stiles shivered, and then scowled. Stupid teenage libido.
The scruffy bartender raised an eyebrow at him, his steely eyes glaring a distinct lack of welcome.
Stiles scrambled to catch up to LoneWolf226 and Scott, already more than half-way there.
Stupid teenage libido.
~~~
“Okay, so, here,” huffed Stiles, knocking LoneWolf226 out of the way with a shoulder shove and grabbing for the mouse. He ignored the man’s low warning growl although he filed it for… future use… as he scrolled in on the map. “You can see it, right? A perfect circle and there aren’t perfect circles, in nature, dude. Not with trees.”
“And you think that’s the clue?” scoffed the growly man. God, he smelled good. Musky and, and fresh, like dirt or construction sites. Just- just really natural. Good.
Scott put in, “It fits! But it’s on private property, so we can’t go see if the next clue is-”
“That’s not private property,” said the man abruptly, shaking his head. “It’s the Hale preserve, it’s a nature preserve, you can get a pass. I used to do, um, astronomy up there, all the time.”
“There’s wolves,” yelped Scott, while Stiles considered whether a hulking lumberjack could be described as adorkable. Seriously, astronomy?!
There was a long pause. Stiles flicked his eyes to his right in time to catch the tail end of the smirk on the man’s face. “They’re rehabilitated, I believe,” murmured the man, leaning in, a finger tracing the perfect circle. “Dammit, right under my nose.”
“If we’re right,” said Stiles forcefully. “We might not be.”
“It fits,” said the man, leaning back and rubbing at his lips with one hand. God, he had the best lips. His whole face was unfair. “Unbroken by roots tangled and twined/A raft made of land long-lost, left behind. It fits.”
“Right?” agreed Stiles. “Fairy raft, of course, marked by a circle, and a circle’s unbroken-”
“By and by,” sang the man, lowly, nodding. “Are either of you magic users?”
“Who, me?” squeaked Scott, gesturing to his 5’10” asthmatic wreck of a gawky teen fleshcage. “God, I wish, it would explain- this.”
Stiles grinned at his best friend and said, “Aww, c’mon, now, Scottie, you’re not that bad. You’ve got that whole purity thing going for you. Lawful good,” he explained eagerly to LoneWolf226.
The man whistled, brows flying. “So you’ll be going for paladin, then. Law enforcement.”
Scott rolled his eyes like he always did, uncomfortable with the rarity of his alignment. “I think you have to be able to run a mile just to be accepted to the training program,” he said, dismissing the possibility like he always did.
“And you can’t?” asked the man curiously.
“Asthma,” said Scott shortly.
The man grunted as if surprised. “And you?” he asked Stiles.
“Something, but not- not defined yet,” hedged Stiles. Completely untrainable, mocked the voices of his various mage tutors.
“Well, lucky for all of us, I can do a little,” said the man. “You up for a quest?”
Both Stiles and Scott took in a short, sharp shock of air, exchanging disbelieving glances. “You’d- with us?” stammered Scott, getting there before Stiles had to say the same thing and lose all of his cool.
“Sure, young adventurers have to start somewhere,” the man said with a grin. “Stepping inside a fairy ring to search for buried, cursed treasure seems like a good beginning.”
“We don’t know it’s buried,” pointed out Stiles, frowning and looking over at Scott.
Scott, who stared back at him with wide-eyed hope, so obviously willing to be led by a complete stranger into potentially mortal danger.
Well, he’d also been willing to be led by his best friend Stiles into potentially mortal danger on countless adventures in the past, so… yeah.
Par for the course on that one.
The idiot.
Stiles grinned at Scott and told LoneWolf226, “So, can we, like, exchange names or whatever, then? And what about timing? When should we go?”
“Two nights, midnight,” said the man firmly. “The name is Derek.”
“Scott. This is Stiles, don’t ask, it’s complicated.”
Stiles gnawed on his lip before feeling the lightbulb go on, “How do you figure- Oh! Full moon! That’s- the circle within the circle on the circle- the full moon in the moon’s cycle with moonlight on the circle of grass made by the fairy ring- that’s so unbelievably tricksy, I love it!”
“Yeah, we thought it was pretty smart, too, although we couldn’t figure out the third circle,” agreed the man, nodding.
“Oh, good, three days, that’s- not long to wait,” said Scott faintly. “I have to, um, check on my mom’s schedule, Stiles.”
Stiles widened his eyes fearfully at Scott. Not cool, to give away that they were young enough for parents to still matter, dude.
“...so that I don’t bother her, leaving that late,” Scott lied. Like all of his last-minute lies, it was a completely botched attempt.
The man froze and twisted to look at Scott. He glanced between the two of them for a long moment and then said gruffly, “Don’t tell me you lied about your age on the server.”
“Okay!” said Stiles brightly. “We won’t!”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “That server is for adults.”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Stiles, over whatever Scott had been about to confess. He glared at Scott in what he hoped was a discreet fashion, thinking very hard, listen, lawful good, just shut up and let me do the talking. Scott had zero magical affinity, but the messages between them still seemed to sink in. Maybe it was just the long years of association.
“It’s dangerous,” intoned the- Derek. Derek. His eyebrows drew down as he looked between them, clearly having some misgivings and unwarranted suspicions.
Well. Warranted suspicions. They weren’t adults, technically.
“Which is why we didn’t go alone, and we asked for help!” explained Stiles brightly, pulling back from the computer and grabbing Scott’s bicep. “So, two nights from now, we meet at, what, 9 PM? With gear?”
“9 PM,” agreed Derek, still eyeing them up as Stiles backed them both towards the door.
“Here?” asked Stiles hopefully.
“Sure,” agreed Derek, standing. “Don’t come in the front. I’ll meet you outside.”
“Sounds great,” gushed Stiles quickly, shoving on Scott when the idiot started to dig in his heels. “See you then. Or you can- you can reach us, through the- uh, the server. If you need us. Or think of something. Anything. We’re available!”
“Right,” said Derek, following them down the hallway and towards the stairs, a curious expression on his face.
Oh, great, an escort to the Jeep. Wonderful. Stiles desperately hoped his textbook scattered on the backseat looked like college books. He’d hate to be cut out of the adventure on the specious basis of a few measly months of time spent on-planet.
“When you said we, who’s helping you?” asked Scott suspiciously as Stiles half-shoved him down the stairs.
“My uncle and his, uh, business partner,” said Derek shortly. “The bartenders. Downstairs.”
Stiles snorted and muttered, “The DILF Patrol.”
“I’m sorry, what?” asked Derek, as they entered the bar, which had picked up in noise and general bustle in the hour they’d spent poring over maps.
“Nothing,” Stiles told him with a wide, open smile. Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Wonderful to do business with you,” Stiles announced, holding out a hand for a handshake.
Derek stared at it for a full second, drawing way too much attention to the interaction, in Stiles’ opinion, before shaking it gingerly.
“Nice to meet you,” said Scott earnestly. Everything the himbo did was earnest, sneered Stiles affectionately in his head. “Thanks for the help.”
Derek was still shaking Stiles’ hand. It was starting to draw way too much attention, Stiles realized. He should let go. Why did the man smell so good, though? Like fresh-turned fields, like- like a walk beside a river, like-
“Derek, empties,” barked the smooth, polished man at the opposite end of the bar. Derek sprang back as if startled, dropping Stiles’ hand.
“Derek, ice,” growled the scruffy looking man. “You, scram,” he said to Scott and Stiles.
Stiles bristled, just on principle, but Scott turned him with a firm hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the door. Stiles glanced over his shoulder to take in the absolutely mouth-watering sight of Derek rolling up his shirtsleeves as he stalked briskly behind the bar, the other two bartenders continuing their fast-pace dance among the taps and bottles of their trade.
“Well, that went well!” declared Scott, opening the passenger door to the Wreck.
“It really did, didn’t it?” Stiles asked him, beginning to feel the glow of victory as he slotted the key into the ignition.
“What if my mom’s not working nights that night?”” asked Scott, a single line of worry marring his stupidly perfect forehead.
Stiles snorted, “Then you’re having a sleepover at my house because we’re going to play the new Doomsayers IV.”
“Dude, you got Doomsayers?!” spluttered Scott excitedly, turning to face him. “It’s sold out everywhere! How’d you get a copy?!”
“Keep that enthusiasm and she’ll totally fall for it, buddy,” Stiles explained kindly, turning out of the parking lot.
They were pulling into the driveway of Scott’s house before Scott thought to ask, “Hey, what about your dad?”
A long silence filled the car before Stiles said firmly, “You leave the Sheriff to me. See you in school, Scott.”
More silence, heavy with all the history of the things they didn’t talk about, in relation to Stiles and his father.
“Yeah, see you tomorrow, Stiles,” said Scott softly.
~~~~~~
The next morning, everything in the universe decided to conspire to make Stiles irritated and annoyed.
He turned off his alarm and fell back asleep, causing him to rush through his morning routine, which his dad noted only with a grunt at the breakfast table, his own coffee steaming beside the open file in front of him. “Game tonight?” asked his dad absently, as he shoved random sandwich ingredients between two slices of bread and prayed it would fill him up at lunch, since they’d both forgotten to top off Stiles’ lunch account for the last week.
“Nope,” said Stiles shortly. “Tomorrow night. You don’t have to come, I know you’re busy.”
“I am busy,” agreed his dad, looking up with those sharp eyes that saw way too much… and not nearly enough. “But you’re a priority.”
Stiles thought of a hundred unfair things he could say, things about prioritizing lunch accounts over sports games where Stiles warmed a bench. Things about prioritizing home cooked meals over an ancient Jeep that Stiles hadn’t wanted in the first place. Things about- things another teen would just say, probably. But not Stiles. Not to his dad. That’s not how they worked. Stiles had put so much effort into building his father up, helping his father get to this point where he sat at the kitchen table with an open file of work in front of him, hot coffee unlaced with whiskey to start his day. Stiles had put a lot of effort into building the man back up after Mom died. He wasn’t going to tear into the guy. “Thanks, Dad,” he said instead, ducking his head and racing for the hallway.
“Don’t wait up for me,” his dad called.
“Dinner’ll be in the fridge,” Stiles shouted back, instead of the much-more-accurate I never do.
He’d hit every single red light, in some kind of farce of a commute to school. A local daycare was taking an early morning walk or something, and while the kids were cute, the line of them strung across the intersection two blocks away from the high school parking lot was maddening. None of the books in the backseat were the book he needed for first period, which meant when he finally found a parking space in the furthest lot from the entrance, he had to stop by his locker to pick up the tome.
He slid into his seat with a bright, happy smile for the instructor just as the school bell rang.
“Mr. Stilinski,” greeted his own personal Snape, Mr. Tuttleridge. “Clear your energy, please.”
A titter of laughter. Stiles’ cheeks burned as he closed his eyes and fell into the posture that every other magic user he knew found easily. It didn’t settle him, but he did it anyway, while thinking furiously, White clouds, happy lambs, green trees, flying parrots, gold bands, shimmering koi, blue water, blue eyes. It was a personal envisioning that seemed to do the trick well enough for every instructor he’d ever had.
“Much better, Mr. Stilinski,” approved Mr. Tuttleridge in a voice that was effusive with his relief. Stiles’ makes his face as blank as he can. Blank blank blank nothing to see here. Certainly not resentment, no siree.
“Unlock,” declared the druid, and the living tomes fall open as one gasp, the skin of the covers deepening in color and warm to the touch as Stiles shifted pages. There was no studying ahead for this class- the books were bound to their creator and could only be opened by Tuttleridge, a fact he enjoyed shoving in their faces at the end of every class.
“Page 98,” intoned the class as one. Well, minus Stiles’ voice, of course. Why was he even forced to attend, when his spark hadn’t settled?
Lydia gave him a sympathetic moue from the seat beside him. He mimicked the expression back at her, making her grin and flip her hair at him as if annoyed by his attention. They had long established that they were the smartest people in the building, and they both had their reasons for not letting the rest of the school catch on.
Lydia’s reason sat back in his seat and glared death-arrows with his eyes that fail to actually impale Stiles. Jackson Whittemore.
If ever there was an arrogant prick who deserved an arch-nemesis like Stiles, it was Jackson Whittemore.
But no, that would be like swatting at a fly with a full coven.
“Protege et dirige,” chanted the class as one, as the air swirled around the small group.
In the front of the room, Mr. Tuttleridge’s eyes slid half-shut. Stiles caught up with the proper cadence, wondering again what these exercises are supposed to do for a throwback like him.
~~~
An hour later, Mr. Tuttleridge’s voice sonorously rang out, “Lock,” and books slammed shut around the room, exhausted baby mages yelping as they snatch their hands back just in time to avoid injury.
“Mr. Stilinski, a word,” said Mr. Tuttleridge into the regular noises of the other teens packing up their things for second period.
Stiles froze while reaching for his blood pen and caught Lydia’s eyes. She pursed her lips before shaking her head and reaching for her bag, pasting a wicked smile on her face for Jackson’s benefit. No idea, then, what he might have messed up today.
The rest of the class shuffled out of the room, leaving Stiles alone in the space with a racing heart and the jitters of full-on anxiety as Mr. Tuttleridge gestured him forward.
“I have come to the conclusion,” began Mr. Tuttleridge, “that you do not belong in my course, Mr. Stilinski. Do you object?”
“Uh, no?” offered Stiles, his palms beginning to sweat. Oh, was it that time of year again? Time for the magic instructor- whoever it was, whatever they were teaching this year- to say, time’s up, Stilinski, come back when you can do more than just spark at me? “I didn’t want to be here anyway,” he explained, with a shadow of his usual cocky grin, holding out the leather-bound book for the druid.
The man stared at him, long and slow, as time both sped up and stretched out towards the horizon. “What are you, that your mother bound you so?” murmured the druid.
Oh, no, thought Stiles, with a grimace. “We don’t- we don’t know that it was my mom,” he offered, like the words didn’t slice like a knife every time he had to have this discussion.
“I knew her-” Yeah, and so did half the western shores, snorted Stiles, resettling the weight of his backpack on his shoulders “- and this is her work, Mr. Stilinski.” The druid’s hands traced the air in front of Stiles, eyes unfocused. They snapped back to the present and fixed on Stiles with a glare. “You do not belong here.”
“I know,” Stiles told him honestly, shrugging his shoulders. “I told the placement guy that.” Again. Every year. “You can try, though,” he suggested, pasting a hopeful smile on his face.
“Formless magic is not safe, Mr. Stilinski,” the druid said severely. Like Stiles hadn’t heard that his entire life.
“I know,” Stiles muttered, his arms beginning to hurt from holding out the book. “Just- take the book back, Mr. Tuttleridge, sir. I don’t- I’ll go to the library tomorrow.”
“What happens,” asked the man with the philosophical tone that made Stiles’ skin crawl, “when the binding fails?”
Okay, yeah, no, fuck this guy, thought Stiles resentfully, shoving the book at the druid. “Everyone dies, rivers of blood,” he snapped angrily. “Explosions, mass hysteria, walking marshmallow men on every street corner. I don’t know, Mr. Tuttleridge, and neither does Deaton or my dad or Alpha Hale or- or anyone- I could be anything, so if you know how to protect the people and town I love from my potential, speak up.”
The silence in the workroom was heavy, and Stiles’ chest heaved as his lungs struggled to draw air. Or maybe that was from the tears that seemed choked there, deep within his chest. Stiles couldn’t look up, couldn’t see the shock or the pity or the disgust on the man’s face.
“I’ll go to the library tomorrow,” he said dully, releasing his grip on the book that was still shoved into the man’s chest. It fell to the floor and he stepped over it on his way out.
“Thanks for trying,” he added bitterly, one hand on the doorsill.
Thanks for nothing, actually, he corrected as he stepped out into the loud hallway, the silent stillness of the occult workshop echoing behind him. The harsh incandescent lights of the regular school hallway made him squint for a second to gather his bearings. Teens shouted and chattered in the hallways, moving in small packs and large blobs and slippery little streams of one or two who really had to book it because they were in danger of being late to something. He joined them, hefting his backpack and readying himself for trigonometry.
It was fine. An open period right away in the morning meant he’d have more time to study for his non-Mage exams, and right now? That seemed like the best ticket for a bright future. Some nice, quiet, non-mag job. Park ranger. Accountant. Polish-English translator, surely there was a small but lucrative market in that, right?
Życzenie dla ciebie, mój synu, slid through his mind, wrapped up in the warmth of his mother’s voice.
He grasped after it- when had he heard those words? When had she ever said them to him?- but it was gone.
“Mr. Stilinski, a word,” said the guidance counselor, waiting at the door to his math class.
Stiles didn’t attempt to stifle the sigh. Word traveled faster and faster every year. “Yeah, yes. Did you-?”
“He knows you’ll be late today,” she said perkily, waving to his teacher, who waved back, clearly uncomfortable with the interruption in his routine.
Stiles eyed her up with suspicion. “Good. Well, lead the way.”
~~~
She made him promise to try again with Mr. Tuttleridge, who was Deaton’s second-in-command and therefore powerful in the small town.
“I threw a book at him,” Stiles offered, trying to explain that he’d burned his bridges, thanks.
“You did not, you handed it to him and he didn’t take it,” she corrected brightly. “Stiles,” she sighed, leaning forward, her brown curls tumbling over her shoulder and her eyes widening with compassion that he knew was not all faked. She was a good person. This wasn’t the first time she’d demonstrated it to him. “Stiles, I need you to understand, the exercises may be above you but the background knowledge may make the difference-”
“I’m not a magic user,” Stiles interrupted her, feeling tightness in his chest, a wildness clawing there. “I’m not- all I have is a spark, that’s it. No form, no direction, just- just a spark.”
Kids sparked. Babies sparked. By his seventh birthday, he was supposed to have more than that. He could feel it, sometimes, an itch underneath the surface of his skin, a need to do more, to do something.
“Exactly,” she hummed sympathetically. “Exactly, Stiles. You have magic. If the binding slips, you’ll-”
“Explode into a million shards,” interrupted Stiles in an angry sneer. It wasn’t her fault, it was just- it’d been a long day, already.
“Unlikely,” she soothed with a gentle smile. “But you may find yourself in possession of a considerable stockpile of magic and you’ll need to understand control.”
Kids with magic grew into their magic, he knew that. That’s how it was done. You grew, your magic grew, it happened slowly and steadily so that when you were an infant, you could liven up a bouquet of flowers, and when you were a kid, you could make sure the apple tree always had fresh fruit for you, and when you were an adult, you got a job working for an orchard fighting insects and rot and it was a beautiful, natural progression.
Beautiful and natural, except for one Mieczyslaw Stilinski, who managed to somehow fuck it all up just by existing.
Every horror movie ever made had some non-Mage stumbling onto an artifact or spell that gave them magic, but magic without control. Some of them were based on real stories. He was well aware of the danger in existing.
He glanced at the counselor and tried on a smile. “So you want me to apologize?”
“No need, he admitted he could have, um, consulted with me prior to-” she looked chagrined at not having a polite term for the scene in the workshop.
Stiles snorted. “Okay, Ms. Crater. I’ll report for duty tomorrow morning, bright and early.”
“Thank you, Stiles,” she said, and there was real gratitude in her voice. “Can I write you out a slip?”
“Please,” he told her, feeling gracious in return. It wasn’t her fault he’d always been a problem no one can solve.
Wouldn’t it be a joke, he thought, as she filled out the return-to-class pass, if it turns out I’m nothing but a catalyst? Nothing but a conduit for other peoples’ magic, nothing but an amplification system. Only enough magic to ensure he could hold the magic of others, and all the years of fear and suspicion for the safety of Beacon Hills wasted on little ol’ catalyst him.
The feeling of itching just below the surface of his skin didn’t fade until fourth period English, when he settled into his seat beside Scott and Scott quirked a sympathetic grin at him. He grinned back and Scott muttered, “Heard you got booted from the OW?”
“Booted and then told to show up tomorrow morning or else,” sighed Stiles in his general direction as classmates filed in and found seats.
Scott winced for him- he went through his own yo-yo with the gym instructors every fall as they discovered his rare alignment and then discovered that, yeah, asthma is real- and offered, “Hey, two days, right?”
Stiles grinned. “One night!”
“Mom’s working,” Scott informed him in a hiss. “What about your dad?”
“Busy,” Stiles promised, his eyes following Lydia and Jackson as they sauntered to the two seats left open for them at the very back of the room. Lydia widened her eyes almost imperceptibly at him and then tossed her head and gave him a smirk. So she was aware that the inevitable booting from the OW hadn’t stuck.
There was a pop quiz, which fit with the theme of annoyance and irritation, but it wasn’t until his third pencil lead sheared off on the paper for the floor that Stiles wondered if he was being subtly cursed or something.
This entire day sucked.
~~~
It didn’t get better.
By the time he’d burnt dinner and remade it with subpar substitutions, thrown a serving in the fridge for his dad, and done his homework for the next day, he was done. He was done.
He slipped outside to lay on the wooden boards of his old treefort, half-rotten in the huge lower branches of the oak tree. He stared up through the leaves and twigs and branches at what little of the darkening sky he could catch, and breathed.
He was closest to her, there. She’d gathered slivers from the wood while building it and barked her shin on the ladder chasing him up it, and left enough blood that he could stroke the wood and hear it sigh in her voice. Baby magic- any spark could do it- but comforting, nonetheless, to feel her there, beside him.
“Why did you bind me?” he whispered to the impression of her left behind, not for the first time.
Another soft sigh from the wood.
No, of course it couldn’t answer. Not for just a spark of a mage.
He stroked the wood under his fingertips gently. It had soaked up so many of his tears, over the years, that it should be well-preserved by the salt. It wasn’t, but it should be.
“What’s wrong with my magic,” he breathed, another fear that the wood cannot answer with her sigh. There were so few types of magic unstudied, unappreciated, so few things men still feared on dark nights. So much of magic was useful, even the really creepy things like necromancers and mind-thieves, body-snatchers. So much of it, the only concern was for the magic user to go rogue.
You didn’t go rogue with a lifetime of training.
“Lulajże mi, lulaj / bo cię wrzucę w dunaj / z dunaja do jazu / utoniesz od razu,” he whispered to the wood, hearing the old lullaby again in her soft voice, Fall asleep, fall asleep, I will throw you to the river, and then the weir, and you’ll drown right away. He quirked a grin because this was probably why no one’s threats fazed him.
She’d caught him up and rocked him to that, up here, the stars above them in the dark sky, and then he’d sung it to her, as her eyes emptied of light and laughter, because even at the end, it had made her lips twitch upwards, his voice teasing her in the same way hers had once teased him. A private joke between the two of them, horrifying to everyone else, if anyone else could understand the words.
He’d have to go a lot further than Beacon Hills to make that Polish-English translator thing lucrative enough.
“Jokes on you, Mischief,” he whispered, rubbing his fingers on the rough wood and swallowing, hard.
Fuck, he wanted- he wanted-
A sudden gust of wind whipped through the branches overhead and Stiles watched the leaves shimmer in the last of the sunlight.
He wanted to know why she did it.
Why she did it, whatever she did to bind his magic, and then why she left him without explaining any of it.
He’d long since come to the terrifying realization that maybe she’d bound him after her mind started to shatter apart on the disease, but that didn’t quite fit. He’d been itching under his skin- he could remember the first time Scott stepped up beside him, in first grade, when he’d been scratching at the itch, twitchy and jumpy, and the itch had fallen silent for one long, simple moment of clarity. “You’re my friend,” he’d said to Scott, and Scott had given him a gap-toothed smile and replied, “Yeah, stupid.”
And that had been long before Claudia’s eyes had gone confused and wild, before Deaton had suggested she be put in Eichen House. Before Stiles sat by her bedside and heard her rant and rage about all kinds of things, the healers of Eichen House soothing what they could, when they could.
“Well,” he sighed, at last, wiping his face. “That’s enough of a pity party, huh, Ma? Thanks for the, um, hug.” He tapped his fingers against the wood in their special pattern.
The wood sighed at him, sounding defeated.
Yeah. Time to go inside.
~~~
That night he slept restlessly. In his dreams, he knelt, bare-skinned, while familiar/unfamiliar hands touched. God, they touched, tracing lines of desire everywhere, possessing his skin, claiming it. Fingers trailed behind fingers, and he could almost place the familiarity of the calluses- he’d seen them, he knew- strong hands, strong fingers, made soft and gentle for these moments of touching.
He woke from one dream, muttered, “Shit that’s weird,” and fell directly into the next, this time with pinches and tugs and twists, his body stumbling through contortions and striving to do as they directed, pulling himself taut, chasing their hands, letting them stretch his limbs wide and wide and wider still…
“Fuck,” he mumbled into his pillow, grinding his erection into the cotton of the sheets. “Fuck, okay, let’s do this,” he mumbled, trailing a hand down to stir up the ache. To stir it up until it enflamed across his thighs and up his stomach, his whole body grinding into the comforting grip of those fingers. “Fuck,” he gasped again, clenching his teeth as a shudder of desire ran through his limbs.
“Fuck, feels- so good,” he admitted, in the dark, eyes squeezed shut tightly. He remembered back to the first dream, the fingers trailing everywhere, and his breathing, already ragged, grew tight and choked. “Yesss,” he hissed, remembering how he’d splayed his thighs and let the fingers pry him open, pry him apart, in the second dream, pry him open and- and-
“Ffffffuuuuck,” he choked out, shoving hard into his hand, the precum on the tip creating a silky lubricant for its path that contrasted with the dry, callused grip of his palm.
Callused grip. Shit. None of the hands in his dreams had been petite and graceful, delicate, feminine.
Fuck.
He lay facedown, panting, for a long moment, and then huffed a laugh, whispering, “Shit, Dad, we have to talk, I might be kinda gay.”
It probably wasn’t as funny as his laughter made it seem, but then, everything was funnier in the middle of the night, wasn’t it?
Softening erection firmly in hand, he rolled to lay on his side and fell asleep almost immediately, and unsurprisingly, into another dream.
Hands- everywhere- God, touching everywhere- hands, so many, many hands, touching and prying, and then shoving, slapping, the heat rising on his skin, making- making other things rise, too, the heat of the slapped surface sliding under the skin, waking up tremors and trembling need. God, he burned for more, for touch, he ached for- for- a deep voice chuckled, lips against his shoulder, “Well, well, this is something new.”
His eyes flew open in the dark.
His stomach was slick with pre-cum, his cock one long aching, arching line of heated need from base to tip.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Yeah, probably kinda gay.”
This is something new, and lips against his shoulder, wet and wild, hint of teeth- his hand crept down eagerly, through the mess on his stomach, to grip his dick again, and tug.
He’d be embarrassed in the morning at how quickly he’d come, he decided. For the night, there was only aching need- and satisfaction.
It probably should have surprised him more when he discovered that the dreams continued.
~~~
His alarm rang as the fingers of one hand shoved into his mouth, exploring the space there roughly while he wept and tried to suck, grateful for it, grateful for-
“Stiles!” shouted his father from across the hall. “Turn it off!”
Stiles’ eyes flew open and he scrambled for the alarm, slapping it several times with a sticky hand.
“Oh, ew,” he said, his chest tightening with embarrassment as he began to blush, looking at the mess he’d made of his hands, his arms, his-
It was everywhere.
“Gross,” he muttered.
Well, it had been a month or more since the last time he’d washed the bedding. Time to take care of that. Now.
He wiped his hands on the blanket and then stood and used the bottom half of the blanket to wipe the rest of his body.
“Fuck,” he swore emphatically, grossed out but kind of impressed. “How many times did I-?”
Memories and dreams spun madly through his head, the feeling of draining release replaced only by ravenous need, over and over again until- “Oh,” he said, feeling weak-kneed. “That’s- um. A lot. For right now.”
Time to ignore it and cope, get ready for his day. He’d deal with puberty later. Tonight, he’d be treasure hunting in the Hale Preserve. Stiles nodded as he began to strip the bed, pausing to open the windows to his room and turn on the damn fan.
It was on the pillowcase.
Stiles stared in mild horror at the white streak smeared on the pillowcase. He glanced at the mirror on the wall and realized it was in his hair.
A shower became a much bigger priority than a load of laundry, abruptly.
He stared at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth, the memory of fingers, of- of- “You’re super gay,” he told himself in a whisper. “So super gay. Very.”
Of more than fingers, shoved inside, playing with his teeth, bumping against the back of his throat- Stiles choked on the foam of the toothpaste. “You’re so gay,” he told his reflection in a shocked quiet voice. “Which is not something I really- I mean, I guessed,” he confessed, wide eyed. “But, dude, you are so super gay.”
Minus his thing for girls, obviously.
His underwear chafed, big shocker there. He had some kind of, like, rug burn down there. Hand burn? Sheets burn? Was that a thing?
It was definitely a thing.
He threw on his oldest, softest pair of thin boxers, wincing as he adjusted and slid a pair of jeans over them. “So gay,” he whispered to himself in the mirror, sliding his fingers through his hair. His fingers, that had- had- had that been a dream, or a memory? Fuck. Fuck.
He stopped in the kitchen on his way to the washing machine to wash them, just in case. Better safe than sorry. More soap.
When he came out of the laundry room, he startled at the sight of his dad, standing in front of the coffee pot.
“Hey, dad,” he said, willing himself not to sound nervous.
“Hey, Mischief,” grunted his dad. “Sleep good? Got in late. Early. Something.”
“Then you should go back to bed,” offered Stiles, digging in the fridge for lunch.
“Put money on your account,” grunted his dad.
“You did?! Thank you!” It was crazy how the little things could affect him, make him feel so much affection for the man. He grabbed out the milk and hip checked his dad away from the coffeepot. “Go back to bed. Long nights. You shouldn’t be awake.”
“You’re right,” his dad agreed, shuffling to the kitchen door. “Game today?”
Stiles felt warmth bubble up from the center of his heart. “Yeah, Dad, you gonna make it?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” mumbled his dad, shuffling for the stairs already.
In the next room over, the laundry began to agitate. Stiles poured his cereal and sat gingerly on the wooden chair at the kitchen table, munching happily.
He felt… well, sore, obviously.
But… really good.
Really, really good.
Maybe puberty wasn’t always as awful as the health class videos and Stiles’ previous experience had made it seem. Interesting.
~~~
Mr. Tuttleridge frowned as Stiles skipped into the room but didn’t say anything about the cleanliness of his aura for once. Stiles flopped into his seat and grinned at Lydia, who raised a perfect eyebrow down at him. “Good morning,” he greeted her, feeling cocky.
“Good morning,” she said back, flipping her hair over her shoulder and pursing her lips at him, tilting her head. “How are you?”
“Great,” he informed her, grinning.
Her eyebrows both flew as Jackson’s expression darkened, their conversation interrupted by Mr. Tuttleridge’s patently annoyed, “Unlock!” and their living books flying open on their respective tabletops.
It didn’t even bother Stiles that he didn’t know when to chant in unison with the other magic users in the class, something they had all at one point or another gotten annoyed with him about. He couldn’t feel group work the way every other magic user seemed able to effortless link with another, but today it didn’t bother him.
Today nothing bothered him.
All the looks, all the whispers, the frowns, they all slid off of him.
The guidance counselor nodded happily at him as they passed in the halls and it gave him a skip in his step to have done something right, made her happy. She deserved that. She worked with all the hard cases, all day long, nothing but teenagers and their angst and their weird bindings, and she deserved a small victory, he decided.
Hot lunch was delicious.
English was hilarious, with a lively debate between himself and Allison Argent about their respective interpretation of Dream Deferred. Two white entitled middle class brats arguing over the dreams of a poor black man in the 1920s, what a fucking joke, he thought cheerfully. Mr. Hughes was probably ticked, although he seemed more like the kind of guy who’d be tickled.
The game went well- the Sheriff showed up mid-way in the first quarter and actually got to stay through the whole thing, and Stiles was allowed to play in the last quarter, which was nice of Coach, if a little depressing for the other team. The victory went well with the buoyant feeling that had carried Stiles through his day, and the look of pride in the Sheriff’s eyes was a nice addition. “Buy you guys ice cream?” offered the Sheriff, and Scott’s eyes went puppy-dog pleading at Stiles.
“Yes, of course,” laughed Stiles, as Scott grinned at his mom, who shook her head with a smile and gave in, announcing that she had to get going for her shift and couldn’t come with.
It almost made him feel a little guilty about their plans.
Almost.
~~~
“Bye, Dad,” shouted Stiles, waving wildly in the parking lot as his dad tucked his lanky frame into the squad car.
“It’s so cool that he comes to every game,” commented Scott, his eyes crinkling with happiness at Stiles.
“It really is,” agreed Stiles, feeling the warm glow again. “He’s not a bad dad, you know?”
Scott smiled at him. “So what do we do now, for like an hour?”
“Pick up chicks and do cocaine?” offered Stiles.
Scott’s face scrunched up as he burst into laughter. “I was thinking tacos, dude.”
“Dude, yes, count me in,” Stiles declared. “Tacos are way better than hookers and blow.”
Stiles added Scott’s laughter to the long list of things that were Very Right About Today, but he was secretly glad that there wasn’t any kind of pull of attraction when Scott tipped back his head to do his stupid laugh. Nothing there but friendship, solid, mutual friendship.
“Hey, Scott,” he told the other teen, who smiled over at him as they pulled out into traffic. “You’re my friend.”
“I know, stupid,” Scott replied with a grin. “Watch where you’re going, we don’t need your dad grounding us before the big adventure!”
“No, we do not,” agreed Stiles, hunching around the wheel defensively. “No, we do not.”
Maybe it was just that- the thrill of adventure, the excitement of doing something real, finally, that had invigorated him, made him have those dreams last night. Got him all riled up, excited.
Maybe that’s all it was, that caused the itching beneath his skin to build and build last night, in his dreams, until it-
Stiles frowned.
He hadn’t felt the itching all day, in fact.
Huh.
He shrugged. Finally, he’d found a cure. Thank Gods and Goddesses, it had taken long enough. Well, he could jerk off nightly if it meant he didn’t feel that jumpy feeling the next day.
Although, given the state of his bed this morning… maybe nightly was a bit to ask.
They munched their way through a twelve pack of taco supremes and a nachos grande, while Scott used his mom’s data to keep them entertained on his phone, until it was time to drive out to the bar again.
“Dude, this place is in the middle of nowhere,” commented Scott again, looking out at the wild woods. “Isn’t this, like, on the other side of the Hale Preserve?”
“Uhhhh, yeah?” hazarded Stiles, consulting his mental map of the county.
“It’s such a weird place for a bar,” insisted Scott. “Don’t you think it’s weird?”
“I mean,” began Stiles before falling silent and then saying, cautiously, “I mean, for regular people, sure.”
Scott stared at him blankly before repeating, “Regular people?”
“You know, you, uh, non-mages,” Stiles drawled. “For, like, the mages, I know they don’t like cities. Dad’s always headed out to the sticks to break up a mag party gone wild or whatever. Gone too far.”
“Really?” asked Scott, clearly shocked. “So everyone in the bar is-”
“I don’t know,” admitted Stiles. “But, I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I guess,” said Scott doubtfully.
“You guess, I know,” said Stiles with a confidence he didn’t really feel.
“An occult bar,” murmured Scott in a tone of awe. “That’s- that’s-”
Stiles’ lips twisted into something that probably looked like a smile, wincing as he waited for the judgement to fall.
“-that’s an epic place to start our first adventure,” Scott finished decisively.
Good ol’ Scott. Stiles shook his head at his own doubts and grinned over the steering wheel as the fine establishment’s sign took shape and color in his headlights.
Derek was standing on the edge of the parking lot and waved them over. Roscoe was a little conspicuous, Stiles conceded, putting the Wreck into park and hopping out eagerly.
“You ready?” asked Derek gruffly.
“Yes!” said Scott and Stiles eagerly.
“Are you wearing any-”
“Three charms each and Scott has his dad’s talisman,” reported Stiles, nodding. Who didn’t wear basic protection at night?
“Well, let’s go treasure hunting,” reported Derek, waving towards the woods beside the bar.
“Wait, wait, I thought we had to go to the Preserve and get a pass,” said Scott, his face scrunching up in adorable confusion.
Derek’s smile was a quick splash across his face- there and gone before Stiles could really appreciate how it transformed the man’s features. “I am your pass,” he said confidently, and led them into the woods.
~~~
It turned out that Derek knew the combination on the locked gate that got them through the fence surrounding the Preserve without incident. It turned out Derek knew the combination because Derek was a Hale, and that meant the Sugar Daddy 3000 at the bar was a Hale, and that meant he had to be Peter Hale, the black sheep of the Hales. The Hales, who were some kind of big magic user family- big enough that Talia was considered Beacon Hill’s Alpha, and Stiles’ dad got thanked for his cooperation with her investigations, not the other way around.
And that put a whole new light on tonight’s little adventure, didn’t it?
“Stick close,” Derek commanded, and both Scott and Stiles nodded silently.
Wolves howled in the not-distant-enough woods, and Scott bumped into Stiles while digging in his pocket for his inhaler.
Derek made a disgusted face but turned away, leading them deeper and deeper in what seemed to be the correct direction. The compass in Stile’s back jean pocket offered no advice on that front. At least, not from its tucked in position, never leaving his pocket. It felt like the right direction, though, so there was that.
Wolves howled again, full-throated and deep, and Scott laughed nervously, bumping into Stiles again. “Are they, um, they sound close,” he said nervously.
Stiles rolled his eyes but Derek replied gruffly, “They’re busy tonight, hunting, most likely. Not too many nights like this, with clear skies and a bright moon.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Scott, sounding relieved. “So they won’t bother us.”
“Probably not,” agreed Derek quellingly.
Stiles suppressed the snort.
“Getting close to the hill,” announced Derek, eventually, after Stiles had tripped and fallen twice and Scott had taken his inhaler just as many times.
“Oh, good,” puffed Scott, his face brightening with excitement. He was literally the best friend in the world, Stiles decided, not for the first time. He was like, like a puppy inside a boy, always eager, always excited, never any bad intentions. You could count on Scott to be Scott, no matter what. Stupid and noble and so ready to join in.
The air on the hill was shimmering slightly.
“Oh, fuck,” muttered Stiles, entranced. “Do you see-”
“-dancers,” finished Scott, stepping forward, head tilted and jaw slightly dropped, his hands coming up as if to touch.
“That’s a Fae trap, all right,” declared Derek urgently. “Don’t touch.”
“What do you mean, don’t touch, we have to touch to get the treasure,” hissed Stiles, glaring at the man.
“May-be, may-be not,” sang a voice from the barrier.
“Definitely a trap,” insisted Derek. He flung an arm out in front of them. “No further.”
“May-be, may-be not,” sang the voice again, echoing and echoing in Stiles’ head.
“Mom?!” bellowed Derek. “Mom, if you can hear me-”
“May-be, may-be not,” echoed the voice, ethereal and powerful and insidious and painful in Stiles’ head.
“Don’t touch,” warned Derek in a roar.
Scott’s hand moved in slow motion, lifting, lifting-
“No!” shouted Derek, or maybe that was a wolf howling in the distance, thought Stiles, unable to peel his eyes away from the shifting dancers inside the circle.
And then, pain and a bright white light that cleared his vision of all else.
~~~
It’s a tough nut to crack, to crack, chittered a voice behind him.
She sent it, it’s ours, crack it, conkers, sang a child’s voice beside him, below him, to one side.
Stiles spun, blinded by the white light, the white light and the shadows, now, the shadows and the scent of good earth, the good earth and the scent of rot, the rot and the-
Conkers, cracking, crack it, grumbled something deep near the ground.
Tough nut, sighed the wind, winding through his hair and tugging it tight, tugging it and yanking it.
Crack it, growled something from far away, rumbling and rolling. Stiles tried to pry open his eyes to see, to look for Scott, for Derek, to see anything, but his eyes were streaming tears.
Hungry, wailed a voice above him, far above him. Hungry.
She made it, crack it, chittered the first voice again, the voices roiling around and around and around until a sudden silence and then-
Fire!
~~~
“Idiots,” growled an angry voice, as the sound of roaring fire died down to mere crackles, “idiots, all three of you, fucking idiots, do you hear me? Is that one alive?”
“Barely,” said another clipped voice, strange and strangled. “Chris, I have to- do you-”
“Well, you can’t let him die,” growled the first rough voice. “Do it, Peter. We’ll figure it out later, if he lives.”
Scott’s voice, crying out. Stiles tried to stir but his limbs were filled with lead, and the whole world was a magnet pulling him down, down, down.
“Change, Derek,” growled the first voice. “Let go and feel the moon. C’mon, pup, feel it, feel the pull.”
“I came- as fast- as I could-” gasped a female voice, followed by, “Oh, no, Peter, oh- don’t- you can’t-”
“No, choice, Alpha,” growled the first voice. “C’mere, your cub needs you.”
“Derek, love,” cried the female voice, closer, so close. “Change, feel Her pull, she calls to you.”
A hand on his body, shocking, bright, cool against his skin. “This one’s alive, too,” the angry voice declared.
Was he? Oh, good.
The sound of a dog whining and panting and whining and panting.
“What- what is-” gasped the deep voice near him.
“Chris, get away,” urgently said, real fear threaded through the strangely mangled voice. “Get-”
“NO!”