Archive of Our Own

A yelp jolted Derek out of sleep, and he blinked at his pitch black bedroom for a moment. That had definitely come from inside his apartment.

It was still dark out, still the middle of the night, he was still kind of drunk… And Laura was the worst sister on the planet who still didn't understand that an emergency key wasn’t for late night drunk snacks because her own fridge was always empty.

Derek couldn’t say he hadn’t been expecting this when he moved in down the hall from her. This was no surprise.

He rolled over and closed his eyes again, trying to go back to sleep. It was pointless to stop a drunk Laura once she had her mind set on something, so he left her to whatever she was doing and let his hearing drift out to the kitchen without focus or intent. It was a reflex to tune into her heartbeat; she was his sister, she was pack, it was calming and reassuring to be able to hear her.

Except the increasingly frantic patter from the main room was not Laura's heartbeat.

Derek had never heard that heartbeat before.

A complete stranger had broken into his apartment, and they seemed to be completely terrified about it.

Derek was up and on his feet in a second, moving silently towards his bedroom door. He couldn’t tell if the intruder heard him; their heart was beating too fast for him to hear any new spikes of panic or awareness. There was shuffling and scratching, raspy breathing, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything to his actual apartment or belongings. He actually had no idea what they were doing out there.

He let his nails extend into claws as he crept down the hall, closer and closer to the intruder, until the living room came into view and he stopped in confusion.

There was a massive box, wrapped up prettily with red paper and a green bow, totally eclipsing the small Christmas tree Laura set up on his coffee table. The thudding heartbeat was coming from inside.

Someone, somehow, had broken into his apartment in the middle of the night and left him a box full of a person.

A person who was starting to hyperventilate.

As he moved a little faster, Derek found himself wondering somewhat hysterically if there were even air holes in the box.

“I’m going to get you out, hang on,” he called to whoever was inside. He glanced over the wrapping paper briefly, then neatly sliced through the ribbon with a claw and lifted the lid.

The next thing he knew he was on his back, staring up at his own ceiling, and his nose was almost definitely broken.

He’d just been headbutted in the nose.

Derek pushed himself up just as the box toppled onto its side, and whoever was inside tumbled out and scrambled to their feet.

His feet. It was a young man inside, dressed in a t-shirt and boxers, heart pounding, eyes wild, and ready for a fight.

Derek could only stare, surprised and bleeding from the hit to the face and still a little bit drunk from Laura’s Hale Sibling Night Out. The man stared back, his wide eyes flickered around the room briefly, and then he took off for the door.

“Wait!” Derek got to his feet, hoping to at least get the name of the guy who was about to get him sent to prison for kidnapping, maybe even get a chance to explain if he was lucky. Explain how or what, he wasn’t sure exactly, but at least try to tell him that they were both equally confused here.

Well, maybe not equally; Derek was definitely confused, but he hadn’t been wrapped up in a dark box and left in a stranger’s apartment.

The man didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t slow down, he just threw open the lock on the door and wrenched it open, apparently fully prepared to take off into the snowy night, barefoot in his underwear.

But before he could actually leave, the handle tore from his grasp and the door slammed shut again, and this time the unmistakable glow of magic zipped around the edge. The light pulsed once, twice, and then a wave of pressure knocked the man backwards and right into Derek, sending them both back to the floor with a thud.

The stranger groaned, half on top of Derek, and let his head drop back against his shoulder.

“You’re fucking magic?” he ground out, and Derek again blinked up at his own ceiling, surprised and confused by everything that had just happened, up to and including that reaction.

So he knew about magic; maybe that would make this easier.

“That wasn’t me,” Derek managed to wheeze out, breath still knocked out of him. At least his nose had healed, even if he did have blood in his beard.

“Well it sure as hell wasn’t me!” The stranger rolled off of him to scramble to his feet, and he backed away another step when Derek sat up. His eyes flicked down briefly, and he threw his hands up in exasperation. “And you’re a wolf. This just gets better and better!”

Derek realized that his claws were still out, and retracted them in a delayed attempt to defuse the situation. The guy knew about magic and wolves, maybe they could work together and figure this all out without involving the police.

“I’m Derek,” he tried. But before he could continue to explain that he had no idea what was going on, his guest cut him off, eye twitching into a surly glare.

“Great, nice to meet you, Derek, now let me out of here before I call in every deputy in town to arrest your ass for kidnapping.”

Right, so much for working together.

Derek stood, wiping any dust or dirt off the seat of his underwear. He hadn’t put on clothes before leaving his room and blood from his nose was dripping from his chin, drying in his chest hair.

“I don’t even know what’s keeping you in,” he growled, moving towards his front door, a little cautiously. A foot away from it, he started to feel the pressure of magic, and if he tried to touch it, he could feel its sharp crackle through his fingers.

“They’re wards,” the guy snapped shittily. “Now take them down.”

Derek glared at his door while he responded, “I don’t know how, they’re not mine.” He turned his glare on the guy. “Actually, how do I know they’re not yours? You seem to know about magic and they appeared when you did.”

His uninvited guest crossed his arms and glared right back. “You really think I broke into some guy’s apartment to lock myself in with him?”

Derek shrugged. “Who knows? I don’t know anything about you, you could be a hunter.” He also crossed his arms, trying to look somewhat intimidating in his boxer briefs. “So maybe you should explain exactly what you’re doing here before I call the cops.”

The stranger snorted unattractively. “The cops aren’t getting through those wards, and nice try, because I am the cops.”

Derek raised an eyebrow and looked him and down. Standing there in boxers, a college t-shirt, and his hair standing in every direction, he barely looked like a college freshman—maybe a sophomore at most.

“You’re NYPD.” He didn’t even bother pretending that was a question; it was one hundred percent disbelief.

That at least got raised eyebrows out of the guy, something that wasn’t a glare. “We’re in New York?”

“Where did you think we were?” Derek couldn’t help but notice he didn’t actually say whether he was law enforcement or not; if he knew Derek was a wolf, he probably thought a lie would be detected. Derek wasn’t about to tell him that his heart was beating too wildly for him to detect anything but panic.

“California.” The guy moved over to the window to check for himself, and sure enough, the darkened street was covered in piles of snow, illuminated by outdated, yellowed lamps. It couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anywhere on the west coast. “What day is it?”

“December 20th—well, now it’s the 21st.” Derek leaned to see the clock on the microwave. “4:33am.”

The guy turned back and asked bluntly, voice hard, “And what’s your full name and date of birth again?”

Derek narrowed his eyes and tried to square his shoulders a little more. “How about you tell me your name first?” He was giving away a lot more than he was getting from this stranger who appeared in his apartment in the dead of night.

The guy looked offended at the very suggestion. “Why should I tell you anything when you kidnapped me? Which—” he gave a very obnoxious thumbs up “—congratulations on that, man, because not only have you kidnapped a deputy, but you transported me over so many state lines, so, felony.”

Derek really wasn’t worried about that considering he, Laura, and Cora had been in their favorite bar where they knew half the patrons, drinking until after 1am. He didn’t kidnap this guy and he had plenty of witnesses.

“Except I didn’t kidnap you, and from where I’m standing, you broke into my apartment in the middle of the night.”

He only got a sneer in response. “Yeah, okay, except I was on duty until midnight back in California, so unless Delta has really—”

Halfway through he seemed to realize what Derek did: if he was on duty at midnight, just over an hour ago with the time difference, neither of their theories held any water. There was no way to cross three thousand miles in that time, which left only one possible explanation.

Magic.

And werewolves generally didn’t do magic. At all. They couldn’t.

The guy shifted, contrite, and crossed his arms over his chest with a shiver. Standing there in his boxers and a t-shirt, across the country and magically trapped in a stranger’s apartment, he just looked small and sad and pathetic.

And Derek really just wanted to sleep.

Kind of hating himself for giving in first but pretty sure he should be the adult here, Derek sighed and held out a hand. “Let’s try this again. I’m Derek.”

The guy looked from his face to his hand, hesitated, then uncurled and gave it a solid shake.

“Stiles.”

*

Seeing as it was almost five in the morning and neither one of them had slept all that much, Derek setup Stiles on the sofa with sweatpants and a few blankets and locked his bedroom door behind him. He didn’t sleep deeply, with one ear on the living room for any odd noises, but he at least dozed the rest of the alcohol out of his system.

When he woke up sometime after nine, it was to quiet snoring from the main room, and when he wandered through to make himself breakfast, Stiles was curled up on the couch under every blanket in the apartment. There might’ve been a towel in the pile too.

Derek stared down at his guest for a moment, at his face smushed unattractively against the couch pillow and drooling. He shook his head and carried on to the small kitchen alcove for coffee and food.

Halfway through frying up breakfast, Stiles finally stirred back to consciousness with a quiet snort. He was so buried in blankets that it was hard to tell beyond his muffled heartbeat and breathing ticking up, but eventually he wormed his way out to fresh air.

Derek kept half an eye on his progress as he sat up, yawned widely, looked around the room sleepily, and then gathered one of the thicker blankets around him to stand. It was getting even harder to believe he was older than eighteen with the way he shuffled around like a toddler in a blanket cape with his hair all over the place.

He better not be a minor, was the only thing floating through Derek’s mind. The absolute last thing he needed was to be accused of kidnapping a minor across state lines.

Stiles hesitated at the window, squinted out at the bright sun through the clouds and the falling snow, and then continued his sleepy progress past the dining table to the kitchen.

“Find enough blankets last night?” Derek greeted, raising an eyebrow at the duvet.

Stiles squinted one eye at him, the other still closed against both the light and being conscious. “I’m from California.”

“It’s not like you’re sleeping outside.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure werewolves are morally against paying for heating, so I might as well be.”

Derek moved the frying pan from the stove to give him an incredulous look. “It’s set to seventy in here. You’re fine.”

That got both of Stiles’ eyes open. “Are you kidding? That’s lower than I keep my AC in the summer!”

“Well get used to it, because I’m not making it hotter.” Then he added with a bit of a sneer, “I’m morally against paying for heating.”

Stiles nodded, looking somewhat chastised. “Okay, I’m sorry, that was a dickish thing to say, but in my defense, literally every wolf in my pack refuses to turn on the heat in their homes.”

So he was in a pack. Derek filed it away for later as he crossed his arms and glared.

“Maybe that’s because you live in California and you don’t need heat.”

“Northern California, asshole. It does get below freezing.” Stiles shivered, and burrowed further down into his blankets, probably just to make his point.

“Whatever.” Derek turned back to the stove to finish cooking for his guest. “There’s hot coffee if you want some.”

“Thank you,” Stiles returned in a similarly shitty tone, and Derek rolled his eyes to himself.

This was going to be a great day.

*

In the ten minutes it took to finish making breakfast, Stiles passed out again on the dining table, face burrowed into his blanket-covered arms. Derek only hesitated for a brief moment before putting a bowl down maybe a little too hard right next to his head, pretending not to notice Stiles’ violent jump back to consciousness.

“What is this?” Stiles asked, worming a hand out of his duvet bundle just enough to poke at his bowl with his fork.

“Quinoa, kale, and eggs,” Derek answered, sitting down across from him.

Stiles looked down at his bowl, and then back up, looking pained. “Look, I broke your nose, and I’m sorry for that. But what you’re doing isn’t fair.”

Derek gave him a long, flat glare. “Making you breakfast?” The guy was lucky he was getting fed at all with the way he’d been acting.

“This is not breakfast,” Stiles insisted, pointing to the bowl. “This is California vegan fairy food.”

Derek took a breath and reminded himself that Stiles was across the country from home and trapped in a stranger’s apartment; it was understandable if he wasn’t on his best behavior.

But god did he want to fucking hurt him.

“I’ve been clearing out my fridge for Christmas leftovers,” he explained as neutrally as he could, and then just to be pedantic, he threw in flatly, “And it’s not vegan, there’s egg in it.”

Stiles sneered a bit at his sass but after a few seconds of pouting, he gave in and ate the quinoa. He ate like an animal.

Derek was in hell and he needed to get this guy out of his apartment immediately. Still, he could admit that continuing to be a dick wouldn’t make it happen any faster and one of them had to be the adult. Since Stiles seemed content to pout like an angsty teen—please, don’t be underage—that left Derek.

“What’s the last thing you remember last night, before you showed up here?” he asked, trying for a slightly less hostile tone. Neither of them reacted well to hostility, he’d learned that much already.

Stiles swallowed his bite of food before answering—small favors, but he still had a piece of quinoa stuck to his lip.

“Passing out in bed after my last shift. Woke up in a box.” He jerked his head back towards the still-upended red box he’d burst out of. Derek didn’t have anywhere else to put it; it certainly wouldn’t fit in his kitchen recycling bin.

“And nothing strange happened during your shift?”

Stiles shrugged. “Broke up a fight over a tablecloth at Macy’s?” Derek stared at him, waiting for a sign he was kidding. He was not kidding, and added, “Christmas is in a few days. People get weird.”

“But nothing magic-related.”

“Not that I noticed. I did get pelted with Santa napkins, but I can’t say it was very magical.” He squinted at nothing and looked like he was seriously questioning his life choices for a moment, then jumped back into the conversation. “Anything magical on your end?”

Nine of a cinnamon cocktail that was mostly Everclear, but no actual magic. He shook his head.

“Okay,” Stiles continued, a little more focused and business-like now. “It wasn’t anything we did last night, how about in the last week? Month? Piss anyone off enough to curse you?”

Derek couldn’t think of anything; he generally avoided people as much as possible. And he certainly hadn’t dealt with anyone enough for a curse. Curses needed to be specific to work properly. They required an exhausting level of specificity, so much so that it took an enormous amount of patience and dedication to properly curse someone. No one did it on a whim.

He shook his head again, and Stiles nodded. “Yeah, me neither. I mean, I’m a deputy, I piss plenty of people off, but I’m generally the only person I know who’s petty enough to put that much work into revenge.”

That time when he said it, there was no sign of a lie in his steadier heartbeat; it rolled out naturally.

“So you’re really a cop?”

“Yes?” Stiles looked confused and a little offended at the question. “Why would I lie about that?”

Derek shrugged. “To seem threatening? You look twelve and you didn’t exactly show any proof.”

Stiles sputtered for a second and dropped his fork into his bowl with a clatter. “Well sorry I don’t sleep with my badge in my boxers! And not everyone can grow a perfectly trimmed hipster beard, and have to make due with the face they’ve got!”

So clearly that was a touchy subject.

“You just look young. There’s nothing bad about that.”

That did nothing to help, and if anything just made Stiles more annoyed.

“It’s kind of bad when I have to go to court because some asshole tries to fight their speeding ticket and the judge thinks I’m an idiot rookie who doesn’t understand procedure.”

Derek didn’t have a response to that. It wasn’t a problem he’d ever had in his life. If anything, people assumed he was ten years older than he actually was.

“Speaking of,” Stiles continued, “can I borrow your phone? I’m supposed to be on the night shift tonight, and I need to call my dad and let him know that I probably won’t be there. Also that I’m trapped in New York.”

That made Derek respond. “Your dad?”

Was this guy still young enough to have his parents take care of things like calling into work? Maybe he was a manchild. That would explain a lot of things about him.

He must not have kept the judgment out of his voice, because Stiles’ face dropped into a glare as he said flatly, “He’s the sheriff, so, my boss.”

Fuck.

Stiles was a deputy and his dad was the sheriff. Derek was so going to prison.

*

While Stiles showered with the bathroom door firmly locked, Derek made another attempt at leaving the apartment, still with no luck. All doors and windows to the outside were magically sealed somehow, and reacted pretty negatively to being forced. If it weren’t for werewolf healing, his hand would probably be permanently fried.

“There’s nothing out here that would be doing this,” Laura explained over the phone. She was a foot away in the hall, but the magic was even blocking sound. Derek couldn’t hear her just on the other side of the door, and vice versa. “There’s no ash, no objects, I can’t even feel it until I try to touch the door.”

“And Stiles can’t get through either, so it isn’t a typical protective barrier.” Most would let a human pass through without issue, and it was concerning that this one seemed to stop everything. It wasn’t natural. He’d never heard of anything like it.

He hated to do this, but...

“Can you call Peter, see if he can figure it out?”

“Oh, he’ll love this,” Laura agreed. “He’s been bored waiting on your edits.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s been three days.”

“It’s Peter. He’s already outlining the next book.”

“Well tell him to come here instead. He’s a lot more sensitive to magic, he might be able to find what’s doing this.”

“Won’t find anything, it’s not anchored nearby.”

Derek started at Stiles’ voice; he’d been so focused on the door that he hadn’t noticed the shower shutting off or the bathroom door opening.

Stiles came over, rubbing his hair with a towel and wearing the clothes Derek got out for him. The shirt was clinging to the dampness of his skin, and Derek definitely didn’t stare at his chest for a few seconds too long. And if he did, all it took was the phantom memory of fingers raking through his hair to douse any physical reaction like a bucket of ice water over his head.

Then Stiles’ words registered and his stomach tightened. Humans shouldn’t be able to know that kind of thing, even if they were in a wolf pack.

“How can you tell?”

Stiles dragged the towel off his head as he shrugged, “I just can.” He said it in a carefully casual tone, but his heart ticked up in a way that hit every one of Derek’s alarm bells.

“Are you a spark?” Derek asked bluntly, and Stiles answered evasively,

“I’m an emissary,”

That would’ve been good to know from the very start of this disaster, but more importantly,

“But do you have magic?” Stiles’ heart started pounding right along with Derek’s. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Fuck. Fuck.

“Derek, are you okay?” Laura asked, reminding him that she was still on the phone, and his chest loosened enough to take a breath.

“I don’t use it,” Stiles said quietly, but his eyes kept flitting to the side. “Not when I don’t have to.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t....” Stiles sighed and shifted uncomfortably, crossing his arms across his chest and hunching in on himself a bit. “I don’t like it.”

Derek couldn’t tell if he was lying; everything about him was heightened and erratic, even if his exterior didn’t show it. He was panicking for some reason, and it was more suspicious than an outright lie would be. There was no reason for a spark to be panicking during this conversation unless they’d done something very wrong.

“You don’t like it.” Derek had no idea how to interpret that, which made him even more nervous.

“No, I don’t! And it has nothing to do with any of this, so back off!”

Again, Derek didn’t buy that. “Sparks use magic for everything.”

Stiles gaped at him for a second. “Now who’s stereotyping! I just don’t like it, okay? I won’t use it, it doesn’t matter, so relax about it!”

“Maybe I would if you relaxed. Nothing about you is making me want to relax.” He took a step forward, but instead of being remotely intimidated, Stiles did the same.

“I could say the same to you, pal, why the hell are you freaking out so much all of a sudden?”

“I don’t trust sparks,” Derek forced out through gritted teeth. Especially sparks who felt the need to hide it. That usually meant they were dangerous. And right then, right up in Derek’s face and looking for a fight, Stiles didn’t seem so small and lost anymore. He very well could be dangerous.

“Well I don’t trust you either,” he growled, eyes blazing with anger, “so suck it up until we get this figured out and never have to see each other ever again.” Then for good measure, “Dick.”

“Derek!” Laura finally yelled in his ear, and it sounded like she’d been trying to get his attention for a while. “Is everything okay in there? What the hell is going on?”

She was loud enough for Stiles to hear, only a couple feet away now, and he raised his eyes in a challenging prompt for an answer.

“We’re fine,” Derek snapped, and hung up. No way was he going to lose to a spark. And especially not in front of his sister.

“Are we fine?” Stiles asked mockingly. “Because we’re trapped in your apartment by a freakishly powerful spell, and maybe you haven’t noticed, but the door won’t exactly open for groceries.”

“Just how long are you expecting to be here?” The thought had briefly crossed Derek’s mind over breakfast, but he refused to believe that would become an issue.

Stiles smirked meanly. “Well, your pack couldn’t even tell the spell isn’t anchored here, so I’ve already claimed my favorite mug. It’s the orange one,” he added for good measure.

Stiles could have his stupid orange mug, it was Derek’s least favorite mug anyway, but the dig at his pack? That wouldn’t fly under his roof.

He raised his eyebrows and hoped he looked intimidating but amused, and not like he was still extremely uncomfortable. “Like your pack could do better?”

Stiles jutted his jaw out like some cliche high school bully and huffed a laugh. “Even across the country and three hours behind.”

Derek huffed right back and held out his phone. “Prove it.”

“Gladly,” Stiles snapped, and snatched it away. Derek just smirked.

Stiles had no idea what he was getting into. There was no one who could match the Hales in a competition; they were fierce competitors and sore losers, and more than one lifelong friendship had been destroyed over petty squabbles. Stiles’ pack was going down with their stupid emissary and his stupid smirk.

*

It was much later, once he was taking his turn in the shower, that Derek realized it was incredibly stupid to pit their respective packs against each other. They both wanted out of that tiny apartment, and there was no doubt it would happen faster with collaboration and cooperation, but…

He glared down at the drain catch and the mess of lighter brown hair gathered in it. At the shampoo dribbled down the side of the bottle. The razor left blade-down on the sink so the conditioning strip stuck to the surface.

...but Stiles was a dick and this was probably all his fault anyway, so they could suck it.

Even if he was a somewhat attractive dick whose eyes kind of sparkled when he was fired up to meet a challenge.

The phantom of horribly familiar nails scratched lightly down his spine and he shook off the cold shiver that ran through him, despite the hot water pounding down on his shoulders.

No.

He wasn’t about to lose to a spark. Stiles was going down.

*

The rest of the day went about as well as could be expected from somewhat hostile strangers stuck in a small New York apartment with one phone. There was a lot of silence, some passive aggressive leg jiggling on the creaky old floor, glares, the occasional snide comment…

It wasn’t great, actually.

They were both on edge, and it was pretty obvious that neither of their personalities really shone at their best under this kind of stress.

Derek shut down when he was stressed, he retreated—like a dying cat, as Cora put it—and with someone new in his space, he had nowhere to go. Even in his bedroom, he could still hear Stiles’ pattering heartbeat, the way he constantly shuffled around, muttered to himself. It was impossible to find the silent calm he needed to decompress and calm down.

As for Stiles: when he was stressed he apparently vibrated with restless energy, and was an all around giant asshole, but maybe that was just his personality.

He also tried to micromanage everything his own pack did, even three thousand miles away from them. Once he’d gotten Derek’s phone in his hands, it hadn’t left his side in hours. When he wasn’t firing off texts, he was on a phone call, rattling off countless book titles to whoever was telling him to shut up, I know how to research, and demanding constant updates. Every time the woman on the other end of the call hung up on him, he called her right back to nag her some more.

“Stiles, if you don’t shut up and let me work, I’m going to leave you in that apartment to starve,” she finally snapped, and seemingly blocked Derek’s number for good measure.

Derek tried not to let his smugness show as he typed out a calm and organized email to Peter, outlining the entire situation and adding any details that could help him find the cause of their misery.

Stiles dialed another number.

*

Derek’s personal hell continued on into the night. He usually didn’t sleep well anyways, but he barely slept at all because Stiles didn’t sleep. At all. The little shit spent the entire night making a racket out in the living room; typing furiously on Derek’s laptop, phone calls with his pack, pacing around on the old creaky hardwood floor… These sounds probably weren’t very loud to Stiles, but to Derek and his werewolf hearing, lying awake in the dark and on edge, they were deafening and impossible to ignore.

To make it worse, all he could hear was Stiles. Whatever spell was keeping them there, it dampened everything outside of that tiny apartment. There was no background noise to drown him out or focus on—no sounds of the city, he couldn’t hear his downstairs neighbor, water through the pipes, Laura’s familiar heartbeat down the hall—all gone.

He gave up at five in the morning, when he heard cabinets opening and closing in a way that sounded like Stiles was intending to cook. He didn’t want to know what that would lead to.

“Why the hell do you have so much pasta?” Stiles demanded as soon as he saw Derek approaching. “You don’t even look like you eat carbs. Or does the werewolf metabolism take care of that?”

Derek rolled his eyes instead of opening that can of depression—literal depression; for a while there he’d been too messed up to make himself anything more complicated than pasta and sauce from a jar, so he’d stocked up rather than starve in his bed. And then when he came out of it, he was so sick of pasta that he never ate it again—just shoved it all to the back of the pantry to slowly expire.

“I eat carbs.” He closed the pantry before Stiles found something else to poke around in. “What are you looking for?”

“Coffee. I’m about to pass out standing up, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”

“At least it would be quiet for a minute.” It was out before Derek could stop it, but he didn’t care to take it back. He was tired and irritable, and Stiles was annoying.

He opened the coffee cabinet a little aggressively, but at least the open door blocked him from seeing Stiles’ face for a brief moment. When he closed it again, the face was waiting, looking pissy.

“Does my presence offend your delicate werewolf senses that much?”

“It does, actually,” Derek snapped back, and pushed past him to start making coffee. Stiles had the loudest presence of anyone he’d ever met.

“Yeah, well your shitty couch offended my back, so no one’s winning here.”

For the first time ever, Derek was regretting that he only had good coffee, because Stiles deserved instant powder stirred into lukewarm tap water.

“I didn’t buy it for anyone to sleep on.”

Stiles snorted behind him. “You never have house guests. Shocking. You’re such a warm and welcoming host.”

“My house guest appeared in the middle of the night and magically trapped himself in my apartment. Are you expecting pillow mints?” He was half considering presenting Stiles with a typed up bill when they finally got out of there.

“Once again—” Stiles appeared at his side, leaning back against the counter to look him in the eye “—not my magic, not my fault. I’m the victim here.”

“We’ll see what my pack says about that.”

Derek focused on counting the exact right amount of coffee beans into the grinder. He wasn’t wasting any more of his good coffee on Stiles than he absolutely had to.

“Well my pack says there’s literally no way this is my fault, so…” Stiles gestured to Derek, throwing the blame ball back in his court.

“Hm. Convenient,” he said, and started the electric grinder to cover up the grating sound of Stiles’ voice.

Of course Stiles’ pack wouldn’t want to find evidence of their own wrongdoing; no one wanted to be the party at fault in an interpack conflict. Not that this was a conflict yet, but there was no telling where it would go with the two of them trapped in such a small area. Blood would probably be shed before this was over.

Or, more blood. Stiles had already broken Derek's nose.

“What do you mean convenient?” Stiles yelled over the grinder, crossing his arms. “You think we’d lie about this? As if we don’t have enough going on? We live on a freaking hellmouth.”

Derek shut off the grinder and raised his eyebrows pointedly.

“No, it didn’t do this,” Stiles said with a flat glare. “It’s more of a try to kill you weekly kind of hellmouth, not so much a randomly teleport you three thousand miles away kind of deal.”

None of this was making Derek feel better.

“Hellmouth?”

“Nemeton, whatever.” Stiles waved it away and continued to pout.

“No, not whatever,” Derek corrected. This guy was seriously an emissary? Nemetons were nothing to mess with or dismiss, they had to be carefully maintained and managed; even Derek knew that, and he wasn’t the one entrusted with safeguarding his pack. It was starting to sound like a miracle that Stiles’ pack was even still around at all if he disregarded a Nemeton with whatever. “Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and his entire head. “Because it’s not the problem. It’s the first thing we check when something goes wrong.”

“You sure you’re checking it right?

“We know what we’re doing by now, but thanks for the condescension.”

“You’re young. It wouldn’t be the first time an inexperienced pack got in over their heads.”

Stiles snorted. “We have plenty of experience with this shit.”

This was exactly why Derek skipped every conference his pack attended. Brand new packs thinking they had everything figured out, challenging packs that had been around for centuries, shitting on tradition, stomping through delicate treaties and politics without a care. They were exhausting.

“How about you let us verify that before we write it off completely?”

“Because we don’t need you to, we’ve got it handled.”

Derek didn’t think it needed to be said, but… “It doesn’t really sound like you do.”

Stiles’ eye twitched a little bit. “You are so fucking—ugh!” He growled in frustration, not unlike a wolf, and clutched at the air in front of Derek’s throat before stalking off.

It was petty and childish, but Derek couldn’t help grinning to himself in satisfaction. He’d definitely won that round.

He picked up his phone, scrolled past the text threads to unknown numbers belonging to Stiles’ pack, and texted Peter about the Nemeton.

Kids, was the exasperated response he received, eyeroll implied.

*

“You told your pack about the Nemeton?”

Derek lazily looked up from editing Peter’s latest manuscript, to Stiles fuming with Derek’s cell phone in his hand. “So?”

“So?” Stiles mimicked with a sneer. “So now they’re all over Lydia, who is now pissed off about that, and now she’s pissed at me. Thank you so very much!”

“Sounded like she was already pissed at you before.” He returned to the manuscript and continued, “They need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Stiles moved into his peripheral and put his hands on his hips like that was at all intimidating. “Um, no they don’t, because the Nemeton isn’t the problem, and Lydia really doesn’t appreciate some east coast dickwad with a handkerchief poking around in her research.”

Clearly this pointless argument wasn’t going to end anytime soon. Derek put down his editing pen.

“That east coast dickwad with a handkerchief has published over fifteen volumes on the supernatural. What has Lydia published?”

“A couple very well received and thoroughly peer-reviewed papers on quantum graphs that got her invitations to speak at a number of universities around the world.” Derek had to consciously restrain his eyebrows from shooting up in surprise; he refused to let Stiles know that sounded impressive or that he was, in fact, surprised. Stiles wasn’t going to win this.

“And how are her quantum graphs helping this situation right now?” Good save. “We’re magically trapped inside an apartment, do you really think science will get us out?”

Stiles scoffed. “Oh, you know that isn’t what I meant, you dick. She’s a damn good researcher and methodical as hell. If the Nemeton did this, she would know.”

“Because of her research.” As a spark, Stiles should’ve known that magic wasn’t that simple. It took a lot more than simulations and calculations to solve its mysteries. Magic wasn’t numbers and graphs, it was mind games and word puzzles.

Whatever smugness Derek had about Stiles’ inexperience, it all but vanished when he recognized that ugly, smug superiority reflected right back at him in Stiles’ quick smirk and sharp gaze.

“Because she’s a Banshee whose subconscious is magically linked to the ley lines that flow through the Nemeton, and she’s been able to accurately predict every major episode since we were in high school.” His eyebrows jumped, smug and condescending. “It’s not the Nemeton, so your prolific writer buddy can aim his condescension elsewhere.”

“That’s the kind of thing you tell us right off the bat so we don’t waste time.”

“I told you it wasn’t the Nemeton.”

“You also gave me no reason to trust that you know that.”

“And you gave me no reason to trust you at all,” Stiles shot back immediately. “Why would I tell you anything about my pack when you’ve told me nothing about yours?”

“Because I’m not the one who got teleported into someone else’s home and then lied about who I am.” Stiles had a lot of nerve demanding information when he was so unwilling to part with any of his own.

“I never lied.” Stiles crossed his arms, defensive.

It was no surprise that he was the type to abuse loopholes. Peter would love him, and Derek would do everything he could to make sure the two of them never met.

“You omitted. A lot.”

“One thing.”

“A huge thing.” Not divulging that he was a spark was like Derek hiding the fact that he was a werewolf; even if they hid it from humans, it wasn’t done within the world of the supernatural. It was a massive breach of trust and downright insulting.

“Again, I don’t use it, it has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

At this point, Derek wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Stiles’ magic really was the cause of everything. There was still a lot to learn about sparks; magic was unique to the person, as were their limitations. Personal morals and boundaries played a huge part in determining what they were capable of and how far they could push their magic. For someone as angry and volatile as Stiles...anything was possible.

*

With Stiles hogging Derek’s laptop, and both packs doing their own research, there really wasn’t much Derek could do about their being trapped. His family’s library was actually in their library at home so he didn’t have access to the hundreds of books that could help, Stiles had actually growled last time he tried to use his own laptop, and he refused to attempt researching on a tiny phone screen.

So with nothing else to do, he focused on work, which was editing Peter’s book.

Peter had the tendency to write like he thought; lofty prose, convoluted similes, a few digressions and historical anecdotes… He was incredibly smart and knew his subjects, but it took a lot of editing to make it coherent enough that anyone outside of Peter’s brain could follow it. It took concentration, focus, and most importantly, quiet.

Derek did not get quiet with Stiles around.

He practically vibrated with energy even when he was sitting still, which wasn’t very often, because he was constantly moving. Even sitting on the couch, completely focused on a laptop, his leg was jiggling, his fingers drumming quietly against the table—all of the movement was making the glass panes on the nearest bookshelf rattle quietly on the old floors.

“Would you stop that?” Derek finally snapped after reading the same sentence six times and still not understanding it. All of Stiles’ nervous energy was making him feel anxious for no reason, and it was seriously pissing him off. Putting him needlessly on edge when he needed to calm down and focus.

“Stop what?” Stiles didn’t look away from the screen. Or stop jiggling his leg.

Derek didn’t hesitate, he just reached out and clamped his hand down on Stiles’ knee, forcing him to stop.

“Just sit still for ten minutes.”

That made Stiles look up, with a bit of a manic gleam in his eye.

“Derek, I have so much ADD, and I have been in this very small apartment for like two solid days without adderall. You’re lucky I haven’t started taking stuff apart—I am actually going insane!”

“You’re not the only one.” He made a mental note to hide his toolbox.

“Fine.” Stiles stood and gathered up the laptop—Derek’s laptop. “Enjoy your dead silence, I’m making pasta. Because you have nothing else in this entire apartment.”

“I'm sorry I didn't plan to be on lockdown with a stranger and pick up extra groceries!”

“Rookie mistake!” Stiles called back, and yeah, Derek didn't doubt that Stiles would have emergency rations for something like this. Maybe even a bunker, he seemed paranoid enough.

But even with Stiles in the kitchen and occupied, Derek didn’t get his dead silence.

He tried to ignore him and focus on editing, but it was like he was intentionally making as much noise as possible. There was no way it wasn’t intentional, the way he banged the large metal pot against every other thing in the cabinet, then the sink, the faucet—Derek was going to kill him. Or himself. Either way, only one of them would be leaving the apartment.

As if to rub it in, Derek’s phone started ringing right next to him, buzzing across the surface of the coffee table. The screen lit up with the familiar picture of Laura’s cheesy smile, and in the kitchen, Stiles’ head whipped around.

There hadn’t been many calls since Stiles’ pack banned him from initiating contact with them. There had been plenty of texts from both packs, all detailing dead ends and ruled out theories, but no calls.

A call was new.

Derek answered it, meeting Stiles’ wide and hopeful gaze as he came back to the couch.

“Hey, Laura.”

“Hey, so I went back to the bar and asked around.”

“And?” he prompted, trying to keep the dread out of his voice. Because that was her I have so much to tell you voice. That voice usually meant really bad news for Derek, but Stiles didn’t need to know that just yet.

“And remember that guy in the booth behind us? With the eyebrows? Kinda looked like Benicio del Toro?”

“Sure.” He didn’t.

“And remember how we were talking about soulmates?”

“Yeah.” No.

“And remember how the guy with the eyebrows said you’d find yours soon, and you were really smashed and told him to fuck off and threatened to shove his soft baked pretzel sticks up his ass one at a time?”

Derek did not. At all.

“Well, turns out he’s a cupid and he took that as a personal challenge!”

Derek closed his eyes and wished for death.

“So you’re saying…”

“That Stiles is your soulmate!”

Derek could feel the moment his face froze, and there was nothing he could do to make it move again. All he could do was sit there and stare at Stiles, who raised his eyebrows impatiently, while his mind flashed through one horrifying image after another.

It was as much a flashforward as a flashback, a prediction based on the past of lying, manipulation, magic...

Of course his soulmate was a spark. Of course the universe wasn’t done jerking him around. There was always one more trick up its sleeve to fuck him over in life.

“Surprise! It’s your own fault!” Laura exclaimed cheerily.

Derek wanted to throw himself off a cliff.

He also wondered if the windows could be smashed open, and if so, whether or not a werewolf would survive the seven story drop to the pavement below.

He really hoped not.

*

Stiles stared at him, a fork twisted up with his freshly made spaghetti halfway to his mouth, and said as if it were anywhere close to the most important part of the story:

“You threatened to shove breadsticks up a cupid’s ass.”

“Pretzel sticks,” Derek corrected, like that made it any better. “I was really drunk.”

Stiles looked like he was seconds from laughing at him, even as he said indignantly, “I got magically teleported clear across the country because you were about to drunk-fight a baby in a diaper.”

“He wasn’t—” Derek took a breath to calm down and fight down the embarrassed blush burning across his face. “He looked like a normal guy. I thought he was just a douchebag butting into our conversation.”

“What the hell did he say that deserved a pretzel up the ass? Those are salty!”

Derek’s face started to burn a little hotter as he mumbled, “Something about finding my soulmate, I don’t really remember.”

Stiles still hadn’t taken that bite of pasta; it was just hovering there. “Oh well, then, by all means.”

God, he was such a dick.

“Look, I was drunk and my last relationship was terrible—there were restraining orders involved.” He added a little quieter, “It felt like he was mocking me.”

“Oh, sorry, man.” Stiles dropped his fork back into his pasta, bite uneaten, looking awkward. “That sucks.”

Derek was just grateful he didn’t ask for details.

“But like…” Spoke too soon. “The restraining order wasn’t...against you, was it?” That made Derek look up incredulously, and Stiles just shrugged like he was the one offended. “What? I’m magically trapped in your apartment, excuse me for wanting to be a little careful!”

“No, it wasn’t against me.”

“Just making sure!” Stiles finally crammed that bite of pasta into his mouth, and said through it all, “I mean, I am your soulmate, so I just want to know what I’m getting into here, because for all I know, you could be a—”

“You’re not my soulmate,” Derek interrupted.

“Cupid says otherwise,” Stiles shot back, immediately starting to twirl up another bite of pasta without a care in the world. “But did he happen to also say why we’re locked in or how we get out?”

“It was some bullshit about accepting love—would you stop that?”

Stiles froze, fork in the air and three sauce-drenched noodles dangling over his mouth.

“This is a new couch. Eat like a normal person. Smaller bites.”

“Ooooh-kay,” Stiles whispered to himself, carefully putting his fork back in the bowl and starting to roll up a mockingly tiny amount of pasta. “Accepting love, that should be easy—you seem like such an easy going and loving guy.”.

“Shut up.”

Stiles looked up from his food to not shut up and state shittily, “We’re going to die here.”

Derek fucking hated him.

“Our packs can break the spell.” He had to keep believing that. It was the only thing keeping him sane. It had barely been two days and he was ready to rip Stiles in half; he had to keep believing that they would get out soon.

Stiles’ eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, except no. There’s a massive difference between what a pack or even a spark can do—” flicked his fork towards himself “—and what a minor deity can do.” He flicked the fork at the door and Derek felt his eye twitch. “Which need I remind you, involved transporting a whole person three thousand miles. That’s not shit us mere mortals can pull off.”

Derek glared at his condescending tone, but could still recognize that he was right.

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

Stiles shrugged. “You’ve gotta learn to love me before we starve.” He grinned, still shittily.

“You should call your pack and say your goodbyes then,” Derek growled, and grabbed the bowl of messy pasta from Stiles’ hands on his way to storm to his bedroom, chucking it onto the dining table where it belonged.

“Wow, real charming there, Derek!” Stiles shouted after him. “No wonder cupid had to fucking lock us in here, anyone would leave after three seconds with you!”

Derek slammed the door.

*

“Done pouting in there?”

Derek glared at the door instead of answering, much like a pouting teenager.

“Well either way, your sister’s on the phone, so get over it and talk to her.”

He kept glaring until he heard Laura’s exasperated sigh through both the phone and the door, and then admitted to himself that he was acting like a child and opened the door a crack. Which was not childish in the least, judging by Stiles’ eyeroll.

Stiles shoved the phone through the crack with a little sneer and disappeared back down the hall.

“Derek, what the fuck,” Laura demanded the moment the phone touched his ear.

“What.” He shut the door again for some privacy.

“Oh don’t even try. Stop being a dick to Stiles. That’s the exact opposite of how to get out of there.”

The little shit told on him? He was turning down the heat even more for that.

“He was a dick to me too, and he’s a spark,” he argued, and instead of the understanding and knowing ohhhh he was expecting, Laura scoffed.

“So? They’re not all like Jennifer!”

So much for family having his back. “You don’t even know him.”

“No, but I called his pack members and talked to his alpha—who’s known him their entire lives, and you know what they all said?” He almost didn’t want to know, because it would undoubtedly prove him wrong. The universe usually worked that way. “That he’s stupidly loyal to a fault and would rather die than hurt the people he loves. Does that sound like Jennifer to you?”

He didn’t have to answer; she knew she was right.

“He ate spaghetti on my couch.” It was a last ditch effort to make her understand the hell and frustration of the last two days, but even he had to admit that it sounded pretty lame when he put it into words. It wasn’t just the spaghetti, it was a combination of everything, but the spaghetti was most recent and the only thing he could think of at the moment.

“Then get one of those bleach pens. Or maybe ask him to stop? Talk to him? He’s your soulmate, deal with it.”

It really sucked when his big sister was always right. Especially because she loved to lord it over him.

“Look, I know she hurt you—” Derek scoffed at that understatement “—and you’re struggling, and it’s hard. I’m not trying to belittle that, but you can’t avoid sparks forever. They’re kind of a package deal with the werewolf thing.”

Again, not wrong.

“And you know that if I thought he was dangerous, or if you told me you didn’t feel safe, I would buy a sniper rifle and take him out through the window to save you.”

Nice to hear, but only minorly reassuring. Though it did open up a few theories to explore should things get dire.

“Do you feel unsafe?” she asked, point blank.

Yes, he’s a spark, Derek wanted to say, but if he was being honest, then no. Stiles was annoying, and irritating, he lied, and he didn’t sit still and he hadn’t been quiet in two days, but he hadn’t done anything to threaten Derek. He hadn’t used his magic once, he hadn’t even touched Derek since that initial headbutt.

A spark doesn’t need to touch you to hurt you, he reminded himself, but even as his mind protested, he didn’t fear Stiles. He wanted to strangle him, but he didn’t fear him.

“No,” he finally answered.

“So while we’re trying to fix this out here, can you two at least try to get along? Maybe talk to each other? Ask him not to eat on your couch?”

So, be adults, basically.

Damn it.

Once they hung up, Derek gave himself exactly five minutes to fume and pout and make a plan before forcing himself to leave his bedroom.

And if he knocked the heat down a few more degrees along the way, Laura didn’t need to know.

*

The rest of the evening was spent in a heavy, uncomfortable silence (aside from all the noise Stiles made just, as a person). Derek continued his work on Peter’s manuscript and Stiles did something on the laptop that involved a lot of furious typing. Neither acknowledged the whole soulmate thing again.

The only words spoken were Stiles asking for a sweatshirt, which Derek gave him while trying to keep his shitty, smug grin from showing.

Another night passed, and once again, Derek barely slept, because Stiles barely slept. There was an hour of blissful silence at three in the morning, but it felt like the second Derek finally started to drift off, Stiles jerked awake with a gasp and started his pacing. And mumbling. And typing. And just generally making as much noise as he possibly could.

If he turned down the heat much more, even Derek would have to start wearing sweaters, but it was almost worth it to make Stiles equally uncomfortable.

So sleep-deprived, frustrated, and short-tempered, Derek finally gave up at six in the morning, threw off his blankets, and stomped out of his bedroom.

“Your east coast dickwad is Peter Hale?” was Stiles’ greeting the second he stepped into sight.

Derek just walked past him to the kitchen. He couldn’t do this on so little sleep and without coffee.

To his credit, Stiles waited (somewhat) patiently while Derek measured and ground the coffee beans, and even sat in a vibrating, anxious silence while it brewed, before repeating the question the second Derek turned around with a full mug.

“Is that a problem?” Derek asked flatly.

“Um, not if you don’t count the number of books he’s published on efficient ways to maim and murder people?”

“He’s only written two of those.”

“And he’s working on a third!” Stiles exclaimed, throwing his arm back towards the couch and the manuscript on the coffee table that Derek had, unfortunately, left out the night before. Peter could never know that someone else had read such an early draft. “Derek, in case you didn’t notice, I am trapped in here with you and posing a threat to your pack. Peter Hale does not take that kind of thing lightly.”

Derek shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “He’s also just down the hall. He’s been staying with my sister this entire time.”

He had to tell him. He needed to see the paranoid glance towards the front door for his own satisfaction. Especially since Stiles hadn’t bothered to fold up his pile of blankets, and Derek had to shove them all to one side of the couch to sit down.

He set down his coffee, pointedly placed Stiles’ half empty water glass on a coaster, and started to straighten out the manuscript. He needed to see what kind of mess Stiles had made of it while he snooped.

The pages were mostly in order, but he read way past the chapter Derek had been working on, and he had to flip back to find the last page he’d made notes on.

Wait, that wasn’t his handwriting at all.

Stiles had added notes to the margins.

Derek had to sit and gape in dumbfounded silence for a moment before asking, in complete disbelief “You don’t want to piss of the expert on medieval torture techniques, so you give him notes?”

“Just in the chapter on the crusades!” Stiles insisted, looking very guilty. His head dipped to the side and he added, “And variations on strappado.”

Derek raised his eyebrows.

“And Japan. But that’s it!”

Derek kept staring, waiting.

“It was there! I read! What did you expect to happen?”

“That you would respect my privacy and go to sleep?”

“The chapter was literally called Supernatural Torture in Japan.”

“It’s only the second draft.”

“I wasn’t critiquing!”

This was all just reinforcing Derek’s resolve that Stiles and Peter should never, ever meet. It was honestly stressing him out a little bit that Peter was just down the hall, separated only by a wall and a flimsy barrier of magic. The second the wards dropped, the two of them would either kill each other, or join forces to become the most insufferably pedantic pair to ever live. Assuming Derek and Stiles lived that long.

“Just don’t touch the manuscript anymore, okay?” he sighed, and when Stiles nodded emphatically, he turned back to start sorting through what he’d done.

The most annoying part was that they weren’t bad suggestions, and actually filled in a couple holes around World War II that Peter hadn’t addressed yet. Derek was going to have to reprint the pages and rewrite the notes so Peter wouldn’t know anyone else had read it, but he had to keep them.

“Why do you even know this?” Derek muttered, but if he heard, Stiles didn’t answer.

*

They continued with their routine of working in (almost) silence for most of the day, until Stiles hit some kind of wall and jumped up like he’d been shocked. Derek jerked up too, expecting some kind of danger or threat, but Stiles just went into the kitchen.

To find something for lunch.

Derek rolled his eyes to himself and tried to refocus, but now half his attention was on Stiles rooting around in the cabinets and his concentration was shot.

Stiles was having that effect on him more and more. It was like everything he did had to be done right then, and with as much fanfare as possible so everyone had to pay attention. Why couldn’t he just stand up and get a snack like a normal person? Why did he have to throw open the cabinet with so much force that the box of plastic bags fell out, which he had to fumble with as loud as possible before dropping it on the floor anyway?

Everything he did was a production, and it was exhausting.

“Okay, but seriously, why do you only have pasta in here?”

He was exhausting.

Derek didn’t even look up.

“How do you not have anything else in your pantry? Most people at least have like, rice and beans. A can of chiles they never got around to using.” He bobbed his head around and threw in, “Condensed milk?”

“I haven’t lived here that long.” It’d been less than a year and for most of that he’d been eating pasta. The little bit of rice and beans he’d had were gone within the first two days of their being trapped.

“Yeah, but this is just sad.” He gestured widely to the basically empty pantry, to Derek’s failures as a human being. “What kind of person only has pasta, I mean, I’m human, Derek, I can’t live on carbs alone!”

That was enough to make Derek look up from his work to glare. “I’m so sorry my apartment wasn’t stocked to your specific dietary needs, days before I was going to spend over a week upstate with my family.”

“Is that really too much to ask of my soulmate?”

He was clearly joking, but Derek didn’t find it funny, so he continued to glare, and then went back to editing without another word. That was, apparently, unacceptable to Stiles.

“So are we actually ever going to talk about this?”

“Talk about what?” Derek asked, knowing exactly what he was talking about. He was amazed Stiles had lasted this long.

Stiles snorted. “Really? Playing dumb? That’s your approach here?”

“Would you rather I aggressively pushed and ignored every sign that it’s not something I want to talk about?”

“Well, we’re going to have to talk about it eventually.” He wandered back over, gesturing widely like he always did when he thought he had the high ground. “I mean, it’s supposedly the only thing that’s going to get us out of here.”

Derek took his time inhaling, exhaling. “We’ll see.”

Stiles scoffed. “Yeah, no. We won’t see.” When Derek didn’t respond, he continued. “What part of he’s a deity aren’t you getting? You can’t beat that kind of magic with a band of ragtag werewolves and a dream, and honestly? It could be a lot worse.” That made Derek look up to glare at him some more. “Really? Cupid—or a cupid—has declared that we’re meant for each other, you don’t find that a little intriguing? Exciting? Reassuring?”

“No,” Derek said, blunt and hard, and Stiles blinked in surprise. “I find it annoying that some petty deity thinks he can control me.”

“He’s not controlling you, he—”

“He locked us in here, together, forcing us to fall in love,” he couldn’t hold back his mocking tone, “or starve to death. You don’t find that controlling?”

Stiles’ surprise had fallen away to a hard glare. “I don’t, actually. I find it incredibly dickish and manipulative, but this isn’t forcing us. This isn’t controlling us, okay, we still have our free will.”

Derek rolled his eyes with a deep sigh. “The free will to fall in love or starve to death?”

“Look, I know it sucks, alright, I get it.You’ve had a shitty love life and he’s poking at it, but this that we’re doing right here?” He gestured between then and Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Fighting?”

“We’re fighting! He didn’t snap his fingers and force us into blissful matrimony. We do still have a choice here.”

“This isn’t a choice, this is control, and if I ever see that cupid again, I’m going to tear his head off and shove that up his ass.”

He stood abruptly, intending to storm into his bedroom again, but Stiles muttered something that sounded a hell of a lot like, then you don’t really know what it’s like to be controlled, and he saw red.

“What did you just say?”

Stiles didn’t seem the least bit concerned at flatout pissing off a werewolf. He jutted his chin out in that cocky, douchey way, and all but physically squared up for a fight. More of a fight.

“I said, you don’t know what it’s like to be controlled.”

Derek crossed his arms and stood a little straighter. “And you do, spark?”

Stiles scoffed. “Oh, we’re back to that now?”

“We’re back to that now.”

“Fine, bring it on, Fluffy, let’s do this.”

“And what exactly do you think we’re doing?”

“I don’t even know, but something tells me your ex has some idea.”

Derek actually felt his eyes flash at that, and though it didn’t show on his face, Stiles’ heartbeat ticked up with a spike of fear.

He needed to calm down, he needed to get away from Stiles, he needed to not be having this conversation. Not while he could feel the once-calming gentle scratches between his shoulder blades, tracing the lines of his tattoo.

“You don’t know anything about that,” he growled through gritted teeth, and tried to leave again. Stiles didn’t stop him physically, but his words were enough to goad him into staying.

“Oh I don’t? They were a spark, right? That bad relationship? Guess how I know.”

Derek curled his hands into fists, felt his claws digging in.

“You’re marked,” Stiles sneered, poking and prodding and stabbing where he knew it hurt. “You’ve got a freaking neon sign plastered all over you that says you’re dangerous, and the second we’re out of here, I’m getting the hell away from you as fast as I can.”

“Marked,” Derek echoed, dread filling his stomach until it felt like he might hurl.

“Neon sign.” Stiles waved his hands like he was mimicking a marquee. “Psychopath, twelve o’clock, run for your freaking life.”

Derek huffed out a dark, disbelieving laugh. It was either that, or strangle Stiles right then and there. “I’m the psychopath? That’s what she says?”

“Loud and clear, all caps, seventy-two point Gotham Ultra.”

“And you believe her? You’re going to trust some nameless spark you’ve never even met?”

“Not everyone has your trust issues.”

That actually made Derek laugh, and not only because Stiles clearly had his own seventy-two point trust issues.

“You want to know why I don’t trust sparks? It’s because of her.” He was almost yelling but he didn’t care. “She wanted to get into my pack, my family, so she used me. She controlled me. She stole over a year of my life before I found my way out, and she marks me as a psychopath?”

That time, for the first time, Stiles took a step back, and Derek knew he had to leave. He had to get way. He couldn't be doing this, going through this with an audience, and certainly not Stiles. Not when his eyes were wide with the first actual sign of fear Derek had ever seen from him.

He took a step back and turned, retreating to his bedroom, the only place Stiles hadn't completely filled with his presence yet. The only place that was truly still his.

The shiver of thin fingers and just too sharp nails scratched along his ribs, and he couldn’t help flinching away from it.

“She cursed you,” Stiles said suddenly, and Derek’s stomach dropped when he turned to see Stiles’ gaze fixed on the exact place he could feel her touch.

“What.” His voice was barely more than a croak.

“Your ex.” He nodded towards Derek’s side. “How long have you been feeling that?”

“Since I left her. I thought—” He couldn’t voice it aloud, the horror and disgust at himself for missing—what he thought was missing her touch, craving it, wanting her back on some level. Why else would he feel it when he thought of her, whenever she was mentioned? Whenever he even entertained the idea of trying again.

He forcibly redirected his thoughts away from that, shoved it away until he could be alone, and focused on the present conversation. “You can see it?”

“Any trained spark can see it. It’s not a warning, she’s staking her claim,” Stiles said with disgust. “How has anyone not…” He stopped, the answer visibly dawning on him. “You don’t see many sparks, do you.”

More like Derek went out of his way to avoid them.

Like Jennifer probably knew he would.

Over a year since he’d seen her and she was still controlling him.

“Derek, hey,” Stiles was saying, like he’d said it a few times already. “I can stop her, if you want? Can I?” He held up his hands and waggled his fingers a little.

Derek hesitated, studying Stiles' face, everything about him, trying to gauge his intentions. It was such an abrupt one-eighty from two minutes ago, when he’d been fired up and looking for a fight, it was almost dizzying. Or maybe that was her hands scratching up the back of his scalp, nails starting to dig in, like a warning. Like somehow she knew what was happening.

That was her way. Manipulating, tricking, quietly threatening to get her way. Stiles was a dick; he yelled and fought and took verbal shots where he knew it would hurt, but at least he was up front about it. Stiles might suckerpunch him, but Jennifer would poison his favorite food.

So he nodded, and followed when Stiles moved to the couch to sit down. He left plenty of space between them and tried not to let his anxiety completely overwhelm him. He didn’t really succeed.

“Okay,” Stiles breathed, shaking out his hands like his was loosening up for a big game. Psyching himself up. It didn’t instill a whole lot of confidence.

He held up his hands and met Derek’s eye, but didn’t move any closer until he got a shaky nod in response.

He breathed out again, “Sorry if this feels creepy.”

He moved so slowly and cautiously that Derek almost wanted to yell at him to just get it over it, but he didn’t. It didn’t feel like a condescending caution, or like Stiles was approaching someone dangerous; it felt like he was giving Derek control over this. The option to pull back or change his mind.

Stiles raised his eyebrows in a silent question, one last chance to turn back, and when Derek nodded again, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were pitch black.

Derek had never seen a spark’s eyes change before. He didn’t know what exactly he was looking at but he was transfixed, watching as Stiles’ black eyes moved from his face down to his side where he could still feel Jennifer’s phantom touches. They were growing sharper, more violent like they could feel a threat to their hold. Stiles cocked his head to the side, eerily still and controlled in comparison to his usual frantic energy, and reached his hand out to cover the invisible scratches digging into Derek’s ribs.

He flinched in anticipation, but Stiles’ touch was nothing like Jennifer’s had been. Nothing like even his own pack’s comforting squeezes and hugs.

Stiles said his magic was creepy. When Derek thought of creepy, he thought of the tingling awareness of someone hiding their presence, the silence of a truly soundproof room, the deja vu left behind from his lost year, or Jennifer’s warm and teasing smile now that he knew the twisted control behind it all.

Stiles’ magic was not creepy.

It was cool, heavy, like water ebbing and flowing across his skin and seeping in through the cracks to overwhelm the hot, searing scars still raw beneath.

It was calming, soothing, anything but creepy.

When Stiles’ eyes blinked back to warm amber and the cool wash of his magic receded, all that was left in Derek was an indescribable peace that he hadn’t felt in years. Like the tide rushing back out to sea had taken with it the darkest corners where Jennifer still lurked, removed the sharpest splinters so he could finally heal.

“Derek? Are you okay?”

Derek opened his eyes and turned towards Stiles, who was hovering as close as he could without actually touching him. He smelled anxious and worried, afraid, the complete opposite of the effect his magic had on Derek.

“I know it feels weird, but you gotta say something, man. Please tell me I didn’t break you, because I’ve never actually met him, but Peter Hale’s first book on torture gave me the most fucked up nightmares for like a month, and I really don’t want to experience any of that firsthand.”

Derek grinned at that. “You should read the first draft.” He had personally removed a lot of visceral descriptions that made him a little cautious around Peter for months after.

“I have a very active imagination, I really shouldn’t,” Stiles managed to get out before he collapsed against Derek’s shoulder in relief, and for the first time, the touch didn’t bother him. There were no more teasing scratches to compete against it. “Holy god, you scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m fine.” Derek reached over to pat his head, but he was feeling weirdly limp and liquid, so it ended up more like petting his hair. Stiles didn’t seem to mind.

In fact, he didn’t move at all. He also seemed limp, leaning heavily into Derek’s side.

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, working up the strength to nudge Stiles lightly.

Stiles nodded into his shoulder, and his voice was muffled and slow when he answered, “Haven’t done that in a really long time.”

It seemed like Derek’s mind was moving in slow motion, lazily meandering from one thought to the next as he tried to connect Stiles’ response to something.

Right, magic used energy.

Using energy made you tired.

“Do you need anything?” All he had to offer was water and pasta.

“Just sleep,” Stiles mumbled after a long stretch of silence, and when Derek forced himself to sit forward, Stiles slid down his back like he was completely boneless. It was a good thing he was already laying where he slept, because Derek didn’t think he could carry him if he tried.

He stood, and Stiles rolled a bit into the place he’d been sitting. His eyes were already closed and his breathing was slowing into sleep.

Derek wasn’t sure what to do. Stiles had just done something incredible for him, freeing him from the last few clutches of the darkest time of his lie, and all he could do to repay him was...put a blanket on him? He did, and then added another because he knew Stiles got cold, but it felt weak and small in comparison.

He would figure something out tomorrow, he decided, and turned to go to bed. Maybe he would make him some pasta. Or some of his nice coffee. There wasn’t much left, but Stiles could have it.

“Wait,” Stiles mumbled, and his hand hit Derek’s knee. His eyes were still closed and he looked a little like a sleepy toddler. “Sorry I called you a psychopath,” he sighed quietly. “It didn’t actually say that and I’m an asshole.”

He scrunched up his face and buried it further into his pillow, but he didn’t say anything else or acknowledge what he’d just said.

Derek waited for another minute, then decided that Stiles was really passed out for good and went to his bedroom. He hadn’t done magic himself, but he felt loose and exhausted, and for the first time in a very long time, he felt...content.

The last thing he did before turning out the light was type out a text to Peter.

What does it mean when a spark’s eyes are black?

*

Derek woke up surprisingly late on Christmas Eve, feeling more rested than he had in well over a year. There were no fingers trailing up his back, no phantom whispers in his ear, no ghosts to outrun. It was quiet and calm and for the first time in years, he just laid in bed and enjoyed the silence.

Until he remembered that Stiles was never quiet in the morning.

Derek’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed his phone to check the time. It was after ten, way later than he’d thought, and there was a crowd of notifications waiting to greet him. There were a number of missed calls and voicemails from Laura, and a single text from Peter answering his question from the night before.

It’s corrupted. Call me.

Derek hesitated, thumb hovering above the notification to open it. His heart ticked up in anticipation, fear. It was happening again, and just when he’d thought he was finally safe again. Just when he thought Stiles was different.

What did Stiles really do last night? Did he actually just remove Jennifer’s hold, or had he done something else? Replaced it with his own? Started something much darker and more sinister?

There was a crash from the living room and Derek tossed the phone away as he hurried towards it.

“Fuck, sorry,” Stiles croaked immediately, hanging half off the couch to clumsily pick up an empty glass from its puddle of spilled water. He put it back on the coffee table and seemed to immediately fall back asleep, arm going limp and dropping his hand right back into the puddle. If he was conscious, he didn’t care to move it again.

False alarm, no death and destruction, Derek took a breath.

“Gonna clean that up?” he asked, mostly to distract himself from his pounding heart, but partly because he didn’t want water seeping into the hardwood floors. They were original, he took very good care of them.

Stiles didn’t move, his breathing didn’t change. He was dead asleep.

Derek rolled his eyes but went to the kitchen to grab a towel. No spark was ruining his floors. Not with a very hefty deposit on the line.

He moved towards Stiles quietly. It wasn’t a conscious decision, more instinctive around someone sleeping, but he was still feeling cautious. And Stiles probably needed the sleep more than anyone. Derek wasn’t entirely sure if he’d slept at all since the first night he appeared, and after using his magic the night before...

Derek knelt down between the couch and the coffee table and gently lifted Stiles’ hand out of the puddle to wipe away the water underneath. He watched his face for any movement, but there wasn’t even a twitch. He’d never seen Stiles so still. It was a little concerning.

He wiped off Stiles’ hand quickly and carefully, and after a quick debate with himself, moved his arm back up onto the couch so he would be more comfortable.

Lying there, dead asleep and snoring lightly, the absolute last word he would use to describe Stiles was corrupted. But then, he didn’t actually know what it meant. It certainly sounded negative, and Laura and Peter seemed to be concerned about.

Still being quiet and careful, Derek returned to his bedroom and shut the door behind him. It took a second to find his phone where he’d tossed it into the blankets, and when he called, Peter answered after one ring, sounding worried.

“Derek?”

“It’s me. I’m fine.” He sat down on his bed, then laid back against the pillows. The initial jolt of energy from Stiles knocking over the glass was gone and he was tired again. Nothing like the night before, when he’d felt almost high on magic, but just...tired. Normal slow morning tired. It was nice.

“Is the spark with you?”

“No, Stiles is still asleep.” Derek was keeping one ear on him; his breathing was still slow and steady. It didn’t sound like he would be waking up anytime soon. “He passed out pretty hard after using magic last night.”

“He used corrupted magic?” Peter was already typing furiously, probably searching through fifteen different sources at once. “What did he do? Did he use it on you?”

Derek hesitated for a long moment about telling him what happened the night before; not because he wanted to hide it, but because it had been so...intimate. It didn’t feel like a moment he should share.

“Yeah, he—” he swallowed “—he lifted a curse on me. From Jennifer.”

Peter’s typing stopped, and when he spoke, his voice was low and threatening, but not towards Derek. “She cursed you?”

“I could feel her this entire time,” Derek explained, already knowing that would be Peter’s next question. He was an academic. He needed to know everything he possibly could. “It was like her ghost was here, touching me. Constantly.”

“And Stiles lifted it? Just like that?”

Maybe not just like that. “It seemed like it took a lot out of him.”

“You’re sure that’s all he did?”

“As sure as I can be.”

There was more typing, scribbling of pencil on paper, and when Peter spoke again, he was all business.

“Tell me everything.”

*

Derek and Peter talked for a long time, trying to give Peter as much information on curses, sparks, and Stiles as he possibly could. When they finally finished and Derek decided it was time to make breakfast, Stiles still hadn’t moved. Aside from his arm falling back to the floor, this time without the puddle.

He did, however, rise from his blanket pile to the smell of cooking food, and it was quite the clumsy and long winded production. He pushed himself up, collapsed back down without opening his eyes; threw his arm out and hit the coffee table, then groaned. He finally sat up all the way but still didn’t open his eyes, and stayed there for a bit, swaying slightly like a small breeze could send him right back under.

It was actually really cute, and Derek would never admit it.

“I have hot coffee,” he said instead. “It’s the last we’ve got, so come savor it.”

Stiles groaned as he stood and shuffled over, and then groaned again as he sat at the table, hunching his blanket tighter around himself.

“Sleep okay?” Derek asked casually, but he was a little concerned. Even with the added exhaustion of using magic, he’d never seen Stiles so groggy and slow.

“Just sore,” Stiles said around a yawn. “Been a while.” He curled up at the table, burying his head in his blanket like the first morning after he appeared in New York.

“Real food?” he mumbled when Derek put a bowl down in front of him.

“Pasta.”

Stiles groaned again, and Derek could relate. He tried to make it interesting, had thrown it into a frying pan with a few other things he scraped together, but still. It was pasta. Things were getting dire.

They ate silently; Derek staring out the window, wishing desperately for fresh, cold, winter air, and Stiles sleepily eating a fried patty of pasta with his hands, as if using a fork just took too much energy.

*

“You know what really sucks?”

Derek looked up from his phone, but kept stirring the pot of pasta.

We can stay here, everyone would understand, Laura had texted for the fourth time, and yet again, Derek told them to go. There was no sense in her and Peter missing the Hale family Christmas in the country too. Not when there wasn’t anything they could do even from just down the hall.

Stiles was sprawled on the couch, laptop open on his legs, but he was staring out the window at the falling snow.

“I’ve never seen this much snow in person, and I can’t even go outside and enjoy it.”

“If it’s any consolation, it’s not as much fun as you’d think.”

“Yeah, but I want to personally be underwhelmed by it myself. We get a little back home, but I want to get angry about cleaning snow off my car at least once.”

Derek wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, or if he was even supposed to. It could’ve just been Stiles rambling, which he’d done from the beginning, but he was doing it a lot more lately.

They were both losing energy, spending a lot of the day sitting on the couch in silence with books or the one laptop. Stiles was napping more since using his magic, Derek found himself zoning out—man was not meant to live solely on pasta and nothing else. It’d only been a few days, but they were definitely feeling the lack of vegetables. And exercise. And fresh air. And any sound or smell that wasn’t the two of them.

Maybe Cupid’s plan was to make them fall in love through a twisted, mutual Stockholm Syndrome. Was that a thing?

Derek glared down at the pot of pasta. Was it possible to get the opposite of Stockholm Syndrome towards a food?

He glanced over to Stiles; he’d been quiet for a while now, he was just making sure he hadn’t passed out from lack of nutrition, but Stiles was conscious, if barely. He’d moved on from the snow and was watching something on the laptop with dull, half-lidded eyes.

Careful not to overcook or ruin the very last bit of pasta, Derek drained it, drizzled some olive oil over it to make it a little more appealing, and carried the two small bowls over to the couch.

“Pasta’s ready.” If he didn't sound enthusiastic, it was because he wanted to die at the sight of the stuff. Stiles no doubt felt similar, because he didn't move an inch. He didn't even acknowledge that Derek said anything.

He didn’t look away from the laptop resting on his legs. He looked riveted by whatever he was watching, not even blinking. He didn’t even seem to notice he wasn’t alone. Derek frowned, slowing his approach.

He wouldn’t be looking at anything too weird on someone else’s computer, would he? He didn’t smell aroused, but that was the mesmerized glazed expression that wasn’t caused by too many things.

Derek quietly moved closer and leaned over a bit, to see around the screen that Stiles was watching...a cooking competition.

A fucking cooking competition.

After a light nudge at his leg buried somewhere in his blanket, Stiles pulled out the earbuds.

“Why are you torturing yourself like this?” Derek sighed, and Stiles answered without tearing his eyes away from the screen,

“I’m hoping that if I focus hard enough on that chicken pot pie, my mind can trick my mouth into actually tasting that, and not pasta and cheese.”

“Just pasta and olive oil. We ran out of cheese this morning.”

Stiles whined pitifully but accepted his bowl of the saddest Christmas Eve dinner as Derek dropped onto the sofa next to him. By that point, Stiles’ scent had completely permeated the couch; he’d claimed it as his own whether he meant to or not, and it would linger long after he returned home. Assuming they didn’t die there.

They sat together in silence, watching the panel of judges cut into fresh, steaming pies with flakey crusts, take one or two bites, and move onto the next. Derek would actually kill someone to have one of those pies. He never thought he’d be the type to kill for food, but right at that moment, he would disembowel someone for chicken pot pie.

He would disembowel someone for a fucking Ding Dong.

Stiles seemed to be feeling similar; a normally voracious eater, he looked like he was forcing down every bite, moving slowly as he stared at the screen.

“Taste like chicken pot pie?” Derek asked dryly, because it certainly wasn’t working for him.

“Tastes like we’re gonna die here.”

Derek just nodded, and felt a passive, despondent rage as a judge had the audacity to nitpick a slightly-too-browned bit of crust on an otherwise perfect pie. They had no idea how lucky they were to have that pie.

“Cupid is such a dick,” Stiles said with immense feeling as the winning pot pie was set on a literal pedestal, illuminated artistically, and rotated so they could see every perfectly browned angle of it. There were even slow motion shots of a fork digging into the filling, chicken and vegetables oozing out in a perfect cascade of delicious flavor.

“I’m going to shove a lot worse than a pretzel up his ass if I ever see him again.”

“Don’t talk about pretzels.”

*

“He wouldn’t just let us starve to death here, right?”

Derek looked up from Peter’s manuscript. Stiles had moved to the floor in front of the front door, glaring at it and chewing on one of the strings of Derek’s sweatshirt he'd all but claimed as his own.

“I mean, you can’t accept love if you’re dead, so he’d have to intervene before then.”

“You would think,” Derek agreed.

Stiles did something with his hand and the door crackled. “I’m pretty sure he’s mocking me.”

“He seems like the type.”

“Sounds like a real douche. No wonder you were going to shove breadsticks up hi—Ah!” Stiles jerked suddenly and scrambled up from the floor. “The fucker shocked me!”

Derek was already up and pulling Stiles back against him on instinct, away from the door. “He can hear us?”

“I don’t think so,” Stiles said, shaking out his right foot a bit. “It’s probably just a little fuck you he added to this whole thing.” He waved a hand to encompass the door situation. “Toy with our lives, smack our hands if we badmouth him...fucker.”

That time, nothing happened, but Stiles still narrowed his eyes a little more. Like there was a silent insult exchanged that Derek couldn’t hear. He raised his hand, flexed his fingers briefly, and Derek immediately grabbed it and pulled it right back down.

“How about we stop antagonizing him even more?”

Stiles glared with his black eyes, but the glare wasn’t aimed at Derek. More at the universe and their entire situation, he just happened to be looking at Derek. Then he blinked and the black was gone.

“What a tool,” he muttered, and moved away from Derek’s side, leaving a sudden cold where they’d been pressed together. Derek missed the contact almost immediately.

And then Stiles stumbled, also almost immediately, and had to catch himself on the arm of the couch. “I’m fine!” he snapped, and waved away any help before it was even offered.

“You don’t look fine,” Derek said, and couldn’t help hovering a little.

“I’m just out of practice, I’m good. I’m fine.”

"Just sit down."

"I've been sitting down," Stiles sighed, but he still did it. "I'm sick of sitting down. I'm sick of being in here with nowhere to go and nothing to do, all because some dickhead Cupid got bored and decided to fuck with us!"

Derek couldn't say he was surprised by the outburst. He'd actually been expecting it long before now, the way Stiles' pent up energy seemed to constantly simmer just under the surface of his skin.

Stiles ran his hands over his face and pressed against his closed eyes. "I just want to go home."

"Call your dad," Derek suggested, holding out his cell phone. Partially because he wasn't sure how to handle Stiles in this kind of mood, but mostly because the two of them were clearly close and it would probably really help.

Stiles somewhat reluctantly took the phone, and Derek gathered up his work to move to his bedroom and give them some privacy.

About thirty minutes later, he heard them say their goodbyes and Stiles' footsteps came closer until he opened the bedroom door. He didn’t say anything for a moment, then,

“It was a nogitsune.”

Derek looked up from the manuscript to Stiles standing in the doorway. He frowned. He had no idea what that was. Sounded Japanese, sounded like kitsune. Beyond that, he would have to look it up.

“My eyes?” Stiles clarified. “You got a text from Peter.” He stepped forward and passed over Derek’s phone, which he took on autopilot, and then immediately retreated back to the threshold. He’d avoided Derek’s bedroom this entire time, and seemed reluctant to enter it even now, his heart pounding.

Derek wasn’t sure where this was going, but he was very aware that they were very trapped in that apartment together, and even though there wasn’t actually a way out, Stiles was blocking the door.

“Didn’t know there was a word for it,” Stiles continued, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “Corrupted. I could never find any reliable info so I gave up.”

“Peter specializes in lost magic,” Derek explained distractedly, scrolling through the hefty text from his uncle. There were book titles, interpretations, direct quotes… Peter lived and breathed ancient texts holding lost information.

Stiles frowned. “Even though he can’t use it?”

“Especially because he can’t use it. Part unattainable goal, part lording over the people who could use it, if only they knew as much as he does.”

”Sounds like a dick.”

“We try not to say it to his face, he knows a lot about torture.”

The interpretations were that a corrupted spark were unsalvageable, and should therefore be killed immediately before they committed too much evil. The direct quotes were vague and talked about the grey areas of morality. The books…

It would probably take months to track down everything he’d listed, let alone sift through all of it. Half of it sounded like it was going to be in some kind of obscure dialect of some language Derek, of course, didn’t speak. It could never be that easy. It was never recently translated and converted into a searchable PDF.

There was movement at the door, and he looked up to see Stiles anxiously gnawing at the side of his thumb, eyes focused on the phone. He was freaking out.

“Did you read it?” Derek finally asked, already knowing the question but needing some way to approach the subject.

“Of course I read it,” Stiles immediately responded, totally shameless. “It says to kill a corrupted spark immediately, how could I not read it?”

And he obviously thought Derek was going to rip him apart right there in his bedroom.

“You know I wouldn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Stiles interrupted, but didn’t believe it for a second. “You’d never accept love then and just starve to death in here with a corpse, and cannibalism would only buy you so much time.”

Derek had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “I’m not going to kill you at all, are you serious?”

Stiles actually looked shocked by that news, moving his hand from his face to open gape. “Why not? Everything Peter sent says I’m going darkside any second.”

“Because I don’t want to kill anyone, this is just an interpretation, and it also says a corrupted spark goes evil immediately. When did it happen?”

That made Stiles pause. “High school.”

“So it’s been a few years.” He didn’t actually know how old Stiles was, but even if he looked young, he didn’t act like a college freshman.

“Like, six.”

“And you haven’t gone darkside.”

“I mean, we’re not talking full on Sith, but darkside is extremely sub—”

“I’m going to take that as a no.” As much as he pissed Derek off sometimes, nothing about Stiles actually seemed to have bad intentions. He was dick, he said dickish things, but he wasn’t darkside. He didn’t set off warning bells the way Jennifer had, before she got her magical claws into his mind and silenced them.

“You don’t even know me. You have no idea what I did, you can’t—”

“Then tell me,” Derek interrupted bluntly. “What corrupted your spark so badly that you think you should be put down?”

Stiles crossed his arms tighter, hunched in, protecting himself. “I was possessed. By a nogitsune,” he finally said. “I let it in, it made me kill a lot of people, and when they finally got it out…” He gestured towards his eyes.

His spark was corrupted.

That was a hell of a lot to process all at once, and it was all said very quickly, but Derek felt like the most important part was:

“It sounds like the nogitsune killed people. You didn’t.”

“So I’ve been told, but that doesn’t stop the memories, or the nightmares, or the fact that my magic is so fucking twisted that it made my best friend feel like he was drowning.” He was so hunched in on himself that he looked like he was trying to fold clean in half.

“Stiles, just sit down,” Derek sighed, restacking Peter’s manuscript in front of him to set aside.

He hesitated, but he did come sit next to Derek, and then flopped back, still crossing his arms tightly across his chest. So that didn’t have the relaxing effect Derek had been hoping for. If anything, it was just making Stiles more nervous.

He should say something to make him feel better.

“It didn’t feel like drowning,” The delivery could’ve been less blunt and flat, but it felt like a good start.

Stiles still stared up at the ceiling, but he looked like he was listening.

“It felt like water, but it was...calming.” Derek spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. He wasn’t great at these kinds of conversations, usually preferred to walk away and deal with things himself, or through text if absolutely necessary, but it seemed like Stiles needed to hear this. He needed to know that he wasn’t dark and wrong. “It was almost like it...washed away the darkness. Or, some of it.”

Stiles was frowning, but he didn’t seem angry. More confused, processing.

“Scott felt wrong for weeks after I used it on him. Why would it be different for you?”

Derek shrugged. “Maybe Peter will have some idea.”

Stiles was quiet for a long moment, biting his lip, still tightly wound up. Then finally,

“Do you think he can fix it?”

“I think if anyone knew how, it would be Peter. After a little research.”

“Would he fix it?”

“If he could write extensively about you, probably.”

More contemplative silence, then Stiles pushed himself up and left the room without another word. He shut the door behind him, and as his footsteps faded down the hall, Derek laid back in a much more controlled imitation of Stiles’ earlier flop.

He rolled over into the place he’d been laying and inhaled deeply. It smelled like the mix of both of them, the smell his entire apartment had been engulfed by since Stiles appeared, and that he was finding himself less and less annoyed by. Maybe even welcoming.

If all he had to do to free them was learn to love again, they would probably be running free by the end of the week.

Shit.

*

“So if you could eat anything…”

“Don’t do this,” Derek sighed, and Stiles threw his hands up.

“We’re trapped in here without food on Christmas Eve, what else am I supposed to do? I can get back in the box and jump out like a stripper, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

As appealing as that sounded...

“Please don’t.”

“Good, I never want to be in a dark, enclosed space ever again.”

Yeah, that was understandable.

“I'm sorry you're stuck here for Christmas.” Derek felt like that needed to be said.

Stiles shrugged, slouching further into the couch next to him. “Aside from the no food thing, it's not that terrible. And this is actually the first real vacation I've had in at least three years, so there's that.”

“Deputies don’t get time off?”

“No, we do. But I’m pretty sure the Nemeton is constantly trolling me, because my time off usually lines up perfectly with life-threatening supernatural fuckery.”

Derek tried not to get too distracted by this way his hands moved to illustrate this fuckery.

“I thought your pack had that under control.”

Stiles barked out a sharp, kind of dark laugh. “Yeah, not even a little bit. Lydia can predict when it’s gearing up for fuckery, but we don’t know what it is or how it’ll fuck..ery.” He squinted a little at his own wording, but didn’t elaborate. “I don’t think we’ve really had a break since sophomore year.”

“That sounds terrible,” Derek said bluntly, and Stiles shrugged again.

“Comes with being in a werewolf pack.”

At that, Derek summoned up the energy to sit up a little straighter and really look at Stiles. “No, it doesn’t. Is that really what you think?”

Stiles looked confused at his sudden shift, but Derek needed to make this clear.

“Stiles, werewolf packs aren’t always fighting off some threat, that isn’t normal.”

“Okay, so it comes with living on a Nemeton, then.” He still wasn’t getting it.

“No, most Nemetons aren’t that active. What did the emissary before you do about it?” That got him a very blank look in response that made his stomach fill with dread. “Was there an emissary before you?”

“No?” It just got better and better. “As far as we know, there wasn’t even a pack there before sophomore year.”

That explained so much, in a really depressing way.

“So you guys have been figuring all of this out on your own? What about your alpha? Your allies?”

“Yeah, Scott didn’t even believe he was a werewolf until his first full moon, and every other werewolf pack we’ve met has tried to kill us pretty much immediately, so…”

Derek had to close his eyes against the absolute clusterfuck this pack must be, struggling to survive against an unmaintained Nemeton, with no pack history or alliances to fall back on.

“Okay, I know we’re a little rough around the edges, but we’re not that bad!”

“You really, really are.” He was already grabbing his phone to text his mom. “Whenever we get out of here, my alpha is flying out there and giving you guys a crash course.” Deaton should probably go too, give Stiles some pointers and assess the Nemeton, and maybe even Peter. They might be able to dig up some allies for them, they had contacts on the west coast.

Actually, they should probably just fly out there as soon as possible, with or without Derek and Stiles. That pack needed all the help it could get.

“Whoa, hang on, stop!” Stiles snatched the phone out of his hands before he could actually send the text, and held it back behind him. Like that would actually stop a werewolf from grabbing it if he really wanted to. “Maybe we should discuss this a little further before we go sending alphas at my pack, don’t you think? Preferably when we’re not trapped in your tiny apartment and starving to death?”

“You guys need help.”

“I’m becoming increasingly aware of that, thank you, but maybe pump the brakes for a second there, pal.”

There was a brief staredown before Derek relented. “Fine, we’ll discuss this when we get out of here.”

“If we get out of here,” Stiles muttered, but gave the phone back.

“We’ll get out.”

There was an unfortunate awareness of the fact that Stiles’ knee was pressed up against his thigh and the budding of something in his chest that said it would only be a matter of time.

*

Around ten, Derek's pack called from the Hale house upstate, and he moved to his bedroom to reassure them that he and Stiles were absolute fine and no, they were definitely not running out of food. There was nothing they could do, even if they were right outside his front door, so there was no point in worrying them even more on Christmas Eve.

When he hung up and returned to the living room, Stiles was setting up the couch for bed, laying out his pile of blankets.

For the first time, it felt wrong.

Stiles had finally freed him from Jennifer, he’d opened up about the nogitsune, they were both starving, it was Christmas Eve...he shouldn't have to sleep alone on the shitty couch. And Derek’s bed already smelled like him, so it wasn’t like things could get any worse.

“Stiles,” he started, and then stopped. This was such a bad idea.

Stiles looked up from straightening out a second comforter, and all of Derek's confidence vanished.

“You can—” Just say it, idiot! “You can sleep in my room. If you want.”

Stiles stared at him, wide eyed for just long enough that Derek regretted ever making the suggestion. Ever even having the thought to suggest that.

“Okay,” he finally answered, still looking thrown. "Yeah, sure, totally cool." He bunched up the blanket he was spreading out and grabbed another one. “At least if one of us starves to death in the night, we’ll know immediately, right?”

"Right."

Yeah, that was the reason. Not because he just wanted to keep being near him.

Derek led the way down the hall and into his bedroom, and even though Stiles had been in there earlier, he found himself suddenly incredibly self-conscious about everything in sight. He'd left a wadded up tissue on the nightstand that he'd used to wipe up a water ring from a glass. There were socks on the floor that he'd tugged off in the middle of the night and never picked up. His laundry hamper was overflowing.

"Which side?" Stiles asked, and he couldn't even remember that much.

"Left," Derek guessed, and he was pretty sure he was wrong.

Stiles hesitated, probably wondering if left was his or Derek's side. Derek was wondering the same thing, but Stiles recovered a lot faster and just picked the side he was closest to. It was left of something.

It was awkward and too quiet as they climbed into bed and got comfortable, and even their goodnights were a little stilted. This felt like a big step, which was dumb because it was sleeping in the same bed. Just that and nothing else. They’d already been declared soulmates, and they weren't even touching.

Derek turned off the light and shifted around until he got comfortable. Or as comfortable as he could while horribly aware of the fact that Stiles was laying a foot away from him.

Not for the first time, the magical silence of the apartment was absolutely deafening as they both laid there, barely breathing. Derek stretched out his leg and almost made himself jump at how loud the sheets sounded.

Stiles sniffed and rolled over so his back was facing Derek. Then after a few minutes he switched sides. He curled up a little tighter and shifted closer, a little closer, a little closer until his knee bumped Derek’s thigh. Then his icy toes touched his calf.

"Stiles." Derek jerked his leg away on instinct. Icy toes never felt good, no matter who they were attached to.

"What, you're warm!"

"You have three blankets."

"I'm from California!"

“It’s not like you’re sleeping outside!”

“I might as well be!”

Derek growled a little in his chest, but it wasn’t entirely reluctantly that he wrapped an arm over Stiles and pulled him in closer against him.

“Better?”

It took a second for Stiles’ heart to calm down to a somewhat normal pace again, but he nodded, and squeaked out,

“This is good.”

“Good.”

Derek shifted his head around until he found a comfortable spot on his pillow and closed his eyes.

Stiles sighed in the darkness, then whispered:

“I’m going to be so pissed if this is just some mutual Stockholm Syndrome thing.”

*

Derek woke up Christmas morning to soft snoring, a weight on his chest, and hair in his mouth.

He spat out the hair and turned his head to see what time it was. Almost eleven, which was a lot later than either he or Stiles had been sleeping lately—and Stiles didn’t seem remotely close to waking up, sprawled half across Derek's chest, snoring, and making him sweat.

God, he was drenched.

Now that he was conscious, it was unbearably hot having someone else pressed up against him, and judging by the extra weight, Stiles had thrown his usual extra blankets over both of them.

Derek was on fire. He needed air. His mattress had to be soaked with sweat under him, he was melting.

He threw back his half of the blankets, and immediately Stiles curled into him even more, pulling up his knees. His somehow still icy toes were a twistedly welcome relief but they weren’t enough.

“No no no,” Stiles slurred, tightening his hold on Derek and pressing his cheek further into his chest.

“No,” Derek gasped in return, and tried to pry himself out of Stiles’ surprisingly strong arms. He wasn’t a stick, but he certainly wasn’t beefy, and Derek was a werewolf, for fuck’s sake, it should be easy to get away! “Stiles, let go.”

“No, warm, love you,” Stiles sighed, and somehow tightened his grip even more.

Derek glared up at the ceiling. “That’s great, thank you, but I’m boiling in my own sweat.”

“That’s gross,” Stiles responded in the same sleepy drone.

There was an obnoxious pft in surround sound, followed by more special effects smoke than a bad Halloween haunted house, and then there was Cupid standing at the foot of the bed.

Cupid didn’t look any better sober, and Laura was right: Benicio Del Toro.

“Was that so hard?” he asked Derek, his voice a lazy, monotone drawl. He was a New Yorker. He totally ignored Stiles’ surprised yelp and flail back to consciousness. “Soulmate. Boom. Done. Easy.”

Stiles sat up quickly, and all at once pulled the blankets up a little higher while doing that squinting, dropped jaw, disbelieving neck move that he did so often.

“Are you kidding me right now?” he shouted after he processed things for a second. “You kidnapped me! Across the country, you dick!”

Cupid waved all that away. “It worked and you’re fine. Any other performance evaluations?”

Derek was still too shocked to answer, but Stiles was right on the ball, and he even raised his hand mockingly. “I have at least twenty-six!”

Cupid looked at him, squinted a bit, and frowned. “I’m Cupid, do you really think I care? I don’t actually care. You’re together, I did my job.”

Somehow Stiles’ face managed to perfectly convey Derek’s outrage at the entire situation, but it was still ignored. Cupid winked and did a couple snapping finger guns.

“Good job guys, well done.” He gave them an obnoxious thumbs up, and then vanished.

They continued to sit there in bed in a shocked, disbelieving silence for a good thirty seconds. Derek kept trying to find something to say but nothing felt...enough. This was probably a big moment in his life, because fucking Cupid had just given them his blessing, but Derek couldn’t put two words together to save his life. Or his divinely-dictated relationship.

As usual, it was Stiles who broke the silence.

“Was that…” He stopped, thought it over for another few seconds, then finished as Derek predicted, “The guy from The Usual Suspects?”

“Del Toro?”

“Yeah. He’s not…?”

“I think he just looks similar.”

Stiles nodded, not looking like he was agreeing with or even processing anything of what just happened. Then:

“I get why you threatened him. He’s kind of a tool.”

Derek just raised his eyebrows in agreement. Stiles got it. Because Stiles was his soulmate. Because Benicio Del Toro said so.

“So…” Stiles started again after more processing-silence. “I’m not back in California.”

“No, you’re not.”

Probably a good thing too since he was back down to underwear—this time Derek’s boxer briefs—but that was exactly the issue lurking at the back of Derek’s mind; what would happen to Stiles once he accepted love, and this whole thing was solved. The answer couldn’t be nothing; Stiles wasn’t conjured out of thin air, he had a life to get back to.

Stiles waited another few seconds, then rolled his eyes and entire body and flopped back in bed. “Oh my god, are you serious? I have to pay for a ticket home? Every flight will be packed! I don’t even have my ID with me! Will they even let me on the plane without it?”

As much as he wanted Stiles to stay, Derek also really wanted to be alone, and Stiles did have to get back to California. It was kind of his responsibility to get him back there. This was his fault, after all, it wasn’t on Stiles to fix this.

“You can fly back with my pack,” he said, absently patting Stiles’ arm. He was still somewhat in shock about everything that had just happened.

“That’s a generous offer, but it doesn’t really solve the ID issue. Will TA accept a scan of it? Should my dad overnight it? He’ll have to break into my place first, and I have a lot of deadbolts, and then there’s the time it’ll take to get here with all the holiday mail…”

“No, we have a private plane,” Derek interrupted.

Stiles gaped at him from under his dramatically thrown arm.

“What do you mean a private plane, like for work? What do you even do?”

“I’m an editor.” He could see the math not coming out even in Stiles’ mind. “It’s my family’s plane.”

Stiles covered his face with the duvet so it was muffled, but Derek was pretty sure he heard him moan into his hands, I’m still twelve thousand in debt from my undergrad.

Now probably wasn’t the time to point out that Derek could help him with that. All of it. Easily.

Before he could think of what to say, because money was always awkward, Stiles’ stomach growled loudly, and the duvet flew back again. He sat up with a wild look in his wide eyes. “Oh my god. Food. Are we free now?”

Derek had...kind of forgotten about the wards keeping them in for a second, but now that he'd been reminded and heard Stiles’ stomach, his own joined in like the victim of a contagious yawn.

“There’s a Chinese place a few blocks down.”

Stiles immediately countered with, “I need a coat.”

“You can borrow one of mine.”

“Deal.”

They flew out of bed, skidding a little bit on the wood floors as they pulled on sweatpants and sweaters, bumping into each other and the walls in their rush for something that finally wasn't pasta. It was in the single digits outside, snowing heavily, and Christmas morning, but they were getting real fucking food, god damn it.

They looked absolutely ridiculous, stumbling down the snowy, empty street and into the near-empty Chinese restaurant. Derek only had one pair of winter boots, which he’d given to Stiles, so he was wearing sneakers that the snow soaked right through in seconds. He layered up under his leather jacket to let Stiles have his winter parka, but leather had no give so his arms looked like overpacked sausages and he couldn’t really bend his elbows. Stiles had two scarves and a ridiculous knit beanie Cora bought as a gag gift, Derek just pulled up a hood—they were dressed like absolute slobs.

He didn’t blame the few people in the restaurant for staring, and honestly he couldn’t care, because for the first time in days, Derek smelled something that wasn’t pasta, Stiles, or himself, and his stomach roared.

“I hope your family really is filthy rich,” Stiles said as he dragged Derek to the closest booth, “because I’m ordering one of everything they've got.”

“Make that two, we’ve got a plane.”

Stiles laughed and opened his menu with a manic gleam in his eye, as a server approached their table somewhat cautiously.

They drank hot tea while Stiles’ cheeks flushed pink from the cold, and ate too-hot spring rolls while their feet bumped under the table. They spent too much time reading into their fortune cookies and then kissed in the falling snow while taking the long way home, because neither of them was particularly eager to get there.