#*fic18

-

Derek grew up knowing his soulmate had an insatiable curiosity and an extremely short attention span.

Images flitted over his skin constantly.

Peter teased him about having a soulmate so entirely different from him. Someone capricious, that tended to lean toward dangerous things.

He howled with laughter when a wolf settled onto Derek’s skin, only to replaced by a panther the very next day.

Even if Derek were at all inclined to tell his uncle secrets the man hadn’t already figured out for himself, he still would never have explained that the wolf had simply moved from his bicep to curl up with its head on its paws just underneath his collar bone.

Peter found out anyway, because it was impossible for two wolves in the same pack to never see each other shirtless at the very least. Peter waited for the wolf to really disappear so he could tease, but had to content himself with mocking the way the wolf shrunk until it was just a small little thing in the pocket of Derek’s shoulder.

But his scathing comments barely registered to Derek, because it was what let him know that when his soulmate truly loved something they never let it go.

-

A cello appeared on Stiles. At first, it was a lovely instrument. The burnished teak color contrasted beautifully with his pale skin. The bow leaned gracefully against the cello, and one could almost hear the soft strains of soothing music.

And then one day, not that long after its first appearance, the instrument had snapped strings and warped wood. The hair of the bow lost its sheen and was cut in half to hang loosely. There were deep gouges.

Stiles didn’t realize they were claw marks until much, much later.

-

Derek had a sand castle on his skin. It looked like a child’s drawing of a sand castle mostly.

Did his soulmate love the beach? Did it represent a cherished memory?

Derek had the sense it had to be something specific. He felt that if it was about his soulmate loving the beach, he would be marked with something representing the ocean.

They seemed like that to him. Tempestuous and wild. Ever-changing. A chaotic surface and boundless depths. Peter said making assumptions about his soulmate would only lead to disappointment.

Still, Derek wondered if ocean waves ever appeared on his soulmate’s skin.

-

Siles had a basketball on him. He wondered whether his soulmate was on a team or whether they just liked the game. Did they play for their school? Was it something for fun, just to let loose?

What if they were more athletic than him? It wouldn't exactly be hard after all. Stiles could already tell he was going to grow up scrawny with barely any muscle at all. He wondered if his soulmate would laugh at how different they were.

-

“Your soulmate is so weird,” Laura murmured. Her eyes were on the picture of a brain scan that colored Derek’s skin.

Derek shrugged. He thought the same thing, though with much more fondness than Laura did.

Peter stared for a while, but didn’t say anything. Not even the slightest teasing comment.

Laura and Derek shared a glance.

“What is it?” Derek asked.

“Nothing,” Peter said with a casual shrug. “It’s probably not their brain.”

Laura’s spine went straight. She placed a hand on Derek’s shoulder. “What if it was?” she demanded to know.

Peter shook his head. “All I know is the colors are in the wrong places.”

Derek tried to convince himself that his soulmate was just learning something new, had found some new obsession to explore with their boundless curiosity. But the days passed by and the scan didn’t move or shrink or fade.

Derek was torn about how to feel.

Because if the scan didn’t belong to his soulmate, it certainly belonged to someone they loved dearly.

-

There was a necklace on a bed of purple flowers.

After research, Stiles figured out it was aconite.

Wolfsbane.

He didn’t really understand the necklace. But the wolfsbane made him wonder. Was his soulmate into mythical lore? Or was this some kind of oblique reference to being poisoned?

The way the necklace was settled into the petals, the subtle twist of the chain. It seemed intimate. Stiles thought of poison and how love could hurt. He thought of his obsession with wolves in the fifth grade. He wondered.

Stiles knew a lot about werewolves long before his best friend became one. And he wasn’t that surprised they existed. Not really.

-

There was a star on his skin. It appeared not long after the brain scan faded. It wasn't gone, but the colors had lost their luster in a way that made Derek think whoever it represented was gone forever.

The star was big, five pointed, and gold. It looked like a sheriff star from old western movies. Unlike most other things that appeared the star never grew smaller. It was in a strange minority with the brain scan and the sandcastle. In fact, sometimes the star would even grow bigger.

But it lost some of its brilliance over the years. It was difficult to explain how the image had its own overall vibrancy that stayed the same, and even grew at times, but the star itself got a bit dull. A bit scuffed, the points not as sharp.

Derek wondered if the star represented a person. If it was that person that was deteriorating. Or if his soulmate’s perception of them was becoming disillusioned.

-

Stiles woke up with a symbol on his chest one day. It was a triskele, he found. It seemed different than his other marks somehow. More vivid. A deep red in the center that faded to black. He would get caught up staring at it in the mirror.

He would think of the broken cello, the intimate poison, and this symbol pulsing blood red in the center like a weeping wound.

He knew his soulmate had been hurt. Was still hurting.

His dad caught sight of his chest one day and paused with wide eyes.

“There is something different about it!” Stiles exclaimed.

John checked his expression, but it was too late.

“Your soulmate got a tattoo,” he said.

Stiles blinked at him. “Tattoos show up?”

“Not always,” John said, “Not usually.”

Stiles stared at his father, trying to beam the full force of his curiosity out of his eyes.

John sighed. “Stiles, I told you to stop doing that. You look demented.”

Stiles shrugged. It worked to get him the information he wanted more often than not, so it was all good as far as he was concerned.

John studied his son. Stiles would only go look it up himself if John didn’t tell him. “Tattoos don't usually show up unless the bond is particularly strong.”

Stiles began to smile. It faded when he took a closer look at his dad’s expression.

“Isn’t that good?” he asked uncertainly.

John shook his head. “Intensity isn’t always a good thing when it comes to soulmate relationships.”

Stiles thought of the case descriptions that had trickled through to him over the years. Vicious abuse cycles. Codependency. Murders because of jealousy. Suicides because someone’s soulmate died.

He nodded at his dad to show he understood.

Intensity wasn’t always a good thing.

“Will it be on the same place on them?” he asked.

“Not necessarily,” John said. “It might not even be that color.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Over time, he found out the triskele absolutely would not be the same color, since the outer edges seemed to change according to his soulmate’s most prevalent and constant mood.

The center always stayed that fresh-cut red.

-

Derek didn't like Stiles when they first met. He knew his own inability to protect people. He didn't want someone like Stiles involved in what was going on. Someone so pretty and fragile, with such wide innocent eyes.

He soon learned Stiles was beautiful like the ocean, and even less likely to be tamed.He had a steel spine, an iron will, and those innocent eyes sparked with fiery passion at the slightest provocation.

Derek knew the dangers of fire by now, knew how easy it was to get burned. And yet there he still was, drawn like a moth, fluttering at the edges of a light he knew he was not allowed to have. A light that would only deepen the darkness around him, in him, if it were ever to go out.

The most he would allow himself was a slight suspicion and a resolute indifference to confirmation.

-

Stiles suspected Derek Hale was his soulmate from that first time in the woods. Even though Derek clearly didn’t like him, everything about the man made Stiles hum. From his cheekbones to his hostile glare, his leather jacket to his surprisingly soft voice.

And then he thought Derek was a murderer and he was still pretty sure, but he was hoping he was wrong because he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life hiding bodies.He would do it, and more, for his soulmate but he didn't actually want to.

Stiles would always be surprised at his own reaction when he found out for sure.

He saw the triskele first, right in the center of Derek’s back.

Stiles had the fleeting thought of how they would match up and maybe Derek preferred being the little spoon, before the wolf turned around.

Stiles caught sight of his mom’s brain scan and mentally noped the fuck out. He stayed mostly silent through the following interaction, as blank as he could possibly be out of sheer self-preservation.

He didn’t have a panic attack until he got home.

It was hours later when Scott called him to assure him that just because they both had triskeles didn’t mean Derek was Stiles’s soulmate. They weren’t even the same color or in the same place.

-

In the end it was Boyd who spilled the beans, though Jackson was the trigger.

“Shut the hell up, Stilinski. Who wants to listen to you? You can't even get your soulmate to look twice at you. You really think he doesn't know it's you? That he's not ignoring you on purpose because he would rather have anyone but you?”

Stiles went white. He stared at Jackson for a moment and then promptly left, pointedly not looking at anyone else in the room. Derek slowly turned to stare at Jackson with crimson eyes until the young wolf left also.

After a drawn out moment of silence, Boyd said, “You're the reason he can throw shit like that in Stiles’s face.”

Derek looked at him with wide eyes, the confirmation he hadn't wanted suddenly given to him.

But he had a different perspective of his reticence as selfishness now, and he couldn't bear the hurt he could clearly see he had caused his soulmate. The sense of embarrassment and shame lingered where Stiles had been standing.

-

Stiles made it home only to find Derek in his room waiting to command him to take his shirt off.

“Fuck off, Derek Hale. Get out of my room.”

“Stiles,” Derek said standing from where he was leaning against the window sill. He stared intently at the human boy. “Take off your shirt.”

Stiles wanted to argue. He wanted to demand an explanation for why Derek had come here, now, to order him to do this. He wanted to yell some more, tell Derek to get out and to not expect to see him for at least two weeks. But he was tired of knowing who he belonged to and knowing that person didn't want him back without getting to say anything at all about it. If Derek wanted to have it all out right here, right now, then that's what they would do.

So he took off his shirt. And he watched as Derek took in his own life and love and hurts on Stiles's skin. He could practically see Derek thinking, “It's true.” But he wasn't prepared for the wolf to just whip his own shirt off. He’d seen Derek shirtless before, but it was different now.

Now it was to prove that they were made for each other. That they'd been marked by what made each other.

“Why didn't you say anything?” Derek asked.

“What was I supposed to say?” Stiles scoffed, “You didn't even like me when we first met.”

Derek looked away. Of course Stiles knew that.

“Plus, I thought you were a murderer,” Stiles added.

Derek raised an eyebrow. They both knew that point didn’t matter nearly as much as it probably should have.

“I love you,” Derek said.

Stiles scoffed at him again. He shook his head and looked up at the ceiling with pursed lips like he was trying to hold back laughter. Or tears. When he looked at Derek again, he was smirking, but his eyes were bleak.

“Because I’m your soulmate?”

“Because I love you.”

Stiles closed his eyes. This was too much.

“Derek,” he murmured brokenly. He opened his eyes and his soulmate was right there in front of him, close enough to touch.

Derek reached up and cupped his cheek.

“I love you, Stiles,” he said.

Stiles gave up fighting, and fell into his other half.

-

“And last week Adam said I fell over the least I ever have  and he’ll let me go backwards this week if I can do my wiggly skating for twenty whole seconds,” Bea tells him, straining enthusiastically out of her booster seat to peer through the windshield as they approach the ice rink.  One of her long black plaits swings with the motion of the car. “I’m the best in the whole group at that!”

“That’s very exciting, pumpkin,” Magnus tells her, trying to hide his amusement while he looks for a parking space.  Magnus has all the faith in the world in his daughter, but it has to be said, she is not the best skater of the bunch.  She’s probably settled comfortably at the very bottom of the list.  Still, if Bea is happy and confident and enjoying herself, Magnus couldn’t care less that she falls down more often than she manages to let go of the sides of the rink.  It’s not like he has any vested interest in skating.

The ice rink is busy this time of year, getting busier each week; in the depths of the festive season, it makes sense that more people are coming, Magnus figures.  At the start of fall, the ice rink was always quiet, and only a handful of kids came to the club. Now that they’ve reached the clutches of mid-December, snow is falling outside as well as in the rink, and winter coats and woolen scarves have been brought out for casual use anyway, and everyone’s feeling magic of the season -- couples are cosied together everywhere you look, mistletoe hangs from doorways, sparkling lights illuminate everywhere you turn and the nights come so early that the city seems to be in a permanent state of glittering evening.

Magnus hates Christmas, but he’s trying not to think about that.  This is only going to be his second Christmas alone with Bea, but he’s trying not to think about that, either.  

Luckily, the rink is closed down for other customers while the kids’ group is going on, so Magnus doesn’t have to deal with any annoying couples or festive-minded tourists crowding the place up too much much.  Bea is still chattering excitedly, her legs swinging back and forth against Magnus as he carries her in on his hip. One of her mittens is dangling haphazardly out of her sleeve. Magnus fixes it back onto her hand while he waits for the woman at the front desk to swipe their membership card, overly aware that they’re running a few minutes later than usual –– thanks to his morning, which still has a bad mood settling like freshly fallen snow on the landscape of his mind, and which he’s only pushing back for Bea’s sake.

“Enjoy the skate, Little Penguin!” the front desk lady says, leaning towards Bea with a voice a touch too high-pitched and patronising.  Bea only ignores her and looks impatiently towards the doors of the rink.  Just before Magnus can rush off, the woman adds, “Oh, and there’s a new refreshments stall inside for the holiday season, so be sure to get a themed hot chocolate while you’re here!”

She’s clearly been told to upsell that, but ooh, Magnus thinks.  He does have a weak spot for hot chocolate.

It’s several more minutes of getting Bea inside and lacing her skates onto her feet and making sure her coat is buttoned up to her chin before he can unleash her onto the ice, where she immediately stumbles off towards the gaggle of little kids and their cheerful instructors in the middle of the rink.  Magnus watches to make sure she reaches them without falling on her face, and then, once she does, finally lets out the huge sigh that’s been building in him all morning.

Okay.  They’re here.  He’s still groggy from waking up late and his hair still doesn’t look its best, and his finger is still smarting underneath the Barbie plaster Bea had so helpfully applied, but at least Bea’s not missing her club, and he now has at least one hour to get some writing done at one of the shaky picnic benches that the parents sit on while this club happens.  He’s only mildly distracted by looking up every ten seconds to make sure Bea hasn’t crashed into anything and caused herself grievous bodily harm.

There are several loud screams from the kids in the middle of the ice, but they’re screams of excitement, so Magnus doesn’t stress too much about it.  He sits down on the first bench he finds, takes out his notebook, and begins to write.

It’s only ten minutes later that he admits it: the writing isn’t coming.  It’s one of those disjointed days in his mind, when none of the words flow together and none of the ideas are coming in order –– actually, he's irritatingly been feeling like this for weeks now, the new draft of this novel stopping more than it starts. None of it is helped by the grouchy, groggy mood he’s still trying to fight.  He can feel his hair deflating more by the second, and Magnus’s hair is always the best indication of his mental state that day. His jeans crash horribly with the turquoise shirt he’d grabbed in a rush this morning, and he’s only just realising it.  There’s a stain on the lapel of his coat that he can only attribute to a five year old being set loose with a banana. He just doesn’t feel his best, and the writing knows it.

He decides to take a break.  He’s not giving up, he tells himself adamantly, although it probably will end up with him not writing anything else today.  But Bea’s amused for an hour, at least, and getting a break that long outside of school hours is rare for a single dad.

Then he remembers: they’re serving special hot chocolate today.

Magnus loves hot chocolate.  That, he’s sure, will brighten up his mood.

He hadn’t even bothered to glance around the edge of the rink when they arrived, since it never usually changes week to week, but now that he’s remembered that all of a sudden, he looks up.  Sure enough, on the other side of the oval-shaped ice rink, he spots a little booth -- set up to look like a log cabin with Christmas lights draped across the top, although it’s quite clearly fake wood and the illuminated reindeer next to it just makes the whole thing look hideously tacky.  But if they have hot chocolate, he doesn’t care.

Magnus stands up and bundles his things back into his bag, heading around the edge of the rink, his eyes set on that booth.  He glances onto the ice for just a moment, in time to see Bea attempt to skate backwards and immediately take a spectacular tumble onto her bum, but she leaps back up with a bright grin the next second.

“Well done, pumpkin!” he calls across to her, and she waves before throwing herself back into the fray of kids.  As soon as it’s clear that she’s okay, Magnus heads right towards his hot chocolate. He makes it around the tacky novelty reindeer, leans right up against the counter with an eager tap of his fingers, and the employee turns around, and ––

And.   Oh.

Here’s the thing about the man behind the counter: Magnus has seen him before.  Magnus has seen him, actually, so many times in the last month that it nearly feels like fate, if Magnus were still optimistic enough to believe in such things.  

The first time was just at the bodega on the corner of Magnus’s street, at the start of November, when Bea had a stomach bug and Magnus had to run down there in his pyjamas, utterly un-made-up and smelling slightly of vomit, to buy chewable ibuprofen and the only plain crackers that she wanted to eat, and he’d been so harried that he’d bumped right into this guy on his way out of the store, dropping all his groceries -- which had stressed him out, until the guy just said woah, there, in a friendly if slightly breathless voice, and helped him pick it all us.  That day, Magnus had been too stressed to notice how gorgeous he was, but two days later when he saw the same man crossing the street, carrying a bag of groceries for an older woman who might have been his grandmother, his biceps curling pleasingly as he did it, Magnus had been able to think nothing but tall glass of water.   It really had been too long since he got laid, if he was lusting after random strangers on the street.

The guy hadn’t noticed him that time, but it was only another two days until they’d seen each other again, while Magnus was walking Bea to school, and she’d been swinging off his hand and chattering at a mile a minute, before stopping when she realised her dad’s attention had been lost to the guy jogging down the street -- he’d been in unseasonably short shorts, and Magnus did not make a habit of commenting on people’s appearances while his five year old was there, but damn.   The guy’s eyes had lit up with recognition as he jogged past, and he’d given the littlest wave, a gesture of familiarity Magnus wouldn’t have expected from someone he’d just bumped into one time while looking an absolute mess.  Bea had immediately bombarded Magnus with questions about who he was and not been satisfied with Magnus’s dismissals, and that had only increased when they saw him again at the park the same week; he was stretching out his long legs, in running clothes again, while Magnus pushed Bea on the swings.  Magnus got so distracted looking at him that Bea had to call his name five whole times before he remembered to push her again.

Since then, it’s been a barrage of other coincidences.  At the library, while Magnus was picking up some easy reader storybooks for Bea and the man was carrying some sort of thick hardback; standing a couple of people apart in the queue at the same coffee shop; the busy steps of city hall when Magnus had just got done paying a parking ticket and the tall drink of water man had been wearing a smart black suit that made him look even taller and even more drinkable.  Every time, they’ve exchanged familiar smiles or polite waves, but they’ve never actually spoken.

And now, they’re in an ice rink, and it’s definitely not fate, but at least Magnus will be able to talk to him this time.

“Hey,” the guy says, his voice warm and drawling, as he leans curiously across the counter.  They are, at this point, less than a foot apart. His eyes are hypnotisingly multicoloured close up.  “You again.”

“Me again!” Magnus confirms, in a trilling, confident tone that in no way reflects how much of a nervous mess he actually feels in that moment.  “Fancy bumping into you here, of all places.  So, this is where you work?”

‘Hot chocolate vendor at an ice rink’ isn’t the most glamorous job in the world, nor does Magnus imagine it pays more than minimum wage or comes with many perks, but he’s hardly one to judge.  This man manages to pull off the reindeer-themed apron without looking absolutely ridiculous, which is a miracle in itself.

“I guess so.  I mean, just for the winter break.  I’m in law school,” he explains, which makes a lot of sense, and which is also pretty hot.  Magnus has a bit of a thing for academic achievement.

“Oh, really?” He tries to sound only casually interested, the way anyone might politely ask, but he’s aware that he’s still leaning awfully close across the counter.  “I've heard that's stressful. What year?”

“Final year."  His voice is wry as he adds, “Stressful doesn’t begin to cover it.  I was actually just researching for a torts paper while there was a break in the customers, but don’t tell my boss.”  

Magnus glances around him and notices a thick textbook cracked open on a back counter of the little booth.  He can’t help but laugh a little, remembering when he used to do the same while he was working in a Starbucks to put himself through his English degree.

“Well, I won’t keep you for long, then.  I just wanted a hot chocolate.”

“Peppermint candycane, gingerbread, or holiday snickerdoodle with chocolate whip cream?” the man rattles off, sounding like he’s repeated this list so much it’s burned into his very muscle memory to say it.  Magnus blinks.

“Er.  I’m a big fan of all hot chocolate, so I suppose just whichever one you’d recommend.”

“One holiday snickerdoodle with chocolate whipped cream coming up,” he says, punching something into the cash register, and glancing at Magnus’s hand a beat too long as he accepts the money.  As he’s grabbing a tall red cup from the stack beside the drinks machine, he glances back over his shoulder and adds, “Er, I’m Alec, by the way. Just, you know, since we’ve been bumping into each other so often.”

“Magnus,” Magnus replies, trying not to sound quite as breathless as he feels.   Alec is a very nice name, which very much suits this tall, handsome law student in a reindeer apron who is looking at Magnus a touch too intensely from underneath his thick eyelashes.  Magnus really wishes his hair looked better today. He realises suddenly that his hand with the Barbie band-aid is the one he used to pass over the money, and hates himself the smallest bit.  “Nice to formally meet you.”

He wants to say something else, something wittier or maybe just the tiniest bit flirty, just to make sure he still has a touch of his old game, but then –

“ Daaad!” Bea’s piercing voice appears out of nowhere, and she clatters into the boards of the ice rink behind where Magnus is stood, startling him so much he jumps as her little hands reach across the top.  “You gotta get me a hot chocolate too! You promised!” “Beatrice, pumpkin, there’s still forty minutes left of your club.  You can get one at the end,” Magnus promises her.

But Bea has already been distracted.  Staring curiously over the top of the ice rink wall, which she’s only just tall enough to see across, she points right at Alec and says, “ Hey.   Are you that man Daddy was looking at in the park?”

His cheeks aren’t flushing, Magnus tells himself.  He also thinks he should get Bea a hot chocolate just to stop her from talking, before she can bring up any of the other times.  Hoping that maybe Alec didn't hear that, Magnus just hurries towards her, and realises that one of her mittens is hanging off her hand again, and all her hair is escaping from her plaits, and her nose is running.  He fixes her mitten, and wipes her nose on an old tissue he finds in his pocket. Parenthood really isn’t that glamorous. A little more firmly, he then spins her around on the ice and adds, “No hot chocolate until the end.  Go enjoy the rest of your club.”

It’s not until Bea has stumbled her way back across the ice that Magnus finally turns around.  Alec is looking at him, amusement curling his lips, as he adds a final dusting of chocolate powder to Magnus’s drink and slides it across the kiosk.

“Your daughter?” he asks.  Magnus thinks the fact that she’d repeatedly called him dad makes that rather obvious, but nods.  “Yeah, I remember seeing her at the park with you that one time. I didn’t know if she was a niece or a goddaughter or something, though.”

Magnus is a little flattered that Alec had put in enough thought about him to even wonder at who Bea was.  After he’s done feeling flattered over that, he spends a moment feeling a little sad -- he doesn’t know if Alec even likes men, but if he does, clarifying that is probably him taking Magnus off the table as a prospective dating option.  Not that Magnus is thinking about dating. But if he was going to start thinking about it, he’d start with a cute man like this, except no budding law student is going to want to bog themselves down dating an overwhelmed single dad.

So no, romance isn’t on the table here.  But that’s fine. That’s fine, Magnus tells himself.  And it feels almost close to true, that it’s fine, when he takes his hot chocolate and could walk right away, but Alec keeps smiling at him, doesn’t turn immediately back to his textbook and dismiss Magnus as just another customer gone.

Somehow, Magnus ends up staying right where he is, lingering at the counter of the cheesy little fake log cabin as he sips his hot chocolate -- it really is delicious, he tells Alec, thanks him for the recommendation, and Alec smiles like he’s pleased with himself -- and as much as he knows he should be using this one free hour to be productive, he just can’t bring himself to leave.  No other customers come to get a drink, since it’s just a few other parents waiting outside the rink now, and Alec never tries to go back to his book. So Magnus asks Alec about law school, and his torts research, and what exactly torts is, anyway, and Alec explains it all in wry, exasperated terms, and then asks Magnus about his own job and looks far too impressed when Magnus talks about the historical novels he writes, says I can’t write at all but I nearly majored in history at undergrad, I’m so interested in that –– and they manage to talk about 14th century French kings for so long that Magnus doesn’t even notice the time passing, doesn’t notice that his and Alec’s elbows are inching closer and closer to each other across the counter of the hot chocolate stall, doesn’t even notice that the hour is ending and the kids are dispersing on the ice behind them until ––

“HELLO,” says Bea, so loudly it might even be called screaming, as she thumps into the edge of the ice rink.  Her long plaits swing across her shoulders as she climbs through the exit, and does the slow bambi-walk involved with wearing ice skates on a regular floor right the way over to them.  Then, she sticks her hand towards Alec, barely reaching over the counter but still all intense eyebrows and serious posture.  “I’m Beatrice Bane but you can call me Bea if you’re going to be Daddy’s friend. Who are you and can I have a hot chocolate?”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Bea,” Alec says, shaking her tiny hand.  Somehow, his voice has just the right tone for speaking to a five year old -- not patronising or babyish, but still sweet enough to please her.  Magnus’s heart flutters and he furiously stamps it down. “I’m Alexander, but I have a nickname too, so you can call me Alec. You can absolutely have a hot chocolate, so long as your dad says it’s okay.”

They both look to Magnus in unison, twin pairs of enchanting puppy dog eyes.  As if he can say no to that.

“Just a small one,” he says, voice warning, but Bea beams anyway.  She reaches her arms into the air with a silent demand, so Magnus scoops her up, ignoring how she immediately comes to fiddle with his hair once she’s perched on his hip.  Bea’s small for her age at five, skinny and short the way Magnus was most of his childhood ( the way her mom always was, he doesn’t think ) , and still so easy to hold like this.  He’s slightly dreading the day that she’s too big for him to carry.

Alec smiles at them both one last time before he sets about making Bea’s drink; Bea then restlessly makes Magnus put her down again, far sooner than he’d have liked, and spends the whole minute standing on her tip-toes and peering across the counter to watch her hot chocolate being made.  When Alec’s done, he passes the child-sized cup across the counter, and Magnus hands it down to Bea.

When he then scoops a couple bucks out of his pocket, Alec says, “Oh, don’t worry about it, on the house.”

Magnus’s cheeks go pink, and he’s not sure why.  It’s not like Alec really knows him, and Magnus had paid for his own drink; why’s he now trying to give a gift?  Is he attempting to get on Magnus’s good side, or Bea’s?  It’s not like Bea cares whether her dad pays for something or not, so presumably it’s some gesture towards Magnus, and truthfully, any kind act that relates to his daughter is the best way to get Magnus absolutely fluttering inside, but considering he barely knows this man and is sure he’s not interesting in dating him, anyway ––

It’s confusing, that’s all.  But Magnus is spared from replying, from unravelling the confusing emotion in his out-of-practice-with-flirting mind, when Bea suddenly screeches.

“ Daddy,” she says, and flings herself at his side, holding up one tiny index finger with a pout.  “I put my finger in my drink and it was too hot and it burned me.”

“Why did you put your grubby finger in your drink?” Magnus asks, first of all, as he peers down at her hand.  It’s just a little pink and when he touches the edge of her cup he can tell the milk isn’t really hot enough to scald, so he knows not to be too worried.  Sensing that she’s not getting the sympathy she wants, Bea turns to her newest friend, instead.

“ Aleeeec,” she complains across the counter.

“Oh, no,” says Alec, putting on a very serious face with furrowed eyebrows, and he comes out from the edge of his hot chocolate stand just so he can crouch down beside her, his absurdly long legs folding in a very pleasing way.  “Do you need a band-aid? I have some extra special ones in my bag.”

Bea absolutely does not need a band-aid, and Magnus goes to say that, but her face has lit up and she’s enthusiastically nodding before he can get a word in.  And, well, part of him wants to see how this goes. So he hangs back, drinking the dregs of his chocolate, and watches as Alec digs out a sparkly blue band-aid, which he applies to the non-existent burn on Bea’s finger.  He pats it down extra carefully and with all the care of a serious wound, and then says something to Bea, low enough for Magnus to miss, that sends Bea into a fit of giggles. Alec glances around her, a smile on his own face, and meets Magnus’s eyes.

Magnus’s heart thump, thump, thumps.   Tall drink of water who helps old women carry their groceries and jogs in tiny shorts and is an intelligent law student who likes to discuss obscure history is also incredibly sweet with kids.  Because of course he is. Because the universe wants Magnus to be torn up inside, and want things he can’t have.

“You can come to my birthday party!” Bea says then, out of the blue, and so loud it startles both Magnus and Alec out of their little staring contest.  “I’m allowed to invite whoever I want.  You can bring hot chocolate for me as a present!  Give my daddy your phone number so he can tell you when it is.”

Bea’s birthday isn’t until weeks after Christmas, still almost a month from now, and Magnus has barely thought about her party beyond promising her it could be a tea party with, indeed, any of her friends that she liked.  When he said friends, though, he meant other five year olds from her kindergarten class, not cute strangers in reindeer aprons who her dad is confusingly lusting after.

“Um.”  Alec looks amused, from where he’s still crouched down beside Bea, as he turns his gaze up to Magnus.  He’s clearly wondering how to say it would be very weird if I came to your birthday party but thanks in a language five year olds can speak.  “You know, I might be busy that day, but I’ll give your dad my number just in case, and we can see.”

Bea shrugs one of her skinny shoulders, unbothered.  “Alright. It’s not for ages anyway.”

But she keeps watching, so Alec clearly feels obligated to take Magnus’s phone and key his number into it.  “ Sorry, ” Magnus mouths, feeling rather embarrassed that Alec’s having to humour his daughter so much, but Alec somehow doesn't look like he really minds.  He shakes his head, still smiling, and hands Magnus’s phone back over; Magnus reflexively glances down and sees Alec Lightwood as a new contact, a little smiley emoji keyed in afterwards.

It’s probably a fake number, Magnus thinks, just to get Bea off their backs.  But it’s cute he’s humouring her anyway.

He thinks this is probably when they should leave, stop intruding on Alec, but then, just as Bea is sat on the bench taking her skates off and Magnus is still lingering by the hot chocolate stall’s counter, she suddenly, loudly, unmissably announces, “Daddy, Alec, look!  Isn’t that that plant which makes you have to kiss!  Mister toes!”

Mistletoe.   Oh God.   Magnus looks up, and sure enough, some bright soul far more festive than him has tacked a strand of mistletoe onto the fake log-cabin roof above the counter.  Alec is stood just on one side of it. Magnus is stood just on the other.

Bea’s face is absolutely delighted.

“Oh, no,” Magnus tries to deflect, taking a step back.  “It’s fine, honey, that rule is only for people who want to kiss.  You don’t ever have to kiss somebody just because you’re under mistletoe.”

But this backfires on him.  Bea frowns, looks at Alec, and says, “Don’t you want to kiss my daddy?”  Magnus, mortified, doesn't dare glance around at Alec –– it can’t get much worse than his five year old trying to pressure a guy into kissing him, like it’s not clear enough already that Magnus has zero game.  “Alec, why don’t you want to kiss him? Don’t you like daddy? We can’t be friends if you don’t.”

Groaning, Magnus resists the urge to drop his head into his hands and spins around to look at Alec again.  By some miracle, he realises that Alec isn’t looking like he wants to sink into the floor, or run away screaming -– if anything, he seems rather amused.

“No, your dad seems lovely,” he tells Bea, and then beckons towards Magnus.  “You’re right, we should follow the rules.” And then, in a lower and far more humorous voice, where only Magnus can hear, “Don’t worry, I’ve kissed guys for far worse reasons than this.”

Magnus is sure he’s blushing to the point of ridiculousness and wishes he’d thought to wear foundation that day instead of just his usual eye makeup, but there’s nothing to be done about it now, except freeze on the spot and feel restless and tingly all over and hold his breath as Alec leans in, in, in ––

And plants a tiny, chaste kiss on Magnus’s cheek.

“There,” Alec says, pulling back and immediately raising an eyebrow across at Bea.  “Are we still friends, now?”

“Yep,” Bea decides.  She’s kicked both her skates off and pulled her shoes most of the way on, and for once, her meddling little mind does seem to be satisfied with their actions.  Thank god.

With that, though, Magnus decides it’s definitely time to go, before she can make Alec do anything else he doesn't want to.  And quite apart from that, the Little Penguins hour is definitely up, and crowds of regular patrons are starting to file into the ice rink -- exactly what Magnus wanted to avoid today -- and there’s suddenly other people queuing up at the hot chocolate stall, too.  His cheek is still tingling in the spot where Alec’s lips had touched, but Magnus is choosing not to think about that so that he can maintain his sanity, and he scoops Bea up onto his hip without another moment’s thought.

“Well,” he says, just as the customer waiting for Alec to serve them begins looking impatient, and Alec ducks back into his little hot chocolate stall.  “It was nice to properly meet you, Alexander.”

“You, too,” Alec says, smiling in a way that reaches his eyes, just as warm and lovely as the hot chocolate he's making, but twice as satisfying.  Magnus finally steps back, dodges the tacky neon reindeer, and lets his legs carry him and Bea away. They have a rest of their day to be getting on with, and Alec has a job to do; they’ve distracted him far long enough.

Still, as Magnus walks away, he can’t help glancing back just once or twice.  And when he’s strapped Bea into the car outside and thrown their bags in the back, just before he slides into his own seat, he lets his fingers drift up to his cheek, pressing the warm spot where Alec’s lips had touched.  Chaste as it was, that was the closest Magnus has come to a proper kiss, one not from Bea or Catarina, since Bea’s mom –– over two years past. It’s a boundary he’s been nearly terrified to cross.

Now that he's crossed it, he’s finding that it wasn’t, actually, so bad.  He’s actually finding that, now it’s happened, he can’t stop thinking about it.

Later that night, when Bea is engrossed in a colouring book and Magnus has a quiet minute while dinner cooks, he finds himself getting out his phone.  It’s just to see, he tells himself –– he’s not hanging any hopes on this, not at all.  With his experience of romance in general he can definitely say his expectations are through the floor.

But, to Alec’s number, he sends, Hi :) This is Magnus, from the ice rink! Sorry about Bea, today, she’s a cutie but we’re still working on the social skills. I’ll definitely let you off the hook of coming to her birthday party, but it was nice to properly meet you, anyway!

There, he thinks, that’s pleasant enough.  It’s not quite flirty, but it’s not quite distant, either.  And it won’t matter in the end, because he's sure Alec gave him a fake number.  Magnus goes back to chopping up vegetables for the pasta sauce, writing the whole thing out of his mind.

Except, in the end, it isn’t a fake number at all.  It’s only two minutes until his phone lights up with a reply that sets Magnus’s cheeks flushing, his heart thumping –– and, maybe, just a little bit of the festive spirit encroaching on his fractured heart.

Add that to the fact that they said that this guy was out into the will as a requirement because they felt like Derek was working himself too hard, but they just didn’t understand. This was how it had to be if they wanted to continue to have their lavish lifestyles and buy expensive cars on a whim, then give them away to total strangers. Personally, Derek just felt like they were doing this because they felt like he couldn’t handle the task and fill the shoes Emery Hale had left for him, which he took extreme offense to.

He felt like he was more than competent enough to run the family business. After all, he made this into what it was today and for this bullshit to just come up and ruin his master plan of turning his company into a near-monopoly and obliterating Argent Technologies sucked ass. To Derek, he felt as though the rug was being completely pulled from under his feet and he hated that feeling when he was younger, and he hated it now.

Trying to explain all of this to his family felt like he was talking to a child with a high IQ: they were very smart, but they were still children and didn’t understand everything because they hadn’t experienced everything. Trying to explain this to them was just too mentally taxing, so Derek didn’t try after the one time, but at least he had one person who understood, and that was just enough for him.

Stiles Stilinski-Hale, also known as Derek’s husband of three years, understood why he was feeling this way. Stiles let Derek rant to him about anything and everything, never making him feel stupid about his thinking, but also helped Derek see other’s viewpoints on any given topic, which was a real bitch to deal with when they got into arguments and Stiles tricked Derek into agreeing with him. Still, Stiles was one-hundred percent the only reason that he wasn't currently pitching a hissy fit in the middle of the conference room while waiting for this new CEO.

Stiles was supposed to meet Derek right before the conference that would be the first meeting and the formal introduction of the new co-CEO, but he apparently got some emergency and told him that he would arrive a bit later. All in all, this meant Derek was basically angrily hyperventilating about the entire situation with about two-and-a-half minutes before he had to look completely presentable.

Fuck.

Shaking himself out from his internal crisis, Derek straightened up from his slumped position in the elevator, straightened his tie, and took a deep breath. He could do this. He was an amazing boss and felt like he was a decent guy. If this guy turned out to completely suck, he could at least fake it until he makes it.

Right?

Nodding to himself, Derek stepped out of the elevator as soon as it pinged and the doors open, with entirely feigned confidence, but a true this-shit-is-going-to-end-terribly feeling.

Damning to all to hell, he gave a small nod to the floor's receptionist and headed to Conference Room B, where he could make out a thick hair of full brown hair waiting for him along with a seemingly familiar set of broad shoulders through the glass walls of the room.

Confusion painting his face, Derek stepped in the room and immediately stopped dead in his tracks when the owner of the aformentioned hair and broad shoulders turned to face him.

Stiles entered the shed, immediately going to the oversized freezer. Most of his patients ate meat. He pulled pounds of frozen veal, venison, and boar out, stuffing them into buckets that were labeled and kept neatly on the wall.

His dad’s first concern was that Stiles would need to live outside of town and if something happened, no one would know where he was.

Stiles had countered that that was what cell phones were for.

The second thing he brought up was the soulmark on Stiles’s left wrist. How will you find them if you’re ankle deep in mud in the woods?

Stiles had rolled his eyes and replied, I guess they’ll just have to find me.

Stiles heaved the buckets up, tottering for a second as his balance was thrown off. Once his feet were steady under him, he headed out.

His boots crunched over the cold earth, breath fogging the air in front of his face. Thankfully, the first patient, an imp with a missing eye, wasn’t far away.

The imp had wandered into the preserve on his own.

Stiles wasn’t sure how exactly the injury had happened, but he’d tended the bloody wound and found a vacant part of the forest for him to stay. “Are you feeling better?” Stiles stepped lightly into the clearing.

A bush rustled half a second before a big, brown eye appeared through the branches. It blinked up at him sleepily.

Stiles crouched; he was still a ways away from the imp but had learned early on that it was best to let it come to him.

He set the bucket down and pulled out a handful of ribs.

The imp’s head jerked up in interest. Twigs snapped and remaining dead foliage fluttered to the ground as it crawled toward him.

Stiles frowned. The wound on the imp’s face was still red and raw. He leaned forward half an inch.

It froze.

“It’s alright,” Stiles soothed, nudging the rib closer to it. “I just need to look closer.”

The imp cautiously approached.

Black crust made a ring around the injury, smelling of decay.

Stiles’s frown deepened. His magic was supposed to prevent infection. Sparks flicked around his fingertips as he called his magic to the surface.

The imp watched him warily, chewing on the rib with small, pointed teeth.

Stiles touched the skin around the wound.

The black decay fell to the ground, the scent fading.

The imp blinked.

“There you go,” Stiles said. “Hopefully there’ll be more progress tomorrow, yeah?”

Charlie, a gnome with the flu, also appeared worse.

“What happened, guys?” Stiles asked, listening as Charlie hacked a cough.

Stiles placed a hand on her rough back. He felt the mucus in her lungs gurgle with each breath. That definitely wasn’t good.

He pulled herbs from his bag and mixed together a tea in a thermos. “Here, drink this.”

Charlie took it, shaking her hands irritably at the too-hot container.

“It’ll make you feel better,” Stiles said.

Charlie glared but tentatively took a sip, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

The water creatures were last. They were furthest from the cabin, located in a large pond that tied into a creek.

The pond came into view quickly; it was grey in the early light, a thin fog hovering just above the surface.

Ripples broke the water, a flash of a fin cresting the surface.

“Good morning,” Stiles greeted, squatting by the edge of the water.

A thin purple-tinged face stared back at him from the depths, sea-weed green hair billowing around her face.

The mermaid hadn’t given him a name to call her. Which was fine, only Charlie and Loti, the water nymph, had given him names.

Stiles looked up, first out over the water, then toward the trees, looking for her.

A low growl reverberated through the woods. More ripples broke the surface, turning into small waves as they hit land.

Stiles rose to his feet. The growl didn’t sound threatening, but it was clearly a warning.

The mermaid twisted around, dark tail glinting in the water.

Stiles watched her swim into the deeper area before vanishing entirely through a film of sediment.

“Loti?” he called.

There was no answer. Not even a chirp of birds in the trees behind him.

The mermaid’s head popped above the surface several yards away. She looked at Stiles, then down at something in the water, then toward the shore. Whatever she was carrying appeared to be heavy; she struggled a couple times to roll what looked like mud onto the land. It took Stiles a moment to realize it was Loti covered in a thick black rot. His mouth fell open in a silent gasp. The smell was horrendous, but as he approached, he could see her breathing. He could save her.

The mermaid swam backwards again, out into the deeper water.

Stiles dropped to his knees next to Loti, magic already flying across his fingers.

In the corner of his vision, the mermaid hunkered lower into the water. He’d have to figure out what was wrong with her in a moment.

Stiles’s head jerked forward, vision blurring as pain exploded behind his eyes.

Loti growled, multiple rows of sharp teeth flashing, and Stiles pitched sideways onto the ground.

Dark…pain…heavy….Everything hurt. He heard a groan. Was someone else with him? Cracking his eyes open hurt, but he managed. He saw Loti’s arm, still charred black. He lifted his head; it bobbed unsteadily as he looked around the darkening trees. He was definitely alone. The groan must have been from him.

He looked back at Loti. He couldn’t tell from the view of her forearm and shoulder if she was still breathing or not. Someone was trying to kill his patients. Pain lanced through his head and down his neck. Someone had tried to kill him.

Water sloshed somewhere close by. Stiles tensed. His attacker had returned.

Purple-tinged skin cut across his vision.

He blinked up at the mermaid. She held something out to him, fingers curled around a dark object. His phone. It was wet, like whoever had attacked him had thrown it in the water.

He rolled onto his side, gasping in pain when it seared down his arm. He gingerly reached out, taking the device. From within its case, it turned on. He’d have to thank his dad for the “life-proof” case he’d once insisted wasn’t “Stiles-proof”.

The mermaid shifted and Stiles looked back at her, realizing for the first time that she’d crawled onto land to reach him. “Thank you.”

She slid back into the water.

Stiles hit the emergency call.

Hands were moving him.

His left wrist felt like it was on fire. Had he fallen on his wrist? He’d have to ask later.

There was a bed beneath him. His bed.

Stiles woke up gradually. His head throbbed and overall, he felt like he’d been mauled by a hellhound. By the time he felt alright enough to open his eyes, he was sure an hour had gone by. Voices floated through the cabin from the kitchen. The bastard was back!

Stiles threw his legs off the side of the bed, snatching up the baseball bat he kept next to the nightstand. He’d beat their head in for touching his patients. He crossed the room, wobbling and distantly noticing that he was in the same pants and socks he’d been in but was now shirtless. He’d deal with that later. He flew down the hall, bat raised as he skidded around the corner into the kitchen.

He swung.

A large hand caught the bat with a solid smack. “It’s alright!” a man said quickly, holding the bat mid-swing. “We’re here to help.”

Stiles’s glare slowly faded, taking in the paramedic uniforms on two men, and the medical kit on the table.

The man holding the bat loosened his grip, slowly pulling his hand back in case Stiles took another swing at him. “I’m Derek. My partner here,” he gestured to the man at the table, “is Jordan.”

Jordan lifted his hand.

“We’re EMTs with-”

“Beacon Hills,” Stiles interrupted, seeing the name on his uniform. “I, uh, can read.” The room spun.

Derek and Jordan were clearly not a threat. Which was nice. Stiles was done with getting into fights…for hopefully the rest of the year.

“Sit down.” Derek put a hand on Stiles’s arm, applying just enough pressure to guide him.

Stiles’s skin grew warm where he touched.

A sense of calm overpowered the nerves and made the spinning stop. He allowed Derek to lead him to a chair. Technically, his chair. They hadn’t taken him to a hospital, and they hadn’t run off screaming at the sight of Loti. Or maybe they had. He’d been unconscious. He didn’t know.

He propped his elbows on the table and set his head in his hands. They had to be supernaturals of some kind. He looked at the medical kit on the table. A decoy.

“Was Loti—the nymph—alright?” Stiles knew she was far from “alright”, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask if she was alive. Whatever had effected the imp and Charlie had also gotten her.

Derek and Jordan exchanged a glance. Jordan gave a one-shouldered shrug and looked at Stiles seriously. “How hard did you hit your head?”

Stiles’s face reddened with fury. “Don’t bullshit me right now. I know she was next to me, by the lake. I know you two didn’t drag me to the hospital because if what happened is supernatural related, you don’t want to scare the humans.” His left wrist tingled painfully. He flicked it in irritation, involuntary sparks shooting from his hand. “You,” he pointed at Derek, “stopped a bat mid swing without even flinching. And your,” he pointed at Jordan, “medical kit is out of date.”

Jordan blinked, stunned.

Derek laughed. “New kits are on the way,” he explained, taking a seat next to Stiles. “Good eye, these technically expire next week.” He placed his hand on Stiles’s arm again, and the pounding in his head faded. “I’m a werewolf, and Jordan’s a hellhound. Care to tell us what happened?”

Stiles buried his face in his hands. “I rehabilitate supernatural creatures and they’re taking sick with black rot. It wasn’t there yesterday. It’s progressing fast. Loti was the worst.”

Derek hummed understandingly. “She’s alive.”

Stiles’s had shot up. “What?”

“It’s wolfsbane,” Jordan said. “We were able to slow down the effects, but we won’t be able to cure them unless we find the same wolfsbane that poisoned them.” Jordan placed his hands on his lap, eyes flicking over Stiles’s face. “Druid?”

“Spark,” he muttered. So, he had to find whoever hit him, find out where they keep their poison, heal his patients, and, he glanced at the clock, feed them a very late dinner.

His left wrist burned.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. He dropped his wrist on the table and twisted, expecting to see a bruise or swelling. Anything to indicate where the pain was coming from. The soulmark that had sat for years just below his palm had changed. Once a simple circle, it now held three connected spirals. “Please tell me one of you is my soulmate, and not the crazy asshole who knocked me over the head.” He looked up, first to Jordan, who looked at Derek.

Without prompting, Derek flipped his own wrist over, exposing the same mark.

“Huh.” Stiles nodded. “You did have to come find me, I guess.”

A concerned frown wrinkled Derek’s face. “You need to get some rest.”

Stiles opened his mouth, halfway to agreeing when a tree snapped in the woods. He paused. If the room hadn’t been so quiet, he was sure he would have missed it. None of his patients ventured this close to the house. The bastard, Stiles thought, jumping to his feet. That bastard. The chair he’d been sitting in toppled over as he bolted toward the door. He could hear Jordan and Derek protesting, but he didn’t care; he had his bat and magic pulsing through his veins.

He didn’t know how he moved so fast, but he flew across the yard, racing for the figure he could see crouched and frozen.

She spotted him and straightened up. “Well, this is awkward,” she said, and leveled a gun at him.

Stiles was not normally an idiot, but no one messed with his patients. He barreled right into the crazy lady with the gun. He flinched when it went off, nearly deafening him, as they hit the ground in a tangle. He wrestled it from her hands and threw it off to the left, into the woods.

She reared back and punched him in the face, dazing him.

He came back swinging, managing to clip her jaw with her fist. He swore when she rolled them over, pinning him into the dirt with her knees on his arms. “Don’t! Touch! My! Patients!” He twisted his wrists under her legs and grabbed her calves, jolting electricity through her like a homemade Taser.

She screamed and fell off of him, trembling.

Stiles, panting, sat back.

There was a pouch on her belt, purple dust spilling out.

“What is that?”

“Death,” she spat.

“So the wolfsbane.” He lunged at her; her nails raked across his cheek, but he didn’t care, fumbling the pouch from her belt.

She kneed him in the jaw, knocking him sprawling.

He held up the pouch, triumphant. “I win—fuck!”

She tackled him, her knees plowing into his gut and winding him.

He clenched his fingers tight around the opening of the pouch, keeping it from spilling, and rolled. When she wouldn’t release her grip on him, he went with instinct and slammed his head forward, right into her nose.

She shouted in pain, putting her hands over her bleeding nose.

Stiles bolted to his feet and ran. He tripped over a root three yards in, cursing and holding the pouch close to his chest.

“Ha,” the woman said softly.

Stiles looked over her shoulder and swallowed audibly.

She’d found her gun, it looked like. She was aiming at him again.

He flexed his ankle and wondered if he would make it if he bolted to the left. He braced.

A shadow rose up behind the woman. “Kate, long time no see,” Derek said, reaching out and snapping her neck.

Stiles watched her body topple to the ground. He blinked. Looked at Derek. “Remind me to thank you later,” he said weakly. He turned and got sick in the dirt.

Jordan and Derek took Stiles to where they’d laid Loti on some brush, partially blocked from view by a tree.

From the water, the mermaid watched as Derek walked Stiles through the steps of curing wolfsbane poisoning. First heating the powder, then applying it like a lotion.

Loti immediately started squirming, becoming more aware of her surroundings and more aware of how much she didn’t want to be this close to Derek and Jordan.

She grumbled at them as she slunk back into the water.

Charlie was next, then the imp.

By the time they got back into the house, Stiles was exhausted.

“I’m going back to the hospital,” Jordan announced when they got to the porch.

Derek nodded. “Have fun. I’m sure Erica will try to rope you into going to the Christmas party.” He wrinkled his nose.

Jordan gave a shuddering sigh. “Probably.” He looked at Stiles, then back at Derek, one brow quirked. “Standard time off when you meet your soulmate is three days. Should I tell them you’ll be back then?”

Derek turned to Stiles, who was leaning against the side of his house.

Stiles shrugged. “You can stay here if you want.” The recent events made his typically loose brain-to-mouth-filter basically non-existent. “I’d like you to stay. So we can get to know each other.”

“Yeah, tell them I’ll be back Monday.” Derek stepped closer to the door, to Stiles.

The warmth and comfort radiating from his body had Stiles leaning toward him. Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around his middle.

Derek hugged him back automatically.

Stiles sighed and sagged into his embrace. “Thank you for your help,” he muttered into his chest. Exhaustion washed over him. “Let’s talk tomorrow.” He closed his eyes.

The firm's building is slick, all glass and chrome, impersonal and too shiny. Does he have the right place? He checks in at the desk and yes, he's supposed to be there. Mr. Lauden is running late, though, and Stiles should have a seat in the plush waiting room.

It's not until he sits down (accidentally banging his arm cast on the chair as he does) that he realizes he's feeling suddenly at ease. His magic is practically purring. He frowns to himself and looks around, his eyes falling on the man seated across from him.

The man looks like a model. He's scowling at his phone, which does nothing to take away from his overall gorgeousness, and Stiles wonders what about him has his heart beating suddenly twice as fast as normal. It's not like Stiles has never seen a beautiful man before.

As if he's wondering the same question, the man looks up, nostrils flaring, and pins Stiles with an intense stare.

Stiles waves nervously. His good hand needed something to do. He waved. That's not too bad, right?

Now the man just looks confused. The little furrow between his eyebrows is adorable and Stiles wants to maybe smooth it with his thumb. He tries smiling, instead.

The man isn't looking away. Did Stiles mention how intense his eyes are? He can't tell what color they are at this distance but — whoa! The man's eyes flash red.

Stiles is staring an alpha werewolf in the eye and doesn't know what to do. He gulps audibly. The werewolf smiles.

Oh. Oh. That smile is devastating. Stiles couldn't look away at this point if his life depended on it. And it might!

What the hell is going on, Stiles wonders, but his magic is moving beneath his skin like it knows exactly what's up. Well, Stiles wishes it would tell him because he's completely clueless.

The alpha werewolf gets up, walks over, and sits next to him. His nostrils flare again. He's sniffing Stiles, and Stiles is so grateful he took a shower before heading into the city.

"How'd you do that?" the gorgeous alpha asks him, gesturing to the cast on Stiles's arm.

Stiles flushes. He's still embarrassed. "Fell off a roof."

"What were you doing on a roof?" the alpha asks him. "That's dangerous. You could've been killed."

"Warding a friend's house," Stiles says defensively, wondering where the hell this guy gets off acting like he cares what happens to him. It's weird.

The gorgeous alpha frowns. "You're a witch?"

"A spark, actually," Stiles says. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" His magic has been purring since the alpha sat next to him.

"I'm Derek," the man says, looking at him intently. He leans in, nostrils flaring again.

Stiles isn't sure if he's creeped out or flattered. Maybe both. "Dude. Are you smelling me?"

Derek leans back, an abashed look on his face. "I'm sorry. You just… I've never…" Instead of finishing the thought, he trails off. He looks frustrated.

"I'm a wannabe emissary, I've been around plenty of werewolves. I'm assuming this is some wolfy thing," Stiles says dryly.

This close, Stiles can see the color of Derek's eyes. Or rather the colors. They're beautiful, like everything else about him.

"Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale?" someone calls, and the moment is broken. They stand and follow the young assistant to Mr. Lauden's office, and Stiles is only a little confused why they're going together. The day keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Hale, Stiles thinks as he's seated in front of Mr. Lauden's desk. That's the name Lydia said when she tried to explain this mess. Not that Stiles understood at the time. He doesn't understand now, either.

He manages to bump his cast again on the arm of the chair when he sits, and this time he winces as a throb starts up around the broken bone.

Mr. Lauden clears his throat but Derek doesn't seem to be paying attention. He reaches out and brushes Stiles's fingers, the ones that are poking out of the cast. Derek's veins go dark gray as he pulls Stiles's pain.

Stiles relaxes in his chair, blinking at the alpha he only just met. "Thank you," he says gratefully, though he's never had someone drain his pain without asking before, no one but Scott, and not often at that.

"So you do know each other?" Mr. Lauden asks.

"No," Stiles says, his words tripping over Derek's.

"He's my mate," Derek says softly. At least that's what it sounds like. Stiles blinks at him and drops his jaw.

"I thought this was a case of accidental bonding?" Mr. Lauden says with a frown.

But Stiles is still staring at Derek. "What did you say?" then to Lauden, "Wait, what?"

Stiles's magic is rushing under his skin. Purring. Urging Stiles to move closer to Derek Hale, the man he only just met, the alpha werewolf who just maybe said they were mates. How is that possible? What is going on?

"As far as I can tell, there was a paperwork mixup about two years ago, and the two of you were put into a legal alpha/emissary bond," Mr. Lauden is saying. Derek nods. Stiles thinks this sounds like a simplified version of what Lydia tried to explain to him. The attorney goes on with, "But now you're telling me it wasn't accidental? Are you wasting my time, here?"

"No, it was definitely some kind of bureaucratic mixup," Derek says. "But when we met just now, I recognized him immediately." He looks at Stiles, a little shy now. "My wolf did."

Stiles realizes Derek's still touching his fingers, and where their skin is touching, Stiles's magic is very happy. Could it be true? Could they be mates?

"But mates are so rare," Stiles blurts out without pulling his hand away.

Derek smiles. "So are sparks."

"And so is the kind of mixup we're looking at here," Lauden says. "Apparently a clerk in the Beacon County Supernatural Relations office spilled something, made the paperwork stick together, passed it on to someone else… I'm not sure. But in the end, you were legally bonded, and because of the length of time that's passed, if you want to dissolve the bond you're looking at hundreds of billable hours and at least two appearances before a judge."

"I don't have an emissary," Derek says slowly. "But I do need one."

Lauden gives a hopeful smile. "Because of your apparent mate status, it might just be easier to see if you want to keep the bond…"

Stiles's magic is doing somersaults. He looks at Derek, his heart in his throat. Mates. "I need some time to get my head wrapped around this, I think." That little furrow between Derek's brows shows up again and Stiles immediately wants to smooth it away. "There's a coffee shop next door, I saw."

The furrow disappears as Derek gives him a smile that looks like a sunrise. Stiles smiles back helplessly.

Lauden huffs. "I see I'm not actually needed here. I'll send the bill to…?"

Derek nods at him, then turns back to Stiles. "I'll take care of it."

"I have money," Stiles says. He may not get paid well for filling in for Deaton, but he takes enough side jobs that he's comfortable.

Derek shrugs. "Let me pay the attorney's fee and I'll let you buy me a cappuccino."

"That's hardly the same," Stiles says wryly, but he really doesn't care. He just wants to sit down with Derek and learn everything he can about him.

"Is your arm feeling better?" Derek asks, and Stiles looks down at the cast. For a long moment, he'd forgotten about it.

"Much. Thank you," Stiles says, and watches as Derek reluctantly draws his hand away. Stiles's magic sulks.

"What's wrong?" Derek asks.

Stiles shakes his head, then holds out his good hand. "Hi. I'm Stiles Stilinski. It's good to meet you."

Derek looks surprised, then takes Stiles's hand in his own. He doesn't so much shake it as squeeze and caress it. "I'm Derek Hale. I've been waiting to meet you all my life."

Stiles feels his cheeks heat. He squeezes back. "Yeah. Um, let's get out of here, yeah?"

Derek turns to the attorney and smiles. "Thank you."

Lauden smiles at them both. "My pleasure."

Another man approaches Derek's possibly-mate and grabs his arm. Derek has to fight down the urge to bare his teeth in challenge. He's not a jealous guy but he has the strangest urge to throw the man across the room for getting too close to his maybe-mate.

"Stiles," the man hisses, voice low, frown firmly in place, "what did you do? That werewolf looks like he's about to murder you."

Derek's eyes narrow. Who's threatening his potential mate, Stiles? He glances around but no one is looking at Stiles with more than a fleeting glance. The other attendees seem happy, for the most part. He doesn't scent any overt aggression.

"You promised you weren't going to do anything," the man says in a bit of a whine. "You promised."

Stiles places his hand on his chest and gapes at his friend with mock-affront. The move seems practiced in its theatricality. "Why, Scott, the very insinuation that I would start any kind of mischief is just absurd. I am the picture of innocence."

"Stiles..." Scott's tone is long-suffering, suggesting that Stiles and mischief are well-acquainted.

Stiles sighs and rolls his eyes. "Fine. But I haven't done anything." Scott raises an eyebrow and Stiles adds, "Yet. I swear, I haven't even talked to creeper-wolf over there." He jerks his thumb in Derek's direction.

Derek blinks. He looks behind him. There's a bare wall and a small scattering of people, none of whom are facing this way.

"And I haven't seen Peter yet, so really, what could I possibly have done?"

Stiles knows Peter? He could be referring to a different Peter—it's certainly a common enough name—but what are the chances of him meaning anyone other than Uncle Peter at a Hale function? How does Stiles know Peter? Why haven't they crossed paths before?

"Do you need me to get your dad? One of the Alphas?" Scott whispers.

Stiles rolls his eyes. "You do realize that's Alpha Hale's son, right? Derek Hale."

Shit! Shit. He's the creepy murder werewolf. He needs to look away. Anywhere else. Ceiling? No, lights are too bright. Floor? Now he looks pathetic. There! The Christmas tree. He can stare at the tree and it's like he's admiring it instead of trying too hard to not creep out his mate. Maybe mate. Probably most definitely mate.

"Hey, there's Cora. Cora!" Stiles raises his voice a little to catch Cora's attention. "Cora, come over here for a sec."

He risks a glance at his sister. She's got a glass of cider on one hand. She walks up to them with a familiar, "Yo! What's up, Stiles?"

Does everyone in his family know Stiles? This could be bad for him. Gods, if Stiles knows Laura there will be no end to the embarrassing stories.

"Did I do something to piss off your brother?" Stiles asks. He sounds more amused than concerned. "He's glaring some serious daggers my way."

"I didn't know you two had even met," Cora says. Which is true. They haven't. Until now, but that really doesn't count if he hasn't actually said a word to Stiles. Or come within three feet of him.

"We haven't," Stiles agrees. "Did Peter say something? I feel like this could be one of Peter's pranks, in which case my revenge will be swift and glorious."

"Not that I've heard and Peter usually tells me his evil plans." There's a slight pause where none of them speak and Derek stares very hard at a snowflake ornament on the tree so he doesn't look at Stiles.

"I think he's planning to murder the tree now," Stiles says. His amusement is obvious.

Cora sighs. "Derek, what are you being all pissy about?"

He frowns and scuffs his foot against the carpet. "I'm not being pissy," he mutters back.

"Did you swallow a lemon?" Stiles snorts. "Seriously, why are you mad at Stiles?"

He huffs and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "I'm not mad."

"Then what are you doing?"

He considers hiding in the woods until the party's over but the only direction his body wants to move is closer to Stiles.

"Do I need to get Laura?" Cora threatens.

His cheeks flame red at the very suggestion. "Ithinkhe'smymate," he says, all in one breath.

He dares a glance over. Cora is frowning at him. Next to her, Stiles is watching him, bemused. Scott keeps looking back and forth between Stiles and Derek like he's waiting for a fight to break out.

Cora raises an eyebrow when she notices him looking. "I'm sorry, try again. Maybe in English this time."

He sighs. He's never going to hear the end of this. Ever. Laura is going to put the story on his tombstone. "I think," he says slowly, "he's my mate."

Someone tackles Derek from behind, sending him stumbling. He barely avoids falling on his face. "What the hell?" He turns to find Laura standing there with an insane grin.

"Who's your mate?" Laura asks, voice full of excitement. She even bounces a little.

"He is," Cora says, pointing at Stiles, who looks very confused.

"I'm what?" Stiles asks.

"Going to meet my brother," Cora answers. She grabs Stiles by the arm at the same time as Laura grabs Derek's arm. They're both dragged across the room to meet in the middle. "Stiles, meet my brother, Derek. He wants to make babies with you."

Laura gives Derek an extra push toward Stiles. He shoots Laura a quick glare and then rubs the back of his head. He's not sure his face can get redder but he's about to find out. "Um, hi." He can't quite bring himself to look straight at Stiles. He doesn't want to come off as creepy. Again.

"Hi," Stiles says, voice thick with humor. "I'm Stiles. I require at least one proper date before there's any attempt at making babies. Which, given we're both guys, babies are highly unlikely to occur but I'm willing to put in the effort." He holds out his hand. His smile is absolutely blinding. Cora and Laura can both hear the way it makes Derek's heart skip a beat.

Derek stares at the appendage. This is it, the turning point of his life. If he takes Stiles's hand, it will confirm what his instincts already know. If he doesn't.... Well, that's not really an option.

He takes Stiles's hand in his. Electricity courses through his body, setting his nerves alight. In the space of an instant, he's broken apart and remade anew, his very being reshaped to include Stiles. He can feel Stiles's presence. Stiles is his personal North Star, a guiding light that pulls Derek home. Stiles's scent is so thick, Derek can taste it—electricity and midnight rain and freshly turned earth.

"Oh," Stiles says after a minute. His eyes are wide as saucers. He hasn't let go of Derek's hand.

Cora claps them both on the shoulder, startling them into letting go. "Well, my work here is done. You kids have a lovely time and don't start humping at the party, Mom will kill you."

Oh, gods, his parents are going to be insufferable. They'll announce it over the loudspeakers and pull him and Stiles up on stage. He has to get out of here. At least finding his mate will make a good excuse. They can't fault him for wanting to spend time strengthening the bond with his mate.

"Dinner?" Derek blurts.

Stiles blinks and his face shifts back to that amused grin he had before. "It's a thing I enjoy, yeah."

"We should..." Derek swallows. "Do you want to? Now?"

There's something soft in the way Stiles looks at him. Almost fond, growing fonder. "You mean, would I like to have dinner with you?"

"Yes." Derek nods. "That."

Stiles moves to Derek's side and wraps his arm around Derek's elbow. "I'd love to. For future reference, I love diners and curly fries are the food of the gods."

~*~

Soulmates aren't a very well studied phenomenon.

It is not known what percentage of the population has a soulmate, mostly because most people don't even know it themselves. You don't get a neat tattoo of your soulmate’s name or of the first words they say to you or anything helpful like that. Stiles wishes he lived in a universe like that. Instead he gets soulmarks - literal marks appearing on his body, reflecting the injuries of his soulmate.

Soulmarks can be anything - from light bruises to red scratches to even the occasional sprain. There's some stories about people breaking bones, but Stiles doesn't give any credit to those - he certainly hasn't ever broken a bone because of his soulmate and he has carried just about every other soulmark known to mankind on his skin.

Hence the thinking his soulmate was a super spy before realising werewolves were a thing.

Thankfully soulmarks are usually less severe than the original injury and never fatal. So instead of the deep scratch your soulmate has, you might end up with a heavy bruise, or a sprain instead of a break. But that right there is also why most people never even realise they have a soulmate. How many bruises do you discover on the regular without remembering how you got them? How would you ever know which came from knocking into the corner of the kitchen cabinet and which appeared because your soulmate accidentally dropped a hammer on their foot?

You see, most people don't suffer from severe injuries on the regular, and thus neither do their soulmates. Unless your soulmate is a werewolf of course.

It took cataloguing all of his cuts and bruises very meticulously, while also keeping track of which scrapes his friends got into, but the evidence finally seems to suggest that his soulmate is one of the pack. That's as far as Stiles has gotten, though. The only one he can rule out for sure is Scott and thank God for that. Stiles loves that guy like a brother, but that's just it - like a brother . Allison can keep his dick, as far as Stiles is concerned.

Everyone else is fair game though, even Jackson, perish the thought. He has mellowed out somewhat after his stint in good, old England, but still, the universe would have a very sick sense of humour if Stiles’ soulmate turned out to be Jackson Whittemore of all people. Stiles wouldn't mind any of the other betas, but really, there's only one member of the pack he is truly interested in.

That's the crux of the matter with soulmarks: How do you know you’ll even like your soulmate? What if you don’t? What if you love someone and they aren’t your soulmate? Or you aren’t theirs?

All of those are reasons why a lot of people do not actively attempt to search out their soulmate.

There are of course those who do - ritualistic woundings are a thing that unfortunately still exists, and pricking the fingers is a wedding rite that is occasionally celebrated, too. Hollywood loves the soulmate trope of course, soulmarks front and centre on posters even if they barely play a role in the film. Whole rows of bookstores are filled with soulmark romances - from Ancient Rome to outer space and everywhere in between. The question whether Cleopatra’s true soulmate was Caesar or Antony is a hotly debated one in certain circles.

Stiles himself has always dreamed of finding his soulmate.

His parents had been soulmates, though they only realised it years after being married, when his dad got shot on patrol by the only bank robber Beacon Hills has ever gotten and his mum bruised like a peach in the same place his shot wound was. Stiles has gotten his delicate complexion from her.

And the hopelessly romantic streak apparently.

His mum had loved that his dad and her had turned out to be soulmates after they married; it made her believe in fate she used to say and that “you'll find your soulmate, too, kochanie , and they’ll leave an even deeper mark on your heart than on your skin. Just be patient, baby.”

Well, Stiles has certainly got the marks on his skin, and someone has also left his mark on Stiles’ heart, but he's not sure those belong together. So, rather than risking learning an answer he doesn't want to know, he stops searching for an answer all together.

He'd like to imagine that his mother would approve of him being patient and waiting for whatever will happen. She'd probably just scold him for giving up, though.

The thought is not enough to make him risk his heart however.

~*~

Over the last few years, a tradition of pre-Christmas pack dinner has developed. Christmas is spent with their respective families, but the last weekend before Christmas is for the pack. It’s done potluck style - everyone likes different things, so instead of trying to find a compromise everyone’s happy with, they had decided to just let everyone bring what they want to eat. Stiles has learned to make an extra large batch of his pierogi , because that is eaten by just about everyone, whereas Lydia’s kale salad goes largely ignored by everybody but her and Jackson (the poor guy really is whipped).

Another tradition that has grown out of that one is the decorating the day before.

That’s not a pack tradition, though. This one is just for Derek and Stiles.

Because while pack dinner happens at Derek’s loft, it has long been decided that Derek is not to be trusted to decorate appropriately for the occasion. So Stiles always comes over the day before to help, and afterwards they order in and watch at least one Christmas classic. In a way it feels like their own little Christmas tradition, and Stiles has grown very protective of it. It’s when they reminisce about the past year and plan ahead for the next. Derek told Stiles about his plans to go back to uni while hanging up tinsel and Stiles spoke about his fear of losing his dad while spraying fake frostwork onto Derek’s windows. It’s as if no secrets exist between them when hanging up Christmas decorations - none except for Stiles’ soulmarks. Those he hasn’t dared to bring up yet.

This year’s decoration theme is definitely forest-y - gnarly roots as candle holders, cones and acorns instead of golden stars and red baubles, and even some mistletoe. According to Derek, Laura hated the artificiality of most Christmas decorations, all those garish colours, plastic-y scents, and the glitter that sticks to everything until Valentine’s Day comes around and covers you in more glitter, just this time in pink. Apparently the Hale siblings used to take turns decorating the house for Christmas, and when it was up to Laura, she did her best to bring the forest into the house.

“When I saw that mistletoe in the Reserve on my last patrol, it made me think of her, and how much she loved hanging them over every single door frame in the house. We never got anything done when Laura had decorated for Christmas because everyone was too busy kissing everyone else,” Derek says, a small smile on his face while his eyes show that he is far away, lost in memories. “I thought it would be nice to remember her through this - decorating like her,” he adds, and then asks, suddenly sounding very unsure: “Unless you think the pack would prefer more traditional decorations?”

“There’s nothing more traditional than mistletoe,” Stiles replies firmly. “And if Lydia says anything, I’ll remind her of the year she thought burnt orange and dark teal would make good Christmas tree colours.”

Derek smiles softly in response, and Stiles would have liked to blame the answering flutter of his heart on heart burn but he has long ago learned that lying to himself is of no use.

So, rustic decorations it is, which brings Stiles to the predicament he is currently in: balancing precariously on one of Derek’s bar stools, mistletoe in one hand, hammer in another and four, no three nails in his mouth. One nail just slipped out and possibly scratched one of his toes on its way down. Stiles doesn’t trust his balance enough to dare look down to check for blood. He’d call for help, but he’s honestly afraid of accidentally swallowing a nail if he opens his mouth. His genius idea to nail the mistletoe to the ceiling in the middle of the room, so that everyone ends up stuck under it again and again suddenly doesn’t look so genius any more.

Carefully, Stiles switches the mistletoe to his other hand, and takes one of the nails out of his mouth with his now free hand. So far, so good, but when he attempts to hammer the nail into the ceiling, he slips, and loses his balance.

Strangely enough, his last thought as he falls goes out to his soulmate. Maybe he’ll feel that.

But instead of hitting the hard floor, Stiles is caught in two strong arms, which break his fall. Somehow he even manages to spit out the remaining nails instead of swallowing them and killing himself that way. When he looks up, Derek’s face is dark with anger and white with fear.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he scolds and shakes Stiles slightly. “You could have broken your neck!”

“You caught me, though, didn’t you?” Stiles says, smiling angelically and tries not to feel disappointed that he didn’t at least break a leg or something. Surely his soulmate would have noticed that .

“And I’m starting to regret it already,” Derek snarks back, but his hands are gentle as he makes sure Stiles has regained his balance enough to stand on his own two feet again.

“Liar, you love me,” Stiles singsongs, and tries to ignore how much he wishes that were true.

“I hate you,” Derek throws back at him over his shoulder, having already turned away, so that Stiles can’t even see his face. And he doesn’t have a built in lie-detector.

“Hate to love me, you mean,” he still needles, and follows Derek, drawn like the moth to the flame, as always.

“If you say so,” Derek replies noncommittally, and Stiles forgets the snarky retort he’d had on the tip of his tongue, because he had been too focused on Derek to look where he was going and had run into the coffee table. Hard. Ouch.

In front of him, Derek stumbles.

Stiles’ shin throbs, and his thoughts are running wild.

He knocks his shin against the coffee table once more, and Derek stumbles again.

Elated, Stiles keeps kicking the coffee table, until Derek finally gets a clue and turns around. His eyes are wide and the look on his face is one of pure astonishment and disbelief. Stiles on the other hand can’t feel his cheeks anymore, he’s grinning so widely. Derek’s gaze caught in his, he deliberately kicks out one last time and his heart jumps when Derek flinches in reaction.

“I was hoping it was you,” he breathes, but at the same time, Derek says: “I was hoping it wasn’t you.”

“What?”

Stiles’ stomach is suddenly a ball of ice, all the elation he was just experiencing gone like a tendril of smoke in the wind. But Derek shakes his head hurriedly and steps closer, hand stretched out towards Stiles.

“No, that’s not what I meant! It’s just - I’m so broken, literally , and I couldn’t bear the thought of having inadvertently hurt you. Hurting you is the last thing I want to do. I know I don’t experience soulmarks the way you do, but the pain I must have caused you!”

The ice in Stiles melts as suddenly as it appeared and he steps forward in turn to take Derek’s still outstretched hand.

“I was hoping it was you,” he says, but then amends: “Well, actually, I was hoping it was James Bond for quite a few years. But once I knew werewolves were a thing, it was always you I was hoping for. I couldn’t know for sure, and I was too scared to ask, so I just kept quietly hoping. My soulmarks didn’t cause me pain so much as they gave me hope!”

Derek is obviously still sceptical and not convinced yet, so Stiles decides he has to haul out the big guns. Pun intended. He squeezes Derek’s hand in reassurance before dropping it and whipping off his shirt. Werewolves run hotter than humans, so the air in Derek’s loft is cool on his skin. The urge to cross his arms in front of his chest to hide himself is almost overwhelming, but the whole point of this exercise is to bare himself to Derek. So he gathers his courage, pulls his shoulders back and stands proud and tall.

“See this?” Stiles points towards a white scar on his right side. “That’s from when Scott fell off his chair in maths and I let myself fall off my chair, too, so he’d not be so embarrassed. Only I managed to cut myself somehow and bled all over everything, so then he was embarrassed for us both and worrying about me to boot.” He points towards a greenish bruise on his hip next. “I got that when I ran into our dining table earlier in the week. No particular reason why, I’m just spatially challenged apparently. I’ve got countless more marks like these, some visible scars, some fading bruises, most gone forever. I only remember the very visible ones, like that scar, or the most recent ones, like that bruise.”

He swallows and then turns half away from Derek.

“See my right shoulder blade? You see nothing, right? That’s where my first soulmark appeared. Or well, it probably wasn’t actually the first one ever, but it was the first one I noticed and recognised. It was just a small scratch with a pale purplish bruise. But I kept looking at it in the mirror because I was so happy. It was proof I had a soulmate, someone just for me. Someone who’d love me for who I am, because, not in spite of. That mark is long gone, but I’ll never forget about it. I’ll never forget about any of them. Like here,” he says, turning back around again, drawing a finger down his stomach and then repeating the motion on Derek’s clothed stomach.

“That’s when I knew for sure it was someone from the pack. That’s when I really started hoping it was you. But you all heal too quickly for me to properly catalogue your injuries, so I couldn’t ever be quite sure. Until now.”

Derek doesn’t immediately say anything. Instead he gently traces the path Stiles’ finger took, stroking across the skin on Stiles’ stomach, which breaks out into goosebumps at the touch.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeats, voice barely above a whisper and Stiles admits: “You probably will. But I’ll heal - not as quickly as you and the rest of the puppies, but I’ll heal. And I’ll treasure my soulmarks even more than before. But you can always mark me up in more pleasurable ways, too,” he adds with a wink and tilts his head to the side, hopefully revealing his throat in a tantalising way.

“You are the worst,” Derek replies, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips that lets Stiles repeat, this time with conviction: “And still you love me.”

“I do,” Derek acknowledges, and then curves his hand around Stiles’ shoulder, palm touching where his first soulmark appeared. The touch seems to shoot sparks through Stiles’ body, electrifying him. Gentle pressure on his back encourages him to lean in and then Derek’s other hand comes up to guide his chin up, so their lips can meet in a soft, careful kiss.

“That’s it?”

She shrugs, heading back to the counter. “That’s all I got.”

He throws his hands into the air. “You are utterly useless.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Stiles. He’s just a really hot guy who’s apparently really good at making bouquets.”

“There’s something weird about him,” he insists. “And I’m gonna find out what it is.”

She glances at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be getting the muffins ready? Our after-school rush starts in fifteen minutes.”

He lets it lie, for now.

-----

Stiles lives above his bakery, like any proper city dweller. He closes the shop in the evening and retreats upstairs to read or watch movies or sleep. Whatever he wants, since he’s single. So single. Single as a Pringle, which doesn’t really make much sense, considering Pringles come in sleeves with like, a hundred more…

Anyways.

Stiles enjoys his time alone, really he does, but sometimes it’s nice to have company. Lately, company has come in the form of a big stray dog that ambled up onto his balcony one night a couple weeks ago.

It’s become routine, now, that Stiles closes up shop and his visitor is usually by about thirty minutes after.

That night, he smiles at the sound of claws on the steps and grins when two black ears poke over the edge of the steps followed by a long snout and curious eyes.

“Hiya, bud,” he greets, patting his knee. “How was your day?”

The dog huffs and trots over to him, leaning hard enough to almost knock him over.

“Easy, dude. God, you’re strong. Who’s a big, strong man? Hmm?” he coos, scratching under the dog’s chin while its eyes half-close in bliss.

He pushes up his sleeves, prepared to reach around to get both hands on the scruff that drapes over the dog’s shoulders. Stiles laughs as the dog licks at the exposed tattoos climbing up his arms.

“Like them, big guy?” he chuckles.

He points to each one, explaining them: the compass for his mom, the star for his dad, the stylized measuring cups for his babcia, the sleek black cat for Erica…

“I want more, but I figure two sleeves are good for now.” He pats the dog’s chest as it pants happily at him.

The dog’s ears prick forward and it gives Stiles’ cheek one last lick before it clicks away down the stairs.

“Later, dude,” Stiles calls before going back to his computer.

See the thing is, Stiles is a researcher.

Well, obviously, professionally he’s a baker and a damn good one at that. But in his personal life, he’s been known to be sucked down many a rabbit hole when it comes to an obscure subject.

Since he’s suspicious as all hell about Derek Hale, he looks Derek up online. He gets a website for Derek’s shop and a couple of articles from the Beacon Hills newspaper about the place opening. Though he’s tempted to hack into the BHPD database with his dad’s access credentials, he leaves that route alone and settles for getting his information another way.

He moves on and researches flowers. The meanings of flowers, the uses of herbs, the symbolism of certain corsages, and anything else he can find. There’s a lot of occult use for flowers and medicinal ones, but Derek doesn’t strike him as witch. But hell, maybe he is. Stiles doesn’t know what a witch looks like since he doesn’t know any.

At least, he doesn’t think he does.

Hmmm. Another mystery for another time.

On one Tuesday morning, he catches sight of Derek putting out flowers and notices that the sides of his displays are lined in white heather.

“Why does he have protection flowers around his stands?” he mutters to himself.

Erica makes him jump when she replies lowly from right next to him, “Maybe to keep creepers like you away.”

Stiles glares at her and doesn’t bother to comment, just storms away into the kitchen as Erica goes back to the counter to talk to the customers.

-----

The first time Stiles actually speaks to Derek is weird.

Stiles is perusing the avocados at the grocery store when someone reaches across him, picks one up, and holds it out for him. “This one is perfect.”

Stiles takes it, then he realizes who’s standing next to him.

Up close, Derek Hale is even more magnificent to look at. Long lashes, thick beard, some kind of kaleidoscope eyes. Goddammit.

“Uh, thanks,” he mumbles, dropping the avocado in his basket and about to dart when Derek speaks again.

“You’re Stiles, right?” Derek’s voice is soft, softer than Stiles thought it would be. “You own the bakery across the street from my flower shop.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

Derek smiles and it’s soft and slightly flirtatious. “I heard you have the best cookies in the entire county.”

Stiles smirks, always apt to brag about his baking reputation. “Three counties, actually.”

“Three counties. Well now I’m impressed,” Derek teases and something flutters in Stiles’ chest.

He reels himself back. Don’t fall for that smile and those dreamy eyes! He’s hiding something! “Mmhmm.” Maybe I can get it out of him. Or at least talk to him enough to figure it out myself. He slyly offers, “Come by the bakery sometime and you’ll see. They’ll change your life.”

Derek nods. “That sounds great.”

“Okie dokie,” Stiles replies, turning around and walking in the direct opposite direction.

The first step of his plan is done. Now all he has to do is catch Derek in the act. The act of… whatever it is that he’s clearly up to…

-----

Stiles didn’t really expect Derek to come the next day, so he’s confused when Erica pops her head into the kitchen right when they open and says, “Hottie McHotstuff is here to see you.”

“Who?” Stiles asks, half-distracted as he pulls muffins from a tin and places them on a tray to cool.

Erica sighs. “Derek, obviously.”

“Oh.” He dusts off his hands. “Wonder what he wants.”

“I wonder…” she mutters as she goes back out front.

He glances down at himself and unties his apron, patting at himself to shake off the excess flour and scratching at a patch of dried blue frosting on the stomach of his t-shirt.

When he emerges, slightly less floury, he sees Erica talking to a pretty redhead girl at the end of the bar. Rolling his eyes, he scans the place and finds Derek looking at the shelves filled with his babcia’s baking tools.

“Cool, huh?” he asks, sliding up next to Derek.

“Very.” Derek glances over, his nostrils flaring a little, and nods at the hand-mixer. “Family heirloom?”

“Remarkably spot on.” He points at the bowls, propped up to display the painted bottoms. “I learned how to make my first cookies with that mixer and those bowls.”

Derek’s looking at his arms, running his eyes over the tattoos if Stiles had to guess, but he smiles and teases, “Your Three-County-Wide Famous cookies.”

Stiles grins, heading back behind the counter. “What kind do you like?” he asks, leaning over the glass.

Derek points out the peanut butter – not serial killer material, most people like peanut butter – and white chocolate lemon – Stiles’ mom’s favorite, he can’t be mad about that – and caramel – perfectly normal choice, his caramel cookies are divine.

Half mad that he can’t narrow anything down by the man’s cookie preferences, he puts the special twist in the bag that keeps it closed and hands it across the counter to Derek with a smile. “Enjoy them. Have a good one.”

Derek blinks then smiles. He takes the bag, shaking his head a little as he leaves, the redhead trailing behind him.

When he turns around, Erica is staring at him, mouth open. “What?”

“Did… did you just brush off the hottest guy that’s ever flirted with you?”

“I didn’t brush him off. And he is not the hottest guy to ever flirt with me.”

“Ehhhhh…” Erica squints and wobbles his hand in the air.

He glares at her. “Why the hell are we friends?”

She shrugs. “Got me.”

“It doesn’t even matter,” Stiles adds under his breath. “He obviously just left with his girlfriend.”

“Who, Lydia?”

“Whatever the redhead’s name is.”

“She’s not his girlfriend. She said they’re practically brother and sister and she came to help him with the flower shop for a couple months.”

“Really?”

The small voice in Stiles’ head starts shouting, insisting that there’s something extra weird going on.

He’s just got to figure out what it is!

-----

Stiles sprawls on his back porch and fiddles with the dog’s toes.

His new friend is almost wriggling with pleasure, which is odd because normally dogs hate having their feet touched, but it’s helping him think, so it’s whatever.

“I have a problem, dude,” he sighs. “There’s this guy…”

The dog huffs when he stops his ministrations, snorting and kicking his feet.

“Oh, right, sorry.” He starts back up. “Anyways, there’s this guy who is… a conundrum. I don’t know what to think about him. He’s… man, he’s good looking and he’s a florist, of all things. And, I’m not exactly an expert on flowers even after all my research, but he seems really good at it.”

He sighs, wondering how he can get Derek to talk to him.

“Maybe… maybe I can get a tour of the greenhouse? Or his shop…” he muses half-aloud. That could definitely work. “We are new neighbors, after all…”

The dog snorts again and rolls to its feet, shoving its nose against Stiles’ face and licking him.

“Ew, dude, gross!” he laughs, pushing the dog away.

The dog’s tongue lolls out and it wags its tail before trotting away and down the stairs.

-----

Derek looks up as Stiles enters the shop a couple days later. “Stiles.”

“Hey,” he greets, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Thought I’d come by and see the place. Maybe get a tour, if you’ve got time.”

Derek nods, looking pleased, and gestures to a side counter. “I have to finish an order, but I’ll only be a second.”

“No worries.” He ambles over and looks at the vases on display, enjoying the smells and colors of the flowers around him.

Lydia pops up next to his elbow and he jumps. “See anything you like?” she asks with a cat-like smile.

“Uh, not… not really?” He glances over her shoulder as two guys come from the back and walk over behind the counter.

“This is Scott and Isaac,” Lydia offers. “They work here too.”

Scott gives him a look, takes a deep breath, and asks, “Can you make stir-fry?”

“Uh,” he shakes his head, “I’m not a very good cook.”

“But you’re a professional baker,” Isaac almost accuses.

“Yeah, I bake things. It’s not exactly the same.” He thinks about it and adds, “I mean, I guess I’m okay at like… casseroles but that’s about it.”

“So you can’t make stir-fry?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I could try I guess.”

Scott frowns. “How are you alive if you don’t cook? What do you eat?”

He laughs. “I subsist mainly on take-out and frozen food.”

Lydia pokes a sharp-nailed finger at his abdomen. “How are you so skinny then? That food is terrible for you.”

“Hey, I’ve got muscles. I can carry three bags of flour by myself.”

“Not bad, I guess,” she sniffs.

The three of them look toward the door as Derek comes through.

He looks between them. “What’s going on?”

Stiles notices the angelic faces that Scott, Isaac, and Lydia wear and he turns to Derek. “Hi again.”

“Hi.”

“Would you care to save me from the Inquisition? They’re making me feel bad about my inability to cook and also my weight, I think.”

“Sure,” Derek laughs, jerking his head toward the door. “Come on.”

They go through the back of the shop, past coolers and sinks and a big storage room, and end up in a small alley that leads to a door.

“Greenhouse,” Derek explains, opening the door and gesturing him inside. “I need to water the plants anyway.”

“Cool.” He keeps his hands in his pockets, sure that he’ll kill something if he touches it. He’s got a notorious Black Thumb. “So,” he starts, aiming for casual interest, “what brings you to Beacon Hills?”

“My family lived here before.”

“What? When?”

Derek frowns at him. “Your dad is the Sheriff. Surely you’re familiar with the Hale fire?”

It clicks – he’s an idiot because it shouldn’t have taken him this long to put two and two together – and Stiles shakes his head. “Holy shit. I guess I just didn’t…” He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

Derek shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“Wait… so… you moved back to town, even though your family’s house almost caught fire?”

Derek shrugs. “No one was hurt. And the land is still in our name. I wanted to branch out to my own shop. It made sense.”

“Oh yeah, totally,” he mutters, but his mind is going a mile a minute. There’s not really anything strange about Derek’s story… so why does Stiles still have the weirdest feeling that he’s hiding something?

Derek holds a sunflower out to him with a smile.

“Oh, cool, thanks.” He tucks the flower behind his ear and grins. “How do I look?”

His eyes do a slow sweep over Stiles’ face, lingering on his mouth. “Really good.”

“Aw, thanks dude.” Stiles claps him on the shoulder.

Derek clears his throat, stating slowly. “I have to be honest, I’m kind of getting some mixed signals here.”

Stiles blinks at him, half-started on another spiral of thought about what Derek’s deal could be. “What?”

Derek smiles, shaking his head. “Never mind. Do you want to see the hybrid orchids I’ve been working on?”

“Sure.”

-----

Everything is hunky-dory for a while. Stiles tries to figure Derek out, Derek shakes his head at him with that strange smile and always sends him back to the bakery with flowers or plants.

It’s all good until the night of the full moon when he realizes he’s forgotten his phone charger at Derek’s shop.

He wonders if he has an extra somewhere, but guesses he probably doesn’t since the port on his new phone has rendered all his other chargers useless.

“Stupid upgrades,” he mutters, pulling himself up from his bed and shoving his bare feet into his shoes.

It’s a quick jaunt across the street and he loops around the back. The door to the greenhouse is open and he’s about to slip inside when he sees the black dog that’s been hanging out with him.

Before he can call out to the dog, it shivers and starts to change. Its body shifts, elongating and twisting and moving until Derek Hale, in all his glory, is standing in the dog’s place.

Stiles freezes, his heart climbing into his throat.

Derek is… Derek just… what the fuck? What the fuck?!

He takes a step back and Derek whips his head around, snarling with a mouthful of sharp teeth as his eyes flash bright red.

Stiles squeaks and takes off, sprinting across the street and scrambling up the stairs until he half falls into his apartment. He locks his doors and windows, pulls all his curtains closed, and sequesters himself in his bedroom with a baseball bat.

He has pretty fucked up dreams, so he barely sleeps. When Erica comments on how tired he looks the next day, he just levels her with a flat stare and keeps kneading his bread dough.

“Damn, okay,” she says quietly, clearly getting that he’s not having it today.

The only other time she bothers him is to poke her head into the kitchen and tell him Derek is out front.

“I’m busy.”

She frowns, studying his face. “Is there something I need to kick his ass for?”

“No. Just tell him I’m busy, please.”

“Okay…” She goes back out front. A few minutes later, she comes back in and asks, “Are you sure I can’t kick his ass?”

He snorts. “No. It’s not something you can fix by kicking his ass. No matter how entertaining that would be.”

“Hmf. Well, let me know if that changes.”

“Will do.”

-----

A purple hyacinth is waiting on the doorstep of the bakery when Stiles comes downstairs the next morning. Curled up next to the pot is his phone charger.

He stares down at it and sighs, lips pursed. He grabs the charger and thinks about taking the plant inside but, when he thinks about Derek’s glowing eyes, he decides to leave it where it is.

Even though he knows purple hyacinths mean that the giver is saying I’m sorry and he’s not actually sure that Derek needs to be apologizing for anything anyways.

At seven, when he’s locking the front door, he sees the flowers are still there. After a moment, he leans down, grabs the pot up, and brings it inside, placing it in one of the windows.

“What is that?” Erica asks as she sweeps.

“Purple hyacinth.”

She studies it, touching the flowers gently. “What does it mean?”

Stiles hums, leaning on the counter. “‘I’m sorry’.”

She glances at him. “You gonna forgive him for whatever he did?”

He shrugs, walking back into the kitchen.

-----

It's been a week and he misses Derek.

It just freaking figures that while trying to figure out Derek’s secret, all Stiles did was end up developing a fondness for the guy.

He curses his own foolishness as he tries to figure out a plant that he can bring by that says sorry I freaked out once I realized you were apparently a creature of the night please hang out with me again and also maybe go on a date with me because I kind of like you a lot.

It ends up being too hard, so he does what he does best: he bakes.

When Stiles enters the shop, it’s empty. He looks around, still a little jumpy, and rings the small bell.

Lydia is suddenly behind the counter and Stiles knows she wasn’t there a second ago. She raises an eyebrow, arms crossed. “What do you want?”

Stiles plays it cool and holds up the container in his hand. “I come bearing a peace offering.”

Lydia eyes him then gestures for him to go through the opening in the counter. “He’s in the greenhouse.”

Stiles tries to stay out of snatching range, just in case, and Lydia snorts, clearly amused.

When he pokes his head into the greenhouse, Derek is standing stiffly next to the herb garden.

Stiles makes his way over. “Hey.”

Derek eyes him warily. “Hi.”

“So, uh, I was gonna get you a mistletoe plant but I researched it and apparently mistletoe is just a giant parasite, so. Then I thought, well, maybe a holly plant. It kind of reminds me of you. It symbolizes hopefulness, but that seemed a little too Christmas-y, you know? Next it was red tulips, to tell you that I like you but I couldn’t find any red ones for some reason.”

Derek blinks at him, looking startled at the flow of words.

Stiles, of course, keeps talking. “Plus, I don’t really speak Flower the way you do, at least, not that type of flower.” He chuckles nervously. “F-L-O-U-R I totally speak fluently. So, here, I made these for you with my sick translation skills.”

Then, like a totally reasonable adult, Stiles shoves the container at Derek and flees before the other man can even say a word.

When he gets back into the bakery, he walks straight past Erica and into the kitchen, throwing himself down on the ratty couch in the corner and putting his hands over his face.

“What’s the matter? He didn’t like the cookies?” Erica asks after a moment from somewhere near his feet.

“I have no idea if he liked them. I just word-vomited about plants and then shoved them at him before I fled like the hounds of Hell were chasing me.” He almost chokes on a laugh at the inadvertent turn of phrase.

Erica sighs. “You’ve got serious issues.”

“I know!” Stiles wails. “I’m gonna die alone!”

“Probably,” Erica tuts sympathetically as she pats his foot. “I, on the other hand, am going to marry Lydia and we’re going to have lots of pretty, pretty babies.”

“You’re really bad at comforting people,” he complains.

“Yeah… luckily that’s not why we’re friends.”

“Why are we friends again?”

Instead of joking, she answers honestly: “Because it’s important for you to have someone to kick you in the ass every now and then.” She stands up and points down at him. “Now, you’re going to get up, finish baking those cranberry orange scones, and then, if Derek hasn’t come over by then, you’re going to go back and calmly ask him out on another date.”

He stares up at her, trying to figure out if he’s more disconcerted by how bossy she’s being or by the fact that it’s all good advice.

“But what if he says no?” he asks, his voice oddly small.

She gives him a look. “He’s not going to say no, Stiles. Not even you could blow this one. He’s smitten with you.”

He scowls at her. “I’m sure there was a compliment buried in there somewhere.”

She smiles, patting his knee. “I’m sure there was.”

When she leaves, he only wallows on the couch for another couple of minutes before pulling himself up and baking the scones, moping and pouting the whole time.

Instead of going back across the street, though, he chooses the coward’s route and retreats upstairs. Sitting on his porch, he sighs, wondering how long it’ll be before he lives this down.

Footsteps on his stairs make his head jerk up and, instead of the black dog, Derek appears at the top of the stairs. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He jerks his chin at the chair next to Stiles. “Can I join you?”

“Uh… sure.”

Derek looks around curiously, brushing his fingers over the edge of the seat and scuffing his feet as he sits. He looks like he wants to say something but he’s holding himself back.

“So what’s up?”

Derek blinks at him slowly. “Just thinking that I’ve never been up here on two legs before,” he explains softly.

Stiles stares at him, taking that in. “Y’know, I… should maybe be mad at you for not disclosing that you were a person under the fur, but, if I’m being completely honest,” he winces, “I may have hung out with you so that I could figure out your secret.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah, but not like in a bad way?” He waves that away. “Okay, even I hear how that sounds. What I mean is… I could tell there was something about you that was different. I just… didn’t know what it was.”

“And so you decided that being alone with the suspicious person was a wise decision?”

“Well, I didn’t think you were dangerous. Just…” he shrugs, “on the run, maybe. Like, witness protection or something.” He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Look, I know it was pretty dumb, I just, sometimes I get hyper focused on things and can’t let them go. You were a mystery I was trying to solve.”

Derek huffs a laugh. “Well, did you solve it?”

“Almost, but I… I have to ask.” He pauses, trying to phrase it the right way. “What are you guys? Like… you know what I mean.”

He nods. “Scott, Isaac, and I are werewolves. Lydia is a banshee.”

“That’s… interesting.”

“That’s it?”

“Forgive me if my reaction isn’t what you expected,” he drawls. “My former take on reality is kind of imploding a little.” He lets out a long breath. “Okay, so, you guys are werewolves. Why are you really back in town?”

“My mother told me that someone from the Hale pack is always supposed to live in Beacon Hills. There was one relative still living in town, a human pack member. Recently, she got married and moved to be with her spouse. My mom sent me and my pack to take her place.”

Stiles stares at him. “You’re being very forthcoming with information that seems pretty sensitive.”

“I guess,” Derek muses, “I feel like it’s okay if you know. I… I trust you.”

“Well that’s…” Stiles can feel his cheeks warming. “Um, thanks, I guess.”

“So, was that the only reason?”

“What?”

“That you hung out with me. Because you were trying to figure out the mystery?”

Stiles answers honestly. “Initially, yeah. I can’t lie that I’d like to get to know you, though, for real this time. Uh, if you’re… if you’re still interested.”

Derek studies him for a moment, then holds out his hand. “Derek Hale, Alpha werewolf, florist, still interested in you.”

Stiles smiles. “Stiles Stilinski, human, baker extraordinaire, amateur detective, oblivious idiot, definitely interested in you too. Would you like to go on a real date with me tomorrow?”