#blue-five

“He could make things puff with his hands!” Derek was later lead to know, for the hundredth something time.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t counting. He loved that his little girl was able to share everything she wanted with him and he was always going to make the most of what she wanted to give him.

They carried on talking about Mr. Stiles’ magic until it was time to have her bath. She mimicked the lights Mr. Stiles could make appear on his hands with the bubbles Derek made for her.

The next week was: “He healed Akanksha’s cut!” and the next was “He made the apple I gave him fly!” followed by “He wrote on the board with no hands! No hands, Daddy!” and so on so forth until Mr. Stiles was starting to sound like a mix of Derek’s favorite superheroes. Deadpool with a heavy hint of Miss Marvel.

Derek learns about Stiles just as much as he does about putting out a fire, or sitting long sleepless nights dreaming of fires past.

Stiles is a magician with a specialty in healing who pays often visits to Beacon Hills Elementary to teach kids first-aid.

And apparently, Derek later is told by his friend Isaac, other colorful skills they definitely won’t need. No one understands why the kids of BHE have grown the habit of pick pocketing candy from under the clueless noses of the adults to share with each other. Well, no one but, teacher Scott, who’s got a pretty good idea but thinks no harm no foul, and hey, the kids are learning to share!

Isaac and Scott (who’s a nice guy to be around of and surprisingly one of the few that can make Isaac blush visibly) get a kick out of it during one of their rare nights together, when Derek manages to get a sitter. Still, Mr. Stiles is nothing but a shared knowledge between them, as Derek’s not sure he’s ever seen him, but he’s starting to grow on Derek.

Just like a weed.

He doesn’t question it much.

∞゜∞・。∞。・゜∞゜・∞゜∞・。∞。・゜∞゜・∞゜∞・。∞。・゜∞゜・∞゜∞・。∞。・゜∞゜・∞゜∞・。∞

Being a fireman wasn’t easy.

Sure, nowadays they had more commodities. With magic making its way out to the public eye due to recent events, more and more jobs got a helping hand that didn’t necessarily took them out of business.

For Derek’s work, it meant Sprinklers (a word he still didn’t feel comfortable using, since it had been born as a derogatory term only to later be claimed back by the ones who had suffered through it. Derek hadn’t been one of them, since he had always been just a werewolf. No magic anywhere in his bones but the way they shifted to accommodate his wolf form), though he prefers the term Fluid Mages.

That’s what he finds when he arrives at the scene of his first fire for the day: a ready team of Fluid Mages, already in their complete red/orange uniforms. A couple of gray-clad others stand more to the right: mages meant to stand ready in case there are reports of a gas leak.

As soon as they turn on the hoses Derek feels in control. The mages get to work and with their directions, guide the water to every dangerous nook and cranny of the house. Suddenly the hoses stop.

“There’s someone inside.” A woman next to Derek says.

She’s wearing a hijab, slashed across with seven carefully painted yellow lines. Seven yellow lines. She’s a Seer.

Derek hears his boss call out to him even before he notices he’s moving. Danny’s going to chew his head off for this, but he doesn’t let that stop him.

He uses his nose as best as he can, though everything charred around him seems to smell the same, and it’s when he’s cursing the fact that he hadn’t even thought to bring his helmet (this is no unlike him, it’s unnerving) that he notices the faint blue light coming from a room. It’s not a lamp, it’s something else, something more. Derek ignores the fire around him and runs.

There’s a man crouched over a body. They’re both dressed like civilians, so Derek approaches them immediately. He leaps over a wooden plank that’s fallen off, smoke and fire and the smell of everything begging him to lose his orientation. But he won’t. He’s here and saving these people.

It’s not until he grabs the shoulder of the guy who’s crouching that the man seems to realize he’s there. His eyes glow a strong purple. Derek looks down to see his hands are covered in blue smoke, the source of the light, and that the person who’s on the floor (little girl not much older than his daughter), lying in a fetal position is expelling dark smoke from her mouth. This man’s a mage.

“She’s inhaled a lot!” The man screams at the same time Derek does “Outside!”

The man shakes his head and Derek feels his nostrils flare. Right next to them a loud crack sounds. Derek instinctively shields the two people with his body but it’s only the side-kitchen (or what Derek thinks might be a kitchen) falling apart. They don’t have much time, and he’s not patient enough anyways. He needs to get them out of here.

There’s a tug on his hair and the man raises himself enough to scream in his ear. He talks so fast Derek doesn’t even have time to tell him he can hear him just fine.

“I couldn’t pull it off!” He says and Derek’s confused for a second before he follows the man’s finger. He’s pointed at a beam which is currently pressing the girl’s entire leg to the floor. “Either the smoke in her lungs or the beam! I can’t do both!”

Derek nods and then uses his hand to gesture between them. Together, then, it says. Let’s do this, the man’s nod responds.

Derek moves to the beam. It’s heavy work, even for a werewolf like him, with experience and adrenaline under his belt, so he doesn’t understand how a Healer Mage could possibly even think of moving it without help but he doesn’t dwell on it.

Together, they get the girl free, though she’s now the only one not coughing with effort.

When she screams thanks to the weight standing up puts on her foot, Derek and the man exchange nods and move to each side of her.

Together, they move her through the smoke and fire and the chaos.

Then, just as they’re about to cross the threshold the entire thing starts to collapse.

“Go!” The man screams, letting go, and Derek doesn’t think, just does.

He gets the girls out of the house, through the front door, down the steps where there are already two more Healers waiting. They barely glance at Derek with words of thanks before whisking her out to their ambulance.

Derek turns around, ready to bolt for the house again, when he sees the man holding the support beams above his head.

Derek stops in his tracks. The blue light from the man’s fingers has now turned to purple, to match his eyes (that even from this distance Derek can see, can practically feel, they’re so charged) and the beads of sweat and dust on his forehead are visible even without Derek using his werewolf senses.

The man makes sure he’s out of reach when he drops the dome of purple light around him and lets the house fall down.

They’re both breathing heavily now, but when the guy turns around he gives Derek a bright, genuine smile.

He passes Derek by with a simple pat on the chest before he goes in the direction of the ambulances.

By the time Derek’s legs manage to walk him long enough to where the fire trucks are, Danny’s already ordering him to go check himself out on the ambulance and leave the job to the ones who value their own lives and don’t act like reckless fools. He gives Derek a reluctant one armed hug because of course he’s pissed but it’s Danny, and with Danny you’re still always family.

When Derek reaches one of the ambulances he sees the man from before sitting on the back of it. There’s a brunette there, with short cut hair, apparently giving him a piece of his mind.

“I would not be the one to carry your charred bones to Scott’s.” She says matter-of-factly.

“It’s alright, Mason would.” Derek thinks it’s supposed to be a joke but that doesn’t save the guy from getting smacked in the head.

The woman turns around and moves towards Derek.

“You look and smell even worse than him. Get in the ambulance.”

Derek looks at the man and thinks, I doubt it, though he is looking a little better for the wear now that all the black soot has been cleaned off his body. He’s only wearing a t-shirt and jeans. He ran into a burning building in a t-shirt and jeans. Jesus. At least Derek was in his full fireman gear.

“I got him, Malia.”

“Suit yourself, what do I care? I got more gravely injured people to heal.” Malia gestures at Derek to go and walks away but the gentle manner of how she pats the man’s cheek before she’s gone betrays her harsh words.

The guy gestures at Derek to sit down on the back of the ambulance. He doesn’t move when Derek sits right next to him, only angles his body so they’re facing each other.

“You can close your eyes, if you want. Some people find it icky.”

Icky? Derek starts to say but then there’s this…Electric current going through his body as the guy’s hands roam through his face, his body, his legs, slowly without touching but Derek swears he can feel them. He doesn’t even have it in him to say anything to stop it, even though he’s a werewolf and was already starting to feel the small burns heal.

He finds himself starting into purple eyes again and he’s almost saying something, anything when they startle him even more as they turn a deep amber color.

Derek honestly can’t pick between them.

“You’re not wearing a uniform.” He says when the man pats his leg, telling him he’s done.

It might sound like something he just blurted out but mostly he was actively looking for a name tag, some initials stitched, anything that would let Derek know this man’s name.

“Technically, I’m not on duty.” The guy answers, gesturing wildly at his simple clothing, not a Mage color in sight.

Derek nods.

“Should I do you too?” Technically-not-on-duty-but-still-got-myself-into-a-burning-building asks pointing at Derek’s chest.

Derek’s breath catches. “I– What?”

“Your lungs. I already got mine done while you guys finished up.”

“Oh. No.” Derek points a finger at himself while still marvelously multitasking and wondering at his eloquence “Werewolf.”

“Really?” The guy’s eyes mark a not so subtle highway through Derek’s entire body.

Weirdly, he doesn’t mind it much. Maybe it’s all the adrenaline talking. He can’t wait to get home to his daughter, right now. He always can’t wait, but in situations like this he feels it more strongly than ever.

The guy coughs and looks away. He tries to disguise it by summoning that blue light again, and playing with it between his fingers. Some of the cuts on his hands start healing. Derek worries a bit when he thinks about he could have licked them clean first.

He takes the opportunity to rank his eyes through the man’s body but the guy must have caught him looking because he says:

“Want me to draw in the air? Sometimes I can do that, if I concentrate enough.”

“I thought you were a Healer.” Derek said back, because he couldn’t exactly tell a guy he just met how enraptured he was by his hands, and the way his fingers disappeared over, under, around the blue light that has now also turned to blue smoke only to appear again and dance around it like a parade of Fae under the moonlight.

“I am many things. As are you, Derek Hale.”

Derek looks him in the eyes sharply but the man starts laughing and has to visibly stop to catch his breath before he points to Derek’s torso.

“It’s on your uniform,” He raises his hands like an apology and Derek tries not to linger on the thoughts of how warm his face feels when he sees his nametag firmly attached to his chest. If anyone asks about it, he just came out of a burning building with two people in tow.

“I’m not a psychic, though Lydia would kill me if I dared use that designation in front of her. The proper term is Seer, if you please.” He says in a mock tone, probably imitating this Lydia person. Derek wonders if he means Ms. Lydia Martin, who’s a sort of an international icon and frankly quite scary in all sorts of manners, but he doesn’t fetch how someone could refer to her so casually. “I just like to freak people out.”

“Is jumping into burning buildings and then staying behind a part of that entire M.O.?”

The guy shrugs and his hands stop flashing.

“I don’t really– I recognized her from Scott’s class, Mr.…. Hale.” The guy squints at his name tag for a while before he gasps “Wait, Hale? As in, Erica Hale?”

Derek’s about to ask how he knows this before he dedicates it a minute to put it all together.

“You’re Mr. Stiles.”

“Ugh, I always tell them to drop the mister. Makes me feel old. But, dude, your daughter is a piece of work. And I mean that in the best, most wonderful way possible. Some of her questions should be brought to the Chancellors because that’s the answers they should be looking for in that universe-scryingthing of theirs.”

A million answers pass through Derek’s mind: thank you, I knew I was blessed from the moment her big brown eyes settled on mine; it’s called Advanced Sinus Prospect, not universe-scrying; why have your eyes stopped glowing?; and many extras, except what comes out of his mouth is:

“Have dinner with us Friday? I’m sure she’d love to delight you with more of those.”

“With your daughter?” Stiles asks, but not unpleasantly. Most likely he’s just making sure. Shouldn’t Derek be too? “I love her, man, but are you sure?”

Derek nods and tries to be less obvious about how much he wants a yes “It’s just dinner. Worst case scenario she’ll grow tired of you sooner than me.”

Stiles grin widens brightly. Derek thinks it does more wonders to his face than his purple mesmerizing eyes did.

“You’re a bit of a pessimist, huh?”

“Prove me wrong?”

And oh, Stiles so does. Through a dozen shared meals, even more dates, through making his daughter laugh and run and scream excitedly so easily, through managing to make Derek smile! Laugh out loud in a way he hadn’t in a long while, through kisses and hugs and near-death scares that drive them both crazy but have worryingly started to feel like usual procedures and lead to them all spending the night cuddling, the three of them together on Erica’s big bed.