#cryptomoon

“What’s going on?” Stiles demanded. “What happened?”

His dad’s face sort of…twitched, mouth opening as if to respond, before he twisted his lips and grabbed a pen.

“Oh my god. Okay. Just—write it down and tell me—is it a cold, or some horrible injury? Did you sell your voice to a sea witch?”

John made a face at him and held up the paper he’d been writing on. ‘NOT A COLD. I CAN STILL TALK. MIGHT HAVE ENCOUNTERED A WITCH.’

“Well, good to know you write just like you text,” he muttered. “Okay, if you can still talk, why don’t you? And how do you know you encountered a witch?”

John sighed wearily, like these were unnecessary and inconvenient questions.

Stiles threw his hands up. “Okay, how?”

John turned his monitor around; he had the department security footage pulled up. The timestamp on the screen was from around 7 that morning. John was at a desk helping a woman with some paperwork, smiling as he spoke to her. Nothing unusual happened until she was leaving, when she shook his hand for a second too long and he flinched before she let go.

John tapped the desk, drawing Stiles’s attention to his newest note. ‘AFTER THAT, I TOOK A CALL AND THIS HAPPENED.’ He sighed heavily and lifted his office wastebasket.

It was brimming with flowers of all colors and types, some crushed, others whole.

“Uh…hang on.” Stiles frowned at the flowers. “Flowers appear when you talk?”

John grimaced, shook his head, and sighed again. “Not…exactly,” he said, fumbling over the lily that fell from his mouth. Something thunked heavily onto his desk with it. He lifted a small, red gem and showed Stiles.

Stiles’s jaw hung open like a broken hinge. “Uh, uh…okay. Wait, hang on, I need…backup…” Scott was out of town, Lydia was busy… He grimaced and poked his head out of John’s office. “Hey, Jordan could you get—buh!”

Derek crossed his arms, glowering at Stiles from beside the door.

“What, do you just eavesdrop everywhere?”

Derek’s eyes narrowed; he was somewhat rumpled, though he still wore that damn uniform well.

Ugh. “Fine, since you’re here anyway, I need your…help. Come on.”

Derek sighed through his nose and followed Stiles into the office.

Stiles flapped a hand back at Derek. “Show him the video, maybe we can find her with his-”

John was scribbling furiously before Stiles even finished speaking. ‘HE GAVE HER THE TICKET I WAS HELPING HER WITH.’

Stiles whipped around, but Derek was gaping, too. “How did you not know this?”

Derek shrugged, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“Okay, I don’t—I don’t understand, are you both cursed? I mean, why not curse the guy who gave you a ticket instead of the guy helping you with it?”

Derek looked at John sharply, brows furrowed.

John gestured limply at the flowers.

Derek frowned harder.

Stiles yanked at his hair. “I haven’t heard of this curse, what is it doing to you? Oh, god, what if it-”

“He isn’t cursed,” Derek said suddenly, “I am.” As he spoke, no less than three lizards tumbled from his mouth. He caught them before they hit the ground, clutching them in folded fingers.

Stiles dropped his hands as a memory stirred from the deep recesses of his brain, the pieces slotting together like a puzzle. He felt his mouth twitch, fought it, and ultimately lost. He laughed his ass off. “Oh my god,” he gasped. “Derek, you were so rude to a witch that she gave you the curse of Toads.” He snickered and looked at John. “And you were apparently so nice she gave you the opposite. It’s a fairy tale curse,” he said, voice trembling. “Dad, you’re the Nice Daughter,” he giggled.

One of the lizards escaped Derek’s grasp and Stiles started laughing again.

“If you don’t stop,” Derek snarled, spewing frogs, “I swear, I’m going to-” He hiccupped out a python and fell silent.

“This is no laughing matter,” John tried, nuggets of gold and silver scattering over his desk. “We can’t exactly wander around like this.” Emeralds, sapphires, and roses dropped into the pile of gold and silver. “I don’t know enough ASL to get by for long.”

Stiles wiped his eyes. “Fine, fine, don’t get all worked up.” He bit his lip to keep from laughing again; the office was filled with flowers and lizards, gems and frogs. It was amazing. “Just…don’t talk. Give me the witch’s info so I can try to figure out how to break this curse.”

John wrote, ‘TAKE DEREK WITH YOU.’

“I got it, I don’t need help.”

Derek snorted.

Stiles glared at him. “Hey, she cursed you. I doubt seeing you is going to give her the warm and fuzzies.”

Derek lifted a brow and smirked, wide and arrogant.

Unimpressed, Stiles drawled, “I said warm and fuzzies, not hot and gooeys. She clearly doesn’t like you. If I take you with, she’ll probably make your curse worse or get pissed off.”

John dropped his head in his hands.

“I am coming with you,” Derek growled, enunciating carefully. Snakes slipped from his mouth.

“Fine, fine, just—stop.” Stiles looked around. “Uh, let’s, um, go get the witch’s address. You have that from her license, right?”

Derek nodded, so Stiles hustled him out.

“Hey, what about these-” John coughed, and something thumped heavily.

“I’m sure animal control can help, Dad, good luck!” He shoved at Derek’s shoulder to get him moving faster.

Darian Vanderpo, the witch, lived in one of the nicer suburbs in Beacon Hills and drove a red sports car.

Stiles tsked lightly. “I’m guessing she was going about eighty in a forty?”

Derek nodded seriously.

“And then, while giving her the ticket, you were lecturing her about the dangers of hurtling around in a three thousand pound hunk of metal and gasoline?”

He nodded again. “Road safety isn’t a joke!” he snapped, and two lizards scampered free.

Stiles snorted. “That’s so funny coming from you. Catch them,” he added, pointing at the lizards. “I’ll be right back.”

“Stiles-!”

He jumped out, slamming the door on Derek’s swearing. He fully expected the witch to dramatically sense him and appear on the front porch or something, so when he made it to the door unimpeded, he was a little surprised, unsure. He knocked, because what else was he supposed to do?

“Ugh, what?” The door swung open, revealing a glowering woman with a robe on, her nose red and chafed, eyes watering.

“Uh…” Stiles glanced back and swore when he saw Derek coming. “You—you cursed my, er, friend. You need to undo it.”

She stalked toward him.

He narrowed his eyes, ready to meet her nose to nose, and was thrown unceremoniously to the yard.

“I don’t have to do shit. Get off my lawn.”

Derek helped Stiles to his feet, fangs bared.

Stiles glared at her. “You can’t just go around cursing people because you’re mad you didn’t get your way.”

“Why not?” She grinned and lifted a hand.

Derek shoved Stiles out of the way, knocking him into the grass again, and braced his legs.

Darian pursed her lips, gaze flicking between them. She rolled her eyes and pulled a tissue out of her pocket, wiping her nose. “Ugh, whatever. If you bring me the ingredients for the counter curse, I’ll break it.”

Stiles got up, carefully testing his bruised hip before putting weight on it. He shot Derek a dark look. “What are they?”

“Just three things.” She fluttered the fingers of her free hand; a rolled up piece of paper dropped into her palm. “Here. Bring these to me, and I’ll break the curse.”

Derek took a step, but she backed away, glaring.

Stiles took it from her. “On my dad, too?”

Her brows furrowed. “Your dad?”

Fuck. “The sheriff.”

Her face cleared. “That isn’t a curse. It’s a blessing.”

“Uh-huh…”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, that, too. But I’m insulted.” She stomped back to her house. At the slam of her door, Stiles found himself in the jeep, seated in the driver’s seat clutching the paper she’d given them, as if he’d never gotten out.

Derek was in the backseat, strapped in with three seatbelts. “Shut up,” he muttered when Stiles laughed at him. A frog landed in his lap.

Stiles texted John that he and Derek were handling it and drove back to his place. He was dying to read the ingredients, but he had a feeling Darian wasn’t the most patient of witches, and she’d made it pretty clear that she wanted them away from her.

Stiles shooed Derek to the couch. “Stay there, don’t talk, I’ll be three seconds.” He ran to the bathroom for the mop bucket he kept with his cleaning supplies, and thrust it against Derek’s chest. “There. Keep your critters contained.”

“Thanks,” he muttered.

Stiles unrolled the paper and started reading. “‘Bathe in living water, and once cleansed, collect Nerites’ shield. Dry it out in the light of the moon.’” He looked up, frowning, but Derek gestured impatiently for him to go on. He rolled his eyes and looked back at the paper. “I can’t read the rest.” He tilted the page, squinting.

Derek snatched the paper out of his hands. Instead of trying to read it, he lifted it to his face. He scoffed and thrust it back at Stiles. “She spelled it. We probably have to complete the first thing before we can read the rest.” He caught a toad before it could escape the bucket.

“Great. What the fuck is Nerites’ shield?” He pulled out his phone and leaned against the side of the couch, tapping quickly. “He’s a shellfish,” he muttered. “That’d have to be abalone, wouldn’t it?”

Derek blinked at him, then smirked. “I forgot how quick you are at that.” He grimaced deeply as more frogs came loose.

“Uh-huh. Here’s hoping that’s actually what she meant. Let me go get you some water.” Stiles left the room at a quick clip, filling a cup at the dispenser, and fortifying himself. “Okay, frog mouth, let’s get to work.”

Derek glared at him.

“What? We’ve got to go to the ocean, get a shell, and dry it out in the light of the moon. So we have to get it before dark,” he explained slowly, annoyed. “So it can dry all night.”

“Oh. Alright.” The lizard that scampered out with those words had blood on it this time.

Stiles caught it. “Did you bite him?” he demanded, but it didn’t have any visible injuries.

Derek shook his head, looking puzzled.

Stiles released it into the bucket. “Come on,” he said slowly. “We should go so we have time.” He updated John and checked that he was doing okay before they hit the road.

They swung by Derek’s apartment so he could change, then headed out of town with towels, the paper, and Derek’s newly emptied bucket.

The beach was fairly empty when they arrived—considering it was December and about 53 degrees, this wasn’t that surprising.

“This is going to suck,” Stiles muttered as they walked out into the sand.

Derek shook his head. “I’ll get in the water. You’ll freeze,” he added.

“I can handle it. Besides, I think I’m supposed to do it. She wouldn’t let you take it, remember?”

“She doesn’t like me, and I’m a werewolf she just cursed. She was probably worried I’d rip her throat out.”

“Well…”

He glowered.

Stiles patted his shoulder. “You stay up here so you can warm me up when I get out, lizard lips.”

“I hope you step on seaweed,” Derek hissed.

Stiles laughed as he yanked his shoes off. “Well, you’ll certainly know if I do. The code word will be, “Argh!” and I will levitate.” He tossed his shirt on his socks and shoes, followed by his jeans. “Oh, god, this is going to suck.” He sucked in a huge breath, embraced the goosebumps all over his body, and ran. “Oh, holy motherfucking balls,” he cursed as he hit the water, but he didn’t let himself stop. “Dear purple licking son of a bitching hag, oh my god, I hope she suffocates on her own snot.” He got in up to his ribs and dunked himself under, then looked back at the shore. Derek was bent over his knees, laughing and just pouring reptiles and toads from his face.

“Dick!” Stiles shouted. He was shivering so hard, his jaw didn’t want to open, so he took the opportunity to wonder how long he had to stay in the water. The paper had just said “bathe”. He halfheartedly went under again, longer so that his hair was fully saturated, then bounced back up. He shuddered, swearing, and wiped water out of his eyes. Now he just had to miraculously find an abalone shell. Sure. Did it need to be whole? There were plenty of fractured ones around.

He spent three minutes searching, then started back to shore. “I’ll t-try again later, I’m too c-cold. I have to—ow!” He’d stepped on something. Without pausing to think, he curled his toes around it and lifted it to his pruned, half-frozen hands. “Yes!”

On shore, Derek grabbed a towel and ran for the water. He met Stiles in the shallows, wrapping him up tight in a warm towel.

“How’d you keep it so warm?” he wondered dazedly, letting Derek usher him to the jeep.

“I put it under my shirt.” He shoved Stiles into the jeep and cranked the heat.

Stiles used the edge of the towel to wipe his eyes. “I got the shell, go get the paper.” He sniffled. “I can’t believe how easily I found that shell, that was awesome.”

Derek just nodded. He flipped another towel over Stiles’s head, scrubbing over his hair for a second before grabbing the paper and unrolling it. “Says-”

A frog landed on Stiles’s lap, making him flinch. “Dude! Where’s your bucket?”

He grimaced and backed away, holding the instructions out to him.

Stiles took the paper between two fingers. “‘Burn jasmine, bay, and wintergreen, waft in circular motions, and put ashes into moon-dried shell.’ So we have to wait until after it’s dry.”

Derek held his hands up near his mouth. “We could go get the herbs we need now so when we can use them, we have them.” He dumped all of the critters into the bucket at his feet.

Stiles nodded. “Let me get dressed, there’s one of those new age-y incense shops up the road, next to that gas station that should have all of those.” He squeezed the towel tighter around himself for a moment before throwing it off.

They decided to stay near the beach, just in case the third set of instructions required anything nearby. They put the shell on the hood of the jeep and Derek made an illegal campfire for them to keep warm as it got dark. This left them in awkward silence, eating from family sized bags of Doritos and fending off the seagulls brave enough to try to take Derek’s food.

Stiles wasted time texting John an update, filling Scott in, and browsing social media, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t multitask, and it was awkward just sitting there. “So…how’re things as a deputy?”

Derek lifted his brows.

Stiles shrugged. “It’s just weird, seeing you with a real, actual job, let alone as law enforcement.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

“You didn't exactly make a good first impression, you set the bar pretty low.”

“While you decided to throw the whole bar out.”

Stiles sneered at him. “Can’t fail to meet expectations if there aren’t any.”

Derek laughed. “Don’t be stupid, you don’t fail at anything.” He turned away swiftly, flicking a Dorito at a seagull.

Stiles looked down, smiling to himself.

They took turns napping in the jeep until, while Derek was sleeping, dawn began to creep up on them. Stiles figured he’d leave Derek to sleep while he was burning them and grabbed the herbs. He’d bundled them together after they’d bought them, so he just snatched the lighter he kept in his duffle and crept away from the jeep. He glanced back, but Derek was still asleep in the passenger seat, head tipped against the glass, fogging up the window.

Stiles lit the bundle and grabbed the shell. He flipped it over so the cupped part was facing upwards and began wafting. They didn’t burn as quickly as he’d expected, a slow smolder with lots of smoke, which made it easy for him to follow the circles with the shell, catching the ashes as he went.

They were half burned when Derek lurched out of the jeeps, boots sliding in the sand, and caught Stiles around the waist, yanking him off balance and burning the tips of his fingers.

“Hey, quit it!” He managed to keep from spilling the ashes by planting his feet. “What’re you doing? Stop!”

Derek let go, panting, and stepped around in front of him. He glanced at the burning herbs in his hand. “What the hell, Stiles,” he snapped.

“Excuse me, did you want to keep spitting up pythons for the rest of your life?”

His nose twitched, but he didn’t respond.

Stiles looked at the smoldering herbs in his hand, burning toward his already overheated fingertips. “Oh. Sorry. I thought you’d sleep through it.” He avoided Derek’s gaze by focusing on wafting the smoke in circles.

Derek muttered something and stalked away.

Stiles tapped the last of the ashes into the shell and leaned into the jeep to put it in a cup holder so they wouldn’t blow away. He caught up to Derek by the water, shoving his hands deep into his hoodie pockets. “Hey, I’m sorry. I thought I could get it done before you woke up.”

Derek shook his head. “Thanks. I was confused,” he added defensively, and a lizard fell from his mouth. They watched it scamper over his boot and then out of sight. “That’s all.”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, totally. You were sleeping, couldn’t have known.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Let’s go get that third ingredient so you can throw away your promising future career of providing the entire reptilian cast for Snakes on a Plane 2.”

Derek kicked water at him, making him howl with fury, and raced him back to the jeep.

The paper was stashed in the middle console, rolled up around a pen. Stiles glanced over it and grunted.

“What?” Derek caught the frog before it could hit the ground.

“‘River clay mixed with the blood of the gatherer. Mix with the ashes and put all in the shell.’ Ugh, I knew I was gonna have to do something gross for this.”

“Why you?” Derek snapped.

“Blood of the gatherer, dude. I got the shell, I bought the herbs—and I’ll definitely be getting the river clay.” He glowered at the instructions. “Gross. At least it probably doesn’t need much blood.”

“No,” Derek muttered, “wouldn’t want that.” He sputtered slightly over a little green snakes with red spatters all over it.

Stiles stiffened, eyeing it while Derek didn’t seem to notice or care. “Just…get your phone and find us a river, dude.” He shook his head and went to his side of the car. He leaned against the door to check on John, paranoid that he, too, was spitting up blood.

John merely sent a photo of his desk, which was piled with gems of various colors and sizes, gold, silver, and flowers.

‘Congrats,’ Stiles responded, ‘you can retire now.’

John didn’t find that very funny.

“Found one,” Derek called. “Turning on the-” he coughed- “GPS.”

Stiles glanced at him through the windows and wondered if he suspected what Stiles suspected—that the curse was doing more harm than just inconveniencing him.

The river was off some obscure hiking trail and was very small, but it was in fact marked “Forthead River” so he guessed it counted. He gathered the clay into an empty cup he’d had in the backseat.

The shell wouldn’t hold nearly that much, but he figured having extra wouldn’t hurt, just in case they messed up. Then came the real problem.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “So it’s okay for you to ask me to cut your arm off, but I can’t ask you to cut my arm a little?”

Derek glared. “Would you let that go? And it’s different.”

“How? Because it isn’t you?”

“You’re human,” he said, spitting a frog out without even flinching, which was frankly impressive. “I’m not asking you to bleed for me, and I’m certainly not cutting you.”

“One, I’ve bled for you before, and worse, and two, you’re being unreasonable.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t have anything sharp enough to draw blood and you know how I feel about blood, so you’re—you’re being—mean!”

Derek’s jaw dropped. “Mean? Are you in third grade?”

“Yep. You’re being mean.” Stiles pointed at the reptiles and frogs at their feet. “Now, do you want to stop that or not?” He walked back to the jeep before Derek could answer. “I have bandages and peroxide, we’ll be fine.” He smiled when he heard Derek following him.

“How much do we need?” he muttered while Stiles was digging through his bag for the bandages.

“Uhh, we’ll go with enough to mix with a bit of the clay.” Stiles shrugged. “I don’t know how witchcraft works.”

“Uh-huh.”

Stiles took his top two layers off and rolled his sleeve up. “Okay, I have another cup here-”

“Why?”

“-because I’m prepared for everything, so we’ll try to get the blood in that, add a little bit of the clay at a time, and see what happens.” He moved so he was sitting in the jeep and held his arm out. “Okay. Hit me with your best shot.”

Derek made a disgusted face at him.

Stiles shrugged. “What? I’m nervous. I could just swoon if you’d prefer.”

He just rolled his eyes and took Stiles’s arm, turning it gently as he chose a spot.

Stiles averted his gaze. “Um, so, make it, y’know, deep enough to bleed, so we only have to go once. But, obviously, not deep enough that I’ll need stitches,” he squeaked.

Derek muttered something, and sharp pain lit up Stiles’s arm just a second before numbness spread. “Sorry, I tried to do it at the same time.” His thumb pressed gently into the bend of Stiles’s elbow, rubbing. “Gonna need the cup.”

Stiles passed it over without looking. The only thing worse than blood was his own blood. He felt Derek pressing and prodding at the cut to coax more blood free and hoped they wouldn’t need to make another cut.

“I think that’s enough,” Derek said in a strangled voice. He set the cup beside the tire and turned around to cough out two snakes. They were both bloodied.

Stiles grimaced and turned his attention to cleaning and covering the cut on his arm. It was smaller than he’d been expecting, stirring concern that it wasn’t enough to make the spell work. He grabbed the cup of clay and a butter knife, hopping out to combine and stir.

Only a little would fit in the shell, even tightly packed, so they’d certainly gotten enough blood. Stiles wrinkled his nose as he studied the poor shell. “Ugh, I hope she’s not gonna make you eat this or anything.”

“Gross.” Derek looked at the shell cupped in Stiles’s palm and grimaced.

“At least you won’t be spitting up Kermit every time you speak anymore,” Stiles pointed out. “Not that you talk that much anyway.”

“Who can get a word in edgewise when you’re around?”

“I let people speak when they have something worthwhile to say, and since you’re currently spewing snakes like the Chamber of Secrets, well…”

“There was only one snake in the Chamber of Secrets,” Derek said after a second.

“Yeah, that wasn’t my best work.” Stiles jerked his shoulder. “Come on, I need some coffee so I can insult you properly.”

They were halfway to town when Derek said, “Thank you.”

Stiles glanced at him. “For what? You bought the coffee.”

“For helping me.”

“Only the best for the fine deputies of Beacon County,” Stiles said lightly.

“Are you a faerie?” Derek blurted.

Stiles frowned. “Uh—what? In what context?”

“Fey. The Fair Folk. Because you have this maddening habit of just never accepting thanks and I’d like to know if you have fey magic before I strangle you.”

After a few long moments of silence, Stiles said, “You’re welcome,” as casually as he could.

They both started laughing hard enough that he had to pull over for a minute.

John looked dubious when they met outside of Darian’s house. “You two look like you’re in good spirits.” He had a bucket of his own to catch the flowers and gems he was dropping.

“Just ridiculously tired,” Stiles chirped.

“And caffeinated.”

John shook his head and shrugged, waiting beside the jeep as they climbed out.

Stiles took his duffle bag up with him to ring the bell, since he wasn’t sure how she would react this time. John and Derek stood to his right, tense.

Darian looked like she was still sick; she bared her teeth when she saw them. “What?” she croaked.

Stiles held the shell out to her. “I got everything you asked for.”

“What?” she snapped.

“For breaking my friend’s curse,” he said through his teeth. “You said if we got this stuff, you’d-”

“Right.” She snatched the shell, looking shifty, and set it on something out of sight next to the door. She frowned, shooting Derek a disgusted look. “All you had to do was kiss, you morons.”

Derek and John looked at each other with open horror.

Stiles felt revulsion run so deeply through him that he couldn’t do more than wheeze.

“Goddess,” Darian muttered. “Not him, the other one.” She rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. “There. Curse gone.” She turned her head away to cough violently into her elbow.

“Is mine gone, too—Well,” John said, looking pleased, “guess that answers that. Thanks.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Derek?”

“I think I’m good,” he said, unimpeded by reptiles. He looked puzzled, staring at Darian.

“You didn’t actually need any of that stuff, did you?” Stiles growled.

Darian shot him a flat look. “For that curse? No.” She scoffed. “What kind of witch do you think I am that I can’t break a curse I cast without tools?” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her balled up tissues, then looked over at Derek. “You. You’re incredibly rude and apparently pretty dense.”

“Hey,” Stiles snapped, “you’re the one cursing people because you have a cold.”

John shifted his feet awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure if he should try to diffuse the situation or not.

Darian studied Stiles, then stepped over to Derek, lifting a finger and pointing at him like a scolding teacher. “People don’t wade into the ocean in December, hold fire, and bleed for just anybody. Get it together.”

Stiles darted a quick, nervous look at him, and winced when he saw the blank expression on his face; his cheeks had reddened, eyebrows had drawn down, but that was it. He swallowed.

Darian hmphed and stalked back to the door.

Stiles said, “Wait!” without thinking it through. When she turned toward him, he dug the cold/flu meds out of his duffle bag. “Here. Thanks.” He shoved it into her hands.

She looked at the box, frowning, so they all made a quick retreat while she was distracted.

“Well,” Stiles said cheerily at the cars. “That was awesome, glad it’s done. Dad, you can drive Derek, right? Great!” He jumped in the jeep and drove off before they could answer.

Unfortunately, recently cursed or not, Derek was still a werewolf, and beat Stiles to his apartment. He was sitting outside when Stiles got there. “I told your dad that I didn’t need a ride,” he said casually.

“I guess,” Stiles muttered. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, rubbed a hand over his head, and sighed irritably. “What?”

“What?” Derek repeated.

“What do you want? You’re just…sitting there.”

Derek stood.

“Not what I meant, asshole.” He scuffed his shoe, then shrugged and decided to bluff his way through the awkwardness. “Whatever, I’m starving, do what you want.” He unlocked his door with stiff, uncomfortable movements, acutely aware of how close Derek was standing. Fucking witches.

Predictably, Derek followed him inside. “I just wanted to talk to you,” he said once the door was shut.

Stiles spun around to face him with a wide, almost manic grin. “Okay. You’re talking. What’s up?”

“About what the witch said,” he said slowly.

“Oh, the ‘get it together’ thing? I don’t know, man, I think she was wrong, I mean, you’ve got a job and an apartment with an entire roof now, I think you’ve got it together.”

“Stiles-” He stepped toward him.

Stiles threw his hands up. “She wasn’t wrong,” he said, “I’m your friend and I’d do anything for my friends. Okay?” His voice sounded light to the point of fragile, even to him. Why’d she have to do that? he thought desperately. We were fine. They only saw each other rarely, and Stiles was happy in his bubble of denial, and then he’d helped someone out and here he was, having a crisis over feelings? Over Derek? He wished he could curse her.

“Okay,” Derek said gently. “Do you want me to go?”

Stiles started to say yes—too much to risk right now, there was a lot happening—when he noticed, on the table by the door where he kept his keys, the damn shell, still filled with clay and ashes and Stiles’s own blood, which he’d let Derek draw. “No,” he said, “you could stay for dinner.”

Pairings: Dean/Cas (minor Cesar Cuevas/Jesse Cuevas, minor Charlie Bradbury/Rowena MacLeod, implied future Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester) Warnings: Canon-typical violence

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Dean rumbles, mirth in his tone. Castiel lurches as Dean yanks the door he’s leaning against open, his body sliding towards the ground before he can stop it. Dean's there, though, hand on Castiel's shoulder to keep him from tumbling to the cracked pavement.

“What are you doing?” Castiel asks, voice deep like thunder until he clears his throat. “Why would you do that?”

Dean smirks. “Found a place the princess deems acceptable.”

“Shove it, Dean” Sam’s voice calls from somewhere by the trunk.

Castiel nods and licks his lips, accepting Dean’s hand when he extends it to help Castiel out of the back seat. He takes a moment to stretch, flexing his fingers and arching his back until it pops and he sags back in on himself with a sigh. “Where are we?”

Dean tosses him his duffle. “‘Bout four hours outside of Tulsa.”

“You drove all night?” Castiel’s brows rise. “Why?”

They are standing in the parking lot of another motel. It’s always another motel, and if it’s not, its the backseat of the Impala. Now that there are three of them, that's not an option anymore, so they stick to motels. This motel appears, at least, to be without a theme, though it’s many decades out of date, which isn’t unusual for them.

Dean shrugs in response to Castiel’s question, the: ‘cause it’s what they do, they’re hunters', goes unsaid. They move around the country, drive all night, face one close call after another until the call is too close and they end up another John Doe in the paper mauled by a mountain lion or eaten by a bear. No one believes that werewolves or wendigos are real, anyway.

Castiel falls into step with Sam as the trio approach the reception desk. His eyes stray to the bulletin board as Dean flirts with the middle-aged woman behind the counter.

“What is a... swap... meet… ?” Castiel asks, his eyes drawn to a little orange flyer.

Sam slides up next to him and reads over the advert. “Huh. It's kind of like a yard sale, or... um...”  he’s obviously struggling, his eyebrows furrowed, lips pinched. Castiel patiently waits for Sam to find a suitable analogy to make him understand.

“You know what? Why don’t we go check it out? I can take you down; it's a good place to pick up some cheap supplies. We could all use some new shirts…” He spares a glance at Dean, who obviously cleaned up a bit during the drive last night but still has dark green stains along the back of his jeans and behind his ears. “It will be a good experience.”

That is something Sam’s been saying a lot recently. It will be a good experience . Since Castiel fell, since he became the hollow shell of what he once was, Sam has been trying to fill the void with distraction. Dean, on the other hand, seems resolutely determined to ignore the fact that Castiel is different now. Though Dean always seems to be close by, hovering on the edges of Castiel's awareness. It would be endearing if it weren’t so annoying like he’s just waiting for Castiel to fuck up… again . Not that Castiel could blame him really, he’s been fucking up pretty badly for a long time now.

“Hey,” Sam says softly, his face morphing in concern. “We don’t have to go…”

Sometimes Castiel forgets that his face shows more emotion now that he's human. That whatever he’s thinking no longer has the buffer of his grace to soften it before it’s written into his expression. Now they are one and the same.

“I’m not going,” Dean says before Castiel can respond. He pushes the spare room key and the keys to the Impala into Sam’s chest. “You two lovebirds can do whatever you want. All I want is a nice hot shower and my four fucking hours.”

“Dean…” Sam hisses scolding his brother for what Castiel assumes is Dean’s apparent lack of concern for his feelings. He can’t help but roll his eyes. He might be (mostly) human now, but that doesn’t mean he needs Sam acting like he’s going to break from getting his feelings hurt. He’s not fucking fragile. Well, maybe his body is fragile now, but Dean’s ordinarily crass attitude is something he’s used to. It’s a constant, and sometimes it even makes him feel like he’s still his old useful self.

“Fine,” Castiel says, handing his bag off to Dean, who takes it without complaint.

“Bring back food.” Dean calls over his shoulder as he juggles the bags, “... and pie!”

It turns out that Cas loves the swap meet. He points at random everyday objects with a contained sort of speculative wonder. He spends over twenty minutes at a table full of snow globes and old tea sets. Once Sam’s able to drag Cas away from examining a blender made in the sixties he manages to get a few gently used Carharts from a hunter who’s arthritis is keeping him out of the cold. Sam encourages Cas to try on a pair of hiking boots, and they hit a gold mine at a table run by an elderly woman whose kids have long since moved away. Apparently, her sons went through a ‘hipster phase’ because they find a bunch of henleys, flannels, and a few pairs of jeans in both Dean and Cas size. Cas nabs a pair of running sneakers and Sam spends a few minutes looking through a stack of old musty books.

“Oh my, yes.” The elder woman says with a smile. “Jimmy loved that silly thing.”

Sam’s looks around in time to see Cas’s head snap up. “Jimmy?”

“Mmm, my son,” the woman hums softly, shuffling over to where Cas is standing. “It's an instant camera. A Polaroid.” Gently she takes the gray and black box from Cas’ hands and shows him how to use it, the rainbow neck strap hanging limply from its hinges. “Have you not seen one of these, deary?”

“No…” Cas replies, his voice a deep rumble that Sam recognizes by this point as him feeling emotional. Sam knows he’ll be getting Jimmy’s camera for Cas. Selecting one of the books from her table at random, Sam moves to stand next to Cas.

“Here, smile!” The woman says, lifting the camera to her eye and snapping a photo. The old device whirrs and whines as it prints. She deftly plucks the picture from the mouth of the camera and gives it a little shake. Cas takes the photo with both hands when she offers it over to him, his mouth parting in wonder as the image develops before his eyes. And like a child, his head snaps up to Sam’s, eyes shining with the silent question.

“How much?” Sam asks with a small indulgent smile as Cas’ head swings back to the old woman. Sam knows Cas is giving her the puppy dog look he’s been accidentally perfecting on Dean since he fell. The old woman smiles at Cas, the lines around her eyes deepening.

“You know what. Ten dollars and I’ll throw in the box of film I’ve got around here somewhere.” She shuffles off, shifting around a few boxes until she comes back with a small retro style suitcase, it’s got all sorts of stickers across the top and the name Jimmy in faded black print along the bottom right corner. “I hate to see it go, but I think…” she slides the case across the folding table “it’s going to a good home.”

“Indeed” Cas agrees, and he shares one of his rare gummy smiles with the elderly woman. Even Sam feels the warmth radiating from the fallen angel. It’s the little things, he thinks, the small experiences that make being human worth it .

On the way back to the motel, packages in hand, Cas sits in the front seat the camera carefully draped around his neck by the rainbow striped strap and clicks open the buttons on the little suitcase. Even Sam is surprised at how well this mysterious Jimmy ket his things organized. The instruction book is in there, along with what appears to be two dozen unopened boxes of film and a small red photo album explicitly designed to hold Polaroids. Inside is a photo of the elderly woman looking much younger smiling up at the camera, a son on either side of her. They seem happy. Sam watches Cas trace his fingers over the image before returning it to the front slot of the photo album. He flips the page and adds the photo of he and Sam smiling in the old church parking lot among the piles of stuff at the swap meet.

Cas picks up the instruction book humming as he reads it all the way up to the motel door. Sam unlocks it, juggling the bags from the swap meet and sees Dean passed out on one of the two queen beds. “Shh,” he hushes over his shoulder, stepping into the room with Cas on his heels.

He’s setting down all the packages, sorting out things to wash when the absence of movement draws his attention. Cas is standing just a few paces from the door, frozen like a statue, his lips parted slightly, eyes wide and focused on Dean.

His brother is sleeping belly down on the bed in just a t-shirt and a faded pair of boxer briefs. It’s a sight Sam’s seen a lot in their life of motel hopping. It must still be fairly new for Cas though, because he slowly lifts the camera to his face, hesitates for the breadth of a heartbeat, and snaps a photo. The sound of the camera working is loud in the quiet room, and Dean flinches, his whole body reacting. His hand snaps out from under his pillow; a gun pointed directly at Cas. Sam watches the former angel shift back slightly the camera dropping from in front of his face.

“Sonnova… Cas, what the hell man!” Dean snaps dropping his head back onto the pillow with a low groan. He takes stock of the situation half of his face still pressed into the pillow, and his one-eyed gaze falls with accusation on Sam. “Why did you buy him a fucking camera, Sam,” he says, arching a brow.

Sam shrugs, a smile spreading across his lips “I dunno, but I feel like it’s going to be a good investment.”

Dean chucks the pillow at Sam’s head.