#He wakes her up in the morning with Sunfish

[softquietsteadylove]

Dear!

The Mermaid AU is absolutely amazing! Can you write some cute fluff? Maybe Gil is cooking for Thena while she's examining his house further and asking questions about all of his stuff.

🖤✨ Hugs and much love!! ✨🖤

Gil turned down the stove burner with their seafood chowder to let it simmer. Cliche or not, Thena really did like any recipe he had with any form of sea life in it. Even just seaweed soup seemed to whet her appetite.

He kept one ear trained on the living room while he was cooking. Thena had fallen asleep on his shoulder on the boat ride home, leaving him to carry her inside. He had initially thought about putting her in his bed, but he wanted her a little closer. He wanted to know a little more certainly that she really was safe here, with him.

She had been strung up in a net just a few hours ago, after all.

He had gotten her to the couch, pulled his shirt on over her head for when she split her tail later on, laid a blanket over her. Her skin still had red marks on it from where she had been thrashing against the net's hold, but he assumed she would heal those up for herself.

He still wasn't sure if it was the right move to keep her on land with him, but he had to admit that it pleased the more selfish part of him--the part that wanted to keep her close so he could protect her. If the only ways to protect her were to keep her with him or send her away, he definitely had a preference between them, even if he still believed that the other method would have been just as effective.

Gil chopped up the celery, the last vegetable he was adding, hoping it would stay a little crunchy while absorbing the creamy soup. Thena was fascinated by plenty, but especially loved crunchy foods. She said she had always wondered what it would be like to take a bite of coral - like a parrotfish - and that this was much better.

He blinked as a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. "You a Cuddlefish, now?"

Thena pressed her face further into his back.

"Hey," he whispered, raising his arms up to try and turn around in her tight embrace. He manged it somehow, bringing his arms around her delicate waist. "You okay?"

"I'm sorry," she all but whimpered into his shirt miserably. "What if that man comes after you?"

"It's okay," Gil assured as best he could, rubbing his hand over her arm. "As long as you're safe, that's all that matters to me."

Thena just sighed, still clinging to him, as he found she was rather prone to do whenever she had her legs on. "What are you making?"

"Chowder--it's a creamy soup, and I added lots of fish for you," he smiled. She was still burrowed into the front of him, but he couldn't imagine how much she was reeling from being caught like that...no pun intended. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded. "They offered me some fish, but..."

Of course she hadn't wanted to eat in front of her captors. Gil kissed the top of her head, "do you want a little snack while this finishes?"

She finally pulled her head up to peek at him.

"I got more of those dried sardines," he drawled, attempting to tease a smile out of her. He had discovered that she loved the dried little fishes that crumbled to the touch. Maybe they were like a bag of chips, or popcorn to her.

Thena finally managed a smile, small and fragile, but real. He could practically imagine her tail wiggling in delight. "You did?"

"Just for you," he promised, tapping her nose as she released him to hunt for her new favourite snack food. "Cupboard?"

Thena looked around herself for a second before reaching out and just barely pressing her finger to one of the many small doors lining the kitchen.

"Good, top and on the right," Gil nodded. He was all too happy to encourage her exploration of his home--a human home.

Thena moved her hand from the bottom cabinet to one of the ones above the counter. She pressed her fingertips to each door one at a time, until she was at the end. She looked at him, and after receiving a nod, she opened it delicately.

The first one she had ever tried she had ripped right off its hinges, assuming it would have some resistance to it. She had apologised in a panic but Gil let her watch him screw it right back on with a spare hinge--no harm done. She liked watching him use tools.

Thena pulled out the crinkling bag of little fish with a bright grin, showing off her fangs. She ripped it open, inhaling like someone might with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Gil was enchanted by just the sight of her.

She closed the cupboard door again and came back over to him, looking infinitely more comfortable with her hand wrist deep in the bag, shovelling sardines into her mouth. "What is that?"

"Hm?" Gil looked around him, moving his hand slowly until he could find what exactly she was asking about. "The stove?"

She nodded.

"Hm," Gil paused; how to explain the entirety of an oven. "Well, most houses have them now. They used to just be a metal shell you could build a fire in. But now we can use electricity and gasoline to make much smaller, more controlled fires so we can cook with them."

"You like cooking," she surmised as she took a seat at the table, her favourite spot from which she could watch him work. "You're good at it."

Gil shrugged with some modesty, not that it mattered to the woman who was used to snatching fish as she swam alongside them and tearing into them raw. "I've always liked cooking. It always makes people happy and brings them together."

Thena tilted her head a few times. Gil was comforted by the sight of one of her many personal habits. "It does make people happy, doesn't it?"

Gil nodded, coming to sit down with her. He was honoured when she offered a small pile of her precious snack. He would be worried about her ruining her appetite if he had any concept of how much she could and couldn't eat. He picked up a few in his fingers, "do you eat meals together?"

She considered his question, knowing he was referring to when she was among her own underwater. "If you're hunting together, you'll eat together, but we don't go to an effort to gather for it."

Gil had plenty of curiosities of his own about her, but with most of his larger questions answered by now, he had started asking the little things. The questions that seemed almost silly to ask, but that always made him happy to know anyway. "Do you eat while you swim or do you, like, find a little resting place?"

Thena shrugged (which she had learned from watching him and Sersi). "It depends on what you catch, I suppose. If you have somewhere to be, you then just eat as you go."

"That makes sense," Gil agreed, finishing off his little pile. He smiled as Thena immediately replenished it. He looked up at her with a grin, "you feed me, I feed you?"

She rustled the bag on her lap. "It seems only fair."

Gil pinched a few more morsels between his fingers. "Would you share stuff with your brother?"

Thena immediately let out a loud groan and rolled her eyes.

Gil couldn't help but laugh. "You sound like Sersi did when she was younger."

Thena tilted her head at him, her hair tumbling over her shoulder. "I don't understand that--you seem like so much better a brother than Ikaris."

Gil shrugged, smiling at the topic with love - and exasperation - built right into it. "Yeah, but you don't get along as well when you're younger. When we were kids, it seemed like everything I said annoyed her."

Thena tilted her head a few more times at him. "But she loves you."

Gil beamed. "Yeah, she does--and you always know your sibling loves you, no matter how much you fight. I like to think I was a pretty good brother to her when we were younger."

"I'm sure you were," Thena muttered with absolute certainty, digging into the bag with a renewed fervour. "I think I had to fight Ikaris for everything when we were hatchlings."

That was a cute term for when they were kids. "Siblings fight a lot, I guess."

Thena sighed, though. "We were maybe...more aggressive than some our age."

Gil snorted. He could already imagine his beautiful Angelfish hissing up a storm at her own brother over the littlest thing. "You liked annoying each other?"

She smiled faintly. "I suppose so. And for all his grievances, I admit that there are worse brothers one could have. I can't imagine it at the moment, but I'm sure it's true."

Gil laughed. She certainly sounded like someone who very - very - reluctantly loved her brother despite his faults. "Does he like sardines too?"

Thena gave him a smile that showed off all of her teeth, "hates them."

Gil stood to stir the stew again, "then those are all for you. I'll always have them in the house, too, if I'm not around to cook for you, okay?"

Thena looked from him to the fridge. He had also explained the concept of leftovers, and that she could open any of the containers in there and eat anything she found.

He didn't tell her anything about heating anything up. Something about the idea of Thena and electricity just...made him uncomfortable.

"It's ready!"

Thena looked up at him with a smile as he set down a bowl in front of her, positively heaping with seafood and with a little nori sprinkled on top. "Thank you, Gil."

He blushed. She looked so cute, sitting there with her legs crossed at the ankles, his shirt sleeves billowing around her tiny arms that usually had scales dotted along them. "Anything, anytime, Angelfish."

Thena gave him a grin that he had come to learn was her feeling mischievous, "am I not a cuttlefish, now?"

"Cuddle-fish," he corrected with a grin of his own. She seemed humoured, although her smile turned faintly shy as she looked down at her food. He picked up his spoon and poked at his serving, "that's okay, though. I like having my very own Cuddlefish."

#Thenamesh Mermaid AU #I just know Gil would be all about the silly cute nicknames #He wakes her up in the morning with Sunfish #maybe calls her Pufferfish when she's pouting because he wouldn't let her play with the electricity or something #She helps him cut vegetables in the kitchen and he calls her a regular ol' Swordfish #he thinks it's cute #Thena never comments on them #but she finds it absolutely adorable #also Thena loves nori snacks #she loves dried sardines and fish floss #and she even kind of likes goldfish crackers mostly because they're funny

[newfoundlandcounterclockwise]

The town of Shelburne (marked by the blue dot in the map below) on the south eastern coast is not where we intended to land…

Sunday morning we were motoring through some calm fog when suddenly the engine didn’t sound right. Jay quickly diagnosed a fuel system problem but with his sea-sick stomach wasn’t able to stay hanging upside down in the engine room for long enough to be able to pin point the problem. We sheeted out the sails and sailed, or maybe just drifted along for hours and hours. The wind sprang back up to the most lovely gentle soft and quiet night last evening as we sailed north up the coast of Nova Scotia and we made it to Shelburne in time for brunch this morning.

I’m frequently in awe of Jay’s knowledge and skill set - he is the ship’s diesel mechanic, lead plumber, expert electrician and captain. That last title grants him the ability to worry more than anyone else aboard about all the things that could go wrong and also hold him responsibility for fixing them when they do. Despite all the pressure he manages to keep calm and only cusses occasionally

Our crew for this first part of the journey includes our dear friends, Petra and Matthew, with whom we have shared several other not-quite-comfortable expeditions. As farmers, they brought bags and bags of vegetables so we now have onions, carrots, kohlrabi, and cabbages stored under the port sette (the bench/bunk down in the cabin) nestled in with the tool box and anchor chain.

We had a bit of a hectic start with may vital tasks to do prior to departure - rinse out our 50 gallon water tanks of drinking water so they taste less like plastic, fix the head, final grocery provisioning, and stowing 4 people’s worth of gear into every nook of this ship. As a last minute surprise we found a leak in the propane system - an auspicious thing to identify before heading out on the open ocean. I hate to think of being out here with no hot food or tea. We were again lucky that our friend Emily picked us up from the marina not more than 10 minutes after we called her asking for a ride to the hardware store and the hardware store had the part we needed. Amazing.

As a result we weren’t ready to leave until Friday afternoon. With a small craft advisory in the forecast we just headed for the beautiful hermit island anchorage in Casco Bay for one final night on anchor prior to our multi-day crossing. We were snug as the wind was honking and friends Shelby and Celia came down to meet us for the evening with margaritas and flourless chocolate cake. It felt like an auspicious send off.

We left in the rain on Saturday morning and all of us promptly developed cases of the sea sickness - including myself. I have bragged for years about not experiencing sea sickness but found myself hanging off the rail along with the other 3. Luckily mine passed early which allowed me to take the helm more often. We have all this food aboard but no one wanted to eat anything.

The crossing to Shelburne took us about 48 hours and after my seasickness wore off the sailing was magical. The best of it is hard to capture with photos but I’ll try words. Last night I was on the wheel alone from 1-3am while all the other slept below. The milky way spread above our mast. The phosphorescence swirled in our wake, the wind was gentle and the boat moved quietly forward with her sails spread, wing on wing. A whale rose off starboard maybe 10 feet away, blowing out her breath and there was enough light for me to see her notched back roll back down below as she dived. I heard her puffing a few other times but never saw her again.

We’ve also been visited by several ocean-going sunfish (google this one if you aren’t familiar with them), a shark which I think we startled and which swam away with the most impressive speed, 2 puffins and lots and lots of sheerwaters who fly so low they disappear into the troughs of the waves.

Jay seems to have fixed the engine, Matthew has done some final adjustments on our propane system and we are now under way for St Peters.

[mallowstep]

(you were on my side, even when i was wrong)

cw: sexual assault

"I'm going to fix this," Leopardstar says. She rests her head against him. "We'll get Mistyfoot and the apprentices out tomorrow, and end all of this, and..." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Stonefur."

"I know."

Leopardstar flicks her tail. "But I am. I'm going to fix this."

"I know." She huffs, and Stonefur turns his head, putting his muzzle on the top of her head. "I'm not...you stopped him when it really mattered," he says.

* * *

the sun rises.

* * *

"Those were TigerClan apprentices you let escape, Leopardstar," Tigerstar says, like she hasn't been here since last moonrise. "We need young cats. The future of the Clan rests in them."

"Petaldust--"

"Petaldust has one sick kit," Tigerstar says. "Is that really what you think of TigerClan?"

She feels Stonefur bristle, but he stays quiet. Leopardstar meets Tigerstar's eyes. He won't put words into her mouth.

"Now," Tigerstar says, "the two of you..."

* * *

the sun sets.

* * *

"You understand," Tigerstar says, "that I am only letting you live because of Leopardstar."

He leans closer, and Stonefur resists the urge to (sink his teeth into Tigerstar's throat) look back at their den.

"It'd be preferable," he says, "if TigerClan was represented by a litter of kits from its leaders. But that hardly seems appropriate."

* * *

"i won't," stonefur says. he presses his forehead to hers. "leopardstar, do you understand? i won't."

"he'll kill you," leopardstar says, "don't think i didn't hear."

please don't leave me to him, she thinks, please don't leave me at all.

"you don't want that," he says.

"and you do?" stonefur is silent, and leopardstar counts out three breaths before continuing. "i can't do this without you again," she says. please don't make me.

stonefur sighs, and leopardstar presses her nose to his shoulder.

"i'm sorry," he says, and she's not sure if that means he will or he won't.

* * *

"No time like the present," Tigerstar says. Leopardstar meets Stonefur's eyes.

"Is this -- all necessary?" Stonefur asks.

"I assume the two of you haven't had kits yet for a reason," Tigerstar says. "If it's failure to succeed..." He doesn't finish his sentence; he doesn't need to. "So I assume it's failure to try. In which case, yes."

If, teeth at his throat, someone were to ask Stonefur how, it wouldn't be like this. It wouldn't be here, wouldn't be now, wouldn't be with Tigerstar watching them like they are apprentices, practising a new battle move. Maybe that's what they are to him.

(He doesn't have an answer for how he would, just that it woudn't be like this.)

* * *

"i don't think i want to be with anyone," leopardfur said, her tail overlapping with sunfish's.

(riverclan cats don't call for their ancestors.)

"well," sunfish said, "it's not like you have to." she bunted her temple against leopardfur. "as long as you're happy, right?"

(still, dawn is heavy on her tongue. she's not sure why. is it a cry for help? justice? an ending? she thinks she just wants to know there is a witness.)

leopardfur purred. "and what about you? are you happy?"

(she has brought this on him, forced this on him, let tigerstar do this to her stonefur, and it is enough to make her break at the seams.)

"i think so," sunfish said. "or i think i'm figuring it out."

* * *

Leopardstar grooms herself frantically, not looking at him.

"Tsk," Tigerstar says. "She-cats. Always so dramatic." He's looking at Stonefur like Stonefur is supposed to agree with him, like Stonefur does not deserve so much worse than Leopardstar's rejection.

"Get out," Stonefur growls.

Tigerstar flicks his tail. "Blackfoot already assigned patrols," he says. "So you're free for the day."

* * *

he stills remembers the first time he slept in her nest. she wouldn't let him forget it, but no matter how he pretends, he wouldn't want to.

it was when he was still smaller than her, just slightly. he knew mistypaw would go looking for him in the morning, knew she'd check oakheart and greypool's den, and tease him if she found him there. usually, he wouldn't mind too much, but it was that terrible cold again.

so he found leopardfur's den, stepping as quietly as he could. she still woke.

"stonepaw? is everything okay?"

he looked at his paws. "i -- couldn't sleep?" he swallowed. "bad dream."

"oh," she said, her voice thick with an emotion stonepaw couldn't quite place, something he knew was in the same clan as affection but couldn't name. "and you came here?"

"i didn't want to wake up oakheart and greypool."

"so you woke up me instead," she said, but shifted. "come on, then."

stonepaw curled up tightly at her side, trying not to take up more space than he had to.

leopardfur purred.

* * *

the sun rises.

#mine #stone au #leopardstar #stonefur #tigerstar #sunfish #<3

[stuffandsundry]

Tagged by @obstinaterixatrix​

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors! 

WAHA! ok no tags bc i dont know anyone! and also if i post my toku fics ill die maybe so only my main ig! actually i find it very funny that by the nature of the way i write 20% of this is just Extremely Rare Fandom Tag and a solid 50% is things i wrote while thinking of jem huh

Kim, Selena. “Yoo Joonghyuk: The Return(?) of the King.” W*red, 2020.   \\   Disclaimer: W*red Magazine would like to clarify that the title of this article had been a good faith attempt to reference the penultimate film in the influential Lord of the Rings series, and was not intended to be clickbait. We sincerely apologize for any misunderstandings. 

like hope turned inside out    \\    Kor smiles at the scene of Inez's reconciliation with Silver.

your ghosts know why you still live   \\   Kor's being haunted.

sing back at a bird   \\   "All right, let's wrap it up early today. Good practice, everyone!" Momoe claps her hands together.

Diving Cormorant   \\   "Hey." Hisui walks down the beach, sand crunching under the soles of his boots, to where Kunzite is sitting. "Got a moment?"

sick of dreaming   \\   It is ass o’clock in the morning, and Hisui is wide awake for the stupidest fucking reason.

lies told to children   \\   I finally realized that my husband had long since stopped loving the me that was a human being.

out of character   \\   “You know,” Kim Dokja says, with a sarcastic edge that means he's a little annoyed, “You don’t have to come with me.”

the meaning of the constellation in your eyes   \\   Deep in the recesses of Yoo Joonghyuk's memory, under the detritus of hundreds of lives and thousands of years, there is this image:

to trace the shape of an imperfect god   \\   The Demon King of Salvation doesn’t know how to control his strength, Yoo Joonghyuk thinks contemptuously.

cicada dreams.   \\   Here is something that Yoo Joonghyuk has figured out, over his hundreds of deaths and millennia of bloodshed:

Creator of Fate   \\   Ah,  Yin Wei sighs internally,  I really don’t like transmigrating into modern worlds with this sort of drama after all.

in sickness and in health   \\   “Sick?” Yoo Joonghyuk frowns at the woman running the Industrial Complex in Kim Dokja’s stead.

family, found   \\   “Hey!” Kim Namwoon kicks the door open, hands in his pockets.

conversation in a lull in the war   \\   "Ugh," Han Sooyoung complains. "I wish the next regional conflict would open up already."

Incomplete Record of the Third Revision   \\   Yoo Joonghyuk starts his fourth regression in a sickeningly familiar subway car.

write me a world unruined   \\   Lee Jihye wakes up.

Basic Marine Biology for the Curious Regressor   \\   “You stupid sunfish,” Kim Dokja sighs as he leans back into Yoo Joonhyuk’s arms.

proper and sensible   \\   The young messenger sent to fetch Miss Wilhelmina Laurence before the admiral sweeps a judgmental eye up and down her person, and he blinks.

from the mouths of babes   \\   Six months after Lu Li is appointed Deputy Commissioner, Chi Zhen returns home.

 wow theres more than 20 fics here. maybe i AM a writer

[canon-notcanon-warriorcats]

Re-write Part 5

-Whitestar wakes up the next morning only being able to think about what the future of the clans was, what the future of his kits were, and also there was barely enough warriors in thunderclan to mentor all of these new apprentices, not to mention his own kits would be apprentices in just over a moon

-Goldenflower knocks sense into him saying that it’s more important to stop tigerstar and hopefully the riverclan cats would be able to go home soon enough, whitestar agrees and yellowfang mentions the prophecy that she and whitestar got at his leader ceremony “Fire alone will save the clan, but there needs to be proud wind and honorable thunder to summon the storms that will clear the shadows.”  and that means that thunderclan and windclan need to stand together to be able to defeat tigerstar and his “clan”

-whitestar agrees, but the only way to get to windclan would be through fourtrees and tigerstar definitely has patrols patrolling at all times, so it would be hard to get through without being noticed, and perhaps that was part of tigerstar’s plan, either way he decides that he’ll go to windclan and talk to tallstar and decide what to do, thornclaw asks what will happen if tallstar decided to join tigerstar but whitestar retorts that tallstar would never, mistyfoot approaches and says that she will go with him, and yellowfang says she will go as well, perhaps if they come with cats who were raised in all of the other clans then it will be easier to persuade windclan to fight together, whitestar chooses longtail and thornclaw to come with them as back up in case they ran into a tigerclan patrol

-once the patrol makes it to fourtrees, tense and nervous even in their own territory, dustclaw suddenly appears on top of the Great Rock from behind it, snidely welcoming them and ask them what they’re planning on doing there, blackclaw, sunfish, clawface, and jaggedtooth come out from behind the great rock

-yellowfang snarls at the two former shadowclan cats, telling them that she watched them grow up and she thought they’d be good shadowclan warriors and here they are now, jaggedtooth spits at her, saying that they were better warriors then she ever was and ever could be, and twice as loyal than she was to anything

-mistyfoot hisses at blackclaw and sunfish, blackclaw replies that even her hiss is weaker since she’s a half-clan cat and he threatens to claw her until she begs for mercy, mistyfoot retorts that he’d be dead before he could even touch her

-longtail tries to appeal to dustclaw, asking him what their parents, robinwing and fuzzypelt would think of him, and what would their four dead siblings would think of him, and if he came back now maybe he could be an honorable thunderclan warrior again

-dustclaw snarls at him saying that longtail’s become kittypet soft just like the rest of thunderclan and would never recognize his greatness or tigerstar’s and that’s why thunderclan must be destroyed, whitestar growls and tells dustclaw that he wouldn’t let him back into thunderclan anyway, and that thunderclan’s business was none of his own, clawface snears that they both have 5 cats, but one of the thunderclan patrol was an old medicine cat and another was a weakened and frail queen, yellowfang and mistyfoot hiss and sunfish and jaggedtooth visibly flinch

-just as the patrols were about to clash, a hiss is heard from windclan’s side of fourtrees and tallstar and a patrol of onewhisker, whitetail, and tornear appear and they run down to fourtrees and meet the thunderclan patrol, the tigerclan patrol have a moment of worry until dustclaw shakes it off and asks tallstar “oh, are you looking for a couple of your warriors tallstar? icetail, eaglefoot, and hedgepaw?” “no, i’m pretty positive of where they are, dustpaw, i know they joined tigerstar’s group of rogues!” dustclaw’s fur bushes up and he gets defensive “i am dustCLAW now, tigerstar named me a warrior as soon as he became leader because at least appreciates me as a warrior!” tallstar sniffs and replies “he’s using you like he uses all of his other rogues” dustclaw snarls and seems to be about to pounce until he realizes again that the two patrols together almost doubled his patrol, even with an old medicine cat and worn out warrior, and claims that they’ll have the chance to tear them apart in time, until then they had to go report to tigerstar. The warriors are about to attack as dustclaw leaps down from the great walk and strides off towards shadowclan territory with his patrol, but whitestar tells them to halt, they needed to conserve their fighting energy and couldn’t risk anyone getting hurt right now

-tallstar asks if the patrol was coming to visit thunderclan and whitestar nods, tallstar says that barkface received a prophecy from starclan and yellowfang says it’s the same one that she and whitestar received, whitestar asks if this means that thunderclan and windclan will fight side by side then, and tallstar says that of course they would. The leaders decide that the two clans will meet the next morning at fourtrees just after sun has peaked over the horizon so tigerclan won’t have time to attack individually, but two clans being at fourtrees will definitely grab their attention and they would take on tigerclan from there

-once the patrol gets back to thunderclan whitestar starts explaining the plan to everyone, he offers goldenflower to stay in camp to protect his kits and the elders (mostly because he knows it must be hard for her knowing they would be fighting her ex-mate), but goldenflower refuses saying that she must battle alongside her clanmates

-whitestar asks willowpelt if she wants to fight, to avenge redtail and brindleface, but willowpelt says she wants to stay and protect the camp, to protect their kits, frostfur steps forward and says that she will fight as well, for lionheart, for her sister brindleface and her son brackenpaw, as well as the injuries tigerstar had caused her daughters

-rainkit and sorrelkit star calling saying that they want to go fight too, they don’t need to be protected they’re NEARLY apprentices, whitestar adors his little kits but tells them that they need to stay in camp and maybe willowpelt will teach them some fighting moves, mosspelt steps up and says that she’ll stay in camp as well, featherpaw says that she wants to fight in the battle and stormpaw says that if she fights he wants to fight as well, but whitestar refuses them as they had just become apprentices the day before tigerstar took over riverclan and hadn’t gotten enough battle training, primrosepaw says that they had been apprentices for a quarter moon longer than them, so they had gotten some battle training, whitestar thinks and then tells them that they need to guard the kits and elders, dappletail then retorts that she and the rest of the elders would rather die protecting the clan than die needing to be protected, so if anything were to happen the elders would fight till the end, halftail, one-eye, and smallear all heartily agree. Whitestar thinks about how the last time the elders had to battle to protect their clan that rosetail and thrushpelt had been killed, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop them, and if it came to it they wouldn’t have a choice anyway.

-Whitestar is about to tell tawnypaw to stay behind too, but she insists on fighting, she won’t sit in camp while her father tries to destroy the clans and featherpaw insists again and her fighting as well, whitestar decides that tawnypaw can join, but stormpaw and featherpaw will not fight, he gives them to responsibility of being runners, fetching injured cats and bringing them to yellowfang and bramblepaw who will be just outside of fourtrees to attend the injured and they will assist the medicine cats as needed, ravenpelt offers to help them and make sure they don’t get hurt

-whitestar starts worrying about how brightheart or cinderpelt would do in battle, as well as snowpaw, he asks brightheart first, telling her he’s unsure if she’s ready to fight when she had just recovered for about a moon, cloudpaw interrupts and says that brightheart could fight anyone and beat them and she’s been working will hard to train, cinderpelt, sandstorm, and fireheart agree, saying they’ve all been training very hard together and brightheart or cinderpelt could fight just as well as anyone, whitestar asks cloudpaw to fetch snowpaw and he comes back with both snowpaw and fernpaw, whitestar, using sign language, asks snowpaw if he felt comfortable fighting or if he’d rath stay and protect camp, snowpaw shakes his head and signs for “fight” and points towards fourtrees and then signs for “speckle” and “tail”, meaning he wants to fight for his mother, who died saving him from the fire that tigerstar and darkstripe started in thunderclan, fernpaw agrees that snowpaw can and will fight, and she’ll be with him and they’ll protect each other, cloudpaw agrees that he won’t let anyone hurt his clanmates, ashpaw chimes in that he will fight to avenge their mother and whitestar says that he had no doubt his apprentice was ready to battle

-whitestar realizes just how wide tigerstar’s wrath had spread, everyone in the clan had been personally effected, and decides that willowpelt, mosspelt, mistyfoot’s kits, and the elders staying behind to protect the camp will have to be enough, he leads a hunting patrol of longtail, mousefur, cinderpelt, and tawnypaw, and besides that patrol they take the rest of the day to rest and prepare, though most of the clan was too restless to truly rest, yellowfang was teaching bramblepaw the different healing herbs and making leaf bundles that they and stormpaw and featherpaw would carry to the battle, the warrior apprentices trained together with thornclaw and brightheart, whitestar gives ashpaw some last minute battle tips

-before the sun had risen the clan silently pelts to fourtrees, the wind is sadly against their back and when they arrive they see two pelts slink into the bushes, one towards riverclan and one towards shadowclan, whitestar signals for his clan to fan out and they line out in front of the thunderclan border so it would be harder for anyone to try to run into thunderclan and attack the camp, whitestar is suddenly very relieved to have goldenflower standing beside him, strong, proud, and ready to fight, frostfur, mousefur, mistyfoot, and longtail stood beside her, on whitestar’s right flank was sandstorm, fireheart, graystripe, and ravenpelt beside her, thornclaw, brightheart, cinderpelt, and the apprentices created a second line of defense behind them, the apprentices close behind their mentors. Whitestar checked behind him for ashpaw, he could see fear in his eyes and his scent, but his stance was strong and confident

-pink started lining the horizon and whitestar was starting to fear that windclan wouldn’t get there in time, or maybe not at all, he knew tigerstar would be aware of thunderclan being at fourtrees by now, he must be preparing and even on his way, but as soon as he thought that the bushes on windclan’s side of fourtrees started rustling and tallstar sped down the slope into the clear, a stream of windclan cats followed him and lined up in front of their border like thunderclan. Tallstar walked forward to the middle of the clearing and whitestar joined him, they both bowed their heads respectfully to each other. “I’m sorry I couldn’t greet you as a leader for the first time in a better situation, Whitestar. I know your leadership has already been hard, but I am positive Bluestar chose the right cat, and I am sure she is very proud of you and her clan and will be protecting you all, just as the rest of StarClan will watch over us.”

-Whitestar suddenly felt on the spot and guilty that he didn’t know tallstar as well as he should, “I know your leadership has not been easy at all, especially the past few seasons, I’m honored to be a leader with, and to fight alongside you and your warriors. Do you have warriors staying in camp to protect your camp?”

-Deadfoot steps forward and goldenflower suddenly pelts forward to be besides whitestar again, they both nod to each other respectively and then bow to the other leader, “Ashfoot is with our kit, crowkit in the nursery, Webfoot is also heavily pregnant with his own kits, and Robinwing just gave birth to Tornear’s and her daughter, Nightkit, yesterday. They’re all in camp with the elders, Morningflower has also stayed behind to protect them. Tigerstar’s rogues killed her son, Gorsepaw a moon ago in a border scuffle, but she’d rather be there to defend the kits and queens just in case. Whitestar apologizes and asks where their other apprentices were, he only saw warriors in their battle formation and tallstar says that as they had learned yesterday, hedgepaw and two warriors had joined tigerstar and tigerclan, and their other two apprentices were staying back outside of fourtrees with barkface to assist him and to fetch injured cats. Whitestar nods saying that they had two apprentices to help Yellowfang and Bramblepaw as well as to assist injured cats. In big battles like this it was a standard practice, but Whitestar was still glad that the two leaders had made the same strategies.

-Whitestar dips his head to his fellow leader and raises his voice so the rest of the cats could hear him, “May our clans fight alongside each other and lookout for each other. And may StarClan guide us well.”

-As soon as he finishes speaking the wind suddenly changes and a rush of ShadowClan and RiverClan scent swamps the clearing and soon countless pawsteps can be heard and then bushes on RiverClan’s side of the border start to rustle and Blackfoot steps through, Leopardstar close behind him, with many cats, most riverclan but with several shadowclan cats and rogues, following them. Then the bushes on ShadowClan’s side start rustles, shadowclan, riverclan, and rogues streaming forward into the clearing, and then finally, Tigertstar strides out from within his group of cats, darkstripe and dustclaw close behind. The large dark tabby stares down the leaders, not even looking at his former mate, who’s green eyes are now narrowed and her fur bristling, her claws already unsheathed and she’s obviously keeping in a snarl. “So,” Tigerstar oddly purrs, “Have the great leaders of ThunderClan and WindClan made their decision on joining my clan?”

#warrior cats #warrior cats rewrite #my rewrite #thunderclan #windclan #shadowclan #riverclan #i'd like to mention #that at this point besides tallstar and deadfoot #windclan has like 6 warriors that aren't in the nursery right now lol #morningflower is already a permanent queen so she doesn't count #also yes webfoot is a trans tom and is gorsetail's dad #the father and/or mother of gorsetail is unknown #the answer is it's reedtail of riverclan HA

[the-heroic-wanderer]

RULES: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 92 truths about you. at the end choose 25 people to be tagged.

Tagged by @gowak You wanted to know this about me? Then I’ll answer in kind)

LAST:

drink: Lemon Ice Tea

phone call: My Dad

text message: “Not the best but interesting.”

song you listened to: David Jordan: Sun goes down (Which was what the text message was about)

time you cried: Depends...Cried due to joy/laughing too hard? Watching a Dark Souls Boss Get rekt and the reaction of the lper when it happened. Due to sad? Litterally 2 weeks ago when I thought about the Death of the Going Merry from One Piece...it’s a boat...but it was THEIR boat.

HAVE YOU EVER:

dated someone twice: Nope

been cheated on: Nope

lost someone special: Haven’t we all? If you say you haven’t then you have never lived.

been depressed: *shrug* to pull the ONLY line I ever remember from Wander Over Yonder ; “The helper seeks to help, because he knows what it’s like to be helpless.” I try to make people smile and laugh, cause I know what it feels like to have not a smile or a chuckle in your heart.

been drunk and thrown up: Drunk 3 times, thrown up as an end result?

IN THE PAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

made a new friend: Too many to count, yet never seemingly enough to stop more from showing up.

fallen out of love: With a person? Not really. With something I used to love otherwise? Kinda.

laughed until you cried:See answer for Last Time I cried.

met someone who changed you: Change isn’t impossible, it just takes time, and that’s something I have in short supply.

found out who your true friends are: Never second guessed who they were, so yes.

found out someone was talking about you: At least 4 to five times a week.

GENERAL:

how many people on tumblr do you know in real life?: Technically 3

do you have any pets?: 2 cats 1 dog

do you want to change your name?: Tbh yes, because some times I just hear it so much I’ve grown tired of it.

what time did you wake up this morning: Woke up at 9 am as I had work.

what were you doing last night: Work then home for video games and silent thinking, same as most days.

name something you cannot wait for: People to understand the fact I can’t understand sarcasm,,,and for people to stop being dumb and just smarten up.(to pull a quote from my mothers book)

have you ever talked to a person named tom?:  A Thomas? Yes. A Tom as in just Tom? No

what’s getting on your nerves right now: My own lack of self motivation to work on somethings, and my fat ass s.o.b. cat lying on my arm that won’t go away!

blood type: O-

nickname: I’ve got a few: Mattie, Wander,Wanderer, Heroic and (only by 3 friends) Wander Bear

relationship status: In yet Open

zodiac sign: Gemini, still need to find my supposed twin/double in the world and ask him/them where the hell they’ve been.

pronouns: Him, they, he, his, bacon,them,that dick right there, Matt. No idea wtf people call me for pronouns nor care.

favorite show: Too many to count and too many theme songs over lapping.

college: Not yet but need to.

hair color: Oak brown.

do you have a crush on someone: Yes

what do you like about yourself:  My voice, my generosity at the point of (as I call it) forceful kindness, my calf muscles that I’m very proud of, and the fact I have such amazing friend (Looking at some others but @gowak @chance-of-chaos @echolands)

FIRSTS:

first surgery: Fractured skull, so I have a plate in my head now!

first piercing: Not gonna happen

first sport you joined: Soccer (Parents chose) Rugby by own choice

first vacation: A lake a few towns over, was kinda nice, caught my first fish there. A sunfish.

first pair of sneakers: 6 years old plain white and blue, cause I even back then thought sketchers light up when you step was dumb as sh*t

RIGHT NOW:

eating: Chips, pringles for specifics.

drinking: Lemon Ice Tea, like I said before.

i’m about to: Go to bed cause I’m tired as balls while writing this but was like; “Ya know what? screw it, might as well put it all out there.”

listening to: The sound of my heater spinning up heating our house, and just before that, Battle Bus Boogie by JT Music.

want kids: Adopt and maybe have? Long as someone remembers me.

get married: Sure, though I want to be sure before anything.

career: Cook/baker atm but not exactly what I want to be my perma career, as well as essentially a couple Councillor and general therapist for people cause people know I actually listen and give a sh*t about them.

WHICH IS BETTER:

lips or eyes: Eyes (Same as gowak said)

hugs or kisses: Hugs...mainly cause I have my own Bear Crusher Bear hug which has on two occasions popped someones back and helped them feel better. Also I am not a HUGE fan of kissing, just feels strange to me I guess.

shorter or taller: Be you, doesn’t matter the size.

older or younger: Age brings wisdom but often wear, youth brings energy but inexperience and risk of permanent damage.

romantic or spontaneous: Both I’d say as they can both yield positive results in the end if done correctly.

sensitive or loud: Sensitive? Cause not sure what you’d mean by loud?

hookup or relationship: Relationship but due to my current relationship and also the weird things I’ve already encountered in my life hookup isn’t all that weird...awkward yes but not weird.

troublemaker or hesitant: Be yourself and we shall see.

HAVE YOU EVER:

kissed a stranger: To save a life? No As a romantic gesture? I did offer once cause it was the technical girlfriend of a buddy of mine and I JUST met her.

drank hard liquor: Yes, unrelated; FUCK yager bombs.

lost contacts/glasses: I’ve had to wear glasses since I was like 9....that should answer the question pretty well.

sex on first date: Still a virgin so yeah no... and not for lack of trying I guess, more just I am not the type of guy who forces or would know how to react to the situation despite myself.

broken someone’s heart: *Sigh* yes...twice but only due to the fact I could never return their feelings.

been arrested: Nope, but almost did due to an event that happened in the last month of middle school. Yes theirs a story to it.

turned someone down: If you’re referring to, turn down for a date? Yes. Turn down the bass? Yes also,

fallen for a friend: Yep...currently 3 times is the total

DO YOU BELIEVE:

in yourself: Heads I do tails I don’t It’s all the flip of a coin most days but mainly I just don’t care.

miracles: Never doubted they can happen,

love at first sight:  Not really, but second or third? Maybe.

Also don’t know 25 people nor do I know any who weren’t tagged by @gowak, so...If you see this on my page and read this far then consider taggin yourself and doing it! Just remember to tag me at the top so I can read it I guess.

#tag meme #truth #truthbetold #truthseeker #memes

[builder051]

Mel and Todd part 3 (OC fic)

Hello!  Here’s part 3 of Mel and Todd’s introduction.  Find part 1 here and part 2 here.  I’ll post their character descriptions in a moment, and they’ll be open for fic/drabble requests.

Mel wraps her arms around her knees and plays with the cuff on her sweatpants.  She’s curled in one corner of the couch, facing Todd, who’s curled in the other corner.  It’s early afternoon, and though they’ve managed to coexist through showers and breakfast, they still haven’t made up.

It’s driving Mel nuts.  She’s well aware that 6 hours is an insanely short amount of time for one partner to get over the other’s disgusting behavior, but she’s not keen to spend much more time perseverating on it.  Todd’s said he’s sorry.  Said he can’t remember a thing.  Offered to call their friends and ask if anyone was out with him last night.  He sounds sincere and slightly irritated in a way that seems solely directed her rather than masking anxiety about something else.

Plus he’s sick.  Mel can’t stand seeing her husband down for the count, even when it’s entirely his fault.  Bland toast, fluids, and ibuprofen seem to have settled Todd’s stomach, but not made a dent in the accompanying headache.  He’s still pale, and the wrinkle between his glassy green eyes betrays the pain.  Mel may feel like she barely knows him anymore, but she knows him well enough to recognize that.

“Do really want to play?” Mel asks, nodding at the controllers on the coffee table and the Assassin’s Creed home screen flashing on the TV.

“I don’t know,” Todd says.  “Be good to do something.”

He’s right, it will be good to do something.  Playing the game will get both of them thinking of something besides their harrowing morning.  But there just seems to be so much left to say, even though she’s invariably already said it all.

“Yeah, I just.  I don’t know.  I know it’s pissing you off, but I just…feel like there’s more to say.”

“We’ve been over it, though, babe,” Todd says.  He massages his forehead.  “I must’ve gone out for Friday night.  You had the car, so I must’ve walked somewhere or gotten a ride, did something dumb, then walked home.  Like I said, if you want, I’ll call Jackson or Mark or the brewhouse, see if anyone knows anything.  I’m…probably as mad at myself as you are.”

Mel twitches the corner of her mouth.  They have been over it.  His story’s not changing.  Except the last sentence, that part’s new.  And it’s making her heart hurt.

“I don’t wanna drag anyone else into it,” she murmurs.

“That’s the thing, though,” Todd intones.  “You can’t want to figure it all out and then not do anything.  You’re—we’re running in circles.”

“Yeah, I know.  I’m sorry.”  Mel slides her glasses down her nose and pushes them back up, bringing Todd into a blur, then back into focus.  “Today just sucks, you know?”

“Oh yeah.”

“This morning, that damn turtle, it…I, like, felt really bad, then really good, and then this whole deal is making me feel really bad again…I’m not gonna push you into the ocean to die, but…” Mel trails off.  “That, uh, wasn’t really what I meant.”

Todd takes a slow sip of Gatorade and takes his time returning the bottle to the coffee table.  “I love you, babe.  You know that?  I don’t think I’ve had the chance to say it yet today.”

“Yeah, I…Yeah.  Yeah, of course I do.  I—I love you too.”

“I know I’ve been doing stupid stuff.  Smoking too much, drinking too much.  Really, babe, I think we both kinda have…  Then last night, I don’t even know.”  Todd stretches his leg out across the length of the couch so his cold toes press against Mel’s foot.  “But that’s not gonnahappen again.”

“But if you can’t remember any of it…?” Mel asks with the last gentle hint of anger floating in her throat.

“I don’t know,” Todd says, massaging his forehead again.  “But I really, really feel like shit.”

“You should probably eat something.  That toast had no substance,” Mel says, automatically flicking the switch to caring.

“Yeah.  I’m not real hungry,” Todd mutters.

“This is really kicking your ass,” Mel says.  Todd raises his chin to meet her eyes.  She cracks a smile.

So does he.  “Yeah.  Fuck.”  Then, “Did you sleep last night?  I didn’t mean to kick you out of bed.”

Mel realizes that she is, in fact, exhausted.  And it’s probably unfavorably affecting her mood.

“Not really,” she admits.

“Yeah.”  Todd squints at the lit-up TV.  “You’d probably be better off taking a nap.  Then you might feel better.  I might feel better.”  He sighs.  “Fuck, Mel, we’re getting old.”

“Hm.”  Mel gets up to turn off the playstation.

“I’ll take the couch this time,” Todd says, shifting down so his long, lean frame stretches into Mel’s vacated seat.

Mel’s about to protest, say they can both nap in the bedroom, but she stops herself.  If they do that, she won’t be able to stop talking to Todd, asking how he’s feeling, offering to bring him a drink or a damp washcloth.  Then neither of them will sleep, and she’ll start to hate him again.

“Thanks,” she murmurs.

It’s well into the evening when Mel wakes.  She’s starving, and the realization that she never at lunch melds with other memories of the day as she pushes out of the sheets that still smell a little like pot and B.O.  She quickly changes the bedding and drops the dirty items into the now-overflowing hamper.  Laundry will have to be a project for tomorrow.

Mel throws a pillow at Todd to wake him up, then, when he curls in on himself and groans, remembers that he still might not feel fantastic.

“Sorry,” Mel says hurriedly.  “You ok?”

“’M either about to puke or starve to death,” Todd mumbles.

“I think there’s still pizza dough in the fridge.”  Mel arranges her face in a huge fake grin.

“And I’m assuming you want me to roll it out for you?”  Todd’s mouth is the only part of his face not obscured under his arm.

It takes 10 minutes for Todd to stumble into the kitchen.  He spends another 5 pouring them both ginger ale on the rocks before grabbing the plastic wrap coated ball of dough from the fridge and slapping it onto the pizza stone.

Mel tries gamely to help, but gives up after realizing the only mozzarella they have is in a block. She isn’t in the mood to shred, and Todd looks positively sick at the cheese talk.  So he just brushes the dough with butter and throws it in the oven.

When the not-pizza is done, they take it out on the deck to watch the sunset.  Mel leans against the railing and tries not to move her feet so she’s less likely to get a splinter in the fading light.  Todd stands beside her, and when his arm finds her shoulders, she doesn’t inch away.  Light in shades of pink and orange glint off the water as if the heavens are illuminated with millions of party lights.  It’s nicer than any night club Mel’s been to.  And after today, she really has no desire to set foot in one again.

The pink hue reflects in Todd’s eyes, and Mel’s sure it’s overtaken the lenses of her glasses as well.  Todd carefully chews his slice of bread, then says, “Maybe we can take the sunfish out tomorrow.  It’d be cool to take it out in the evening, maybe see the sunset from the water.”

The knot that’s been in Mel’s heart since the previous evening starts to loosen.  “Yeah,” she agrees quietly.  “Yeah.  That sounds good.”

#original fiction #oc fic #ocs #mel and todd #sickfic

[blue-opossum]

Fishing with Zsuzsanna and a Rescue

        Morning of April 27, 2019. Saturday.

        Dream #: 19,122-02. Reading time (optimized): 3 min.

        Water induction and the Naiad/Oceanid factor changes into a fishing scenario. Despite the former process beginning at least one dream each sleep cycle for over 50 years, the continuity and outcome are always unique.

        Zsuzsanna and I are sitting on the shore of a lake, though it seems to stem from associations with El Jobean, which is near the ocean and the area where I fished as a boy, close to the bridge. It seems to be afternoon.

        Two unknown men are present. One of them is cheerfully fishing. The other, the preconscious simulacrum of this dream, is sitting on our right. There is a brief, vague concern that someone might throw something from the bridge high above us, but no one does. (It is subliminal anticipation of vestibular cortex activity, which is a common dream perception.) I soon attach the hook to the end of my line, and I also put the reel on the rod. At first, I snag a sunfish carcass (on its dorsal fin) floating on its left side (as analogous to my sleeping orientation) on the lake's surface. The preconscious is holding a pair of scissors. I am wary, as I think he intends to take them while claiming someone lost them. Looking down, I see another pair of scissors that is nearly the same and belongs with the other. There are small rust marks on the handles of each. I comment on how similar they are and pick up the pair on the ground. I take the other scissors from the simulacrum (with no protest on his part, which is atypical in RAS mediation, especially as the scissors indicate potential separation from the dream state) and put both pair in the tackle box.

        I verbalize loud, sarcastic remarks about people sitting near people who are fishing. He soon leaves (thus allowing me to sustain my dream). So does the other male, though it is getting later and is almost too dark to see. I ask Zsuzsanna if fishing at night is allowed and it seems that it is. (This process, regarding nightfall with enhanced awareness, is sometimes indicative of the return to slow-wave sleep, but I maintain my dream state awareness without direct lucidity.)

        I do not have live bait and consider digging in the ground with my hands, but I find a live worm with at least two hooks through it in a small paper bag that someone left behind. I think it is artificial before it starts moving. I attach the rig to my line.

        When I cast, I accidentally snag a cluster of plants halfway across the lake's distance from our side. I see an unknown woman off to the left near her car on our side. She had also cast. I find the situation somewhat amusing but not that frustrating, especially when it seems I had also hooked a big fish. However, it turns out that she is reeling the line from her end, causing the little island to move toward her.

        I hook onto something big. Upon reeling it in, I see that I have snagged a seal, with the hook in its bottom lip. "It's a seal," I loudly say. The woman and I agree that I should take the hook out and release it, which I do.

        When I cast again, the hook ends up near the woman's car. She decides to leave but ends up falling in the lake almost up to her neck. She swims out, gets into her car, and it accidentally backs up into the lake, sinking completely.

        I dive into the lake. I swim to the end of the lake to the right of my original location, underwater (being able to breathe underwater as in all my dreams since early childhood). The woman is sleeping in a small dry cave underwater, as the water remains as an impossible "wall" at its entrance. I maneuver into the cave through the "wall," without disrupting the impossible vertical water barrier. I ask the woman if she needs me to rescue her. She shakes her head and shivers slightly, with her eyes moving as if in REM sleep. I ask her again, and she nods.

        My feet push against the water "wall," and water starts to flood the cave, but I wake around this time. I see that Zsuzsanna is sleeping in the same position as the woman had been.

        This dream renders the same processes as usual, but also unique as always and very vivid and enjoyable.

#dream journal #meaning of dreams #fishing #wife Zsuzsanna #seal #lake #bridge #dead fish #sunfish #scissors #rescue #water induction #water symbolizing sleep

[sylvesterelle]

So this started out as emotional word vom about Stiles finding Derek in D.C. in @sterektrashbag‘s ask (peep it here) and somehow turned into 15k of Stiles moving to Washington, Derek working at a museum, and everyone actually working through their goddamn issues (+ David Bowie, glowy magic pack bonds, and a supernatural archive under the Smithsonian).

Could be read as a one-shot, but will probably end up writing two more parts because feelings™.

Read on Ao3. 

Float Until You Learn to Swim

When you’re part of a pack, you’re never really alone. Even when Stiles was at his darkest, locked inside his own head, he knew this, could feel the faintest of threads tied somewhere around his ribcage, each one tugging lightly to remind him that his family and friends were still there, still alive, at least for one more day.

After the Nogitsune, when the world got to be too much and Stiles felt like he was choking on dead air, he took to closing his eyes and pressing the heel of this hand to the spot just under his breastbone, fingers splayed out over his chest until the steady thrumming of the threads drowned out his racing heart.

He never talked about it with Scott or his dad, never asked if anyone else experienced the pack bonds the same way. He told himself it was because it felt too personal, too private, but a voice in the back of his head wondered if it was more than that. If maybe he was afraid to find out what he was feeling wasn’t real - just another thing his brain conjured up to deal with a reality composed of more pain than any 19 year old boy could survive unbroken. That same voice whispered that even if it was real, it was one sided; after all, his packmates were the ones who forgot him. If he asks, it might just mean definitive proof that he needs them much more than they need him.

So he doesn’t ask, and whenever a member of the pack caught him absentmindedly rubbing at his chest he played it off as a bruise, or an itch, or, on one memorable occasion, heartburn.

“This is it Scotty, this is what’s going to get me – not a rogue werewolf or a shapeshifter or, god forbid, a selkie, but the diabolical clutches of acid reflux.” He had moaned, sprawled out on his friend’s bed.

Scott just threw a bottle of Tums at his head and turned back to his homework. Stiles made a mental note to research why Scott even had them around; did the same werewolf healing magic that could heal bullet wounds and fix severed arteries meet its match with common indigestion?

Stiles wasn’t sure if Scott and the other wolves just ignored his repeated excused and chalked it up to Stiles being Stiles, or if his pulse had become so unsteady it was impossible to recognize the tell-tale blip of a lie. That question was also firmly shelved in the ‘do not touch’ corner of his brain.

Real or not, shared or not, it was the bonds that allowed Stiles to even consider leaving Beacon Hills for Georgetown. He had tested them in the days after graduation, driven an hour to the coast to sit in the sand and take a second to just breathe, away from the memories that flooded every corner of Beacon Hills; a moment to let himself get lost in salt air and waves licking at the sand while the threads pulsed steadily in his chest.

On his second try, he drove south to San Francisco, ostensibly to visit the magic shops Deaton had recommended to resupply their wolfsbane stock and pick up the books he needed for summer Spark training. After the latest supernatural shit show, he figured it was time to stop ignoring whatever abilities Deaton said he had – if it was something he could use to protect his pack, then it was worth learning how to control, even if the thought of being something…more than human still left him a little uneasy. Just as at the ocean, the bonds remained strong, radiating warmth through his chest as the miles clicked past on the odometer.

For his final test, he packed up the Jeep with food and water and drove up to Washington. His mother had loved the mountains, the thickness of the forests, how the snow-capped peaks looked reflected in the calm waters of lakes carved by ancient glaciers. His family had a cabin they visited every summer when Stiles was young, a small wooden thing deep in the Cascades next to a crystal blue lake. The sheriff, still a deputy then, would wake him up just before dawn, tackle-box packed and ready, and teach him to fish in the clear waters. There’s a photo still hanging in the entryway of their house from one such morning, a seven-year-old Stiles proudly holding up a sunfish just a little bigger than his palm with his brown hair sticking up as if electrocuted and a gap-toothed grin showing off the two missing teeth he’d lost the week before.

His mom preferred to watch the sunrise from land, cradling a fresh cup of coffee and waving at her boys from her favorite spot on the porch swing. Some afternoons, she would take Stiles out in the old rowboat, dropping anchor in the middle of the lake so they could stretch out and let the sun warm their upturned faces. Even at the deepest point, the water was so clear Stiles could see straight to the bottom and he spent hours swimming deeper and deeper, but never touching the lakebed.

His mother in water was a sight to behold, all crinkled eyes and laughter ringing out as she cannon-balled from the side of the boat, splashing Stiles and twisting gracefully away when he tried to retaliate. She loved to sneak up on John when his back was turned, winking at Stiles and putting a finger to her lips before leaping on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms over his shoulders to pull him under the surface. He would come back up sputtering, Claudia still clinging to his back until he pulled her around, cradling her in his arms and dropping a kiss to her wet forehead before tossing her soundly into the water.

Stiles’ most vivid memories of his mom were from the cabin - the way her dark hair billowed out underwater, how she curled up with his dad under the holey knitted blanket she had made him one Christmas, the sound of her off-key singing as she made waffles for breakfast (Always waffles, never pancakes. His mom claimed pancakes didn’t have personality, but his dad told him she just liked the way syrup pooled in the little waffle wells.).

The first summer after her death, Stiles and John didn’t go back to the cabin. The official excuse was that John couldn’t get the time off, having taken longer and longer shifts at the station to distract himself from the too-empty house and his too-cold bed. Stiles spent most of that first summer at the McCall’s, eating peanut butter sandwiches with Scott in a semi-permanent bed fort in the living room. He didn’t talk about his mom and wouldn’t even if Scott had asked – but Scott never did, just handed him the other half of his sandwich when Stiles finished his own and hugged him when he curled his sticky fingers in Scott’s t-shirt, silently asking for comfort beneath the canopy of sheets.

As the years went on, they stopped mentioning the cabin, stopped making excuses. It was a place inextricably tied up with the memory of Stiles’ mother, a memory that was still too painful, too present to confront head on. But the photo still hung in the entryway, and Stiles occasionally gave it a passing thought, fantasized about running away to the cabin where he could pretend that werewolves weren’t real, that evil was something that only existed in fiction, and that his own hands weren’t washed in blood.

Sometimes, when he thought about where Derek might have ended up (a pastime he pursued more often than he’d like to admit), Stiles imagined he found the cabin, dusty and untouched, and decided to stay. He could picture it so clearly: Derek stretched out on the couch (a lurid orange plaid monstrosity Stiles’ mom loved to pieces) with a book in his hand and a small fire burning in the hearth, a pile of split logs outside where he had spent the day chopping wood for winter. Those times, he could almost swear he felt a phantom spike of warmth in his chest, not quite the tug of pack bonds, but something that felt like it could be. And if the warmth burned a little brighter when Stiles imagined the way Derek would look with a red flannel shirt rolled up over his forearms and bunching around his strong shoulders as he swung an axe, thought a touch too hard about the way his hair would fall on his forehead, thick and soft without product and a little damp from sweat , well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

Imaginings aside, Stiles had never thought seriously about going back to the cabin. Not until the day of his graduation party, which found him sat on the steps of the back porch while members of his pack mingled with kids from their class and members of Beacon Hills’ finest, the spot under his breastbone burning steady and warm. There was a half-eaten cake and a small stack of presents and cards on a folding table in the corner, and when the sheriff dropped down beside him a moment later, he held a beer in one hand a small brown box in the other.

“That beer for me?” Stiles asked, nudging his dad with an elbow.

The sheriff scoffed. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

He tipped the bottle back once before setting it at his feet, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I had something I wanted to give you. I’m not sure if it’s the right time, if it will ever be the right time but…it’s yours. It should be yours.” He tapped the box on his knee a couple times before thrusting it at his son.

“I thought we were doing presents later, but I won’t tell if you…” Stiles’ voice petered out as he lifted the lid of the box and saw a braided leather keychain with two gold keys nestled in white tissue paper.

“Dad, what is this?”

The sheriff shifted in his seat. “It’s ah, it’s the key to the cabin. Your mom’s cabin. I know we haven’t been in a long time and that’s probably my fault, but I found it the other day when I was poking around in the attic and I thought, well, I thought you should have it.  I remembered how much you loved that place how much your mother loved-”

The sheriff cut off, clearing his throat.

“Well, anyway, I, ah, I called in a favor from the ranger service up there – had one of the guys go check it out and hook up the water and electricity. He said everything looked good – nothing broken or anything.” He nodded towards the box. “The bigger key is for the front door and the little one is for the boat shed out back.”

He reached over and picked up the key ring, running a finger over the braided fob with a small, sad smile.

“Your mom made this. I don’t know if you remember, but she had this phase where she fancied herself a knitter. Made this really terrible blanket one year –scratchy as all hell and not what you’d call structurally sound, but I used it all the time just to see that proud little smile on her face.”

“I remember,” Stiles said quietly.

“After she moved on from knitting, she started messing around with things like this.” The sheriff lifted the keychain.

“She didn’t get very far with it before…well, before. But she finished this one. I forgot I even still had it.”

John laid them back in the box and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.  

“So uh, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s yours if you want it. You can take your friends up, or maybe I can get some time this summer…” He nodded once, decisive. “It’s been empty too long, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Stiles looked down at the keys and gently touched one end of the braid.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

He looked over and smiled at his dad, eyes shining with what they both would deny as wetness.

“Thank you.”

The sheriff cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome. Happy graduation, son. I’m ah, I’m very proud of you, and I know she would be too.”

He reached out and pulled Stiles into a one-armed hug, patting him on the back before grabbing his beer and heading towards the food table, a Stilinski man through-and-through in his dislike of emotional confrontation.

“Only one piece of cake dad, don’t think you get a free pass because of emotional manipulation!” Stiles called after him.

The sheriff, as usual, paid no mind.

*

Stiles hadn’t known what to do with the keys. Part of him wanted to leave the party and drive up immediately, the other half shied away at the thought of seeing it again, his heart giving a painful squeeze thinking about his mother’s favorite mug (a lopsided thing Stiles made her) sitting unused in the cupboard or diving into the lake without her splashing in beside him.

So he kept them in the box, stashed in his bedside table as the summer stretched on and he went swimming with the pack, held video game tournaments with Scott, and attended Spark lessons with Deaton.

In the end, his desire to see the cabin again won out over his fear, and as the last few weeks of summer approach, he made the decision to go up. He rationalized that it would be the perfect opportunity to complete his last test of the bonds, but it was also something he knew he had to do for his mom. Claudia had lived too long as a ghost in the house, an invisible weight they refused to acknowledge but affected every part of their lives. His dad had understood when Stiles told him, and quietly agreed that maybe it was time to bring the boxes back down from the attic, stop letting the memory of her languish in the dark.

*

Though Stiles told Scott where he was going, he asked his friend to keep it quiet. It’s not that he wanted to keep it from the rest of the pack, necessarily, but it wasn’t something he thought he could explain. Scott had been there before; had known his mom and heard stories of the cabin, seen the photos and understood exactly how much it meant to Stiles. He had been there after, filled the glaring gap in his summers as best he could with his friendship and his loyalty and his ineffable Scott-ness, and Stiles knew he was the only other person other than his dad who could understand Stiles’ need to return to the cabin alone.

He kept both Scott and his dad in the dark about his the desire to test the pack bonds and make sure that, even a thousand miles away and surrounded by nothing but forest and stone, he would still feel his pack ties thrumming in his chest. Part of him, that quiet, black part that seemed to invade his mind and stop his heart like ice, whispered that if he couldn’t feel them that far away, he wasn’t really pack. That insidious voice told he needed to belong to them so much more than they needed his belonging and when they disappeared, he’d have to confront that he wasn’t pack, wasn’t anything at all - just a fragile, broken boy who believed he could run with wolves.

The thought made the spot under his chest ache, so he buried the feeling and turned up the volume on the Jeep’s radio as he continued on the winding road north. His mom loved music, used to make these mix tapes for them to listen to on the 12 hour drive up. The sheriff had told Stiles he found her tape collection in the same forgotten corner with the keys, but neither had felt ready to listen to them. But now, in his mom’s car on the familiar drive to her favorite place in the world, Stiles felt like it was time.

Claudia Stilinski had eclectic tastes - she liked classic rock and loved belting out “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” encouraging Stiles to join in from the back seat and poking John until he’d warble along with them. Some days were dedicated to funk, filled with Parliament and Earth, Wind, and Fire; other days, she’d spend hours playing nothing but The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. Above all else, Stiles’ mom loved Fleetwood Mac. She loved the ballads and the break up songs and could never, ever sit still when she played them. Claudia listened with her whole body, letting Stiles stand on her toes as she spun him around the kitchen or dancing in her seat with her arm out the Jeep window to feel the breeze while she sang, eyes shut and face turned up in total bliss. John would joke that she would leave him for Stevie Nicks in heartbeat, and every time she’d respond by putting on “Everywhere” and serenading him, lifting their interlaced fingers to press kisses to the back of his hand until he stopped pouting and sang along.

It was Fleetwood Mac that Stiles chose to accompany his pilgrimage, running his fingers over the handwritten label before sliding the tape in and cranking the volume up. Loud enough that it covered even the trademark jangling of the Jeep’s engine; so loud that all he could think about was the words, and all he could do was tighten his grip on the steering wheel and sing along.

But listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost…

And if Stiles’ sleeve was a little wet where he’d scrubbed it across his face, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

It’s easier than he expected. He pulls the Jeep over on the side of the road a few times on the way up, has to press his hand to his chest to reassure himself the bonds are still there and force air through his lungs to stave off the panic attack would overcome him, if he let it. But when he arrives, just before dusk, the bonds are still there and glowing warmly, a silent message of support to offset the nerves coiled in his stomach.

It looks just the same.

The wood is a little more worn than he remembers, the red paint of the deck curling up in small flakes. Tall grasses sway gently where there was once trim lawn and the stones of the path are loose where weeds have pushed up their edges. But the forest is still as tall and vital as Stiles remembers, and if he closes his eyes, listens to the birds calling and wind running through the leaves, he can almost believe himself six years old again, running through the trees with outstretched hands and spinning in circles until the branches blur over his head and he tips over, dizzyingly happy and so terribly alive.

He shoots his dad a text to let him know he’s arrived then steels himself before opening the front door, gripping the leather chain so tightly his knuckles bleed white.

If this was a movie, there’d be rain, he thinks. There’d be rain and that hazy half-light that always precedes a summer storm, rose-tinged air under a clouded sky.

But this isn’t a movie, and there is no rain. Instead, the air is warm and dry and the sunset paints the sky every color Stiles can name, swelling to a deep scarlet where the sun melts into the lake.

She would have liked that, Stiles thinks. How the colors bled into each other, the way they looked reflected in the calm surface of the lake. And that’s the thought that propels him to turn the key and open the door, stepping into the cabin for the first time in a decade.

It’s dark – the blinds drawn and the furniture still covered in the white sheets they’d draped over to ward off dust and dirt through the long winter. Everything not covered bears a thick layer of dust, and when Stiles runs a finger across the hall mirror, he leaves a stark line in the glass.

The cabin feels quiet, suspended. Like all these years, it has been in hibernation, just waiting for him to return. Like it’s been yearning to wake up.

Stiles pauses by the sofa, hovers his hand over the thick sheet. It hits him all at once that this is a place completely untouched by what his life has become. This place has never known werewolves, or magic, or bloodshed. A time capsule of his best memories – of loving, and being loved; of warmth, and freedom, and uninhibited play and joy and everything that has been too far gone from Stiles’ life in the past few years.

The spot beneath his breastbone glows at the thought. Life in Beacon Hills was undeniably settling down – Scott blossoming into his role as Alpha under the tutelage of his mom, the sheriff, and Deaton, and the biggest threat they’d had in months was a group of wayward fairies on a summer road trip to the coast. Maybe…maybe he can have this again. Maybe it’s time.

Stiles grips the sheet and tears it off, revealing the fabric of the couch – the same lumpy, radioactive orange that colored his childhood naps and always brought a smile to his mother’s face. He grins at it like an old friend and, like a spell has been broken, shatters the stillness of the cabin by dashing through the rest of the rooms, ripping off sheets and whooping at the clouds of dust that spin through the air as each new piece of his memory is brought back to full, Technicolor life.

He moves into the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards and running his fingers over the mismatched collection of dishes and mugs, stopping when he touches one mug in particular. He pulls it down and turns it over in his hands, examining the stars and planets painted by a young Stiles, sloppy in his enthusiasm. He smiles, remembering how his mother laughed when he presented it to her. She had crouched down and thanked him with a kiss on his freckled cheek.

“My little starman,” she said, and traced over his moles with a finger. “Look, you’ve even got your own constellations.”

Stiles had giggled as she peppered each spot with kisses and squirmed in her arms, but bobbed his head and grinned when she asked if he wanted to listen to his special song.

Stiles can’t recall the first time it happened, couldn’t say exactly when it became a tradition, but remembers the joy he felt every time his mom would pull out their well-loved copy of Ziggy Stardust. She’d turn on the baby blue record player she’d had since she was a freshman in college and let Stiles guide the tonearm across the grooves, grabbing his hands and spinning him around the room as the song began to play. She’d twirl him out and back in again and again until he was dizzy with it, then she’d pull him back against her chest to hug him tight and sing the chorus in his ear.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’d like to come and meet us

but he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’s told us not to blow it

cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.

Stiles smiles bittersweet at the memory, pauses, then places the mug back on the shelf and walks decisively into his parents’ old bedroom. He reaches up into closet, feeling around the top shelf until his fingers brush against a box he pulls down and carries into the living room. With reverent hands, he unpacks the record player and sets it on the kitchen table, plugging the cord in and checking for the glow of the red ‘on’ light. In the bottom of the box rests his mom’s record collection – even though she had everything on tapes at their house in Beacon Hills, she kept the LP’s around. “Think of it as your inheritance,” she had said, letting him flip through their bright covers.

Stiles now cards through them slowly, heart aching as he trails his fingers across the familiar images. He finds the one he’s looking for and pulls it out, sliding the record from the sleeve and setting the cover aside before gently blowing dust from the grooves. He fits it on the platter, places the stylus halfway towards the center and listens to the familiar crackle as the song begins.

Like the cabin, this memory was one almost too tender to touch, and it had been years since he’d last listened to their song. But here, now, as a fresh breeze chases the stale air out of the cabin and warm light falls on the uncovered furniture, it feels right. It feels necessary. And as Stiles roams around the cabin, pushing open the windows and shaking out the blankets on the front porch, he can’t help but sing along, letting his lingering nerves be chased away by the well-loved words.  

Let the children lose it,

let the children use it,

let all the children boogie.

*

Stiles stays at the cabin for two weeks. He checks in with his dad once a day, and sends pictures of the projects he’d started around the house, but otherwise keeps his phone stashed in the Jeep. After that first night, falling asleep on the old couch listening to his mother’s records and wrapped up in the old knit blanket, he throws himself into fixing up the cabin.

He starts by digging out the ancient push lawnmower from the shed and clearing the tall grasses that had shot up in their absence, wiping dirt across his forehead as he digs out stubborn weeds from the stone path. He gets his supplies at the local hardware store, including a can of cardinal red paint to revive the porch, and works long hours in the late July heat, his skin browning in the sun as new flights of freckles appeared on his arms each day. The lean muscle he’d built up running with wolves comes in handy as he hauls the rowboat out to patch and repaint, nails new planks over the holes in the dock, and chops wood until there’s a sizable pile stacked next to the house.

When the heat gets to be too much, he strips to his briefs and dives into the lake, letting the cool water wash the sweat and dirt from his skin before sprawling out on the dock to dry in the sun. In the evenings, he sits on the porch swing, rocking back and forth as he watches the sunset and drinks lemonade from the same cracked pitcher he did when he was a child.

More often than not, he passes out early and sleeps soundly through the night in a way he didn’t believe he was capable of anymore; his tired body and aching muscles gentling him into a dreamless sleep from which he wakes refreshed and calm. On the nights he stays up, he pulls a book from his parents’ collection and sits by the firepit outside, surrounded by the chirping of crickets and the night sounds of the forest. He prefers the books with well-worn pages and cracked spines, like East of Eden and Dharma Bums. His mother had loved stories about America, the love letters to the land, and delighted in pointing out Kerouac’s Desolation Peak in the far ranges, just visible from her spot on the porch.

The longer he stays, the more his mind quiets. There are no intrusive thoughts, no insidious, creeping voices, almost as if the stillness of the cabin has bled into his mind. The excess energy that caused his hands to shake and his thoughts to race unchecked finds an outlet in the physicality of his work, the repetitive movements acting as a kind of meditation that leaves him clear and focused. He feels settled in his skin as his muscles flex and ache, entirely at home in his body and mind. For the first time in years, Stiles feels like himself again. Strong. Unbroken.

On his last night, Stiles sits in the kitchen with the book of runes Deaton lent him and ingredients he’d carefully gathered over the past few days – thistle and clover, blue vervain and St. Johnswort, powdered bark from the trees that ring the clearing and a small handful of mud from the bottom of the lake. He grinds them into a paste, and over every window and doorway, he paints the symbols for luck and protection – not just from living threats, but from wind, fire, rain, and dust. He pours his will into them, declares himself where they lay to ensure that not a breath of the pain that has plagued Beacon Hills can touch this place. Not just because it was a part of his mother, but because it is undoubtedly a piece of himself, too.

When everything is locked up and the Jeep packed for the long drive home, Stiles spares one last look at the porch swing, takes in the fresh paint, lush grass, and clear windows, liberated from dust. The stillness remains, but it’s different now – a quiet born not of stasis, but of peace; the land has finally woken up, and Stiles right alongside it. He closes his eyes and focuses on remembering exactly how he feels in this moment, wanting to carry it with him when he goes.

With a smile on his face, Stiles opens his eyes and backs out the driveway. As he travels down the road towards home, he glances in the rearview mirror, watching as the cabin grows smaller and smaller until it’s swallowed by forest, and all he can see is green.

*

Even with his newfound calm, Stiles spent the entire five hour flight to Washington with his palm pressed against his sternum, eyes screwed up and body tensed as he waited for the inevitable moment when the gentle tugging of the threads would turn too harsh and snap, robbing him of the warmth in his chest.

But, like his earlier tests, it never came.

When the wheels touched down at Reagan National, the quiet thrumming beneath his breast remained. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, letting some of the tension finally drain out of his muscles. He wasn’t alone. He was nearly 3,000 miles from his home and his pack, but he wasn’t alone. He pressed down harder for a moment and was rewarded when the bonds seemed to grow warmer, more insistent, like they were chiding him for being silly enough to think that they’d just leave.

He broke out in a grin, letting his hand drop. He knew the next few months were still going to be hard – he’d still worry about his dad and his friends, still have to deal with the lingering guilt of leaving them, (though his pack had been nothing but supportive, promising to keep his dad on a diet and Skype so much he’d be sick of them), still have to adjust to a new city and living on his own. But the knowledge that he’d still have a physical connection to his pack, a constant reminder that he belonged to someone, somewhere, made the rest seem small in comparison.

Stiles stood up, grabbing his bag out of the overhead compartment and swinging it over his shoulder. His smile remained as he followed the line out of the plane and stepped into the cooler Washington air. Here, burning in his chest, was proof that he had walked through Hell and come out the other side with his pack beside him. Compared to what came before, college would be a cakewalk.

*

Two months in, Stiles was strongly reconsidering that statement. Sure, there was nothing actually wrong, but that didn’t mean things were right, either. His roommate was chill, an aspiring pre-med student who only showed up to shower and sleep, which suited Stiles fine. It was a little quiet, sure, but it gave him more time to work on his magic homework from Deaton or Skype his pack without worrying about fabricating excuses to obscure the more…extraordinary elements of his life.

He liked most of his classes and had been flirting with the idea of double majoring in history and folklore, had a group he regularly met up with for study sessions, and a spot in the local coffee shop he had more or less declared as his. From an outside perspective, things were totally, completely fine.

Which, in itself, was kind of his problem. Everything was just…okay. Stiles had kind of expected college to be, well, more. More wild parties and hook-ups with interesting people, more student protests and campus rivalries and dramatic self-realizations and yeah, maybe Stiles had seen too many coming-of-age movies but still, wasn’t college meant to be more than a daily routine of classes, coffee, and Call of Duty until he passed out and woke up to do it all again?

Maybe if he had been less preoccupied with the whole leaving-the-pack and honouring-his-mother’s-memory internal struggles, he would have had more time to think about what college would actually be like, outside of a vague notion of John Belushi in Animal House. Maybe, just maybe, he would have realized that after the whole supernatural/Hellmouth/death and destruction and possession continual crises that characterized his high school years, college couldn’t help but seem a little…tame, in comparison.

He had hit up the requisite frat parties and induction events with his floor-mates those first few weeks, but inevitably found himself zoning out after just a few minutes, staring into space as he thought about the lore books he had stacked next to his bed, mentally composed essays for his classes, and pondered if the jungle juice had been magically altered or if it was just really, really bad gin.

It was the classic catch-22: he had spent months dreaming of escaping Beacon Hills for a few years of the out-of-control parties and ill-advised hook-ups he imagined constituted the average American college experience, but after all he had been through, he just couldn’t convincingly stir up interest in drinking cheap beer in houses with sticky floors or painting his face to cheer on home football games. It all just seemed a bit…false; unreal in its blatant normality, and Stiles felt like the biggest phony of them all. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield.

Stiles’ hang-ups regarding hook-ups were much the same.  It wasn’t that he was unsure about his sexuality - he had firmly come to grips with his bisexuality right around the time he started regularly hanging out with shirtless teen werewolves. It wasn’t lack of confidence or options, either; Stiles knew he had grown into himself over the past few years, and the lingering tan and lean, corded muscles from his summer activities didn’t hurt. He had been approached a number of times since arriving in D.C. and had even gone on a couple dates, but each time Stiles couldn’t help but be struck by the knowledge of just how deep the divide was between their life experience and his own. It also didn’t help that, try as he might, he couldn’t stop comparing potential suitors to a certain impossible standard. Warning kids: prolonged exposure to Derek Hale might be hazardous to your health, and ruin you for literally every other person on Earth.

Scott said he was being melodramatic (the same Scott, Stiles would like to point out, who wrote literal sonnets about how Allison’s hair looked in the moonlight), but even though he felt guilty about it, sometimes, late at night, Stiles almost wished for a supernatural crisis to liven things up a bit. Just a little one – mysterious runes carved in the woods maybe, or a small haunting in the library. God, he’d even settle for just someone to talk to, someone who understood. He had a sneaking suspicion his diminutive Anglo-Saxon Folklore professor was some variety of sprite, but he doubted point-blank asking her to discuss the D.C. ley lines over coffee would go over well.

With all the free time he had not attending parties or participating in wild orgies six nights a week, he was way ahead on his coursework and had practiced the defensive runes Deaton assigned him until he was positive he could do them unconscious, with his hands tied behind his back (less of a descriptive hyperbole than a actual precautionary necessity, considering). After the second week in a row of spending his nights bored and alone in his room, listening to Beirut and falling asleep with his hand pressed against his chest, Stiles decided something needed to be done. Everything around him was just so terribly normal, and yeah, Stiles was man enough to admit that it sucked. He was lonely, and worse - he was bored.

But he’d be damned if he was going to slink home with his tail between his legs (pun fully intended). He was a Stilinki, and he wasn’t about to shame his babcia’s good name by folding like a lawn chair during his first few weeks away from home. What he needed was a project, something to invest in, and an outlet for all that extra energy that, now it was no longer channelled into fighting baddies or keeping Scott out of trouble, was only exacerbating his frustration with the utter monotony of college life.

His answer came on an innocuous white flyer, tucked away behind an army of advertisements for student productions and tutoring gigs on the communal bulletin board in the student center. He had marched down early on his day off, determined to find something that would get him out of his funk. He had been combing through the multi-colored stacks for the better part of the last twenty minutes, discarding the many babysitting and au pair requests (he doubted anyone would take ‘playing pack mom to a bunch of out-of-control teenage werewolves as valid experience) and wrinkling his nose at the recruiting posters for the Hoya sports teams – he’d spent enough years alternately warming the bench and getting pummelled by Jackson to admit that maybe sports just weren’t his thing, thanks.

Just as he was about to give up hope, he found it. Plain black type on white paper, none of the nauseating neon colors or – god forbid – comic sans featured on other posters,  half hidden behind a promo for a beach volleyball tournament (in October. On the East Coast. And people say Stiles is weird). There wasn’t much on it, just the words ‘internship available’ bolded at the top, with ‘Archives Center - National Museum of American History’, an address, and the Smithsonian logo underneath, but Stiles was intrigued. Granted, all he knew about the Smithsonian was what he’d seen in Night at the Museum 2 (and God, he really needed to stop relying on pop culture to guide his life choices), but the untameably nosy part of him squealed in glee at the thought of all the interesting things he could get his paws on working in the archives of one of the largest museums in the country. He pulled the flyer down and checked the address on his phone; if he caught the 33 bus on Wisconsin, he could be there in a half hour.

Stiles ran back to his dorm (still noticeably empty of his roommate. Stiles was half convinced he was dealing with a going ghost, Danny Phantom situation here) and dug through his closet for something interview worthy. He eventually settled on a pair of dark jeans and a white button up that only had one ketchup stain on the sleeve - barely noticable, if he rolled them up. He printed out a copy of his resume, ran a hand through his hair, and was back out the door in less than 20 minutes.

*

Stiles had been to the Smithsonian campus once before – his whole floor had gone as part of the RA’s self-proclaimed ‘bonding’ week, before the poor upperclassman had realized just how little the freshmen truly gave a shit and gave up the ghost. The visit had been on the shorter and more harried side; desperate to keep their attention, his RA had taken a Buzzfeed ‘Top 10’ approach and single-mindedly ferried them to and from the major attractions in the Natural History and Air and Space museums. Stiles had been meaning to return for a more thorough visit, but always seemed to get distracted by something (namely, World of Warcraft and the collected works of Bo Burnham).

Now though, he seriously regretted not returning earlier. Surrounded by sprawling buildings advertising  for exhibitions like Apollo to the Moon and the Last American Dinosaurs and caught in the bustling crowds of people – tour groups in matching t-shirts, laughing children evading their anxious parents, art students sprawled out sketching architectural lines and marble sculptures – Stiles felt better than he had in weeks. All the people, all the excitement, all the action and history and emotion set his veins alight as he walked down the National Mall.

The Museum of American History was a long, stone building under the shadow of the Washington Monument and, as Stiles stood outside taking in the square lines and imposing structure, he couldn’t help but think it looked more like a Vogon battleship than a celebrated museum of history and culture.

Undaunted (though slightly distracted by thoughts of the third worst poetry in the world), he climbed the steps and entered the main hall, making a bee-line for an information desk manned by a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a look of absolute, all-encompassing boredom while deftly spinning a pen between her fingers. Stiles thought he might be in love.

The woman heaved a sigh when she spotted Stiles striding up to her desk, cutting him off immediately. “What’s your teacher’s name? I can call them over the PA system.”

Stiles blinked at her. “Uh…what?”

“Your teacher’s name? Or your high school will work. I can’t get you back with your group if I don’t have a name to page.”

Stiles frowned at her. “Do I really look like a high school student to you?”

The woman paused, looking him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

If Stiles had to classify it, he’d put her tone somewhere between ‘Sahara Desert’ and ‘fiery pits of Hell’ dry. Yeah, he was definitely in love.

Stiles flushed and rubbed a hand over his already messy hair, wisely deciding to move on. “Uh, my name’s Stiles Stilinski, and I’m actually here about an internship opportunity I saw.” He said, thrusting the flyer at her.

Her eyes widened as she read it. “They’ve actually resorted to flyers? Man, they must really be desperate.”

“Not much interest in dusty old archives, huh?” Stiles joked.

She laughed outright at that. “No, no, there’s plenty of interest. People just don’t tend to…last very long in Archives.”

“Like they only offer short-term internships?”

She shot him an indecipherable look.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Alright, kid –“

Stiles made a noise of protest, but quieted at her glare. He’d seen worse (and her eyebrows were far from the most judge-y he’d encountered), but figured it was best not to antagonize the staff before he’d barely set foot in the place.

“You’re going to head towards the East Wing and look for the bust of Martin Van Buren. Hard to miss – a lot of beard.”

Stiles nodded; he was well-acquainted with that most spectacular set of mutton chops.

“There’ll be a wooden door next to it – just press the intercom button and say your name. I’ll give Boris a heads up you’re coming.” She instructed, handing back the flyer.

“Boris?” Stiles questioned.

“Boris is…I’m not exactly sure what Boris does outside of hanging out in the Archives entrance, but he’s good people. The Archives staff sees a lot of turnover, but I’m fairly sure Boris has been here since the groundbreaking. There’s a pretty lucrative pool on if he’ll ever retire.” She shot him a smirk. “If you make it, come see me – I’ll deal you in.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if I make it’?”

The girl winked and spun in her chair, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hey, c’mon. That’s – that’s just overly dramatic. I can still see you, you know!” Stiles called, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Without turning, the girl extended her pen in the direction of the East Wing. Stiles huffed and dropped his hands, muttering to himself as he obediently marched off in the direction she had indicated.

Halfway down the hall Stiles spotted the bust of Van Buren (as hirsute as promised) and paused in front of the door it bordered. It was made of fairly worn wood – an anomaly in the stone-bathed hall – but otherwise appeared normal. He pushed the call button on the intercom next to the door and bent down to say his name. The door buzzed open immediately and Stiles walked through to a small, red room with half-panelled walls. One corner was taken up by an iron staircase that spiralled in both directions, and in the middle sat a man with a shock of white hair and wire-rimmed glasses reading a magazine behind a desk. As Stiles approached, the man closed the magazine and laid it on his desk, allowing him to see it was the latest Halloween-themed edition of Country Living. Noticing his gaze, the man smiled and tapped the magazine with his finger.

“I like the antiques section – especially now that I’m old enough to be classified as one myself. I presume you’re Mr. Stilinski?” The man had disarmingly clear blue eyes, and Stiles couldn’t help fidgeting where he stood.

“Stiles is fine. Uh, are you Boris?”

The man nodded. “That I am. It’s wonderful you’ve come, Dr. Saint Cyprian was just speaking about wanting another intern. The last one regrettably left us a few weeks ago after an unfortunate…incident. We’ve had some difficulty finding a suitable replacement.”

Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I like to think I’m both suitable and good at replacing. A+ replacing, right here.” He mimed finger guns at the man and internally face-palmed. Real smooth, Stilinski. Much professional.

To his surprise, Boris beamed at him. “Oh, I do believe Dr. Saint Cyprian is going to like you. Just head down those stairs there, she should be in her office.”

Stiles thanked him and headed towards the staircase, eager to escape that slightly too-penetrating gaze.

He paused at the edge of the stair, leaning carefully over the railing to judge the distance between him and the ground. He wasn’t worried per se, but those steps were awfully narrow and he had somewhat of a…reputation when it came to grace. He’d be damned if he managed to survive a half-decade of California Hellmouth only to bite it on a staircase, though, so he hiked his bag up on his shoulder, shot a wave to Boris,  and set off into the depths.

After what felt like ages of spiralling almost-doom, but was probably a solid thirty seconds, the staircase ended at another wooden door with ‘Archives’ printed in gold. He didn’t see an intercom, so he rapped twice and waited.

“It’s unlocked!” A muffled voice called from the other side.

Stiles took a second to run a hand over his hair and straighten his shirt before pulling open the door. His eyebrows immediately shot up as he took in the innumerable stacked shelves marching off into the distance, and, standing in front of them, what looked like a gray-haired woman wrestling a lurid purple feather boa into a box on the floor.

She spared him a look as she slammed the top down on the container. “Come on in, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Stiles let go of the handle and moved to step through the door frame. As he did, a shock ran through his body and he let out a yelp, stumbling the rest of the way into the room. He shot the door a suspicious glare, shaking out his arms to regain feeling.

He turned back to the woman, still hunched over the box but now completely focused on the young man, pinning him with a searching look.

Stiles stuttered out a laugh. “Heh, gotta watch out for that static electricity, huh?”

The woman continued to stare. “What are you?”

“Uh, I’m Stiles. I came about the internship ad?”

She frowned at him. “Not who are you – what are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Uh, a college student? At Georgetown. I’m studying anthropology and folklore and I heard about an internship opportunity…”

The woman abruptly stood up, crossing her arms and glaring mulishly at Stiles. “Did Mona send you? I told her she’s not getting that tablecloth and she can send whatever snub-nosed little pixie she wants – I’m not handing it over.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped in outrage. “Snub-nosed, who you calling snub-nosed I- what are you even talking about? I don’t know anyone named Mona. And I don’t have the slightest interest in tablecloths or any other dining accoutrement, for that matter! I’m just here about the internship.” He waved the flyer around to emphasize his point.

The woman raised an eyebrow, but her frown lightened a fraction. “Well, you’ve got to be something. That door doesn’t react to just anyone.”

Stiles switched his tactic, sniffing imperiously. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

The woman snorted. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you. I warded that door myself. It wouldn’t have let you in if you meant any real harm, but you wouldn’t have reacted at all if you were just a human. So what are you? I’m still guessing pixie.”

Stiles eyeballed her suspiciously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I was slightly more extra than ordinary – why pixie?”

“Button nose and boyband hair, ” she said without missing a beat.

Stiles scoffed. “Alright, ONE, I do not have boyband hair. Two, what is wrong with my nose?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. It’s just, you know, very…” She uncrossed one arm, gesturing in the general direction of his face. “Very.”

“Very very?”

“Verily, very very,” she nodded, resolute.

“So, if you’re not a pixie, what are you? I’m happy to talk about the internship, if that’s what you’re really here for, but I’ve got to know. Some of the artifacts can be…touchy, around the wrong energies.”

Stiles sucked on his bottom lip, deliberating. She looked relatively harmless, with long steel grey hair and enough wrinkles to put her somewhere around her early 60’s, though in Stiles’ experience that didn’t mean much - Gerard was pushing 70 when he met him. He could see what looked like tattooed runes on her knuckles and hands, disappearing into her sleeves. Appearance aside, she hadn’t smote him on sight, which was generally a positive sign, and she worked in a literal government institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Above all, nothing in his instincts, human or otherwise, gave him a bad feeling about her, and he had long since learned to listen to his gut.

Decision made, he stuck out his hand. “Stiles Stilinski, Spark-in-training and member of the McCall Pack in Beacon Hills, California.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought Beacon Hills was Hale land.”

Stiles flushed. “It uh, was. Still is, technically, though we haven’t heard from any of them in a while. My buddy Scott was bit by a Hale and he has been…caretaking, if you will.”

She hummed, considering this, before extending her arm to accept Stiles’ handshake.

“Spark, huh? I can work with that. My name is Dr. Olesya Saint Cyprian, but you can call me Rian. I’m the head archivist here.”

“That’s…quite a name.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Glass houses, Mr. Stilinski.”

“…point.”

Introductions made, the woman – Rian – gestured for Stiles to follow her into her office and take a seat across from a desk spilling over with books, papers, and what Stiles was fairly certain was a human skull.

“Polish, I presume?” Rian inquired, settling into her chair.

“Got it in one. What’s St. Cyprian?”

“An inside joke – my grandparents selected it when they emigrated from Russia.”

“Oh?”

“St. Cyprian is the patron saint of occultists.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.

“A sense of humour runs in my family, among other things.”

“Things like magic?”

Her smile reminded Stiles of Deaton’s more enigmatic moments.

“Something like that. Perhaps I will tell you later. Now though, we have other things to discuss.” She folded her hands on the desk and leaned towards him. “So you’re truly just here for the internship? No nefarious plans to pillage my artifacts? I can promise you wouldn’t like the consequences, if you tried.”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Just plain old college credit desired. But if it’s on the table…I’ve finished the books my emissary gave me when I left home and have somewhat been at loose ends. I could use a project.”

He dug his resume out of his bag and handed it to her. “This covers my academic and work history, but in terms of supernatural experience I’ve spent the summer studying basic runes and spells with a local emissary, and have spent the better part of the last few years dealing with everything from kanimas to chimeras.”

He smiled crookedly. “I thought I’d finally enjoy a break with college, but turns out retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying I’m particularly interested in marauding Alpha packs turning up on campus anytime soon, but maybe being around people who understand, getting back into it, just a little, might be…good. For me.”

Rian skimmed his resume then looked at him, considering. She put the paper down and leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to level with you. It’s a bitch trying to keep a non-supernatural initiated intern around - if you’re not in the know, some of the items can be a bit…unsettling. Hell, I’ve been working here for 40 years and sometimes they still give me the willies. Our last intern only lasted two weeks, and I’m sick of training newbies only for them to disappear before they can be of any actual use. Coincidentally, I’ve been needing someone to touch up some of the wards. Old body – can’t do so much of the physical work anymore.”

Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow. From what he’d seen when he walked in, she had more strength than she owned to.

“If you’d agree to take over the wards, along with the standard archive work – returning borrowed items, cataloguing new arrivals, and researching the unknowns – I’d be happy to give you instruction on some of the more…unique objects in the Archives. Officially, we store any items pertaining to the culture and history of America, but unofficially, we have the largest collection of objects and documents relating to the supernatural world this side of the Atlantic – everything from Appalachian yeti clippings to the Salem grimoires.”

Stiles let out a meep at that, eyes going wide.

“We pay minimum wage, and I’d ideally like you here three days a week. You’d get an hour lunch and no benefits, I’m afraid, but I’m happy to sign whatever college credit forms you want and your employee pass will get you special access to all the Smithsonian museums and research centers, if that’s something you’re interested in.”

Stiles perked up. “Even the zoo?”

“Full zoo privileges included.”

His resulting fist pump triggered a look on Rian’s face that was remarkably long-suffering, considering the short duration of their acquaintance.

“So, what do you say – still want to work here? It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I can promise you it won’t be boring.”

Stiles grinned - this was exactly the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“Sign me up, Doc. I’m in.”

*

After filling in all the necessary forms and promising to return the following week to begin, Stiles paused at the door to the stairs. “Before I go, can I ask two questions?”

“Within reason,” Rian said, rolling her eyes in an exasperated look that was rapidly becoming familiar. Stiles guessed it might be her default state. Or just her default Stiles state. Either or.

“What table cloth is so important that your first thought would be that I was here to steal it? Can it fly like the rug from Aladdin? If so – dibs on riding it!”

Rian snorted. “Nice try. No levitation abilities, I’m afraid, but something even better – it never gets dirty, changes color to suit  the dinnerware, and magically ensures that dinner conversation never includes politics, religion, or invasive personal questions.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “You’ve really got people chomping at the bit for that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you’ve never been to a dinner party before.”

Stiles wisely moved on.

“Alright, second question: is there a sentient feather boa in that box?” He gestured to the item in question, still lying on the floor where she left it and occasionally shuddering with violent movement.

“Sentient, no; enchanted, yes. It’s from the personal collection of an early 20th century siren who, as I understand it, was particularly popular on the vaudeville circuit. It’s meant to entice the beholder into coming close enough to kiss – or strangle, as sirens have occasionally been known to do. One of your duties will be to catalogue new items like this and store them in the stacks.” She pointed to the labyrinthine shelves behind her.

She laughed at Stiles’ panicked look. “Don’t worry – it’s not dangerous, usually.”

Stiles pulled a face, silently mouthing ‘usually’.

“ I’ll give you a full run down on Monday. In the meantime,” she said digging through the mess on her desk and unearthing a small red leather book, “This contains all the protection runes currently in the archive – water, fire, mold, basic defensive wards, etc etc. Take a look at them over the weekend and we can talk on Monday if you have any questions or are interested in putting your own spin on them. It’s been years since I’ve thought about updating them – perhaps they could benefit from a little modernization.”

She handed Stiles the volume and bid him goodbye. He ascended the staircase and left the museum in something of a daze, mind spinning with the unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome, change in circumstance. His phone buzzed, pulling him out of his stupor. He glanced at the name on the screen and grinned, overflowing with glee. There was an honest-to-god supernatural archive under the Smithsonian and he had a job there – Scott was going to flip his SHIT.

*

In a couple weeks’ time, Stiles had settled into a comfortable pattern. Officially, he worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 6, leaving in time to make his evening classes. Unofficially, he’d started coming in every free afternoon, staying late into the night researching the more fantastic objects.

It’d taken him a while to decipher Dr. Saint Cyprian’s (“For God’s sake, call me Rian.”) system, but he felt pretty comfortable with it now. Rows were numbered, shelves were lettered (Latin for normal items, Cyrillic for magical), with like items placed together and sorted by year. The hardest part was figuring out what was safe to touch, and which items would react…unfavorably to his Spark. Nothing too terrible ever happened, but after he brushed up against an enchanted punch bowl and spent the next several hours uncontrollably sneezing, Rian taught him how to work runes that would hide his Spark into a pair of archival-standard gloves.  

“There, you’re hypoallergenic now,” she said, patting him on the head before walking away. Stiles sneezed in her general direction.

Like he had in the cabin, Stiles found a comfort in the routine of work. He would start his shifts sorting through the returns, deftly weaving through the maze of stacks to restore every item to its rightful places. The museum used a series of glorified dumbwaiters to transport artifacts to and from visiting academics and historians, while members of the supernatural community had to request a personal visit to examine items. The mess on Rian’s desk was largely composed of such letters, from covens interested in recovering ancestral spells to vampires tracking down old possessions and everything in-between. These visits were always of particular interest to Stiles, eager to interact with magic users and supernatural creatures refreshingly free of any agenda to kill or maim him. In the short time he’d worked there, he’d already met a shapeshifter who worked in b-horror films, a group of dryads studying at Towson he’d made coffee plans with, and a banshee who’d given Stiles her contact information to pass to Lydia. Best of all, though, was finding out that his Folklore professor was not only magic (an actual muse - Stiles felt bad for guessing sprite), but apparently dating his boss. Stiles isn’t sure who was more shocked the first time she came to pick up Rian for lunch and saw Stiles standing there, arms half buried in a magically expanding handbag. His boss had burst out laughing at the twin looks of disbelief on their faces.

“Honestly, how could you not tell the second he walked in to your classroom? The kid leaks power. You’re losing your touch, babe,” she had teased, linking their arms together before whisking her up the stairs.

After all the return items had been set to rights and the day’s requests pulled from the stacks, Stiles started in on the new arrivals. The archives were constantly expanding, new additions appearing daily from estates willed to the museum and items recovered from Smithsonian-funded fieldwork. Before adding them to the stacks, he photographed each piece and created meticulous notes, plugging the information into the newly digitized system he talked Rian into letting him implement (the former archive ‘system’ had been a paper card catalogue. Stiles questioned how they ever endured without him).

But the thing he loved best was when he finished all his other work and he was free to dive in to what he had started thinking of as his pet project – the Land of Misfit Toys. The LMT (“I’m not calling it that, Stiles, and no, you can’t make a sign for it.”) was a massive storage room to the west of the stacks stuffed with unmarked boxes, artifacts long missing documentation, pallets filled with objects originally meant for unknown destinations, and rows of bookshelves bursting with dusty tomes (some of which were bound in…dubious materials. Stiles became more grateful for those gloves with every passing day.). Stiles thought the overall effect was something akin to Gort’s house in the cinematic classic Halloweentown 2, and was obsessed from the moment he saw it.

While he got to handle some interesting items re-shelving and cataloguing – highlights included a stack of racy love letters from a New York senator to his mistress(es) and an honest-to-god sentient chunk of Route 66 – the LMT (“It’s catchy, Rian! And you can pry this label maker from my cold, dead hands IT NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED.”) felt exciting, untouched. Stiles had shelved his childhood dreams of being a professional discoverer in the third grade after the sad realization that most things had, unfortunately, been discovered, but looking out at the sea of lost and forgotten objects, he felt the part of him that longed to explore new worlds and unravel the secrets of the universe, the same part that happily spent hours reading about unsolved mysteries and UFO sightings on Wikipedia, buzz with happiness.

It was the best kind of meditation, slipping in his headphones and moving methodically through each box. He’d carefully lift each piece, examining it from all angles, running his fingers over the edges and prying at locks, before tagging and photographing it, taking detailed notes on his laptop so later he could combine the Smithsonian libraries with the power of Google-Fu to recover its history. Stiles spent hours in the LMT, feeling like the love child of Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes he always dreamed he would be and feeling a rush of emotion whenever he stumbled upon the identity of a once-forgotten thing. He knew a bit about that – being lost, being forgotten. Maybe that’s why it meant so much to him, why he was so determined to identify every one and give them a place in the stacks, far away from the abandoned room full of forgotten things.

More than once, he’d been jolted out of his Adderall fueled research fugue when Rian turned the lights off on him, closing up for the night. He’d have to scramble to get home and finish his actual coursework, unwilling to let his grades slip even as he spent more and more time at the archives, but Stiles was the happiest he had been since he moved to D.C., and he couldn’t bring himself to regret a second of it.

A big part of this happiness was a result of Stiles’ attempts at befriending the other employees. His first day of work, he came armed with a box of cupcakes (bought, not made – through trial and very messy error, Stiles concluded that dorm hot plates did not lend themselves to confectionary creation).  His first target was Jules, formerly known as Information Desk Girl. From years bugging his dad down at the station, Stiles knew the front desk person was always the one to befriend. Officer Shelley was the first to know every piece of gossip in Beacon Hills and had dirt on all the officers, including the sheriff, and Stiles suspected Jules was no different. In exchange for the pastry and the promise for more in the future, she had started giving him hints on which security guards were cool and which to avoid (Benny and Barry, respectively), which routes to take to avoid the tourists (“Stay away from the Star-Spangled Banner at all costs.”), and what foods in the staff canteen were actually edible (none of them).

Over a series of lunches, with mutually agreed alternating dessert duties, Stiles found out she was working to fund an MA in American history and that her parents were academics (“Seriously, what kind of people name their newborn daughter Jules Verne? The answer is mine, my parents did that. I am not proud of this.” Stiles had nodded solemnly. “Solidarity, my friend.”).

He was fairly sure she was human; since that first day she hadn’t done more than joke about the weirdness of the archives like it was accepted fact, and never brought up anything more magical than whatever new docent she had her eye on (Jules was more than happy to appreciate attractive people of all genders – loudly, and at length). She liked pop culture and snarked like she breathed, and sometimes she reminded Stiles so much of Erica he felt a phantom pain in his chest. Though they were never officially pack, Erica had such an impact on his life (and his skull, if he was counting that one time with his carburettor) that he knew, on some level, they had been tied together, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time. Painful memories aside, Jules was funny, Lydia-levels of intelligent, able to match Stiles barb for barb, and probably the first real friend he had made in D.C.

*

It was on Jules’ recommendation that he found himself wandering the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn art museum during his lunch break one day. Stiles doubted he was sophisticated enough to appreciate modern art – he still giggled at anything remotely phallic, Snapchatting the best pieces to Scott with appropriately suggestive stick figures– but when he had gone to meet Jules for their usual Friday pizza and shit-talk, she had waved him off, muttering something about a renegade tour group on the loose in the Power Machinery hall. Stiles shrugged and started to walk away, already mentally planning where he could find a quiet area to eat and maybe grab a nap, but she called him back to suggest he check out the Hirshhorn.

“It’s a big-ass donut looking building, really, you can’t miss it.” She had the glint in her eye Stiles had already learned to be wary of as she leaned forward. “It’s one of the main modern galleries– most of it crap, but there’s one serious work of art you might be able to catch, if you leave now.”

“Even more beautiful than you?” Stiles said, batting his eyes at her.

Jules snorted loudly, startling a passing elderly couple.

“Oh honey, I don’t even come close. Just get yourself to the sculpture garden – we can compare notes later.” She winked at him and smacked his ass, making Stiles yelp as she walked away cackling.

Stiles rubbed his backside – Jules had some serious untapped strength – and headed out towards the Mall. He’d admit it - he was intrigued. He’d found that Jules’ interests more or less aligned with his own, so if she was so adamant he’d like it, to the Hirshhorn he’d go. Plus, it wasn’t like he actually had anything better to do now that his lunch buddy had been detained for the afternoon.

He stopped at the hot dog cart parked outside of the museum and couldn’t stifle a grin when Saul, the owner, asked him if he wanted his usual. He was the kind of cool, adult type person who had a usual. Granted, his usual was two chilli cheese dogs and a Redbull, but he’d take what he could get.

Snacks in hand, Stiles made his way to the garden. He’d noticed the Hirshhorn before – kind of hard to ignore what was essentially a concrete toilet roll in the middle of the National Mall – but had never actually visited. The day was on the cooler side, D.C. a far cry from the paradisal clime of California, but the sun was shining and Stiles had invested in a good wool peacoat with a collar he could turn up against the wind (Lydia had told him he looked like a crap Hemingway. Stiles told her she could fuck off.).

Entering the gardens, he stopped in front of a particularly arresting statue of what appeared to be a car crushed by a gigantic rock painted with a smiley face. He tilted his head and contemplated it for a few moments, then shoved half a hot dog in his mouth and moved on. He wandered around the sculptures as he finished his food, stopping to make a face at a kid who was sticking his tongue out at him from behind his mother’s legs. There were quite a few people milling around the garden, which wasn’t unusual in-and-of-itself, but given that it was the middle of the workday in November, long past the end of tourist season, and the crowd almost entirely composed of mothers and women dressed a touch better than the average museum patron, Stiles’ curiosity was sufficiently piqued.

He paused next to the mother of the kid from before, who was fruitlessly trying to corral the young boy in front of a statue Stiles immediately dubbed ‘Junkyard Tetris’.  

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there was a special event going on? A friend suggested I come down here at this time, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he asked, politely ignoring the struggle in front of him.

The woman grabbed the back of her son’s shirt, holding him in place as he wiggled to get away, arms outstretched and eyes manic. Stiles got a sudden flashback of the sheriff trying to do the same every time he ventured to take Stiles to a museum, and shuddered at the reminder of the short lived period dubbed the Child Leash of Which We Do Not Speak.

Her son temporarily restrained, the woman looked up and shot Stiles a weak smile, panting lightly from exertion. “I don’t know if it counts as a special event, but there’s a pretty popular tour of the major garden highlights about to begin.”

She leaned towards him with a conspiratorial look, maintaining her grip on her son.“I’m not much for sculpture, but the tour guide…well, he really makes you appreciate the art, if you know what I mean.”

At that, her son shook loose, shouting “Mom likes his butt!” before running and hiding behind Stiles, utilizing him as a human shield against his now beet-red mother.

“Michael Joseph, you get back here right now!” she demanded.

Stiles laughed as he turned and picked the kid up under his armpits, handing him back to his mother. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling at the woman.

She flushed further and accepted her son back gratefully. “Sorry about that. If you’re still interested, the tour starts in about 10 minutes in front of the Rodin sculptures. There’s usually a crowd – you can’t miss it.”

She smiled back at him before gently pushing Michael towards a picnic table nestled between statues. “Enjoy!”

Stiles thanked her and walked away, spying an empty bench in the sun. From what the woman said and her son pretty much confirmed, the tour guide was probably what Jules had been alluding to. As he settled into the bench and turned his face to the sun, he thought idly that perhaps if the guide really was that attractive, he’d consider getting his number for Jules, or maybe even himself. After all, he had to start getting over Derek sometime, and what better time than the present. With that decided, Stiles reasoned he had a few minutes to relax before the tour began, and let his eyes slip close against the bright sunshine.

Twenty minutes later, he awoke with a start to something cold and wet wiggling in his ear. He flailed off the bench, landing on the ground with a thump. He looked up to see Michael, the kid from before, holding his stomach and giggling on the bench.

“I got you!” He cried. “Wet willy! Wet willy!”

Stiles grimaced and stuck a finger in his ear, trying to clean it out. He hated wet willies, and he and Scott had put a mutual ban on them years ago. Still, he had to admit the kid had chutzpah, and he nodded to acknowledge the successful willy as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Alright kid, you got me. Now, where’s your mom? She’s probably freaking out right now.”

The kid sat upright on the bench and rolled his eyes. “Nah, she’s too busy staring at the tour man. She probably hasn’t even noticed.”

Stiles snorted and held out a hand. “I seriously doubt anyone’s that pretty. Come on, let’s go find her, and you can show me this fantastic tour man.”

Michael hopped down from the bench and slotted his fingers between Stiles’. “Hurry up slow poke,” he said, jerking Stiles forward. “Old people take forever to get anywhere.”

Stiles scoffed, outraged. But before he could respond, he felt an odd sensation bloom in his chest. He raised his free hand to rub against it, frowning. He hadn’t worried about his bonds in a long time – they had remained just as steady and warm in his chest as they had in Beacon Hills, only changing to glow particularly brightly when something good happened, covertly confirmed through his weekly Skype calls with the pack. But this felt different, almost…fluttering. Anticipatory. Like sparks rising from his stomach and pooling beneath his breastbone, resolving into a current that flooded down to his feet and the tips of his fingers.

Stiles frowned and let his hand drop. It was probably just heartburn; he did wolf down (heh) a truly impressive amount of carbs and caffeine. Maybe Michael’s got it right; he’s old now, his body no longer the chilli-dog destroying machine it once was.

He let the thought go as they rounded a corner and spotted a large group of women and a few men circling a melting iron tree with rapt faces. He couldn’t quite see who giving the tour, but he quickly found Michael’s mother looking around frantically near the back. He walked back over to her and smiled at her sigh of relief when she saw her son with him.

“Hey, found this guy wandering around back there.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. A member of the crowd shot him a dirty look and he lowered his voice with a sheepish grin. “Figured you’d want him back.”

His mother shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you – again. Michael’s a bit of a handful, but he’s a really great kid, I swear.”

“Really, it’s no problem. I was pretty much the same when I was his age. I think my dad would call it payback,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He crouched down in front of the kid in question.  

“Hey little dude, I know this place is awesome and there’s a ton of cool stuff to explore, but try and take your mom with you next time you want to motor, alright? She’ll be excited too, I promise, and I bet if you ask really nicely, she’ll take you to see the woolly mammoths in the Natural History Museum. Deal?”

Michael nodded, and grinned a gap-toothed smile as he reached out to bump Stiles’ outstretched fist with his own.

Stiles stood back up and smiled at the boy’s mother. “Are you going to stick around for the rest of the tour?”

The woman smiled back at him but shook her head. “No, I think it’s best I get this munchkin moving. You should stay though – you haven’t missed much, and it really is pretty interesting. Have a good day, and thank you again.”

Stiles waved goodbye, and turned back to see the crowd had started to move to the next attraction. He didn’t have a clear view through all the bodies, but caught a flash of dark hair leading the group he guessed might belong to the infamous tour guide. He slipped into the back as they crowded around a tall plinth supporting a male figure carved in bronze, striding forward with clenched abs and powerful thighs, but curiously unfinished, missing a head and both arms. Stiles let his eyes drag across the statue as he focused in on the lilting voice carrying over the crowd.

“The Walking Man is an impressionist portrayal of Saint John the Baptist created between 1877 and ’78 by Auguste Rodin, the French artist most famous for The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Burghers of Calais, which you can also see in this garden. The work has been called “profoundly unclassical,” a rough sketch less concerned with the aesthetic beauty of his body than emphasizing the strength and forward movement of the figure, powerfully striding into the unknown.”

A small furrow appears between Stiles’ brows. The voice is relatively high for a man, but not weak; clear and engaging and intelligent, confident in his words. It tickles something in the back of Stiles’ head, a memory he can almost grasp, but slips out of his hands. You need me to survive.

“Saint John the Baptist is introduced in the Gospel of Mark as ‘a voice crying out in the wilderness’ and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the Prodigal Son. The headless state alludes to his martyrdom, orchestrated by the daughter of King Herod who requested his head brought to her on a platter.”

The sensation in Stiles’ chest flares up again, and he rubs the heel of his hand against it as he pushes himself up on his toes, straining to match a face to the voice that won’t stop itching at his memory. He can’t see anything – too many people, too many bodies, like the space is closing in around him.

He looks at his watch and sees he still has 20 minutes left. Enough time to stay and see this through, if he wants. And he wants; there’s something niggling at him, begging to be resolved, and he has never been one to let things alone – has never been able to stop poking his bruises, even when it hurt.

“The statue famously inspired a poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg in 1916, but I’m particularly fond of another, slightly more obscure poem, penned by Peter Cooley in 2014.”

His mind made up, Stiles begins pushing his way forward, elbowing his way through the crowded bodies, the coltish limbs that had been the bane of his high school existence allowing him to alternately slip and shove his way through the ranks while the voice begins to recite.

“But when the body stands here, one foot back,

one forward, the flesh flexed in motion,

there is no movement that is not your own.”

Stiles advances ever closer to the front, chased by a series of dirty looks and muffled “oofs.” He can see more clearly now; can glimpse strong, veined hands carving shapes into the air, illustrating the words.

“You forget your equivocating past

only to recall it the next second.”

Stiles traces up the hands to tanned forearms covered in a dusting of dark hair and broad shoulders filling out a sweater the color of forest moss. His gaze travels higher as his feet carry him to the front and the spot in his chest burns brightly, driving him onward.

“It is essential that he is headless.

Admit it: you’d be staring at his face.”

And suddenly he’s there, he’s made it, and he can hear his voice and see his face, more beautiful than any sculpture he’d ever seen, eyes so clear it feels like gazing into the sky.

“This is our walk between eternities,

The one we think we know, the one we can’t.”

Stiles blinks, and he’s 16 again,  all jittery limbs and so much innocence stunned silent by a thousand yard glare and a jawline like a chorus of angels.

He blinks again, and he sees the wide smile, dimpling into something not quite a beard, thicker and more lush than the stubble he remembers.

Stiles blinks, and his gaze lingers on the hint of crow’s feet, the hair curling gently under his ears instead of short and gelled, as tightly controlled as the rest of him.

Stiles blinks, and he sees the moment of recognition when his nostrils flare and his voice falters, when his eyes search frantically through the crowd before they land on Stiles’ face, and then he doesn’t blink, because for the first time in years, he’s looking directly at Derek and Derek is looking back.

The ball of warmth in his chest bursts and floods into his body, shooting electricity through his veins and igniting every cell until he thinks he can hear them singing as the heat rages and maybe that’s crazy to think but he can’t think, not when he’s standing right there, Derek is standing right there and he is alive and healthy and existing where Stiles is existing and he feels like he’s on fire but God, he’s never been so happy to burn.

Derek clears his throat, breaking eye contact and resuming his speech even as his cheeks flush and he stumbles over his words. Stiles is still staring, not comprehending, too caught up in cataloguing the ways he is so different, yet so much the same. He spends the most time on his hands, counting methodically over and over to prove that he’s not dreaming, this isn’t a dream, this is Derek, a thousand miles from home and shining more brightly than he’s ever seen him.

Stiles tunes back in to hear him dismiss the tour, apologizing for the short run time and promising to return to regular scheduling the following day. Then people are leaving, and Stiles barely notices, doesn’t stop looking as Derek doesn’t stop looking at him until everyone has wandered away and it’s just him and Stiles and Saint John the Baptist, each equally unsure of what to say.

As always, Stiles is the one to break the silence.

“Going to tell me this is private property?” He asks, shooting Derek a nervous smile.

He smiles back, strong and steady. “I think we’re long past that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out, a little stunned by the breadth of his smile, all that pretty directed his way.

It’s quiet again, for a moment.

“Can I hug you?” Stiles blurts out, unsure of his welcome but desperate to ask. “It’s just…it’s been a long time.”

Derek ducks his head, the tips of his ears turning faintly pink. “Yeah, it has. I’m okay with – if you want.” He lifts his arms a fraction, palms turned out, and Stiles accepts the invitation for what it is, stepping into his warmth and wrapping his arms solidly around him.

Derek’s arms come up, gripping him tightly, tethering him, and Stiles feels that spot in his chest burn so brightly his breath stutters with it. Derek keeps him in the circle of his arms but leans back so his eyes can search over Stiles’ face. “Are you alright? I heard your heart-”

Stiles flushes, and ducks back in. “I’m fine,” he answers, voice muffled from where it’s buried in Derek’s shoulder. “Just, um, warm. I’m very warm. You’re very warm. Werewolf thing. Bet you don’t even need a coat, right? Just go a bit furry and you’re set.”

Derek lets out an amused huff over his shoulder, but doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie. He lets go and steps back, though he remains closer than any normal human might stand in the situation. Werewolves have always had smaller personal bubbles, Stiles noticed. He doubted that had changed for Derek in the few years he’s been gone, and suppresses a pang in his chest thinking about when the last time he’d had a hug was; if he was all alone in the city, too.

Heedless of Stiles’ internal meltdown, Derek begins to speak. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t lost your particular talent for babble.”

“I’d prefer to think of it as a prolonged opportunity for charm and wit, thanks.”

“It’s an opportunity for something, alright.”

“Hey,” Stiles squawks, mildly affronted.

“I never said something bad.” Derek shoots him a small smile, just as devastating as the grin he bore a few minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” He asks hesitantly. “Were you…were you looking for me?”

Stiles flushes again. “No, no, I didn’t – I didn’t know you were here. I’ve been interning at the Museum of American History, in the archives. Just a couple days a week – I’m a student at Georgetown now.”

“Yeah?” Derek smiles. “That’s good to hear. Georgetown’s a good school. Your dad must be  proud.”

Stiles snorts. “Understatement of the year. I’m pretty sure he’s bought every piece of merchandise they make – we ate off of Hoya branded plates for a week before I put my foot down and rescued the normal ones from the back of the cupboard.”

Derek laughs softly, and Stiles is entranced by the sound. He tries to think of the last time he heard Derek laugh; he’s not sure he ever has. He’s so distracted by the thought, he misses what Derek says next.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked how things were at home. If Scott and everyone…if things were okay.” He looks unsure, and a little guilty. Like he might still feel bad for leaving, even though Stiles knows no one blames him. He needed to, probably should have a long before. They understood that.

“They’re good. They’re safe. Scott is doing his generals at the community college and still planning on going to vet school. Most of his pack is still at Beacon High, so he wanted to stay close.”

“His pack?” Derek questions softly.

“My pack, too.” Stiles hesitates before continuing. “It all just feels so far away sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes gentle and free of judgement.

Stiles continues. “Lydia’s at MIT, no surprise, but she mentioned that Jackson’s staying in London and studying at Imperial, which was a bit of a shocker. Never knew he had it in him. Kira’s taking a gap year and, last we heard, Isaac was still somewhere in France with Chris, probably in his element surrounded by all the other pretentious scarf-wearers.”

Derek lets out a quiet laugh, then reaches out to brush Stiles’ arm, nodding towards the path. They walk slowly through the garden, side by side, the sky still clear blue overhead.

Derek looks over at Stiles a little hesitantly. “And Lydia, are you guys…Did you ever? I know you always -“

Stiles can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks. “No. I mean – no. We talked about it and tried, briefly, just because we’d always wonder what it’d be like if we haven’t, but we both knew we make far better friends than we ever would lovers. All those years I thought I was in love with her, I had been obsessed with this impossible, untouchable thing that I had created in my head; an idolized image of everything I thought she’d be and who I thought I’d be if I was with her. I know what she is now - strong, loyal, tenacious, brilliant, and fallible. Human.” He smiles. “She’ s one of the best people I know, and I think I’ll always love her – just not in the same way I originally thought.”

Derek makes a small noise of assent. “I know something about that – building a person up to something they could never actually be. Building yourself up the same way. It’s taken me a long time to see past that. I’m glad you figured it out earlier than I ever did.”

Stiles smiles up at him. “But figure it out, you did.”

Derek laughs, loud and throaty, nudging him with his shoulder. “You don’t automatically sound wiser if you speak like Yoda, Stiles. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, then how does it work? Because I don’t foresee myself turning green and running around a swamp in my bathrobe anytime soon.”

“I mean, you’ve always sounded pretty wise to me, maybe you don’t have to do anything at all.”

Stiles flushes. “Flattery will get you everywhere, big guy,” he jokes, trying to hide his reaction.

Derek abruptly stops walking, turns so he can grab Stiles’ elbow and look him directly in the eye with his considerable brows furrowed. “It’s not flattery, Stiles. You got me through so much in Beacon Hills, even though I wasn’t able to appreciate it at the time. Wasn’t able to thank you the way I should have. You saw so much, knew so much, just instinctively understood the things I could barely face, and I don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for you. I didn’t say it then, so I’m saying it now: thank you, Stiles.”

He drops his arm and resumes walking, leaving Stiles shell-shocked in his wake.

He stutters back to life, arms flailing. “You can’t just – you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away! What was that?!”

Stiles hurries to follow, catching up in time to see the small smile on Derek’s face.

“A lot’s changed since I’ve last seen you. I’ve changed.”

Stiles snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, understatement. I –“

He opens his mouth to say more, but is cut off by the buzz of his phone. He pulls it out and swears when he sees the time. “Shit, Derek, I have to go. My lunch break ended 10 minutes ago and I really, really don’t want to get fired from this job.” Stiles shifts on his feet, deliberating for a moment.

“Do you – would you want to exchange numbers? I feel like there’s so much to catch up on and I’m still not quite over just seeing you and if I had time we could do it right now, I’d buy you lunch like a proper adult and everything, but I really do have to go.” He grimaces and looks up at Derek, unsure.

Derek just laughs and gently takes Stiles’ phone from his hands. “Of course you can have my number, and I’d love to do lunch, sometime.” He hands Stiles’ phone back. “Text me with yours.”

Stiles beams at him before remembering the time, swearing again as he jogs away.  

Before he can make it out of the garden, Derek calls out to him. “Hey, Stiles, wait up a second!”

He turns to see Derek running up behind him, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry, I don’t want to get you in trouble but I thought, maybe…what time do you get off? I could come meet you? I know a great diner just down the road - they make a curly fry I’ve been reliable informed will change your life.”

Stiles grins at him, heart glowing in his chest. “Now you’re speaking my language, big guy. I get off at 6. Meet me under the Monument?”

Derek smiles, dimples out in full show. “I’ll be there.”

Stiles waves his goodbye and runs full-tilt back to the archives, shouting an apology at Rian as he comes shooting through the door. And if he spends the rest of the day working with a dopey grin on his face and a new warmth burning in his chest, well, that’s no one’s business but his own.

#sterek #post-canon #fix it #my first fic ever so be gentle #long time caller first time listener #i just have a lot of feelings #ok thanks pals enjoy #my fic

[joylikelemons]

Float Until You Learn to Swim

So this started out as my emotional word vom about Stiles finding Derek in D.C. in  ask (peep it here) and somehow turned into 15k of Stiles moving to Washington, Derek working at a museum, and everyone actually confronting their issues (+ David Bowie, glowy magic pack bonds, and a supernatural archive under the Smithsonian).

Could be read as a one-shot, but will probably end up writing two more parts because feelings™.

Read on Ao3.

When you’re part of a pack, you’re never really alone. Even when Stiles was at his darkest, locked inside his own head, he knew this, could feel the faintest of threads tied somewhere around his ribcage, each one tugging lightly to remind him that his family and friends were still there, still alive, at least for one more day.

After the Nogitsune, when the world got to be too much and Stiles felt like he was choking on dead air, he took to closing his eyes and pressing the heel of this hand to the spot just under his breastbone, fingers splayed out over his chest until the steady thrumming of the threads drowned out his racing heart.

He never talked about it with Scott or his dad, never asked if anyone else experienced the pack bonds the same way. He told himself it was because it felt too personal, too private, but a voice in the back of his head wondered if it was more than that. If maybe he was afraid to find out what he was feeling wasn’t real - just another thing his brain conjured up to deal with a reality composed of more pain than any 19 year old boy could survive unbroken. That same voice whispered that even if it was real, it was one sided; after all, his packmates were the ones who forgot him. If he asks, it might just mean definitive proof that he needs them much more than they need him.

So he doesn’t ask, and whenever a member of the pack caught him absentmindedly rubbing at his chest he played it off as a bruise, or an itch, or, on one memorable occasion, heartburn.

“This is it Scotty, this is what’s going to get me – not a rogue werewolf or a shapeshifter or, god forbid, a selkie, but the diabolical clutches of acid reflux.” He had moaned, sprawled out on his friend’s bed.

Scott just threw a bottle of Tums at his head and turned back to his homework. Stiles made a mental note to research why Scott even had them around; did the same werewolf healing magic that could heal bullet wounds and fix severed arteries meet its match with common indigestion?

Stiles wasn’t sure if Scott and the other wolves just ignored his repeated excused and chalked it up to Stiles being Stiles, or if his pulse had become so unsteady it was impossible to recognize the tell-tale blip of a lie. That question was also firmly shelved in the ‘do not touch’ corner of his brain.

Real or not, shared or not, it was the bonds that allowed Stiles to even consider leaving Beacon Hills for Georgetown. He had tested them in the days after graduation, driven an hour to the coast to sit in the sand and take a second to just breathe, away from the memories that flooded every corner of Beacon Hills; a moment to let himself get lost in salt air and waves licking at the sand while the threads pulsed steadily in his chest.

On his second try, he drove south to San Francisco, ostensibly to visit the magic shops Deaton had recommended to resupply their wolfsbane stock and pick up the books he needed for summer Spark training. After the latest supernatural shit show, he figured it was time to stop ignoring whatever abilities Deaton said he had – if it was something he could use to protect his pack, then it was worth learning how to control, even if the thought of being something...more than human still left him a little uneasy. Just as at the ocean, the bonds remained strong, radiating warmth through his chest as the miles clicked past on the odometer.

For his final test, he packed up the Jeep with food and water and drove up to Washington. His mother had loved the mountains, the thickness of the forests, how the snow-capped peaks looked reflected in the calm waters of lakes carved by ancient glaciers. His family had a cabin they visited every summer when Stiles was young, a small wooden thing deep in the Cascades next to a crystal blue lake. The sheriff, still a deputy then, would wake him up just before dawn, tackle-box packed and ready, and teach him to fish in the clear waters. There’s a photo still hanging in the entryway of their house from one such morning, a seven-year-old Stiles proudly holding up a sunfish just a little bigger than his palm with his brown hair sticking up as if electrocuted and a gap-toothed grin showing off the two missing teeth he’d lost the week before.

His mom preferred to watch the sunrise from land, cradling a fresh cup of coffee and waving at her boys from her favorite spot on the porch swing. Some afternoons, she would take Stiles out in the old rowboat, dropping anchor in the middle of the lake so they could stretch out and let the sun warm their upturned faces. Even at the deepest point, the water was so clear Stiles could see straight to the bottom and he spent hours swimming deeper and deeper, but never touching the lakebed.

His mother in water was a sight to behold, all crinkled eyes and laughter ringing out as she cannon-balled from the side of the boat, splashing Stiles and twisting gracefully away when he tried to retaliate. She loved to sneak up on John when his back was turned, winking at Stiles and putting a finger to her lips before leaping on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms over his shoulders to pull him under the surface. He would come back up sputtering, Claudia still clinging to his back until he pulled her around, cradling her in his arms and dropping a kiss to her wet forehead before tossing her soundly into the water.

Stiles’ most vivid memories of his mom were from the cabin - the way her dark hair billowed out underwater, how she curled up with his dad under the holey knitted blanket she had made him one Christmas, the sound of her off-key singing as she made waffles for breakfast (Always waffles, never pancakes. His mom claimed pancakes didn’t have personality, but his dad told him she just liked the way syrup pooled in the little waffle wells.).

The first summer after her death, Stiles and John didn’t go back to the cabin. The official excuse was that John couldn’t get the time off, having taken longer and longer shifts at the station to distract himself from the too-empty house and his too-cold bed. Stiles spent most of that first summer at the McCall’s, eating peanut butter sandwiches with Scott in a semi-permanent bed fort in the living room. He didn’t talk about his mom and wouldn’t even if Scott had asked – but Scott never did, just handed him the other half of his sandwich when Stiles finished his own and hugged him when he curled his sticky fingers in Scott’s t-shirt, silently asking for comfort beneath the canopy of sheets.

As the years went on, they stopped mentioning the cabin, stopped making excuses. It was a place inextricably tied up with the memory of Stiles’ mother, a memory that was still too painful, too present to confront head on. But the photo still hung in the entryway, and Stiles occasionally gave it a passing thought, fantasized about running away to the cabin where he could pretend that werewolves weren’t real, that evil was something that only existed in fiction, and that his own hands weren’t washed in blood.

Sometimes, when he thought about where Derek might have ended up (a pastime he pursued more often than he’d like to admit), Stiles imagined he found the cabin, dusty and untouched, and decided to stay. He could picture it so clearly: Derek stretched out on the couch (a lurid orange plaid monstrosity Stiles’ mom loved to pieces) with a book in his hand and a small fire burning in the hearth, a pile of split logs outside where he had spent the day chopping wood for winter. Those times, he could almost swear he felt a phantom spike of warmth in his chest, not quite the tug of pack bonds, but something that felt like it could be. And if the warmth burned a little brighter when Stiles imagined the way Derek would look with a red flannel shirt rolled up over his forearms and bunching around his strong shoulders as he swung an axe, thought a touch too hard about the way his hair would fall on his forehead, thick and soft without product and a little damp from sweat , well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

Imaginings aside, Stiles had never thought seriously about going back to the cabin. Not until the day of his graduation party, which found him sat on the steps of the back porch while members of his pack mingled with kids from their class and members of Beacon Hills’ finest, the spot under his breastbone burning steady and warm. There was a half-eaten cake and a small stack of presents and cards on a folding table in the corner, and when the sheriff dropped down beside him a moment later, he held a beer in one hand a small brown box in the other.

“That beer for me?” Stiles asked, nudging his dad with an elbow.

The sheriff scoffed. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

He tipped the bottle back once before setting it at his feet, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I had something I wanted to give you. I’m not sure if it’s the right time, if it will ever be the right time but...it’s yours. It should be yours.” He tapped the box on his knee a couple times before thrusting it at his son.

“I thought we were doing presents later, but I won’t tell if you...” Stiles’ voice petered out as he lifted the lid of the box and saw a braided leather keychain with two gold keys nestled in white tissue paper.

“Dad, what is this?”

The sheriff shifted in his seat. “It’s ah, it’s the key to the cabin. Your mom’s cabin. I know we haven’t been in a long time and that’s probably my fault, but I found it the other day when I was poking around in the attic and I thought, well, I thought you should have it.  I remembered how much you loved that place how much your mother loved-”

The sheriff cut off, clearing his throat.

“Dad,” Stiles whispered, voice breaking on the word.

“Well, anyway, I, ah, I called in a favor from the ranger service up there – had one of the guys go check it out and hook up the water and electricity. He said everything looked good – nothing broken or anything.” He nodded towards the box. “The bigger key is for the front door and the little one is for the boat shed out back.”

He reached over and picked up the key ring, running a finger over the braided fob with a small, sad smile.

“Your mom made this. I don’t know if you remember, but she had this phase where she fancied herself a knitter. Made this really terrible blanket one year –scratchy as all hell and not what you’d call structurally sound, but I used it all the time just to see that proud little smile on her face.”

“I remember,” Stiles said quietly.

“After she moved on from knitting, she started messing around with things like this.” The sheriff lifted the keychain.

“She didn’t get very far with it before...well, before. But she finished this one. I forgot I even still had it.”

John laid them back in the box and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.  

“So uh, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s yours if you want it. You can take your friends up, or maybe I can get some time this summer...” He nodded once, decisive. “It’s been empty too long, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Stiles looked down at the keys and gently touched one end of the braid.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

He looked over and smiled at his dad, eyes shining with what they both would deny as wetness.

“Thank you.”

The sheriff cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome. Happy graduation, son. I’m ah, I’m very proud of you, and I know she would be too.”

He reached out and pulled Stiles into a one-armed hug, patting him on the back before grabbing his beer and heading towards the food table, a Stilinski man through-and-through in his dislike of emotional confrontation.

“Only one piece of cake dad, don’t think you get a free pass because of emotional manipulation!” Stiles called after him.

The sheriff, as usual, paid no mind.

*

Stiles hadn’t known what to do with the keys. Part of him wanted to leave the party and drive up immediately, the other half shied away at the thought of seeing it again, his heart giving a painful squeeze thinking about his mother’s favorite mug (a lopsided thing Stiles made her) sitting unused in the cupboard or diving into the lake without her splashing in beside him.

So he kept them in the box, stashed in his bedside table as the summer stretched on and he went swimming with the pack, held video game tournaments with Scott, and attended Spark lessons with Deaton.

In the end, his desire to see the cabin again won out over his fear, and as the last few weeks of summer approach, he made the decision to go up. He rationalized that it would be the perfect opportunity to complete his last test of the bonds, but it was also something he knew he had to do for his mom. Claudia had lived too long as a ghost in the house, an invisible weight they refused to acknowledge but affected every part of their lives. His dad had understood when Stiles told him, and quietly agreed that maybe it was time to bring the boxes back down from the attic, stop letting the memory of her languish in the dark.

*

Though Stiles told Scott where he was going, he asked his friend to keep it quiet. It’s not that he wanted to keep it from the rest of the pack, necessarily, but it wasn’t something he thought he could explain. Scott had been there before; had known his mom and heard stories of the cabin, seen the photos and understood exactly how much it meant to Stiles. He had been there after, filled the glaring gap in his summers as best he could with his friendship and his loyalty and his ineffable Scott-ness, and Stiles knew he was the only other person other than his dad who could understand Stiles’ need to return to the cabin alone.

He kept both Scott and his dad in the dark about his the desire to test the pack bonds and make sure that, even a thousand miles away and surrounded by nothing but forest and stone, he would still feel his pack ties thrumming in his chest. Part of him, that quiet, black part that seemed to invade his mind and stop his heart like ice, whispered that if he couldn’t feel them that far away, he wasn’t really pack. That insidious voice told he needed to belong to them so much more than they needed his belonging and when they disappeared, he’d have to confront that he wasn’t pack, wasn’t anything at all - just a fragile, broken boy who believed he could run with wolves.

The thought made the spot under his chest ache, so he buried the feeling and turned up the volume on the Jeep’s radio as he continued on the winding road north. His mom loved music, used to make these mix tapes for them to listen to on the 12 hour drive up. The sheriff had told Stiles he found her tape collection in the same forgotten corner with the keys, but neither had felt ready to listen to them. But now, in his mom’s car on the familiar drive to her favorite place in the world, Stiles felt like it was time.

Claudia Stilinski had eclectic tastes - she liked classic rock and loved belting out “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” encouraging Stiles to join in from the back seat and poking John until he’d warble along with them. Some days were dedicated to funk, filled with Parliament and Earth, Wind, and Fire; other days, she’d spend hours playing nothing but The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. Above all else, Stiles’ mom loved Fleetwood Mac. She loved the ballads and the break up songs and could never, ever sit still when she played them. Claudia listened with her whole body, letting Stiles stand on her toes as she spun him around the kitchen or dancing in her seat with her arm out the Jeep window to feel the breeze while she sang, eyes shut and face turned up in total bliss. John would joke that she would leave him for Stevie Nicks in heartbeat, and every time she’d respond by putting on “Everywhere” and serenading him, lifting their interlaced fingers to press kisses to the back of his hand until he stopped pouting and sang along.

It was Fleetwood Mac that Stiles chose to accompany his pilgrimage, running his fingers over the handwritten label before sliding the tape in and cranking the volume up. Loud enough that it covered even the trademark jangling of the Jeep’s engine; so loud that all he could think about was the words, and all he could do was tighten his grip on the steering wheel and sing along.

But listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost...

And if Stiles’ sleeve was a little wet where he’d scrubbed it across his face, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

It’s easier than he expected. He pulls the Jeep over on the side of the road a few times on the way up, has to press his hand to his chest to reassure himself the bonds are still there and force air through his lungs to stave off the panic attack would overcome him, if he let it. But when he arrives, just before dusk, the bonds are still there and glowing warmly, a silent message of support to offset the nerves coiled in his stomach.

It looks just the same.

The wood is a little more worn than he remembers, the red paint of the deck curling up in small flakes. Tall grasses sway gently where there was once trim lawn and the stones of the path are loose where weeds have pushed up their edges. But the forest is still as tall and vital as Stiles remembers, and if he closes his eyes, listens to the birds calling and wind running through the leaves, he can almost believe himself six years old again, running through the trees with outstretched hands and spinning in circles until the branches blur over his head and he tips over, dizzyingly happy and so terribly alive.

He shoots his dad a text to let him know he’s arrived then steels himself before opening the front door, gripping the leather chain so tightly his knuckles bleed white.

If this was a movie, there’d be rain, he thinks. There’d be rain and that hazy half-light that always precedes a summer storm, rose-tinged air under a clouded sky.

But this isn’t a movie, and there is no rain. Instead, the air is warm and dry and the sunset paints the sky every color Stiles can name, swelling to a deep scarlet where the sun melts into the lake.

She would have liked that, Stiles thinks. How the colors bled into each other, the way they looked reflected in the calm surface of the lake. And that’s the thought that propels him to turn the key and open the door, stepping into the cabin for the first time in a decade.

It’s dark – the blinds drawn and the furniture still covered in the white sheets they’d draped over to ward off dust and dirt through the long winter. Everything not covered bears a thick layer of dust, and when Stiles runs a finger across the hall mirror, he leaves a stark line in the glass.

The cabin feels quiet, suspended. Like all these years, it has been in hibernation, just waiting for him to return. Like it’s been yearning to wake up.

Stiles pauses by the sofa, hovers his hand over the thick sheet. It hits him all at once that this is a place completely untouched by what his life has become. This place has never known werewolves, or magic, or bloodshed. A time capsule of his best memories – of loving, and being loved; of warmth, and freedom, and uninhibited play and joy and everything that has been too far gone from Stiles’ life in the past few years.

The spot beneath his breastbone glows at the thought. Life in Beacon Hills was undeniably settling down – Scott blossoming into his role as Alpha under the tutelage of his mom, the sheriff, and Deaton, and the biggest threat they’d had in months was a group of wayward fairies on a summer road trip to the coast. Maybe...maybe he can have this again. Maybe it’s time.

Stiles grips the sheet and tears it off, revealing the fabric of the couch – the same lumpy, radioactive orange that colored his childhood naps and always brought a smile to his mother’s face. He grins at it like an old friend and, like a spell has been broken, shatters the stillness of the cabin by dashing through the rest of the rooms, ripping off sheets and whooping at the clouds of dust that spin through the air as each new piece of his memory is brought back to full, Technicolor life.

He moves into the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards and running his fingers over the mismatched collection of dishes and mugs, stopping when he touches one mug in particular. He pulls it down and turns it over in his hands, examining the stars and planets painted by a young Stiles, sloppy in his enthusiasm. He smiles, remembering how his mother laughed when he presented it to her. She had crouched down and thanked him with a kiss on his freckled cheek.

“My little starman,” she said, and traced over his moles with a finger. “Look, you’ve even got your own constellations.”

Stiles had giggled as she peppered each spot with kisses and squirmed in her arms, but bobbed his head and grinned when she asked if he wanted to listen to his special song.

Stiles can’t recall the first time it happened, couldn’t say exactly when it became a tradition, but remembers the joy he felt every time his mom would pull out their well-loved copy of Ziggy Stardust. She’d turn on the baby blue record player she’d had since she was a freshman in college and let Stiles guide the tonearm across the grooves, grabbing his hands and spinning him around the room as the song began to play. She’d twirl him out and back in again and again until he was dizzy with it, then she’d pull him back against her chest to hug him tight and sing the chorus in his ear. 

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’d like to come and meet us

but he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’s told us not to blow it

cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.

Stiles smiles bittersweet at the memory, pauses, then places the mug back on the shelf and walks decisively into his parents’ old bedroom. He reaches up into closet, feeling around the top shelf until his fingers brush against a box he pulls down and carries into the living room. With reverent hands, he unpacks the record player and sets it on the kitchen table, plugging the cord in and checking for the glow of the red ‘on’ light. In the bottom of the box rests his mom’s record collection – even though she had everything on tapes at their house in Beacon Hills, she kept the LP’s around. “Think of it as your inheritance,” she had said, letting him flip through their bright covers.

Stiles now cards through them slowly, heart aching as he trails his fingers across the familiar images. He finds the one he’s looking for and pulls it out, sliding the record from the sleeve and setting the cover aside before gently blowing dust from the grooves. He fits it on the platter, places the stylus halfway towards the center and listens to the familiar crackle as the song begins.

Like the cabin, this memory was one almost too tender to touch, and it had been years since he’d last listened to their song. But here, now, as a fresh breeze chases the stale air out of the cabin and warm light falls on the uncovered furniture, it feels right. It feels necessary. And as Stiles roams around the cabin, pushing open the windows and shaking out the blankets on the front porch, he can’t help but sing along, letting his lingering nerves be chased away by the well-loved words. 

Let the children lose it,

let the children use it,

let all the children boogie.

*

Stiles stays at the cabin for two weeks. He checks in with his dad once a day, and sends pictures of the projects he’d started around the house, but otherwise keeps his phone stashed in the Jeep. After that first night, falling asleep on the old couch listening to his mother’s records and wrapped up in the old knit blanket, he throws himself into fixing up the cabin.

He starts by digging out the ancient push lawnmower from the shed and clearing the tall grasses that had shot up in their absence, wiping dirt across his forehead as he digs out stubborn weeds from the stone path. He gets his supplies at the local hardware store, including a can of cardinal red paint to revive the porch, and works long hours in the late July heat, his skin browning in the sun as new flights of freckles appeared on his arms each day. The lean muscle he’d built up running with wolves comes in handy as he hauls the rowboat out to patch and repaint, nails new planks over the holes in the dock, and chops wood until there’s a sizable pile stacked next to the house.

When the heat gets to be too much, he strips to his briefs and dives into the lake, letting the cool water wash the sweat and dirt from his skin before sprawling out on the dock to dry in the sun. In the evenings, he sits on the porch swing, rocking back and forth as he watches the sunset and drinks lemonade from the same cracked pitcher he did when he was a child.

More often than not, he passes out early and sleeps soundly through the night in a way he didn’t believe he was capable of anymore; his tired body and aching muscles gentling him into a dreamless sleep from which he wakes refreshed and calm. On the nights he stays up, he pulls a book from his parents’ collection and sits by the firepit outside, surrounded by the chirping of crickets and the night sounds of the forest. He prefers the books with well-worn pages and cracked spines, like East of Eden and Dharma Bums. His mother had loved stories about America, the love letters to the land, and delighted in pointing out Kerouac’s Desolation Peak in the far ranges, just visible from her spot on the porch.

The longer he stays, the more his mind quiets. There are no intrusive thoughts, no insidious, creeping voices, almost as if the stillness of the cabin has bled into his mind. The excess energy that caused his hands to shake and his thoughts to race unchecked finds an outlet in the physicality of his work, the repetitive movements acting as a kind of meditation that leaves him clear and focused. He feels settled in his skin as his muscles flex and ache, entirely at home in his body and mind. For the first time in years, Stiles feels like himself again. Strong. Unbroken.

On his last night, Stiles sits in the kitchen with the book of runes Deaton lent him and ingredients he’d carefully gathered over the past few days – thistle and clover, blue vervain and St. Johnswort, powdered bark from the trees that ring the clearing and a small handful of mud from the bottom of the lake. He grinds them into a paste, and over every window and doorway, he paints the symbols for luck and protection – not just from living threats, but from wind, fire, rain, and dust. He pours his will into them, declares himself where they lay to ensure that not a breath of the pain that has plagued Beacon Hills can touch this place. Not just because it was a part of his mother, but because it is undoubtedly a piece of himself, too.

When everything is locked up and the Jeep packed for the long drive home, Stiles spares one last look at the porch swing, takes in the fresh paint, lush grass, and clear windows, liberated from dust. The stillness remains, but it’s different now – a quiet born not of stasis, but of peace; the land has finally woken up, and Stiles right alongside it. He closes his eyes and focuses on remembering exactly how he feels in this moment, wanting to carry it with him when he goes.

With a smile on his face, Stiles opens his eyes and backs out the driveway. As he travels down the road towards home, he glances in the rearview mirror, watching as the cabin grows smaller and smaller until it's swallowed by forest, and all he can see is green.

*

Even with his newfound calm, Stiles spent the entire five hour flight to Washington with his palm pressed against his sternum, eyes screwed up and body tensed as he waited for the inevitable moment when the gentle tugging of the threads would turn too harsh and snap, robbing him of the warmth in his chest.

But, like his earlier tests, it never came.

When the wheels touched down at Reagan National, the quiet thrumming beneath his breast remained. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, letting some of the tension finally drain out of his muscles. He wasn’t alone. He was nearly 3,000 miles from his home and his pack, but he wasn’t alone. He pressed down harder for a moment and was rewarded when the bonds seemed to grow warmer, more insistent, like they were chiding him for being silly enough to think that they’d just leave.

He broke out in a grin, letting his hand drop. He knew the next few months were still going to be hard – he’d still worry about his dad and his friends, still have to deal with the lingering guilt of leaving them, (though his pack had been nothing but supportive, promising to keep his dad on a diet and Skype so much he’d be sick of them), still have to adjust to a new city and living on his own. But the knowledge that he’d still have a physical connection to his pack, a constant reminder that he belonged to someone, somewhere, made the rest seem small in comparison.

Stiles stood up, grabbing his bag out of the overhead compartment and swinging it over his shoulder. His smile remained as he followed the line out of the plane and stepped into the cooler Washington air. Here, burning in his chest, was proof that he had walked through Hell and come out the other side with his pack beside him. Compared to what came before, college would be a cakewalk.

*

Two months in, Stiles was strongly reconsidering that statement. Sure, there was nothing actually wrong, but that didn’t mean things were right, either. His roommate was chill, an aspiring pre-med student who only showed up to shower and sleep, which suited Stiles fine. It was a little quiet, sure, but it gave him more time to work on his magic homework from Deaton or Skype his pack without worrying about fabricating excuses to obscure the more...extraordinary elements of his life.

He liked most of his classes and had been flirting with the idea of double majoring in history and folklore, had a group he regularly met up with for study sessions, and a spot in the local coffee shop he had more or less declared as his. From an outside perspective, things were totally, completely fine.

Which, in itself, was kind of his problem. Everything was just...okay. Stiles had kind of expected college to be, well, more. More wild parties and hook-ups with interesting people, more student protests and campus rivalries and dramatic self-realizations and yeah, maybe Stiles had seen too many coming-of-age movies but still, wasn’t college meant to be more than a daily routine of classes, coffee, and Call of Duty until he passed out and woke up to do it all again?

Maybe if he had been less preoccupied with the whole leaving-the-pack and honouring-his-mother’s-memory internal struggles, he would have had more time to think about what college would actually be like, outside of a vague notion of John Belushi in Animal House. Maybe, just maybe, he would have realized that after the whole supernatural/Hellmouth/death and destruction and possession continual crises that characterized his high school years, college couldn’t help but seem a little...tame, in comparison.

He had hit up the requisite frat parties and induction events with his floor-mates those first few weeks, but inevitably found himself zoning out after just a few minutes, staring into space as he thought about the lore books he had stacked next to his bed, mentally composed essays for his classes, and pondered if the jungle juice had been magically altered or if it was just really, really bad gin.

It was the classic catch-22: he had spent months dreaming of escaping Beacon Hills for a few years of the out-of-control parties and ill-advised hook-ups he imagined constituted the average American college experience, but after all he had been through, he just couldn’t convincingly stir up interest in drinking cheap beer in houses with sticky floors or painting his face to cheer on home football games. It all just seemed a bit...false; unreal in its blatant normality, and Stiles felt like the biggest phony of them all. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield.

Stiles’ hang-ups regarding hook-ups were much the same.  It wasn’t that he was unsure about his sexuality - he had firmly come to grips with his bisexuality right around the time he started regularly hanging out with shirtless teen werewolves. It wasn’t lack of confidence or options, either; Stiles knew he had grown into himself over the past few years, and the lingering tan and lean, corded muscles from his summer activities didn’t hurt. He had been approached a number of times since arriving in D.C. and had even gone on a couple dates, but each time Stiles couldn’t help but be struck by the knowledge of just how deep the divide was between their life experience and his own. It also didn’t help that, try as he might, he couldn’t stop comparing potential suitors to a certain impossible standard. Warning kids: prolonged exposure to Derek Hale might be hazardous to your health, and ruin you for literally every other person on Earth.

Scott said he was being melodramatic (the same Scott, Stiles would like to point out, who wrote literal sonnets about how Allison’s hair looked in the moonlight), but even though he felt guilty about it, sometimes, late at night, Stiles almost wished for a supernatural crisis to liven things up a bit. Just a little one – mysterious runes carved in the woods maybe, or a small haunting in the library. God, he’d even settle for just someone to talk to, someone who understood. He had a sneaking suspicion his diminutive Anglo-Saxon Folklore professor was some variety of sprite, but he doubted point-blank asking her to discuss the D.C. ley lines over coffee would go over well.

With all the free time he had not attending parties or participating in wild orgies six nights a week, he was way ahead on his coursework and had practiced the defensive runes Deaton assigned him until he was positive he could do them unconscious, with his hands tied behind his back (less of a descriptive hyperbole than a actual precautionary necessity, considering). After the second week in a row of spending his nights bored and alone in his room, listening to Beirut and falling asleep with his hand pressed against his chest, Stiles decided something needed to be done. Everything around him was just so terribly normal, and yeah, Stiles was man enough to admit that it sucked. He was lonely, and worse - he was bored.

But he’d be damned if he was going to slink home with his tail between his legs (pun fully intended). He was a Stilinki, and he wasn’t about to shame his babcia’s good name by folding like a lawn chair during his first few weeks away from home. What he needed was a project, something to invest in, and an outlet for all that extra energy that, now it was no longer channelled into fighting baddies or keeping Scott out of trouble, was only exacerbating his frustration with the utter monotony of college life.

His answer came on an innocuous white flyer, tucked away behind an army of advertisements for student productions and tutoring gigs on the communal bulletin board in the student center. He had marched down early on his day off, determined to find something that would get him out of his funk. He had been combing through the multi-colored stacks for the better part of the last twenty minutes, discarding the many babysitting and au pair requests (he doubted anyone would take ‘playing pack mom to a bunch of out-of-control teenage werewolves as valid experience) and wrinkling his nose at the recruiting posters for the Hoya sports teams – he’d spent enough years alternately warming the bench and getting pummelled by Jackson to admit that maybe sports just weren’t his thing, thanks.

Just as he was about to give up hope, he found it. Plain black type on white paper, none of the nauseating neon colors or – god forbid – comic sans featured on other posters,  half hidden behind a promo for a beach volleyball tournament (in October. On the East Coast. And people say Stiles is weird). There wasn’t much on it, just the words ‘internship available’ bolded at the top, with ‘Archives Center - National Museum of American History’, an address, and the Smithsonian logo underneath, but Stiles was intrigued. Granted, all he knew about the Smithsonian was what he’d seen in Night at the Museum 2 (and God, he really needed to stop relying on pop culture to guide his life choices), but the untameably nosy part of him squealed in glee at the thought of all the interesting things he could get his paws on working in the archives of one of the largest museums in the country. He pulled the flyer down and checked the address on his phone; if he caught the 33 bus on Wisconsin, he could be there in a half hour.

Stiles ran back to his dorm (still noticeably empty of his roommate. Stiles was half convinced he was dealing with a going ghost, Danny Phantom situation here) and dug through his closet for something interview worthy. He eventually settled on a pair of dark jeans and a white button up that only had one ketchup stain on the sleeve - barely noticable, if he rolled them up. He printed out a copy of his resume, ran a hand through his hair, and was back out the door in less than 20 minutes.

*

Stiles had been to the Smithsonian campus once before – his whole floor had gone as part of the RA’s self-proclaimed ‘bonding’ week, before the poor upperclassman had realized just how little the freshmen truly gave a shit and gave up the ghost. The visit had been on the shorter and more harried side; desperate to keep their attention, his RA had taken a Buzzfeed ‘Top 10’ approach and single-mindedly ferried them to and from the major attractions in the Natural History and Air and Space museums. Stiles had been meaning to return for a more thorough visit, but always seemed to get distracted by something (namely, World of Warcraft and the collected works of Bo Burnham).

Now though, he seriously regretted not returning earlier. Surrounded by sprawling buildings advertising  for exhibitions like Apollo to the Moon and the Last American Dinosaurs and caught in the bustling crowds of people – tour groups in matching t-shirts, laughing children evading their anxious parents, art students sprawled out sketching architectural lines and marble sculptures – Stiles felt better than he had in weeks. All the people, all the excitement, all the action and history and emotion set his veins alight as he walked down the National Mall.

The Museum of American History was a long, stone building under the shadow of the Washington Monument and, as Stiles stood outside taking in the square lines and imposing structure, he couldn’t help but think it looked more like a Vogon battleship than a celebrated museum of history and culture.

Undaunted (though slightly distracted by thoughts of the third worst poetry in the world), he climbed the steps and entered the main hall, making a bee-line for an information desk manned by a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a look of absolute, all-encompassing boredom while deftly spinning a pen between her fingers. Stiles thought he might be in love.

The woman heaved a sigh when she spotted Stiles striding up to her desk, cutting him off immediately. “What’s your teacher’s name? I can call them over the PA system.”

Stiles blinked at her. “Uh...what?”

“Your teacher’s name? Or your high school will work. I can’t get you back with your group if I don’t have a name to page.”

Stiles frowned at her. “Do I really look like a high school student to you?”

The woman paused, looking him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

If Stiles had to classify it, he’d put her tone somewhere between ‘Sahara Desert’ and ‘fiery pits of Hell’ dry. Yeah, he was definitely in love.

Stiles flushed and rubbed a hand over his already messy hair, wisely deciding to move on. “Uh, my name’s Stiles Stilinski, and I’m actually here about an internship opportunity I saw.” He said, thrusting the flyer at her.

Her eyes widened as she read it. “They’ve actually resorted to flyers? Man, they must really be desperate.”

“Not much interest in dusty old archives, huh?” Stiles joked.

She laughed outright at that. “No, no, there’s plenty of interest. People just don’t tend to...last very long in Archives.”

“Like they only offer short-term internships?”

She shot him an indecipherable look.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Alright, kid –“

Stiles made a noise of protest, but quieted at her glare. He’d seen worse (and her eyebrows were far from the most judge-y he’d encountered), but figured it was best not to antagonize the staff before he’d barely set foot in the place.

“You’re going to head towards the East Wing and look for the bust of Martin Van Buren. Hard to miss – a lot of beard.”

Stiles nodded; he was well-acquainted with that most spectacular set of mutton chops.

“There’ll be a wooden door next to it – just press the intercom button and say your name. I’ll give Boris a heads up you’re coming.” She instructed, handing back the flyer.

“Boris?” Stiles questioned.

“Boris is...I’m not exactly sure what Boris does outside of hanging out in the Archives entrance, but he’s good people. The Archives staff sees a lot of turnover, but I’m fairly sure Boris has been here since the groundbreaking. There’s a pretty lucrative pool on if he’ll ever retire.” She shot him a smirk. “If you make it, come see me – I’ll deal you in.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if I make it’?”

The girl winked and spun in her chair, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hey, c’mon. That’s – that’s just overly dramatic. I can still see you, you know!” Stiles called, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Without turning, the girl extended her pen in the direction of the East Wing. Stiles huffed and dropped his hands, muttering to himself as he obediently marched off in the direction she had indicated.

Halfway down the hall Stiles spotted the bust of Van Buren (as hirsute as promised) and paused in front of the door it bordered. It was made of fairly worn wood – an anomaly in the stone-bathed hall – but otherwise appeared normal. He pushed the call button on the intercom next to the door and bent down to say his name. The door buzzed open immediately and Stiles walked through to a small, red room with half-panelled walls. One corner was taken up by an iron staircase that spiralled in both directions, and in the middle sat a man with a shock of white hair and wire-rimmed glasses reading a magazine behind a desk. As Stiles approached, the man closed the magazine and laid it on his desk, allowing him to see it was the latest Halloween-themed edition of Country Living. Noticing his gaze, the man smiled and tapped the magazine with his finger.

“I like the antiques section – especially now that I’m old enough to be classified as one myself. I presume you’re Mr. Stilinski?” The man had disarmingly clear blue eyes, and Stiles couldn’t help fidgeting where he stood.

“Stiles is fine. Uh, are you Boris?”

The man nodded. “That I am. It’s wonderful you’ve come, Dr. Saint Cyprian was just speaking about wanting another intern. The last one regrettably left us a few weeks ago after an unfortunate...incident. We’ve had some difficulty finding a suitable replacement.”

Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I like to think I’m both suitable and good at replacing. A+ replacing, right here.” He mimed finger guns at the man and internally face-palmed. Real smooth, Stilinski. Much professional.

To his surprise, Boris beamed at him. “Oh, I do believe Dr. Saint Cyprian is going to like you. Just head down those stairs there, she should be in her office.”

Stiles thanked him and headed towards the staircase, eager to escape that slightly too-penetrating gaze.

He paused at the edge of the stair, leaning carefully over the railing to judge the distance between him and the ground. He wasn’t worried per se, but those steps were awfully narrow and he had somewhat of a...reputation when it came to grace. He’d be damned if he managed to survive a half-decade of California Hellmouth only to bite it on a staircase, though, so he hiked his bag up on his shoulder, shot a wave to Boris,  and set off into the depths.

After what felt like ages of spiralling almost-doom, but was probably a solid thirty seconds, the staircase ended at another wooden door with ‘Archives’ printed in gold. He didn’t see an intercom, so he rapped twice and waited.

“It’s unlocked!” A muffled voice called from the other side.

Stiles took a second to run a hand over his hair and straighten his shirt before pulling open the door. His eyebrows immediately shot up as he took in the innumerable stacked shelves marching off into the distance, and, standing in front of them, what looked like a gray-haired woman wrestling a lurid purple feather boa into a box on the floor.

She spared him a look as she slammed the top down on the container. “Come on in, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Stiles let go of the handle and moved to step through the door frame. As he did, a shock ran through his body and he let out a yelp, stumbling the rest of the way into the room. He shot the door a suspicious glare, shaking out his arms to regain feeling.

He turned back to the woman, still hunched over the box but now completely focused on the young man, pinning him with a searching look.

Stiles stuttered out a laugh. “Heh, gotta watch out for that static electricity, huh?”

The woman continued to stare. “What are you?”

“Uh, I’m Stiles. I came about the internship ad?”

She frowned at him. “Not who are you – what are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Uh, a college student? At Georgetown. I’m studying anthropology and folklore and I heard about an internship opportunity...”

The woman abruptly stood up, crossing her arms and glaring mulishly at Stiles. “Did Mona send you? I told her she’s not getting that tablecloth and she can send whatever snub-nosed little pixie she wants – I’m not handing it over.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped in outrage. “Snub-nosed, who you calling snub-nosed I- what are you even talking about? I don’t know anyone named Mona. And I don’t have the slightest interest in tablecloths or any other dining accoutrement, for that matter! I’m just here about the internship.” He waved the flyer around to emphasize his point.

The woman raised an eyebrow, but her frown lightened a fraction. “Well, you’ve got to be something. That door doesn’t react to just anyone.”

Stiles switched his tactic, sniffing imperiously. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

The woman snorted. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you. I warded that door myself. It wouldn’t have let you in if you meant any real harm, but you wouldn’t have reacted at all if you were just a human. So what are you? I’m still guessing pixie.”

Stiles eyeballed her suspiciously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I was slightly more extra than ordinary – why pixie?”

“Button nose and boyband hair, ” she said without missing a beat.

Stiles scoffed. “Alright, ONE, I do not have boyband hair. Two, what is wrong with my nose?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. It’s just, you know, very...” She uncrossed one arm, gesturing in the general direction of his face. “Very.”

“Very very?”

“Verily, very very,” she nodded, resolute.

“So, if you’re not a pixie, what are you? I’m happy to talk about the internship, if that’s what you’re really here for, but I’ve got to know. Some of the artifacts can be...touchy, around the wrong energies.”

Stiles sucked on his bottom lip, deliberating. She looked relatively harmless, with long steel grey hair and enough wrinkles to put her somewhere around her early 60’s, though in Stiles’ experience that didn’t mean much - Gerard was pushing 70 when he met him. He could see what looked like tattooed runes on her knuckles and hands, disappearing into her sleeves. Appearance aside, she hadn’t smote him on sight, which was generally a positive sign, and she worked in a literal government institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Above all, nothing in his instincts, human or otherwise, gave him a bad feeling about her, and he had long since learned to listen to his gut.

Decision made, he stuck out his hand. “Stiles Stilinski, Spark-in-training and member of the McCall Pack in Beacon Hills, California.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought Beacon Hills was Hale land.”

Stiles flushed. “It uh, was. Still is, technically, though we haven’t heard from any of them in a while. My buddy Scott was bit by a Hale and he has been...caretaking, if you will.”

She hummed, considering this, before extending her arm to accept Stiles’ handshake.

“Spark, huh? I can work with that. My name is Dr. Olesya Saint Cyprian, but you can call me Rian. I’m the head archivist here.”

“That’s...quite a name.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Glass houses, Mr. Stilinski.”

“...point.”

Introductions made, the woman – Rian – gestured for Stiles to follow her into her office and take a seat across from a desk spilling over with books, papers, and what Stiles was fairly certain was a human skull.

“Polish, I presume?” Rian inquired, settling into her chair.

“Got it in one. What’s St. Cyprian?”

“An inside joke – my grandparents selected it when they emigrated from Russia.”

“Oh?”

“St. Cyprian is the patron saint of occultists.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.

“A sense of humour runs in my family, among other things.”

“Things like magic?”

Her smile reminded Stiles of Deaton’s more enigmatic moments.

“Something like that. Perhaps I will tell you later. Now though, we have other things to discuss.” She folded her hands on the desk and leaned towards him. “So you’re truly just here for the internship? No nefarious plans to pillage my artifacts? I can promise you wouldn’t like the consequences, if you tried.”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Just plain old college credit desired. But if it’s on the table...I’ve finished the books my emissary gave me when I left home and have somewhat been at loose ends. I could use a project.”

He dug his resume out of his bag and handed it to her. “This covers my academic and work history, but in terms of supernatural experience I’ve spent the summer studying basic runes and spells with a local emissary, and have spent the better part of the last few years dealing with everything from kanimas to chimeras.”

He smiled crookedly. “I thought I’d finally enjoy a break with college, but turns out retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying I’m particularly interested in marauding Alpha packs turning up on campus anytime soon, but maybe being around people who understand, getting back into it, just a little, might be...good. For me.”

Rian skimmed his resume then looked at him, considering. She put the paper down and leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to level with you. It’s a bitch trying to keep a non-supernatural initiated intern around - if you’re not in the know, some of the items can be a bit...unsettling. Hell, I’ve been working here for 40 years and sometimes they still give me the willies. Our last intern only lasted two weeks, and I’m sick of training newbies only for them to disappear before they can be of any actual use. Coincidentally, I’ve been needing someone to touch up some of the wards. Old body – can’t do so much of the physical work anymore.”

Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow. From what he’d seen when he walked in, she had more strength than she owned to.

“If you’d agree to take over the wards, along with the standard archive work – returning borrowed items, cataloguing new arrivals, and researching the unknowns – I’d be happy to give you instruction on some of the more...unique objects in the Archives. Officially, we store any items pertaining to the culture and history of America, but unofficially, we have the largest collection of objects and documents relating to the supernatural world this side of the Atlantic – everything from Appalachian yeti clippings to the Salem grimoires.”

Stiles let out a meep at that, eyes going wide.

“We pay minimum wage, and I’d ideally like you here three days a week. You’d get an hour lunch and no benefits, I’m afraid, but I’m happy to sign whatever college credit forms you want and your employee pass will get you special access to all the Smithsonian museums and research centers, if that’s something you’re interested in.”

Stiles perked up. “Even the zoo?”

“Full zoo privileges included.”

His resulting fist pump triggered a look on Rian’s face that was remarkably long-suffering, considering the short duration of their acquaintance.

“So, what do you say – still want to work here? It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I can promise you it won’t be boring.”

Stiles grinned - this was exactly the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“Sign me up, Doc. I’m in.”

*

After filling in all the necessary forms and promising to return the following week to begin, Stiles paused at the door to the stairs. “Before I go, can I ask two questions?”

“Within reason,” Rian said, rolling her eyes in an exasperated look that was rapidly becoming familiar. Stiles guessed it might be her default state. Or just her default Stiles state. Either or.

“What table cloth is so important that your first thought would be that I was here to steal it? Can it fly like the rug from Aladdin? If so – dibs on riding it!”

Rian snorted. “Nice try. No levitation abilities, I’m afraid, but something even better – it never gets dirty, changes color to suit  the dinnerware, and magically ensures that dinner conversation never includes politics, religion, or invasive personal questions.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “You’ve really got people chomping at the bit for that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you’ve never been to a dinner party before.”

Stiles wisely moved on.

“Alright, second question: is there a sentient feather boa in that box?” He gestured to the item in question, still lying on the floor where she left it and occasionally shuddering with violent movement.

“Sentient, no; enchanted, yes. It’s from the personal collection of an early 20th century siren who, as I understand it, was particularly popular on the vaudeville circuit. It’s meant to entice the beholder into coming close enough to kiss – or strangle, as sirens have occasionally been known to do. One of your duties will be to catalogue new items like this and store them in the stacks.” She pointed to the labyrinthine shelves behind her.

She laughed at Stiles’ panicked look. “Don’t worry – it’s not dangerous, usually.”

Stiles pulled a face, silently mouthing ‘usually’.

“ I’ll give you a full run down on Monday. In the meantime,” she said digging through the mess on her desk and unearthing a small red leather book, “This contains all the protection runes currently in the archive – water, fire, mold, basic defensive wards, etc etc. Take a look at them over the weekend and we can talk on Monday if you have any questions or are interested in putting your own spin on them. It’s been years since I’ve thought about updating them – perhaps they could benefit from a little modernization.”

She handed Stiles the volume and bid him goodbye. He ascended the staircase and left the museum in something of a daze, mind spinning with the unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome, change in circumstance. His phone buzzed, pulling him out of his stupor. He glanced at the name on the screen and grinned, overflowing with glee. There was an honest-to-god supernatural archive under the Smithsonian and he had a job there – Scott was going to flip his SHIT.

*

In a couple weeks’ time, Stiles had settled into a comfortable pattern. Officially, he worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 6, leaving in time to make his evening classes. Unofficially, he’d started coming in every free afternoon, staying late into the night researching the more fantastic objects.

It’d taken him a while to decipher Dr. Saint Cyprian’s (“For God’s sake, call me Rian.”) system, but he felt pretty comfortable with it now. Rows were numbered, shelves were lettered (Latin for normal items, Cyrillic for magical), with like items placed together and sorted by year. The hardest part was figuring out what was safe to touch, and which items would react...unfavorably to his Spark. Nothing too terrible ever happened, but after he brushed up against an enchanted punch bowl and spent the next several hours uncontrollably sneezing, Rian taught him how to work runes that would hide his Spark into a pair of archival-standard gloves.  

“There, you’re hypoallergenic now,” she said, patting him on the head before walking away. Stiles sneezed in her general direction.

Like he had in the cabin, Stiles found a comfort in the routine of work. He would start his shifts sorting through the returns, deftly weaving through the maze of stacks to restore every item to its rightful places. The museum used a series of glorified dumbwaiters to transport artifacts to and from visiting academics and historians, while members of the supernatural community had to request a personal visit to examine items. The mess on Rian’s desk was largely composed of such letters, from covens interested in recovering ancestral spells to vampires tracking down old possessions and everything in-between. These visits were always of particular interest to Stiles, eager to interact with magic users and supernatural creatures refreshingly free of any agenda to kill or maim him. In the short time he’d worked there, he’d already met a shapeshifter who worked in b-horror films, a group of dryads studying at Towson he’d made coffee plans with, and a banshee who’d given Stiles her contact information to pass to Lydia. Best of all, though, was finding out that his Folklore professor was not only magic (an actual muse - Stiles felt bad for guessing sprite), but apparently dating his boss. Stiles isn’t sure who was more shocked the first time she came to pick up Rian for lunch and saw Stiles standing there, arms half buried in a magically expanding handbag. His boss had burst out laughing at the twin looks of disbelief on their faces.

“Honestly, how could you not tell the second he walked in to your classroom? The kid leaks power. You’re losing your touch, babe,” she had teased, linking their arms together before whisking her up the stairs.

After all the return items had been set to rights and the day’s requests pulled from the stacks, Stiles started in on the new arrivals. The archives were constantly expanding, new additions appearing daily from estates willed to the museum and items recovered from Smithsonian-funded fieldwork. Before adding them to the stacks, he photographed each piece and created meticulous notes, plugging the information into the newly digitized system he talked Rian into letting him implement (the former archive ‘system’ had been a paper card catalogue. Stiles questioned how they ever endured without him).

But the thing he loved best was when he finished all his other work and he was free to dive in to what he had started thinking of as his pet project – the Land of Misfit Toys. The LMT (“I’m not calling it that, Stiles, and no, you can’t make a sign for it.”) was a massive storage room to the west of the stacks stuffed with unmarked boxes, artifacts long missing documentation, pallets filled with objects originally meant for unknown destinations, and rows of bookshelves bursting with dusty tomes (some of which were bound in...dubious materials. Stiles became more grateful for those gloves with every passing day.). Stiles thought the overall effect was something akin to Gort’s house in the cinematic classic Halloweentown 2, and was obsessed from the moment he saw it.

While he got to handle some interesting items re-shelving and cataloguing – highlights included a stack of racy love letters from a New York senator to his mistress(es) and an honest-to-god sentient chunk of Route 66 – the LMT (“It’s catchy, Rian! And you can pry this label maker from my cold, dead hands IT NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED.”) felt exciting, untouched. Stiles had shelved his childhood dreams of being a professional discoverer in the third grade after the sad realization that most things had, unfortunately, been discovered, but looking out at the sea of lost and forgotten objects, he felt the part of him that longed to explore new worlds and unravel the secrets of the universe, the same part that happily spent hours reading about unsolved mysteries and UFO sightings on Wikipedia, buzz with happiness.

It was the best kind of meditation, slipping in his headphones and moving methodically through each box. He’d carefully lift each piece, examining it from all angles, running his fingers over the edges and prying at locks, before tagging and photographing it, taking detailed notes on his laptop so later he could combine the Smithsonian libraries with the power of Google-Fu to recover its history. Stiles spent hours in the LMT, feeling like the love child of Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes he always dreamed he would be and feeling a rush of emotion whenever he stumbled upon the identity of a once-forgotten thing. He knew a bit about that – being lost, being forgotten. Maybe that’s why it meant so much to him, why he was so determined to identify every one and give them a place in the stacks, far away from the abandoned room full of forgotten things.

More than once, he’d been jolted out of his Adderall fueled research fugue when Rian turned the lights off on him, closing up for the night. He’d have to scramble to get home and finish his actual coursework, unwilling to let his grades slip even as he spent more and more time at the archives, but Stiles was the happiest he had been since he moved to D.C., and he couldn’t bring himself to regret a second of it.

A big part of this happiness was a result of Stiles’ attempts at befriending the other employees. His first day of work, he came armed with a box of cupcakes (bought, not made – through trial and very messy error, Stiles concluded that dorm hot plates did not lend themselves to confectionary creation).  His first target was Jules, formerly known as Information Desk Girl. From years bugging his dad down at the station, Stiles knew the front desk person was always the one to befriend. Officer Shelley was the first to know every piece of gossip in Beacon Hills and had dirt on all the officers, including the sheriff, and Stiles suspected Jules was no different. In exchange for the pastry and the promise for more in the future, she had started giving him hints on which security guards were cool and which to avoid (Benny and Barry, respectively), which routes to take to avoid the tourists (“Stay away from the Star-Spangled Banner at all costs.”), and what foods in the staff canteen were actually edible (none of them).

Over a series of lunches, with mutually agreed alternating dessert duties, Stiles found out she was working to fund an MA in American history and that her parents were academics (“Seriously, what kind of people name their newborn daughter Jules Verne? The answer is mine, my parents did that. I am not proud of this.” Stiles had nodded solemnly. “Solidarity, my friend.”).

He was fairly sure she was human; since that first day she hadn’t done more than joke about the weirdness of the archives like it was accepted fact, and never brought up anything more magical than whatever new docent she had her eye on (Jules was more than happy to appreciate attractive people of all genders – loudly, and at length). She liked pop culture and snarked like she breathed, and sometimes she reminded Stiles so much of Erica he felt a phantom pain in his chest. Though they were never officially pack, Erica had such an impact on his life (and his skull, if he was counting that one time with his carburettor) that he knew, on some level, they had been tied together, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time. Painful memories aside, Jules was funny, Lydia-levels of intelligent, able to match Stiles barb for barb, and probably the first real friend he had made in D.C.

*

It was on Jules’ recommendation that he found himself wandering the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn art museum during his lunch break one day. Stiles doubted he was sophisticated enough to appreciate modern art – he still giggled at anything remotely phallic, Snapchatting the best pieces to Scott with appropriately suggestive stick figures– but when he had gone to meet Jules for their usual Friday pizza and shit-talk, she had waved him off, muttering something about a renegade tour group on the loose in the Power Machinery hall. Stiles shrugged and started to walk away, already mentally planning where he could find a quiet area to eat and maybe grab a nap, but she called him back to suggest he check out the Hirshhorn.

“It’s a big-ass donut looking building, really, you can’t miss it.” She had the glint in her eye Stiles had already learned to be wary of as she leaned forward. “It’s one of the main modern galleries– most of it crap, but there’s one serious work of art you might be able to catch, if you leave now.”

“Even more beautiful than you?” Stiles said, batting his eyes at her.

Jules snorted loudly, startling a passing elderly couple.

“Oh honey, I don’t even come close. Just get yourself to the sculpture garden – we can compare notes later.” She winked at him and smacked his ass, making Stiles yelp as she walked away cackling.

Stiles rubbed his backside – Jules had some serious untapped strength – and headed out towards the Mall. He’d admit it - he was intrigued. He’d found that Jules’ interests more or less aligned with his own, so if she was so adamant he’d like it, to the Hirshhorn he’d go. Plus, it wasn’t like he actually had anything better to do now that his lunch buddy had been detained for the afternoon.

He stopped at the hot dog cart parked outside of the museum and couldn’t stifle a grin when Saul, the owner, asked him if he wanted his usual. He was the kind of cool, adult type person who had a usual. Granted, his usual was two chilli cheese dogs and a Redbull, but he’d take what he could get.

Snacks in hand, Stiles made his way to the garden. He’d noticed the Hirshhorn before – kind of hard to ignore what was essentially a concrete toilet roll in the middle of the National Mall – but had never actually visited. The day was on the cooler side, D.C. a far cry from the paradisal clime of California, but the sun was shining and Stiles had invested in a good wool peacoat with a collar he could turn up against the wind (Lydia had told him he looked like a crap Hemingway. Stiles told her she could fuck off.).

Entering the gardens, he stopped in front of a particularly arresting statue of what appeared to be a car crushed by a gigantic rock painted with a smiley face. He tilted his head and contemplated it for a few moments, then shoved half a hot dog in his mouth and moved on. He wandered around the sculptures as he finished his food, stopping to make a face at a kid who was sticking his tongue out at him from behind his mother’s legs. There were quite a few people milling around the garden, which wasn’t unusual in-and-of-itself, but given that it was the middle of the workday in November, long past the end of tourist season, and the crowd almost entirely composed of mothers and women dressed a touch better than the average museum patron, Stiles’ curiosity was sufficiently piqued.

He paused next to the mother of the kid from before, who was fruitlessly trying to corral the young boy in front of a statue Stiles immediately dubbed ‘Junkyard Tetris’.  

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there was a special event going on? A friend suggested I come down here at this time, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he asked, politely ignoring the struggle in front of him.

The woman grabbed the back of her son’s shirt, holding him in place as he wiggled to get away, arms outstretched and eyes manic. Stiles got a sudden flashback of the sheriff trying to do the same every time he ventured to take Stiles to a museum, and shuddered at the reminder of the short lived period dubbed the Child Leash of Which We Do Not Speak.

Her son temporarily restrained, the woman looked up and shot Stiles a weak smile, panting lightly from exertion. “I don’t know if it counts as a special event, but there’s a pretty popular tour of the major garden highlights about to begin.”

She leaned towards him with a conspiratorial look, maintaining her grip on her son.“I’m not much for sculpture, but the tour guide...well, he really makes you appreciate the art, if you know what I mean.”

At that, her son shook loose, shouting “Mom likes his butt!” before running and hiding behind Stiles, utilizing him as a human shield against his now beet-red mother.

“Michael Joseph, you get back here right now!” she demanded.

Stiles laughed as he turned and picked the kid up under his armpits, handing him back to his mother. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling at the woman.

She flushed further and accepted her son back gratefully. “Sorry about that. If you’re still interested, the tour starts in about 10 minutes in front of the Rodin sculptures. There’s usually a crowd – you can’t miss it.”

She smiled back at him before gently pushing Michael towards a picnic table nestled between statues. “Enjoy!”

Stiles thanked her and walked away, spying an empty bench in the sun. From what the woman said and her son pretty much confirmed, the tour guide was probably what Jules had been alluding to.  As he settled into the bench and turned his face to the sun, he thought idly that perhaps if the guide really was that attractive, he’d consider getting his number for Jules, or maybe even himself. After all, he had to start getting over Derek sometime, and what better time than the present. With that decided, Stiles reasoned he had a few minutes to relax before the tour began, and let his eyes slip close against the bright sunshine.

Twenty minutes later, he awoke with a start to something cold and wet wiggling in his ear. He flailed off the bench, landing on the ground with a thump. He looked up to see Michael, the kid from before, holding his stomach and giggling on the bench.

“I got you!” He cried. “Wet willy! Wet willy!”

Stiles grimaced and stuck a finger in his ear, trying to clean it out. He hated wet willies, and he and Scott had put a mutual ban on them years ago. Still, he had to admit the kid had chutzpah, and he nodded to acknowledge the successful willy as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Alright kid, you got me. Now, where’s your mom? She’s probably freaking out right now.”

The kid sat upright on the bench and rolled his eyes. “Nah, she’s too busy staring at the tour man. She probably hasn’t even noticed.”

Stiles snorted and held out a hand. “I seriously doubt anyone’s that pretty. Come on, let’s go find her, and you can show me this fantastic tour man.”

Michael hopped down from the bench and slotted his fingers between Stiles’. “Hurry up slow poke,” he said, jerking Stiles forward. “Old people take forever to get anywhere.”

Stiles scoffed, outraged. But before he could respond, he felt an odd sensation bloom in his chest. He raised his free hand to rub against it, frowning. He hadn’t worried about his bonds in a long time – they had remained just as steady and warm in his chest as they had in Beacon Hills, only changing to glow particularly brightly when something good happened, covertly confirmed through his weekly Skype calls with the pack. But this felt different, almost...fluttering. Anticipatory. Like sparks rising from his stomach and pooling beneath his breastbone, resolving into a current that flooded down to his feet and the tips of his fingers.

Stiles frowned and let his hand drop. It was probably just heartburn; he did wolf down (heh) a truly impressive amount of carbs and caffeine. Maybe Michael’s got it right; he’s old now, his body no longer the chilli-dog destroying machine it once was.

He let the thought go as they rounded a corner and spotted a large group of women and a few men circling a melting iron tree with rapt faces. He couldn’t quite see who giving the tour, but he quickly found Michael’s mother looking around frantically near the back. He walked back over to her and smiled at her sigh of relief when she saw her son with him.

“Hey, found this guy wandering around back there.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. A member of the crowd shot him a dirty look and he lowered his voice with a sheepish grin. “Figured you’d want him back.”

His mother shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you – again. Michael’s a bit of a handful, but he’s a really great kid, I swear.”

“Really, it’s no problem. I was pretty much the same when I was his age. I think my dad would call it payback,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He crouched down in front of the kid in question.  

“Hey little dude, I know this place is awesome and there’s a ton of cool stuff to explore, but try and take your mom with you next time you want to motor, alright? She’ll be excited too, I promise, and I bet if you ask really nicely, she’ll take you to see the woolly mammoths in the Natural History Museum. Deal?”

Michael nodded, and grinned a gap-toothed smile as he reached out to bump Stiles’ outstretched fist with his own.

Stiles stood back up and smiled at the boy’s mother. “Are you going to stick around for the rest of the tour?”

The woman smiled back at him but shook her head. “No, I think it’s best I get this munchkin moving. You should stay though – you haven’t missed much, and it really is pretty interesting. Have a good day, and thank you again.”

Stiles waved goodbye, and turned back to see the crowd had started to move to the next attraction. He didn’t have a clear view through all the bodies, but caught a flash of dark hair leading the group he guessed might belong to the infamous tour guide. He slipped into the back as they crowded around a tall plinth supporting a male figure carved in bronze, striding forward with clenched abs and powerful thighs, but curiously unfinished, missing a head and both arms. Stiles let his eyes drag across the statue as he focused in on the lilting voice carrying over the crowd.

“The Walking Man is an impressionist portrayal of Saint John the Baptist created between 1877 and ’78 by Auguste Rodin, the French artist most famous for The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Burghers of Calais, which you can also see in this garden. The work has been called “profoundly unclassical,” a rough sketch less concerned with the aesthetic beauty of his body than emphasizing the strength and forward movement of the figure, powerfully striding into the unknown.”

A small furrow appears between Stiles’ brows. The voice is relatively high for a man, but not weak; clear and engaging and intelligent, confident in his words. It tickles something in the back of Stiles’ head, a memory he can almost grasp, but slips out of his hands. You need me to survive.

“Saint John the Baptist is introduced in the Gospel of Mark as 'a voice crying out in the wilderness' and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the Prodigal Son. The headless state alludes to his martyrdom, orchestrated by the daughter of King Herod who requested his head brought to her on a platter.”

The sensation in Stiles’ chest flares up again, and he rubs the heel of his hand against it as he pushes himself up on his toes, straining to match a face to the voice that won’t stop itching at his memory. He can’t see anything – too many people, too many bodies, like the space is closing in around him.

He looks at his watch and sees he still has 20 minutes left. Enough time to stay and see this through, if he wants. And he wants; there’s something niggling at him, begging to be resolved, and he has never been one to let things alone – has never been able to stop poking his bruises, even when it hurt.

“The statue famously inspired a poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg in 1916, but I’m particularly fond of another, slightly more obscure poem, penned by Peter Cooley in 2014.”

His mind made up, Stiles begins pushing his way forward, elbowing his way through the crowded bodies, the coltish limbs that had been the bane of his high school existence allowing him to alternately slip and shove his way through the ranks while the voice begins to recite.

“But when the body stands here, one foot back,

one forward, the flesh flexed in motion,

there is no movement that is not your own.”

Stiles advances ever closer to the front, chased by a series of dirty looks and muffled “oofs.” He can see more clearly now; can glimpse strong, veined hands carving shapes into the air, illustrating the words.

“You forget your equivocating past

only to recall it the next second.”

Stiles traces up the hands to tanned forearms covered in a dusting of dark hair and broad shoulders filling out a sweater the color of forest moss. His gaze travels higher as his feet carry him to the front and the spot in his chest burns brightly, driving him onward.

“It is essential that he is headless.

Admit it: you’d be staring at his face.”

And suddenly he’s there, he’s made it, and he can hear his voice and see his face, more beautiful than any sculpture he’d ever seen, eyes so clear it feels like gazing into the sky.

“This is our walk between eternities,

The one we think we know, the one we can’t.”

Stiles blinks, and he’s 16 again,  all jittery limbs and so much innocence stunned silent by a thousand yard glare and a jawline like a chorus of angels.

He blinks again, and he sees the wide smile, dimpling into something not quite a beard, thicker and more lush than the stubble he remembers.

Stiles blinks, and his gaze lingers on the hint of crow’s feet, the hair curling gently under his ears instead of short and gelled, as tightly controlled as the rest of him.

Stiles blinks, and he sees the moment of recognition when his nostrils flare and his voice falters, when his eyes search frantically through the crowd before they land on Stiles’ face, and then he doesn’t blink, because for the first time in years, he’s looking directly at Derek and Derek is looking back.

The ball of warmth in his chest bursts and floods into his body, shooting electricity through his veins and igniting every cell until he thinks he can hear them singing as the heat rages and maybe that’s crazy to think but he can’t think, not when he’s standing right there, Derek is standing right there and he is alive and healthy and existing where Stiles is existing and he feels like he’s on fire but God, he’s never been so happy to burn.

Derek clears his throat, breaking eye contact and resuming his speech even as his cheeks flush and he stumbles over his words. Stiles is still staring, not comprehending, too caught up in cataloguing the ways he is so different, yet so much the same. He spends the most time on his hands, counting methodically over and over to prove that he’s not dreaming, this isn’t a dream, this is Derek, a thousand miles from home and shining more brightly than he’s ever seen him.

Stiles tunes back in to hear him dismiss the tour, apologizing for the short run time and promising to return to regular scheduling the following day. Then people are leaving, and Stiles barely notices, doesn’t stop looking as Derek doesn’t stop looking at him until everyone has wandered away and it’s just him and Stiles and Saint John the Baptist, each equally unsure of what to say.

As always, Stiles is the one to break the silence.

“Going to tell me this is private property?” He asks, shooting Derek a nervous smile.

He smiles back, strong and steady. “I think we’re long past that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out, a little stunned by the breadth of his smile, all that pretty directed his way.

It’s quiet again, for a moment.

“Can I hug you?” Stiles blurts out, unsure of his welcome but desperate to ask. “It’s just...it’s been a long time.”

Derek ducks his head, the tips of his ears turning faintly pink. “Yeah, it has. I’m okay with – if you want.” He lifts his arms a fraction, palms turned out, and Stiles accepts the invitation for what it is, stepping into his warmth and wrapping his arms solidly around him.

Derek’s arms come up, gripping him tightly, tethering him, and Stiles feels that spot in his chest burn so brightly his breath stutters with it. Derek keeps him in the circle of his arms but leans back so his eyes can search over Stiles’ face. “Are you alright? I heard your heart-”

Stiles flushes, and ducks back in. “I’m fine,” he answers, voice muffled from where it’s buried in Derek’s shoulder. “Just, um, warm. I’m very warm. You’re very warm. Werewolf thing. Bet you don’t even need a coat, right? Just go a bit furry and you’re set.”

Derek lets out an amused huff over his shoulder, but doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie. He lets go and steps back, though he remains closer than any normal human might stand in the situation. Werewolves have always had smaller personal bubbles, Stiles noticed. He doubted that had changed for Derek in the few years he’s been gone, and suppressed a pang in his chest thinking about when the last time he’d had a hug was; if he was all alone in the city, too.

Heedless of Stiles’ internal meltdown, Derek begins to speak. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t lost your particular talent for babble.”

“I’d prefer to think of it as a prolonged opportunity for charm and wit, thanks.”

“It’s an opportunity for something, alright.”

“Hey,” Stiles squawks, mildly affronted.

“I never said something bad.” Derek shoots him a small smile, just as devastating as the grin he bore a few minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” He asks hesitantly. “Were you...were you looking for me?”

Stiles flushes again. “No, no, I didn’t – I didn’t know you were here. I’ve been interning at the Museum of American History, in the archives. Just a couple days a week – I’m a student at Georgetown now.”

“Yeah?” Derek smiles. “That’s good to hear. Georgetown’s a good school. Your dad must be  proud.”

Stiles snorts. “Understatement of the year. I’m pretty sure he’s bought every piece of merchandise they make – we ate off of Hoya branded plates for a week before I put my foot down and rescued the normal ones from the back of the cupboard.”

Derek laughs softly, and Stiles is entranced by the sound. He tries to think of the last time he heard Derek laugh; he’s not sure he ever has. He’s so distracted by the thought, he misses what Derek says next.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked how things were at home. If Scott and everyone...if things were okay.” He looks unsure, and a little guilty. Like he might still feel bad for leaving, even though Stiles knows no one blames him. He needed to, probably should have a long before. They understood that.

“They’re good. They’re safe. Scott is doing his generals at the community college and still planning on going to vet school. Most of his pack is still at Beacon High, so he wanted to stay close.”

“His pack?” Derek questions softly.

“My pack, too.” Stiles hesitates before continuing. “It all just feels so far away sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes gentle and free of judgement.

Stiles continues. “Lydia’s at MIT, no surprise, but she mentioned that Jackson’s staying in London and studying at Imperial, which was a bit of a shocker. Never knew he had it in him. Kira’s taking a gap year and, last we heard, Isaac was still somewhere in France with Chris, probably in his element surrounded by all the other pretentious scarf-wearers.”

Derek lets out a quiet laugh, then reaches out to brush Stiles’ arm, nodding towards the path. They walk slowly through the garden, side by side, the sky still clear blue overhead.

Derek looks over at Stiles a little hesitantly. “And Lydia, are you guys...Did you ever? I know you always -“

Stiles can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks. “No. I mean – no. We talked about it and tried, briefly, just because we’d always wonder what it’d be like if we haven’t, but we both knew we make far better friends than we ever would lovers. All those years I thought I was in love with her, I had been obsessed with this impossible, untouchable thing that I had created in my head; an idolized image of everything I thought she’d be and who I thought I’d be if I was with her. I know what she is now - strong, loyal, tenacious, brilliant, and fallible. Human.” He smiles. “She’ s one of the best people I know, and I think I’ll always love her – just not in the same way I originally thought.”

Derek makes a small noise of assent. “I know something about that – building a person up to something they could never actually be. Building yourself up the same way. It’s taken me a long time to see past that. I’m glad you figured it out earlier than I ever did.”

Stiles smiles up at him. “But figure it out, you did.”

Derek laughs, loud and throaty, nudging him with his shoulder. “You don’t automatically sound wiser if you speak like Yoda, Stiles. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, then how does it work? Because I don’t foresee myself turning green and running around a swamp in my bathrobe anytime soon.”

“I mean, you’ve always sounded pretty wise to me, maybe you don’t have to do anything at all.”

Stiles flushes. “Flattery will get you everywhere, big guy,” he jokes, trying to hide his reaction.

Derek abruptly stops walking, turns so he can grab Stiles’ elbow and look him directly in the eye with his considerable brows furrowed. “It’s not flattery, Stiles. You got me through so much in Beacon Hills, even though I wasn’t able to appreciate it at the time. Wasn’t able to thank you the way I should have. You saw so much, knew so much, just instinctively understood the things I could barely face, and I don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for you. I didn’t say it then, so I’m saying it now: thank you, Stiles.”

He drops his arm and resumes walking, leaving Stiles shell-shocked in his wake.

He stutters back to life, arms flailing. “You can’t just – you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away! What was that?!”

Stiles hurries to follow, catching up in time to see the small smile on Derek’s face.

“A lot’s changed since I’ve last seen you. I’ve changed.”

Stiles snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, understatement. I –“

He opens his mouth to say more, but is cut off by the buzz of his phone. He pulls it out and swears when he sees the time. “Shit, Derek, I have to go. My lunch break ended 10 minutes ago and I really, really don’t want to get fired from this job.” Stiles shifts on his feet, deliberating for a moment.

“Do you – would you want to exchange numbers? I feel like there’s so much to catch up on and I’m still not quite over just seeing you and if I had time we could do it right now, I’d buy you lunch like a proper adult and everything, but I really do have to go.” He grimaces and looks up at Derek, unsure.

Derek just laughs and gently takes Stiles’ phone from his hands. “Of course you can have my number, and I’d love to do lunch, sometime.” He hands Stiles’ phone back. “Text me with yours.”

Stiles beams at him before remembering the time, swearing again as he jogs away.  

Before he can make it out of the garden, Derek calls out to him. “Hey, Stiles, wait up a second!”

He turns to see Derek running up behind him, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry, I don’t want to get you in trouble but I thought, maybe...what time do you get off? I could come meet you? I know a great diner just down the road - they make a curly fry I’ve been reliable informed will change your life.”

Stiles grins at him, heart glowing in his chest. “Now you’re speaking my language, big guy. I get off at 6. Meet me under the Monument?”

Derek smiles, dimples out in full show. “I’ll be there.”

Stiles waves his goodbye and runs full-tilt back to the archives, shouting an apology at Rian as he comes shooting through the door. And if he spends the rest of the day working with a dopey grin on his face and a new warmth burning in his chest, well, that’s  no one’s business but his own.

[mallowstep]

Reedpaw didn't know what to do. He'd told Mudfur what he saw that night in the apprentices den, but nothing had happened. Now, watching Hawkpaw seemingly fight something-another cat?!?-in his sleep, Reedpaw wished he knew what to do. His mom, Mistyfoot, always seemed to know what to do when things seemed bad, and she was always confident. Reedpaw flinched as Hawkpaw whimpered and whispered something--wait! -- that was a name the fur on Reedpaw's shoulder's fluffed up and his eyes widened. Tigerstar? Why was Hawkpaw dreaming about Tigerstar? The apprentice curled up, covering his eyes with his tail. Closing his eyes, the apprentice promised himself to talk to Mudfur tomorrow about spirits training cats, and if they could do it without Starclan's permission--and without the living cat's permission, either.

me: i need to go to bed

also me: answering this ask is a good idea

look i am approximately 15 minutes away from calm music so i think it is.

god yes! yes. good stuff here. i like. ah. okay. i dunno. reedpaw is maybe...doing math doing math...nearly six moons younger than them, i'd say. maybe this is around when feathertail and stormheart "disappear"?

(Reedpaw is going to ask Mistyfoot about it, because she'd know what to do. He sees Hawkpaw wake, somehow more tired than when he crawled into his nest, and he is decided.

"--just vanish!" Mistyfoot shouts. "It's Feathertail!"

He narrows his eyes. Feathertail is Hawkpaw's mother, and his older sister, and probably should have been higher on his list of cats to talk to.

"Mistyfoot, wherever she is, Stormheart is probably with her," Stonefur soothes. "They can't have gone far."

Reedpaw's denmates stumble out behind him.

"What's going on?" Mothpaw asks, yawning.

"Mistyfoot and Stonefur are arguing," Hawkpaw says. "She mentioned Feathertail."

"Great," Mothpaw groans. "Last time they were arguing about Feathertail..." She trails off, and Reedpaw ignores the urge to ask her what happened. Hawkpaw and Frogpaw clearly already know.

"So we'll send out a patrol to search for them," Stonefur says. "Where's -- is Shadepelt in camp?"

"Hey," Frogpaw says, "look at this." Reedpaw looks back, and he wraps his paw around a stone carefully. "Reedpaw, you didn't bring this in, did you?"

He shakes his head.

"Stones are Feathertail's thing anyway," Mothpaw says. "She likes the ones on the riverbed."

Reedpaw's denmates all look at one another, something unspoken passing between them.

"Dawnflower can lead the morning hunt," Mistyfoot says, "Skyheart, Blackclaw, one border each."

"Who do you want us to take?"

Mistyfoot flicks her tail. Stonefur presses his nose against her shoulder. She blinks a few times. "Dawnflower can take...Sunfish and Loudbelly. Skyheart, Blackclaw, you can pick who you want."

They nod.

"Hey, Reedpaw," Mothpaw says gently, "would you mind running a message to Mistyfoot?"

"She's right there."

"Yeah, I know. Just -- do you mind?"

He shakes his head.

"Okay. Just tell her we think Feathertail left us the stone, and Frogpaw isn't sure, but he thinks he saw her just before moonhigh. Got that?"

Reedpaw nods. Mothpaw licks the top of his head. "You're the best, Reedpaw."

"What about me?" Hawkpaw says, and Mothpaw bats at his ear.

Reedpaw trots through camp, sitting in front of Mistyfoot.

"Hey, Reedpaw," she says. "Everything alright?"

"Are you okay?"

She purrs, touching noses with him. "Just worried about Feathertail. It's not like her to run off. But -- I'm fine, love."

"About Feathertail -- there was a new stone in our den and Mothpaw says she thinks Feathertail left it, and Frogpaw says he thinks he saw her just before moonhigh."

Mistyfoot narrows her eyes.

"I'll talk to them," Stonefur says. "You can look for her."

"Thanks." Mistyfoot brushes her temple against Stonefur, and then against Reedpaw. "I'll be back soon," she promises.

"Can I come with you?"

She blinks, considering. "Ask Petaldust, but if she says yes, you can.")

that's Unrelated i just started rambling. i like writing mistyfoot.

(It happens again that night.

Hawkpaw huffs in his sleep, shifting. With everything going on, and Mistyfoot so upset over Feathertail and Stormheart's disappearance, this had slipped his mind. He'd talk to her when they found Feathertail, he told himself.)

but of course, they don't find feathertail. and -- hawkpaw, soon hawkfrost, becomes a smaller and smaller worry,

(Reedpaw bunts against Mistyfoot. She purrs softly, but doesn't move.

"Mistyfoot?"

She flicks her tail. Stonefur nudges his shoulder. "Let's give her some space," he says, softly. "I think Petaldust wanted to take you hunting.")

and their prey is dwindling,

("Mistyfoot, you need to eat," Stonefur says.

"Dawnflower needs to eat," she hisses. "I'll be fine."

Reedpaw's ears pin back. This is the third day in the row they've had this argument. Everyone is hungry, and it makes them angry and scared.)

so he forgets about hawkfrost, until

("Tigerstar," Hawkfrost babbles in sleep. Reedpaw sits up. He hasn't been awake for one of these moments in a long time, but hunger and fear has made light sleepers of them all.

He slices his claws through a piece of moss. This is a worse time than ever to bring it up, and yet--

Hawkfrost whines, his hindlegs kicking at an invisible enemy.

--it seems serious.)

so he finally finds a good moment to talk to mistyfoot.

("Can I -- ask you about something?"

Mistyfoot tilts her head. Reedpaw presses his forehead to her shoulder.

"About...I'm not sure, actually."

"Well, I can't promise I have an answer." She presses her nose to the top of her head. "But you can ask."

"Hawkfrost has been having these dreams," he says. "For a while -- I just, things have been so busy, and...anyway." He takes a breath, steadying his resolve. "He keeps having injuries that I don't think he got in training, and sometimes he talks, and..."

"What does he say?"

Reedpaw shifts. "It's kind of hard to tell how he means it," he couches, but Mistyfoot takes a step back, and Reedpaw folds under her gaze. "Tigerstar," he says. "He keeps saying Tigerstar."

Mistyfoot's ears fold back. She closes her eyes. Her tail tucks around her legs. "Thank you for telling me," she says, quietly. "I'll take care of it from here.")

not sure how that Resolves tbh. but. i don't know. maybe...

("Why wouldn't you talk to me first?" Hawkfrost hisses, and Reedpaw flinches.

"Hawkfrost," Mothwing cautions, "he didn't mean any harm."

"You see how you feel about it when Mistyfoot is asking you about Tigerstar," Hawkfrost says. "It was just a fucking nightmare."

His tail bristles, and Mothwing looks sympathetically at Reedpaw.

"I didn't know what to do!" he says. "And -- I don't know, you didn't seem like you wanted to talk about it."

"Yeah, no shit," Hawkfrost says. "Sorry, Reedpaw, but I don't generally feel like talking about Tigerstar."

"So what was I supposed to do?"

"Leave it be!" Hawkfrost paces for a moment, then huffs. "As if Feathertail being gone wasn't bad enough."

"She's not gone," Frogpaw says. "Just -- missing."

"It's been over a moon," Hawkfrost says. "She's gone. And someone had to tell Mistyfoot about Tigerstar, so I got to hear the, He was your father and this isn't to say you're a bad cat, but he was terrible lecture again."

Reedpaw freezes. "Tigerstar was your father?"

Hawkfrost stares at him, open-mouthed.

"Alright," Mothwing says. "That's enough. Hawkfrost, this isn't Reedpaw's fault. Everyone is hungry and no one is thinking clearly. Including Mistyfoot. Go -- find something for Dawnflower to eat, I don't know."

Hawkfrost bristles, but doesn't argue. When he's crossed over the river, Mothwing looks back at him. "Frogpaw, you want to be here for this?"

He flicks his tail. "You know Stonefur would explain if we asked him."

"Here or not?" she asks.

"Here." He sits up, licking her shoulder. "Thistle for brains -- did you think I'd let you do it alone?"

Reedpaw shifts, trying to figure out what's going on. No one has confirmed what Hawkfrost says, and he doesn't know how to understand it.

Mothwing and Frogpaw touch foreheads, before Mothwing turns back to him. Her eyes are a brilliant gold. Feathertail has blue eyes, Reedpaw thinks, like Hawkfrost and Frogpaw, but not like Mothwing.

She's not solid like Frogpaw, and Mothwing and Hawkfrost both have denser markings than her.

"No one told you who our father was?" Mothwing asks softly. "It's okay if they didn't."

Reedpaw folds an ear. He doesn't know who his father is. Dawnflower's close to kitting and as far as he knows, her kits won't have a father either.

Mothwing sighs. "Well -- yeah, it was Tigerstar."

"But he was evil."

Mothwing flinches, and Frogpaw wraps his tail around her. "We're pretty aware of that," he says. "Feathertail took us in, but...do you remember what Tigerstar did?"

"He wanted to...combine the Clans," Reedpaw says. "Into one, claiming it'd make them all stronger. He was ShadowClan's leader, and Leopardstar agreed, but he was just hungry for power."

"More or less," Frogpaw says. "Stonefur'd probably cover the details better than we would, but...Tigerstar decided half-Clan cats were all traitors, like Mistyfoot, Stonefur, Feathertail, and Stormheart."

He pauses, and this time, Mothwing jumps in, "So -- all four of them were unfairly...treated. Punished? Hurt? I don't -- he was cruel to the four of them, but especially Mistyfoot and Feathertail."

Reedpaw begins to understand. "I didn't mean to cause trouble for you," he says. "I was just worried about Hawkfrost."

"I know," Mothwing says. "And when he's not so angry, he'll realize that too." She purrs, licking the top of his head. "You didn't do anything wrong, Reedpaw. You were right to be worried.")

yeah. there we go. i'm going to bed for real now, i hope y'all enjoyed nearly 1.5k words of reedpaw being younger than his denmates against.

#ask #anon #reed au #mine #that's not a great way of describing it #but it is quippy #so it works #also the last scene was fun to write #hawkfrost is just #he misses his mom and he already feels terrible #and mistyfoot didn't like #yell at him or anything #he's just extremely sensitive about the matter #for obvious reasons #and everyone is hungry and tired and not articulating themselves very well #so mistyfoot might have been a little too intense #and hawkfrost was a little more personally hurt #and things spiralled #mostly he's mad at himself #for being in the dark forest; for how he handled mistyfoot; for how he handled reedpaw #he does apologize to reedpaw later