Chapter Text
Sometime, 200 years ago, when Stiles still had arms to flail, and Derek still had abs that made him want to weep.
Kate Argent is a cruel person, but she is his sister, and Chris Argent has to believe that there is something good inside her still. She cackles as she saunters from the manor, leaving her brother and her niece trapped inside. Chris runs to the gates after her, carefully avoiding the bodies of the Hales that lay, broken and empty, on the floor. Chris calls her name, begging for whatever mercy she might bestow on her family at the very least, knowing there is nothing he can do about the last living member of the Hale family, Derek, or his staff.
"Don't you care about Allison?! What is she going to do, if you leave this curse behind? If you curse everyone staying at the manor?! Does she mean nothing to you?!" His voice is strained from fear, from running towards the gates that must be cursed already, as every step he takes closer to them—closer to his sister's shadow—drags, drags, drags, until he's stuck, just against the doors, unable to move beyond them. Kate turns back from the trees just outside the manor gates, a snarl curling her upper lip.
"I gave her an out! I told her to leave! But she is too wrapped up in her ideas of right and wrong, and foolish young love with puppy-eyed boys to have vision. So you know what? No. I don't care," Kate shouts, angrily pointing towards the manor. Chris winces at the mention of the young Scott McCall, who his daughter has, unfortunately, certainly taken a shining to. He's nice enough, but his knowing stares at Chris, Kate, even Derek, make him wary. The second the Argent family entered the manor, Scott seemed to have a second sense about who they were, what Kate was, and what was going to happen. He may have puppy eyes, but those puppy eyes saw too much, and everyone in the manor suffered for it. It was Scott who warned Derek about Kate, it was Derek who demanded Kate leave, and it was Kate, who killed his family in turn and cursed the manor.
"You are her closest friend, Kate, and you would leave her to this?! To be trapped in a manor as some kind of household object?!" Chris' tone is in disbelief, both at the elaborate curse and at the apathy with which she cast it upon everyone who rested their head to sleep in the manor the night before.
Kate crosses her arms, cocks a hip, and she smirks. "I think she'd make a wonderful mirror, you know. She was always good at reflecting the truth back at someone. It's poetic, don't worry. Besides, I'm sure Derek will manage to find someone who will fall in love with him. He's got abs you just want to lick," she finishes with a gleeful cackle. Chris hears her mutter under her breath that sounds something like "If he doesn't already," but Chris can't focus on whatever jokes she's telling herself right now.
"Allison loves you! And you'll just leave her to die?!" Chris shouts at her, ignoring her last disgusting comment. A curse like this has a time limit, everyone who knows dark magic knows that. It takes too much from the enchanter to maintain it, and so, typically, there's a point where the curse just kills everyone affected, if it doesn't wear off. Knowing Kate and her proclivity for cruelty, trained under the even crueler thumb of their father, Gerard, Chris knew it would be death at the end of this curse, not a return to normalcy.
Kate seems to hesitate at this, her eyes quickly looking back at the manor and coming back to him slowly. Chris can see her considering, likely thinking back to how she proclaimed Allison her protégé and her best friend. Kate scoffs, though, brushing off Chris' concerns. "She'll be fine, Chris, stop worrying so much," she retorts, turning back to the forest and leaving her family behind.
"Don't do this, Kate!"
"Love you too, big brother!"
Chris yells into the darkness that seems to engulf his little sister, falling to his knees as Allison catches up to him.
"It'll be okay, right, Dad? We can fix this." Allison looks at him hopefully, and Chris can do nothing but nod, protecting his daughter from the truth of what he knows: Kate Argent is cruel, and there is nothing good left inside her, if she could do this to Allison.
Present day, when Stiles considers Kate Argent's humor at making him a clock with arms he can still flail at least, and Derek's eyebrows are probably just as bushy as they were before.
With Lydia gone, everyone woke up the next morning with heavy eyelids and broken hearts. Most stayed up late into the night, watching the sunrise. Their hearts were filled, despite this very bleak circumstance, with hope. Stiles had hoped Lydia would return, realizing how much she loves Derek instead. Chris had hoped Kate Argent herself would return, realizing how much she loves Allison. Everyone else hoped that maybe the unspoken love Stiles and Derek had for each other would be enough.
"Stiles, wake up."
"Hmphsgrhpgs."
"Stiles, come on, wake up."
"Finstock, hmphrphmph, no cream cheese," Stiles continues to mumble in his sleep, ignoring the warmth that continuously prods at him.
"STILES!"
It's a loud clatter that would bring any household to its knees, if this particular household had any knees, when Stiles rolls off the table by the front door and crashes to the hard, freshly swept, marble floor.
"WHAT?!"
Scott looks at him bashfully, clears his throat, and whispers, "I think you need to check on Derek."
Stiles flings himself upright, grateful for the abs that, if this curse had ever broken, he would've had from having to do this so often. It's hard moving around with no real arms (ha ha, Kate, very funny, he thinks to himself as he considers the fact that no, he does, actually have arms, just not useful ones), but, if he ever got a human body again, Stiles is sure that all this core strength he's been building up would've paid off. Alas, it seems no one but him wants to love Derek. Idiots.
-
Stiles finds him just where Scott said, trying to dig up all the aconite in front of the entrance gates. Derek tried this once before, just a year after the curse began, said the curse is probably anchored to her signature plant. Everyone got on board, spent months digging it all up, and when Derek finally ripped out the last bush, everyone went to bed so hopeful... Only to wake up the next morning still furry or still a clock or still a door (Stiles doesn't actually know the name of the person who became the door, but it's too late to find out now).
"Der, you know that won't work," Stiles says in a quiet, mournful tone, and Derek seems to whine at hearing it. Or he got aconite up his nose. Stiles assumes that must be it because he refuses to believe Derek would be so affected by him sound so defeated. It would crush him. Derek never had hope for this curse, at least not the cure for it. Stiles always held that hope because he knew how much he loved Derek and thus how easily someone else would do. How could they not? Derek was gorgeous as a human and adorable as a wolf... Thing. He was funny, when he actually said words, and he was smart, and kind, and sure, some of those things were hidden by a very brooding and awkward exterior, but Stiles also knew that Derek could be charming when he wanted to be. And yet, in 200 or so years, Derek never tried to charm anyone. Men and women came through those doors, and each time, Derek refused to show them the side of him that Stiles knew was there. Stiles refused to give up hope, even when everyone else around them did, even when Derek never had any to begin with. Stiles wanted to blame Derek, but he worried that Derek never tried to show anyone the good side of him anymore because the last time he apparently did, it was to an enchantress who misinterpreted his intentions and cursed the whole manor for it. Seriously kids: explicit consent and communication matters!
Derek sits back on his haunches and rubs his palms (paws) over his face. "I know, but maybe it'll piss her off, summon her, I don't know, let her know I'm willing to tr—Ow!"
Stiles jumped on his back paw in fury, forcing all his little weight into that stomp. "Don't even go there! If that witch comes back, what makes you think I'd let you trade yourself?!"
Derek huffs. "You're right. You'd arrange for a firing squad of teacups to assault her as she approached the doors."
"Obviously. Finstock has been waiting for the chance to launch Greenburg beyond the gates anyway."
They sit in silence, staring at the shadows shift in the trees as the time passes. Periodically, others join them. Boyd, Erica, and Isaac come out just to sit in silence with their friend that brought them together. They reminisce about how they met the Hales, a bunch of orphan kids tearing up the garden when Talia, Derek's mother, points that they'd have a better time fixing the garden then ruining it, and they'd get paid for it. Stiles points out that it was because Talia wanted Derek to have more friends, not because they had any actual gardening skill.
Before Erica could run him over, Scott comes out to join them, reminds them that they should probably get inside, say goodbye to everyone. Derek almost doesn't go in, but Scott points out how he should still speak with everyone, one last time, at least, before hiding away in his chambers. Stiles nods sagely when Derek looks over at him, and when Derek finally relents, he picks up Stiles, like he can't bear to let him out of his sight tonight (Stiles' wishful thinking as the unreliable narrator, of course, not really how it happened, no way), and carries on into the house.
Stiles doesn't acknowledge the butterflies flying around in his gears at Derek holding him so carefully. The few times he has, Derek has either done it to throw him into something (usually something soft, but not always) or lock him in a closet to get him to shut up (never worked). This time, it's gentle, and Derek holds him with two hands, like he's something precious, not like he's a ball to toss across the manor.
They retreat inside the house, and Derek stops to talk to everyone, even Chris, whose relationship with Derek is strained at best. It's comfortable, being carried this way, even with Stiles spiraling in his thoughts about why Derek is being so gentle with him suddenly. Derek doesn't put him down once, but no one bats an eye at it.
Finally, at the end of the night, everyone retreats to the person they care about most, and when Derek is about set Stiles down by his father, the old grandfather clock says, "It's alright, he knows what I'd say anyway. You two keep each other company tonight." Stiles is grateful he can't blush, and Derek says nothing, just nods like he has been given the most important task of the last 200 years and ascends the stairs to his chambers. "I'll see you around, son," the grandfather clock calls to their backs.
In his chambers, Derek sets him down on their favorite seat by the fire, and he mutters in the saddest voice Stiles has ever heard, "I'm sorry I let you down."
Stiles almost falls over at that. "WhAT?!"
"I couldn't make anyone fall in love with me in two hundred years, and everyone was counting on it, and now it's over, and you'll be dead, like everyone else, and it's my fault. It's all my fault." Derek doesn't look up as he says this, just sits by the fire, not even next to Stiles, and stares at the floor. Stiles hops down from the seat and goes in front of him, easily making eye contact because, well, he is basically floor height anyway.
"You're wrong on, like, every single account. This is all Kate Argent's fault, first of all, and if anyone had just not let any of the Argents in like I said, none of this would have happened, so actually, it's also everyone else's fault too," Stiles rants. He clears his throat quickly and adds, "Not yours, though, Der, don't worry." Like he was aiming for, Derek smiles just a little, a small curve at the far right of his maw.
"Allison's not so bad, though," Derek addends.
Stiles scoffs. "Did Scott pay you to say that?"
Derek shrugs, still morose, and Stiles can't blame him, he won't, but he wants desperately to cheer him up. To say anything to fix that look in those wolf eyes that are still just as expressive as Derek's human eyes were.
"I lied, actually. You're right," Stiles says, using the confidence only someone who knows they're dying in just a few hours before the clock strikes midnight can have. Derek curls in on himself, like he's been shot in the gut, and Stiles quickly corrects, not expecting Derek to have such a strong reaction, "but only about one thing."
Derek doesn't look at him, just looks at the fire and clenches his hands over and over again, like he's trying not to grab something. "What's that?" He asks, finally, when Stiles loses his train of thought, staring at Derek's hands and wishing he could've held them in some way. At least Scott had real arms to move around.
"I fell in love with you before the curse, so, you know, you're right about that first part." Stiles looks at anything other than Derek as he says this, using that I'm-going-to-die confidence, and, remembering Derek's previous reaction, adds, "Not the rest, though, like I said."
It's silent.
For a long time.
Stiles doesn't like that.
At all.
He really doesn't want to break the silence, though, because he already said that Whole Thing.
Derek still doesn't respond.
Stiles wishes desperately for legs and arms to run away. Wheels, even, to roll away. A taller frame, at least.
Is it midnight, yet?
"Anyways. Lydia, am I right? Bet she's gonna be real sorry when we're all de—"
Derek licks Stiles' clock-face before he can finish his sentence. Stiles is grateful because that would've been dark, even for him, but he is also grateful because what. Just. Happened.
Stiles stares at Derek. Derek stares back.
It's silent again.
"Did I have... Cream cheese... on my face?" Stiles isn't sure why Finstock came to mind, but he did, and he decides to yell at him for that later, if they get another day.
"No," Derek says gruffly, carrying Stiles over to the bed and placing him gingerly on the covers. Stiles doesn't say anything, just lets Derek curl around him, settling in for the night.
"Can you... Explain?" Stiles begs, desperately trying to hold the flood of words that want to fall out of his mouth. Derek needs to explain. Stiles needs words. Real words. Not grunts or growls. "In words, please," he adds, remembering Derek's penchant for such communicative means.
"I love you too, Stiles," Derek almost whispers, and he seems to snuggle in closer to Stiles, curling tighter. "Now, unless you suddenly figure out a way to stop the curse, I just want to... Stay... Like this. Okay?"
Stiles settles in too, more from shock than anything, but says, equally as quiet as Derek, "Yeah... Okay."
Derek wakes up to the most obnoxious sound he's ever heard, and he's certain, absolutely certain, that this is Hell. How else do you explain the snoring that sounds like the god of death's personal vengeance against someone who has spent the past 200 years sleeping in relative peace and silence? As a clock, when they did accidentally fall asleep next to each other (Derek, who sleeps much less than an animated object does, always conveniently arranged himself with Stiles or near Stiles, but no one had to know that), Stiles never managed such awful noise. Once, when they were young (and human), Derek did come across Stiles napping, and maybe, yes, it sounds similar, but as a clock, Stiles could never manage the noise, for which Derek was immensely grateful. Now, though, why was he hearing it again?
Derek pries open one eye, and nearly rolls out of bed at what he sees. First, color. A lot of it. All of it. Reds. Greens. Colors that have been on his visual spectrum for a long, long time. Like flesh. Flesh that is pale, freckled, and very exposed in his bed. And he knows those freckles. He once counted them at a lake while the owner of these freckles tried to convince Scott to jump into the lake, belly first. Derek is frozen. And, like the freckled man in the bed with him, also exposed. There's a train of thought going through his brain that he doesn't want to follow because if he's naked, and Stiles is naked, is everyone naked?
"Greenberg! Put some pants on!"
That doesn't answer his question. Greenberg was always a wildcard.
Stiles' eyes fly open at Finstock's shout heard around the world. He stares back at Derek for almost too long, like he's trying desperately not to look down, and Derek can relate. He is trying very, very hard to not look at anything other than Stiles' ridiculous brown eyes, which progressively widen the more time passes. Derek doesn't know how to interpret Stiles' expression, and it makes him want to run away, but he can't. There's a clawed hand wrapped around his heart that feels like hope because Derek remembers the night before, remembers finally telling Stiles (in his own way) how he feels, remembers falling asleep curled around Stiles. Now, he's waking up curled around Stiles, who is not letting go, which means Derek won't either. That's hope, right?
Stiles ruins the moment.
"Are we... Naked?"
"No."
"Derek, I can feel... A breeze."
"Okay."
"Derek, where are my clothes?"
"I ate them."
"Okay."
They sit for a couple more blinks, trying to process what is the first time in over two hundred years that either of them were human.
Scott breaks the silence this time, while Stiles and Derek continue their naked standoff, barging in. "YOU DID IT!" A pause. "You're naked? Why are you naked?"
Allison squeals behind Scott, pushing him further into the room. "Scott, you can't just ask people why they're—Oh. Hi, Stiles. And Derek." Allison snickers, pulls Scott out of the room, and promptly closes the door. "I guess we figured out how the curse got broken," Stiles hears Scott say from the hallway. Allison giggles in delight as the sound of their footsteps gets further and further from the room.
"Were they naked?" Stiles whispers to Derek, not having turned around at all, as if he still can't process what's going on. Neither, unfortunately, can Derek.
"No."
"I don't understand."
Derek doesn't either, but he realizes that this is something he should be out of bed for, dressed for, and probably more excited for, but in his defense, why are they naked?
"Do you want to talk about it?" Stiles finally makes the first move, maintaining eye contact with Derek while he quickly shuffles under the covers.
"The nudity?"
"I don't think there's much to say about that, actually, except Kate Argent has a horrible sense of humor and probably thought this would be humiliating for me."
Derek raises a brow at that.
"She knew about, well, me." Stiles gestures to himself, as if Derek would be unsure who "me" is, and then Stiles gestures at him, adds, "And you. Like, liking you. You know."
Derek nods as he processes this information. He gets under the covers as well, not breaking eye contact with Stiles. He doesn't really want to think about Kate, though, after all this time. This feels like a victory, and Derek hasn't had reason to celebrate such a victory in a long time. Stiles still won't look away from him, and this is the first time he's seen him so still. He wonders if this is the right time for it, but given that just last night he had licked a clock, he figures, why the hell not? Derek leans forward and kisses Stiles, claiming his mouth with his own before Stiles gets a chance to ruin it by saying something like, "Should we send her a gift basket?"
Still still somehow manages to mumble it around Derek's mouth, and he growls before claiming Stiles' lips again.
"Okay, okay, no Kate tal—" Stiles squeals in what Derek thinks is his attempt to be dignified as Derek rolls himself over top of Stiles, not relenting in his onslaught of kisses, bites, and licks across Stiles' mouth, his jaw, his neck, anywhere Derek can reach.
Stiles eventually gets the picture.
A week later, when Derek finally gets to take Stiles out on their first date after over 200 years.
The village changed a lot in two hundred years. It expanded, actually, into a town, and Stiles isn't quite sure what to do when him and Derek finally approach it. Allison and Scott have already been to town, hunting down Lydia. According to Scott, Allison only said, "I won't apologize for doing what I had to," when she came across Lydia, and Lydia had only said, "Good." They hugged and cried after, and Scott, as intuitive and emotionally intelligent as he is, had no explanation for why they were as close as sisters after that. Stiles didn't either, Derek didn't care, and that was the end of that.
Stiles follows Derek to the restaurant at the center of the town, and his heart beats fast, hand held in Derek's while Derek leads the way.
The manor fell into its old routine, sans the family that Derek will never get back, and Stiles knows that's a hole that won't heal for any of them who knew the Hales. The town forgot them, it seems, because when they finally had to replenish their food supplies (at least the curse kept them fed), everyone was curious about the new household taking up residence in the haunted Hale Manor. Derek is a long lost descendent of the family, according to their cover, meticulously crafted by Chris Argent and Stiles' father. No one would believe that they'd been right there the whole time, after all, forgotten and cursed and, in some cases, teacups.
It was a happy ending that Stiles didn't think he would have. Deacon seemed to be just as stumped because he had been sure that Kate's curse, unbroken, would reach its time limit and break with death, as most malevolent curses did. Rarely did an enchantress, especially one as cruel as Kate, just let her victims get away with such a slight, even after 200 years. According to Deacon, the curse just faded out after the time limit, returning them to normal. But Chris was silent while Deacon tried to explain to everyone what happened, as best as he could, at least, and he did nothing except hold Allison's hand just a little tighter and, if Stiles would've asked him about why his eyes seemed to shine just a bit brighter, Stiles was sure Chris would've ignored him. Neither Derek nor Stiles mentioned that they woke up naked together, though Scott gave him a knowing smirk, and neither admitted that they confessed their love to each other the night before either. Whether it was Kate's cruel prank or their love, they were fine with how it worked out. No one else had any complaints either, except Finstock, who now had to deal with a human Greenberg.
Derek takes them to the man at the front door of the restaurant, who is waiting for them at a podium, dressed in a maroon frock with gold trim, matching gold button up shirt, a white cravat, and fine black breeches. His thin mustache is curled at the ends, and he checks his pocket watch as they approach. Stiles is wildly uncomfortable with how formal this place appears to be.
"For Hale, sir," Derek politely says when they get to the podium. Stiles fidgets, and Derek holds his hand tighter in a futile attempt to stop him. The host turns to a waiter behind him, a younger man with his auburn hair tied back in yellow, dressed in a matching gold frock with yellow and gold breeches. The waiter approaches and smiles as he leads Derek and Stiles into the restaurant.
"Please," he says, gesturing them to a table lit with a candelabra and roses, "Be our guest."