Chapter Text
Stiles Stilinski has never been the one to just sit still – so it was no surprise that he, once again, found himself pacing in his office while trying to get the pieces together. Seriously, if anyone ever told him 10 years ago that looking for some innocent supernatural creatures Derek Hale once again managed to completely scare to death would be his job, he'd laugh at them.
He wasn't laughing now.
Okay, it wasn't as if this was the only thing he ever did – and he was even exaggerating a little about the whole Derek-is-scary situation. Actually, it was always good when it turned out to be a day like this. Because if it weren't, then he had to prevent some definitely-not-innocent beast from killing someone. So when he thought it through, he should be glad for today. But he wasn't. Because not only it was freaking hot – and by freaking hot he meant literally super freakishly hot – but that stupid were-whatever hadn't even left any marks for him to follow. Which definitely wouldn't be such a problem if Scott weren't out of town. Except that he, of all days, decided that it was a fun day for a little family outing.
He was just going through all the possible feral creature hideouts in his mind when he was interrupted by a knock on doors.
“How's it going?” Stiles turned around to see his detective partner leaning on a door frame, two frappes in hands. Lydia Martin was pretty in high school, but the years only made her even more beautiful – if that was even possible. Not to mention that she had managed to balance out their little business, college and now she had two jobs and was on a good way to getting her Fields medal. He had never doubted her, but with all that supernatural shit going around, his respect for her only grew.
“How do you think?” He replied sarcastically after a while and took the cold coffee from her with murmured “thanks”.
“Someone's a little irritated today,” she chirped.
“Try working in this weather,” he shot back, which earned him a pointed glare that clearly said that she is doing exactly that.
“Honestly, this isn't exactly what I imagined we'd be doing when I decided to get into this... business... with you,” she said, sitting at his desk.
“Six years and you've never complained before!”
“Yeah, because Scott always tracked these wayward things before and it was done,” Stiles shrugged at that. She turned to look at him. “And are you sure Derek's not gonna help us? Or what about Malia?”
“Derek's not answering the phone. It's his fault and he decides that he's apparently not equipped to deal with the guy and leaves it up to us. Awesome. And no, I'm so not calling Malia, are you totally insane?”
“Oh my god, so you dated, it didn't work out and then she kinda...” she went quiet for a while. “Wrecked your apartment. But that can definitely be worked out. I mean, my ex was a kanima. Come on,” she waved her hand. “Plus, you have been avoiding her for five years now. Which is quite the spectacle since she visits here for girls talk basically every week. I think you're both kinda over it now, right?”
He snorted.
“Hey. She was still adjusting to being human again, you know that. So her coyote took over for a while, since she got overwhelmed by a completely new feeling. Can you honestly tell me you'd react rationally in that situation?” she tilted her head.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “No. But it's still so weird and I panic everytime I know she's near. I know it's stupid, but...”
“Call. Her.” She interrupted him.
“Why can't you call her?”
She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee. He just stared at her for a while and then grabbed his phone.
“I hate you, just so you know,” he told her whilst dialing.
“Sure,” she said in a voice that implied that she couldn't possibly care less.
***
Later that day, the poor scared wererabbit had been found (yes, wererabbit. Lydia was just as perplexed as the next person. No wonder the poor thing had got so scared of the intimidating werewolf. They had explained the situation to him when had finally changed back to his human form and thankfully, he had been willing to talk to Derek again. Apparently he had got scared when Derek had showed him his fangs as a demonstration of his ability), Stiles' trouble named Malia hadn't been completely dealt with, but at least he had talked to her (five years. Sometimes she felt the urging need to just hit Stiles and his tendency to avoid solving personal problems with a pan), and they had a little free time.
Well, free time. She had already known that leisure time in the office with Stiles was never exactly about having fun.
“Do we have to do it today?” she whined while packing her belongings in a box. “It's like the seventh circle of hell outside.” Hell, even her mini dress wasn't much of a help.
“Yes, we do. This place is too small and the new landlord clearly stated that if we do not move in the new offices today, then he's selling the space to someone else. And you know that we'll never get such a cheap offer, again.” Stiles was packing his stuff, too, except that he was mostly just throwing everything out because most of his things equaled trash.
Lydia shook her head, but said nothing. They both worked in silence for a while.
“Have you ever thought we'd end up here?” she asked several packed boxed later. It was a question she often thought about – and still couldn't find a definite answer. Their lives used to be (and still were) quite messy for her to remember whether she had even imagined the future at all.
He chuckled. “I guess I always kind of wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps. But did it ever cross my mind that we're gonna open our own supernatural detective agency and get quite famous in the 'underworld?'” he said and made air quotes, “Well, that would probably be a no.”
“Oh, which reminds me. You do have more of that mountain ash, right? I won't have some supernatural being wrecking our new office. Again.” She shot him a pointed glare. Sure, they always joked about it whenever they remembered that little incident in their first office, but that still didn't mean Lydia ever wanted to go through that again.
Stiles gave her a look that clearly said he's not an idiot.
“Okay, okay,” she held her hands up. “Just checking.”
“Thinking about it thought, do you know where I put it?” Stiles ran his hand through his hair and looked around the room.
Lydia dropped the box she was holding on a table with a crash.
“Hey, our cups are in there!” he exclaimed.
She folded her arms. “Who cares about cups if they get smashed by an angry werewolf because you don't know where you put the mountain ash?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, okay, okay, I admit, I should've kept a better track of it. But honestly, we've had this office for so long that I just forgot where it was. Can you seriously blame me?” he said, wildly gesturing with his hands.
Lydia shook her head in exasperation, but couldn't help but smile a little. To be honest, she was quite used to Stiles' quirks by now, so she just had to smile in these situations.
“You put it in your drawer, you dummy,” she said, taking the box she put on the table earlier and walking out of the office with a smug smile. Which only widened as she was walking down the stairs and heard him exclaim loudly when he finally found what he was looking for. One thing was for sure - working with him has never been boring.