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Beacon Hills gets a little lonely for Derek when most of the pack start college – though it takes him longer than it should to realise that that isn’t strictly true. With Erica, Isaac and Scott at local colleges and Boyd’s mechanic apprenticeship in town, it’s only Stiles, Lydia and Allison who have travelled across the country.
The loft is still a home base for the ones who have stayed, not a day going by without a visit from at least one, if not all, of them. He isn’t alone, but he’s lonely all the same, and he knows it has everything to do with the absence of one person in particular, the loss of Stiles’ voice and scent and the general space he occupies leaving him feeling a little empty, every room a little dimmer without him in it. More than once, he'll look over to Stiles’ usual spot on the couch while they're watching a movie at the weekend, anticipating his overjoyed reaction to a particularly gruesome horror movie death, only to be left with the cold reminder that he's not here.
It bleeds over into his daily routine, making itself known even when he's nudging his shopping cart listlessly around the grocery store and trying not to think about how much Stiles would probably love the newest pop tart flavour monstrosity. It's only when he bumps into the Sheriff quite clearly doing the exact same thing that he realises he might really be in trouble.
In a welcome turn of events though, he and John start to bond in Stiles’ absence, starting to visit John for lunches at the station and even getting an open invitation for dinner whenever he feels like it. He’s happy to do so, partly at request from Stiles to make sure his dad eats right, but partly his own need to make sure he’s kept safe and a selfish desire to hear all about John’s twice weekly phone calls with Stiles. He gets to hear most of it himself during video calls and text messages of his own, but he’s starved for the extra contact, helping him to feel a little closer despite the distance between them.
The biggest news – and a point of great concern for John and apprehension for Derek – is Stiles’ foray into learning magic. He encounters someone in the know in one of his classes during his first semester, someone who gives him more answers than Deaton ever did, and a whole lot of pointers into books and websites. He returns to Beacon Hills each subsequent break with more and more spellbooks and even a few tattoos, smelling faintly of weed, but it's more like he’s been spending a lot of time with someone who partakes rather than smoking any himself.
He focuses on magic learnt from books while he’s away at college, the theory of it all, reserving the more experimental spells for when he’s home and at zero risk of damaging college property (though he's never revealed what it is that sparked the need for the formation of that rule in the first place).
With Stiles feeling the magic thing out for himself, a few mishaps were bound to happen, like in his second year when he was still learning his way around warding magic and warded Derek's loft against intruders. He’d had no problems when it came to his dad’s house, and it worked perfectly with the loft. That is, until he went back to college when Christmas break was over and his distance from the ward triggered some inbuilt safety mechanism that meant it wouldn't let anyone pass in or out. Deaton couldn’t help because he couldn’t interfere with wards that weren’t his own without serious consequences, so Derek had been stuck there alone until nearly a week later when Stiles could fly back to put it right.
Derek has never admitted it, but he actually enjoyed his time of forced solitude, with no pack members bursting through his door at all hours of the day. He'd had to do his daily jogs around the perimeter of the property instead of in the preserve as he would have liked, but it had actually done wonders for his sanity. Not to mention it had meant seeing Stiles again much sooner than they'd planned – but that's something that he's never admitted to either.
He’s waiting. Being the Alpha of their ragtag pack, the way he feels about Stiles and how he pursues it is a delicate situation. He doesn’t want to make Stiles feel obligated to remain in Beacon Hills if he has life goals that might draw him elsewhere. Once Stiles has finished college and really made the decision that Beacon Hills is where he wants to stay, that’s when Derek will make his feelings known.
Probably, he tells himself.
Maybe.
*
When Stiles is back from college permanently, it's not even a week until he's barging into Derek's loft with armfuls of books and pungent ingredients, declaring he's going to be using it as his workspace.
“You’re not coming in here with all that junk,” Derek tells him, wrinkling his nose, but of course Stiles doesn’t listen. Though it’s not like Derek actually does anything to stop him setting up shop on the big desk by the window. It's gone largely untouched in the absence of any major foes descending on the town over the past few years, and it’s probably about time that someone got some use out of it again.
“It’s easier doing it here,” Stiles explains, heading to the kitchen for a bowl and a knife, getting his scent all over everything. “The ward helps focus my power.”
Derek decides not to point out that the same could be said of his own house that he warded to protect his dad. Maybe Stiles is just using Derek’s loft to avoid dealing with the strong smell of his ingredients at home, or to keep his own place undamaged so his dad stays happy, but Derek isn’t going to complain. He’s secretly starved for this kind of contact from Stiles after having it be so distant and sporadic for so long.
After each visit, Derek is left basking in the wake of his whirlwind, lying back on the couch to just breathe. Or maybe Stiles gets way too engrossed in his work and ends up falling asleep at the table, bent up so uncomfortably it’s a wonder his neck isn’t broken. Whenever that happens, Derek carries him to the couch to cover him with a blanket so he won’t wake up with any lasting damage. He’ll have an internal debate every time, wondering if he should just take Stiles upstairs to his room so he can have a proper night’s sleep in a bed. Why shouldn’t he carry him up there? It wouldn’t be weird. They’re friends, or ‘bros’ as Stiles might even call them. Stiles has spent the night in Scott’s bed, and he and Derek are just as close now. He’s spent the night in Lydia’s bed, for God’s sake, so there shouldn’t be anything weird about him sleeping in Derek’s.
And yet, he doesn’t go through with it. It might open a can of worms that he’s not ready for. Stiles still needs to settle into being back and Derek needs a little more time too. With Stiles here now, he’s more aware than ever that his confession is something he’ll never be able to take back, and he needs to decide if that’s a risk he’s really willing to take. No good can come of tucking Stiles into his bed and having his scent permeate Derek’s room, his den, if it’s only going to be temporary. If it won’t ever mean anything more.
Don’t ruin it, he thinks to himself, a decision.
So he carries Stiles to the couch on the nights he falls asleep and tucks him in with a blanket, and that’s how he’s content to go on.
The rest of the pack give the loft a wide berth whenever Stiles is in the middle of a new experiment, perhaps because of that time during summer break when he tried to set up the loft windows to self-clean and Erica’s eyebrow hairs fell out and didn’t grow back for three months instead. That wasn’t as catastrophic an outcome as it could have been, considering, but the pack have taken it for the luck that it was and never gotten too close again. Derek is secretly thrilled. It means fewer scents to filter through to enjoy that thread of Stiles that coils around inside the loft, especially when he has all of his spell ingredients scattered about in front of him.
Derek doesn’t know what Stiles’ latest project is. He’s kind of been too afraid to ask, but Stiles is unusually quiet today, poring over books at the table and brewing exactly-measured sprinkles of herbs in water sourced from a naturally running brook. He’s mouthing words in almost silent whispers of breath, so quiet Derek can’t even hear what they are where he’s lying on the couch with a book in front of his nose.
He’s not reading it. ‘Staring’ would be a more accurate descriptor. He hasn’t turned a page for at least fifteen minutes, mind drifting as he just sits there with his feet up, breathing. He’s too busy basking in the knowledge that this is how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future now that Stiles has graduated, now that he’s back where he’s meant to be.
Perhaps he should just let things keep going as they are. There’s no need to make things awkward by springing feelings on him, especially when he probably doesn’t have any idea and will just have to flounder with some excuse or way to let Derek down gently. It would be selfish of Derek to try if all it’s going to do is make Stiles feel like he needs to withdraw from the pack so as not to make things more painful for him.
Why shake things up when everything is so good?
Yo, Sourwolf, grab me a beer.
“Get your own goddamn beer,” Derek says without looking up, his voice almost slurred.
Stiles’ heartbeat skyrockets, snapping Derek out of his daze.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, swinging his legs round to sit up, his instincts calling for claws. He frowns at Stiles’ wide eyes. “If this is because I told you to get your own beer—”
That isn’t why.
Derek opens his mouth to hurry him to elaborate, but Stiles is looking back at him with sparkling eyes, his own mouth firmly closed.
You can hear me, right?
He stares at Stiles’ closed mouth, replaying the words that he didn’t hear with his ears. Terror courses through him like a bolt of lightning, his mind trying to slam up a wall against whatever magic it is that Stiles has weaved despite having no idea what he’s done.
“Get out of my head!” he snarls, rearing back like getting some distance might help obscure anything Stiles might be reading from his mind.
I’m not in your head.
Derek growls, launching himself up from his seat.
“I’m not in your head!” Stiles exclaims, jumping to his feet and holding up his hands. “I’m not in your head, okay? This only goes one way.”
Derek stays rigid for a moment longer, searching Stiles’ eyes, and then the tension drains from his shoulders at the truth he finds in them, the molten hot spill of panic in his stomach making way for relief.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Stiles says, gently.
He knows that. Stiles of all people would never put himself inside someone’s head without their permission. It was just his fear making him blind, so scared that Stiles might discover his feelings and misread them – or just the fact that he’d find out at all, in a way Derek never intended and could never plan for.
But this is pretty cool though, huh? Stiles says – thinks? – his eagerness coming across even telepathically.
Derek is left too weary in the wake of the sudden adrenaline to conjure the same excitement, but he does manage a wry smile. “Yeah. It is. But is it permanent?”
“It should be, whenever I will it.”
“Just be careful who you will it on,” he warns, imagining Stiles forgetting himself and using it to make his order at a coffee shop. “But what’s it for?” Stiles’ problem – in general – is that he always dives in headfirst to see if he can, never pausing to wonder if he should.
“I thought it would be helpful if we’re ever up against something where we need to communicate but can’t. Remember that time I was gagged by those Nera-whatsits and couldn’t tell you they could only be killed by a silver blade? See if they can stop us now!”
Derek can’t help the smile in the face of Stiles’ enthusiasm. “But it only goes one way?”
“Yeah, for now. Expanding it to the rest of you is the next step once I know this works as intended.”
“Just—be careful. You don’t know if any of this stuff might backfire.”
“Don’t worry about it. This book hasn’t led me wrong so far,” Stiles says, waving off Derek’s concerns.
“Stiles. I mean it.” The concern must really come across in his voice because Stiles sobers.
“I will,” he promises.
*
When Stiles’ voice sounds inside his head a little over a week later, Derek decides they really need to have a talk about what the word ‘careful’ means. Derek is just about to open the kitchen cupboards to decide what to have for lunch when Stiles’ voice pipes up.
Uh, Derek? A little help? A short pause. I’m in the preserve.
Derek heaves a sigh and snatches up his jacket from the back of a chair, heading for the door.
Where abouts? he wants to ask, but with this new telepathy only going one way, he has to fall back to his normal senses instead.
He drives out to the usual dirt path entrance they use as a starting point, knowing he’s on the right track when he finds Stiles’ Jeep parked up. From there it’s a matter of using his nose and ears to track him the rest of the way, the entire journey punctuated by Stiles’ running commentary of I really hope you can hear me. Oh man, I’m probably gonna die out here. You’ll find my skeletal remains in three weeks' time picked clean by mountain lions, and I’ll never hear the end of the ‘I told you so’s’.
Shut up, Stiles, Derek tries sending back, but to no avail. Stiles’ monologue doesn’t end. As he gets closer and picks up the sound of Stiles’ voice, he discovers that he’s saying all the words out loud as well as into Derek’s head.
“I really should have tested this from a distance before coming out—Oh, thank God!” he exclaims when Derek comes into view, and Derek pauses to stare at Stiles’ limp body where he’s dangling upside down from a tree by his ankle.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I was trying out something new with warding, but it turns out trees have personalities and I chose the crankiest one,” he answers with a sheepish smile as Derek takes in the sight of the vine coiled around his ankle.
Derek heaves a sigh and scales the trunk, wrinkling his nose at the hint of something almost acrid on the air as he makes his way out onto the branch Stiles is dangling from.
“Give me your hand,” Derek orders, leaning down. With Stiles in his grip, he slices through the vine with a claw, letting Stiles’ feet drop before lowering him the rest of the way.
“My hero,” Stiles croons, stooping down to pick up a half-full two-gallon water bottle sloshing with a murky liquid and screwing on the lid.
“I should have dropped you on your head. It’s not like it will do any more damage,” Derek grumbles when he jumps down, grabbing the collar of Stiles’ shirt like it’s the scruff of his neck when he’s gathered up all his stuff and hauling him in the direction of his Jeep.
Stiles just laughs, a fuzziness edging his scent that has warmth blossoming in Derek’s belly.
He does some more growling to try and cover it up. “Couldn't you have bothered literally anyone else?”
“You're the one who always comes when I call.”
Derek ducks his head on instinct, wondering how obvious he’s really being. He grunts. “Should have left you hanging a little bit longer. Maybe then you’ll think twice next time about being so reckless.”
“I haven’t changed in twenty-three years. A little more dangling wouldn’t do much,” Stiles points out, brightly.
Derek doesn’t answer. Anything he could say to that – that Stiles never change – would all be a little too revealing.
“I really need to work on making it so you can talk back,” Stiles muses as they walk. “It wasn't a fun time hanging there not knowing if you'd even heard me.”
“What were you trying to do, anyway?”
“The town’s too big for me to ward the entire thing, so I was trying to set up alerts around the perimeter for if trouble tries to cross over. I think I used too much ginger root.”
That would explain that acrid smell, probably tree sap on the verge of sizzling. No wonder it had gotten cranky and yanked Stiles up by his ankle.
“I’ll come back out and try again tomorrow.”
“You will not.”
“What, are you gonna stop me?” Stiles asks, a cocky glint in his eye.
Derek keeps scowling and tamps down on the butterflies trying to escape in his stomach.
No one has that kind of power, Derek thinks to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets with a sigh.
*
And that’s how Derek finds himself in the preserve with Stiles at seven o’clock the next morning lugging gallons of his concoction into the trees.
*
Stiles is back poring over that book of his a few days later and once again, Derek doesn’t ask what he’s up to. He’s found that despite all his grumbling, he somehow kind of likes the surprise, the excitement of whatever it is Stiles is going to do next.
When Derek looks up from his own book he’s been staring at from his spot on the couch, it’s to see Stiles’ hoodie slipped off the back of his chair onto the floor, alongside an empty Cheetos packet knocked unnoticed off the edge of the table from his lunch two hours ago. He’s drinking some of that brook water that he’s still tinkering with next to the flame of a Bunsen burner, engrossed in scouring the spellbook in front of his nose as he sips.
Derek sighs, heading over to pick up the hoodie and the packet, wondering why he doesn’t just yell at him to clean up after himself like he would with any other member of the pack.
You’re lucky I love you, Derek thinks to himself, wryly, as he hangs the hoodie on the back of Stiles’ chair.
Stiles’ head whips up and around, glass thunking down onto the table and his mouth hanging open in that way that tortures Derek in all of his dreams.
“What?” Derek asks.
“Say it again.”
“Say what again?”
Stiles stares up at him, mouth still open.
Realisation starts as a creep of ice in the pit of his belly, spreading outwards and up, eyes slowly widening in horror at the stray thought broadcast without his permission.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You did,” Stiles argues, and this situation is getting worse; Stiles is getting to his feet now, his eyes alert with undivided attention. “You said—Or you thought—”
“You said you weren’t inside my head!”
“I didn’t—I’m not—The spell—”
“It was just a turn of phrase,” Derek snaps. “It didn't mean anything. I'm going to the store.”
He turns on his heel to stride for the door, panic turning his legs to cardboard.
“I love you too,” Stiles blurts out, his voice almost booming in the cavernous space of the loft, reverberating in Derek’s ears long after it should have faded.
He freezes, shoulders hunched almost up to his ears in shock and disbelief and fear. He starts to turn his head, but not far enough that he can look at Stiles over his shoulder; he can’t face even the idea of eye contact right now. Stiles steps closer, and it takes everything in him not to run for the door, trembling with his flight instinct as Stiles rounds him into view. Derek keeps his eyes averted, afraid of what he might see on his face, but Stiles taking one of Derek's hands in both of his finally draws Derek’s gaze up to his.
I love you, Stiles says into his head, his gaze so open, like he’s trying to impress upon him how much he means it, the words holding an extra weight when they're so intimately given.
Words fail Derek even in his mind, though he’s not sure how he even sent some in the first place. Was it just from an inner desire to reveal his true feelings he’d been bottling up? Maybe it’s happening again right now, that emotion crossing the void between them in the place of words, maybe sending Stiles the sensation of warmth blazing strong in Derek's chest at hearing those words from him, because Stiles is starting to smile, moving closer, one hand lifting from Derek’s to cup his cheek. Derek lets him, waiting with held breath as he gravitates closer still, at the perfect height for them to tilt their heads for a long overdue, hopelessly sweet kiss.
I love you, Stiles says again with his lips still pressed to Derek's, and Derek's knees tremble. Having Stiles say those words into his head is just more, of everything, like instead of picking up on the cues of the emotion in someone’s voice, the literal emotions themselves are crossing over like ripples on a pond, twined with the words to land buoyant in his chest.
He searches Stiles’ eyes in amazement when the kiss ends.
“You said it only went one way,” he accuses without heat, and Stiles winces.
“I was just completing the final step of the spell to let you speak into my head when you thought it. I didn’t realise it would happen so fast. I thought I’d have to teach you how to do it, make you practice.” He cocks his head, amber eyes glinting with curiosity. “Is that why you got so freaked before? You didn’t want me to know?”
“I didn’t want to ruin this. What we have—The pack—”
“You haven’t ruined anything,” Stiles says, gently, and then leans in for another kiss. Especially now we can add this to the equation, he says with a flick of his tongue.
Derek doesn’t know what he thinks in response to that, if he even sends a message into Stiles’ head at all. It’s like his brain just whites out at the touch of Stiles’ tongue against his, surging forward to get deeper, animal instinct taking over, but whatever it is makes Stiles chuckle.
Hey, big guy, Stiles says, steadying Derek as he breaks the kiss, but it’s not a reprimand or a warning, just a fond endearment sent straight into his head holding a level of warmth and peace that Derek never knew it was possible to experience.
“I love you,” Derek says, and then into his head, wanting Stiles to feel that same abstract, deeper sense that Derek had felt upon hearing it from him. I love you.
Stiles’ smile shines as a hint of a blush rises in his cheeks. Derek nudges their noses together, his smile shy in return, and lets the butterflies in his stomach fly free as Stiles leans in to kiss him again.