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„What even happens to werewolves during the solar eclipse?“
Kira was hanging upside down over the edge of Derek's bed, her head almost touching the ground and her long hair spread like a black halo around it on his floor. Derek decided this was not the moment to tell her he'd been boycotting both vacuuming and swiping said floor for longer than he'd care to admit. It was a good thing no one cared to sniff too closely in the vicinity of a teenage boy's room, especially since his mother had been refusing to clean it for him for almost four years now.
“Nothing much. We're werewolves, we're influenced by the moon, not the sun.”
“But something has to happen! Maybe not just to werewolves, but it's a major magical event, isn't it?”
Derek barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “I wouldn't know. Why don't you ask a witch or a mage? You could ask Deaton next time you visit Scott at work.”
Kira made no effort to silence her snort. “Oh, please. As if you don't regularly slip into a wikipedia spiral about everything magical even before you realized how head over heels in love with Stiles Stilinski you really are.”
Obviously the only appropriate reply to that was for Derek to shut his book with a groan and throw it at her head. Kira just rolled over onto her stomach with a swift little kick of her legs that barely sent the ugly dream catcher over his bed that Peter had given him swinging, easily avoiding the book. She started giggling when it hit the mattress where she'd been lying a moment ago with a muffled thump. Damn kitsunes and their stupid reflexes.
“I'm not head over heels in love with Stilinski.”
“Sure,” Kira drawled, picking up the book and rolling back onto her back, leisurely flipping through the pages. “And Cora is a sweet harmless puppy.”
“I heard that, Yukimura!” came the instant shouted reply from downstairs. Derek sighed – sometimes he liked to imagine what the concept of privacy might be like. After living his whole life in a house full of werewolves, he wouldn't know.
Kira took the lack of non-public conversation with her usual obnoxious cheerfulness and just laughed at Cora's outraged tone.
“She's got a point though,” Derek heard from the veranda. “I could hear the lie in your heartbeat from here.”
“Oh, shut up, Laura.” He was being totally mature and did not at all sound petulant or cross his arms.
“Whatever she said, I agree,” Kira threw in from where she was still absentmindedly flicking through his chemistry book. Derek just glared at her. As per usual, he was ignored. He should stop surrounding himself with females who were absolutely uninterested in his opinion. Bad enough that he was related to a whole bunch of them.
“I regret the day I introduced you to my family.”
“No, you don't,” came the prompt reply from three different corners of the house. Derek decided a groan would have to be answer enough. It was high time he stopped wasting his valuable afternoon talking to people who ignored what he had to say whenever it wasn't what they wanted to hear. He had better things to do, including his chemistry homework. Unlike Stiles he didn't hate the subject simply because Harris was a dick. In fact, that made it way more challenging than the ridiculously easy stuff the more lenient teachers had them do.
“Kira, stop leafing through my book and let me get to my homework.”
Now it was Kira's turn to groan and throw a book at him. “See, that's your problem. If you stopped being so antisocial and boring every now and then, I'm sure Stiles would love to hang out with you.”
Narrowing his eyes at her, Derek picked up the book and opened it to the page he'd left it at. “You're spending too much time with my sisters. Probably also Erica. Where is the sweet girl I met two years ago?”
“Oh please, you drama queen.” Kira rolled her eyes at him in a manner entirely too familiar to be comfortable with. If he wanted to have his older sister for a best friend, he could have just endured Laura's constant pestering. “If I were either of them I would have told you that you're too much of a loser to ever pull off being somewhat cool and that Stiles would have to be really stupid to want to get all up on that. As your sweet best friend I'm telling you that you do have a shot and that Stiles would make quite the catch if he went out with you. Hear a difference?”
“You should also spend less time with Isaac.”
“Why does everyone assume nice people don't know how to be sassy.” The pout she was directing at him was entirely too cute to help her make that particular point. “I knew how to sass people before I met any of you.”
“Sure,” Derek drawled, making sure to copy Kira's exact tone from earlier. “And Laura isn't nosy in the least and definitely not listening to this conversation.”
He could hear Cora snort at the comment from where she was watching stupid reality TV in the living room and though he couldn't hear it, he was pretty sure Laura was either sticking her tongue out at him or giving him the finger. Considering that Derek could hear neither of their parents in her vicinity probably the latter. Kira did prove her earlier point when she merely stuck out her tongue at him, though.
Her features softened again not a second later. “I mean it, Derek. You know how much time I spend with Stiles and his friends because of Scott. I think you would actually get along really great if you could stop pining from the shadows long enough to actually talk to him.”
Derek didn't deem that ridiculous notion worthy of an answer and turned back to his desk with a dismissive huff. He did his best to pretend he didn't hear Kira's resigned sigh. Maybe one day his friends would stop pestering him about that crush he was totally not at all harboring. That day would probably happen to coincide with his dying day but it might still be something to look forward to. At least it would mean peace and quiet.
“I can basically hear you thinking malicious thoughts, Hale.” Derek couldn't suppress the smile that crept up on him at her petulant tone. He had his back turned toward Kira but he was still sure that she knew. Thankfully, that was one thing she decided to drop for the moment.
***
The day of the Solar Eclipse went hand in hand with a massive headache. Derek's first impression of that particular morning was a stabbing sort of pain that seemed to go right through his brain. Trying to force his eyes open and somewhat succeeding revealed that the cause for said stabbing pain was probably the sunlight falling right into his face. Whimpering – though he would firmly deny that he'd ever called the sound leaving his throat that in his head – he shut his eyes again and tried to bury his face in the pillow with minimal movement. Even breathing hurt, now that he was awake enough to notice.
As distracted as he was by the throbbing mass of agony that was his brain and his fruitless attempts to go back to sleep and just ignore this morning instead of having to get up and deal with it, it took him a while to notice something was weird. The first thing that tipped him off was the smell. Derek was intimately acquainted with the smell of his own bed. And since he couldn't even really remember when he'd last changed his bed sheets it was pretty safe to assume that they shouldn't smell of detergent. And they definitely shouldn't smell of Stiles Stilinski, considering that he'd never been anywhere near Derek's bedroom in his entire life.
It was that moment, when he became aware enough to recognize the scent that was as embedded into the sheets he was lying on as his own – and now that his brain was finally back on board he also noticed that they even felt very different from his own – that he gave up on sleep and all but jerked up into a sitting position. Which, as it turned out, was a horrible, horrible decision because his stomach seemed to turn with the motion and the pain shooting through his head was enough to make him see black and white spots for a moment. A pained groan slipped past his gritted teeth and he did his best to keep as still as possible so he wouldn't upset any part of his anatomy.
The soft chuckle coming from the doorway felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to his eardrums. It took Derek way too long to realize who was laughing at him but as it finally sank in he made his next major mistake of the Morning of Horrors: His eyes flew open to verify what his other senses were trying to tell him through all his agonized confusion. Another stab of pain forced them closed again almost immediately and he swayed a bit with the force of it, which in turn didn't go over very well with his upset stomach. By the time he could pull his focus away from trying to convince his inner organs not to part with the remains of yesterday's dinner, there was a warm hand on his forehead and someone sitting on the bed next to him.
“What's going on, Der? I know you haven't been drinking Erica's Werewolf-friendly Punch of Doom and no one shot you with a wolfsbane bullet. Unless you crawled out of bed in the middle of the night and went out to get shot without waking me. In which case, not cool, dude. I'm pretty sure having to wake me up when you get poisoned was somewhere in the wedding vows.”
Wolfsbane would actually be a really good explanation for what was going on here. Derek knew he was hallucinating when Stiles Stilinski was not only in bed with him but also sort of mothering him and- had he been talking about wedding vows?
Sadly, the only reaction he could muster in his current pathetic state was a very croaky “what?”
“Ah, it lives. Good thing, too, I'm too young and too pretty to be a widower already, we're not in a Nicholas Sparks movie. Now tell me if you got shot or not. Do you feel like there's a bullet somewhere in you?”
Derek let out a snort that he immediately regretted, decided that talking wasn't working too well for him right now and finally settled on a very, very careful shake of his head. As awful as he felt, he was pretty sure he had not been shot. Though that wasn't saying anything about the likeliness of Laura mixing wolfsbane in his dinner for a practical joke. If this was one, however, she had seriously misjudged the dosage. His mother would be furious about her eldest daughter poisoning her son for a laugh but Derek was pretty sure she'd be downright terrifying if Laura accidentally managed to kill him. Some well-placed, healthy fear of their mother was all that stopped them from ripping each other's heads off sometimes, or so it seemed. It was a very effective way to keep their shenanigans somewhat at bay.
“Okay, so you didn't get shot. Which is good. What's bad is that you still look like death warmed up. Seriously, dude, you look awful. Well, as awful as you ever look. And if you haven't been in contact with wolfsbane that probably means you're sick. Which you shouldn't be because werewolf. Did you upset a witch?”
As much as he usually liked it, the sound of Stiles' voice was still tearing through Derek's head like knives and it was really hard to follow his babbling enough to sort through what he was actually saying. He gave shaking his head another try, barely knowing what he was saying no to.
“So not a curse, I guess.” The panicked intake of breath next to him sounded like a gunshot. The hand that was still resting against his forehead for some reason was shaking slightly and it felt like his entire head was vibrating as well as throbbing and being stabbed repeatedly now. “I have no idea what I'm doing here, oh God, what if you're dying? You could be dying, this could be- I don't know, some sort of weird lethal werewolf sickness no one has told me about or- I don't- I just- You're no help here, dude.” Derek was too busy trying not to black out from the agony the rattling breaths so close to him caused to do much in the way of responding. Stiles apparently took that as a sign to panic further.
“Okay, that's it, this is no use, I'm gonna call your mom. And Deaton. And Scott, yeah, I should call Scott. Maybe Lydia, she's scarily knowledgeable about obscure stuff, if you're dying from some rare werewolf disease she'd probably know.” Stiles was getting up from the bed now, nervously pacing the room and shifting things every now and then. Derek really wished opening his mouth wouldn't amount to throwing up right now so he could tell him to stop whatever it was he was doing. In retrospect he'd rather have the panicked, shallow breathing next to his ear and he was really beginning to miss that warm, broad palm resting against his head. It hadn't done much of anything to alleviate the pain but it sure had felt nice, unlike everything else about and around his body right now.
“Ah, there it is!” Stiles' cry of triumph made Derek wince. He'd hoped the sound had gone unnoticed but Stiles shot him a quick, worried glance before whoever was on the other side of the newly-found phone picked up and Derek knew that hope was in vain. He tried to concentrate on what Stiles was saying, or even to just filter out who he was talking to, but his head was a mass of pain that turned his enhanced senses against him until none of the input made sense anymore. He gave not closing his eyes a valiant effort, pretty sure that he'd pass out if his eyelids went down for longer than it took to blink, but that task was proving more and more difficult. The last thing he heard before they fluttered shut for good and he distantly felt himself fall back against the pillows was Stiles' panicked yelling and then everything went black for a while.
***
The next time Derek woke up, he was definitely not in a comfortable bed anymore. The unholy pain at his temples had receded to a bearable level and the various smells hitting his nose didn't make him want to throw up. Carefully, Derek opened his eyes and even though the light falling in was definitely too bright to be natural there was no stabbing pain seeming to race directly from his eyes to his brain.
It took him a few moments of excessive blinking, but finally Derek managed to fully open his eyes without retribution to really take in his surroundings. The moment his head cleared enough to let him process what his senses were telling him he knew that he was in Deaton's clinic. There was no mistaking the fact that he was lying on a steel table – though someone had at least been attentive enough to put a blanket under him first so the cold wouldn't sink through his shirt – or the bright halogen lamp shining in his face. The smell of animal, disinfectant, litter boxes and herbs did the rest. Somewhere a few rooms over he could hear someone fiddling with several glass bottles, breathing steady and deep, heartbeat calm and reassuring.
To his utter embarrassment it took him much longer to register the fluttering heartbeat and fast shallow breathing only a few steps away from him. His head shot around and his vision went a little unfocused for a moment. When it cleared again, Stiles was smiling at him from where he was perched on another steel table across the room, his left leg twitching almost rhythmically in what Derek guessed was a nervous tic. He'd noticed often enough that Stiles got even more fidgety than usual when he got uncomfortable, though what part of him started twitching seemed to always change according to the situation.
Now that his head was mostly clear again, Derek finally noticed what should have struck him the moment he'd first opened his eyes this morning – he was pretty sure that Stiles hadn't looked as if he were in his late twenties the last time he'd seen him. In fact, Stiles hardly even looked his sixteen years on a good day. Instinctively, Derek brought up a hand to his head, not sure if he wanted to rub his temple or his eyes or if either would help anything – and stopped dead in the middle of the motion when he caught a glimpse of his own hand.
Much as he was sure that Stiles didn't look like he should – he was one hundred percent certain that his hand shouldn't look like it belonged to his father. Last time he'd taken a good look at his hand – which admittedly wasn't that often because who contemplated their own hands on a regular basis? – there had definitely been no wiry dark hairs anywhere in sight. His hand had also been significantly smaller and less broad, especially his fingers.
“What is going on here?” Even the sound of his own voice was jarring. Rationally, he knew that the words he'd just heard had come out of his own mouth. He'd felt himself saying them, his lips had definitely moved and there had been sounds forming in his throat, his tongue had moved as well. And yet there was a very crass sense of dissonance because what he'd heard was deeper than he was used to, not as deep as his father's but definitely not the voice of a teenager. He sounded old and if there was one thing he really had no right to sound like it was old, he was barely sixteen for heaven's sake!
“That's what we're trying to figure out,” Stiles said and his voice was different, too, now that he was paying more attention, though it was still familiar enough to stem the rising sense of panic a little. Derek looked back at him and while there were a lot of differences between the Stiles he'd last seen in Calculus on Friday and the Stiles sitting across from him now, there were just enough similarities to make the whole situation feel a little less bizarre. Whatever crazy parallel universe or weird dream he'd landed himself in, at least Stiles Stilinski still didn't know how to dress in anything but plaid and stupid print shirts. For some reason, the idea of a Stiles with actual fashion sense seemed more unsettling to his confused brain than his actual current reality of apparently having lost several years of his life.
“Lydia has graciously informed me that she will look into our personal problems for us despite her busy schedule and that it is probably my inability to stay out of trouble that's responsible for her not winning that Fields Medal yet. Scott was less condescending and accusatory about helping out but he's currently busy at home because Dee is running a fever and Allison had to get in some range time. Deaton has some theories that he's unsurprisingly vague about and your mother is busy trying to keep the rest of your family from hovering obsessively around the clinic.”
Derek blinked at Stiles for a moment, feeling another headache threatening to take over as he tried to take in all the foreign information that had just been dumped on him. For the sake of his sanity and continued health he decided to bench most of the questions lying on the tip of his tongue for later or probably never and just went with his default of being a dick.
“So everyone is making themselves useful except for you?”
Stiles' smile turned into a slightly maniacal grin. More than slightly, if Derek was being honest with himself. It shouldn't have been half as endearing as it was. Maybe he had some undiscovered childhood trauma that led him to being attracted to frankly unsettling people.
“I'm on guard dog duty. So you'd have a familiar and beloved face to wake up to.”
Derek snorted and was very grateful to find that it didn't cause him agony anymore. “You mean you got to sit around and do nothing but creepily watch me sleep for however long we've been here.”
For some reason, the banter came easy now. He'd stumbled over his own words around Stiles for so long, ever since they'd run into each other on the first day of high school and he'd suddenly been struck by those big bambi eyes (as Erica liked to dub them) blinking up at him from under those ludicrously long eyelashes. Derek had always liked to imagine that their conversations would go something like this if he ever got over himself and managed to get out a coherent sentence around Stiles, but so far that had all been fantasies set in the distant future.
The creepy smile that replaced the maniac grin wasn't really much more reassuring. It also didn't help when Stiles started batting his lashes at Derek. “Why, of course. How could I resist such a sleeping beauty?”
Derek rolled his eyes but couldn't really suppress the laughter that bubbled up in his throat. Maybe his weirdo sisters and friends had damaged him irrevocably and now he was doomed to only click with weird, creepy people with no sense of personal boundaries. If Laura were here she would probably tell him that that was because he was weird and creepy and had no boundaries himself through no fault of his social environment, but Laura also thought she was funny.
“Any clue what's happening to me?” The question sobered Stiles up more effectively than Derek would have thought possible.
“Not really, no. As I said, Lydia and Deaton are working on it but so far no one knows what's going on with you. Your parents have sniffed you thoroughly and Deaton did a few tests but nothing definite has sprung up. I double-checked Deaton's tests, of course, but apart from the fact that I could sense traces of something magical, we have nothing.”
Derek blinked at him for a moment. “You can sense magic?”
The look Stiles was giving him was anything but comforting. In fact, he felt a lot like he was a bug under a microscope, and it was not a good feeling. “Of course I can. I'd be a piss poor mage if I couldn't.” Stiles' eyes narrowed further at him. “Which you know I'm not. Through long and hard-earned experience, as you like to stress. You're not still loopy off of something, are you? You seemed pretty clear-headed just now and Deaton couldn't find anything off with you, physically.”
Derek decided to go with honesty because the world was apparently upside down today, so why not? “I am, I think.” He frowned at himself, not looking at Stiles because that scrutinizing stare was making him feel twitchy. “Clear-headed, I mean. The headache is gone and I don't feel woozy anymore. The only problem is that everything else is still hazy.”
“What do you mean?” Derek did his best to not focus on the rise in Stiles' heartbeat and how his breathing was picking up. He couldn't let himself be taken over by Stiles' panic, one panicking person in this room and situation had to be enough. Derek wasn't even going to contemplate the way Stiles' voice had shook a little toward the end of the sentence.
Derek brought up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, doing his best to ignore how strange his own appendages felt to him right now and keeping his eyes closely shut so he wouldn't have to look at the evidence for all the weirdness, either. “I mean that the last time I checked I was sixteen and in my own bed and next thing I know I wake up like this, wherever we were that morning, with an incapacitating headache and I have no idea what's going on here.”
Derek was prepared for a lot of reactions to his confession, even though he hadn't really been sure that he would even say anything until just now. But he trusted Stiles. He was fully aware that he might be biased because of his totally non-existent moon-sized crush. He still felt that if anyone was going to find a way to make this right, it was going to be Stiles Stilinski.
True to their usual pattern, though, Stiles managed to catch him off-guard by breaking out in almost hysterical laughter. Derek had been prepared to work with incredulous or mocking laughter, but he was really at a loss what to do with honest-to-God hysteria.
“Oh, oh, this is just too good.” The words were more gasp than anything else and Stiles was still holding his sides and trying to catch his breath when he tried to talk again. The length of his laughing fit was simultaneously disconcerting and irritating and Derek really wished he would calm down again and maybe shed a little light on this whole mess. “Of course this would happen to you. And on our anniversary, too.”
Derek really hoped blinking excessively was a prevention measure against heart failure because otherwise he was probably pretty screwed, werewolf healing be damned. “Our what?”
“Anniversary, you big oaf.” Stiles' outburst had died down to occasional chuckles and he seemed to get calmer by the second, obviously trying his best to have a serious conversation with Derek. Derek couldn't say he wasn't beyond grateful for that, even though his efforts could use more work. “Which you wouldn't know because if I remember correctly we weren't even on a talking basis when you were sixteen so of course you wouldn't remember the little fact that we've been married for over ten years.”
Derek really needed to stop with the blinking, he was pretty sure he just looked utterly stupid at this point. Though he wasn't really sure what other reaction could be expected from him with all the information that had just been dumped on his still-reeling mind. “How did I get you to marry me?”
Stiles just stared at him in silence for a moment. Derek could barely suppress the twitch in his left foot that made him want to fidget and escape the uncomfortable awkwardness of this moment. “Wow, sixteen-year-old you really had no poker face,” Stiles finally said in an absolute deadpan and before Derek could react to this non sequitur, Stiles had broken down into another fit of laughter.
The near silent fall of foot steps was the only thing that alerted Derek to the fact that he wasn't alone in a room with a maniac any more. “Mr. Hale.” Deaton was as calm and collected as always and apparently utterly unfazed by Stiles rocking back and forth and gasping for breath on the other end of his clinic. He gave Derek a nod and started to cross the room.
“Doctor Deaton.” Derek's voice didn't come out quite as even and detached but then again he still had difficulties tearing his eyes away from where Stiles continued to make a spectacle of himself and being completely unhelpful while at it.
“Don't worry about Mr. Stilinski.” Derek's gaze flicked over to Deaton barely in time to catch the slightest twitch of a smile on his face. “He'll get a grip on himself eventually. Personally, I find this manner of dealing with new and thoroughly weird situations preferable to the yelling and raging. Especially since most of the time, I seem to be the target.”
Derek couldn't see what exactly Deaton was doing at the sink, but the gentle clinking noise of glass was soothing over the disorienting roar of Stiles' hysterical laughter that was now closer to hyperventilating than anything else. Derek kept his eyes on Deaton's lab-coat-clad back and determinedly refused to look at Stiles. If he started worrying over it now the surrealness of this entire morning would probably send him into a fit of hysterics himself. “So you heard what I just said?”
“Yes, and it certainly gives us something to work with for now. Do you remember anything unusual about the night before you woke up in this time?”
Derek frowned at himself again, trying to push the noise and the smells vying for his attention to the back of his head and just focus on what he could remember. “Not really, no. I did my homework while Kira and my sisters did their best to annoy me, then dinner with my family, went up to bed and then fell asleep. No problems with magical creatures of any kind, at least not that my parents let me know of, not even a full moon.” Something tugged at his memory at the last few words but he couldn't grasp it, so he decided to let it go for now.
Deaton hummed non-committally. “We'll have to take a further look into it, then. Nothing unexpected, magic like this rarely announces itself with glowing lights and ominous thunder.” He turned his head a little and gave Derek a small smile over his shoulder. “If Mr. Stilinski would deem it worth his time to put an end to his little outburst, he might help us further narrow down possible sources.”
Deaton's smile didn't even so much as waiver when Stiles just weakly waved a hand at him and promptly returned it to his side, not once stopping his laughter for so much as a deep breath. Derek raised an eyebrow at him. It was oddly satisfying, even though Stiles was too busy crying tears of laughter to actually see him do it. “Looks like that could take a while.”
The soft chuckle from the direction of the sink was oddly gratifying. Derek was proud of his dry delivery, even if usually no one else seemed to be a fan. He liked to think his humor was just too mature for them. “Years of experience tell me not to argue with that. I'll get in contact with your parents, maybe they remember something. If you could give me the exact date of the last day you remember?”
Before Derek could do so, he was interrupted by the clinic's front door being thrown open loud enough that even Deaton flinched a little from the noise, quickly followed by the sound of heels clicking against the tiles in an angry staccato. The door to the room they were in received the same treatment merely a second later. Derek was still struggling to sit up when a whirlwind of blond locks and tight clothes and impossible heels stormed inside, a highly disconcerting smirk on her face. She stopped in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, and grinned – for a lack of a better word – wolfishly down at him.
Derek could have gone his entire life without knowing that Erica Reyes would somehow manage to grow up even more terrifying than she'd been at sixteen.
“I knew it,” she crowed, her eyes dancing in amusement. “I told you you'd somehow fuck it up, you owe me fifty bucks. Now what did he do this time?”
Derek wasn't even sure what he should be replying with or if she was even really talking to him when her attention already veered away from him and her eyes narrowed at Stiles. With aheaving sigh, she stalked over to where he was still doubled over and slapped him not-so-gently on the back of his head. Stiles choked in surprise and spontaneously turned his laughter into a just-as-spectacular coughing fit. Erica seemed about as fazed as Deaton, standing next to Stiles with her arms crossed and waiting for him to catch his breath again with an expression of exasperation that Derek knew all too well and also never wanted to have directed at himself ever again. He did his best not to pay attention to how the position of her arms underlined the fact that her degree of terrifyingness wasn't the only thing that had grown on adult Erica.
Deaton didn't even look at any of them until Stiles' coughing had finally subsided, and even then he only spared Erica a quick glance and an approving nod. “Well done, Mrs Reyes.” Erica beamed at him.
“Stop encouraging her physical abuse,” Stiles grumbled under his breath, looking impressively like a petulant toddler for a man his age. Erica snorted at him.
“It's an expression of affection, Stilinski. If it wasn't, you'd have a throbbing headache right now.” She grinned down at Stiles and Derek had to give him credit for his ballsiness because he didn't even bat an eyelash when the cruel twist of her red lips made Derek flinch from across the room. There were entirely too many teeth in that grin.
“Stupid psychopathic werewolves.” Stiles jumped down from his perch on the other steel bed and made his way over to Derek, ignoring Erica entirely. She seemed way too cheerful about that and all but skipped after him, basically glued to his heels. Stiles held up his grumpy facade but he didn't really seem to mind all that much if the amused spark in his eyes was anything to go by.
“So, Doc.” Stiles came to a stop half leaned over Derek and clapped his hands together, his expression switching to gleeful in a heartbeat. “What do you want me to try? Any theories?” There were still tears clinging to his lashes and his cheeks and he looked flushed and out of breath and Derek kind of wanted to kiss him a lot. But that would probably not get him back home faster and he also wasn't really sure he could handle the confusing discrepancy between his sixteen-year-old mind and his grown up body that was probably very used to kissing Stiles. Stiles looked at him as if he knew what Derek was thinking, which, after ten years of being married and whoever knew how long they'd been together before that, he could probably recognize an 'I really want to kiss you' look on his husband. And man did that word ever sound weird, especially given that sixteen-year-old him in a grown up body was using it for Stiles Stilinski of all people. Before today, he wouldn't have hesitated to say that it was more likely he'd end up marrying Erica than ever getting an ice cube's chance in hell with Stiles.
That reminded him.
Ignoring Stiles expectant hovering and the worrying glint in his eyes as well as Deaton's thoughtful expression, Derek turned his attention to Erica. “Still a Reyes, huh? What about your plans to marry Boyd?”
She grinned at him and held up her left hand, letting the metal of the ring there catch the artificial light of the clinic. “Did that. I just thought it would be a bit confusing having people call me Boyd, and not everyone is a fan of hyphenated monstrosities as last names.” She gave him a meaningful look that Derek probably should be able to read but he had to admit that he was completely lost here.
His confusion had to show on his face because Erica just scoffed at him and rolled her eyes. She seemed to take the fact that he was asking questions he should really know the answers to in stride, not bothered in the least. And if that wasn't telling him something about his future life and its relative weirdness, then he didn't know what would. “There is a reason no one calls you Stilinski-Hale, and that's because it's way too ineffective. If I had to yell that at you because you were about to do something stupid you'd be long done with whatever stupid thing I didn't want you to do by the time I was done.” Her grin widened and Derek was man enough to admit that it was fucking terrifying. “Just Hale is much better for yelling purposes.”
“And while that is a fascinating conversation,” Stiles said as if he hadn't just interrupted Erica and Derek adjusted his earlier judgement from 'ballsy' to 'no self-preservation instincts' at the look on her face. She might look cute but Erica pouting was usually a very bad sign for whoever made her pout in the first place. “Why don't we get back to topic? As much as I usually revel in all the weird shit that happens on a nay daily basis to at least one if not all of us, I'd really like my husband to be his actual mental age and remember the fact that he even married me at all on my anniversary.” He looked down at Derek. “Nothing against you as you are now, snugglebuns, but I'm pretty sure you'd also rather be back to being in your actual body, huh?”
Derek felt his features shift into a disapproving scowl before he could stop himself, but really? “Snugglebuns?” His weird grown up voice was at least good for one thing – it definitely brought over the sarcastic disdain a lot better. Stiles snickered at him.
“I usually refrain from the sillier pet names, don't worry, I just do it to annoy you every now and again. And I really wanted to know if sixteen-year-old you would pull the exact same face. It was for science!”
Before Derek could protest or Erica break down in the hysterical laughter she seemed to be trying to suppress somewhat successfully, Deaton quietly cleared his throat and immediately had all of their attention.
“Mr. Hale, I still need the exact date of the last day you remember being yourself, if you could. It could be a significant aspect in whatever happened to you and I would like to check with the proper calenders before I let Mr. Stilinski try anything.”
“Proper calenders?” Derek frowned. “What-?”
“He's trying to say that he needs to check that there wasn't a special event, magic-wise, that could have had a hand in causing this. Magic sometimes goes a bit wonky around, like, Samhain, summer solstices, that kind of thing. I don't have to tell you about the weird stuff the full moon brings round. Being thrown twenty years into the future wouldn't be the weirdest thing to have happened because of fluctuating magic. It probably wouldn't even make it on the list.”
Hearing Stiles casually talk about magical fluctuations was somewhat jarring and Derek wondered how long Stiles had studied in-depth magic for. It was one of the more obscure fields of study, that much even Derek knew, despite his best efforts to shut out Peter when he started his long ranting lessons on the practical applications of magic as a werewolf. Right around now, though, Derek really wished he had listened a bit more closely, or at all. Even if it probably wouldn't have helped him getting back to his own time, and God did that sound like he was trapped in a Back to the Future movie, maybe he could have at least figured out if the Stiles he knew from school was already putting his big brains into something so specialized. He was definitely going to ask that before they sent him back. If they managed.
When Derek blinked himself back into the present, Stiles and Erica were still hovering over him, Stiles with an expectant look on his face and Erica just looking faintly amused, probably by him getting lost in his own head again. Derek cleared his throat and looked back to Stiles. “I'm sorry, what?”
The right corner of Stiles' lips twitched up a bit, his eyes dancing with barely reined-in laughter and Derek was once again overwhelmed by the urge to kiss him. He definitely had to find out what he did to make Stiles Stilinski date him so he could apply it as soon as he got back and kiss him without it being quite as surreal and weird. “Can you remember if any major magical celebrations were around the corner when this happened to you?”
Derek bit his lip, trying his best to concentrate on grasping onto the thought that was eluding him while still ringing a bell instead of letting himself be distracted by fantasies of what kissing Stiles would be like. “I think there was something, after all. Nothing major, I think, but something's ringing a bell, I just can't remember what it is.”
“Maybe we can figure it out from the date. Can you remember it?”
Derek nodded, reciting it easily. He'd only been putting it on top of three different essays that day, it wasn't like it was a hardship. Deaton hummed as the sound of keys alerted Derek to the fact that he was looking it up on his computer (and wow did that thing ever not look like what Derek was used to). There was a moment of tense silence and then Deaton turned around to them with a brilliant smile that made even Erica flinch a step back. For all that it looked genuine, Derek couldn't think of a non-threatening reason for Deaton to smile so broadly.
“I think I found the reason for your little trip to the future.” He tapped at the display. “That's the date right before a solar eclipse.” Stiles' eyes went wide and he nodded knowingly. Thankfully, at least Erica looked just as confused as Derek felt.
“Solar eclipse? Why would that do anything? Aren't we exclusive slaves to the wiles of the moon courtesy of being werewolves or something?”
Deaton chuckled at her and Stiles dared to roll his eyes, which got him another affectionate slap on the back of his head. “Not really, no. I mean, you still need the sun as much to survive as anyone else, werewolf or not. No one escapes the effects of sun-related magical events, and they're usually quite a bit stronger than anything moon-related. Definitely strong enough to cause this.” Stiles shook is head. “But there has to be something else involved. The solar eclipse would have powered it, but there had to be some kind of focus object to channel the magic and trigger this entire thing. Derek, do you remember having anything magical in your room? Anything, even if you think it should be too weak to do anything.”
“No, nothing.” Derek was still shaking his head when a thought struck him. “Or, wait, maybe there was something.” He looked up at Stiles. “Peter gave me a dream catcher to hang up over my bed just a few days earlier.” Derek's eyes narrowed. “He swore he hadn't tampered with it but Peter never just casually tries a new hobby. That time he tried to convince us he was really just knitting because it was a peaceful and calming hobby it turned out the scarves and hats made you dance every time a Christmas song came on.”
“Only Peter.” Stiles was rolling his eyes but his lips were still trying to tug up in a smile and Deaton and Erica also looked more amused than unnerved. “We don't really need him to reverse his accidental work, do we, Doc?”
“No, you should manage fine on your own now that you know what you're working with.” Deaton smiled at them. “If you'd excuse me, I have a very small, very cuddly Golden Retriever puppy to feed. Would you like to accompany me, Mrs Reyes?” With that, he turned on his heel and left the room, not looking back to check if Erica was going to follow him. Erica scowled very unconvincingly, then mumbled something about manipulative bastards and their adorable puppies and disappeared after him.
Derek blinked in the direction of the now empty doorway. “Did Deaton just manipulate Erica into giving us a moment?”
Stiles chuckled. “Yep. Probably a useful tip to remember, you can get Erica to do almost anything if you bribe her with puppy cuddles. Boyd has been fighting the noble battle of not letting their house turn into a dog shelter for years now.”
Derek felt his lips twitch up into a smile, still looking at the doorway. He wasn't really ready to look back at Stiles just yet. “How many dogs do they have?”
“Two so far, Boyd gave it a valiant effort.” Stiles' laughter was much softer and considerably less hysterical than earlier and Derek found he really liked the sound better this way. They were silent for a moment and Derek could hear Erica cooing at the puppy a few rooms over. Whatever he was going to say to Stiles now, adult Derek would probably never hear the end of it, despite Deaton's little trick. But he'd rather be teased for the foreseeable future than miss his chance, so no way around.
“Stiles?”
“Hmm?”
“How did we start dating? I'm serious, I'm always so tongue-tied around you, how did I even get the words out?” It was considerably easier to talk to this Stiles and looking at the doorway instead of up at his face helped, too, but even now Derek couldn't imagine asking that particular question.
Stiles' quiet chuckle didn't bide well for the answer he was going to get. “You didn't, really.”
Derek turned his head and finally looked at Stiles. “I didn't? But how-” His brow furrowed. “Did you...?”
Stiles shook his head, a fond smile on his face, eyes closed as he seemed to think back to that moment. “In fact, we were both ginormous cowards and what got us to start dating was our horribly nosy and invasive friends setting us up.”
That startled a laugh out of Derek, even though it was actually the most likely scenario, now that he was thinking about it. “Even so, I didn't freeze and just... didn't talk to you all evening?”
“You were a bit monosyllabic in the beginning.” Stiles beamed at him and while he looked amused, there was so much fondness in his eyes Derek couldn't find it in him to feel mocked. “But I found it very endearing.”
Derek shook his head, unable to resist the urge to smile right back. “Weirdo.”
Stiles shrugged. “Well, you married me anyway, so what does that make you?”
There was another moment of silence, this one much more comfortable though, where they both just smiled at each other. Unsurprisingly, Stiles was the one to break it first.
“So, any more requests for spoilers of the future before I send you back? I really hope Back to the Future isn't an accurate portrayal of how timelines work, you know way too much.”
“Why, would it change your answer? If my new knowledge made me walk straight up to you and ask you out instead of circling around each other until our exasperated friends force us on a date?”
Stiles grinned at him and it was so bright Derek almost had to look away. “Not at all.”
“So us dating is sort of an inevitability unless one of us dies or moves away or finally gets a sane, socially adjusted group of friends?”
They both ignored the indignant “hey!” from where Deaton and Erica were still playing with puppies.
“Yep.”
“Well, I wouldn't know what to do with normal people, anyway.” Derek shrugged and they just kept smiling at each other, not breaking eye contact, and Derek was pretty sure they looked either incredibly sappy or slightly creepy from the outside but he just couldn't bring himself to give a fuck.
“Stilinski, stop staring and get the job done!” They both jumped at the sound of Erica's voice and Derek could feel a traitorous flush crawl up his cheeks. After looking caught for about half a second, Stiles just grinned shamelessly down at him.
“Ready to get back to your own time and start dating me first before you wake up in bed with your husband twenty years in the future?”
“Born ready.” They grinned at each other for longer than was strictly necessary, then Stiles finally grew somewhat serious again and started with weird hand movements over Derek's chest, accompanied by low chanting in a language Derek thought might be Greek. It took a while before anything happened and Derek felt distinctly ridiculous in the meantime. Finally he felt an agonizing pull, as if someone had put a fish-hook through his head and was now trying to pull his brain out through a tiny hole in his skull. His eyes fell shut on their own accord and before he could regret that he wouldn't get to stare at Stiles in action some more or that he'd forgotten to ask how long Stiles had been practicing deep magic, the pain grew intolerable and everything turned black.
***
Back in the unwashed sheets of his proper bed, Derek needed a few minutes to gather himself, though there was thankfully no sign of the monumental headache that had haunted him when he'd first woken up as an adult. When he looked at his clock to check how long he'd been out he found that it was about as late as he usually woke up, on the same day he should have woken up in the first place, too. Stiles really was that good.
Remembering what he now knew about the future – if that knowledge hadn't changed the course of things, that is – Derek let himself have a moment of goofily grinning into his room. He would date Stiles Stilinski in the not-so-distant future whether he actually managed to say the words to him or not and he would most likely end up marrying him, or he at least had a decent shot at marrying him. It was like Derek didn't even care what happened for the rest of the day, and he certainly couldn't be bothered to be mad about the fact that Peter had yet again put his magical experiments all over the house while swearing with a straight face and no change in his heartbeat that he was doing no such thing. Derek did resolve to make a trip to the clinic, though, to ask Deaton to take a look at the dream catchers.
And if his near constant grin freaked his family and friends out a little and he ended up actually getting a date with Stiles with only minimal intervention from their friends by the end of the week, well, he might have just forgotten to take the one over his bed down in all the excitement.