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He was pretty sure he’d figured out who the murderer was. The author was surprisingly good at keeping him on his toes, but he was convinced he’d figured it out. He was probably wrong, but that was what he liked about this author. The books were always interesting, and unexpected, because he could only guess the outcome about half of the time.
If he got it right, he was happy he’d figured it out. If he was wrong, he was happy the author’s storytelling was so captivating that they managed to trick him. Really, that was the best thing about books. The adventure. Getting from the beginning to the end. He loved reading so much.
Derek Hale tried really hard not to smile to himself as he turned the page, mostly because people had told him in the past that it was weird to see him smiling at a book. Those people were no longer in his life, but it was one of those things that had kind of stuck with him for a long time. Even though he was home alone, he still felt like he shouldn’t be smiling at the book.
A stupid thought, given his boyfriend would shake him unconscious if he found out he was repressing his smiles. The boyfriend in question, Stiles Stilinski, was always the first to insist that whenever something made him happy, he had a duty to make sure he let everyone know.
Derek wasn’t quite that outgoing, but he did occasionally let his smiles slip out whenever he and his boyfriend were home alone together. He felt like a part of the reason for it was because it always earned him a soft smile in return when Stiles thought he wasn’t looking. Stiles seemed to find more joy in watching Derek be happy than anything else in the world, and it was still such a surreal feeling.
His life hadn’t exactly been the best. Orphaned at sixteen, abused, assaulted, used, just—everything under the sun. If it could go wrong, it went wrong to him.
So the day he’d met Stiles, he still couldn’t believe it was real. And the day they started dating, he was positive it wasn’t real. Even now, sometimes he woke up and just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as the sun’s beams moved across the room, just listening to Stiles breathe.
Just making sure he was actually there and real.
Stiles meant everything to him, and had pulled him out of dark places time and time again. He was always patient. He was always careful with his heart. And God, did he make Derek laugh. He was all the good parts of Derek’s life that he’d never thought he’d ever have, and having them still made him have those moments in the morning where he made sure it was real.
He couldn’t contain the smile anymore. Not because of the book, but because of Stiles, and he sat staring at the same page for a good five minutes without reading a single word, his mind having wandered to his boyfriend. It was always hard for it to come back from there, but eventually he managed it.
It took time, but he managed it.
The book really was interesting, so while Stiles was more interesting, he also wasn’t home, so it made it easier for him to focus on the words in front of him. The smile slid off his face as he continued to read, not because he wasn’t still enjoying it, but because it was getting close to the climax, and there were a lot of people getting hurt as the detective worked towards discovering who was behind it all.
Derek tilted his head slightly as he heard a car rumbling along down the road, and his heart did that stupid little extra beat it always did at the knowledge that Stiles was on his way home. His Jeep was on its last leg, no matter how much duct tape and magic Stiles poured into it, but Derek would never say that to him. He knew how much Stiles cared about the death trap, so he just nodded along whenever Stiles talked about all the work he was doing on it to keep it running, and secretly double-checked the brakes every time he had the opportunity.
Everything else could fall apart, but the brakes was where Derek drew the line. If Stiles wasn’t safe, he wasn’t driving the Jeep anymore. So far so good.
Derek continued to read, even as part of his brain was more focussed on what was happening with Stiles. He heard the Jeep arrive back at the loft. He heard Stiles exit—and trip, cursing colourfully—before shutting the door. He heard him unlock their front door downstairs and enter the large warehouse part of their home, then lock it. He heard him climb the stairs.
He was pretty sure he had no idea what the words he was reading meant anymore, because he was paying more attention to Stiles.
Finally, the door to the loft slid open, and before Derek could even think of looking up at him, he froze at the words out of his boyfriend’s mouth.
“Hey Derek.”
It wasn’t the words, per se, but the tone. Both words were extended, the vowels held for longer than they needed to be, and his voice pitched just a little higher than normal.
That was the tone of someone who very clearly wanted something, and was trying to act all cute and adorable to get what he wanted.
Joke was on him, Derek always found him cute and adorable, but he’d never tell Stiles that. He had some common sense, at least. If Stiles knew he could get whatever he wanted from Derek, the world would be doomed.
Derek waited for a few seconds after hearing Stiles’ greeting before slowly lifting his gaze from his book to look over at his boyfriend. Stiles was still by the door, toeing out of his shoes, and he pulled the strap of his messenger bag over his head before dropping it on the floor beside them.
He started walking towards Derek, a small bounce in his step, arms swinging a bit too much as he moved. This was clearly a man looking for a favour that he knew he’d have to talk someone into.
“Hi,” Derek replied easily, but he didn’t close his book, and he didn’t look away from Stiles.
“How are you?” Stiles asked, falling onto the couch beside Derek and leaning heavily into him. “How was your day? How’s the book?” He kissed his cheek once. Twice. Then two more times in quick succession.
Derek turned to look at him, Stiles affecting his most innocent expression as he patiently waited for Derek to answer his questions.
Instead of doing so, Derek slowly closed his book, losing his page, and set it on the coffee table in front of them. Then he turned to look at Stiles, leaning back slightly against the arm rest, and crossed his arms.
“What do you want?”
Stiles’ mouth fell open, and the gasp he gave was too exaggerated to be anything but fake. “Wha—how could you—Derek!” Stiles slapped one hand to his chest. “How could you possibly think I want anything from you? Here I am, a loving boyfriend, coming home to who I thought was also a loving boyfriend, and asking him about his day, only to be accused of the most preposterous and underhanded scheme of—”
“Stiles,” Derek interrupted, the other man shutting his mouth instantly. “What do you want?”
Stiles was silent for only a moment before he jumped up from the couch and began talking a mile a minute on his way to his messenger bag. “Okay, so I found a new spellbook at a garage sale, and the lady had like, no idea it was real. I mean, obviously, people don’t know the Supernatural is real, but still. It had like, aura, you know? She should’ve figured. Anyway, she said it belonged to her mother, who passed away five years ago, and she found a whole bunch of stuff in her attic that she was trying to get rid of since she was selling the house.” He bent down to pull the book in question out of his messenger bag before turning around and brandishing it towards Derek. “Deaton keeps telling me I need to practice my magic more, or it’ll never get good enough for me to do it without needing incantations, and this is like, a really good book for us. Like, really good. So I was thinking, you know, maybe you could help me practice so that I can improve and get better at this whole magic thing until I’m like, a super cool badass Witch that would make Merlin look lame.”
Derek just stared at Stiles, waiting for him to be finished. Once he was, spellbook still held out in front of him, Stiles offered him his most charming smile and waggled the book once.
“Please?”
As if he could ever say no to Stiles.
“This doesn’t involve pig blood again, does it?”
“It was chicken blood, and it came out of your jeans eventually.”
Derek raised his eyebrows at him, silently telling him he hadn’t heard a ‘no’ in the response.
Stiles rocked forward, then backwards on the balls of his feet, book still outstretched, then pulled it quickly back into his chest so he could flip it around and open it. “Okay, so there’s a bit of blood, but it’s just for the magic circle, and it’s goat blood. So like, not as potent as chicken blood.”
“Uh huh,” Derek said in response.
“No, but really, this one I’m looking at is good, okay!” Stiles flapped his free hand towards Derek, the other holding the book open by the spine. “Like, you don’t understand, it’s a spell we want. And, again, practice. Practice is good. Practice is important.”
“Uh huh,” Derek repeated.
Stiles was silent for a few seconds, lips pressed together and eyebrows raised. He waited, rocking forward once, and then said, “So... yes?”
Derek managed to hold out against that ridiculous face for exactly seven seconds.
He’d counted.
Sighing and rolling his eyes, he motioned for Stiles to get organized before leaning forward for his book again.
He saw his boyfriend fist-pump before turning and rushing for his bag again. Derek couldn’t help shaking his head at his antics, because of course Stiles would already have everything he needed ready for this. Stiles was nothing if not prepared for any and all eventualities. Even if Derek had said no, he’d have just sighed and found someone else to practice with.
Well, Derek assumed, anyway. He’d never said no, so he didn’t actually have any real life data to corroborate that theory.
Derek did his level best to continue reading as Stiles rushed back and forth around the apartment, collecting things that he had at the house and shoving them into his messenger bag to join everything else he’d already picked up. When he had what he needed, he left the loft again, and Derek tilted his head as he listened to him clamber back down the stairs. He tripped again in his excitement, cursing both the creator of stairs and his own legs, but since he hadn’t fallen, Derek didn’t worry about it.
Stiles wasn’t injured, he was just clumsy.
Especially when he was excited.
He’d have loved to continue reading his book while he waited for Stiles to get everything set up, but he was really distracting. His boyfriend kept muttering under his breath about the size of the circle, how big the candles needed to be, whether or not the spell would work, if he was even good enough to do it, how important it was that he got it right.
It was hard to read when he just heard him fretting about every little thing downstairs.
Sighing and giving up—Derek hadn’t found the right page anyway—he put his book back on the coffee table and stood. Heading for the kitchen, he pulled a mug out of the cupboard and poured what was left of the coffee from this morning. It was still warm, thanks for the dispenser-type machine they had, so he just made sure to add milk and six sugars, then headed towards the loft door so he could deliver the caffeine to his already likely over-caffeinated boyfriend.
Stiles tended to calm down while he was drinking the coffee, it was only after it was done that he started bouncing off the walls like a toddler given sugar. Derek didn’t mind, it made things more entertaining for him.
Wandering downstairs with the mug in hand, he headed towards the back of the large open area that comprised the bottom of their home, and saw Stiles in the process of pouring out what he could only assume was blood in a big circle.
Derek couldn’t help the sigh when he saw it wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate his height. Stiles did that a lot, it was like he couldn’t fully remember how tall Derek was.
Or he was just shit at drawing circles, but Derek would never say that to him.
Stiles closed off the circle of blood, tilting the bottle he held this way and that to try and stop the blood from trailing down the side of it. He didn’t succeed entirely, but he seemed satisfied with the two trails down the left side because he stuck the stopper back into it and moved to set it down beside his bag.
He turned, and then jumped at the sight of Derek, clearly not having heard him approach. Derek just wordlessly held out the coffee, and Stiles took it greedily in both hands, taking a huge sip of it and sighing.
“You know I’m already in love with you, right?” Stiles asked, smiling cheekily around the rim of the mug.
“Maybe I’m trying to poison you,” Derek countered.
“Lie, you love me just as much.”
Yes he did, but Derek just rolled in eyes in response instead of answering. Stiles smiled but didn’t comment on the omission, taking another huge swallow before holding the mug back out to Derek and turning to face his handywork.
Derek would’ve snuck a sip of the coffee himself, but with six sugars, he might as well be drinking sugar, so he just held the mug and watched Stiles begin to set candles up equidistant from one another, muttering to himself about placement before checking the open book on the floor.
It didn’t take him very long—the setups never usually did—and he finally stepped back and motioned the circle surrounded by candles in a very clear ‘ta dah!’ sort of way. Derek sighed and obediently moved forward, passing over the mug of coffee for Stiles to finish—which he did in only a few swallows—before sitting down in the centre. He shifted down a bit, looking behind himself to make sure he wouldn’t lie down in the blood, and then slowly lowered himself fully onto his back.
As predicted, the bottoms of his jeans were in the blood at the bottom of the circle, but he just sighed internally to himself because it was to be expected.
Stiles quickly began lighting all the candles around him in quick succession, and then knelt down beside Derek on his right.
“Okay. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Derek replied.
Stiles smiled at him, then bent down to kiss him lightly, probably as thanks for being a good sport. Straightening, Stiles grabbed one of the candles in his right hand, holding it up, and then brought his other hand down to run his fingers along the words in the book on the floor, mumbling them to himself.
He kept having to bend down closer to read the words, clearly having difficulties with either the small text or the font. Eventually, he just picked the book up in his hand, holding the spine as best he could, and squinted at the words from a bit closer while sitting up properly.
Everything he said was in Latin, because basically all magic was in Latin. Derek just lay on his back staring at the ceiling for a while, eyes tracing the beams above his head, and mentally mapping out what part of the loft was above him. Every now and then, he’d glance over at Stiles, but his boyfriend was still holding the candle in his one hand, and the book in the other.
He watched wax slowly slide down the side of the candle, coming dangerously close to Stiles’ thumb, but even as he waited for him to curse and drop it, Stiles didn’t react when it finally hit his skin. It made sense, he’d long ago gotten used to wax on his hands from all the magic he’d been learning from Deaton.
Derek wasn’t sure if the Latin was difficult, or if the spell was long, but Stiles seemed to be taking his time enunciating every word of the spell. Usually these experiments lasted only three or four minutes, but Derek counted out at least six, and that was after he’d already been lying on the ground for a while, so it was probably closer to ten.
Finally, Stiles said one last word, a wind seeming to appear out of nowhere, causing the candles to flicker. Stiles immediately blew out the one he was holding, and all the others around the circle extinguished instantly on their own.
Derek raised his eyebrows at Stiles, waiting for confirmation that he could sit up. Stiles was just staring back down at him, blinking owlishly.
After a few more seconds, Derek finally asked, “Did it work?”
“Unknown,” Stiles admitted, putting the candle down and looking back at the book. He pressed his lips together, then shut it and smiled at Derek. “Guess we’ll find out.”
“What was this one?” Derek asked, sitting up now that he was allowed to. He bent his knees so his legs were fully in the circle and sighed at the blood on the back of his jeans. He turned to give Stiles a look, but his boyfriend was staring at the closed book with an intent look on his face.
Frowning, Derek reached out and poked at Stiles’ forehead with one finger, forcing him to look up at him.
“What’s with the intense look? You never take magic this seriously.”
“Yeah, I know, but this one... it’s different.” Stiles ran his free hand along the cover before hugging the book to his chest and offering Derek a smile. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
When Stiles started to turn, loosening his grip on the book so he could stand up, Derek reached out to take hold of his wrist and forced him to stay kneeling beside him. Stiles raised both eyebrows in inquiry at him, and Derek just gave him a look.
“You’re acting weird.”
“What?” Stiles laughed, the sound loud and very fake. “No. What? I’m not—this isn’t—I’m not weird. Maybe you’re weird and projecting.”
“Stiles.”
The fake cheer melted off his face and Stiles looked down at the book again. He tapped his index finger against the cover, the rest of his hand still closed tightly around it, then sighed and tugged gently at his other arm. Derek let his wrist go, and Stiles obediently opened the book, flipping through the pages for the one he’d done.
He hesitated for only a moment before holding it out for Derek to read.
Grabbing for it, Derek skimmed over the words of the spell, since it was in Latin and he was a little rusty, but when he flipped the page, he saw a detailed explanation about how to set the spell up, what parts were important to remember, the speed of the incantation, and finally, what the spell actually was.
Complete and unequivocal divine protection from any and all physical harm.
Derek stared at the words for a long while, trying to make sense of them. He was a Werewolf, so protection from physical harm didn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. He could heal himself, and while yes, sometimes the injuries lasted a while and they hurt, it wasn’t a hardship for him. He was used to pain anyway.
“They didn’t have anything to keep you safe from other things,” Stiles said quietly, Derek looking up at him. He shrugged uncomfortably, rubbing his left hand against his right upper arm. “You’ve been through so much, I just thought—if I could keep you safe from even just this one thing, it’s worth it. I can’t protect you from everything else, or take away the pain you’ve already experienced, but this at least... I can do this. I mean, I think. If it worked.” Stiles paused, then straightened slightly, lifting his chin. “It worked,” he said instead, with conviction. “It did. Because I willed it to, and everything happened like it was meant to. So—it worked.”
Derek—had no idea what to say. He looked back down at the book, stunned. His first thoughts about the spell had been about him being a Werewolf making this somewhat useless, but he hadn’t considered why Stiles had done it.
Stiles knew full well that Derek could heal himself in an instant. He knew that Derek didn’t often have to worry about being injured during fights, because of what he was.
But that wasn’t why Stiles had cast this spell. It wasn’t about Derek being able to heal himself, it was about wanting Derek to have one less thing that could hurt him. Keeping Derek safe in at least one way, even if he knew it wasn’t going to fully protect him. He just wanted to do this one thing to at least lessen any future pain he might endure.
He could smell Stiles getting nervous beside him, like he thought maybe he’d done something wrong. Derek didn’t know how to make the idiot believe he was perfect in every day, so he just closed the book and leaned over to kiss Stiles’ temple, lingering for a few seconds before pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against it instead.
“I love you,” he said quietly.
“Who wouldn’t?” Stiles asked cheekily, but Derek heard the way his heart jumped in his chest. Derek didn’t often say the words, even though they both knew he felt them.
But truer words were never spoken. Derek loved his man with everything he had, and he was never going to stop being surprised at how easily Stiles loved him in return.
END.