Chapter Text
Dude. Question.
Yeah?
What happened after we went into Jungle last night?
Why?
Something happened, didn’t it?
You don’t remember?
Why do you think I’m asking?
The phone rings, and Stiles cringes at the sound, cursing his past -- probably too drunk to be responsible… scratch that, definitely too drunk -- self for not turning his phone on silent when he got home. He hits the answer button and immediately after turns it on speaker, because holding the phone to his ear requires coordination he just doesn’t have.
“You don’t remember anything?” Scott asks before Stiles even says hello.
“I remember pre-gaming at your place, and then going to Jungle,” Stiles says.
His voice sounds foreign, hoarse like he spent the night singing and shouting. Which, considering they did go to the nightclub, is the most likely reason.
“Did we go in to help Danny make his ex jealous?”
“Yeah, bro. You said you owed him for that time when you used him as an excuse to your Dad,” Scott says, and he laughs. “I don’t know why, it’s not like Danny knew about that.”
“I felt like I owed him,” Stiles says. “Did it work?”
“What?”
“Making Danny’s ex jealous, dumbass.”
He sighs. He’s way too tired to make full sentences that Scott can follow.
“Yeah, I think so,” Scott tells him. “I mean, if you think them leaving together kinda early means that it worked.”
“Good for Danny boy,” Stiles says. “But dude... that’s not why I asked. Obviously, since I couldn’t remember that part until now.”
“What’s up? I mean, I kind of lost you at some point there, and then I ran into Isaac, but you didn’t do the Bat Signal thing, so I figured you were okay,” Scott says, sounding a little apologetic when he mentions Isaac.
“Are you at his and Allison’s place?” Stiles asks, suddenly picking up on noises in the background.
“Yeah, I… we…”
“Good for you, bro,” Stiles says. “But that isn’t what my problem is.”
“Then what is?”
“Well, I woke up and there was a name on my hip,” he blurts out, and then barrels on. “Like, it’s in this really pretty, loopy handwriting. Kind of like soulmates, but… magic isn’t real. Right?”
When there’s only silence on the other end of the line, Stiles glances at his hip again. The writing is still there, in a spot that was clear of anything but a stray mole he’s had there since he was little. Now though, he can see the five letters written clearly, in tidy cursive with a little flourish.
“Scott?” Stiles says when the silence lingers. “Seriously, Scotty, magic isn’t real, right?”
“Oh sorry man, Ally came in,” Scott says, and Stiles hears a distant greeting in the background. “What were you saying? You got a tattoo? What the hell, man?”
“I didn’t get a tattoo,” Stiles says with exasperation. “There’s a name written on my hip, and it’s not coming off, and I have no idea how it got there. It doesn’t hurt, so it can’t be a tattoo. Though if it was, I”d understand the blackout, because…”
“Oh man, yeah, you’d pass out again if you’d seen a needle,” Scott says, laughter ringing through his voice.
“Thanks for that reminder, bro,” Stiles says, and he sighs when he looks down on his hip again.
Maybe magic does exist , he thinks. Just because he never heard about it, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t some Harry Potter crap that existed under a statute of secrecy.
“What’s the name?” Scott asks, and Stiles is confused for a moment, because his mind is still spinning around the possibility of magic existing.
“What? Oh, the tattoo,” he finally says, and then he squints at his hipbone.
There’s a sheet covering his legs, and it stops just below the loopy handwriting that he assumed was a name. Now that Scott asked though, Stiles isn’t sure, because he realises that he can’t read it.
“I don’t know?”
“Dude,” Scott says in a tone that betrays his amazement and exasperation.
“What did he do?” Allison’s voice comes through the phone.
“He’s an idiot,” Scott tells her, and Stiles huffs with indignation. “Is it even a name?”
“Whose name?” Allison asks, and she sounds more awake than Stiles feels.
He doesn’t say anything, but he squints at the writing again, and when his eyes finally adjust to seeing the writing upside down, he lets out a squeak.
“What? What is it?” Scott asks, suddenly alarmed.
“Derek,” Stiles whispers.
“Derek? Like, Derek Hale?”
Scott’s voice is louder than strictly necessary, and Stiles pulls the phone away from his ear, cringing as the noise makes his head throb in pain.
“Hi Stiles.”
The voice doesn’t come from the phone but from across the room that Stiles is in. Which, he finally notices, isn’t his own. He looks up from his hip and turns just enough to see the door.
And Derek Hale. Standing there with two paper cups with the logo of the coffee shop that Stiles usually goes to on his way to work. Which is right across the street from the Sheriff’s Station where he’s been working as a Deputy for about a year now. Where Derek also works.
Stiles manages to fumble the phone and end the call as he does so, and he tugs the sheets from his hips to just above his waist.
When Derek walks over to the bed and holds one of the cups out to Stiles, there’s no way that Stiles could miss his own messy handwriting across Derek’s forearm, spelling out his real name.
“So,” Derek says as he sits down on the side of the bed once Stiles takes the coffee and sits up. “About last night…”