#hercules poirot x you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

604to647 · 5 months ago

Text

Husband Material

3.1K / Detective Tim Rockford x fem!reader

Summary: You come home drunk after a fun night out and Tim takes care of you.

This one shot is based on that Tiktok trend where girls refer to their boyfriends as their “husband” to see what their reaction will be 🤭🤭

Warnings: 18+ Content (MDNI pls) but it’s all fluff! Maybe Tim gets a little handsy when he helps reader undress 🤷🏻‍♀️ (she’s into it). Drunk reader, consumption of Chinese food. Established relationship, petnames (Shutterbug, gorgeous, baby), soft!Tim. Reader wears a dress and heels (but they hurt her feet).

A/N: After writing Marine Attraction, I couldn’t shake the Tim brainrot so I decided to start a non-linear series of fluffy one-shots for Detective Rockford and his Shutterbug – the series will be called The Rockford Portfolio (… you know, like The Rockford Files but ‘Portfolio’ because reader takes photos 😁😁)

Masterlist

Photography aesthetic dividers by @saradika-graphics 😍

Tim pushes his reading glasses up his nose as his settles in under the fluffy duvet cover, two of your matching pillows propped up comfortably behind his back, ready to dive into his book. You’re not home yet, but Tim doesn’t mind waiting up. Since the two of you exchanged keys six month ago, he’s probably spent more time at your place than his own – he prefers the warmth of your apartment, with the soft décor and personal touches that remind him so much of you to the cold, sparse feel of his own place. He had originally worried that you might mind that most days he comes straight here after his long day at the precinct, but you hadn’t minded one bit.

You didn’t mind making room in your closet for his sharp, if slightly monochromatic suits among your more colourful wardrobe. You didn’t even mind the gun lock box that sits on the top shelf of that same closet; a safe place for Tim’s service firearm where it remains for you, out of sight, out of mind. You certainly didn’t mind the permanent home his gun holster had found on your bed post – within arm’s reach should the mood strike you to see it frame your boyfriend’s broad shoulders. And if the little pile of police paperwork that lives on a corner of your dining room table or any of the other little ways you’ve made room for him in your place didn’t convince him, you would tease that you’d never dare keep him from reading his way through your Agatha Christie collection.

It tickles you to no end that your big bad police detective boyfriend spends all day solving mysteries, only to choose to spend his free time reading books about detectives solving mysteries. When you shared your amusement with Tim, he had winked at you, tapped his finger against his temple and recited, “If the little grey cells are not exercised, they grow the rust.” So delighted at Tim quoting your favourite Christie hero you had immediately attacked his face with your lips, planting breathy butterfly kisses over every inch of his handsome face, the book he was reading consequently knocked to the ground and forgotten for the rest of the evening in lieu of decidedly less bookish activities.

He’s right in the middle of a Hercule Poirot soliloquy when he hears the front door open and then your loud, breathy giggle as you bump into the foyer table; shortly after, your keys jingle when dropped in the key bowl, clinking with his own that he had placed in the same bowl several hours earlier. Tim listens to you struggle a bit with kicking off your shoes, realizing you must finally be free of your work heels when you let out an exaggerated sigh of relief as your tired feet touch the cool hardwood. He emerges from the bedroom just in time to see you wobblily padding towards the kitchen and grins to himself - you’re drunk. Tim calls your name softly and when you see your handsome boyfriend smiling at you, delicious and all at home in your apartment, wearing only a wifebeater and his boxers, your eyes open wide – you were on a way to get a snack, but he’s a snack.

“Timmy!!!!!” you launch yourself in those strong, muscular arms that you know will feel so good around your tired body; Tim catches you easily and envelopes you in his welcoming embrace, his grin only getting wider – you only call him ‘Timmy’ when you get tipsy. You've been so excited to go out with some old work colleagues that didn’t work at your firm anymore, finally able to arrange a get-together that worked with everyone’s busy schedules. Evidently you had a great time tonight – Tim’s glad, he pulls you in for a soft, tender hello kiss before steering you over to the kitchen where you were undoubtedly headed to get something to eat. Sitting you down at the breakfast counter, he fetches you a fresh glass of water and two preventative Advils, and encourages you to tell him all about your evening while he heats up a plate in the microwave.

“What’s that? You made me food?” you exclaim, giddy.

Tim chuckles, “Nothing fancy like that, Shutterbug. I ate dinner at the precinct and brought home my Chinese takeout leftovers. Just plated it so I could heat it up quickly for you when you got home – figured you’d want an après bar snack.”

He’s so sweet. And thoughtful. And hot, you smile dopily as you thank him.

“You know, gorgeous, I could have come picked you up,” Tim looks over at you from the open microwave door.

“You’re so sweet, baby! I know you would have, but you’ve been working so hard on the Pie case – I knew you would already be working late, and I knew we would be late too with all the picture taking. I didn’t want you to get home and then have to go out again. It was easy enough to share a cab. Oh! That reminds me – I gotta check in with the group chat.”

Your fingers are still flying over your phone keyboard as Tim places a plate of steaming hot Chinese food in front of you – you smile gratefully up at him.

Tonight’s night out had been double duty for you – in addition to seeing some friends that you haven’t seen in forever, a local food blog that features your photos regularly had put out a call for cocktail photos, so your group had gone out with the mission of trying as many different mixed drinks as possible.

As he always does after you go out and shoot photos, Tim sits next to you and listens to you as you swipe through your camera roll and happily chirp about the pictures you took: the subjects, lens choices, angles and lighting options. He does his best to concentrate on the pretty pictures on your screen but can’t help stealing glances at your sweet face, alight with enthusiasm and joy.

Finally putting your phone down, you start to dig into your cooled down food as you catch Tim up on the rest of your night, tipsily chatting non-stop in between bites of delicious, greasy food:

“Ok remember when I told you about Vicky’s deadbeat boyfriend who she basically carried through her internship? He apparently tried applying for a job at her new boyfriend’s restaurant??!”

“Guess what they had on the menu, baby?? A flight of spareribs – isn’t that such a cute idea? I thought, ohhh Tim would love this, he can never choose between crispy and bbq. Ha!”

“And she ended up getting two dogs from the shelter! Do you ever thing about getting a dog? I kind of wish we had a dog but we’re both so busy…”

“… should have made him clean the toilets, is what I said.”

“Ooo! Dumplings!”

“They had that Chablis we liked so much at that wine bar in New York! I didn’t get any because we were only getting cocktails for my photos. But no one ever has Chablis – we need to go back!”

“So then you’ll never guess what she said: I would rather eat a lightbulb.”

Your unrestrained laughter rings throughout the kitchen, eyes twinkling in mirth, thoroughly amused by you and your friends’ antics. You’re leaning back in your chair, your feet resting in Tim’s lap as he rubs your sore feet, the very picture of happiness that Tim imagines whenever the stress and realities of his work threaten to envelope him and he needs a little light to guide him forward.

With amazement, Tim watches as you gracefully manipulate your chopsticks and pick up cube after cube of salt and pepper fried tofu and pop them in your mouth, your elegant movements belying your state of inebriation, “Sounds like you had a great time tonight, Shutterbug.”

“Oh we did! I miss those girls so much. It’s hard for us to find a time to all get together but when we do it’s always soooo much fun! We just pick up like we used to when we were all juniors at the firm, it was perfect… well except for those two guys that couldn’t take a hint. Yeesh.”

“What guys?” Tim looks up, eyes darkening, his big, firm hands stop their caressing of your arches.

You wave your chopsticks wildly in the air, as if to dismiss his concern, “Just a couple of guys at the bar that kept sending us drinks. We kept sending them back.” You wiggle your feet in Tim’s grip and he catches on – immediately starting to massage them again.

“Did they give you any trouble?”

“Not really. Too laughable to be trouble – they came over before dessert was brought out to ask why we didn’t accept their drinks? I mean?? We told them that we were drinking for work, like my photo thing, not for fun.”

“And they got the message?”

“I mean, it took a while, but yes – they kept trying dumb lines like, Work hard, play hard!” you scrunch up your face at the ridiculous memory, “I finally had to tell them that my husband’s a cop in order for them to leave us alone!”

Husband. Tim wills himself to keep his expression neutral, as if you hadn’t said something that piqued his interest and sent his heart racing. Husband.

“Oh yeah? What did they have to say to that?”

“Ugh! One of them tried to convince me that he’d be a better husband than 'some meter maid,'” you roll your eyes as you shove black bean chicken chow mein into your mouth, “Timmy, did you splurge for extra crispy noodles?!” Your delight fills Tim with pride – he doesn’t know how you can tell after the sauce practically drowns the noodles, but you always can.

He nods, entertained by your cheery chatter, “You know, everyone has to do a rotation in Parking Enforcement – it’s a legitimate part of training. So, what did you say?”

It takes you a beat to answer, so tickled by the image of your hulking Tim in a little cap and vest writing parking tickets, “I quoted Clueless of course: As if. My husband is the biggest, baddest detective in the LAPD. He’s the smartest investigator on the squad and has cleared more cases than anyone else in the precinct. And he’s a ferocious guard dog who would rip apart any one who would dare make a woman feel uncomfortable.”

“You told them all that, Shutterbug?” Tim’s half proud and half shy at your praise, and still unable to get over that you’re calling him your husband in public. It’s making him unspeakably happy.

You nod vigorously, eyes wide and innocent, as if you couldn’t imagine a world in which Detective Tim Rockford and his accomplishments aren’t being praised to the sky at every given opportunity. “I also told them that my husband is the sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met. And that even though he has hardened criminals scared shitless, he only ever makes me feel loved and supported, 100% appreciated and taken care of. I love my husband!” You look so happy you could cry, and Tim can’t help but feel his entire chest swell at how you described him to those two bozo strangers - that this is how you see him, what he means to you. He loves you so much.

He tells you so as he kisses the top of your head, taking your empty plate to the sink and fetching another glass of water before wrapping his arm tightly around your waist and leading you to the bathroom.

From under his chin, you look up and coo, “And he’s hot too, you know?”

“Hmmmm?” Tim smiles down indulgently to find your cute, drunk face grinning at him mischievously.

“My husband. He’s so fucking hot. I want to climb him like a tree and sink my teeth into all his hard muscles and mark him up so everyone knows he’s mine. Oh my god!” You step in front of Tim, startling him with your sudden movement, the two you continuing to make your way through the bedroom. Under Tim’s watchful eye, you walk backwards as you babble eagerly, trying desperately to make him understand, “You don’t even know how handsome he is?!? He has the perfect nose and the deepest brown eyes. His lips are so soft, perfect for kissing. He is SUCH a good kisser. OH!!! His facial hair looks sooooo good… I wonder what he would look like with a full beard. Probably just as fucking hot as he does now. My husband’s face is DEVASTATING!” You sigh dramatically.

Now starting to get embarrassed at your compliments, Tim turns you around gently and marches forward. Once in the bathroom, you stop abruptly so that Tim bumps into you – giggling, you wiggle your butt into his crotch, wordlessly asking for help you don’t actually need to undress.

Tim disrobes you swiftly – wanting to help you get to bed as soon as possible, but makes sure to kiss a gentle path along the skin he reveals as he unzips the dress he watched you put on for work this morning; after he helps you step out of your dress, he dots kisses down the back of your thighs and calves that leave you shivering in pleasure. Left in just your matching pastel floral lingerie set, you brush you teeth and start your night time skin care while Tim watches you fondly from his seat on the edge of the tub. No matter the circumstances, you’ll never go to bed without washing your face and putting on some of the elixirs and potions that overrun your bathroom counter – Tim’s convinced they must work though - you’re radiant, stunning; if he didn’t often find himself distracted by the soft curves of your enticing body, he would never look away from your beautiful face.

“Did you know your husband has the best wife?”

You look over at him and giggle into the face towel you’re using to dry your cleansed skin, “Oh yeah? Tell me about your wife, Detective Rockford.”

As you start to apply your creams and moisturizers, Tim comes up behind you, gently skimming his fingers up and down your bare sides, leaving little goosebumps in their wake, “My wife is gorgeous. Prettiest woman I’ve ever met, inside and out. She’s smart, kind, and hilarious, and I think the most considerate person on this planet. Did you know when I first met her, she volunteered to wait and be the last to be interviewed by a grumpy detective, so that school trips and families with kids could go first?”

Your eyes crinkle at the memory of when you met Tim at the aquarium nearly a year and a half ago, “How do you know your wife wasn’t just angling to be interviewed by the hot detective?”

Tim points a finger at himself comically, arching his eyebrow at the you in the mirror reflection, Me? Do you mean me – I was the hot detective?

You nod heartily, Of course you.

“Well, looks like my wife had my number from the start. She’s smart like that. Her brain is the sexiest part of her you know? And that’s saying something because everything about her is sexy,” Tim starts kissing your neck. His hands trail up to your breasts and he softly gropes your curves over the lacy fabric before reaching one hand between your bodies and undoes your bra clasp, his other hand ready to help you drag the bra down your arms, exposing your bare chest to the detective's lustful gaze. Nuzzling into your ear, he whispers, “My wife is so fucking hot,” as his fondles your breasts in his big, meaty hands – rolling your nipples between his rough fingers then lightly tugging before releasing them, causing your tits to jiggle.

You turn in Tim’s arms, your lips immediately meeting his, mouth open with an unspoken invitation he eagerly accepts. Tim licks into your mouth hungrily and you match each stroke of his tongue with a brush of yours, every nip of his teeth with an equally playful nibble. You sigh into Tim’s mouth as his lips press to yours over and over, mapping your soft cushiony lips and sucking them swollen to mark you as his. He hardly allows you to take a breath, and you’re not sure anymore if your dizziness is from tonight’s alcohol, or the way Tim’s lips slot so perfectly over yours, stealing all your air. You love it - air is nothing when you have Tim. Moaning softly so the sound fills his mouth, you hear Tim whisper huskily, “Arms up, Shutterbug.”

“Anything you say, Detective,” you shimmy your half naked body playfully in Tim’s arms and raise your arms over your head as requested, and for a second, you can’t help but gaze adoringly at Tim’s devilishly handsome face before your vision is obstructed.

“Hey! What th-?” When Tim’s grinning face comes back into view, he lowers your arms to your sides and you look down at your chest. You realize that Tim has slipped one of his oversized band t-shirts over your head to wear for sleeping. You give him an exaggerated pout and a silly whine before pressing your now t-shirt clad body to his, your final drunk attempt at seduction.

Tim dispenses a soft kiss to your lips, nose, then forehead, “Not tonight, gorgeous. You’re drunk. You don’t need sex, you need water.” He points to the glass of water he brought from the kitchen and leaves to place the drink on your bedside table so that you can finish getting ready for bed.

Snuggling under the covers after taking three big gulps of water from your glass at Tim’s insistence, you sleepily arch you butt against Tim’s bulge, giving it a half-hearted shake, stopping only when he gives you a pinch on the bum, murmuring, “Tomorrow, Shutterbug.” You grin at the promise and yawn, “Goodnight, Timmy,” before finally succumbing to your alcohol fueled exhaustion and passing out.

Tim wonders if you’ll remember calling him your husband tomorrow. He wonders if you meant to say it or if it just slipped out. He wonders what it could mean that you said it at all. He wonders if you somehow know about the ring box that’s hidden in a pair of old sport socks he never uses at the back of his dresser drawer in the bedroom of a house that he’s hardly at anymore.

Tim tightens his arms around you - he wonders a lot of things, but the one thing he never wonders about is how he feels about you. Pressing one last soft kiss to your shoulder, Tim breathes in your soft scent – a mixture of perfume, lotion, home, and whispers, “Good night, Mrs. Rockford.”

#tim rockford #tim rockford fic #tim rockford fanfiction #tim rockford x you #tim rockford x f!reader #tim rockford x reader #pedro pascal characters fanfiction #pedro pascal characters

216 notes · View notes

bamboozledbird · 1 month ago

Text

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU (Reader's Version) // Prev. / Chapter 6

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, ofc, omc Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 6k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes) Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. Four years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because most days you feel like a shadow, some horrifically sad creature caught halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter.

You can’t scrub the bitter smell of hospital from your memories, not even with denial. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Beacon Hills’ bloody underbelly is making it pretty damn hard for him to keep his promise.

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real, and old family secrets rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive?

Maybe, the real question is: How long will they want to?

Chapter Summary: You go full Charlie Kelly and start to put all the pieces together. Stiles knows more than he lets on, but for some reason you trust him anyway.

A/N: check me out on ao3 (dork_knight) for the full lore version!

Taglist: @eaterof-concrete, @m30wk1ttycat

You played and replayed the video at least a hundred times, over and over again, examining every poorly shot, grainy frame until your eyes burned. You were frantic—a rabbit, picking her den apart, ripping her fur out, searching for all the minute flaws and misplaced straw; a girl, chewing her cheek bloody, tearing at her tights, desperately looking for some kind of explanation that wouldn’t completely shatter her fragile grasp on reality.

It would be one thing if it was just the video. You could easily rationalize the video away; you’d seen enough fan-made edits of Buffy and Twilight to know that amateur editors were hardly amateurs anymore—but it wasn’t just the video. It was the video, and the gutted video clerk, and the mangled bus driver, and the severed woman with wolf fibers found her butchered corpse—all interconnected by one very furry, clawed, fanged… thing.

Rolling onto your back, you scrubbed at your eyes, fingers cruel and violent in their attempt to scour away images of blood, and death, and monsters. There had to be an explanation. A rational explanation. Your gaze reflexively drifted towards the charm bundle on your windowsill, propped up against a few of your favorite novels.

The books were old, spines creased and splitting at the corners from little fingers and a lot of love. They were your mom’s before they were yours; you read them together under the covers whenever it rained. For a long time, you kept them hidden away under your bed with all the other things that might crumble your brittle will, but the yellowing pages steeped in memories didn’t seem so haunting anymore. You were already halfway through the stack, consuming the faded ink like a fiend in the night. It was odd; there wasn’t much that had changed since now and then. Really, only one thing. It made sense, you supposed after some thought. Your childhood favorites: Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, the Hercule Poirot novels, they were exactly the kind of thing a sheriff’s son would appreciate.

The largest book in the pile was your complete collection of Sherlock Holmes. You chewed on your lip, eyes tracing the elegant swoops and swirls illuminated on the spine. Words curled along your brainstem in time with the loops, breaking through the buzzing in your mind with quiet British flourish: When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Your nose scrunched, bottom lip trapped between your teeth. Surely, you hadn’t eliminated all logical explanations yet. Surely.

The metallic embellishments glinted at you, taunting you with their unmistakable presence and insistent reminder of your evening’s unavoidable ending. There was only one place to go for the improbable, after all; you just had to get past your pride and everything you believed to be true.

Before you could finish putting on your shoes, your dad found his way into your room. He lingered on the border of the black cherry floor. His stance was awkward, unsure of his footing, and you froze with your shoelace in hand. After a moment of stilted silence, he cleared his throat and loosened his tie from its chafing Windsor knot, “I just wanted to let you know I’ll be out later than usual.”

Nodding, you tied your laces into neat bows and pulled the wrinkles in your tights straight, “Parent Teacher Conferences, right?”

“Mhm,” he paused and attempted a smile. The edges were stiff, as if his mouth had forgotten the movement, at least when directed at you, “Should I be worried?”

It was his attempt at a joke; you knew that. You still felt a flutter of anxiety. Despite Stiles’s reassurances, you weren't so cavalier about breaking the rules. “All A’s,” you finally said, quietly to your feet.

Your dad gave you a real smile; smaller than his previous attempt at playfulness, but this one was your favorite. He was proud. It’d been a long time since he’d looked at you with anything other than grief and unease. “That’s my girl.” He rapped his knuckles against your door frame and said, “There’s takeout money on the table. Don’t stay out too long; there’s a—”

“Curfew, I know.” You slung your bag over your shoulder and fiddled with the strap, “I’ll be back soon.”

He didn’t ask you where you were going. He never did. You weren't sure what that said about your relationship, but you didn’t want to think about it any longer than you had to. There were far more pressing things to dwell on.

Maggie was in her kitchen when you opened the door to her house. It was cozy, small; she'd inherited it from her mother when she passed years ago. There were still signs of her 70s nostalgia all over every room. The shag carpet was horrendous, but you kind of liked the color. The muted green almost looked like a bed of moss, like something out of a fairytale. You had your own key; you’d had one since you were old enough to be a latchkey kid—even though you were never really on your own for long. There was always someone around to help you with your homework, bake you brownies without getting shell in the batter, read you stories about far away places and imaginary worlds. You’d had a wonderful childhood until it ended; some people weren’t that lucky. You knew that you were fortunate to have twelve years of Rockwellian bliss; it was more than a lot of people got. Knowing, however, still didn’t make the after any easier.

“Want a scone?” Maggie’s head was buried in the oven, steam curling around her shoulders. She emerged with a tray of browned lumps in pink oven-mitted hands, “They're slightly burnt, but it’s not my fault. My timer betrayed me.”

You didn’t reply. You chewed on your lip and studied the plants hanging from the ceiling. The Angelica was in full bloom, little clusters of white fuzzy fireworks. The roots were supposed to ward off evil. You would’ve scoffed at the thought a week ago. Now, there was a lingering ‘what if’ you couldn’t shake.

You sighed quietly, the exhaustion rattling through your chest, and trailed your gaze to the next plant. Skullcaps were your favorite, not because they were supposed to induce visions, obviously; you liked the blossoms. The fluted periwinkle petals certainly looked magical. You picked a flower from the lowest stem and rolled it between your fingers, “You really believe in this shit, right?” You looked up from your hands and studied Maggie’s face carefully, “It’s not all a scam?”

The anticipated gasp carried through the kitchen, followed by the clang of a plonked baking sheet, “I resent the very implication.”

“I’m serious.” You stared at Maggie’s back, watching for any tell-tale signs of tension or rigidity, “Do you really believe that witches are real and wolfsbane can kill werewolves?”

“I will not be abused in my own home,” there was a lilt in Maggie’s voice, a flippancy that usually made your lips twitch into a smile, but Maggie's hand trembled and sent the scone on the edge of her spatula to the floor. Maggie dropped to her knees and scooped the crumbling pieces into a pile with desperate hands, oddly frantic for something as silly as a dropped pastry.

You squatted next to her and rested your hands over Maggie’s until they stilled. “Mags,” you were quiet, gentle in your sweeping, but Maggie didn’t seem soothed by the clean floor.

Maggie’s chin lifted, but her eyes zeroed in on the tip of your nose instead of your eyes. “Babe.”

You gripped your knees, clinging to the caps with ragged nails and flexed knuckles, like your bones were the only solid thing left in the room. “Can you be serious for once in your life, please.” Your tongue went heavy, adhering to the floor of your mouth, effectively sealing everything else you couldn’t bring yourself to say: Please, I think I’m losing my mind, and I don’t know how much longer I can white-knuckle it.

Maggie turned towards the counter carelessly, and her pinky brushed against the cookie sheet. She let out a sharp hiss through her teeth and shook her hand in the air. “Why does it matter?” Her words were muffled through the blistering finger in her mouth, “People buy what they want to buy.”

Your empathy was thinning and so was your patience. Your teeth gnashed, and you winced when your tongue got in the way. “I don’t give a shit about your delusional customers. You know what I mean.”

“See, ‘delusional,’” Maggie stuffed a scone into her mouth even though it was still steaming. Her eyes watered as she struggled to swallow the wad of blueberry and oatmeal lodged against the roof of her mouth. “Why are we even talking about this?” she said thickly, throat clogged with congealed crumbs and something skittish in her eyes. She bent over the sink and turned the water to cold; you weren't entirely sure if she was soothing the burns on her tongue or simply avoiding eye contact.

“There’s something happening here,” your voice trembled, much to your disdain, and you were further horrified by the stinging in your tear ducts, “and I don’t know what to do.”

Maggie’s head whipped towards you, wetting her hair and splattering her lenses with water droplets that dripped onto her nose, “You don’t have to do anything. That’s not your job.” She clutched your shoulders with desperate fingers, digging into your scapulae until it hurt, “Your job is to go to school, get good grades, and live happily ever after.”

You shook off her hands and wiped your nose against your shoulder, “Why won’t you just give me a straight answer?”

“Well, I am bi–”

“Maggie,” you struggled for words until there was only one left on your tongue, “please.”

A blank expression fell over her face, and then Maggie seemed to sink through the floor even though she was still standing. “Did you read the book?”

You could barely hear her. Your nose shriveled towards your brows, “What book?”

Her eyes shined with something; you couldn’t quite define it. There was a glimmer of remorse, but you couldn’t make out the rest. “‘Beacon Hills’ Bloodlines’.”

For a moment, you were too confused to be frustrated, “Not really.”

Confusion became bewilderment when Maggie left the kitchen without a word. She returned with a thick book; though, book wasn’t quite accurate. It was really a stack of pulp parchment barely held together with a piece of threaded twine. It looked older than the Bloodline’s journal; you could see a few pages sticking out from the others, and the spine was in desperate need of re-stitching. You reluctantly took the pages from Maggie’s hands after she shook it in your face a couple times.

Maggie was quiet when she finally spoke, “Read the journal.” She nodded towards the new book, “That too.”

You frowned at the cover and held it out in front of you like it was contaminated. “Why are you being so weird about this? Just tell me.”

Maggie looked at you, and the most peculiar sensation rolled down your spine. Maggie's eyes were so present, like a shotgun blast, like a meteor shower. Her voice wasn’t even close to loud, but it was just as piercing as her stare, “I made a promise; I have to keep at least part of it.”

Your forehead creased, “Wha...that’s even weirder. Are you fuckin’ Gandalf? Just say it.”

“Trust me,” Maggie’s gaze shifted to the floor, and you almost melted with relief, “there are some things that you’re better off not knowing.”

“Great. Thanks, Obi-Wan,” you rolled your eyes and crammed the bound parchment into your bag, “I’ll figure it out myself.”

A cool hand cupped your cheek before you could leave. You grudgingly met Maggie’s gaze, adjusting your grip on the strap of your bag.

Maggie held onto your shoulders, a breath away from shaking you. “Promise me, you won’t do anything stupid.”

You grimaced, “I–” A flash in Maggie’s eyes dried all the words on your tongue.

“Promise.”

“Promise,” you mumbled.

Maggie finally let you leave, and your feet felt heavier than they did when you walked into Maggie’s apartment. Your bag was heavier, so perhaps it wasn’t all an illusion. The guilt, however, was certainly playing a part in your sagging shoulders. You chewed on a thumbnail and slipped into the comfort of denial. It didn’t count as a broken promise if you didn’t really know what you were promising.

Your dad was still gone when you got home, and you were relieved. Solitude was your only comfort with all this dread chilling your blood. You weren't good with the unpredictable, not anymore. You tried to study it, the way you did with dead languages and theoretical physics, but the methodology wasn't clear. You just wished, for once, you were as scary as people believed.

There was one thing you could do—or rather two. One was on your desk, and the other was at the bottom of your bag.

You started with the journal, and your hair quickly became a nuisance. Every time you bowed your head to get a better look at the messy scrawl, wispy strands obscured your vision. You tied your hair back and nibbled on your lip, struggling to determine if a smudged loop was an ‘a’ or an ‘o.’ They didn’t have computers in the 1800s, you knew that, but it wouldn’t have killed Maggie’s great-great-great-grandmother to quill with a little less ink. Neat cursive was hardly as taxing as cholera.

The pain at the base of your skull was unbearable by the time you made it through half of the entries. Your impatience was rapidly fraying, with yourself and with the lack of insight. Maybe, this was all an elaborate stall—or maybe Maggie really didn’t know anything.

You flopped back against your pillows and starfished your limbs across your bed until all your joints and muscles unkinked. “Fuck me.” Your eyes flicked down your legs, and you glowered at the journal. It was goading you, opened to the middle and sprawled across your thighs, staring at you and all your incompetence.

Your thumbs dug a trench in your skull as you tried to rub the throbbing out of your temples.

One more page. You could read one more page.

You flipped the page, careful with the crumbling corner. The parchment was cluttered with names and arrows; there were a few illustrations too, sketched portraits of the people memorialized on paper. It was inked chaos, but only one word stood out to you. In a large curling script, Hale was spread all over the complicated family tree. You gnawed on your lip and bent your head closer to the small description at the top of the page: The Hale pack founded Beacon Hills in 1856, saving the town from desolation with their wealth. The pack has several branches, extending across the state. They continue to be a prevalent force in their world.

The bloodlines were difficult to follow with all the different branches and untimely deaths. As far as you could tell, the line was documented all the way to 2002. There were a few different sets of handwriting; the style changed every few decades or so, and you flipped to the end of the family line just to check for Maggie’s chicken scratch. You didn’t find her handwriting, but you did notice something familiar on the last line. Derek Hale.

You knew, of course, that Derek would likely be included, but your breath hitched when your finger traced over the notation inscribed next to almost every single one of his family members’ names: Deceased: Arson. Laura Hale was still alive on the tree, and the thought of documenting her death—of giving her an end date —it stole all the air from your lungs.

Your eyes burned, and you quickly flipped back to the start of the Hale bloodline. A few dozen county death records later, the burning in your corneas was due to the strain of one too many computer searches. Still painful, but you much preferred blue light sting to the threat of tears. You focused on it, on the ache; it was so much quieter than all the thoughts fighting you for their turn. They were so loud, a million ravenous locusts buzzing, feasting on your ear canal. You couldn’t make out what they were saying, what they were trying to tell you—what they wanted you to believe.

Derek Hale couldn’t be a werewolf because that would mean werewolves were real, and if werewolves were real, how many other monsters were lurking in the dark? How many creatures from Maggie’s stories were waiting for someone to separate from the herd, biding their time until they could sink their teeth into human flesh?

There was only so much you could find online and in Maggie’s books. Certain secrets had yet to be written.

It was disturbingly easy to find out where Stiles lived. The receptionist at the Sheriff’s station was all too happy to give you his address when you gave her your name. You finally stumbled upon the one perk of being an infamous, pathetic half-orphan: blind faith.

His house was smaller than yours, and you were jealous. All the empty space just made the silence worse, you found. You could see a few spots where the paint was peeling when you got closer, and you smiled at the shoddy patch work. You wondered who tried to fix it. You hoped it was Stiles; you could see the paint in his hair, maybe smeared across his cheek from an ill-advised attempt to scratch his nose. It was adorable.

You knocked on the door and clutched Maggie’s books tighter to your chest. You’d expected Stiles to answer the door, but he didn’t. You didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to you that someone else would be home until Sheriff Stilinski opened the door, but you felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. The Sheriff looked just as surprised to see you; at least, he had an actual reason.

“Oh.” You blinked and devolved into a monosyllabic moron, “Hi.”

Obviously, you knew Stiles was Sheriff Stilinski’s son, but for some reason the idea of them occupying the same place at the same time was dumbfounding. YOur mind couldn’t make sense of it. There was the Sheriff in one box, with all your grief, all your pain, and then there was Stiles. You didn’t fully know what was in his box, but you knew it was good.

“Hey, kid,” Sheriff Stilinski smiled through his confusion, “you okay? Did something—”

“I’mheretoseeStiles,” all your words were smooshed together in one big exhale.

The Sheriff looked even more confused for a moment, and then he gave you a little conspiratorial grin. “He’s up in his room. Go ahead.”

You nodded absently and followed him inside. You stopped thinking about the hefty pile of books in your arms when you noticed the slight limp in Sheriff Stilinski’s step. “Are you okay?”

The Sheriff followed your gaze and waved his hand, “It’s nothing. Barely a scratch.”

You hesitated at the foot of the stairs, looking for blood or something equally horrific. He had no reason to lie to you, but you’d gotten used to the worst case scenario. “You sure?”

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened with his smile, “You sound like my son.”

You mouth ticked up slightly, “That’s not an answer.”

Sheriff Stilinski had a nice laugh, you thought. You grinned as his head shook with another rumbling chuckle. “Now you really sound like my son. I hope he hasn’t driven crazy too.”

“Eh,” you shrugged a little and smiled, “he’s alright.” Your voice dropped a little, like you were telling a secret, “More than, actually. He’s…good.”

The Sheriff looked surprised briefly, a spasm of disbelief, and then all the muscles in his face seemed to melt with fondness. “He is,” his voice was a bit gravelly when he spoke, like it got lodged halfway up his throat. He loved his son; it was obvious. You wondered if your dad ever looked like that when talked about you. You wondered if he even talked about you at all.

“Not a lot of people are,” you said quietly, looking down at your sneakers. The white wasn’t even white anymore. They were graying from years of stepping on your own feet, kicking car doors closed, tripping over asphalt. You weren't the kind of girl who could keep shoes clean; that was one thing about you that hadn’t changed. Sometimes, it felt like everything else had, and none of it was for the better.

Sheriff Stilinski waited until you looked up, and then he smiled at you, almost as fondly as before. “You are.”

You were overwhelmed with feeling, so close to an emotion you couldn’t name, but you knew you’d felt it before. Once upon a time, when parents were parents, and children were children.

The Sheriff rested his hand on your shoulder and squeezed. You were tipping into tearful, and you’d never been so grateful to hear Stiles’s voice.

“Dad, who’s—” Stiles stopped at the top of the stairs and stared at the two of you. His jaw dangled, and it didn’t snap shut until his dad snorted. Stiles’s eye twitched, and you could see the reboot loading behind his eyes. You wholly understood the sentiment.

His brain regained function, and apparently all he could come up with was, “Hey.”

You grinned to yourself, a small secret smile at his predicament, and your hand cocked in a little wave, “Hey.”

Sheriff Stilinski cleared his throat, “I’ll—I’m going to get something to eat.” Neither of you looked at him; you were too busy playing a strange staring contest with equally stupid looks on your faces.

Stiles recovered from his stupor once you were alone. His face settled into something bitter, stony at all the edges, irritation tucked into the creases. It was hardly the face you expected to see when you finally paid him a surprise visit.

Your brow curved, and you tried not to shrink in on yourself. “You look pissed.”

Stiles snorted and drummed his fingers against the railing, “Yeah, well, you’re in a perpetual state of pissiness, so we’ve all got problems.” You must have crumpled this time, at least a little bit, because his scowl thawed and his hands fell limply by his sides. “Sorry. That’s not—displaced aggression, it’s my sweet spot.”

You shrugged and smiled slightly, a little stiff, a lot amused, “You’re not exactly wrong.”

“Still.”

You played another game of eye-contact chicken, and Stiles scratched the back of his rapidly flushing neck. Your hair, still damp from the light drizzle, fell in front of your face as you tilted your head towards the stairs, “So, you gonna invite me up, or…”

He nodded a little too quickly and definitely too fervently, “Yeah, sorry. I’m just—”

“Pissed?” you smirked and adjusted your grip on your books, trekking up the stairs. Stiles narrowed his eyes at you, but he was smiling. He had a nice smile; it was big, loose—unrestrained in a way a lot of people were afraid to be. It was the kind of smile you couldn’t help but return.

Stiles let out a profound sigh and shook his head, “It’s all Scott’s fault.” You shot him a dubious look as he pushed his bedroom door open for you. He shrugged, “If I only tell it with carefully selected parts of the story, it’s all his fault.”

Your mouth twitched. Your smile was small, but it peeled back a good deal of the person you thought you should be. So much so, there was a little you peeking underneath. “We can pretend it is. Just for today.”

Stiles’s throat bobbed with his swallow, and when he smiled back at you, slowly, fleetingly, but ever-so sweetly, you finally realized you were awkwardly standing in the middle of his room. Like an idiot.

His room was exactly what you expected, and that was…you didn’t realize that you knew him well enough to expect plaid bedding and posters of cringey emo bands that were heavily featured on most of your playlists.

His desk was cluttered with various books and papers, stacked with no apparent rhyme or reason. You recognized the bestiary he bought from Curio Killed the Cat; the burgundy and gold binding was striking against all his monochrome textbooks. There were a few papers poking out from the aged pages, printouts of something furry and familiar. Before you could get a better look, Stiles bustled past you, doing a quick but rather poor job of hiding his dirty laundry under his bed and behind his closet door.

Stiles was slightly out of breath when he finished, dropping onto the foot of his bed, “So…you stalkin’ me now?”

You rested your hip against his desk and hummed, “Seemed only fair.”

“Well,” his face split into a bright, infuriating grin, “I am flattered.”

“Shut up.” His grin widened, and you rolled your eyes, glaring at your bowed reflection in a chrome lamp on the edge of his desk. It was in grave need of a good dusting, along with most of the room. “You’re literally my only option.”

“So, you’re sayin’ I’m the one.” Stiles’s smirk was audible, and you sputtered.

Your ears were unnaturally hot, and so was the back of your neck. You meant to groan, wanted him to know just how unamusing you found him, but your throat failed you. Your complaint came out airy, huffy, and it trembled against your soft palate. Truthfully, it sounded awfully similar to a whine; you scowled at the sound and squeezed your books tighter to your chest, “I’m leaving. Right now. I’ve reached my maximum capacity for bullshit.”

Long fingers circled around your wrist before you could go too far. They were blistering against your cool skin, but a shiver shuddered through your arm all the way to your skull.

“Don’t go,” Stiles hummed softly, close enough to warm the shell of your ear. “I owe you one, remember?”

You braved a look at him through your lashes, and he was smiling at you again; this one was nervous. He had forgotten, it seemed, to let go of your wrist until now. Stiles sat back down on his bed, and you absently brushed your fingers over the lingering sensation of his fingertips.

“Right,” you looked around the room and chewed on your bottom lip, “so…what was that whole thing with Derek Hale?”

Stiles paused. You could feel him watching you, studying you like one of his puzzles. “He needed a ride.”

You set your books on his desk, and Stiles nodded towards the chair in front of him. You hesitated before sitting down, feeling a bit like you were giving up the battlefield high ground, “You’re like…friends, then?”

“Absolutely not.” If the emphatic denial wasn’t enough to convince you, the violent shake of his head was telling enough. “Kind of wish he was dead, actually. It would solve so many problems.”

“So you don’t actually know him that well,” you murmured, sinking into the chair with all your hopes and plans.

Stiles’s neck craned as he studied your face, “Why?” You just looked at him, keeping your face impassive, and his eyes went a little buggy. “I know he looks dreamy, but that would be nothing but a nightmare for everyone involved. Trust me.”

Your face twisted, lips curling around the unsavory taste in your mouth. “I don’t—what was wrong with him yesterday?”

Stiles didn’t look entirely convinced, but skepticism did look a lot like concern. “Stomach bug.”

You rolled your eyes. It would’ve made you laugh under any other circumstance, but you didn’t feel much like laughing now. You’d been a tick away from the edge ever since you realized that Lydia had been this close to being butchered by that thing.

Your fingers curled into tight fists, knuckles straining, “I’m not an idiot, okay. I know there’s something weird going on.” You looked up from your lap with sharp eyes, but if he looked a little closer, he’d see the desperation underneath, “And I know you know something about it.”

Stiles swallowed hard and twisted his fingers together, “I’m actually known for knowing nothing about anything. Ever.”

He flinched when you stood up abruptly. The chair rolled back into his desk and sent a few pencils to the floor. You glared at them, like they did it on purpose just to spite you, and your glower drifted towards the glint of citrine and garnet on the corner of his desk. “This.” You picked up the bestiary and tried to shake it in front of his face, but it was too heavy to do your frustration justice, “Why did you buy this?”

His eyes, miraculously, grew rounder, “I told you. D—”

“N’ D, I know, but I looked into it. This is real; it’s transcribed from a real Ancient Greek text.”

“...I like authenticity.” Stiles shrugged towards his fidgeting hands, “I take my craft seriously.”

Scoffing, you dropped the book on top of his bed, “So you’re saying you believe the whole mountain lion theory?”

“Well, obviously no—”

“Then what do you believe?” Your chest seethed with quick shallow breaths as you paced from one side of his room to the other, “Because I was looking through this genealogy line, and the Hales have been here before Beacon Hills was even Beacon Hills, and there’s a pattern of—hold on.”

You snatched Maggie’s journal off of his desk and flipped it open to the Hale family tree, bookmarked with the thick stack of county death reports you’d printed out. “Look, there’s a series of premature, violent deaths in their line directly after a series of animal attacks on the town, and then all of it just stopped a few generations before Derek’s mom became the head of the pa—”

You didn’t know when Stiles stood up, but he was in front of you now, stopping you in your tracks. He brushed his fingers through his short crop of hair and shook his head, “Hold on, okay. Take a breath—”

You didn’t hear him, not really. Truthfully, you didn’t even notice that he’d started talking. You shoved the pages closer to his face, and all your words rushed past your lips in one carved out breath, “And then it all started again after Laura Hale was killed, and she was found with wolf fibers on her body—”

Stiles’s brows flew towards his hairline, “How do you kno—”

“She became the head of the family after Talia died, right?” Your hair was as wild as your eyes after a series of urgent tugging, and you prayed to all the mythical gods in every game you’d ever played that you sounded saner than you looked. They might actually exist, after all. Who's to say that Selûne didn't exist in a world where werewolves did? “‘Cause she’s the oldest living, fully conscious relative, and then immediately after she's killed, the animal attacks start up again, like she was keeping something in-check.”

“Slow down.” Stiles gripped your shoulders. You were closer than either of you realized until you looked up and your noses were almost touching. He swallowed thickly and let go of you after a moment, taking a step back, “A couple of days ago you thought this was all bullshit.”

You chewed on your lip and your indecision, looking for something in his face. You didn’t know what, but you were pretty sure you found it when his mouth furrowed into a concerned frown. It was for you, you realized, not because of you. That was…a rarity in your life as of late. You didn’t hate it.

Sighing, you pulled your phone out of your jacket pocket and opened the video from Lydia’s phone. “A couple of days ago I hadn't seen this,” you mumbled, shoving the phone into his hand.

Stiles looked at you for a moment longer and then pressed play. His face was unreadable, save for the small flinch when the beast shattered the store window, and you hated it. “Where did you get this?” Stiles finally said quietly. His voice was low and infected with something dire.

You rifled through your papers, something to keep your hands busy and your eyes off of the dark look on Stiles’s face, “Someone sent it to Lydia—it was a blocked number, so don’t ask who.”

“Did she—”

“I deleted it before she could.”

Neither of you needed to say it; you both knew Lydia was clinging to sanity by the skin of her perfect teeth. She couldn’t see the proof that the monster under her bed was real. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Good.” Stiles rubbed a hand over his face, looking so much older than sixteen, and he flickered his gaze to your face, “You can’t show this to anyone. You know that, right?”

“Besides Scott,” you retorted dryly.

Stiles almost smiled. There was a ghost of one hiding in the corners of his mouth, but it faded before it could materialize. “Believe me, he really doesn’t need any more proof. Delete it.”

He sighed at your scowl and tried again, “Please delete it.”

You shook your head and grabbed your phone from his hands, “Not until you tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know anything.” Stiles held up his hands and took a careful step towards you, “Really. I know as much as you do.”

You stared at him. You weren't sure if you were a good judge of character. You’d like to think you were, but it wasn’t like you spent a lot of time around other people. Even before you got trapped in your head, you really only had one friend, and you used to think you’d be friends with her for the rest of your lives. Maybe longer.

You’d been wrong before. You didn’t want to be wrong again.

Stiles reached for your hand, and you let him lace your fingers together. “I know how you feel. It sucks, and it’s kind of exciting, but mostly freakin’ terrifying—and all you need to know is that it’s going to be okay. Okay?”

Your chin jerked in a rigid little nod. You softened slightly when he squeezed your hand. He wasn’t telling you everything; you were almost 100% certain of that, but you were also pretty sure he wasn’t lying. That was enough for you. For now.

“The file room,” you said quietly.

Stiles’s lips drew together into a little pucker, “What?”

“The evidence room with all the files,” you looked up at him, and the ember of hope was stoked in your eyes, “there’s probably more there.”

He bit down on his cheek, “I don’t know—”

You folded her arms over her chest, chin lifting in defiance, “You promised.”

Stiles sighed and ran his hand over his head. His smile was a little affectionate thing. He sighed and shook his head, “I promised.”

“Well, alright then.” Your shoulders relaxed, and you sat back down in his desk chair, “Middle of the night break-in, it’s a date.”

#stiles stilinski x reader #stiles stilinski imagine #stiles stilinski #dylan o'brien x reader #dylan o'brien imagine #teen wolf #stiles stilinski x you #stiles stilinski fanfiction #stiles stilinksi x reader #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf fanfiction #stiles stilinski imagines

62 notes · View notes