#my first fic ever so be gentle

[sylvesterelle]

So this started out as emotional word vom about Stiles finding Derek in D.C. in @sterektrashbag‘s ask (peep it here) and somehow turned into 15k of Stiles moving to Washington, Derek working at a museum, and everyone actually working through their goddamn issues (+ David Bowie, glowy magic pack bonds, and a supernatural archive under the Smithsonian).

Could be read as a one-shot, but will probably end up writing two more parts because feelings™.

Read on Ao3. 

Float Until You Learn to Swim

When you’re part of a pack, you’re never really alone. Even when Stiles was at his darkest, locked inside his own head, he knew this, could feel the faintest of threads tied somewhere around his ribcage, each one tugging lightly to remind him that his family and friends were still there, still alive, at least for one more day.

After the Nogitsune, when the world got to be too much and Stiles felt like he was choking on dead air, he took to closing his eyes and pressing the heel of this hand to the spot just under his breastbone, fingers splayed out over his chest until the steady thrumming of the threads drowned out his racing heart.

He never talked about it with Scott or his dad, never asked if anyone else experienced the pack bonds the same way. He told himself it was because it felt too personal, too private, but a voice in the back of his head wondered if it was more than that. If maybe he was afraid to find out what he was feeling wasn’t real - just another thing his brain conjured up to deal with a reality composed of more pain than any 19 year old boy could survive unbroken. That same voice whispered that even if it was real, it was one sided; after all, his packmates were the ones who forgot him. If he asks, it might just mean definitive proof that he needs them much more than they need him.

So he doesn’t ask, and whenever a member of the pack caught him absentmindedly rubbing at his chest he played it off as a bruise, or an itch, or, on one memorable occasion, heartburn.

“This is it Scotty, this is what’s going to get me – not a rogue werewolf or a shapeshifter or, god forbid, a selkie, but the diabolical clutches of acid reflux.” He had moaned, sprawled out on his friend’s bed.

Scott just threw a bottle of Tums at his head and turned back to his homework. Stiles made a mental note to research why Scott even had them around; did the same werewolf healing magic that could heal bullet wounds and fix severed arteries meet its match with common indigestion?

Stiles wasn’t sure if Scott and the other wolves just ignored his repeated excused and chalked it up to Stiles being Stiles, or if his pulse had become so unsteady it was impossible to recognize the tell-tale blip of a lie. That question was also firmly shelved in the ‘do not touch’ corner of his brain.

Real or not, shared or not, it was the bonds that allowed Stiles to even consider leaving Beacon Hills for Georgetown. He had tested them in the days after graduation, driven an hour to the coast to sit in the sand and take a second to just breathe, away from the memories that flooded every corner of Beacon Hills; a moment to let himself get lost in salt air and waves licking at the sand while the threads pulsed steadily in his chest.

On his second try, he drove south to San Francisco, ostensibly to visit the magic shops Deaton had recommended to resupply their wolfsbane stock and pick up the books he needed for summer Spark training. After the latest supernatural shit show, he figured it was time to stop ignoring whatever abilities Deaton said he had – if it was something he could use to protect his pack, then it was worth learning how to control, even if the thought of being something…more than human still left him a little uneasy. Just as at the ocean, the bonds remained strong, radiating warmth through his chest as the miles clicked past on the odometer.

For his final test, he packed up the Jeep with food and water and drove up to Washington. His mother had loved the mountains, the thickness of the forests, how the snow-capped peaks looked reflected in the calm waters of lakes carved by ancient glaciers. His family had a cabin they visited every summer when Stiles was young, a small wooden thing deep in the Cascades next to a crystal blue lake. The sheriff, still a deputy then, would wake him up just before dawn, tackle-box packed and ready, and teach him to fish in the clear waters. There’s a photo still hanging in the entryway of their house from one such morning, a seven-year-old Stiles proudly holding up a sunfish just a little bigger than his palm with his brown hair sticking up as if electrocuted and a gap-toothed grin showing off the two missing teeth he’d lost the week before.

His mom preferred to watch the sunrise from land, cradling a fresh cup of coffee and waving at her boys from her favorite spot on the porch swing. Some afternoons, she would take Stiles out in the old rowboat, dropping anchor in the middle of the lake so they could stretch out and let the sun warm their upturned faces. Even at the deepest point, the water was so clear Stiles could see straight to the bottom and he spent hours swimming deeper and deeper, but never touching the lakebed.

His mother in water was a sight to behold, all crinkled eyes and laughter ringing out as she cannon-balled from the side of the boat, splashing Stiles and twisting gracefully away when he tried to retaliate. She loved to sneak up on John when his back was turned, winking at Stiles and putting a finger to her lips before leaping on his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms over his shoulders to pull him under the surface. He would come back up sputtering, Claudia still clinging to his back until he pulled her around, cradling her in his arms and dropping a kiss to her wet forehead before tossing her soundly into the water.

Stiles’ most vivid memories of his mom were from the cabin - the way her dark hair billowed out underwater, how she curled up with his dad under the holey knitted blanket she had made him one Christmas, the sound of her off-key singing as she made waffles for breakfast (Always waffles, never pancakes. His mom claimed pancakes didn’t have personality, but his dad told him she just liked the way syrup pooled in the little waffle wells.).

The first summer after her death, Stiles and John didn’t go back to the cabin. The official excuse was that John couldn’t get the time off, having taken longer and longer shifts at the station to distract himself from the too-empty house and his too-cold bed. Stiles spent most of that first summer at the McCall’s, eating peanut butter sandwiches with Scott in a semi-permanent bed fort in the living room. He didn’t talk about his mom and wouldn’t even if Scott had asked – but Scott never did, just handed him the other half of his sandwich when Stiles finished his own and hugged him when he curled his sticky fingers in Scott’s t-shirt, silently asking for comfort beneath the canopy of sheets.

As the years went on, they stopped mentioning the cabin, stopped making excuses. It was a place inextricably tied up with the memory of Stiles’ mother, a memory that was still too painful, too present to confront head on. But the photo still hung in the entryway, and Stiles occasionally gave it a passing thought, fantasized about running away to the cabin where he could pretend that werewolves weren’t real, that evil was something that only existed in fiction, and that his own hands weren’t washed in blood.

Sometimes, when he thought about where Derek might have ended up (a pastime he pursued more often than he’d like to admit), Stiles imagined he found the cabin, dusty and untouched, and decided to stay. He could picture it so clearly: Derek stretched out on the couch (a lurid orange plaid monstrosity Stiles’ mom loved to pieces) with a book in his hand and a small fire burning in the hearth, a pile of split logs outside where he had spent the day chopping wood for winter. Those times, he could almost swear he felt a phantom spike of warmth in his chest, not quite the tug of pack bonds, but something that felt like it could be. And if the warmth burned a little brighter when Stiles imagined the way Derek would look with a red flannel shirt rolled up over his forearms and bunching around his strong shoulders as he swung an axe, thought a touch too hard about the way his hair would fall on his forehead, thick and soft without product and a little damp from sweat , well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

Imaginings aside, Stiles had never thought seriously about going back to the cabin. Not until the day of his graduation party, which found him sat on the steps of the back porch while members of his pack mingled with kids from their class and members of Beacon Hills’ finest, the spot under his breastbone burning steady and warm. There was a half-eaten cake and a small stack of presents and cards on a folding table in the corner, and when the sheriff dropped down beside him a moment later, he held a beer in one hand a small brown box in the other.

“That beer for me?” Stiles asked, nudging his dad with an elbow.

The sheriff scoffed. “Keep dreaming, kid.”

He tipped the bottle back once before setting it at his feet, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“I had something I wanted to give you. I’m not sure if it’s the right time, if it will ever be the right time but…it’s yours. It should be yours.” He tapped the box on his knee a couple times before thrusting it at his son.

“I thought we were doing presents later, but I won’t tell if you…” Stiles’ voice petered out as he lifted the lid of the box and saw a braided leather keychain with two gold keys nestled in white tissue paper.

“Dad, what is this?”

The sheriff shifted in his seat. “It’s ah, it’s the key to the cabin. Your mom’s cabin. I know we haven’t been in a long time and that’s probably my fault, but I found it the other day when I was poking around in the attic and I thought, well, I thought you should have it.  I remembered how much you loved that place how much your mother loved-”

The sheriff cut off, clearing his throat.

“Well, anyway, I, ah, I called in a favor from the ranger service up there – had one of the guys go check it out and hook up the water and electricity. He said everything looked good – nothing broken or anything.” He nodded towards the box. “The bigger key is for the front door and the little one is for the boat shed out back.”

He reached over and picked up the key ring, running a finger over the braided fob with a small, sad smile.

“Your mom made this. I don’t know if you remember, but she had this phase where she fancied herself a knitter. Made this really terrible blanket one year –scratchy as all hell and not what you’d call structurally sound, but I used it all the time just to see that proud little smile on her face.”

“I remember,” Stiles said quietly.

“After she moved on from knitting, she started messing around with things like this.” The sheriff lifted the keychain.

“She didn’t get very far with it before…well, before. But she finished this one. I forgot I even still had it.”

John laid them back in the box and rubbed a thumb over his forehead.  

“So uh, I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s yours if you want it. You can take your friends up, or maybe I can get some time this summer…” He nodded once, decisive. “It’s been empty too long, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Stiles looked down at the keys and gently touched one end of the braid.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

He looked over and smiled at his dad, eyes shining with what they both would deny as wetness.

“Thank you.”

The sheriff cleared his throat again. “You’re welcome. Happy graduation, son. I’m ah, I’m very proud of you, and I know she would be too.”

He reached out and pulled Stiles into a one-armed hug, patting him on the back before grabbing his beer and heading towards the food table, a Stilinski man through-and-through in his dislike of emotional confrontation.

“Only one piece of cake dad, don’t think you get a free pass because of emotional manipulation!” Stiles called after him.

The sheriff, as usual, paid no mind.

*

Stiles hadn’t known what to do with the keys. Part of him wanted to leave the party and drive up immediately, the other half shied away at the thought of seeing it again, his heart giving a painful squeeze thinking about his mother’s favorite mug (a lopsided thing Stiles made her) sitting unused in the cupboard or diving into the lake without her splashing in beside him.

So he kept them in the box, stashed in his bedside table as the summer stretched on and he went swimming with the pack, held video game tournaments with Scott, and attended Spark lessons with Deaton.

In the end, his desire to see the cabin again won out over his fear, and as the last few weeks of summer approach, he made the decision to go up. He rationalized that it would be the perfect opportunity to complete his last test of the bonds, but it was also something he knew he had to do for his mom. Claudia had lived too long as a ghost in the house, an invisible weight they refused to acknowledge but affected every part of their lives. His dad had understood when Stiles told him, and quietly agreed that maybe it was time to bring the boxes back down from the attic, stop letting the memory of her languish in the dark.

*

Though Stiles told Scott where he was going, he asked his friend to keep it quiet. It’s not that he wanted to keep it from the rest of the pack, necessarily, but it wasn’t something he thought he could explain. Scott had been there before; had known his mom and heard stories of the cabin, seen the photos and understood exactly how much it meant to Stiles. He had been there after, filled the glaring gap in his summers as best he could with his friendship and his loyalty and his ineffable Scott-ness, and Stiles knew he was the only other person other than his dad who could understand Stiles’ need to return to the cabin alone.

He kept both Scott and his dad in the dark about his the desire to test the pack bonds and make sure that, even a thousand miles away and surrounded by nothing but forest and stone, he would still feel his pack ties thrumming in his chest. Part of him, that quiet, black part that seemed to invade his mind and stop his heart like ice, whispered that if he couldn’t feel them that far away, he wasn’t really pack. That insidious voice told he needed to belong to them so much more than they needed his belonging and when they disappeared, he’d have to confront that he wasn’t pack, wasn’t anything at all - just a fragile, broken boy who believed he could run with wolves.

The thought made the spot under his chest ache, so he buried the feeling and turned up the volume on the Jeep’s radio as he continued on the winding road north. His mom loved music, used to make these mix tapes for them to listen to on the 12 hour drive up. The sheriff had told Stiles he found her tape collection in the same forgotten corner with the keys, but neither had felt ready to listen to them. But now, in his mom’s car on the familiar drive to her favorite place in the world, Stiles felt like it was time.

Claudia Stilinski had eclectic tastes - she liked classic rock and loved belting out “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” encouraging Stiles to join in from the back seat and poking John until he’d warble along with them. Some days were dedicated to funk, filled with Parliament and Earth, Wind, and Fire; other days, she’d spend hours playing nothing but The Beach Boys’ Greatest Hits. Above all else, Stiles’ mom loved Fleetwood Mac. She loved the ballads and the break up songs and could never, ever sit still when she played them. Claudia listened with her whole body, letting Stiles stand on her toes as she spun him around the kitchen or dancing in her seat with her arm out the Jeep window to feel the breeze while she sang, eyes shut and face turned up in total bliss. John would joke that she would leave him for Stevie Nicks in heartbeat, and every time she’d respond by putting on “Everywhere” and serenading him, lifting their interlaced fingers to press kisses to the back of his hand until he stopped pouting and sang along.

It was Fleetwood Mac that Stiles chose to accompany his pilgrimage, running his fingers over the handwritten label before sliding the tape in and cranking the volume up. Loud enough that it covered even the trademark jangling of the Jeep’s engine; so loud that all he could think about was the words, and all he could do was tighten his grip on the steering wheel and sing along.

But listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness Like a heartbeat drives you mad In the stillness of remembering what you had And what you lost…

And if Stiles’ sleeve was a little wet where he’d scrubbed it across his face, well, that was no one’s business but his own.

*

It’s easier than he expected. He pulls the Jeep over on the side of the road a few times on the way up, has to press his hand to his chest to reassure himself the bonds are still there and force air through his lungs to stave off the panic attack would overcome him, if he let it. But when he arrives, just before dusk, the bonds are still there and glowing warmly, a silent message of support to offset the nerves coiled in his stomach.

It looks just the same.

The wood is a little more worn than he remembers, the red paint of the deck curling up in small flakes. Tall grasses sway gently where there was once trim lawn and the stones of the path are loose where weeds have pushed up their edges. But the forest is still as tall and vital as Stiles remembers, and if he closes his eyes, listens to the birds calling and wind running through the leaves, he can almost believe himself six years old again, running through the trees with outstretched hands and spinning in circles until the branches blur over his head and he tips over, dizzyingly happy and so terribly alive.

He shoots his dad a text to let him know he’s arrived then steels himself before opening the front door, gripping the leather chain so tightly his knuckles bleed white.

If this was a movie, there’d be rain, he thinks. There’d be rain and that hazy half-light that always precedes a summer storm, rose-tinged air under a clouded sky.

But this isn’t a movie, and there is no rain. Instead, the air is warm and dry and the sunset paints the sky every color Stiles can name, swelling to a deep scarlet where the sun melts into the lake.

She would have liked that, Stiles thinks. How the colors bled into each other, the way they looked reflected in the calm surface of the lake. And that’s the thought that propels him to turn the key and open the door, stepping into the cabin for the first time in a decade.

It’s dark – the blinds drawn and the furniture still covered in the white sheets they’d draped over to ward off dust and dirt through the long winter. Everything not covered bears a thick layer of dust, and when Stiles runs a finger across the hall mirror, he leaves a stark line in the glass.

The cabin feels quiet, suspended. Like all these years, it has been in hibernation, just waiting for him to return. Like it’s been yearning to wake up.

Stiles pauses by the sofa, hovers his hand over the thick sheet. It hits him all at once that this is a place completely untouched by what his life has become. This place has never known werewolves, or magic, or bloodshed. A time capsule of his best memories – of loving, and being loved; of warmth, and freedom, and uninhibited play and joy and everything that has been too far gone from Stiles’ life in the past few years.

The spot beneath his breastbone glows at the thought. Life in Beacon Hills was undeniably settling down – Scott blossoming into his role as Alpha under the tutelage of his mom, the sheriff, and Deaton, and the biggest threat they’d had in months was a group of wayward fairies on a summer road trip to the coast. Maybe…maybe he can have this again. Maybe it’s time.

Stiles grips the sheet and tears it off, revealing the fabric of the couch – the same lumpy, radioactive orange that colored his childhood naps and always brought a smile to his mother’s face. He grins at it like an old friend and, like a spell has been broken, shatters the stillness of the cabin by dashing through the rest of the rooms, ripping off sheets and whooping at the clouds of dust that spin through the air as each new piece of his memory is brought back to full, Technicolor life.

He moves into the kitchen, throwing open the cupboards and running his fingers over the mismatched collection of dishes and mugs, stopping when he touches one mug in particular. He pulls it down and turns it over in his hands, examining the stars and planets painted by a young Stiles, sloppy in his enthusiasm. He smiles, remembering how his mother laughed when he presented it to her. She had crouched down and thanked him with a kiss on his freckled cheek.

“My little starman,” she said, and traced over his moles with a finger. “Look, you’ve even got your own constellations.”

Stiles had giggled as she peppered each spot with kisses and squirmed in her arms, but bobbed his head and grinned when she asked if he wanted to listen to his special song.

Stiles can’t recall the first time it happened, couldn’t say exactly when it became a tradition, but remembers the joy he felt every time his mom would pull out their well-loved copy of Ziggy Stardust. She’d turn on the baby blue record player she’d had since she was a freshman in college and let Stiles guide the tonearm across the grooves, grabbing his hands and spinning him around the room as the song began to play. She’d twirl him out and back in again and again until he was dizzy with it, then she’d pull him back against her chest to hug him tight and sing the chorus in his ear.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’d like to come and meet us

but he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky,

he’s told us not to blow it

cause he knows it’s all worthwhile.

Stiles smiles bittersweet at the memory, pauses, then places the mug back on the shelf and walks decisively into his parents’ old bedroom. He reaches up into closet, feeling around the top shelf until his fingers brush against a box he pulls down and carries into the living room. With reverent hands, he unpacks the record player and sets it on the kitchen table, plugging the cord in and checking for the glow of the red ‘on’ light. In the bottom of the box rests his mom’s record collection – even though she had everything on tapes at their house in Beacon Hills, she kept the LP’s around. “Think of it as your inheritance,” she had said, letting him flip through their bright covers.

Stiles now cards through them slowly, heart aching as he trails his fingers across the familiar images. He finds the one he’s looking for and pulls it out, sliding the record from the sleeve and setting the cover aside before gently blowing dust from the grooves. He fits it on the platter, places the stylus halfway towards the center and listens to the familiar crackle as the song begins.

Like the cabin, this memory was one almost too tender to touch, and it had been years since he’d last listened to their song. But here, now, as a fresh breeze chases the stale air out of the cabin and warm light falls on the uncovered furniture, it feels right. It feels necessary. And as Stiles roams around the cabin, pushing open the windows and shaking out the blankets on the front porch, he can’t help but sing along, letting his lingering nerves be chased away by the well-loved words.  

Let the children lose it,

let the children use it,

let all the children boogie.

*

Stiles stays at the cabin for two weeks. He checks in with his dad once a day, and sends pictures of the projects he’d started around the house, but otherwise keeps his phone stashed in the Jeep. After that first night, falling asleep on the old couch listening to his mother’s records and wrapped up in the old knit blanket, he throws himself into fixing up the cabin.

He starts by digging out the ancient push lawnmower from the shed and clearing the tall grasses that had shot up in their absence, wiping dirt across his forehead as he digs out stubborn weeds from the stone path. He gets his supplies at the local hardware store, including a can of cardinal red paint to revive the porch, and works long hours in the late July heat, his skin browning in the sun as new flights of freckles appeared on his arms each day. The lean muscle he’d built up running with wolves comes in handy as he hauls the rowboat out to patch and repaint, nails new planks over the holes in the dock, and chops wood until there’s a sizable pile stacked next to the house.

When the heat gets to be too much, he strips to his briefs and dives into the lake, letting the cool water wash the sweat and dirt from his skin before sprawling out on the dock to dry in the sun. In the evenings, he sits on the porch swing, rocking back and forth as he watches the sunset and drinks lemonade from the same cracked pitcher he did when he was a child.

More often than not, he passes out early and sleeps soundly through the night in a way he didn’t believe he was capable of anymore; his tired body and aching muscles gentling him into a dreamless sleep from which he wakes refreshed and calm. On the nights he stays up, he pulls a book from his parents’ collection and sits by the firepit outside, surrounded by the chirping of crickets and the night sounds of the forest. He prefers the books with well-worn pages and cracked spines, like East of Eden and Dharma Bums. His mother had loved stories about America, the love letters to the land, and delighted in pointing out Kerouac’s Desolation Peak in the far ranges, just visible from her spot on the porch.

The longer he stays, the more his mind quiets. There are no intrusive thoughts, no insidious, creeping voices, almost as if the stillness of the cabin has bled into his mind. The excess energy that caused his hands to shake and his thoughts to race unchecked finds an outlet in the physicality of his work, the repetitive movements acting as a kind of meditation that leaves him clear and focused. He feels settled in his skin as his muscles flex and ache, entirely at home in his body and mind. For the first time in years, Stiles feels like himself again. Strong. Unbroken.

On his last night, Stiles sits in the kitchen with the book of runes Deaton lent him and ingredients he’d carefully gathered over the past few days – thistle and clover, blue vervain and St. Johnswort, powdered bark from the trees that ring the clearing and a small handful of mud from the bottom of the lake. He grinds them into a paste, and over every window and doorway, he paints the symbols for luck and protection – not just from living threats, but from wind, fire, rain, and dust. He pours his will into them, declares himself where they lay to ensure that not a breath of the pain that has plagued Beacon Hills can touch this place. Not just because it was a part of his mother, but because it is undoubtedly a piece of himself, too.

When everything is locked up and the Jeep packed for the long drive home, Stiles spares one last look at the porch swing, takes in the fresh paint, lush grass, and clear windows, liberated from dust. The stillness remains, but it’s different now – a quiet born not of stasis, but of peace; the land has finally woken up, and Stiles right alongside it. He closes his eyes and focuses on remembering exactly how he feels in this moment, wanting to carry it with him when he goes.

With a smile on his face, Stiles opens his eyes and backs out the driveway. As he travels down the road towards home, he glances in the rearview mirror, watching as the cabin grows smaller and smaller until it’s swallowed by forest, and all he can see is green.

*

Even with his newfound calm, Stiles spent the entire five hour flight to Washington with his palm pressed against his sternum, eyes screwed up and body tensed as he waited for the inevitable moment when the gentle tugging of the threads would turn too harsh and snap, robbing him of the warmth in his chest.

But, like his earlier tests, it never came.

When the wheels touched down at Reagan National, the quiet thrumming beneath his breast remained. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, letting some of the tension finally drain out of his muscles. He wasn’t alone. He was nearly 3,000 miles from his home and his pack, but he wasn’t alone. He pressed down harder for a moment and was rewarded when the bonds seemed to grow warmer, more insistent, like they were chiding him for being silly enough to think that they’d just leave.

He broke out in a grin, letting his hand drop. He knew the next few months were still going to be hard – he’d still worry about his dad and his friends, still have to deal with the lingering guilt of leaving them, (though his pack had been nothing but supportive, promising to keep his dad on a diet and Skype so much he’d be sick of them), still have to adjust to a new city and living on his own. But the knowledge that he’d still have a physical connection to his pack, a constant reminder that he belonged to someone, somewhere, made the rest seem small in comparison.

Stiles stood up, grabbing his bag out of the overhead compartment and swinging it over his shoulder. His smile remained as he followed the line out of the plane and stepped into the cooler Washington air. Here, burning in his chest, was proof that he had walked through Hell and come out the other side with his pack beside him. Compared to what came before, college would be a cakewalk.

*

Two months in, Stiles was strongly reconsidering that statement. Sure, there was nothing actually wrong, but that didn’t mean things were right, either. His roommate was chill, an aspiring pre-med student who only showed up to shower and sleep, which suited Stiles fine. It was a little quiet, sure, but it gave him more time to work on his magic homework from Deaton or Skype his pack without worrying about fabricating excuses to obscure the more…extraordinary elements of his life.

He liked most of his classes and had been flirting with the idea of double majoring in history and folklore, had a group he regularly met up with for study sessions, and a spot in the local coffee shop he had more or less declared as his. From an outside perspective, things were totally, completely fine.

Which, in itself, was kind of his problem. Everything was just…okay. Stiles had kind of expected college to be, well, more. More wild parties and hook-ups with interesting people, more student protests and campus rivalries and dramatic self-realizations and yeah, maybe Stiles had seen too many coming-of-age movies but still, wasn’t college meant to be more than a daily routine of classes, coffee, and Call of Duty until he passed out and woke up to do it all again?

Maybe if he had been less preoccupied with the whole leaving-the-pack and honouring-his-mother’s-memory internal struggles, he would have had more time to think about what college would actually be like, outside of a vague notion of John Belushi in Animal House. Maybe, just maybe, he would have realized that after the whole supernatural/Hellmouth/death and destruction and possession continual crises that characterized his high school years, college couldn’t help but seem a little…tame, in comparison.

He had hit up the requisite frat parties and induction events with his floor-mates those first few weeks, but inevitably found himself zoning out after just a few minutes, staring into space as he thought about the lore books he had stacked next to his bed, mentally composed essays for his classes, and pondered if the jungle juice had been magically altered or if it was just really, really bad gin.

It was the classic catch-22: he had spent months dreaming of escaping Beacon Hills for a few years of the out-of-control parties and ill-advised hook-ups he imagined constituted the average American college experience, but after all he had been through, he just couldn’t convincingly stir up interest in drinking cheap beer in houses with sticky floors or painting his face to cheer on home football games. It all just seemed a bit…false; unreal in its blatant normality, and Stiles felt like the biggest phony of them all. Eat your heart out, Holden Caulfield.

Stiles’ hang-ups regarding hook-ups were much the same.  It wasn’t that he was unsure about his sexuality - he had firmly come to grips with his bisexuality right around the time he started regularly hanging out with shirtless teen werewolves. It wasn’t lack of confidence or options, either; Stiles knew he had grown into himself over the past few years, and the lingering tan and lean, corded muscles from his summer activities didn’t hurt. He had been approached a number of times since arriving in D.C. and had even gone on a couple dates, but each time Stiles couldn’t help but be struck by the knowledge of just how deep the divide was between their life experience and his own. It also didn’t help that, try as he might, he couldn’t stop comparing potential suitors to a certain impossible standard. Warning kids: prolonged exposure to Derek Hale might be hazardous to your health, and ruin you for literally every other person on Earth.

Scott said he was being melodramatic (the same Scott, Stiles would like to point out, who wrote literal sonnets about how Allison’s hair looked in the moonlight), but even though he felt guilty about it, sometimes, late at night, Stiles almost wished for a supernatural crisis to liven things up a bit. Just a little one – mysterious runes carved in the woods maybe, or a small haunting in the library. God, he’d even settle for just someone to talk to, someone who understood. He had a sneaking suspicion his diminutive Anglo-Saxon Folklore professor was some variety of sprite, but he doubted point-blank asking her to discuss the D.C. ley lines over coffee would go over well.

With all the free time he had not attending parties or participating in wild orgies six nights a week, he was way ahead on his coursework and had practiced the defensive runes Deaton assigned him until he was positive he could do them unconscious, with his hands tied behind his back (less of a descriptive hyperbole than a actual precautionary necessity, considering). After the second week in a row of spending his nights bored and alone in his room, listening to Beirut and falling asleep with his hand pressed against his chest, Stiles decided something needed to be done. Everything around him was just so terribly normal, and yeah, Stiles was man enough to admit that it sucked. He was lonely, and worse - he was bored.

But he’d be damned if he was going to slink home with his tail between his legs (pun fully intended). He was a Stilinki, and he wasn’t about to shame his babcia’s good name by folding like a lawn chair during his first few weeks away from home. What he needed was a project, something to invest in, and an outlet for all that extra energy that, now it was no longer channelled into fighting baddies or keeping Scott out of trouble, was only exacerbating his frustration with the utter monotony of college life.

His answer came on an innocuous white flyer, tucked away behind an army of advertisements for student productions and tutoring gigs on the communal bulletin board in the student center. He had marched down early on his day off, determined to find something that would get him out of his funk. He had been combing through the multi-colored stacks for the better part of the last twenty minutes, discarding the many babysitting and au pair requests (he doubted anyone would take ‘playing pack mom to a bunch of out-of-control teenage werewolves as valid experience) and wrinkling his nose at the recruiting posters for the Hoya sports teams – he’d spent enough years alternately warming the bench and getting pummelled by Jackson to admit that maybe sports just weren’t his thing, thanks.

Just as he was about to give up hope, he found it. Plain black type on white paper, none of the nauseating neon colors or – god forbid – comic sans featured on other posters,  half hidden behind a promo for a beach volleyball tournament (in October. On the East Coast. And people say Stiles is weird). There wasn’t much on it, just the words ‘internship available’ bolded at the top, with ‘Archives Center - National Museum of American History’, an address, and the Smithsonian logo underneath, but Stiles was intrigued. Granted, all he knew about the Smithsonian was what he’d seen in Night at the Museum 2 (and God, he really needed to stop relying on pop culture to guide his life choices), but the untameably nosy part of him squealed in glee at the thought of all the interesting things he could get his paws on working in the archives of one of the largest museums in the country. He pulled the flyer down and checked the address on his phone; if he caught the 33 bus on Wisconsin, he could be there in a half hour.

Stiles ran back to his dorm (still noticeably empty of his roommate. Stiles was half convinced he was dealing with a going ghost, Danny Phantom situation here) and dug through his closet for something interview worthy. He eventually settled on a pair of dark jeans and a white button up that only had one ketchup stain on the sleeve - barely noticable, if he rolled them up. He printed out a copy of his resume, ran a hand through his hair, and was back out the door in less than 20 minutes.

*

Stiles had been to the Smithsonian campus once before – his whole floor had gone as part of the RA’s self-proclaimed ‘bonding’ week, before the poor upperclassman had realized just how little the freshmen truly gave a shit and gave up the ghost. The visit had been on the shorter and more harried side; desperate to keep their attention, his RA had taken a Buzzfeed ‘Top 10’ approach and single-mindedly ferried them to and from the major attractions in the Natural History and Air and Space museums. Stiles had been meaning to return for a more thorough visit, but always seemed to get distracted by something (namely, World of Warcraft and the collected works of Bo Burnham).

Now though, he seriously regretted not returning earlier. Surrounded by sprawling buildings advertising  for exhibitions like Apollo to the Moon and the Last American Dinosaurs and caught in the bustling crowds of people – tour groups in matching t-shirts, laughing children evading their anxious parents, art students sprawled out sketching architectural lines and marble sculptures – Stiles felt better than he had in weeks. All the people, all the excitement, all the action and history and emotion set his veins alight as he walked down the National Mall.

The Museum of American History was a long, stone building under the shadow of the Washington Monument and, as Stiles stood outside taking in the square lines and imposing structure, he couldn’t help but think it looked more like a Vogon battleship than a celebrated museum of history and culture.

Undaunted (though slightly distracted by thoughts of the third worst poetry in the world), he climbed the steps and entered the main hall, making a bee-line for an information desk manned by a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a look of absolute, all-encompassing boredom while deftly spinning a pen between her fingers. Stiles thought he might be in love.

The woman heaved a sigh when she spotted Stiles striding up to her desk, cutting him off immediately. “What’s your teacher’s name? I can call them over the PA system.”

Stiles blinked at her. “Uh…what?”

“Your teacher’s name? Or your high school will work. I can’t get you back with your group if I don’t have a name to page.”

Stiles frowned at her. “Do I really look like a high school student to you?”

The woman paused, looking him up and down before raising an eyebrow. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

If Stiles had to classify it, he’d put her tone somewhere between ‘Sahara Desert’ and ‘fiery pits of Hell’ dry. Yeah, he was definitely in love.

Stiles flushed and rubbed a hand over his already messy hair, wisely deciding to move on. “Uh, my name’s Stiles Stilinski, and I’m actually here about an internship opportunity I saw.” He said, thrusting the flyer at her.

Her eyes widened as she read it. “They’ve actually resorted to flyers? Man, they must really be desperate.”

“Not much interest in dusty old archives, huh?” Stiles joked.

She laughed outright at that. “No, no, there’s plenty of interest. People just don’t tend to…last very long in Archives.”

“Like they only offer short-term internships?”

She shot him an indecipherable look.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Alright, kid –“

Stiles made a noise of protest, but quieted at her glare. He’d seen worse (and her eyebrows were far from the most judge-y he’d encountered), but figured it was best not to antagonize the staff before he’d barely set foot in the place.

“You’re going to head towards the East Wing and look for the bust of Martin Van Buren. Hard to miss – a lot of beard.”

Stiles nodded; he was well-acquainted with that most spectacular set of mutton chops.

“There’ll be a wooden door next to it – just press the intercom button and say your name. I’ll give Boris a heads up you’re coming.” She instructed, handing back the flyer.

“Boris?” Stiles questioned.

“Boris is…I’m not exactly sure what Boris does outside of hanging out in the Archives entrance, but he’s good people. The Archives staff sees a lot of turnover, but I’m fairly sure Boris has been here since the groundbreaking. There’s a pretty lucrative pool on if he’ll ever retire.” She shot him a smirk. “If you make it, come see me – I’ll deal you in.”

Stiles frowned. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if I make it’?”

The girl winked and spun in her chair, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hey, c’mon. That’s – that’s just overly dramatic. I can still see you, you know!” Stiles called, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Without turning, the girl extended her pen in the direction of the East Wing. Stiles huffed and dropped his hands, muttering to himself as he obediently marched off in the direction she had indicated.

Halfway down the hall Stiles spotted the bust of Van Buren (as hirsute as promised) and paused in front of the door it bordered. It was made of fairly worn wood – an anomaly in the stone-bathed hall – but otherwise appeared normal. He pushed the call button on the intercom next to the door and bent down to say his name. The door buzzed open immediately and Stiles walked through to a small, red room with half-panelled walls. One corner was taken up by an iron staircase that spiralled in both directions, and in the middle sat a man with a shock of white hair and wire-rimmed glasses reading a magazine behind a desk. As Stiles approached, the man closed the magazine and laid it on his desk, allowing him to see it was the latest Halloween-themed edition of Country Living. Noticing his gaze, the man smiled and tapped the magazine with his finger.

“I like the antiques section – especially now that I’m old enough to be classified as one myself. I presume you’re Mr. Stilinski?” The man had disarmingly clear blue eyes, and Stiles couldn’t help fidgeting where he stood.

“Stiles is fine. Uh, are you Boris?”

The man nodded. “That I am. It’s wonderful you’ve come, Dr. Saint Cyprian was just speaking about wanting another intern. The last one regrettably left us a few weeks ago after an unfortunate…incident. We’ve had some difficulty finding a suitable replacement.”

Stiles let out a nervous laugh. “Well, I like to think I’m both suitable and good at replacing. A+ replacing, right here.” He mimed finger guns at the man and internally face-palmed. Real smooth, Stilinski. Much professional.

To his surprise, Boris beamed at him. “Oh, I do believe Dr. Saint Cyprian is going to like you. Just head down those stairs there, she should be in her office.”

Stiles thanked him and headed towards the staircase, eager to escape that slightly too-penetrating gaze.

He paused at the edge of the stair, leaning carefully over the railing to judge the distance between him and the ground. He wasn’t worried per se, but those steps were awfully narrow and he had somewhat of a…reputation when it came to grace. He’d be damned if he managed to survive a half-decade of California Hellmouth only to bite it on a staircase, though, so he hiked his bag up on his shoulder, shot a wave to Boris,  and set off into the depths.

After what felt like ages of spiralling almost-doom, but was probably a solid thirty seconds, the staircase ended at another wooden door with ‘Archives’ printed in gold. He didn’t see an intercom, so he rapped twice and waited.

“It’s unlocked!” A muffled voice called from the other side.

Stiles took a second to run a hand over his hair and straighten his shirt before pulling open the door. His eyebrows immediately shot up as he took in the innumerable stacked shelves marching off into the distance, and, standing in front of them, what looked like a gray-haired woman wrestling a lurid purple feather boa into a box on the floor.

She spared him a look as she slammed the top down on the container. “Come on in, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Stiles let go of the handle and moved to step through the door frame. As he did, a shock ran through his body and he let out a yelp, stumbling the rest of the way into the room. He shot the door a suspicious glare, shaking out his arms to regain feeling.

He turned back to the woman, still hunched over the box but now completely focused on the young man, pinning him with a searching look.

Stiles stuttered out a laugh. “Heh, gotta watch out for that static electricity, huh?”

The woman continued to stare. “What are you?”

“Uh, I’m Stiles. I came about the internship ad?”

She frowned at him. “Not who are you – what are you?”

Stiles cleared his throat. “Uh, a college student? At Georgetown. I’m studying anthropology and folklore and I heard about an internship opportunity…”

The woman abruptly stood up, crossing her arms and glaring mulishly at Stiles. “Did Mona send you? I told her she’s not getting that tablecloth and she can send whatever snub-nosed little pixie she wants – I’m not handing it over.”

Stiles’ jaw dropped in outrage. “Snub-nosed, who you calling snub-nosed I- what are you even talking about? I don’t know anyone named Mona. And I don’t have the slightest interest in tablecloths or any other dining accoutrement, for that matter! I’m just here about the internship.” He waved the flyer around to emphasize his point.

The woman raised an eyebrow, but her frown lightened a fraction. “Well, you’ve got to be something. That door doesn’t react to just anyone.”

Stiles switched his tactic, sniffing imperiously. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

The woman snorted. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you. I warded that door myself. It wouldn’t have let you in if you meant any real harm, but you wouldn’t have reacted at all if you were just a human. So what are you? I’m still guessing pixie.”

Stiles eyeballed her suspiciously. “Let’s say, hypothetically, I was slightly more extra than ordinary – why pixie?”

“Button nose and boyband hair, ” she said without missing a beat.

Stiles scoffed. “Alright, ONE, I do not have boyband hair. Two, what is wrong with my nose?”

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. It’s just, you know, very…” She uncrossed one arm, gesturing in the general direction of his face. “Very.”

“Very very?”

“Verily, very very,” she nodded, resolute.

“So, if you’re not a pixie, what are you? I’m happy to talk about the internship, if that’s what you’re really here for, but I’ve got to know. Some of the artifacts can be…touchy, around the wrong energies.”

Stiles sucked on his bottom lip, deliberating. She looked relatively harmless, with long steel grey hair and enough wrinkles to put her somewhere around her early 60’s, though in Stiles’ experience that didn’t mean much - Gerard was pushing 70 when he met him. He could see what looked like tattooed runes on her knuckles and hands, disappearing into her sleeves. Appearance aside, she hadn’t smote him on sight, which was generally a positive sign, and she worked in a literal government institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Above all, nothing in his instincts, human or otherwise, gave him a bad feeling about her, and he had long since learned to listen to his gut.

Decision made, he stuck out his hand. “Stiles Stilinski, Spark-in-training and member of the McCall Pack in Beacon Hills, California.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I thought Beacon Hills was Hale land.”

Stiles flushed. “It uh, was. Still is, technically, though we haven’t heard from any of them in a while. My buddy Scott was bit by a Hale and he has been…caretaking, if you will.”

She hummed, considering this, before extending her arm to accept Stiles’ handshake.

“Spark, huh? I can work with that. My name is Dr. Olesya Saint Cyprian, but you can call me Rian. I’m the head archivist here.”

“That’s…quite a name.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Glass houses, Mr. Stilinski.”

“…point.”

Introductions made, the woman – Rian – gestured for Stiles to follow her into her office and take a seat across from a desk spilling over with books, papers, and what Stiles was fairly certain was a human skull.

“Polish, I presume?” Rian inquired, settling into her chair.

“Got it in one. What’s St. Cyprian?”

“An inside joke – my grandparents selected it when they emigrated from Russia.”

“Oh?”

“St. Cyprian is the patron saint of occultists.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.

“A sense of humour runs in my family, among other things.”

“Things like magic?”

Her smile reminded Stiles of Deaton’s more enigmatic moments.

“Something like that. Perhaps I will tell you later. Now though, we have other things to discuss.” She folded her hands on the desk and leaned towards him. “So you’re truly just here for the internship? No nefarious plans to pillage my artifacts? I can promise you wouldn’t like the consequences, if you tried.”

“Nope,” Stiles said, popping the ‘p’. “Just plain old college credit desired. But if it’s on the table…I’ve finished the books my emissary gave me when I left home and have somewhat been at loose ends. I could use a project.”

He dug his resume out of his bag and handed it to her. “This covers my academic and work history, but in terms of supernatural experience I’ve spent the summer studying basic runes and spells with a local emissary, and have spent the better part of the last few years dealing with everything from kanimas to chimeras.”

He smiled crookedly. “I thought I’d finally enjoy a break with college, but turns out retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’m not saying I’m particularly interested in marauding Alpha packs turning up on campus anytime soon, but maybe being around people who understand, getting back into it, just a little, might be…good. For me.”

Rian skimmed his resume then looked at him, considering. She put the paper down and leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to level with you. It’s a bitch trying to keep a non-supernatural initiated intern around - if you’re not in the know, some of the items can be a bit…unsettling. Hell, I’ve been working here for 40 years and sometimes they still give me the willies. Our last intern only lasted two weeks, and I’m sick of training newbies only for them to disappear before they can be of any actual use. Coincidentally, I’ve been needing someone to touch up some of the wards. Old body – can’t do so much of the physical work anymore.”

Stiles raised a skeptical eyebrow. From what he’d seen when he walked in, she had more strength than she owned to.

“If you’d agree to take over the wards, along with the standard archive work – returning borrowed items, cataloguing new arrivals, and researching the unknowns – I’d be happy to give you instruction on some of the more…unique objects in the Archives. Officially, we store any items pertaining to the culture and history of America, but unofficially, we have the largest collection of objects and documents relating to the supernatural world this side of the Atlantic – everything from Appalachian yeti clippings to the Salem grimoires.”

Stiles let out a meep at that, eyes going wide.

“We pay minimum wage, and I’d ideally like you here three days a week. You’d get an hour lunch and no benefits, I’m afraid, but I’m happy to sign whatever college credit forms you want and your employee pass will get you special access to all the Smithsonian museums and research centers, if that’s something you’re interested in.”

Stiles perked up. “Even the zoo?”

“Full zoo privileges included.”

His resulting fist pump triggered a look on Rian’s face that was remarkably long-suffering, considering the short duration of their acquaintance.

“So, what do you say – still want to work here? It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I can promise you it won’t be boring.”

Stiles grinned - this was exactly the kind of thing he’d been looking for.

“Sign me up, Doc. I’m in.”

*

After filling in all the necessary forms and promising to return the following week to begin, Stiles paused at the door to the stairs. “Before I go, can I ask two questions?”

“Within reason,” Rian said, rolling her eyes in an exasperated look that was rapidly becoming familiar. Stiles guessed it might be her default state. Or just her default Stiles state. Either or.

“What table cloth is so important that your first thought would be that I was here to steal it? Can it fly like the rug from Aladdin? If so – dibs on riding it!”

Rian snorted. “Nice try. No levitation abilities, I’m afraid, but something even better – it never gets dirty, changes color to suit  the dinnerware, and magically ensures that dinner conversation never includes politics, religion, or invasive personal questions.”

Stiles wrinkled his nose. “You’ve really got people chomping at the bit for that?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly you’ve never been to a dinner party before.”

Stiles wisely moved on.

“Alright, second question: is there a sentient feather boa in that box?” He gestured to the item in question, still lying on the floor where she left it and occasionally shuddering with violent movement.

“Sentient, no; enchanted, yes. It’s from the personal collection of an early 20th century siren who, as I understand it, was particularly popular on the vaudeville circuit. It’s meant to entice the beholder into coming close enough to kiss – or strangle, as sirens have occasionally been known to do. One of your duties will be to catalogue new items like this and store them in the stacks.” She pointed to the labyrinthine shelves behind her.

She laughed at Stiles’ panicked look. “Don’t worry – it’s not dangerous, usually.”

Stiles pulled a face, silently mouthing ‘usually’.

“ I’ll give you a full run down on Monday. In the meantime,” she said digging through the mess on her desk and unearthing a small red leather book, “This contains all the protection runes currently in the archive – water, fire, mold, basic defensive wards, etc etc. Take a look at them over the weekend and we can talk on Monday if you have any questions or are interested in putting your own spin on them. It’s been years since I’ve thought about updating them – perhaps they could benefit from a little modernization.”

She handed Stiles the volume and bid him goodbye. He ascended the staircase and left the museum in something of a daze, mind spinning with the unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome, change in circumstance. His phone buzzed, pulling him out of his stupor. He glanced at the name on the screen and grinned, overflowing with glee. There was an honest-to-god supernatural archive under the Smithsonian and he had a job there – Scott was going to flip his SHIT.

*

In a couple weeks’ time, Stiles had settled into a comfortable pattern. Officially, he worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 6, leaving in time to make his evening classes. Unofficially, he’d started coming in every free afternoon, staying late into the night researching the more fantastic objects.

It’d taken him a while to decipher Dr. Saint Cyprian’s (“For God’s sake, call me Rian.”) system, but he felt pretty comfortable with it now. Rows were numbered, shelves were lettered (Latin for normal items, Cyrillic for magical), with like items placed together and sorted by year. The hardest part was figuring out what was safe to touch, and which items would react…unfavorably to his Spark. Nothing too terrible ever happened, but after he brushed up against an enchanted punch bowl and spent the next several hours uncontrollably sneezing, Rian taught him how to work runes that would hide his Spark into a pair of archival-standard gloves.  

“There, you’re hypoallergenic now,” she said, patting him on the head before walking away. Stiles sneezed in her general direction.

Like he had in the cabin, Stiles found a comfort in the routine of work. He would start his shifts sorting through the returns, deftly weaving through the maze of stacks to restore every item to its rightful places. The museum used a series of glorified dumbwaiters to transport artifacts to and from visiting academics and historians, while members of the supernatural community had to request a personal visit to examine items. The mess on Rian’s desk was largely composed of such letters, from covens interested in recovering ancestral spells to vampires tracking down old possessions and everything in-between. These visits were always of particular interest to Stiles, eager to interact with magic users and supernatural creatures refreshingly free of any agenda to kill or maim him. In the short time he’d worked there, he’d already met a shapeshifter who worked in b-horror films, a group of dryads studying at Towson he’d made coffee plans with, and a banshee who’d given Stiles her contact information to pass to Lydia. Best of all, though, was finding out that his Folklore professor was not only magic (an actual muse - Stiles felt bad for guessing sprite), but apparently dating his boss. Stiles isn’t sure who was more shocked the first time she came to pick up Rian for lunch and saw Stiles standing there, arms half buried in a magically expanding handbag. His boss had burst out laughing at the twin looks of disbelief on their faces.

“Honestly, how could you not tell the second he walked in to your classroom? The kid leaks power. You’re losing your touch, babe,” she had teased, linking their arms together before whisking her up the stairs.

After all the return items had been set to rights and the day’s requests pulled from the stacks, Stiles started in on the new arrivals. The archives were constantly expanding, new additions appearing daily from estates willed to the museum and items recovered from Smithsonian-funded fieldwork. Before adding them to the stacks, he photographed each piece and created meticulous notes, plugging the information into the newly digitized system he talked Rian into letting him implement (the former archive ‘system’ had been a paper card catalogue. Stiles questioned how they ever endured without him).

But the thing he loved best was when he finished all his other work and he was free to dive in to what he had started thinking of as his pet project – the Land of Misfit Toys. The LMT (“I’m not calling it that, Stiles, and no, you can’t make a sign for it.”) was a massive storage room to the west of the stacks stuffed with unmarked boxes, artifacts long missing documentation, pallets filled with objects originally meant for unknown destinations, and rows of bookshelves bursting with dusty tomes (some of which were bound in…dubious materials. Stiles became more grateful for those gloves with every passing day.). Stiles thought the overall effect was something akin to Gort’s house in the cinematic classic Halloweentown 2, and was obsessed from the moment he saw it.

While he got to handle some interesting items re-shelving and cataloguing – highlights included a stack of racy love letters from a New York senator to his mistress(es) and an honest-to-god sentient chunk of Route 66 – the LMT (“It’s catchy, Rian! And you can pry this label maker from my cold, dead hands IT NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED.”) felt exciting, untouched. Stiles had shelved his childhood dreams of being a professional discoverer in the third grade after the sad realization that most things had, unfortunately, been discovered, but looking out at the sea of lost and forgotten objects, he felt the part of him that longed to explore new worlds and unravel the secrets of the universe, the same part that happily spent hours reading about unsolved mysteries and UFO sightings on Wikipedia, buzz with happiness.

It was the best kind of meditation, slipping in his headphones and moving methodically through each box. He’d carefully lift each piece, examining it from all angles, running his fingers over the edges and prying at locks, before tagging and photographing it, taking detailed notes on his laptop so later he could combine the Smithsonian libraries with the power of Google-Fu to recover its history. Stiles spent hours in the LMT, feeling like the love child of Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes he always dreamed he would be and feeling a rush of emotion whenever he stumbled upon the identity of a once-forgotten thing. He knew a bit about that – being lost, being forgotten. Maybe that’s why it meant so much to him, why he was so determined to identify every one and give them a place in the stacks, far away from the abandoned room full of forgotten things.

More than once, he’d been jolted out of his Adderall fueled research fugue when Rian turned the lights off on him, closing up for the night. He’d have to scramble to get home and finish his actual coursework, unwilling to let his grades slip even as he spent more and more time at the archives, but Stiles was the happiest he had been since he moved to D.C., and he couldn’t bring himself to regret a second of it.

A big part of this happiness was a result of Stiles’ attempts at befriending the other employees. His first day of work, he came armed with a box of cupcakes (bought, not made – through trial and very messy error, Stiles concluded that dorm hot plates did not lend themselves to confectionary creation).  His first target was Jules, formerly known as Information Desk Girl. From years bugging his dad down at the station, Stiles knew the front desk person was always the one to befriend. Officer Shelley was the first to know every piece of gossip in Beacon Hills and had dirt on all the officers, including the sheriff, and Stiles suspected Jules was no different. In exchange for the pastry and the promise for more in the future, she had started giving him hints on which security guards were cool and which to avoid (Benny and Barry, respectively), which routes to take to avoid the tourists (“Stay away from the Star-Spangled Banner at all costs.”), and what foods in the staff canteen were actually edible (none of them).

Over a series of lunches, with mutually agreed alternating dessert duties, Stiles found out she was working to fund an MA in American history and that her parents were academics (“Seriously, what kind of people name their newborn daughter Jules Verne? The answer is mine, my parents did that. I am not proud of this.” Stiles had nodded solemnly. “Solidarity, my friend.”).

He was fairly sure she was human; since that first day she hadn’t done more than joke about the weirdness of the archives like it was accepted fact, and never brought up anything more magical than whatever new docent she had her eye on (Jules was more than happy to appreciate attractive people of all genders – loudly, and at length). She liked pop culture and snarked like she breathed, and sometimes she reminded Stiles so much of Erica he felt a phantom pain in his chest. Though they were never officially pack, Erica had such an impact on his life (and his skull, if he was counting that one time with his carburettor) that he knew, on some level, they had been tied together, even if he wasn’t aware of it at the time. Painful memories aside, Jules was funny, Lydia-levels of intelligent, able to match Stiles barb for barb, and probably the first real friend he had made in D.C.

*

It was on Jules’ recommendation that he found himself wandering the sculpture garden of the Hirshhorn art museum during his lunch break one day. Stiles doubted he was sophisticated enough to appreciate modern art – he still giggled at anything remotely phallic, Snapchatting the best pieces to Scott with appropriately suggestive stick figures– but when he had gone to meet Jules for their usual Friday pizza and shit-talk, she had waved him off, muttering something about a renegade tour group on the loose in the Power Machinery hall. Stiles shrugged and started to walk away, already mentally planning where he could find a quiet area to eat and maybe grab a nap, but she called him back to suggest he check out the Hirshhorn.

“It’s a big-ass donut looking building, really, you can’t miss it.” She had the glint in her eye Stiles had already learned to be wary of as she leaned forward. “It’s one of the main modern galleries– most of it crap, but there’s one serious work of art you might be able to catch, if you leave now.”

“Even more beautiful than you?” Stiles said, batting his eyes at her.

Jules snorted loudly, startling a passing elderly couple.

“Oh honey, I don’t even come close. Just get yourself to the sculpture garden – we can compare notes later.” She winked at him and smacked his ass, making Stiles yelp as she walked away cackling.

Stiles rubbed his backside – Jules had some serious untapped strength – and headed out towards the Mall. He’d admit it - he was intrigued. He’d found that Jules’ interests more or less aligned with his own, so if she was so adamant he’d like it, to the Hirshhorn he’d go. Plus, it wasn’t like he actually had anything better to do now that his lunch buddy had been detained for the afternoon.

He stopped at the hot dog cart parked outside of the museum and couldn’t stifle a grin when Saul, the owner, asked him if he wanted his usual. He was the kind of cool, adult type person who had a usual. Granted, his usual was two chilli cheese dogs and a Redbull, but he’d take what he could get.

Snacks in hand, Stiles made his way to the garden. He’d noticed the Hirshhorn before – kind of hard to ignore what was essentially a concrete toilet roll in the middle of the National Mall – but had never actually visited. The day was on the cooler side, D.C. a far cry from the paradisal clime of California, but the sun was shining and Stiles had invested in a good wool peacoat with a collar he could turn up against the wind (Lydia had told him he looked like a crap Hemingway. Stiles told her she could fuck off.).

Entering the gardens, he stopped in front of a particularly arresting statue of what appeared to be a car crushed by a gigantic rock painted with a smiley face. He tilted his head and contemplated it for a few moments, then shoved half a hot dog in his mouth and moved on. He wandered around the sculptures as he finished his food, stopping to make a face at a kid who was sticking his tongue out at him from behind his mother’s legs. There were quite a few people milling around the garden, which wasn’t unusual in-and-of-itself, but given that it was the middle of the workday in November, long past the end of tourist season, and the crowd almost entirely composed of mothers and women dressed a touch better than the average museum patron, Stiles’ curiosity was sufficiently piqued.

He paused next to the mother of the kid from before, who was fruitlessly trying to corral the young boy in front of a statue Stiles immediately dubbed ‘Junkyard Tetris’.  

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if there was a special event going on? A friend suggested I come down here at this time, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking for,” he asked, politely ignoring the struggle in front of him.

The woman grabbed the back of her son’s shirt, holding him in place as he wiggled to get away, arms outstretched and eyes manic. Stiles got a sudden flashback of the sheriff trying to do the same every time he ventured to take Stiles to a museum, and shuddered at the reminder of the short lived period dubbed the Child Leash of Which We Do Not Speak.

Her son temporarily restrained, the woman looked up and shot Stiles a weak smile, panting lightly from exertion. “I don’t know if it counts as a special event, but there’s a pretty popular tour of the major garden highlights about to begin.”

She leaned towards him with a conspiratorial look, maintaining her grip on her son.“I’m not much for sculpture, but the tour guide…well, he really makes you appreciate the art, if you know what I mean.”

At that, her son shook loose, shouting “Mom likes his butt!” before running and hiding behind Stiles, utilizing him as a human shield against his now beet-red mother.

“Michael Joseph, you get back here right now!” she demanded.

Stiles laughed as he turned and picked the kid up under his armpits, handing him back to his mother. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling at the woman.

She flushed further and accepted her son back gratefully. “Sorry about that. If you’re still interested, the tour starts in about 10 minutes in front of the Rodin sculptures. There’s usually a crowd – you can’t miss it.”

She smiled back at him before gently pushing Michael towards a picnic table nestled between statues. “Enjoy!”

Stiles thanked her and walked away, spying an empty bench in the sun. From what the woman said and her son pretty much confirmed, the tour guide was probably what Jules had been alluding to. As he settled into the bench and turned his face to the sun, he thought idly that perhaps if the guide really was that attractive, he’d consider getting his number for Jules, or maybe even himself. After all, he had to start getting over Derek sometime, and what better time than the present. With that decided, Stiles reasoned he had a few minutes to relax before the tour began, and let his eyes slip close against the bright sunshine.

Twenty minutes later, he awoke with a start to something cold and wet wiggling in his ear. He flailed off the bench, landing on the ground with a thump. He looked up to see Michael, the kid from before, holding his stomach and giggling on the bench.

“I got you!” He cried. “Wet willy! Wet willy!”

Stiles grimaced and stuck a finger in his ear, trying to clean it out. He hated wet willies, and he and Scott had put a mutual ban on them years ago. Still, he had to admit the kid had chutzpah, and he nodded to acknowledge the successful willy as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

“Alright kid, you got me. Now, where’s your mom? She’s probably freaking out right now.”

The kid sat upright on the bench and rolled his eyes. “Nah, she’s too busy staring at the tour man. She probably hasn’t even noticed.”

Stiles snorted and held out a hand. “I seriously doubt anyone’s that pretty. Come on, let’s go find her, and you can show me this fantastic tour man.”

Michael hopped down from the bench and slotted his fingers between Stiles’. “Hurry up slow poke,” he said, jerking Stiles forward. “Old people take forever to get anywhere.”

Stiles scoffed, outraged. But before he could respond, he felt an odd sensation bloom in his chest. He raised his free hand to rub against it, frowning. He hadn’t worried about his bonds in a long time – they had remained just as steady and warm in his chest as they had in Beacon Hills, only changing to glow particularly brightly when something good happened, covertly confirmed through his weekly Skype calls with the pack. But this felt different, almost…fluttering. Anticipatory. Like sparks rising from his stomach and pooling beneath his breastbone, resolving into a current that flooded down to his feet and the tips of his fingers.

Stiles frowned and let his hand drop. It was probably just heartburn; he did wolf down (heh) a truly impressive amount of carbs and caffeine. Maybe Michael’s got it right; he’s old now, his body no longer the chilli-dog destroying machine it once was.

He let the thought go as they rounded a corner and spotted a large group of women and a few men circling a melting iron tree with rapt faces. He couldn’t quite see who giving the tour, but he quickly found Michael’s mother looking around frantically near the back. He walked back over to her and smiled at her sigh of relief when she saw her son with him.

“Hey, found this guy wandering around back there.” He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. A member of the crowd shot him a dirty look and he lowered his voice with a sheepish grin. “Figured you’d want him back.”

His mother shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you – again. Michael’s a bit of a handful, but he’s a really great kid, I swear.”

“Really, it’s no problem. I was pretty much the same when I was his age. I think my dad would call it payback,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. He crouched down in front of the kid in question.  

“Hey little dude, I know this place is awesome and there’s a ton of cool stuff to explore, but try and take your mom with you next time you want to motor, alright? She’ll be excited too, I promise, and I bet if you ask really nicely, she’ll take you to see the woolly mammoths in the Natural History Museum. Deal?”

Michael nodded, and grinned a gap-toothed smile as he reached out to bump Stiles’ outstretched fist with his own.

Stiles stood back up and smiled at the boy’s mother. “Are you going to stick around for the rest of the tour?”

The woman smiled back at him but shook her head. “No, I think it’s best I get this munchkin moving. You should stay though – you haven’t missed much, and it really is pretty interesting. Have a good day, and thank you again.”

Stiles waved goodbye, and turned back to see the crowd had started to move to the next attraction. He didn’t have a clear view through all the bodies, but caught a flash of dark hair leading the group he guessed might belong to the infamous tour guide. He slipped into the back as they crowded around a tall plinth supporting a male figure carved in bronze, striding forward with clenched abs and powerful thighs, but curiously unfinished, missing a head and both arms. Stiles let his eyes drag across the statue as he focused in on the lilting voice carrying over the crowd.

“The Walking Man is an impressionist portrayal of Saint John the Baptist created between 1877 and ’78 by Auguste Rodin, the French artist most famous for The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Burghers of Calais, which you can also see in this garden. The work has been called “profoundly unclassical,” a rough sketch less concerned with the aesthetic beauty of his body than emphasizing the strength and forward movement of the figure, powerfully striding into the unknown.”

A small furrow appears between Stiles’ brows. The voice is relatively high for a man, but not weak; clear and engaging and intelligent, confident in his words. It tickles something in the back of Stiles’ head, a memory he can almost grasp, but slips out of his hands. You need me to survive.

“Saint John the Baptist is introduced in the Gospel of Mark as ‘a voice crying out in the wilderness’ and is sometimes seen as a precursor to the Prodigal Son. The headless state alludes to his martyrdom, orchestrated by the daughter of King Herod who requested his head brought to her on a platter.”

The sensation in Stiles’ chest flares up again, and he rubs the heel of his hand against it as he pushes himself up on his toes, straining to match a face to the voice that won’t stop itching at his memory. He can’t see anything – too many people, too many bodies, like the space is closing in around him.

He looks at his watch and sees he still has 20 minutes left. Enough time to stay and see this through, if he wants. And he wants; there’s something niggling at him, begging to be resolved, and he has never been one to let things alone – has never been able to stop poking his bruises, even when it hurt.

“The statue famously inspired a poem of the same name by Carl Sandburg in 1916, but I’m particularly fond of another, slightly more obscure poem, penned by Peter Cooley in 2014.”

His mind made up, Stiles begins pushing his way forward, elbowing his way through the crowded bodies, the coltish limbs that had been the bane of his high school existence allowing him to alternately slip and shove his way through the ranks while the voice begins to recite.

“But when the body stands here, one foot back,

one forward, the flesh flexed in motion,

there is no movement that is not your own.”

Stiles advances ever closer to the front, chased by a series of dirty looks and muffled “oofs.” He can see more clearly now; can glimpse strong, veined hands carving shapes into the air, illustrating the words.

“You forget your equivocating past

only to recall it the next second.”

Stiles traces up the hands to tanned forearms covered in a dusting of dark hair and broad shoulders filling out a sweater the color of forest moss. His gaze travels higher as his feet carry him to the front and the spot in his chest burns brightly, driving him onward.

“It is essential that he is headless.

Admit it: you’d be staring at his face.”

And suddenly he’s there, he’s made it, and he can hear his voice and see his face, more beautiful than any sculpture he’d ever seen, eyes so clear it feels like gazing into the sky.

“This is our walk between eternities,

The one we think we know, the one we can’t.”

Stiles blinks, and he’s 16 again,  all jittery limbs and so much innocence stunned silent by a thousand yard glare and a jawline like a chorus of angels.

He blinks again, and he sees the wide smile, dimpling into something not quite a beard, thicker and more lush than the stubble he remembers.

Stiles blinks, and his gaze lingers on the hint of crow’s feet, the hair curling gently under his ears instead of short and gelled, as tightly controlled as the rest of him.

Stiles blinks, and he sees the moment of recognition when his nostrils flare and his voice falters, when his eyes search frantically through the crowd before they land on Stiles’ face, and then he doesn’t blink, because for the first time in years, he’s looking directly at Derek and Derek is looking back.

The ball of warmth in his chest bursts and floods into his body, shooting electricity through his veins and igniting every cell until he thinks he can hear them singing as the heat rages and maybe that’s crazy to think but he can’t think, not when he’s standing right there, Derek is standing right there and he is alive and healthy and existing where Stiles is existing and he feels like he’s on fire but God, he’s never been so happy to burn.

Derek clears his throat, breaking eye contact and resuming his speech even as his cheeks flush and he stumbles over his words. Stiles is still staring, not comprehending, too caught up in cataloguing the ways he is so different, yet so much the same. He spends the most time on his hands, counting methodically over and over to prove that he’s not dreaming, this isn’t a dream, this is Derek, a thousand miles from home and shining more brightly than he’s ever seen him.

Stiles tunes back in to hear him dismiss the tour, apologizing for the short run time and promising to return to regular scheduling the following day. Then people are leaving, and Stiles barely notices, doesn’t stop looking as Derek doesn’t stop looking at him until everyone has wandered away and it’s just him and Stiles and Saint John the Baptist, each equally unsure of what to say.

As always, Stiles is the one to break the silence.

“Going to tell me this is private property?” He asks, shooting Derek a nervous smile.

He smiles back, strong and steady. “I think we’re long past that, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out, a little stunned by the breadth of his smile, all that pretty directed his way.

It’s quiet again, for a moment.

“Can I hug you?” Stiles blurts out, unsure of his welcome but desperate to ask. “It’s just…it’s been a long time.”

Derek ducks his head, the tips of his ears turning faintly pink. “Yeah, it has. I’m okay with – if you want.” He lifts his arms a fraction, palms turned out, and Stiles accepts the invitation for what it is, stepping into his warmth and wrapping his arms solidly around him.

Derek’s arms come up, gripping him tightly, tethering him, and Stiles feels that spot in his chest burn so brightly his breath stutters with it. Derek keeps him in the circle of his arms but leans back so his eyes can search over Stiles’ face. “Are you alright? I heard your heart-”

Stiles flushes, and ducks back in. “I’m fine,” he answers, voice muffled from where it’s buried in Derek’s shoulder. “Just, um, warm. I’m very warm. You’re very warm. Werewolf thing. Bet you don’t even need a coat, right? Just go a bit furry and you’re set.”

Derek lets out an amused huff over his shoulder, but doesn’t call him out on the blatant lie. He lets go and steps back, though he remains closer than any normal human might stand in the situation. Werewolves have always had smaller personal bubbles, Stiles noticed. He doubted that had changed for Derek in the few years he’s been gone, and suppresses a pang in his chest thinking about when the last time he’d had a hug was; if he was all alone in the city, too.

Heedless of Stiles’ internal meltdown, Derek begins to speak. “It’s reassuring to know you haven’t lost your particular talent for babble.”

“I’d prefer to think of it as a prolonged opportunity for charm and wit, thanks.”

“It’s an opportunity for something, alright.”

“Hey,” Stiles squawks, mildly affronted.

“I never said something bad.” Derek shoots him a small smile, just as devastating as the grin he bore a few minutes ago.

“What are you doing here?” He asks hesitantly. “Were you…were you looking for me?”

Stiles flushes again. “No, no, I didn’t – I didn’t know you were here. I’ve been interning at the Museum of American History, in the archives. Just a couple days a week – I’m a student at Georgetown now.”

“Yeah?” Derek smiles. “That’s good to hear. Georgetown’s a good school. Your dad must be  proud.”

Stiles snorts. “Understatement of the year. I’m pretty sure he’s bought every piece of merchandise they make – we ate off of Hoya branded plates for a week before I put my foot down and rescued the normal ones from the back of the cupboard.”

Derek laughs softly, and Stiles is entranced by the sound. He tries to think of the last time he heard Derek laugh; he’s not sure he ever has. He’s so distracted by the thought, he misses what Derek says next.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I asked how things were at home. If Scott and everyone…if things were okay.” He looks unsure, and a little guilty. Like he might still feel bad for leaving, even though Stiles knows no one blames him. He needed to, probably should have a long before. They understood that.

“They’re good. They’re safe. Scott is doing his generals at the community college and still planning on going to vet school. Most of his pack is still at Beacon High, so he wanted to stay close.”

“His pack?” Derek questions softly.

“My pack, too.” Stiles hesitates before continuing. “It all just feels so far away sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes gentle and free of judgement.

Stiles continues. “Lydia’s at MIT, no surprise, but she mentioned that Jackson’s staying in London and studying at Imperial, which was a bit of a shocker. Never knew he had it in him. Kira’s taking a gap year and, last we heard, Isaac was still somewhere in France with Chris, probably in his element surrounded by all the other pretentious scarf-wearers.”

Derek lets out a quiet laugh, then reaches out to brush Stiles’ arm, nodding towards the path. They walk slowly through the garden, side by side, the sky still clear blue overhead.

Derek looks over at Stiles a little hesitantly. “And Lydia, are you guys…Did you ever? I know you always -“

Stiles can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks. “No. I mean – no. We talked about it and tried, briefly, just because we’d always wonder what it’d be like if we haven’t, but we both knew we make far better friends than we ever would lovers. All those years I thought I was in love with her, I had been obsessed with this impossible, untouchable thing that I had created in my head; an idolized image of everything I thought she’d be and who I thought I’d be if I was with her. I know what she is now - strong, loyal, tenacious, brilliant, and fallible. Human.” He smiles. “She’ s one of the best people I know, and I think I’ll always love her – just not in the same way I originally thought.”

Derek makes a small noise of assent. “I know something about that – building a person up to something they could never actually be. Building yourself up the same way. It’s taken me a long time to see past that. I’m glad you figured it out earlier than I ever did.”

Stiles smiles up at him. “But figure it out, you did.”

Derek laughs, loud and throaty, nudging him with his shoulder. “You don’t automatically sound wiser if you speak like Yoda, Stiles. That’s not how it works.”

“Yeah, then how does it work? Because I don’t foresee myself turning green and running around a swamp in my bathrobe anytime soon.”

“I mean, you’ve always sounded pretty wise to me, maybe you don’t have to do anything at all.”

Stiles flushes. “Flattery will get you everywhere, big guy,” he jokes, trying to hide his reaction.

Derek abruptly stops walking, turns so he can grab Stiles’ elbow and look him directly in the eye with his considerable brows furrowed. “It’s not flattery, Stiles. You got me through so much in Beacon Hills, even though I wasn’t able to appreciate it at the time. Wasn’t able to thank you the way I should have. You saw so much, knew so much, just instinctively understood the things I could barely face, and I don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for you. I didn’t say it then, so I’m saying it now: thank you, Stiles.”

He drops his arm and resumes walking, leaving Stiles shell-shocked in his wake.

He stutters back to life, arms flailing. “You can’t just – you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away! What was that?!”

Stiles hurries to follow, catching up in time to see the small smile on Derek’s face.

“A lot’s changed since I’ve last seen you. I’ve changed.”

Stiles snorts, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, understatement. I –“

He opens his mouth to say more, but is cut off by the buzz of his phone. He pulls it out and swears when he sees the time. “Shit, Derek, I have to go. My lunch break ended 10 minutes ago and I really, really don’t want to get fired from this job.” Stiles shifts on his feet, deliberating for a moment.

“Do you – would you want to exchange numbers? I feel like there’s so much to catch up on and I’m still not quite over just seeing you and if I had time we could do it right now, I’d buy you lunch like a proper adult and everything, but I really do have to go.” He grimaces and looks up at Derek, unsure.

Derek just laughs and gently takes Stiles’ phone from his hands. “Of course you can have my number, and I’d love to do lunch, sometime.” He hands Stiles’ phone back. “Text me with yours.”

Stiles beams at him before remembering the time, swearing again as he jogs away.  

Before he can make it out of the garden, Derek calls out to him. “Hey, Stiles, wait up a second!”

He turns to see Derek running up behind him, smiling sheepishly.

“Sorry, I don’t want to get you in trouble but I thought, maybe…what time do you get off? I could come meet you? I know a great diner just down the road - they make a curly fry I’ve been reliable informed will change your life.”

Stiles grins at him, heart glowing in his chest. “Now you’re speaking my language, big guy. I get off at 6. Meet me under the Monument?”

Derek smiles, dimples out in full show. “I’ll be there.”

Stiles waves his goodbye and runs full-tilt back to the archives, shouting an apology at Rian as he comes shooting through the door. And if he spends the rest of the day working with a dopey grin on his face and a new warmth burning in his chest, well, that’s no one’s business but his own.