An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Jordan Parrish, Tara Graeme
Additional Tags: Deaf Character, Deputy Derek Hale, Misunderstandings, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Fanart, Art, Digital Art, Drawing
Summary:
Derek isn't really trying to find himself, but it's kind of what happens.
He finds someone else too.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski, Jordan Parrish, Tara Graeme
Additional Tags: Deaf Character, Deputy Derek Hale, Misunderstandings, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Summary:
Derek isn't really trying to find himself, but it's kind of what happens.
He finds someone else too.
Thank you so so much for putting on this event! It’s just what an extended quarantine needed. I have a question about these themes: ‘Harlequin’ and ‘Pack of Two (or few)’ I feel like I should know what they mean, but I don’t. If you wouldn’t mind, could you go into more detail about these themes? Maybe an example? I’d really really appreciate it. Thanks again!
I wouldn’t mind at all!
Full disclosure, my most honest answer is that the themes mean anything you can make them mean or anything you want them to mean, but that’s not very helpful if they didn’t immediately spark an idea. I guess the main thing to take away from these explanations is that I don’t want to limit anyone’s creativity at all. If it does help you, then that’s awesome! If it doesn’t help, then please discard it with no worries and do your own thing. :D
1. Harlequin
The image most people probably think of is the harlequin/arlecchino stock character from commedia dell’arte, a form of Italian theater characterized by masked “types”. In these performances, Harlequin wears a checkered costume. He plays the role of a comic servant who often works to thwart his master with physical agility, wit, and resourcefulness.
This concept has been related to, and in some cases, directly inspires: Clowns/jesters/mimes. Carnivals and faires. Harley Quinn (of DC universe fame). Masks/masquerades. Playing cards (the joker specifically). And of course, Harlequin—perhaps the best-known publisher of romance novels.
Italian Commedia dell’arte took the name Harlequin from a trickster devil character in French passion plays. These plays used Hellequin, a devil said to lead the Wild Hunt (Mesnee d’Hellequin: the househould/retinue of Hellequin). The name may also be connected to the Erlkönig (Elf-king, alder-king, king of the fairies).
Not the origin but still fun, Dante’s Inferno has a devil character named Alichino who shares characteristics with the Arlecchino.
Theme Use Examples:
AU where everyone works at a Ren Faire
One of them is a hacker, code name: Harlequin
Heist fic with card counting and casinos
Steter at a masquerade ball
Peter and Stiles meet at a romance writer’s convention
Wild Hunt fic (canon or AU)
Write a fic using common tropes found in Harlequin/Mills & Boon romances
2. Pack of Two (or few)
I got several suggestions revolving around the idea that Peter and Stiles are in some kind of plot that closes out most of the other characters. Like, maybe they’re murder husbands, on an unexpected roadtrip, or they’ve been isolated and can only find solace with each other now. So I folded them all into the idea of “Stiles and Peter are their own pack”.
This could go a lot of places, from Stockholm Syndrome to fluffy fics where Peter and/or Stiles learn how to to open up and trust more people in their pack/family circle.
Hope this answered your questions!
“Ohohoho, really . This is ridiculous, but the fact that you have been turned into a younger version of yourself again isn’t?”
“ Stiles , I’m a werewolf. I have a higher body temperature, therefore I don’t exactly need to be ‘bundled’ up.”
“Nice of you to completely ignore the fact that you’ve managed to get yourself into this kind of predicament again . And besides, I’m not about to go around town and have the good people of Beacon Hills thinking that I’m some kind of a child abuser .”
Derek frowns, but begrudgingly relents to Stiles’ fretting.
As Stiles tightens his childhood snowflake scarf around the grumpy boy, he reflects upon how exactly he ended up in this situation.
An hour earlier...
“It’s going to be fine . Derek is staying behind with you--”
“ With me, Scott?” Stiles scoffs incredulously, as he flops onto his bed, paying little attention to the freshly printed research notes being crushed beneath his weight. “We both know that he’s going to be skulking around town, scaring the crap outta anyone that gives him a passing glance because he has no control over his glares.”
“Dude, you’re nuts. I’ve seen Derek be all not glare-y plenty of times, especially with you. Besides, he wanted to stay behind.”
Stiles rolls his eyes at those words, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I know. Just take care of that feral wendigo as soon as you can, I’m still not over our Die Hard movie marathon being so rudely interrupted.”
Scott chuckles good naturedly, but the audio of the phone call turns patchy, breaking the warm laughter into staticy pieces.
“Hey, buddy, I think you guys are going through shitty service area.” Stiles raises his voice in an attempt to get his parting message through, “Stay safe, kick some feral wendigo ass, I’ll be-- we’ll be totally fine.”
A broken thank you and half of what Stiles assumes was going to be a loving and brotherly parting message is the last thing he hears when the line goes dead. He stares at his now silent phone, pouting childishly at the fact that him and Derek were the line of defense for Beacon Hills while Scott and the rest of his pack went off to go deal with a feral wendigo that tore its way through the neighboring town.
It drew dangerously close to Beacon Hills, but inevitably didn’t tread onto Scott’s territory. Unfortunately, the feral wendigo showed no signs in slowing its killing spree. And Scott, being the overly generous true Alpha he was, insisted upon hunting down the wendigo before any others were unnecessarily killed.
Fortunately, things in Beacon Hills were actually rather calm for once. As this thought flits across Stiles’ mind, he reaches his arm out to knock on the side of his wooden bedframe three times. He never expected to be of the superstitious type, but when you deal with the supernatural on a daily basis, it’s only natural for certain superstitions to follow.
Anyways, things in Beacon Hills are rather calm for once. College is out for Winter break, meaning that Scott and him have been participating in much needed gaming, binging, and general bro time. Albeit being back in Beacon Hills doesn’t permit much time to enjoy such things, as in between the gaming and the binging just this past week they’ve had to deal with a whole ensemble of supernatural creatures.
A bunyip with a rather terrible sense of direction, skeevy gnomes, and apparently dryads (which, honestly, Stiles shouldn’t have been all that surprised by their existence). Just to name a few.
“Who knows, maybe Derek will sniff out some havoc-wreaking, supernatural creature during his patrol.” Stiles mumbles to himself. “Just a small thing to help the time pass faster…”
The doorbell rings and Stiles sits up with a start. He looks at the time on his phone with a frown, it reads 3:24 pm. His dad is still at work, Derek is still on patrol (even if he was done or found something he would have helped himself to the graciously unlocked and slightly cracked open window and just invited himself in as usual), and Scott along with the rest of the pack were on the trail of the north-bound wendigo.
Carefully and cautiously, with years of supernaturally honed wariness, Stiles carefully peers out his window to take a surreptitious glance at whoever was on the doorstep… a kid? Before Stiles can even process what he’s looking at, the kid looks up directly at Stiles and locks eyes. Stiles stumbles backwards from the window in shock and trips over his gnome research notes that were neatly stacked on the floor.
“What the shit ?” Stiles hisses under his breath as his mind tries to make sense of the kid at the house’s doorstep. A ghoul? No, no, that doesn’t make sense, a ghoul wouldn’t politely knock. Scared child of a mysterious origin? That’s the most likely… those clothes are obnoxiously huge for such a small kid…
A young but irritated voice travels up through the cracked window, “Just open the damn door, Stiles.”
“Can’t you just use your werewolf powers to break the door dow-oh my God !?” Stiles rushes back over to the window and pulls it all the way open, he leans out and looks at the kid with disbelief, “No. Fucking. Way .”
Sure enough, standing on the front doorstep of Stiles’ home was a very displeased, ruffled, and tiny Derek Hale. There was something off-putting about seeing a young (what was he, seven!? ) child standing with crossed arms and a glare that would make anyone's skin crawl if not for the fact that the person delivering the glare was a child .
“ Yes way. Now, let me in . Unless you want your door to be accidentally turned into toothpicks.” The threats coming from such an adorable baby face, somehow made them seem simultaneously more and less intimidating.
Stiles splutters and quickly makes his way downstairs. He pulls open the front door after taking a couple steadying breaths to reveal some three odd feet of pure irritation.
“Wh-What even happened ?” Stiles quickly steps away from the doorway as the enraged child pushes his way into the Stilinski abode. “Wait a sec, are you even Derek? The Derek I know would have Nightcrawler-ed his way up into my room without a second thought… Oh crap, I’m going to die now, aren’t I?”
The child gives Stiles an unimpressed and a well-practiced glare. That alone makes the anxious feeling that was starting to creep up his spine back off quickly.
“Last time I checked, Nightcrawler teleports and werewolves do no such thing.” Derek frowns up at Stiles’ dumbstruck, and now relieved face.
“Oh thank god, you are Derek…” Stiles splutters once more as he attempts to make sense of the scene before him, “W-th-w-how…? I reiterate, what happened?”
Derek turns with a growl and starts to head up the stairs, comically stumbling on the clothes that are Derek’s size, roughly 20 years too soon. Stiles closes his eyes and shakes his head in an effort to see if this was just some sort of elaborate hallucination. But young Derek is still there when he reopens his eyes. So he closes the front door and moves to follow Derek up the stairs.
“Uh...Der…?” Stiles speaks hesitantly, keeping his distance from the angry child.
“What do you think happened, Stiles?” Derek snaps as he reaches the second landing.
“I literally have no idea, hence the question. I thought you were mellowing out in your old age, guess I was wrong.” Stiles leans against the banister, “Though to be fair, you being a child might be a contributing factor to your classic Derek Hale grumpiness™. But no matter what age you are, you have a knack for being the most frustrating person I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Stiles chuckles to himself and looks up at Derek, awaiting an equally scathing remark, only to find Derek’s wide, hazel eyes focused on the ground, his small lower lip quivering just the slightest bit. Stiles is taken aback by this amount of sincerity upon Derek’s face, it’s so uncharacteristic but he can’t help but feel absolutely awful about his jabs.
“Uh…” Stiles struggles to find the words, which is par for the course when dealing with Derek in regards to anything other than snark and sarcasm.
“You’re right,” Derek’s voice is soft and so young sounding, Stiles stills at this, “I shouldn’t have expected you to just automatically know what went wrong.”
“Derek I…” But whatever moment of sincerity that managed to exist between the two of them was quickly forgotten as Derek finally returned Stiles’ earlier snark with a comment of his own.
“But I assumed that as our resident researcher and navigator of the bestiary, that you would have a grasp on exactly what could have caused this without me having to hold your hand through everything.” Derek turns and walks to Stiles’ room, calling over his shoulder, “I guess you’re growing senile in your old age.”
“H-hey! You’re older than me!” Stiles follows.
“Not right now, I’m not. As you have made sure to point out.” Derek frowns at the papers strewn about the room, “How the hell do you find anything in this mess?”
“I’ve told you before, I have a system of organized chaos, step off.”
“Right…” Derek responds dubiously. With a roll of his eyes, he goes over to Stiles’ wardrobe and starts rifling through the contents.
“Why yes, Derek. Please, help yourself to my clothes.” Stiles sorts through his recent research notes, voice dripping with sarcasm. “You know, I realize that I may not be as buff as you when you’re all regular Derek sized, but I think my clothes will still be too big for you. Unless you decide to wear a pair of my boxers as shorts…”
He hears Derek grunt in affirmative as he grabs the gnome notes that he so unceremoniously kicked out of the carefully organized pile on his floor. As he shuffles the pages together, he flips through them gently. There’s pages on gnome diets, their underground culture, how to visit them, how to appease them, et cetera.
“So I’m going to have to admit my ignorance here. Other than that thing that you know who was trying to accomplish, I have no idea why or how this is happening…” Stiles turns to look at Derek, who is now wearing a pair of Stiles’ egg printed boxers and an incredibly loose, threadbare tank top that he didn’t even realize he still had. “You’re gonna have to give me something to work with… so I can… crack this case.”
Derek blinks, no appreciation for Stiles’ joke making abilities.
“Forget you, that was hilarious. Throw me a bone.” He stops with faux consideration, “I guess I should be the one throwing you a bone though.”
At the lack of a reaction, Stiles withers and pouts, slumping against his windowsill.
“Are you done?”
Stiles nods silently.
“Okay, so I was on patrol, as we agreed.”
“Mm-hm?”
“And while I was on patrol, I…” Derek hesitates before continuing carefully. “Noticed something strange, and next thing I know, I’m suddenly in the body of my six year old self again.”
Stiles stares at Derek as he says this, his body language is strangely guarded and Stiles frowns. “I personally think you look closer to seven or eight, but that’s beside the point. Derek, that is possibly the least helpful thing you could have told me. Could you give me a place, smell, or description to work with? Literally anything helpful at all?”
“City park. Near the library.” Derek grits out the words as if the confession of that helpful information was physically painful.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Stiles stands and moves to his whiteboard, he spins it around to reveal a map of Beacon Hills. “Okay…” He pores over the map and sees that a sealed entrance to the old subway is located near the back of the library.
“Was this near the Eastern or Western part of the park?”
“Uh… east.”
“Hm…” Sure enough, the underground entrance meets up with about where Derek reticently described. He starts to mentally list the various supernatural creatures that like to make their home in the underground area. “So… why didn’t you just help yourself into my room as you usually do? You never answered.” Stiles says conversationally.
“I...I couldn’t.”
“What was that?”
“I said, I couldn’t.”
Stiles turns away from the board to gawk at Derek. “What do you mean, you couldn’t ? Derek, do you not have your werewolfiness right now?”
“No. I mean I don’t not have it. But I don’t have the fine-tuned control that my adult body does.” Derek looks down at his small palms, “If I try to use my werewolf abilities in anyway, I have no way of gauging the strength behind my actions right now.”
“Exactly how strong can a werewolf child be?” Stiles laughs weakly.
“Let me put it this way. I tried to run here on my hands and feet, because that’s usually faster for me. Rather than running, I accidentally destroyed part of the asphalt on the ground.” Derek slumps onto the ground, “I can’t control it right now.”
“Okay, fair enough.” Stiles turns back to the board and writes down a list of the underground dwelling creatures. “Did you catch a whiff of any of these before this happened to you?”
“I...might have noticed a gnome.”
“Oh man, really? I don’t want to have to deal with them again so soon.” Stiles goes over to his freshly organized pile of gnome notes, he flips through them to the sections on how to visit and appease them. “Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid to piss them off?”
“Your confidence in me is astounding.”
“You haven’t given me much to work with, can you blame me?”
Derek levels him with a classic glare and stare. “I didn’t do anything to piss them off.”
“You sure you didn’t accidentally kick a gnome puppy or something? Destroy any gnome gardens?” Stiles grins, “Did you kill Gnomeo and Juliet?”
“Alright, clearly you’re not going to help. I’ll wait until everyone else is back.” Derek moves to leave the room.
“Wait wait wait, sorry. This is just… ridiculous.” Stiles flips through his notes to the visitation pages. There are illustrations of jewel toned beetles amongst the steps of how to enter a gnome’s underground city. “Hm? You know I was initially joking about stepping on gnome stuff but…” Stiles takes a closer look at the descriptions under the beetles. “Do you remember maybe accidentally stepping on this ?”
He turns the book towards Derek and points at the emerald beetle illustration. Beneath it reads the words “ used to shrink non-gnome creatures into a size that allows visitation into a gnome city, typically used for land negotiations and trading ”.
Derek’s eyes widen in recognition, but he quickly shrugs, floundering slightly, “M-maybe, I’m not sure.”
“ Dude , you should have said something sooner, Jesus.”
“Don’t call me dude.” Derek huffs and averts his gaze. But there’s gotta be something more to this.
Stiles rolls his eyes, “Whatever, c’mon we need to get you back to the gnome-man lands, they have these ruby beetles to reverse the effect of the emerald beetles.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, I’m not having you leave the house dressed in my boxers and a tank top that looks like it’s going to fall apart any second.”
“Stiles, it doesn’t matter.”
“What, are you gonna just walk there, while holding a bag of your adult clothing? Hoping that not a single concerned citizen stops you along the way?”
“I can use the woods.” Derek speaks with finality.
“Well the entrance to Gnome Town is in the basement of the library, which you will have to walk through to reach.” Stiles crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow defiantly, “You wanna try that again?”
“I can break into the library.”
“It’s freezing outside, and there will be plenty of patrons in the library today.” Stiles moves to his closet, “Try again, buddy.”
Derek’s cheeks redden with indignation, “And what are you exactly trying to suggest?”
With a grin, Stiles pulls down a cardboard box from the top shelf of his closet. He opens it to reveal child-sized clothing. He tosses a random graphic tee at Derek’s dumbfounded face and rummages deeper into the box. He plucks his matching snowflake patterned hat and scarf from the side of the box and digs some more. He withdraws some blue striped sweats aaand… from the depths of the box he unearths a bright red and tree-patterned winter sweater.
He holds all the items aloft with a huge grin splitting his face.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope! Bundle up sourwolf! Don’t worry, I’ll turn away.”
Stiles lays the clothes on the bed and turns around with a smirk. He hears Derek mumbling curses under his breath, but he also hears the shifting of fabric. Stiles’ eyes rove his closet and he frowns thoughtfully. He doesn’t have any kid shoes that his father deemed important enough to keep for future use. He then recalls a pair of yellow rain boots that sat long forgotten in the garage.
Derek grits out an “I’m done” and Stiles turns around to see little Derek bundled up in his old clothing. And if he were to be asked candidly, Stiles would have said that Derek looked absolutely adorable. Thankfully no one was there to question him.
“Hey, what about the hat and scarf?”
“What about shoes ?”
“Thank you for reminding me! C’mon.” Stiles grabs the hat and scarf from his bed. He also grabs the adult Derek clothes that were carefully folded on the edge of his bed and flies down the stairs.
Derek follows and forces out a small, “Thank you. I can actually walk without tripping over myself now.”
“Aww, you’re welcome. Glad to be of service.” Stiles puts the clothes on the kitchen table and opens the door leading into the garage. Sure enough, the pair of yellow rain boots are still there under the rake and years of debris. He shakes various bug carcasses out of the boots and presents them to Derek with a flourish.
“Your shoes, my liege.”
“Shut up.” But Derek takes the shoes and pulls them on. “ Now can we go?”
“Tsk tsk, you gotta put the hat and scarf on.”
“No.”
“No!?”
“This is absolutely ridiculous.”
“Ohohoho, really . This is ridiculous, but the fact that you have been turned into a younger version of yourself again isn’t?”
“ Stiles , I’m a werewolf. I have a higher body temperature, therefore I don’t exactly need to be ‘bundled’ up.”
“Nice of you to completely ignore the fact that you’ve managed to get yourself into this kind of predicament again . And besides, I’m not about to go around town and have the good people of Beacon Hills thinking that I’m some kind of a child abuser .”
Stiles pulls on the hat and holds the scarf out to Derek. He relents and lets Stiles wind the scarf around his neck, eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
“There we go, that wasn’t that hard, was it?”
“Whatever, can we go sometime today?”
“Yeah yeah, lemme grab my keys and wallet.” Stiles grabs those as well as a plastic bag for Derek’s clothes.
The drive across town to the library is awkward.
Stiles knows that Derek is still omitting something about his encounter earlier, and he’s pretty sure that Derek knows that he knows. He frets at a few stoplights, trying to find the right words to figure out why Derek was being so cagey about this whole encounter.
Stiles thought that they were past this pettiness, they’ve worked together for many years at this point, and he even tentatively considered them to be friends. But this evasiveness and unwillingness to be open about things was just like the early days of their… well, it wasn’t even an acquaintanceship, they barely tolerated each other.
“I can hear you thinking.”
“Well I wasn’t aware that this beetle granted you mind reading powers, unless you had mind reading powers as a kid and lost that ability with age.”
“No, I mean…” Derek sighs and looks out the side window. He twists his fingers into the fabric of the sweater. “I know that I’ve been weirdly unspecific about this whole thing.”
“Ha! Yeah, you think?” Stiles scoffs.
“It’s because I wanted to make sure that you weren’t affected.”
“Affected? By a beetle that you accidentally stepped on on the other side of town?” Stiles snorts, “Derek, c’mon. I thought we were past this.”
“We are , it’s just... I didn’t step on the beetle on accident.” He trails off into whisper at the end of the sentence, but Stiles heard clear enough.
“What do you mean it wasn’t on accident?” Stiles blinks, trying to make sense of the new information, “Your super sniffer should have told you that that beetle was magical, right? You should’ve known that stepping on some random magical being would have had some sort of consequence!”
“I knew that it was something.” Derek slumps in his seat and grumbles.
“ Something ? Derek, just tell me, stop this omission bullshit.” Stiles says with irritation.
“It smelled like one of the nogitsune’s flies to me. Which worried me.” Derek huffs, “There you go.”
Stiles stills at that. Even with what Derek just said, he still notices the strange amount of apprehension around the words. “And?”
“And what else? Do you want me to tell you how it made me worried about you? How scared I was about you getting hurt again? What do you want me to say, Stiles?” Derek’s voice raises in volume and he turns towards Stiles full bodily.
Stiles swallows the lump in his throat and pulls over to park. He blinks and shakes his head, trying to process what Derek just said. He turns his head towards Derek. Derek’s face is red and blotchy, his eyes are huge and have tears beading at the corners. His lower lip is quivering as his eyebrows stay aggressively furrowed.
“Well!?” A couple of the tears escape and stream down his round cheeks.
Combined with the teary eyed child in his car and his brain’s gears finally working, Stiles is astonished by his revelation.
“Oh my god, you care about me.”
“Wh-w- YES ! I thought that was obvious!” Derek responds emphatically.
“No, you really care about me. Scott said that you wanted to stay behind, and that you’re not ‘glarey’ around me.” Stiles rests his forehead against his steering wheel, “Oh sweet Jesus.”
“Stiles, I’m so sorry.” Derek speaks carefully, “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same. I’m sorry for putting you in an awkward position.”
Derek sighs, “Now that I know, I can work on getting over you. I’d like if we could still be friends, despite this.”
“Oh my god, you’re so dumb.” Stiles takes a shuddering breath, “Did I say at any moment, that I didn’t feel the same?” Derek’s eyes widen at this. Stiles continues speaking and mumbling his thoughts under his breath, “I’m going to kill Scott. There’s probably not even a real feral wendigo is there?”
He stops suddenly, and grabs the plastic bag of clothes as well as a single chocolate gold coin from his cup holder. “Nope, I’m not having this conversation with you while you look like a third grader. C’mon.”
Derek blinks as Stiles owlishly, and hastily wipes the drying tears from his face. Stiles slides out of the car and goes around to open the door for Derek. Derek hops down and meekly tugs at the edge of the sweater, Stiles locks the car and holds out his free hand. Derek looks up at Stiles and smiles tentatively.
This isn’t exactly how Stiles imagined holding hands with Derek this holiday season, but it was still nice in a strange way.
The two of them enter the library and nod at the employees at the circulation desk. Stiles guides Derek through the stacks to the back of the building to the once carefully sealed door leading to the basement. He nudges the door open with his hip after making sure there were no onlookers, and the two of them descend into the dark depths of the library.
They carefully navigate the dark and dusty stacks of the basement and find the sealed entrance to the old subway platform. Or at least that’s how it appeared, Derek and Stiles pass through the disguised archway and enter a warmly lit platform. Standing before them were four gnome guards wearing what looked like armor made out of reptilian skin seated around a small table playing some sort of card game.
The gnomes look up from the table at the sound of Stiles and Derek entering the vestibule.
"Ey wouldja look at dis, dose humans are back." The gnome seated facing them calls out.
"Aye, I see dem." Says the gnome to his left.
"Dat were one seems to 'ave used an emerald beetle. But he didn't pass through here, right?" Says the one to his right. The fourth gnome nods silently in agreement.
The first gnome stands and grins with broken teeth, "Dey prolly need demselves a ruby beetle, amiright?"
Stiles takes this moment to speak, "Yes, yes that's why we're here. It seems as though an emerald beetle wandered off, and my friend here stepped on it."
"A were shoulda been able to whiff out oneuva our beetles." The left one speaks with an incredulous tone.
"Yes, he did, but he mistook it for another kinda magic. Easy mistake to make. Now could we get one of those ruby beetles to go, or is it dine-in only?"
"Stiles..." Derek hisses under his breath, his hand tightening around Stiles' infinitesimally.
The first gnome steps around the table and waddles towards them. "Sure sure, dats an easy mistake. But mistakes come at a price..." The gnome grins and holds out an empty palm.
"Show me the beetle first."
"Show me whatcha gon' give me for da beetle."
Stiles pulls the chocolate gold coin and a pair of clear red plastic dice from his pocket, while simultaneously the gnome buries his hand into his pocket and withdraws a closed fist.
“This is so dumb.” Derek whispers to Stiles.
“Shut up .” Stiles whispers back.
The gnome to the right pipes up, “On dee count a three…”
Stiles maintains eye contact with the first gnome as the right gnome counts down, “One… two… three !”
In the leather covered palm of the gnome lay a glittering and bright red beetle. In Stiles’ hand lay the chocolate gold coin and the red dice from the Scott’s game of Aggravation that he happened to have stowed away in his pocket.
The gnome’s eyes glitter at the sight of Stiles’ offering. “Dose are some lovely lookin’ dice you’ve got dere, you sure you wanna part with such a lovely item?”
Stiles falters, but quickly nods, “Oh I know, I will miss them so much. They’re really so lovely, aren’t they, Derek?” Derek nods dumbly, “Now then, if I give you these beloved dice, and my golden coin here, will that be enough for the ruby beetle?”
The main gnome turns back to the other three and they snicker conspiratorially. “Ye, take the damned beetle. Gimme dose dice already!”
Stiles gives the gnomes a withering smile as they trade. The gnomes cackle with glee as the main gnome returns to the table with his spoils.
“Let’s get outta here, Derek…” Stiles leads the two of them back into the library basement, the echoes of the gnomes cackling and the clattering of sound of the dice upon the table follows them.
Derek steps out of the bathroom sheepishly holding the plastic bag of clothes out to Stiles. “I think my shoes should be around the back of the building still…”
“Dude, why didn’t you tell me to go grab them while you were doing your beetle mumbo jumbo, presto change-o?”
Derek reflexively responds with a “Don’t call me dude.” But then he coughs awkwardly, “I… I didn’t want you too far away.”
“Aww… you’re such a sap.” Stiles takes the plastic bag from Derek’s outstretched hand, and takes the now empty hand into his opposite one.
“Let’s go get your shoes. I’m pretty sure the cafe has a no shoes, no shirt, no service policy.”
“Cafe?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not waiting a moment longer to take you out on a date. If you’ll have me of course.” Stiles hesitates for a split second as Derek’s silence draws out. “Der?”
Derek blinks, but a gentle, sincere smile works its way across his face. “Of course.”
Stiles returns the smile with a sincere one of his own. A mischievous glint enters his eyes, “By the way… did I mention what an adorable kid you made?”
“ Stiles …”
“ So cute. I should’ve taken pictures when I had the chance!”
“Nevermind, this was a terrible idea. I’m going home.”
“Wait, Derek!”
“This is a library, Stiles. Please keep your voice down.”
