Chapter Text
There was something about sharing a space with someone that Stiles found strangely… strange. He had roommates before, and they had all been disasters. In his first year of college, there was this guy that couldn’t keep his hands off of Cactus Everdeen (yes, his plant) and demanded that he be rushed to the hospital as well as to a new place to live. The second year, one had drunk a hair renewal potion in the fridge — it was partially Stiles’ fault for using the orange juice carton — and came walking out of the kitchen looking like the child of Bigfoot and Michael J. Fox’s Teen Wolf.
Last year had been the tipping point. Stiles had managed to push both him and his roommate out of their small apartment after one small mistake with a spell that ended up with half of the living room on fire. In all fairness, it wasn’t his fault that the letters were smudged, turning flame into flora.
Now, he was content.
“What are you doing?”
Stiles froze, a pure quartz stirring stick — It’s not a chopstick, Derek. — poised between his lips with his arms outstretched. “What? I need to heat up this potion?” Instead, the words came out sounding like aht, ah ee oo ead uh his ohun.
Derek’s eyes furled deeper into a scowl that was nearly one hundred and fifty percent judgment. “In the microwave?”
His eyes flickered from the man to the microwave, then to the miniature cauldron that he had found on E-Brew . It still bore the over-broiled contents of the last attempts to use it, unable to remove the damn goop without throwing the whole thing out. “Would you rather me use fire?”
No, both of their faces said. Stiles carefully placed the mixture into the microwave and entered two minutes into the timer.
Derek’s eyes narrowed as he turned on his heels and stalked back to his office. “You’re cleaning up your mess,” came with his retreating footsteps.
“ If I make a mess,” he called back.
“When.” The distinct sound of the door groaning as it closed let him know that the conversation was now over.
“When,” Stiles mocked in his best Derek-impression, then blew a raspberry in his general direction.
Derek Hale was a contradiction to everything Stiles held dearly. Where Stiles was erratic and found structure in his personal chaos, Derek was stoic, stable, and clean beyond all belief. When Stiles was able to glimpse into the office before the door shut — Everyone needs their own space, Stiles. This is mine. Now, leave before I make you. — everything was neat and orderly; in its space and never anywhere else.
It was surprising at how much opposition the two men held against each other and yet there was no long-lasting collateral damage. They orbited each other like two balanced planets, passing and always on the verge of touching every so often. It worked for them. Granted, Derek was the first werewolf roommate he’d ever had and respected his magical lifestyle, but there was always a first time for everything.
06:22PM Derek: I can hear you.
“Thanks for the reminder,” Stiles muttered. Werewolves and their stupid heightened senses. He threw up a finger at the man. Let’s see how he senses that, he thought.
06:23PM Derek: Very mature.
Stiles frowned. He punched open the microwave after its persistent beeping and nearly burnt his fingers trying to get the bowl back onto the counter. Derek would’ve been pissed if he dropped another mixing bowl on the floor again. He’d only just repaired the hole in the floor from the last mess.
The potion had been a request from a loyal client that always paid him well, especially when he was dealing with very volatile materials. Stiles figured it was well worth the potential excruciating death in favor of a whole five months of rent. No one could pass up an opportunity like that.
After heating it up, he was to mix it for exactly two hours before bottling and freezing it for another day and a half for it to ferment properly. The first half-hour passed with no interaction. He was mindlessly stirring, wishing he’d at least turned on the tv before he’d started. He couldn’t even reach to get his phone to ask Derek to do it without possibly letting the stuff sit for a second too long and ignite.
At the first hour mark, Derek huffed his way into the living room and turned on the tv. Stiles was thinking too loud, was his excuse. But, hey, it got him some entertainment, so who was he to complain.
He was near the end of an episode of Friends when the tv turned off. And all of the lights. It took all of half a second before the office door was yanked open and the wolf was seething in his direction.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he cried out in defense.
Although, it might have been him. His magic was very territorial. When someone else used magic in close contact with his, it could bounce back and make some gnarly messes. He’d first learned that in high school and the embarrassment of the whole ordeal was enough to haunt him forever. However, he didn’t feel any after-shock or bounce-back from nearby sources.
Derek narrowed his eyes. “Then what’s going on?”
“I’m a witch, not a prophet, Derek. Figure it out.”
The wolf stalked across the room and pulled back the drapes for the back door. No light flowed into the room with the change. “The entire block is out.” He tipped his head slightly. “Ms. Henderson is making her rounds. Black-out until they fixed the power lines. Must’ve been a car accident.”
“Great. There should be some candles in one of the cabinets.”
“Can’t you just,” Derek stalled. Stiles didn’t need any lights to know that he was making vague magical gestures.
“I can do that, or I can keep stirring this for the next twenty minutes to avoid any possible explosions.”
The witch could practically hear the wolf grinding his teeth. “I’d tell you to find a new occupation, but I know how that’d turn out.”
“It was one coffee!”
He made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort. Either way, Stiles was still offended. Beans and Brew still hadn’t lifted his ban from all of their locations, and he was bitter, to say the least.
“Which cabinet?”
“It’s either below the medicine cabinet or next to the tv. I can’t remember.”
“That’s helpful.”
Their squabbling went on as Derek rummaged through the offending cabinets, making more noise than necessary to find simple candles. Derek was near the tv, opening the second of three doors, when Stiles realized.
“Derek, can you see in the dark?”
“I’m a werewolf, not a miracle-worker,” he quipped right back.
Sure, throw his words right back at him, but it didn’t help their current situation. He waited a moment of rustling, then the door clanking shut, before asking, “Did you find them yet?”
Now the wolf growled.
“No rush. Just… If I don’t bottle these exactly when I need to…”
“It’ll explode,” he finished. “I got it.”
“Good.”
There were five minutes left, and Derek was still searching. They weren’t where he’d originally thought they’d be. Derek dug behind the batteries and DVD cabinet with no luck. The wolf was persistently growling louder and louder while pushing cans out of the way in the pantry when the rumbling stopped.
“The pantry? You’re an idiot.”
“We can move them later. Just get one over here so I can see what I’m doing.”
As much as Derek had told him several times that he wasn’t one to take orders from a ‘ scrawny, no-good, death-wish witch’, he was surprisingly lax with the instruction. It could very well be the impending doom looming over them as the minutes counted down.
The wolf abandoned the matches in favor of the long-handled lighter, which took some praises to get working. On the fourth try, it lit and he placed a glowing candle beside Stiles’ work-station: close enough to see, but not enough to potentially spark up an explosion.
On-time, Stiles maneuvered the mix into the designated bottle, sealed it, signed it, and put it into the freezer. He looked to Derek for some sort of appraisal, or at least proof of acceptance that they very well did not die.
Derek was pointedly not looking at him. He was lighting as many candles as he could manage without becoming a fire hazard. He said nothing as he took the five candles over to the coffee table in the living room. Stiles followed him with his one and set it beside the others before falling into the cushion next to him. He gave him one minute of silence.
“You going to sit here for the rest of the night, or?”
Derek turned, eyebrows creased. He frowned, stood, then left. The sudden lack of wolf made the largeness of the room very apparent, and before Stiles could do anything, the wolf was back again, book in hand, and took the same seat as before.
“Of course.” Stiles looked at the title, then groaned. “Really?”
Practical Magic was hardly an accurate representation of the supernatural world. Derek knew how much he despised it, only because Stiles had admitted during one drunken stupor that he’d tried the love spell and ended up making flowers grow out of his skin for two months before fixing it.
“I haven’t finished reading it yet.”
“You have, don’t lie. I saw you reading it last weekend.”
Derek narrowed his eyes at him. “Maybe I’m a slow reader.”
“Not with the size of our library,” Stiles scoffed. He settled further into the couch, crossing his arms over his chest as he counted out how many pages Derek got through in the passing time. He broke at the second page well after five minutes had passed. “You’re not even reading, are you?”
A noncommittal noise came from the wolf. He bumped his thigh with his own. Derek practically had to drag his eyes up to look at the witch-like it was a chore.
“Read to me. From the beginning.”
Derek stared at him for a moment as the witch closed his eyes and waited. Stiles didn’t really think that he would. Derek was more of a silent reader but overly expressive in his facial features, contorting and twisting as though he was in the character’s shoes. It was interesting to watch — when Stiles could find the time to do so.
They made it through the first chapter, a few pages into the second before they started to get jumbled and fuzzy in his mind. Between one blink and the next, Stiles was fast asleep.