Title: Magic from Home
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~500 words
Notes: Future fic, general spoilers through season 3
Summary: Stiles is a protector, a caretaker, keeping this place and everything in it safe.



"Witch hazel," Stiles says under his breath. "Trillium. Bleeding heart." It's somewhere between an incantation and a grocery list, and Derek lets the sound of the words in Stiles's voice, the feel of them, wash over him like a warm breeze.

They're tucked into one of the little grassy dells in the preserve that Derek's known about for as long as he can remember, places his family knew and loved. The last winter was a wet one, something the land needed desperately, and in response, spring is lush and green and extravagant. They're surrounded by wood ferns slowly uncurling, pink fawn lilies just starting to bloom, moss and lichen that's plump and spongy. Derek thinks that might be Stiles's influence, too—he won't call himself a druid, won't categorize himself as anything but human, but there's magic and power in his intent, and now that the nemeton's inert, Derek can feel how the living pulse of the forest responds to him.

Derek can feel how his own pulse responds, the thrum in his bones, the itch in his claws.

Stiles is a protector, a caretaker, keeping this place and everything in it—his dad and Scott, the pack, Derek—safe. The forest hasn't felt this way since Derek was a kid, when he was sure of Talia's unbreakable authority and sure of his own place in the world.

Stiles skims his palm against the ground while he recites his litany of forest names, rhythmic and distracted. Derek's stretched out next to him, and he can feel the displacement of air as Stiles sweeps closer and closer, until his fingertips brush Derek's arm.

Derek opens his eyes, and Stiles is right there, watching him. "What's going on in there?" he asks, tapping his finger gently against Derek's temple, and Derek answers him without even having to think about it, says, "Good things."

It makes Stiles grin, makes him hunker down on his elbows, waggle his eyebrows and murmur, "Oh yeah?" and brush a kiss against Derek's scruffy cheek. It's a tease—Derek lets his lips fall open a little, and Stiles kisses him again, licks into his mouth, wet and electric. It makes Derek shiver, makes all the hair on his arms stand up until Stiles touches him, soothes him, broad, strong hands drawn unerringly to all the places where there should be scars, everywhere Derek's body has had to knit itself back together.

Stiles settles against him, brackets Derek's head with his arms like that's all he has to do to shield Derek from any bad thing, kisses him slow and sweet, warm and deep until Derek's lips feel swollen and tingling.

Distantly, Derek can hear the rushing of an over-full stream, the eerie echo of a thrush; here, the thump of Stiles's heart, the rasp of their clothing, their shared breaths, rough and uneven. His own heartbeat is loud in his ears.

Stiles fits their palms together, and Derek feels the spark of it all the way down his spine. Stiles's face is fond and fierce and so familiar, and when he says, "Derek Hale," low and certain like it means something, that's a kind of magic, too.