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The basement is dark and silent and smells both dusty and… grassy. Like some kind of dried herbs, a lot of them, and the scent tickles Stiles’s nose, almost making him sneeze but not quite—that feeling of a sneeze that won’t come out. He wrinkles his nose as he moves forward and finally remembers his phone’s flashlight app.
Just in time too, because he’s about a foot away from Derek, whose hands are spread wide in the What, really? gesture, because Derek’s a goddamned werewolf and, of course, he can see in the dark.
“Fuck! Warn a guy,” Stiles bitches. He shines the light at Derek and notices Derek’s lips are moving; he’s actually not just standing there in condescending silence as Stiles almost stumbles into him.
“Wait, dude, I can’t hear you. What the fuck?”
Derek stops gesticulating and drops his hands. He looks confused.
“You can hear me?” Stiles asks.
Derek answers, but it’s like his sound is on mute, and even though lipreading isn’t exactly that hard for yes/no, it’s like Stiles can see Derek’s face moving but not make any sense of it. Stiles takes a step forward and runs into what is evidently an invisible wall because ouch, that really goddamned hurt.
He rubs his nose as Derek laughs at him.
“Eat me,” he grumbles. “So you’re trapped in some thingy,” Stiles says, waving his hands, “and you can’t get out, and I can’t hear you. Or read your lips,” he says, and valiantly stays focused on the situation rather than the word lips in association with Derek because yes, Derek’s body parts are a distraction Stiles has fallen into before. It tends to take a while for him to refocus.
Derek nods, an impatient expression on his face.
“Okay, we’ll stick with you nodding yes/nos. Is there a light around here?”
Derek points at the far wall. Stiles shines the phone-cum-flashlight at it, stumbles over the—Jesus Christ, so cluttered—floor, and turns it on. A bare yellow blub flickers into life reluctantly. In the dim light, the place is a disaster, as if the basement is half storage for random ephemera and half outright garbage. Every surface is covered in wood shavings, ashes, and dust so thick it’s dirt. No wonder Stiles’s nose itches.
“So, the uh, wizard dude, or whatever, is dead. Scott and Isaac took care of him,” Stiles says, filling in Derek while he looks around. “We don’t have to worry about him coming back and stopping us or anything. On the other hand, the house keeps quivering, and Lydia thinks it’s about to fall down, like maybe magic was keeping it up or something, and now that the dude’s dead….”
Derek rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, I know—great. So time is kind of of the essence, here. If you can tell me how you got stuck in there, maybe I can get you out?”
No translation is needed for the look of disgust Derek gives him as he waves his arms around, clearly swearing a blue streak.
“Okay, okay. Not tell, but um….” Stiles thinks for a moment. It’s not like Derek’s the most communicative guy in the best of circumstances, but Stiles usually has a good idea of what’s going on in Derek’s head, when he bothers to pay attention. He can figure this out.
“Dude, charades!” he says, like it’s the best idea ever and not a total abomination.
Derek for reals looks like he wants to cry. Like this is what his life has come to: charades with Stiles to get him out of some wizard’s trap. Like how is this even his life; he’d be better off dead.
So not flattering.
“So not flattering!” Stiles says. “We can totally do this. You may be all broody and silent, but you broadcast how you feel all the time. Plus, as always, we don’t have a lot of choices. I mean, I could leave you here and let the house fall down, and you’d probably survive that, but who knows if it’d end the spell, since that asshat’s death didn’t. You’d be stuck forever, but also buried. Or, you know, we can figure this out.”
Derek shrugs again, like he’s okay with either option.
Whatever. Stiles likes puzzles, and this one will be fun. Plus, making Derek play charades is a comedic goldmine of blackmail material that will last for years.
The ceiling shakes and rains down a shower of God knows what onto Stiles. Right, he’s not exactly safe down here. Time to get moving.
“All right, so wizard dweeb dude somehow got you down here…?” Stiles begins and looks at Derek expectantly.
Who huffs a bit, shuffles his feet and finally mimes something that looks like a hammer, if the nail was at about shoulder height.
“He smacked you on the back of the head with something,” Stiles translates, and gets a nod. “The classics. Uhhh….”
Derek throws up his hands, disgusted.
“Come on! You’ve got to give me a little time here. Or, I don’t know, fucking help. It’s only your life I’m trying to save.”
Derek gives him a look Stiles is intimately familiar with.
“Fuck you. Deaton’s been teaching me, and his witch lady-friend, and I know you don’t like magic, but I’m good at this, so if you’d just help me figure out how this thing was made, I can probably unmake it. Probably.”
Stiles closes his eyes and concentrates. The first thing Jenya taught him was to focus on the shape of the spell, physically. He reaches out, feeling an electric buzz, like when you lick a battery to see if it’s still got juice. It’s uncomfortable—not painful, but definitely not something he wants to keep touching. He runs his hand upward, feeling the shape, which extends beyond his fingertips. He crouches down, shining his phone light on the floor for a better look than the overhead bulb is giving. The floor is covered with dirt and plant matter, except for the circle Derek is standing in; that area is clean, as if it was swept. So basically, the whole room is like the space around a magic soap bubble holding Derek in.
Derek doesn’t seem impressed with this analysis. But Derek never seems impressed, so Stiles ignores him.
“So he conked you on the head, and you woke up here. Was he still here making the trap when you woke up, or was he gone by then?”
Derek’s mouth and hands move for a few aggravated moments before Stiles takes a breath and reconsiders. “Right, sorry, should have stuck with yes/nos. My bad. Was the wizard gone when you came to?”
Derek’s no is pretty emphatic.
“Was he still working on the spell?”
Yup, he apparently was. Okay. So now Stiles just has to figure out what the wizard used to make the spell. Easy-peasy. He’s only surrounded by a zillion possible spell tools and ingredients. Fuck his life, man, really.
Right, so there has to be a way to narrow things down. “Did he have anything in his hands?” he asks.
Derek rolls his eyes, gazes heavenward in an unflattering plea for patience, and mimes… eating?
Stiles blinks. “Uh. He was eating? While he was casting a spell? What?”
Derek facepalms. When he’s decided to be helpful again, he waves his arms at the shelves lining the wall to Stiles’s left. They are crammed full of crap, but nothing that’s obviously food.
Stiles turns back to Derek, arms spread helplessly. “What?”
Obviously oppressed by this whole endeavor, Derek carefully mimes a plate, a utensil in each hand, and… cutting meat? Then holds up the hand with the….
“Oh! A knife!” Duh, Derek’s face says. Whatever, Stiles totally nailed it.
He explores the shelves, vibrating with his success and trying very hard to look with his eyes and not his hands. That lesson—which was repeated several times until he got it—really sucked. He finds a few likely candidates and tugs down the sleeves of his hoodie to cover his hands. Using the material like oven mitts, he picks up a knife and holds it so Derek can see.
“This one?”
Not that one, no. Not the next one either, but the third knife Stiles holds up for Derek’s yay or nay is correct, according to Derek’s sarcastic eyebrows and nodding.
“Okay, great. So he was using this knife. Anything else in his hands or nearby?” He gets a nod and nods back at Derek. There’s a pause while they both look expectantly at each other. “Dude, work with me here.” The ceiling shudders a bit, reinforcing his point.
Derek makes what Stiles thinks of as his grr-face, eyes flashing red for a second, teeth exposed but still fully human. It’s hard to tell if his face gets hairier or not, and someday Stiles is going to carefully evaluate the length of Derek’s stubble while Stiles annoys him, but today is not that day. Well, at least not right now.
“So, the other thing Wizard-wank was using?”
After a moment of thinking, Derek holds his hand up, middle fingers bent down.
“What? Devil rock and roll horns? What the hell?”
If time wasn’t of the essence, Derek’s huff of impatience would be hilarious. “Come on, man. You’re an epically shitty mime. I know you’re too cool for school, but try, okay? I want to get the fuck out of here before this house crushes me.”
Now the grr-face has fangs. Derek carefully points at his butt. Then makes a circle with his hands.
“And now you’re calling me an asshole. Clever.” Their frustrated snarking at each other is so normal that it’s almost like flirting these days. It’s familiar, soothing, and more amusing than anything else. “Come on, try again, dickface.”
An unfortunate choice of insult, but Stiles is not going to think about Derek and his dick, or Derek and Stiles’s dick, or dicks near anyone’s faces. He is not. Lives are in danger, and there will be time for perving later. Probably.
There is another rain of dirt from the ceiling, this time heavier than the last.
“I am too young and pretty to die, so hurry your wolfy ass up. I didn’t jerk off this morning and while I might be stuck dying as a virgin, I’m not going to fucking kick it without one more date with Rosie Palm. So mime, goddamn you.”
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the inspiring or motivating speech Stiles intended, but it was sincere, and Derek’s got that same smugly amused look he always gets when the subject of Stiles’s V-card is brought up. Which, okay, isn’t that infrequent, but Stiles challenges anyone to try being seventeen and bisexual and surrounded by supernaturally hot people and regularly running for their lives and pumped up full of glorious adrenaline. When he’s not about to die, he’s about to explode with pent-up frustration. No one he knows will go out with him—or even fuck him—and he totally doesn’t have time to deal with Muggles.
“Focus”, he says, to both of them.
Derek raises a brow like he was just patiently waiting for Stiles to get his shit together. Stiles waves at Derek to get to the pantomiming, and Derek carefully pretends to pick something up with his thumb and forefinger and then waves his hand up and down, pinky finger extended.
Stiles laughs at him. “I have no idea what that is, man, are you drinking miniature tea?” Seriously, it’s the most effeminate gesture Stiles can imagine anyone making, like even the Queen of England would be embarrassed at how prissy it is. “Try something else before I die laughing, please.”
The glare is impressive. A muscle jumps in Derek’s jaw, it’s clenched so tightly. His chest rises and falls as he takes a deep breath. He shakes his head a little as if he can’t believe what he’s doing and raises a hand to cup his ear.
“Oooh!” Stiles claps. “I knew you knew how to play charades, you big lying liar. Sounds like?”
Derek nods. Then he leans forward and knocks on an invisible door. Stiles opens his mouth to start guessing, but Derek glares him into silence; apparently he’s not finished yet. He leans forward and pokes firmly at the space above where he just knocked.
“Door bell?” Stiles guesses. Derek nods, but holds up two fingers. “Second word? Bell? You were ringing a bell earlier? Dude, what the fuck kind of bell was that?”
Grr-face number three is accompanied by the room shaking in a miniearthquake. It’s California, a seriously minor tremor, not a big deal. Except it was magic decaying, not tectonic plates shifting, and they’re in a fucking basement. And the shaking continues every few moments.
“Bell, kell, dell, fell—no wait, nouns only,” Stiles reminds himself, turning to peruse the shelves again. “Hell—oh, was that what the devil horns were about? Wow, that was weak, dude. Umm… sell….” His eyes fall on a sizeable abalone shell with a bundle of burned herbs and ashes in the middle. “Shell?”
Derek gives him an exaggerated double thumbs-up and horrendous fake grin, nodding.
Whatever. Stiles bites his lip, thinking. Still using the hoodie to protect his hands, he picks up both the knife and shell. He thinks for a second, then dumps out the ashes. He taps the shell with the knife, and the invisible walls holding Derek in shimmer. Hands out, Derek shoves against the barrier, but nothing happens.
Time is ticking by, the quivers and tremors growing stronger. There might be a more elegant way to do this, but Stiles has an idea and it’s rough, but hopefully it’ll work. Deaton and Jenya would probably have better ideas, but they aren’t here.
He puts the abalone shell on the floor, touching the edge of the wizard’s trap. Then he grabs the knife like a sword and stabs it down into the center of the shell, splitting it into pieces. The crack of the shell is accompanied by an electric zap, a huge wave of magical energy that blows Stiles back onto his ass.
The dust doesn’t settle so much as do the exact opposite and keep billowing as the entire place shudders and the beams holding up the ceiling decide that they’re done defying gravity now, thank you. Stiles blinks, more than a little stunned, but not so much that he doesn’t hear Derek swearing and cussing, shoving things out of the way. Derek grabs Stiles around the waist and slings him over one stupidly broad shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and hauls ass up the remaining parts of the staircase.
The next thing Stiles is aware of is being outside, on the grass, looking up at the stars while his head throbs and his body is squashed—not entirely unpleasantly—by a very heavy werewolf.
“Off,” he grunts, shoving feebly at Derek, who is still on top of him for some stupid reason. He can’t breathe, and also, while this is totally the stuff his fantasies are made of, even Stiles knows this isn’t the time.
Not very far away, the rumble of the house falling down turns into a roaring crash, glass shattering, shards of wood and whatnot exploding outward, flying everywhere. Some pieces land pretty close to where Stiles is being smothered. Oh, right, Derek is being a human shield. Again.
The quiet that follows the crash is deafening. Or maybe that’s just the pounding of Stiles’s heartbeat.
He uses his hands to push against Derek, even though they want to do the opposite and wrap tighter, pull Derek closer. Stiles knows far too well how this next bit goes—the relief of surviving danger will be followed by the flood of adrenaline, and that’ll be followed by an epic boner that there is no way Derek won’t feel in this position. It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again, but that doesn’t mean Stiles isn’t going to attempt to avoid the humiliation today. There are only so many times he can joke that danger turns him on before it gets weird. And he’s probably already passed that number anyway. What, it’s not his fault—have you seen Derek?
Stiles squirms, but Derek isn’t moving off. There are occasional crashes from the house, so maybe he’s still protecting Stiles, but come on. He shoves his lower body until Derek at least lifts up enough to give Stiles some space, crouched on all fours over him but not lying on top anymore.
“Can’t you hold still? Are you even capable of it?” Derek growls. “If you’d managed to figure things out faster, we’d be far enough away that I wouldn’t have to do this.”
“Oh right, this is my fault! I only got your ungrateful wolfy ass out of a magical trap that could have buried you alive for-fucking-ever! How about a ‘Gee, Stiles, thanks for saving my life again’ or something?”
They glare at each other for a moment.
“And you’re bad at charades,” Stiles adds.
Weaksauce. Seriously.
Derek blinks at him, and then his lips twitch, and his eyes crinkle, and he laughs. Whatever, that was totally lame; Stiles is laughing too. And Derek, he’s beautiful like this. Loose and relaxed and so much more carefree-looking.
They’ve stopped laughing now, though, and the humor on Derek’s face is fading into an expression Stiles can’t read. It’s… soft? The humor still lingers, but there’s seriousness too, and his eyes are glowing, maybe, but not in a wolfy way?
And then Derek moves, bringing their faces close and breathing gently on Stiles’s mouth. The kiss isn’t all swooning-movie romance because both of them have their eyes open, but… but it’s still pretty amazing.
They break apart far too soon. Smiling, Derek says, “Thanks for saving my life again.”
And Stiles, well. He’s good at reading Derek. There’s a hint of uncertainty in the tension of Derek’s body, in the softness of his voice—under the humor, of course. He wraps his arms around Derek and pulls their bodies together again, Stiles’s awkward erection no longer quite as humiliating.
He does, in fact, know how to be quiet sometimes. After all, they don’t need words to talk, loud and clear. They never have. And there are definitely better things their lips could be doing right now.