Archive of Our Own

Hawaii is the kind of place that feels too good to be true in Stiles' opinion. Great beaches, universal health care, and a taste of vacation paradise without even leaving the US. And no matter what his Uncle Danny says, the pizza is fine.

“What's this, what is this, I mean... in my own house, you bring this disgusting thing in here, what are you doing-” Danny rambles as he comes through the door to find Stiles happily munching his way through a pineapple-adorned pizza at two pm.

“Sup?” he says, because eating takes priority right now. He came in on a very late flight last night, and he's pretty sure it's been about twenty hours since he ate last.

“What's up? What's up is a disgrace is what. Oh, god, I can't even watch.” Danny disappears into the bathroom, and Stiles flails in his general direction.

“You didn't even say hello! You haven't seen me in like five years! Where's the love!?”

Danny's voice is muffled through the bathroom door, but still perfectly audible, and his tone is distinctly wounded the way it is every time he loses faith in humanity. Which is several times a week, in Stiles' experience. “Nowhere near you, until that abomination is gone!”

Stiles gives the three remaining slices of pizza a calculating look. “No problem. Gimme like five minutes. Two if you don't care about manners.”

And sure enough, by the time Danny emerges from the bathroom Stiles is just stuffing the last crust into his mouth with a satisfied groan and immediately making grabby hands for a hug. Danny rolls his eyes, but does come over to pull Stiles off the chair and into his arms. “You're a brat, you know that? And brush your damn teeth.”

“Mmllrffll,” Stiles says, and he doesn't even need to see Danny's face to know he's rolling his eyes.

Stiles does brush his teeth once he's done chewing and swallowing, because despite rumors to the contrary he's a good nephew. And he must do a decent enough job, since Danny agrees to let him come to the station after only a little bit of begging. Because, sure, Stiles pretty much fled to Hawaii to get away for a while from the supernatural shit show that is his life, but to stay away from law enforcement? Birds gotta fly and fish gotta swim. Crime fighting is in his blood.

“Wait, I thought your nephew's name was Eric,” Kono says the minute they're introduced.

“That's Stella's kid. Stiles... isn't exactly a nephew nephew,” Danny says, and Stiles quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Wow. Eloquent there, Danny-boy.”

Danny points a finger in his face. “You? Shut it. Remember, I only let you tag along if you could behave.”

“Yeah, well,” Stiles drawls with a shrug, leaning obnoxiously on their fancy computer table. “That was kinda overly optimistic of you, wasn't it?”

“Calling Danny optimistic is like calling a pineapple salty,” a voice says from a doorway, and Stiles damn near slips to the floor, because hello.

“Even if it was, it still wouldn't ever belong on pizza, Steve, thank you for your input,” Danny says, and starts trying to steer Stiles towards an office, but no way is Stiles leaving before meeting and greeting that tall, muscular vision named Steve. Steve and Stiles. It sounds great. Their monogrammed wedding invitations are gonna look awesome.

“Steve, huh? Steve... what?” Stiles asks, nimbly side-stepping Danny to keep Steve in full view.

“McGarrett. I'm surprised Danny hasn't mentioned me,” Steve says, and then makes Stiles' day by stepping forward to shake his hand.

“Stiles Stilinski. Don't ask.”

Steve's eyes dart between Stiles and Danny, flicking down to Stiles' visitor badge before going back to his face. Those are nice eyes, actually. Very nice. “Well, I'm going to. Cause I've never heard of you either.”

Danny sighs with the weariness of someone who knows without a doubt his life is about to get ridiculous. “Steve, this is my sort of nephew Stiles. His dad and I worked together for a while when I was a rookie. John's a good guy, who, unlike you, never does crazy things like jumping out of airplanes or wrestling sharks-”

“Hey, I never wrestled a shark. I punched one, and it was in self-defense. Totally different,” Steve argues, while Stiles is busy having a small meltdown, because how is this guy real?

“Not the point, Steve. John Stilinski is a good, sane man, and I wish every day that he was here with me instead of you.”

“He loves me, really,” Steve tells Stiles, and then winks at him. Stiles has to think about tapeworms real quick, or risk having a very awkward situation in his tourist appropriate – if somewhat horrendous – palm tree shorts he bought at the airport as a joke.

“Well, who wouldn't?” Stiles manages, mouth kinda dry as his eyes helplessly travel across all the muscles in front of him, polo shirt not hiding anything at all, and Steve gives him a long look before huffing out a small laugh.

“Aw, man. Kid, don't even... you're, what, fifteen?”

Stiles can't help but pout, which probably doesn't help matters. “Uh, I'm twenty-two, thank you very much. Just on a little break from working on my thesis. Criminology major,” he adds, just because he can.

Steve gives him another look, this one definitely more calculating. And Stiles could be imagining things, but he could also almost swear that Steve's eyes dart down his body lightning quick for a once-over, and it makes him feel hot despite the amazingly good air-conditioning.

“Which, good for you,” Danny cuts in, “but the rest of us have work to do, so if you wouldn't mind stepping into my office so I can minimize the potential for you getting into trouble, and your father never forgiving me, that'd be swell, thank you.”

“Don't fight it!” Stiles calls to Steve over his shoulder, as Danny literally shoves him out of the room, and Steve watches with a crooked grin that has potential. Stiles is gonna win him over, he's sure of it.

Danny, however, is apparently determined to be a cock block. “Yes, Steve, you will fight it with all of your considerable muscle mass, or so help me I will find a way to hurt you,” he says, before slamming the door behind them. Not that it helps since it's a glass door, and Stiles sends helpless heart eyes at Steve until Danny forcibly turns him around and plops him down in a chair, facing the wall. “Jesus, you're shameless, what did I do to deserve this?”

“I can answer that. You've been working with someone like Steve for who knows how long, and haven't even tried to get in his pants? That's a crime, right there. This is your punishment for being an idiot. Unless you did try, and he just wasn't into the dad aesthetics? In which case I weep for you. Truly.”

“Oh god,” Danny groans, flopping into his desk chair and slamming his face into his palms. “Someone save me.”

As if on cue, Kono opens the door and pops her head in. “Danny, we got a situation.”

“Thank you, lord in heaven, thank you,” Danny tells the ceiling, and gets up so fast you'd think his chair was on fire. “What's up?”

Kono winces. “It's Mrs. Hernandez again.”

Danny's face falls so suddenly it's hilarious. “Aw crap, where's a good murder when you need one,” he mutters before getting a hold of himself. “You know what, make Steve go. That should cool his heels.” He sends Stiles a dirty look. “And don't even bother asking if you can come along. It's just an old widow who gets drunk every few months and calls the police for stupid reasons. Maybe we should arrest her for obstruction of justice or something, and let her sober up in jail. Just to teach her not to bother the police because you're drunk and lonely.”

“Now might be the time,” Kono says. “She claims there are ghosts in her house.”

Stiles doesn't even let Danny finish what is no doubt an excellent come-back before he's butting in. It might be nothing, but spending several years fighting the supernatural, and also running from it a lot, has given Stiles a knee-jerk response to anything that sounds even mildly outside the norm. “What, like Casper the friendly one, or more like Poltergeist?”

“No clue. But whatever it is, she says it's eating all her sugar.” Kono shakes her head. “I dunno, I'm starting to think maybe she just upgraded to weed and got the munchies.”

It's probably nothing. Sure, there are supernatural things in Hawaii too, but like most places it rarely, if ever, becomes a big enough deal for normal people to even notice. Or, if it does, they write it off as a widow on a bad trip.

It's nothing.

Probably.

“In any case, she did sound kinda hysterical on the phone, so I think we need to actually do something this time,” Kono says, and then power-walks away, because obviously she's too smart to risk getting the job.

“Can I-”

“No,” Danny says, and points a stern finger at Stiles, until he lowers himself back down into the chair. “You're staying right here, and we're gonna spend quality time doing paperwork.”

“Ugh, fine,” Stiles grumbles, and watches with envy as Danny walks over to Steve. They have what looks like a nice argument with lots of sexual tension – which Stiles would love to have directed at him – before Steve stomps out, and Danny saunters back to the office with the look of a man who finally found fairness in the world.

“We're gonna have a good time, you and me,” he says smugly, and Stiles groans and pulls out his phone for some Candy Crush.

* * *

It's probably nothing.

Stiles is just being paranoid, it's nothing. Nothing at all. Definitely.

Probably.

“Does it usually take an hour for Steve to call in on a job like this?” he finally asks, and Danny gives him a complicated look.

“No, but he's also absolutely crazy, and is probably jumping out of an airplane right now without a parachute. I, on the other hand, have a young daughter to live for. So unless he calls for backup, I am calmly going to assume he got roped into being Kamekona's taste tester or something.”

“What if he can't call in, though? Like, what if he's tied up in a warehouse somewhere?”

Danny huffs. “That's basically his morning workout.”

“Dude,” Stiles says, and his tone must be outraged enough that Danny decides to stop joking for a minute.

“Look, Stiles, he's a freaky Navy SEAL who can kill six people in one go with his pinky, but he's also a good cop. And don't tell him I said that, I'll never hear the end of it. He's good at his job, he's got a great gut feeling, and as overconfident and aggravating as he is, if he thought he was heading into something big he'd call. Probably not until bullets were actually flying, but still. He'd call.” He holds up a hand to stall Stiles' argument. “And, I was gonna check in on him if I hadn't heard back by lunch time. So don't start. We're not crappy cops down here, just because it feels like holiday country.”

“I wasn't saying that.”

“But you were thinking it.”

“No. Well, not entirely,” Stiles admits. “I know you do the job well.”

“How would you know, you were like six years old when your dad and I worked together.”

Stiles throws up his arms in betrayal. “Hey, I've got good gut feelings too! It's in the Stilinski genes, man!” And those gut feelings are really starting to yell at him that something is going down. “Look,” Stiles says, making an effort to quit down and look serious. “I'm just... would it be so bad to just check in?”

Danny gives him another look, but does eventually pick up his phone with a sigh. “Don't think this gets you any closer to getting in his pants.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Stiles says weakly, stupidly relieved that soon he'll know if something is up, or if his shit-is-going-down detector is just going off by habit.

The look on Danny's face gets more and more pinched, though, as the phone keeps ringing. He hangs up and texts instead, and the minutes drag on longer and longer while they wait.

“He better not have forgotten his phone somewhere,” Danny threatens, but it sounds weak, and while he starts calling around to see if anyone knows where Steve is, Stiles is already doing a mental check in his head of what he has in his backpack to handle the supernatural.

Turns out no one's seen Steve or heard from him since he went to see Mrs. Hernandez, and what's worse, Chin told Kono he's was gonna go see what was up more than half an hour ago – mostly just so he could laugh at Steve for getting pressured into the job of giving Mrs. Hernandez a stern talking to – and he also isn't answering his phone.

“You,” Danny says with a stern finger pointed at Stiles' face. “Stay here, and keep out of trouble.” He waits for Stiles to cross his heart with the most sincere face he can muster, and then he's out the door. Stiles waits just long enough for the sounds of Danny's footsteps to fade before he has his backpack out, and starts mixing herbs together on the shiny desk. If he's quick, this shouldn't be a problem.

He puts a charm around his neck, sweeps the herb mix into his hand, and rushes off after Danny. No one gives him as much as a look as he darts out of the building. Danny is almost at his car, key fob out, and the timing couldn't be better. The second the lights blink, Stiles whispers a few words, and steps up next to Danny to blow the herbs in his face. Danny slows to a halt, eyes gazing empty into the air, and Stiles darts into the passenger seat, only just closing the door behind him as Danny shakes himself out of it, and enters the car himself like nothing happened.

Thanks to the charm, he doesn't react to Stiles in the passenger seat. Stiles isn't invisible as such, but as long as he doesn't actively draw attention to himself by, say, opening a car door, everyone around him will simply not notice him. He's utterly unimportant as long as he wears it, and Danny speeds off towards the Hernandez residence without even looking at him.

Steve's car and Chin's bike are outside the house when they arrive, but everything is deathly quiet. Not just in the house, but everywhere around it, too. The whole street is empty, not a single thing moving, like every living creature instinctively knows not to approach. Every single one of Stiles' internal alarm bells are going off, and he's already making lists in his head of what they might be walking into.

Danny goes up to the front door, hand on his gun, and Stiles quietly gets out of the car and follows him. The door is ajar, and Danny calls Steve's name rather than knocking, but gets no response. Stiles gets something, though. The sensation that is keeping everyone else off the street suddenly smacks into him hard enough to make the breath whoosh out of him, and Danny glances in his direction. Thankfully it wasn't enough to truly break the charm's effect, but Stiles still waits until Danny's attention is completely diverted again before crouching down to rummage through his backpack. He has a pretty decent idea of what they're dealing with now, and he gets out his little pouches of iron dust and salt.

He follows Danny inside, and the supernatural warning signs are apparently enough now for Danny to be a lot more on edge, and he takes out his gun, keeping it ready. Stiles makes sure to keep firmly behind him, because the charm will absolutely not be any help against getting accidentally shot. He's already pretty sure where they should be going but stays behind Danny anyway as he checks all the rooms. It can't hurt, first of all. And, again, going first would mean risk getting shot.

Finally they make it through the ground floor and start going upstairs. Stiles isn't even surprised to find vines clinging to the walls, growing so fast he can actually see them spreading, but Danny looks vaguely ill. They're gonna have a talk later to explain, unless he'd prefer a memory wipe – which Stiles can do now, how awesome is that – but so far he seems to be coping. Which is a good sign. Some people simply cannot handle knowing about these things and lose their minds a little.

The plant life gets thicker the further up they go, and the entire upper floor is covered on every surface. Danny seems to try and avoid touching it at all, which is a decent enough strategy. But it won't hold for long, since the bedroom door is gone, and in its place is a curtain of ivy that they have to part to get through.

In the middle of the room, where Stiles assumes there used to be a bed, there's now a huge, egg-shaped mass of plants, and Danny stares open-mouthed at it until suddenly it starts moving. The plants shift around until the egg opens on one side, revealing an almost throne-like seat with a fairy in it. Not the Tinkerbell type, though those do exist. This one is roughly the size of a toddler, almost elfish in its appearance, naked, green-skinned and black-eyed. A corrupted fae. Great. Stiles is gonna have to cause pain today. He hates that. He will if he has to, but he really doesn't enjoy it at all.

“I smell your iron, mage,” the fairy says, addressing Stiles, but of course, Danny doesn't know that.

“I dunno about iron, but I'm sure there's some kind of metal in my bullets,” he says ominously, clearly ignoring very hard that he's talking to something not human. “Where's my partner?”

The fairy turns its eyes to Danny and blinks slowly. “Your friends? Unharmed. But I cannot promise they will remain so unless you leave. Now. This gateway is mine.”

Stiles decides it's time to reveal himself, and takes off the charm before putting a gentle hand on Danny's shoulder. Predictably, he jumps about a mile, and points the gun briefly at Stiles before recognizing him. “Stiles! What the hell?!”

“Danny, look, I can't explain right now, but I will later, I promise. But I'm begging you, trust me for like five minutes.” He looks Danny dead in the eye, willing him to just believe for a second that the little squirt he used to give piggy-back rides actually knows what he's doing now, and Danny's eyes dart around, taking in the charm in Stiles' hand, the pouches tied to his wrist, and his footprints through the moss on the floor. This is why Stiles loves working with cops. Because while there are bad apples, by far the most of them will put pieces together quickly, and act accordingly, and Danny only gives him a quick raise of his eyebrow before stepping minutely to the side, allowing Stiles to move closer.

“Hi,” he says with a little wave. “I'm Stiles, and I'm sorry but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave this gateway alone. It's not a viable permanent gate, seeing as it's in the middle of a heavily populated area. It's gonna get sticky real fast.”

“You speak as if there's any reason I should care about mortal lives,” the fairy says coldly, and Stiles fiddles with his pouches. It doesn't escape the fairy's notice, and it sneers at him. “Are you threatening me?”

“Not yet. But I will if I have to. Please, believe me, I have no beef with the fae. If you don't bother humans, I don't bother you. But right now? Right now you're really bothering me. As well as a whole neighborhood.”

The fairy flashes a scary sort of grin, full of silvery, needle-sharp teeth. Then the heavy covering of plant life starts moving on a nearby wall, and Steve's sleeping face is revealed. “Shall we- what's the phrase? Ah, yes. Play hardball?”

“We can, if you want. But I gotta warn ya. It's not gonna end well for you,” Stiles says and clenches his hand around one of his pouches, making the tiny slit in the bottom of it open just enough to sprinkle a little bit into his palm.

“Stiles,” Danny says, clearly cautioning Stiles against doing anything stupid. He doesn't need Danny to tell him that, he knows better than anyone how quickly the fairy can ensure that Steve, Chin and Mrs. Hernandez never wake up again.

“Danny, I'm gonna have to ask you to trust me,” Stiles says without taking his eyes off the fairy. “Please.”

There's a pause, during which the fairy just watches them, like they're mildly entertaining, but ultimately unimportant. Clearly this fairy has never met a spark before.

“Do you really know what you're doing?” Danny asks, and Stiles nods.

“I do. And if you wanna help? Then don't move.”

Something must tip off the fairy that shit is about to go down, because suddenly Steve, Chin and an elderly woman are nearly spat out the plant-covered wall, and there's just enough time for Steve to wake up, look around in confusion and spot the fairy, before there's a terrifying slithery sound, and thorny vines shoot out towards Stiles and Danny.

Just before the vines make contact, Stiles throws out his handful of iron dust, and it settles in a neat ring around Danny, causing the vines to smack into an invisible barrier. “Don't move!” Stiles reminds him, and speaks a few ancient words to ward himself before moving towards the fairy, who is looking increasingly angry in his egg throne.

“One more step, and they die!” he yells, but Stiles has already poured out more iron dust in his hand, and is tossing it towards Steve and the others before the fairy is even done speaking.

“Stay in the circles!” Stiles cautions, and hears Danny assure them that everything will be fine if they just stay still. Mrs. Hernandez is now awake and shrieking about sugar thieves, and Chin is busy calming her down, while Steve is getting to his feet and toeing along the tiny line of black dust. Stiles ignores them all, though, steadily moving towards the fairy as vines slam against the invisible barrier around him.

“No!” the fairy shrieks. “I will have this gate! It's mine!” The plants try and close around the throne, but Stiles holds out a hand, not even needing to make contact to make the greenery recoil and fall away, completely deconstructing the egg, and leaving the fairy standing weak-kneed on the mossy floor.

“No! No, no, no! I will not be defeated!”

“Sorry,” Stiles says honestly, and throws another handful of iron dust, trapping the fairy inside. “If you're willing to go back to The Queen's Realm, I'll allow your own kind to deal with you. But if you stay here, you cause danger to my kind. And I'll be forced to handle it.”

“A filthy human mage, telling fae what to do,” the fairy scoffs. “Do your worst.”

This dude has clearly never been in much contact with humans, because every other fae Stiles has dealt with has had something of a healthy respect for humans as a whole. Which Stiles personally thinks is a good choice. Of all the monsters he's been face to face with, among the worst of them have been plain ol' homo sapiens. No magic needed. Just pure, undiluted evil.

“Your choice,” Stiles says, and steels himself. This is gonna get ugly. He gestures with his hand, causing the iron circle to shrink, smaller and smaller, until the fairy is basically wrapped up like a taco in the invisible barrier, arms plastered to his sides, and black eyes watching terrified as Stiles brings up the other pouch to mix some iron and salt together in his hand.

“No. No, please,” the fairy begs, but Stiles ignores it, and starts reciting the words to the purifying rite. Iron to keep the fae power locked down. Salt to cleanse. Spark to close the circuit and drive the corruption away.

He vaguely hears Steve breathe an awed “what the hell” as Stiles mashes his handful of dust and salt against the fairy's forehead, and chants the correct words for the cleansing. The black eyes go searingly white, and the fairy screams before passing out and going slack in the grip of the barrier. Stiles finishes the chant, and then opens the circle. The fairy drops like a sack of potatoes, and Stiles crouches down to check his condition.

“It's okay,” he tells the room in general. “You can all move now.”

There's a breathless moment of hesitation, but then Steve and Danny are on either side of him, looking down on the small, green humanoid shape on the floor.

“I have... so many questions,” Steve says, and Danny shakes his head.

“Pretty sure I've got more. Starting with what the actual fuck is that?”

“A fairy. And if either of you call him Tinkerbell, I'll stand back and laugh as he roasts your asses. The fae can be vindictive little shits,” Stiles says.

“Should you be standing this close to him?” Steve asks. “I mean, what if he wakes up and roasts you?”

The concern is touching, frankly, and Stiles allows himself for a moment to imagine that it's because Steve likes him a little bit. Maybe enough to let him get up close and personal with his naked body at some point.

“If he does, he'll probably just run the hell away. He was corrupted. Kinda like having rabies, he didn't really know what he was doing. But I fixed him, so he's gonna wanna go home now,” Stiles says, standing up now that he's satisfied there's no lasting injury.

“Look, uh, I promise I'll explain. But, for now, I've got a little clean-up to do. So if you two could maybe put your heads together and decide what to tell Mrs. Hernandez, then I'll take care of this guy. Oh, and, don't worry if she looks broken. I can wipe the last few hours from her memory no problem. So as long as she stays here we're good.”

“Memory wiping? What is this, Men In Black?” Danny asks, but Steve just hauls him away to deal with Mrs Hernandez, while Stiles starts reading ley lines so he can pinpoint the gate and send their little visitor through. No doubt someone on the other side already noticed the disturbance, but regular fae usually won't come to the human realm unless they have really good reason, so Stiles will have to be delivery guy.

As expected, as soon as he steps through the gate there's a tall dryad there, ready to take the fairy off his hands. He spares a thought of sympathy for the little guy who's gonna have to face the wrath of the queen, and rejects the almost bored offer of food every fae is practically obligated to make to everyone crossing into their realm. It's more a tradition than anything, and they know he's gonna say no, so it's pretty polite on all sides, and he sends the dryad a cheery salute before stepping back through the gate, sealing it behind him. Not that it'll close it for good, but it should make it substantially harder to open, so random corrupted little shits can't just start using them.

Once that's done, though, he'll have to face the music.

Surprisingly, Mrs. Hernandez calms down fairly quickly, and chooses to keep her memories as well as the secret. But no way in hell is she staying in her plant-ridden house, so she packs up whatever she can find that isn't moss-covered and goes back to the station with them until they can find her a place to stay.

After that, it's time for twenty questions. Or, rather, two hundred and twenty questions. Danny, in particular, can't seem to really wrap his head around it all.

“So fairies are a thing.”

“Yes,” Stiles says, picking at a nail and wondering if asking for junk food would be out of line. Doing magic always makes him super hungry.

“Yetis?”

“Probably.”

“The Loch Ness monster?”

“I dunno, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised.”

“Vampires?”

“Yeah, but they're not like... Twilight or anything. They're pretty chill.” Stiles makes fingerguns, and congratulates himself on his amazing wit when Steve snorts from the other side of the table. Making hot dudes laugh is the first step to getting in their pants, and it's usually Stiles' main strategy. One he's comfortable with and has cultivated from far before his body decided to finally catch up with his age, giving him somewhat decent abs, and arms at least a little thicker than pipe cleaners.

“So everything we've ever heard of in legends are true?” Chin asks, wonderfully composed, which is a breath of fresh air after Danny's lengthy freak-out in the car on the way back.

“Well, no, not everything. Mermaids and centaurs and all those half-human half-animal things? Those aren't a thing. At least not in the way the media portrays them, and they don't think of themselves like that either.”

Chin blows out a breath and shakes his head a little. “I'm gonna have to call my grandma and apologize for not believing her tales. I might need to buy her a gift too.”

“Just tread lightly. They could still just be tales. Being involved in the supernatural world is like Fight Club. You don't talk about it with anyone who doesn't already know.” He looks at them all in turn until they nod. As casual as he feels about things like this nowadays, he's painfully aware of the risks involved if anyone blabs. Mrs. Hernandez hadn't even needed to be told. In the car she'd muttered about a sister who'd spent a decades in an asylum of some kind for delusions, and when Stiles had tried to caution her anyway she'd pretty much laughed him off, bitter and cynical, and determined to not end up like her sister. So, yeah. Apart from the risk of bringing people into that universe without knowing how to handle it, talking about it to regular people sometimes has horrific consequences.

All in all, though, Stiles thinks things could hardly have gone better today.

“How are you not freaking out about this?!” Danny asks Steve, who only shrugs in response. Danny looks like he's about to start ranting again, but Steve cuts him off before he can.

“So, who's hungry? Being kidnapped and drugged by power-crazed fairies is hard work, apparently.”

“You,” Stiles says and points at Steve. “I like you. I adore you. Marry me?”

“Eh, maybe after a few dates,” Steve says, and that's flirting. Stiles only barely manages to not openly fist-pump in victory. And it gets even better, because Steve obviously takes it upon himself to save Stiles from another round of questioning. Danny definitely looks like he's gearing up for another rant or two, so Steve gets up, muttering about getting them all some food. And then, wonder of wonders, he turns to face Stiles and gives a tiny beckoning jerk of his neck, which has Stiles scrambling out of the chair to follow him out of the building. He's not even remotely ashamed of the level of thirst he feels for this vision of male perfection, and knowing his advances have been at least partially welcomed makes him feel less bad for ogling Steve's ass while they go to his car.

“So,” Steve asks casually when they're in the car. “How long have you been, uh. I don't know the word for that stuff you do.”

“A spark. Basically means I can do magic without training. I've had a lot now, so I guess I could in theory upgrade my business cards to say certified magic user. But by definition a spark can do shit most other magic users can only do after years of training.”

“Other magic users?”

“Witches, warlocks, mages. Lots of different flavors. Turns out necromancers are a lot less skeevy than you'd think, actually. Who knew.”

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, his eyes seeking out Stiles' at a stoplight. “Who knew.”

And just like that the air in the car becomes thick with tension. Stiles hopes it's sexual, but he'll probably never learn how to be sure about that. Might be a consequence of spending so much time with Derek Hale, who seems chronically incapable of being scary without being sexy. It's kind of a problem, and has given Stiles many conflicted boners over the years.

So. All Stiles really knows how to do now is put his cards on the table.

“Look, you'd have to be incredibly dim to not have caught onto this, but experience has, sadly, taught me that open communication is the key to preventing misunderstandings, so here it is. I'm like... stupidly attracted to you, and I'm kinda feeling like there might be something mutual here? And if there is, I'd just like to make it clear right now that I'm the easiest lay ever. You won't even have to feed me! Though, right this minute, I am actually hungry enough that my excellent sex skills might suffer a little bit, so from a purely practical point of view you might wanna... uhm...” He trails off, finally realizing that the light has turned twice, and Steve hasn't crossed the intersection yet. In fact, he hasn't even taken his eyes off Stiles, and is staring at him, mouth slightly open in amazement. Or shock. It's hard to tell.

“So, yeah,” Stiles says, fidgeting nervously. “It's out there now, so. You know. Take from that what you will.”

It takes another few seconds for Steve to close his mouth, and then, ever so slowly, it starts to curl into a grin. “You, uh.... you're a very special guy.”

“So I'm told,” Stiles says cheerfully, to cover up how he's half sure he just messed everything up.

Steve finally drives on when there's a sharp honk behind them, but he glances over every so often, like he's trying to work out how Stiles even functions. He wouldn't be the first guy to do that, so Stiles isn't even offended.

On the way back with the food, Stiles does his best to keep his mouth shut and give Steve space in case he's leaning more towards a restraining order than a hot date. But when they get back, and gather everyone in one of the larger meeting rooms for the meal, Steve sits down next to Stiles, sends him a crooked smile, and then sets about stealing stuff from his container every few minutes.

Danny complains loudly about his caveman ways, but Stiles is in heaven. Steve's knee keeps gently tapping against Stiles', and he comes in close all the time to snag something with his fork, regardless of whether he has something identical for himself or not.

“Yours just looks more delicious,” he says, and he could hardly be more blatant if he added a wink.

“See what I have to deal with?” Danny says, but Stiles is busy beaming at Steve, because holy shit, it is on.

Not immediately, though. Because reckless Navy SEAL or not, Steve apparently never leaves work early, and the rest of the day is a weird, frustrating dance between Danny and Steve's offices. Danny keeps asking more questions about the supernatural, and Steve flirts so hard now that even Danny is picking up on it, and keeps kidnapping Stiles every time he escapes to go flirt back.

“Nooo,” he whines as Danny steers him out the door by his shoulders for the fourth time.

“He's fifteen years older than you, Stiles, jeez, get a hold of yourself.”

“I'd rather get a hold of him,” Stiles grumbles, and waves sadly at Steve through the glass door. He just huffs a small laugh, and smiles in return as Stiles is dragged away.

Eventually, though, the day comes to an end, and even Danny has to admit defeat at this point.

“Just... don't do anything to make your dad hate me, okay, please?” he begs, as Stiles is having eye sex with Steve through two glass doors. It's challenging, but Stiles isn't one to be discouraged.

“Hm?”

“Oh, for god's sake, go, just go. The sexual tension in here is so thick I could slice through it with one of Steve's scary knives.”

Stiles' brain finally catches up, and he whirls to face Danny. “What, really?”

“Are you seriously gonna risk me changing my mind right now?” Danny asks, which is a good point, and Stiles is out of the office like his ass is on fire.

Steve is apparently always ready to go, like any good boy scout, and practically shoves Stiles out of the building with one hand on the small of his back. It almost feels annoyed, but from the way Steve keeps glancing at him and licking his lips, Stiles is pretty sure it's a different kind of frustration.

And sure enough, the door to Steve's house has barely shut behind them before he's got Stiles backed up against the nearest wall, strong leg between Stiles' thighs, and kissing like a man dying of thirst. Stiles can relate.

“What else can you do?” Steve murmurs against his neck, gnawing down the length of it on his way to a shoulder.

“Hm, what?”

“That stuff you did back there. Can you do other stuff?”

It takes Stiles a few seconds to put the pieces together. Wouldn't be the first time he's played with magic during sex, but it's certainly a first for someone to ask so quickly after being exposed to it for the first time. But Steve is working his way up towards Stiles' ear with lips and teeth, and it's really distracting, so he files the questions away for now.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do other stuff,” Stiles says vaguely, and then mutters a few words. A small ball of light appears next to Steve's head, and he jerks away from Stiles' neck to stare at it, the soft glow reflecting in his beautiful eyes.

“Wow.”

“I can do more,” Stiles says, struck with a sudden urge to impress. Maybe it's because Steve is older and hotter, or maybe it's just because he's looking at the small orb with such open admiration and awe that Stiles can't help but want to see it more.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Oh, I dunno. Like...” he casts around for ideas, and his eye catches on a flower-like pattern in the wooden floorboards. So he clenches his fist, and when it opens, a golden, glowing flower blooms in his palm. Steve reaches for it, slowly, like he hardly dares, and the leaves quiver at the first touch.

“It's real?” Steve breathes, and picks it up into his own hand. Stiles shivers, because he feels the touch in an indirect way, using his spark to fuel the flower.

“If you mean that you can touch it, yeah. But it's gone when I stop powering it.” With a thought, Stiles makes the flower dissolve into a shower of tiny golden sparks, flying up into the air, and Steve stares awe-struck at them. Stiles loves that he can show him this, and he's almost forgotten what they were here for, until he realizes that Steve isn't looking at the orb or the sparks anymore. His eyes are fixed on Stiles, and when their eyes meet it's like a whole different kind of sparks flying.

“Hi,” Stiles says, because it feels like it. Like a sudden hello from someone you didn't even knew you knew.

Steve grins at him, and then moves in for another kiss, very different from that first, hungry one. This one is like a greeting in return. A hi, how are you, written against his lips, and Stiles sinks into it with a sigh. Usually he's too preoccupied during sex to keep up any magic, which is a good thing considering how destructive a power it can be. But what they're doing now is so sweet and gentle it's almost like it fuels the soft light-shower, and the near-forgotten orb starts a slow spiral upwards instead of flickering out like it should. It's almost like making out in a small galaxy, yellow sun and starry sky slowly moving around them, lighting up even the decently lit house. Like shadows aren't allowed for this.

Stiles likes that idea.

He's not even sure how it happens, but at some point Steve moves them, and Stiles lets himself be lowered on to a ridiculously soft bed, immediately gesturing for Steve to follow him. “Hi,” he says again, and Steve breathes a soft laugh against his lips.

Undressing is a slow affair, because it's really hard to stop kissing. Stiles can't remember having been kissed like this before, with so much focus and tenderness, and he's reluctant to give it up. But it's worth it, and he gasps when Steve sits up on his knees to finally whip off his shirt, tossing it aside in a small whirlwind of the sparks that apparently followed them to the bedroom. He peels off Stiles' shirt too, and then sets about treating his chest exactly like his lips moments before.

“Oh, hello,” Stiles sighs, and lets his hips buck up gently as Steve lovingly sucks at a nipple. “Yes, hello, I would like to subscribe to this newsletter.”

Steve huffs a laugh against his ribs, but apparently takes the unsubtle hint, and moves down to give Stiles' lower half the attention it wants. “Hi there,” he tells Stiles' cock when he peels the silly shorts off along with the underwear. Stiles sputters out a laugh that dissolves into a moan as Steve's lips close around him, and the orb pulses under the ceiling as if in response. Steve's approach to sucking dick is apparently the same as his approach to everything else. Laser-focused frontal assault, with the occasional break for teasing, which in this case means sucking Stiles' brains out, only pausing to nose at his balls or his pubes every so often, and it's doing a great job of driving Stiles up the wall.

“Fuuuuck,” he hisses, hips pushing up into it before he can stop, but Steve holds him down easily enough. “If you want this to last at all, you gotta- fuck, you gotta ease off.”

“Don't feel bad. I hear it's common for... you know... younger guys,” Steve says, and crawls up Stiles' body with a smug grin.

“Oh, shut up, old man, give it five years and you'll need that little blue pill.”

Steve reaches up to give him a gentle slap to the side of the head. “Do you usually insult the people you wanna sleep with?”

“Only when it works,” Stiles says, waggling his eyebrows, and he's totally got this because Steve laughs again and then dives in for another kiss. It's brief, because Steve is a brilliant, dedicated man who manages to pull himself away, despite Stiles' protests, so he can finally get them both naked.

“Oh, hello, sailor,” Stiles purrs when Steve is finally naked, and lowers himself carefully down on top of Stiles like he's afraid to crush him. Stiles isn't having that, though, and pulls at him with arms and legs until he gives in, and breathes a soft laugh into Stiles' ear.

“Should I wear my dress uniform next time?”

Stiles yanks him up by the hair so they can make eye contact. “Dude, are you serious? Don't toy with a guy's feelings like that.”

“I guess that depends on how today goes. First impressions are important, right?”

“Good thing I'm very impressive, then,” Stiles says smugly, and breathes a little more life into the glowing spell, multiplying the orb and sparks until it feels like the whole room is full of them. Steve looks up at them in surprise, but then immediately looks back to Stiles, and, okay, Stiles is a smug bastard, but for a guy to actually choose to stare at Stiles rather than actual magic? That is something else, and Stiles pulls at Steve until they're pressed together from noses to toes, and kisses him with all he's got. Steve's answering groan is like music to his ears, and before long his hips start meeting Stiles' in aborted little thrusts, just barely getting them both what they need.

Stiles clings to him, savors the feeling of his muscles moving under the skin and the hard cock digging into his hip, and it might be his youth, but he could come like this. He really could.

“Please don't judge me,” he begs between kisses, and Steve frowns at him for a second before grinning widely.

“No promises,” he says, voice all low and hot. “But let's see if this old man can't catch up with you.”

And then he licks his palm, nearly making Stiles go cross-eyed, because wow, and then reaches down to take both their cocks in hand. The grip is almost painfully tight, and Stiles considers saying something, until he realizes that it's actually a really clever strategy to ease him off the edge while Steve gets more into it. Problem is, cleverness like that also kinda does it for Stiles, and his pleasure builds again shockingly fast.

“Fuck. Fuck, Steve, fuck,” he groans, pushing his cock into the tight grip, his pre-come making everything suddenly slippery and deliciously good. “Fuuuck,” he whimpers, because he definitely won't last.

“Come on, then,” Steve murmurs hotly against his lips, and that's all the permission Stiles needs. He lets out a filthy moan, and Steve swallows it with a kiss, stroking them both faster as Stiles comes, spurting between them and making everything even slicker. He's is barely even catching his breath when Steve tenses, and makes an amazing slack face of pleasure as he follows, and even though Stiles' oversensitive dick is kinda protesting the harsh treatment it's totally worth it. Because Steve is beautiful, and collapses on top of Stiles with his full, glorious weight when he's finally done.

“I win,” Steve pants into Stiles' ear, and he laughs so hard Steve bounces a little on top of him.

“Oh, come on, I asked you not to judge!”

“I never said I wouldn't,” Steve says, but follows it up with a sweet and slow kiss.

“Rude,” Stiles says against his lips, and looks up to see the orbs and sparks still active, lazily drifting around under the ceiling. “Huh.”

“What? They don't usually do that?”

“No. Guess you're special,” Stiles says, and nibbles affectionately at Steve's ear. “How's that for first impressions?”

Steve snorts. “This is just because you wanna fuck me in my uniform.”

Stiles can't help the delighted smile widening on his face. “You know me so well already! See, we're great together!”

“Hmm,” Steve says, and makes doubt slice through Stiles' gut for a moment. “Maybe. But you know, even a good first impression needs to be backed up with dedication and... passion.”

The doubt fizzles away like fog under the sun, and Stiles grins lazily. “Soooo. Is that your way of asking for a second date?”

“What, I have to do all the work, here?”

“Oh, that's rich from the guy I literally had to seduce with my magic powers.”

Steve grins, but then settles into a softer smile. “Nah. I liked you before. The magic was just a bonus.”

That reminds Stiles of something. “Hey, speaking of which... how are you so comfortable with this?”

Rolling them to their sides Steve gets them more comfortable, tangling their legs together before answering, and Stiles forces himself to be patient.

“Well. When you're deployed to some of the worst places on Earth, under the most... horrific circumstances. You... see things. Things that make you question your senses. Your reality. But... everything is already so terrible you kinda just... move on. You don't have time to process. But it sticks with you.”

Stiles nods, because he gets it. He might not have been in a war zone, but he's seen death and horror. He understands probably better than most.

“Well,” he says, giving Steve a gentle kiss to ease him away from the bad memories. “You have time now. And I have so many things I can show you. If you want.”

Steve smiles, and nudges their noses together. “I want.”

“Good, cause I still wanna see that dress uniform.”

His laugh is cut off when Steve kisses him, and after that?

Well.

More magic happens.

End.