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glorious_spoonApparently Chocolate Box reveals are up! And I had actually forgotten that I wrote something for this, but here it is:
*
The gunfire was getting closer, a rattling cacophony that split the night and made it impossible to concentrate, made it hard to keep the shift under control.
They hadn’t found him yet. They had dogs, but dogs, unlike humans, were smart enough to stay the hell away from pissed-off werewolves, a fact which had bought him enough time to find cover before the doors had been breached. The building was surrounded, though, and even in the unlikely event that he could make it out, there was nowhere for him to go. His car was parked a few miles away, an easy jog under normal conditions; it might as well have been on the moon for all the good it did him now.
It was looking like he was pretty thoroughly fucked, in short. He could shift to wolf-shape, but that took time, and it was time it looked like he didn’t have. This was a game of cat and mouse that could only end one way.
And then: footsteps. Quick muffled footsteps, sneakers on concrete, and an exasperated, familiar, impossible voice cursing softly. “God damn it, Derek, I know you’re here.”
Derek froze, crouched behind a pallet.
That wasn’t Stiles. Stiles was in college somewhere on the East Coast, somewhere far, far away from this stinking, blood-scented warehouse. Whoever that sounded like, it wasn’t Stiles.
It smelled like Stiles. It sounded like him, the quick heartbeat and the jittery movement, the annoyed huff of breath when Derek didn’t immediately answer, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. He wasn’t here.
“Pretty hard--fuck, ow--to orchestrate a rescue when the idiot you’re trying to save doesn’t even--oh. There you are,” the owner of the voice said as he rounded the pallet and practically tripped over Derek.
He seemed taller than Derek remembered, broader, more muscle on his lanky frame. His hair was shorter, and he was wearing a few days worth of scruff and an FBI windbreaker, tag on a cord around his neck.
He looked amazing.
It couldn’t have been that long, but it seemed like they stared at each other for an eternity before Stiles’s face split into a wide, delighted-looking grin. “Hey, Derek. Long time no see.”
Derek stared at him. What he actually meant to say was some form of what the hell are you doing here, Stiles, an order to get out before someone mistook him for a fugitive and blew a hole in his idiot head, but what actually came out was, “You smell like blood.”
“What?” Stiles said, his chemosignals all bright, sparking outrage over a pained brittleness and a deep heavy feeling like relief. Like he'd been worried about Derek, like that was something they did, the two of them. “Seriously, that’s your opening line? ‘You smell like blood’, yeah, thanks a lot, Derek, a ricochet clipped me in the toe and it hurts a lot, they may need to amputate but I’m not actively dying, thanks for asking, Jesus Christ. You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Derek found himself suppressing a smile, the first one in ages that his mouth had wanted to make. “You still talk too much.”
“I’m aware,” Stiles said, still grinning as he ducked his head out to peer into the darkened warehouse.
“There’s no other way out.”
“There’s always another way out.”
“Optimist," Derek said. It came out sounding entirely too fond. "You spend too much time with Scott.”
“I haven’t talked to him in months, actually, I’m pretty sure something’s up with him. Beacon Hills has gone totally radio silent, and I’ve heard some messed-up rumors. After we get out of here, we should--oh shit.”
“What?” Derek hissed, but a second later he heard it. Footsteps on the concrete floor, the faint click of a gun being cocked. Nobody called for him to come out with his hands up, which meant that orders had been to shoot on sight. He shoved at Stiles, who didn’t budge. “Get out of here.”
“That would be a total waste of all the effort I put into this rescue operation.”
“You call this a rescue operation?”
“Yeah, I do. Just needs a couple of adjustments.” Stiles looked him up and down, an expression of bright focus on his face that Derek had seen before, that usually precipitated some madcap scheme with a good chance of ending in violence and chaos, and then he started stripping out of his FBI windbreaker. “Okay, do you trust me?”
“What?”
Stiles shoved the windbreaker into his arms and yanked off his own shoe. The smell of blood was stronger now; his sock was soaked through. He really had been clipped. Explained the bitter-sharp edge to his scent. “Put that on. And just go with it, okay?”
Derek had barely shoved his arms into the sleeves of the windbreaker when the footsteps rounded the nearest pallet. In any moment, the agents would be upon them. He could feel his claws begin to lengthen, the bones of his face shifting as fangs pushed through in preparation for some hopeless last stand--
Stiles collapsed into his arms suddenly, howling. The weight of him was next to nothing, but Derek almost tipped over anyway, just from the shock. Warm fingers scrabbled at his shoulders, gripping ungently at his hair and tilting his face downwards. “Oh, ohhhh, ow, oh god it hurts, get me out of here—”
“Jesus,” someone said from above. “Is that the intern?”
“He was supposed to stay with the car,” someone else said, “Chief is gonna fucking kill us when he hears—”
“I’m dying,” Stiles wailed. His fingers closed around Derek’s earlobe and yanked sharply when he started to lift his head, and yeah, okay, he got this. Like most of Stiles’s hair-brained schemes, the only thing he could do now was play along and hope nobody ended up full of bullet holes.
He hauled Stiles up into his arms in what he hoped was a comforting-looking manner, and without lifting his head said, “Ricochet. He’ll be fine.”
“Still. We’re gonna get our asses nailed to the wall for this one,” said the nearest agent, whose shiny shoes were two feet away, just visible in Derek’s peripheral vision. He smelled like cigarettes and gun smoke and fading adrenaline. “You got him?”
It took another sharp tug from Stiles for Derek to realize that the man was talking to him. Or rather, to the familiar figure of an FBI windbreaker, an obscured face in the dark.
There was no way this could possibly work. “I got him.”
“I’ve been shot and I’m dying--oh god, oh holy god, it’s all starting to go dark—”
“Shut up,” Derek muttered as the agents moved past them, standing and lifting Stiles’s lanky body effortlessly.
“Just walk,” Stiles said out of the side of his mouth, and flung his arms around Derek’s neck, groaning loudly and melodramatically into his ear. Derek gritted his teeth as he strode through the warehouse in what he hoped looked like a confident and professional manner, FBI agents streaming in around him. None of them gave him a second look, although Stiles, flailing and howling in his arms, got plenty of stares.
It was just barely possible that this idiot plan was going to work.
Ten yards later, they were out in the chilly desert night, floodlights lighting up the front of the warehouse like a stage. Stiles flung his arms out and ‘fainted’ melodramatically as an important-looking person in a suit crossed in front of them, and then they were out past the ring of cars, sand crunching beneath Derek’s boots and the dark road winding out alongside them.
“Left,” Stiles said calmly, lifting his head. “I stashed the Jeep half a mile down--you can put me down now, by the way.”
“No,” Derek said, starting down the road. The back of his neck prickled with every step, but no one called out after them. Hopefully, by the time it occurred to anyone to wonder what had happened to the intern, they’d both be long gone. “I can still smell blood. You were actually shot, you shouldn’t be walking on that foot.”
“Ricochet,” Stiles said, and when Derek didn’t put him down, he groaned and dropped his head against his shoulder. His breath was warm on Derek’s throat, lifting the small hairs on the back of his neck in a way that had nothing to do with the lingering fear that they were being followed. Derek ignored it. He had plenty of practice at ignoring that particular kind of distraction from Stiles, who didn’t even seem to know he was causing it, thankfully. “This is humiliating.”
“It was your plan,” Derek retorted without even trying to suppress his grin this time, and kept on walking into the night.
Title: Ricochet
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Link: On AO3
Pairing: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Minor injuries
Other tags: Pre-relationship, Missing scene, Rescues
Summary: Stiles rescues Derek from that FBI raid, but it doesn't exactly go according to plan. Fortunately, he's good at improvising...
Missing moment from The Wolves of War.
*
The gunfire was getting closer, a rattling cacophony that split the night and made it impossible to concentrate, made it hard to keep the shift under control.
They hadn’t found him yet. They had dogs, but dogs, unlike humans, were smart enough to stay the hell away from pissed-off werewolves, a fact which had bought him enough time to find cover before the doors had been breached. The building was surrounded, though, and even in the unlikely event that he could make it out, there was nowhere for him to go. His car was parked a few miles away, an easy jog under normal conditions; it might as well have been on the moon for all the good it did him now.
It was looking like he was pretty thoroughly fucked, in short. He could shift to wolf-shape, but that took time, and it was time it looked like he didn’t have. This was a game of cat and mouse that could only end one way.
And then: footsteps. Quick muffled footsteps, sneakers on concrete, and an exasperated, familiar, impossible voice cursing softly. “God damn it, Derek, I know you’re here.”
Derek froze, crouched behind a pallet.
That wasn’t Stiles. Stiles was in college somewhere on the East Coast, somewhere far, far away from this stinking, blood-scented warehouse. Whoever that sounded like, it wasn’t Stiles.
It smelled like Stiles. It sounded like him, the quick heartbeat and the jittery movement, the annoyed huff of breath when Derek didn’t immediately answer, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. He wasn’t here.
“Pretty hard--fuck, ow--to orchestrate a rescue when the idiot you’re trying to save doesn’t even--oh. There you are,” the owner of the voice said as he rounded the pallet and practically tripped over Derek.
He seemed taller than Derek remembered, broader, more muscle on his lanky frame. His hair was shorter, and he was wearing a few days worth of scruff and an FBI windbreaker, tag on a cord around his neck.
He looked amazing.
It couldn’t have been that long, but it seemed like they stared at each other for an eternity before Stiles’s face split into a wide, delighted-looking grin. “Hey, Derek. Long time no see.”
Derek stared at him. What he actually meant to say was some form of what the hell are you doing here, Stiles, an order to get out before someone mistook him for a fugitive and blew a hole in his idiot head, but what actually came out was, “You smell like blood.”
“What?” Stiles said, his chemosignals all bright, sparking outrage over a pained brittleness and a deep heavy feeling like relief. Like he'd been worried about Derek, like that was something they did, the two of them. “Seriously, that’s your opening line? ‘You smell like blood’, yeah, thanks a lot, Derek, a ricochet clipped me in the toe and it hurts a lot, they may need to amputate but I’m not actively dying, thanks for asking, Jesus Christ. You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
Derek found himself suppressing a smile, the first one in ages that his mouth had wanted to make. “You still talk too much.”
“I’m aware,” Stiles said, still grinning as he ducked his head out to peer into the darkened warehouse.
“There’s no other way out.”
“There’s always another way out.”
“Optimist," Derek said. It came out sounding entirely too fond. "You spend too much time with Scott.”
“I haven’t talked to him in months, actually, I’m pretty sure something’s up with him. Beacon Hills has gone totally radio silent, and I’ve heard some messed-up rumors. After we get out of here, we should--oh shit.”
“What?” Derek hissed, but a second later he heard it. Footsteps on the concrete floor, the faint click of a gun being cocked. Nobody called for him to come out with his hands up, which meant that orders had been to shoot on sight. He shoved at Stiles, who didn’t budge. “Get out of here.”
“That would be a total waste of all the effort I put into this rescue operation.”
“You call this a rescue operation?”
“Yeah, I do. Just needs a couple of adjustments.” Stiles looked him up and down, an expression of bright focus on his face that Derek had seen before, that usually precipitated some madcap scheme with a good chance of ending in violence and chaos, and then he started stripping out of his FBI windbreaker. “Okay, do you trust me?”
“What?”
Stiles shoved the windbreaker into his arms and yanked off his own shoe. The smell of blood was stronger now; his sock was soaked through. He really had been clipped. Explained the bitter-sharp edge to his scent. “Put that on. And just go with it, okay?”
Derek had barely shoved his arms into the sleeves of the windbreaker when the footsteps rounded the nearest pallet. In any moment, the agents would be upon them. He could feel his claws begin to lengthen, the bones of his face shifting as fangs pushed through in preparation for some hopeless last stand--
Stiles collapsed into his arms suddenly, howling. The weight of him was next to nothing, but Derek almost tipped over anyway, just from the shock. Warm fingers scrabbled at his shoulders, gripping ungently at his hair and tilting his face downwards. “Oh, ohhhh, ow, oh god it hurts, get me out of here—”
“Jesus,” someone said from above. “Is that the intern?”
“He was supposed to stay with the car,” someone else said, “Chief is gonna fucking kill us when he hears—”
“I’m dying,” Stiles wailed. His fingers closed around Derek’s earlobe and yanked sharply when he started to lift his head, and yeah, okay, he got this. Like most of Stiles’s hair-brained schemes, the only thing he could do now was play along and hope nobody ended up full of bullet holes.
He hauled Stiles up into his arms in what he hoped was a comforting-looking manner, and without lifting his head said, “Ricochet. He’ll be fine.”
“Still. We’re gonna get our asses nailed to the wall for this one,” said the nearest agent, whose shiny shoes were two feet away, just visible in Derek’s peripheral vision. He smelled like cigarettes and gun smoke and fading adrenaline. “You got him?”
It took another sharp tug from Stiles for Derek to realize that the man was talking to him. Or rather, to the familiar figure of an FBI windbreaker, an obscured face in the dark.
There was no way this could possibly work. “I got him.”
“I’ve been shot and I’m dying--oh god, oh holy god, it’s all starting to go dark—”
“Shut up,” Derek muttered as the agents moved past them, standing and lifting Stiles’s lanky body effortlessly.
“Just walk,” Stiles said out of the side of his mouth, and flung his arms around Derek’s neck, groaning loudly and melodramatically into his ear. Derek gritted his teeth as he strode through the warehouse in what he hoped looked like a confident and professional manner, FBI agents streaming in around him. None of them gave him a second look, although Stiles, flailing and howling in his arms, got plenty of stares.
It was just barely possible that this idiot plan was going to work.
Ten yards later, they were out in the chilly desert night, floodlights lighting up the front of the warehouse like a stage. Stiles flung his arms out and ‘fainted’ melodramatically as an important-looking person in a suit crossed in front of them, and then they were out past the ring of cars, sand crunching beneath Derek’s boots and the dark road winding out alongside them.
“Left,” Stiles said calmly, lifting his head. “I stashed the Jeep half a mile down--you can put me down now, by the way.”
“No,” Derek said, starting down the road. The back of his neck prickled with every step, but no one called out after them. Hopefully, by the time it occurred to anyone to wonder what had happened to the intern, they’d both be long gone. “I can still smell blood. You were actually shot, you shouldn’t be walking on that foot.”
“Ricochet,” Stiles said, and when Derek didn’t put him down, he groaned and dropped his head against his shoulder. His breath was warm on Derek’s throat, lifting the small hairs on the back of his neck in a way that had nothing to do with the lingering fear that they were being followed. Derek ignored it. He had plenty of practice at ignoring that particular kind of distraction from Stiles, who didn’t even seem to know he was causing it, thankfully. “This is humiliating.”
“It was your plan,” Derek retorted without even trying to suppress his grin this time, and kept on walking into the night.
