The Best Possible Time

[thetyro]

Title:  The Best Possible Time
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters/Pairing: Sterek, Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski,
Prompt: Stiles wanders out on a full moon and runs into FullShift!Derek (Teen Wolf style werewolves, not Harry Potter style). Stiles panics and hides in a tree. Derek is not amused.

--

It was Scott’s fault.

Scott and that guy who made magic so cool.

But mostly Scott.

Stiles might have discovered the potion. But it was Scott who suggested that Stiles bypass “The Man” and collect the last three ingredients he needed for his potion in the Dark Forest.

Stiles couldn’t even imagine how fast the Sorting Hat had rejected Ravenclaw as a possibility.

The more ideas Scott had, the more convinced Stiles was that he was never going to have a good one. Even worse? It was contagious--Scott radiated a field of temporary stupidity. Why else would Stiles have honestly believed that sneaking out into the Forbidden Forest, in the middle of the night, on the full moon, was something that was going to end well for him?

Because it wasn’t.

It really, really wasn’t.

-

The Dark Forest was aptly named. The light from the tip of Stiles’ wand barely penetrated into the inky black. The darkness felt so tangible that Stiles was reluctant to inch his feet or hands too far out in front of himself, which left him to shuffle over the uneven ground like a penguin with knee problems. The full moon hung above his head, visible through the branches of the trees, but it didn’t provide light so much as creepy atmosphere and a looming sense of dread.

Stiles sucked in a deep breath, puffing out his chest in an attempt to show the forest he wasn’t scared.

“Screaming lavender, toad chair toadstools, doxy eggs,” he told himself. “Super cool potion. All going to be worth it. “

-

The fourth willow tree he rooted under produced enough doxy eggs, and toadstools were common enough he could afford to be picky in his selection. The flowers proved a bit more challenging to find.

Stiles tramped through the forest, climbing over tangles of roots and jumping small, dark creeks, eyes scanning the ground for his final ingredient and occasionally pausing to pick up little bits of white bone. Just in case some of it might turn out to be useful.

It was well past midnight when his optimism started to waver. He was tired, his socks were wet, every shadow sent another wave of adrenaline through him, and he still had no flowers to show for it. He was ready to turn around and trudge, defeated, back to the castle when the sound of twigs snapping behind him sent a jolt down his spine.

Stiles turned towards the sound. The Dark Forest was silent. Stiles took a careful step backwards. Nothing. He took a few more steps backwards, keeping his eyes trained on the darkness. His right foot came down on something and he froze. There was no ‘snap’ of a stick, and it didn’t really feel like one anyways.

Stiles looked down, curiosity getting the best of him. Sure enough, it wasn’t a stick under his shoe. It was too fluffy.

Stiles’ eyes followed the path from tail, to butt, to back, to neck, to the extremely unamused face of the wolf whose tail he was still standing on.

The wolf flattened its ears against its head and growled at Stiles’ foot. His expression was offended and incredulous, which Stiles might have noticed if he hadn’t already been panicking about how painful it must be to have someone standing on your tail. To him, the wolf looked pissed. And something in the Forbidden Forest wasn’t going to be growling to tell you how badly it wanted to snuggle you. Unless it was something that killed via snuggling. In which case...

Stiles’ feet didn’t wait for his brain to make an executive decision on the whole “running” idea. His feet, unlike his brain, weren’t so distracted as to ignore the obviously irritated werewolf whose tail he was still standing on.

Now. It was very unlikely that he could outrun a werewolf, whose max speed was a very graceful 37mph. Stiles’ max speed was 6 mph, with breaks for falling. This realized, Stiles did the only reasonable thing--he climbed the nearest tree.

The wolf, after a moment of consideration, slowly got up and followed him as far as the base of the tree at less than top speed. He sat down amongst the roots and looked up between the branches at Stiles.

-
Derek heaved a sigh, staring up at the other student as he perched himself on one of the highest branches. Yup, that was Stiles Stilinski, Derek confirmed.

Like there had ever been any doubt. Who else would ignore the fact he went to school with a werewolf and prance off into the Dark Forest on the full moon? Who else would end up trampling all over said werewolf’s tail? Who else would think climbing a tree was the solution to all those problems?

-

Stiles looked down between the branches, inching a little further out to get a better view of the ground. When he saw Derek looking up at him he made a very undignified sound and wished with all his might that he knew if wolves could climb trees. He was pretty sure that if a wolf was highly motivated it could climb a tree. And that meant his only hope was that this was a lazy, underachieving wolf.

Stiles promised himself that if he lived through this, he would thoroughly research every magical and non-magical animal’s ability to climb trees. Thoroughly.

Derek couldn’t, and more importantly wouldn’t, climb a tree with only paws and claws to work with. But he wasn’t going to wait around for Stiles to fall. This was funny but it wasn’t that funny.

Sighing Derek turned around and went to go get his pants.

-

When Stiles next dared to glance down, Derek was standing, clad in uniform pants and henley and Hufflepuff scarf. Stiles recognized Derek Hale instantly and was more convinced than ever he was going to die.

Stiles’ owl had intercepted one of Derek’s packages midair once, “forwarding” the homemade cookies to Stiles. He’d dropped a book on his head in the library. He’d insulted his charm work for half an hour before realizing that it was Derek’s. There was nothing sadder-looking than a dejected Hufflepuff. There was nothing sadder-looking than a dejected Derek Hale!

Yup. Derek was totally going to eat him. Probably. If he didn’t die of embarrassment first.

“Come down. Before you fall.” Derek growled, his manner more than vaguely threatening. Stiles very nearly fell out of his tree.

“No!” he yelled. “You’re going to eat me!”

“Ew,” Derek said, pulling a face that had too many teeth to not be terrifying.

“Hey!” Stiles said, indignant. “I would be delicious!“

Derek groaned and rubbed his temples. Stiles adjusted his grip on the branch, ignoring the nagging thought that (regardless of whether or not wolves could climb trees), Derek could definitely climb a tree. He could climb a tree and eat him and no one would even think twice about it. This was the perfect crime. Killing someone in a forest full of things that want to kill people!

‘Crack’.

Stiles blinked. The branch dropped a few inches and he was suddenly looking down at a much sharper angle.

‘Crack’.

The branch snapped and Stiles was suddenly in free fall. He missed most of the other branches on the way down; he didn’t miss Derek.

Landing on someone wasn’t nearly as much of a comfort as people made it out to be. At least he’d be dead soon and the pain in his ankle wouldn’t be a problem at all.

“I told you to come down from the tree,” Derek groaned from under him.

“And I came down from the tree,” Stiles answered.

“You did it wrong,” Derek growled, shoving him off. Stiles made a whimpering sound and then felt like a terrible person when Derek’s face suddenly went from annoyed to horrified.

-

By the time Derek had checked him over and sapped a little of his pain, Stiles was a little more convinced his body wasn’t going to be left in the woods for the Pixies to eat. Which was good. It meant he could take advantage of this one-on-one time with Hot Wolf Hale.

Derek helped him to his feet, dusting a few stray leaves from Stiles’ hair. There was absolutely no blushing on anyone’s part. Especially not Derek’s. It was dark. No one could prove anything.

Stiles gingerly applied weight to his ankle, wincing slightly. Derek rolled his eyes. He really wanted to remain on the menacing end of the spectrum. He felt there was more dignity there. At least compared to what Stiles would think of him if he started fussing.

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “I don’t even think it’s broken. “

“You don’t know that. You’re not a mediwizard. They might have to amputate,” Stiles replied. “I think I need to be carried back. I mean, there’s no way I can walk on this. It might exacerbate my condition. “

“Your condition is a sprained ankle,”

“An ankle that got sprained because you chased me up a tree, Mr. Howling Good Time,”

“I didn’t chase you up a tree!” Derek protested. “I told you to come down from the tree!”

Stiles had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. Derek would absolutely kill him if he laughed at this point.

“I think you need to carry me,” he said, just barely managing to keep a straight face.

Derek’s eye twitched. He stepped forward and in one smooth motion swept Stiles off his feet and tossed him over his shoulder. Stiles squawked.

He was carried twenty yards through the forest before Derek decided that he’d made his point. He shifted Stiles from his shoulder to his arms.

Stiles huffed and glared at him. “This is revenge for the cookies, isn’t it?”

He realized his mistake when Derek frowned in dawning suspicion and asked, “What cookies?”

Stiles wasn’t concerned, though; nearly all his friendships had begun along these lines. “Don’t worry--I’ll bake you a new batch.”.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~AND THEN THERE WAS KNOTTING AND XENO PORN. YOU'RE WELCOME~*~*~*~*~*~*~