"Dad," Stiles said as he wandered into the kitchen, "can Derek stay tonight?"

The look his father gave him was priceless. They had spent well into the evening talking and his dad hadn't kicked Derek out yet, but it was getting late now. His dad clearly wasn't comfortable with the whole mate thing yet, but Stiles had hope.

"Not like that," he protested; "I am well aware there is pushing you and then pushing you too far; I meant in the spare room. I get you have a problem with us being together, together, but Deaton says it will take the magic a while to settle and I don't know what might happen if Derek is too far away."

His dad looked dubious.

"You felt the whole healing thing," he said, "that's not exactly me, that's instinct and until I get the hang of it Derek is the only person that can keep me focused."

"He has a home of his own," his dad pointed out.

"Nope, he has a loft apartment that really needs some TLC," he replied, "I'm not sure Derek's had a home since his family burned to death in his."

That earned him a very thoughtful silence.

"You'll need to make up the bed," his dad said eventually, "and you will sleep in your room. There will be no naked togetherness in this house, am I understood?"

"Yes, Dad," he said and threw his arms around his father, "thank you. I promise, no naked togetherness."

He went to bounce out of the room.

"But some kissing is okay, right?" he asked. "Because that might be a fundamental need."

He left before his dad could reply, but he did hear the groan.

~*~

So he had spent ten minutes with Derek at the entrance to the spare room until his dad had made very unsubtle noises from the other side of the corridor, but he was a teenager and he couldn't help it. He wanted to touch Derek whenever and wherever he could and that's all there was to it. Trying to fall asleep in his own bed was hard. It was as if he was missing something and he tossed and turned for at least an hour before sleep finally took him.

When Stiles opened his eyes on the white place he almost panicked before he realised something felt different. He was on the dais, but, when he looked down, this time he was not with a wolf, he was the wolf. That made everything different and he felt his body tingling with energy rather than being drained.

There was a musky scent on the air and he swivelled his head to catch it better, at which point he saw the big black wolf standing looking back at him on the other side of the dark barrier around his little island. He wasn't sure how he had ever not known it was Derek. Everything about the magnificent creature screamed the truth at Stiles. Without questioning the instinct, he trotted towards where Derek was standing, only stopping when he came to the inky moat.

There was no way across and he wasn't sure what to do. They stood there looking at each other and all Stiles wanted to do was reach the blue eyed wolf. It was almost a physical ache as he realised he couldn't.

Derek stared at him steadily for what seemed like an age and then put his head back and howled.

It was a mournful, but, oh so powerful sound and it ripped right to Stiles' core. He had no choice but to follow his instincts and throw his head back and join the chorus. Their wolf voices joined in a wild harmony that soared through the empty space.

As he called out for his mate, Stiles felt the magic moving through his bones. It built and built, moment by moment, called by the song and he had no choice but to let it explode. White light, even brighter than the place he was in, shot out of his body, bringing his howl to a stuttering stop. It lanced at the darkness surrounding his dais and the area echoed with an almighty crack and a sound almost like shattering glass.

When his vision cleared, the first thing Stiles saw was that the darkness was not gone, but as he looked he realised it was riddled with large white fissures. Acting on pure need he touched a paw to the crack just in front of him and it was solid under his pads. The bottomless darkness was breeched and he didn't even stop to think about it, he bounded forward, using the white cracks as a path to the other side.

Derek was waiting for him, only he was moving so fast he couldn't stop and he barrelled into his mate making what should probably have been embarrassingly excited and needy noised. He buried his muzzle in Derek's fur in as close to a hug as a wolf could get and they lay on the floor in a tangled heap. They were together; they could do anything.

"What the hell is going on?"

Stiles shot upright, or at least he tried to, but there were muscular arms holding him and he only got about half way.

"What?" was the best his sleepy mind could do as he half collapsed back to the bed.

"Stiles, I trusted you," his dad said and it finally made it into Stiles' brain that he was not in his own room, he was in the spare room and the arms holding him belonged to Derek.

Now he was really confused.

"Stiles, I want to see you downstairs and you," his dad pointed at Derek accusingly, "get out of my house right now."

"Dad, wait," Stiles said as the reality of the situation finally resolved in his brain, "it's not what ..."

"Not what, Stiles?" his dad interrupted him, clearly very angry. "You asked if he could stay and you knew the rules. You betrayed my trust."

"No, Dad," he protested, but his father looked angry enough to start waving his gun around.

"Sir, I promise," Derek backed him up, "I went to sleep alone."

"So you're blaming this on Stiles?"

"No, Dad, that's not what Derek is saying," Stiles raised his voice, "he's trying to tell you we don't know how we ended up together. We were both asleep..."

"Sleepwalking? Don't tell me you're going to go with something like sleepwalking."

It sounded weak even to Stiles, but it actually made sense.

"I was dreaming," he said as where he had been came back to him; "the white place," he turned to Derek, "we were in the white place."

Derek nodded.

"We broke the darkness," Derek said.

When Stiles looked back at his dad he realised worry and confusion were now warring with the anger. He knew for a fact it wouldn't last though, not unless he could explain.

"Dad," he said, "please, this wasn't deliberate. I went to bed in my own room, I swear and I don't know how I got here. I think ... I think it might have been the final part of what we needed to do. I woke up in the white place, only it wasn't like before; I was the wolf this time and I had power. Derek was there, but he was on the other side of the darkness; the darkness around my heart. There it's like a moat, a really deep, endless moat that I couldn't get across, but we broke it. Together we shattered it and then I heard you yelling and that's all I know. I don't know if I walked here or if something really weird happened and I just appeared here, but we did not break the rules deliberately."

For a few seconds he thought his confession might have fallen on deaf ears, but then he realised that some of the tension was leaving his dad's stance.

"Anything to add?" his dad asked, looking directly at Derek.

"No, Sir," Derek replied; "I'm very sorry for breaking your rules, but, as Stiles said, it wasn't deliberate."

His dad just stood there for a little while longer and then finally began to turn away.

"It's a school day," his dad said; "breakfast in twenty minutes, I expect you both to be there."

Stiles actually slumped in relief.

"I could really have lived without waking up like that," he said as the adrenaline began to wear off.

"Yes," Derek replied pulling him close for a second. "We had better move if we want to make the deadline."

He had to agree, but he really didn't want to move.

His relationship with Derek was complicated, because of the age gap and his dad's worry; his magic was somewhat incomprehensible to him; he still needed to talk to Scott about what had happened during the broadcast sex and now the darkness as well; their little pack had several very broken pieces that were going to take a long time to fix; there were things on the way that would endanger them all.

It was a long list of things that needed addressing, but as Stiles headed to the shower he had to admit he was happy.

Firstly there was Derek. While Derek seemed to find it straightforward to profess love, he didn't, but he was almost sure that was the inexperience of youth rather than anything else. He needed time to process how their relationship had shifted and what the warm, fluttery feeling in his chest actually meant. However, that didn't stop him being happy. And, of course, the sex was epic.

Then there was everything else. He was closer to the supernatural than he ever would have dreamed. Before he had been the weak and squishy human and he didn't have all the strength of the wolves or their fighting ability, but he had something else. The pack needed him and he needed the pack; it was the beginning of a new era for Beacon Hills and they were all part of it. He liked being part of the powerful whole and doubts be damned; he stepped into the shower with a smile on his face.

The End

Thank you so much for reading, I do hope you enjoyed it.

If you would like to read more of my stories, I've put them all into reading lists so they are easy to find by type:
📚Tasha's Other Fanfiction 📚(everything but HP)
📚Tasha's Harry Potter Fanfiction📚(what it says on the tin)
📚Tasha's Original Fiction📚 (I have a real thing for vampires and magic, so you'll find a lot of that kind of thing)

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