#Math Nerd AU - Move in day - 06

[jtl-fics]

Math nerd au: does Neil do math for the foxes?

WIP Wednesday Game 8/16/23 (Closed) | Math Nerd AU

Matt leaned back enjoying the warmth of a delicious meal eaten with a good friend. The conversations he'd gotten into with Neil had gone the distance. From sports, politics, to shows currently airing all starting from an actually very interesting conversation about the weather.

"I used to be homeless, it's better to recognize what might be coming your way from the clouds." Neil had said and Matt had managed to not wrap him up in a hug.

The waitress dropped the check and Matt let out a long noise of discontent.

It wasn't that it was time to pay up, he had no problem with that. It was simply that Matt Boyd was not the best at figuring out tips. He NEVER would stiff waitstaff but he was notoriously bad at the very basic math problem. He prays for a day where it would be socially acceptable to have a calculator in your pocket.

"I hate figuring out tips." he says.

Neil looked over at his bill for barely half a second. "What percentage do you want to tip?" he asks.

"25% she was good." always kept his water filled up and remembered the mayo he requested for his fries.

"$10.46" Neil returns and Matt blinks at him.

"Did you just do that in your head?" he asks.

"Yeah." Neil answers.

[pendragonfics]

The Future is Now

Paring: Derek Hale/Reader

Tags: female reader, werewolves, AU where nobody dies, monster of the week, fluff, angst, protective Derek, some spoilers for series 3-5!!!, but not too many. 

Summary: The people of Beacon Hills always had thought you to be a freak, a nerd who didn't fit in, because well maybe you were. Or maybe it was because you could do really hard math off the top of your head, and figure things out before they happened.

OR

The time when Derek notices you and you notice him, after...well, experiences are experienced.

Word Count: 1,822

Posting Date:  2017-01-25

Current Date: 2017-06-07

To say you had been a friend of Stiles would be a vast overstatement. He sort of adopted you, after a day at the library, when you had overheard Allison grumbling over a quadratic equation, and you answered the problem without any pen and paper from the top of your head. The people of Beacon Hills always had thought you to be a freak, a nerd who didn't fit in, because well, when you were too shy to become a Mathlete, and too awkward to make your own friends, and lo and behold, that meant you were different.

But what world you stumbled upon because of Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski, the terrifying place where the teenagers around you were packs of werewolves, where your blood ignited when you were around to help with laying the mountain ash barriers, where nightmares surrounded you daily, made your mind race. It was like you couldn't tell the difference between the pages of the mythologies you'd ingested to keep up with the monster of the week.

But it was at the werewolf Derek Hale's apartment, who was a part of Scott's pack, when you felt so very out of the waters of your experience. You'd seen terrible things and a blind megalomaniac werewolf, sure, but still, you were the freaky geek who never had experience with social events. Thus, when Derek himself came up to you, and offered a bottled water, you were almost speechless.

"So, I hear you're another of the resident humans in the pack," he gives a smirk over the water, which makes you wonder if he's joking, or if he's just making fun of you. After all, he's very ripped, and very handsome, and an older guy, and you're used to this kind of treatment.

You nod. "I guess I'm a part of the pack, then," you mull over.

Glancing to the werewolves and assorted others getting to their seats for the pack meeting over Derek's lounge and coffee table. Allison and Isaac are seated beside one another, beside them squeezed in is one of the Chimeras, Corey, with Kira sitting on the arm of the sofa cross-legged. Lydia is running over notes she's taken from the last meeting, absentmindedly chewing the eraser on her green pen, Scott peering over her shoulder. Deputy Parrish is in the kitchen, working on his homemade lemonade with some help from Malia, who grumbles in good nature about being away from Farmville. Liam and Stiles are on the floor, challenging one another to a thumb war, with Mason and Hayden watching in amusement. It's all quite lovely; like a painting about to be frozen in frame, a memory to keep forever.

He chuckles, a deep-throat rumble which makes you think he's either choking or full of dry humour. "So, what got you in here? A friend of Stilinski's, or are you the one who worked it out all on your own?"

You shrug, looking to your hands. You were supposed to bring something, but you can't quite remember what. "I'm not really a friend of anyone," you tell the guy who happens to be very ripped and very shirtless before you, not meeting his eyes. "I'm just sort of...here." your eyes flit across his own, and adding quickly, you blurt, "I mean, I'm clever, I guess. In ways Lydia isn't."

Derek Hale nods. "So, you're another part added to be the brains of the operation," he smirks, and passes you, walking to the meeting on the lounge floor of his apartment. "Come on, bright star, meeting's about to begin."

Not three days later, the pack has decided to go on a camping trip onto the reserve, to try and get the new wolves into the habit of staying away from the civilised, well-populated areas of Beacon Hills. Also, not three days later, you wake in the sleeping bag in a hot sweat, sitting upright with heaving breathes, terrified out of your wits. You are in a tent with a few others, paired with Malia and Isaac, and Derek. Despite their wolf senses, none stir at the small gasp you release, the things you saw in your sleep still bright before your eyes while awake.

Outside the tent, you hear the rumbling and racing of the newbies rushing around the forest, sating their full moon needs to be wild and free. If you went out to soak in the moonlight, there was a chance you'd be at the mercy of Mason and Liam, and the new recruits to Satomi's pack. So, there you sat, counting your fingers and blessings, trying to ignore the things you had seen in your sleep.

"You're talking aloud, _________." Malia grumbled, rolling over into the wall of the tent, so her face was covered in material. As far as her hair and fluttering sleep-ridden eyes suggested, she was talking in her sleep, and wasn't awake. "Shut up."

You nodded, and whispering, apologised. Slowly, you slid back into the cooled sleeping bag, and after a moment, resumed the sleep you had woken so fitfully from.

The morning following, you were shaken awake from slumber by the frantic voice of Derek Hale, urgency threading his voice like ice lacing a frozen coffee from a local barista. Before you know it, he has gathered you into his arms, and holding you tight, races out of the tent. Your heart is afire with pulse, unsure when to beat and when to breathe, but as you come to, you notice three things.

One, you are in your pyjamas, and in the arms of the guy you think you have symptoms of a crush for.

Two, the rest of the pack are running, fleeing from the camping scene. The humans and slower creatures are in the arms of the wolves; Jordan Parrish has Lydia in a bridal style in his arms, Malia is carrying Stiles in a piggy-back fashion.

Three. There is a creature in pursuit.

"It can't be real, I'm still dreaming," you moan, voice low.

Because the creature before you is the something you saw, the thing you woke yourself from in the night. It is a skeleton, a dog with legs that face backwards, ears that moved in any way to catch the sound of what it pursued, and if you looked closely, there was not one head, but two...three! Three heads! It looked like death, in the flesh; it had to be a sort of hell-hound creature that Parrish wasn't descended from. You whimpered into Derek's shoulder, eyes closed as tight as you could.

When you open your eyes, you are all inside Scott McCall's house, the line of mountain ash. The ghost dog, the devil dog is outside, and you're breathing heavily, tears threatening to come. All eyes are on you. The dog retreats, leaving you all inside the house, hearing your heartbeats alive in your ears.

"I dreamed of this, everything, I dreamed every detail of what has happened," you whisper, unable to look anywhere but your hands. He rouses you, placing you down onto Scott's mother's sofa. "Oh god, I'm not human, am I?"

Derek bowed his head, not looking at you. As your eyes grazed the pack's, you noticed all but Lydia's avoiding your own. The beautiful brainy redhead stepped closer, cautiously. Her eyes sparkled, bright, alive. "I think you're human, ________, but something is in you, that isn't. Are you familiar with mythologies?" she asks you.

You nod once, silent.

"I have a suspicion that you're something we haven't seen before," she murmurs, almost excited at the existence of you for once. Scott steps forward, placing a hand on her arm, and waking from the trance, she grins. "Have you heard of the Seers?"

"Sears?" Stiles wonders. "Everyone knows what a department store is, stupid."

"You're stupid," Isaac elbows the detective's son in the chest, "She said seer, Stilinski. Like, oracle."

You swallowed. "Does that make all my good marks at school plagiarised? I've always had them given to me. Oh no. I'm not smart, I'm just future sensitive -," you place your head in your hands, folding your body into itself upon the sofa cushions, a crisis descending on you, racking you through with tears and emotion beyond your understanding.

Scott clears his throat, and taking a deep breath, declares, "Let's give ________ some time, I think she needs to let it sink in." He gives you a sad smile you can't see, and ushers the rest of his pack upstairs to his room, prepping himself to see everyone around his bed and floor on blow up mattresses. "Come on, pack."

Derek places a hand upon your shoulder. "I'll stay with her. I remember what my mother used to say to newborn creatures. I think." he adds a Hale-glare onto the end of his words, the rest of the stragglers increasing their pace to the upstairs, "Don't wait up."

Slowly, when you hear their footsteps receding, you straighten, and face Derek Hale. He has sleep-messed hair, threaded through with the wind's touch as he had run across town. But he still has his eyes, and they're watching you, waiting.

"What did your mother tell people when they found out what they were?" you whisper.

He shrugs, lowering himself to the floor before you, so you are taller than he is, gazing up to you like he is looking to the stars. "I can't quite remember. Something about nature, about how the way of the world working beyond our control, to create what it needed for the future." he grimaced at the end, "If she were here, she'd say you were special, and you had to keep your strength." He placed a hand on your wrist. At once, your pulse spiked. Upon feeling this, he frowned, lips parting. "Don't be afraid, ________. I know I was when I was a new wolf."

You shake your head. "I don't think I'm scared. I don't think I'll ever be afraid, to be honest, what, with the future happening now in my mind," you tell him, taking a deep breath. "Please don't laugh. I - I - thank you for not treating me like a freak that time in the meeting," you whisper. "I've sort of always been a little bit of an outsider. Now I know why," you chuckled mirthlessly.

"If you're not afraid, why -," he stops mid-sentence, "I like you too, ________...it's not something I can say for most people in this small town," his eyes burn bright at that, like he's greeting you home, like it's always been with Derek.

"I know you're probably tired," you babble, shifting across the sofa, "but would the mighty Derek Hale be objected to snuggles? I don't think I can face more dreams like that by myself just yet." you confess.

He nods, and stretching, his form joins you on the sofa. "You'll never face them alone. I've got you, bright star."