#adam just super unimpressed by the comment on the outside

[moeblob]

Matheo telling a mute guy to stay quiet like. Ah. Poor taste. My apologies.

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @stacinadia!

For the lovely stacinadia

So, I admittedly ran out of time, this is why there's just one chapter instead of a whole fic... BUT! I'm almost done with the second part so it will be up super soon I promise!

Hope you still enjoy and like your present!

Happy Holidays

;)

Read on AO3

*****

Time Stands Still

Chapter 1

It happens while they're fighting. Of course it does. They're in the loft, back from the preserve after an eventful afternoon spent fighting a trio of hunters who had thought they were better than all the others that came before them.

Stiles is sporting an impressive bruise on his cheekbone and a busted lip, but, all in all, it could have been worse. He could have ended up like Derek, with a foot-long gash on his side and a wolfsbane bullet in his hip.

Stiles is furious.

Derek shouldn't have been hit, he shouldn't even have been there at all. Derek was supposed to be backup, standing on the sidelines and acting only if Stiles was in need. It was supposed to be just a civil confrontation, some threatening words and incantations to scare the hunters away. But one of them had hit Stiles and, of course, instead of letting him, the pack emissary for fuck's sake, handle the situation, Derek had decided to intervene.

He jumped out, catching two hunters by surprise and knocking them out easily. The third one reacted quickly, though, shooting him before approaching and slashing his side with a wolfsbane coated blade. Luckily Argent and Scott appeared just in time, knocking the hunter out, quickly throwing the weapons at Stiles and shouting for him to run and take a now semi-unconscious Derek with him.

Stiles was furious.

He carried Derek back to his jeep and up to the loft, muttering swear words and commenting on whether a werewolf could ever be stupider. He could hear ragged breaths coming from Derek and the occasional groan at Stiles's insults. He swiftly laid him on the couch, tearing Derek's shirt open and working quickly to take out the bullet from the wound and burning the wolfsbane.

Stiles hates that it’s always so easy for him to tend to Derek's wounds, the fact that he’s had so much practice with it that he is basically an expert makes him want to throw up. How many times is Derek going to endure that shit?

"I hate this," Stiles whispers, sitting on the coffee table while Derek's breath evens out and his wounds stitch themselves up.

"If you hadn't been so adamant that you had to go there alone we wouldn't have had any problems."

And, really, fuck off.

“Fuck you, I had it under control. I was going to scare them off with a charm, but you didn't even give me the chance," Stiles shouts, outraged.

"They attacked you, what did you expect I'd do? You were supposed to convince them to leave, not rile them up, but, of course, you had to put your foot in your mouth."

Stiles turns towards Derek, he has sat up and Stiles chances a look at the wounds on his upper body to see them almost healed. He can't help the sigh of relief that escapes his lips before he registers Derek's words and a murderous glare flashes in his eyes.

"Fuck, Derek, I was doing my job. I'm the pack emissary, that's what I do. Besides, I can take care of myself. I don't need you to defend my virtue or something.” Stiles shouts, shutting his eyes in frustration and grabbing a pillow from the armchair.

He squeezes it in his hands to release the pressure before he does something stupid, like punching a werewolf.

"Yeah, I can see how well you take care of yourself."

Derek's rolling his eyes and making a vague gesture to Stiles's face. His tone is mocking and Stiles hates it. He hates that even after all these years Derek can still make him feel like he's just a useless human in a pack of much more powerful beings.

When he opens his eyes, Derek is standing next to the couch. He shouldn't stand. He should be lying down, he should be resting. His wounds are still there, glaring at Stiles. He bites his tongue to keep silent about it, he is still furious.

"Fuck you," he shouts.

He throws the pillow at Derek in a fit of rage, before closing his eyes again, trying to keep his emotions at bay. He feels energy bubbling underneath his skin, a thrumming in his veins as his anger mounts.

“Stiles you’re being a stubborn assho—”

Stiles opens his eyes when Derek pauses, he can see that his eyes are wide and he’s staring at the pillow floating between them. Well, scratch that, it’s not even floating, that would imply some kind of movement, but no, it’s actually still, frozen mid-air, as if someone had taken a picture of it.

Derek is staring at him, a shocked expression on his face.

“What did you do?” He asks.

Stiles frowns.

“Why would you automatically assume it’s my fault?” He says, narrowing his eyes, unimpressed.

“Well, who’s the one with magic powers here?” Derek says matter-of-factly.

And like, fuck you, Derek.

“Well, I didn’t do anything so you can kindly fuck off and stop blaming me,” He says, swatting at the pillow as he walks to the window.

He looks outside, down to the streets and, well, shit. They might have a problem.

“Derek!” He calls, motioning for Derek to come close as a surge of panic starts taking over him.

“What now?”

Stiles can still hear the frustration in Derek’s tone as he approaches. He’s not sure what’s going on but Stiles knows it’s him. It must have been him. Him and his stupid spark that he still can't control. And if Derek doesn’t get there quick and reassures him that he’s going to be fine Stiles is going to have a panic attack. Like, for sure.

In retrospect, Stiles probably should have seen it coming. What with Alan-fucking-Deaton being the most cryptic and unhelpful asshole ever. There really was no chance for Stiles to avoid fucking up massively at some point.

He was training to become an emissary, or, rather, control his spark at least. But he had been training for months with scarce results, finding it hard to concentrate (gee thanks ADHD you’re being very helpful with that) and he was growing impatient and Deaton was just confusing at best with his incomprehensible instructions that sounded like riddles more like anything. And, like, Stiles has reached his own riddle quota with the Nogitsune so, thanks, but no, thanks.

On top of that, Derek was being the usual annoying righteous asshole, making him feel small and useless.

It must have been a reaction to it. It must have been that, for sure. But the problem, the fucking problem, is that Stiles has no idea of how to fix it.

Stiles sees the moment that Derek realises what’s going on, the stiffness of his back and the way he tightens his fists. He can see the way he breathes through his nose and gulps as he takes in the sight of the unmoving world outside his window. Everything is frozen, people, cars, even birds, they’re there, stuck in the sky like in some kind of hyper realistic painting. And, fuck, it's all because of Stiles.

He doesn't know what to do. He feels guilt growing inside him and barely registers Derek turning towards him before shutting his eyes. Willing it to stop. Willing everything to go back to normal.

“Stiles.”

Stiles hears Derek's voice like it's far away. He takes deep breaths, feels his head exploding as he tries to get some air into his lungs. Every breath seems useless as he suddenly feels his legs giving out and he’s crumbling to the floor.

Great. A panic attack is just what they need.

“Stiles! Come on, breathe with me.”

He hears Derek calling him and feels a hand grabbing his shoulders and keeping him up. There’s a thumb drawing circles on his left hip and he can feel Derek breathing close to his ear.

“Breathe, Stiles, slowly...like that, yeah.”

He concentrates on the sound of Derek’s voice and tries to sync his breathing to his, the hand on his shoulders is stroking gently up and down, soothingly.

It takes Stiles a whole five minutes to calm down. Derek is rubbing his palm up and down his back and whispering encouragements in his ear and Stiles can't do anything but relax, leaning forward and letting his forehead rest on Derek's shoulder.

"Thanks," Stiles mutters once his pulse is finally steady.

It takes him a moment to find the strength to push himself off of Derek and give up the safety of his arms. He turns towards the window and looks back down. His pulse speeds up minutely.

"It's fine," Derek says, his arms are still loosely around Stiles, ready to catch him.

Stiles can't take his eyes off of the scene outside, what if everything is stuck forever? What if he can't find a way to put things right? What if it takes him too long and then the damage is done?

"I don't know how to fix it."

"I know you can," Derek mumbles, and Stiles is so concentrated on all the 'what if's' and self-loathe that he almost misses it.

He turns to Derek, a questioning look on his face.

"What?"

"I know you can fix it. And– We can figure it out– I'm–" Derek clears his throat "I'll help you. We can go to Deaton's and see if there's anything in his books. Even if he's frozen we can still take a look at them."

Stiles nods, mumbling a small thank you and looking on as Derek just pats his shoulder briefly, before walking ahead towards the door. Stiles has a shit feeling about this.

•••

By the time they've managed to find the book and read the right section, Derek's positive attitude has plummeted towards way below zero and Stiles's shit feeling has become more like a monumentally-huge-pile-of-shit kind of feeling.

He groans hiding his face in his hands. It's impossible. He's never gonna be able to fix this mess.

Deaton's frozen smirk staring back at him doesn't help at all to ease his anxiety. He looks even creepier like that. Stiles isn't sure how that's even possible.

"So, just a strong emotion? What kind of emotion? Do I just toss you around until you get mad again?" Derek asks. Stiles just shakes his head defeated.

"It's much more than that."

"Then explain."

And yeah, Stiles would love to explain, but that might be a bit hard.

He glances down at the spellbook, pretending to read while he actually tries to collect his thoughts and make sense of what just happened.

Because yeah, a strong emotion, that's what caused the freeze in time. And, like, of course, anger is probably the strong emotion in question, Stiles was mad and his whole body was tingling with it, so it's safe to say that it was it. But, first things first, the enchantment was so powerful and intricate that Stiles has no idea of how he's even managed to cast it. Not to mention that it's listed as a protection spell. Those cast only when the emissary feels a member of their pack is in danger, and Stiles still isn't sure what exactly he was trying to protect. He refuses to believe that he was trying to protect Derek from a pillow, seriously, his magic can't be that fucked up. Then again, Derek was the one arguing with him and if Stiles was so keen on being protected himself, maybe he should have frozen the sole reason he was angry in the first place.

But nope. Of course, Stiles managed to freeze everything but Derek. Well done, really. Saved the wolf from the big bad fluffy pillow. Sometimes he can't believe this is his life

Stiles reads once more through the page, to see if he's missed any vital information and to try and come up with an easy way to explain this mess. He looks up when he feels Derek's gaze on him, the werewolf clearly growing impatient at Stiles's silence.

"It's–" Stiles takes a deep breath. "It's complicated."

"No shit Sherlock," Derek says, rolling his eyes. It startles a chuckle out of Stiles. He sometimes still can't believe how much of a sarcastic shit Derek is.

"Anger is considered a negative emotion, so what we need to reverse the spell is an opposite feeling," Stiles explains.

"So what, you need to be excessively calm?" Derek is saying, "like, what? should I give you a massage?"

And Stiles would love it, really, he would. He's been in need of a massage for ages, seriously. He definitely deserves one, especially considering everything he's been through in the past years. He'd totally go for a proper one, one of those massages that hurt a bit but left you boneless and relaxed. And, like, Stiles is 100% sure that Derek would be great at giving massages. Stiles can almost picture it, strong hands applying just the right pressure and manhandling him until he's relaxed and pliant. And, okay, Stiles really needs to steer off this track as quickly as he can because no, that's not necessarily what he needs to reverse the spell.

"No, but thanks for offering. It just needs to be a very positive one."

"Right, and how do we manage that?" Derek looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

"There's more actually," Stiles says, casting a fleeting glance at Derek before looking down. From the murderous look in Derek's eyes, Stiles isn't too opposed as to think that this is going to end in a bloodbath. Oh, God. This could actually be the day that Derek actually follows through with his threats of ripping Stiles's throat out. With his teeth.

"I need to make sure everyone in the pack is safe. It's a protection spell, I must have felt some kind of danger so I have to–" Stiles pauses when he sees the frown on Derek's face deepen with each word. He looks as if he's being personally attacked and, oh, shit. Stiles knows that look. It's guilt. Stiles hates it. He can't believe that idiot wolf really thinks that Stiles was feeling in danger because of him. This needs to stop like, now.

"No no no, wait," Stiles rushes out with his palm held up. "I wasn't feeling in danger, it must have been you. I would have frozen the danger, I would–"

"So what, were you protecting me?" Derek interrupts him. He has taken a step forward and Stiles has to reach out to the exam table in the middle of the room. Because Derek's tone is harsh, and it sounds like the fact that Stiles wants to protect him is just absurd. Like it's something foreign and incomprehensible. As if he doesn't really need any of it. As if he doesn't deserve it. And Stiles is so, so tired of this bullshit.

"I was,” Stiles murmurs, “I'd always protect you.”

He’s looking straight into Derek's eyes, hoping that he understands, hoping that he gets how important he is. He can see the way Derek's eyes widen in surprise, shock almost. There's a faint blush spreading on his cheeks and Stiles's heart is suddenly in his throat. Because he didn't know Derek could ever get more attractive than usual but, apparently, he can. Derek blushing is the most amazing thing Stiles has ever seen.

God, he's so screwed.

"But," Derek catches his attention, "what was the danger, though?"

And yeah, that's a topic Stiles didn't want to get to. He looks down, shaking his head a bit. He knows he should lie, he should come up with an excuse. But then Derek would worry and would feel guilty for not noticing sooner a danger that wasn’t even there in the first place. And that's a path Stiles doesn't want to take.

"I think it was the pillow? You were still healing I–"

It’s barely a whisper, and Stiles doesn’t know how to go on without dying from embarrassment. He feels his cheeks burning as they share a look, Derek probably gauging whether Stiles is serious. And Stiles is. And he hates it.

He tries to look defiant, but Derek is bursting out laughing. He's in stitches, properly wheezing, holding the exam table with one hand as he bends his knees and ends up in a crouching position.

And, oh, this is new.

Because, sure, Derek has been happier lately, calmer and more relaxed. The weight he carried on his shoulders somehow less heavy, less consuming. But this is the first time that Stiles witnesses a full body laugh from Derek. And scratch whatever Stiles said before. This. The scrunched up eyes and the teeth bared, the way Derek holds his belly and the way his body is pulsing through each peal of laughter, this. This is the most amazing thing he's ever seen.

God, Stiles is so completely screwed.

To Be Continued...