halekingsourwolf:

Anon I want fics of this. I want so much post s5 or alt!s.5 Sterek, them reuniting, them keeping in touch the whole time Derek’s gone, them being apart and knowing that something’s missing but being oblivious idiots who don’t realize they’re desperate to just hear each others’ voices again…

My favorite headcanon (which you’ve probably all heard to death already) is that Derek is in Europe right now, establishing a new pack with Isaac, Jackson, and Cora. And while I like to think Stiles and Derek are still in touch while Stiles goes into senior year (and that Stiles would seek him out after graduation) I would love a fic where Stiles doesn’t know where Derek is at all and just runs into him in Europe after the McCall pack drifts apart.

Because Stiles had tried to keep them all together, alright? Had planned on the pack going to San Francisco together after graduation, on moving into the next great phase of his life with his little found family all around him. But piece by piece it had started breaking apart, the pack members getting accepted into separate schools, scholarships not coming through in some places, program offers they couldn’t refuse in others… and before Stiles knew it they were all going in different directions, and Stiles was left standing in their dust.

So he defers for a year (it’s not like he didn’t have plenty of his own offers, but he’d put all his focus into the pack and without it he’s really not sure what direction he wants to head in) and decides he might as well be a complete cliche and go backpacking while he figures things out.

He makes his way through France and his mind touches on Isaac more than once, but then what would he even say if he got in contact with the guy? “Hey, we never really got along all that well and the last time we hung out my demonic alter ego had just killed your girlfriend and you fled town over it, but you want to grab a drink or something?”

He doesn’t contact Isaac.

The thing is, though, he starts hearing rumors halfway through Germany, just little things here and there when he touches base with whatever supernatural community happens to be in a given area. (Apparently his “spark” gives off a certain aura that many of the more old-world practitioners can feel just by being close to him – he’s encountered more than one baffled wizard who just can’t believe he’s never had proper training with a spark this strong.)

The rumors vary from place to place, but they all have to do with a wolf pack, new (or very old?) and formidable for its size. Apparently they’re notable because their alpha isn’t even really an alpha – which makes Stiles smile, think of Scott back at the beginning – because they appeared seemingly out of nowhere in a place where ancient bloodlines are everything. Because (from what the obviously exaggerated rumors are saying) the area around London had been practically a Hellmouth of dark supernatural energy for years, that no sensible practitioner had dared live there for generations before the new pack arrived to take control of the land.

(He spits his drink out, laughing, at the thought of Jackson creating a Hellmouth-battling superpack, Accidentally offends the group of gnomes he’d been sharing a drink with, and forgets the rumors when his attention focuses to getting out of there fast and alive.)

He’s traveling north through Wales when he first hears the name Hale. It stops him cold, leaves him shivery with a feeling he’s spent too long swallowing down to really recognize.

The new pack claimed the old Hale land.

He doesn’t let himself think too much about it. The Hale pack had moved from England decades ago, it makes sense for some new pack to claim the vacated land. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

But he’s heading straight toward London after that. He thinks maybe he has been for a long time, without really realizing it.

He’s not sure what he was expecting when he gets to London, but whatever it is, he doesn’t find it. There are no big, glowing arrows pointing toward this new pack’s headquarters. No mentions in the newspaper that might broadcast their existence, and everything he hears about them from the magical community is frustratingly second-hand and even more frustratingly unhelpful.

An offhand mention of a dark haired girl saving some people from what sounds like a wendigo. Something about a blond boy – tall and so very sweet – with the scent of a wolf, enrolled in a local college. (Something pings in Stiles’ brain and he earns some very strange looks when he asks if the boy had been wearing a scarf.)

Any outright questions about where the new pack lives, or where the old Hale territory had been, are met with closed-mouth suspicion. A strange human sweeping into town, asking around about a wolf pack? Stiles guesses it probably looks pretty suspicious. And as frustrating as it is, he can’t help but be a little bit pleased to see the supernatural community protecting their own.

He’s not really surprised when Derek finds him at an out of the way pub one night, just slipping onto the barstool next to him and saying “I figured it was you.”

When Stiles looks up he looks just like the image Stiles has been holding onto for all these months: soft beard and sharp features, predator’s eyes that somehow make Stiles feel safe and not scared. He’s not dressed in a leather jacket but it’s still the tail end of summer, so Stiles gives him a pass there.

He looks completely different too, shoulders relaxed in a way Stiles hadn’t known he was physically capable of, his lips curling into a soft smile that seems almost happy. Like sitting here next to Stiles is all Derek could have wanted out of this night.

He lifts his brows questioningly, and Derek goes on:

“Been hearing a lot of rumors about a loud-mouthed American with a spark, running around asking about the Hales.”

And Stiles laughs, feeling strangely free for the first time in ages. Feeling like he’s had a hook dragging in his chest for months now, for over a year, maybe. Pulling at him, leaving him constantly restless in a way he hadn’t even noticed until now. Until he saw Derek sliding onto the stool next to him.

And he realized what he’s been looking for this whole time.