we're bigger than we've ever dreamed

[hypercompetent]

CALL ME OUT MEME

1. post one of your characters and ask for one of mine in the subject line--or let me surprise you!
2. leave a prompt of some kind; a gif, a picture, song lyrics, a starter, whatever you want!
3. i'll respond with a post and let's play some stuff!
4. AU's, game canons, whatever you can think of!
5. post is open indefinitely.

Comments

Stiles!

[anticonvulsant]

Teaching her how to drive, maybe? :D?

WHAT COULD GO WRONG RIGHT

[hypercompetent]

[ So, Stiles is not sure if he's ready to die or not, but he's totally doing this anyway. He's taken his beloved Betsy out to a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, checked the police scanner to make sure his dad wasn't around and wouldn't get him in trouble for letting someone drive without a license, and tentatively, oh so tentatively, handed Erica the keys.

That's where he is now, sitting in the front seat of his car, and teaching a werewolf how to drive a stick shift. What could possibly go wrong. ] Okay, so, you have to put it in first to start, and get up to fifteen miles an hour. Got it?

NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

[anticonvulsant]

[ Okay, so she's nervous! That's normal, right? I mean, driving, something she thought she'd never get to do.

She's got one hand on the stick, and the other on the steering wheel, and she nods. ] I think so.

[ Deep breath, Erica. It's not like this Jeep is his lifeblood or anything. She puts the car into gear, and presses on the clutch—

And the Jeep lurches forward and then promptly stalls out. ]

We totally need more threads right???

[triskeles]

For puka AU? Hell yes.

[hypercompetent]

[ The job of a puka is simple: raise havoc.

Since taking on a little village of his own, the sidhe Stiles has in fact been doing just that. Whether it's digging out burrows in the middle of the night for people to fall into, swapping children into different homes just for kicks, or making messes of most of the things he's come across, Stiles is pretty damn good at his job. Black as night when he wants to be, he can shift forms at the speed of light, although his usual is between two things--a slinky little fox, able to disappear when the villagers thought they absolutely had him, or a deer, graceful and quick on his feet. (Most of the time.)

There'd been someone trying to mess with his pranks lately, though: a big bad wolf, literally, a faoladh, the last stupid thing Stiles wanted to find when he was trying to work, damn it. And although he'd started out hating the bastard, Stiles was starting to take great fun in trapping the faoladh, too, dropping him in holes and tripping up his stupid perfect wolf senses every time he got the chance. It was starting to become a game, almost.

But he was hoping the faoladh wasn't going to be out tonight. Slipping into a small pub by sneaking under the door as a snake, Stiles abruptly shifts into his preferred form and looks around, nodding his head before lowering it so his antlers are aimed for the bar.

And then, he promptly lets loose, starting to break anything in sight, casks flying open and glasses shattering on the floor. ]

WELP.

[triskeles]

[ The job of a faoladh is just as simple: protect.

So it's no wonder that Derek has stormed to every loud cry or crash to hit the village since the damned puka started stirring up trouble. Their harvests haven't been the best in the past year, so he can't exactly say he's surprised that the sidhe is deciding to terrorizing the villagers, since they haven't been able to really give the trickster its share, but that doesn't change anything for him.

A faoladh protects, and the havoc a puka raises is something that he should protect his villagers from. Especially after they accepted him into their lives, even if it was only as a service.

His red eyes turn in the direction of chaos, loud and not-so-foreign in what should have been a quiet night. Growling low, his ears swivel back and he makes his way towards the pub, knowing exactly what's causing the trouble without having to check. Not after the game that the fae has started up. With little to no preamble, he just slams a massive shoulder into the back door, taking up the entire doorway as he glowers into the building. ]

LYDIA!

[hisusername]

♥!

[sixtypercent]

[ The thing about girl time is it usually ends with shopping, or gossiping, or watching movies and eating popcorn. With Allison? It's not usually like that. Not that Lydia really complains--she loves Allison, she really does, possibly even more as a friend after the entire supernatural nightmare that has been her life since she was first attacked by Peter Hale months and months ago.

It's that they're trying to understand--the extent of Lydia's visions, what Peter made her see--so they're walking towards the still abandoned Hale house. Lydia's boots were not made for hiking, to say the least, and she's still uneasy as hell about this place. ] This is not exactly what I thought you were going for when you said we were going to hang out.

[ But she does at least keep up with her. ]

[hisusername]

I know, [she explains patiently as they hike. She's far more dressed for the woods, her own boots laced up.] and I'm sorry. I wanted to hang out, and we still are. Just... We're trying to settle some things, first.

[She wasn't anxious to get back to the Hale house, either, but if it could help Lydia-- if it could help them all, she would stay there all night if she had to.] I just hope this works. After everything Stiles had you try... There's clearly some connection going on here. I figured maybe going back to the source would help. If nothing's happening, we can go back, and I promise I'll let you pick the movie.

Corf

[jondrette]

Marius

[jondrette]

slides casually over

[triskeles]

"Your turn."

uwu

[hypercompetent]

[ If you asked Stiles how he got roped into this, he probably wouldn't be able to answer. It's been nearly six months since the very first time he reached out to the Ridiculously Hot Cooking Vlogger and one coincidence later--who would have known, that the Talia Hale he was teaching was actually Derek Hale's niece?--he can say with certainty that, well, Derek's his friend.

That's all he is, right now. Aside from the burning crush he's been hiding for literally ages, you know, it's pretty platonic. Stiles is down with that. He likes Derek--they argue a lot but it's in a married couple kind of way, bickering over everything from recipe titles to movie tastes. And he's maybe over at the Hale apartment a lot more than he chooses to admit, so what.

That's actually, probably, how he got roped into it. He's currently standing in front of the camera that Derek usually stands in front of, with said vlogger behind it, and jittering his fingers on a counter full of ingredients. By the time he gets cued in to speak, he's tried to force his nerves aside and, of course, starts with sarcasm. ] Hello out there. Yeah, I know, you were totally expecting the bearded marble statue we all know and love, but this week, you're stuck with your guest star, the more stick figuresque me. [ He points at himself with the spatula, and ends up bopping his nose when he moves too forward. ] Ow. Stiles Stilinski, amateur chef who apparently has huge shoes to fill--Can we cut that? Like a billion people are going t--okay, not a billion smartass, but a lot and--seriously? Ugh, fine.

[ All of that muttering was half off camera, and Stiles returns a couple of seconds later, making a wide, arching gesture at his ingredients. ] Since I've been so informed that all of my screwups are going to be on camera, I'm going to get this show on the road as soon as possible. Today, we're making an old family recipe of mine, since you guys seemed to really like my mom's first recipe. [ He flashes a grin to the screen. ] So today's menu is Kielbasa Chili, which tastes, literally, like a chili dog. It's awesome. Okay? Okay, awesome, let's do this thang.

[ And with a thumbs up, he's off. ]


Ingredients:
Canola oil, or another high heat cooking oil
2 1/2 pounds braising beef (preferably chuck or sirloin), cut into 3/4-inch cubes
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
8 ounces kielbasa sausage, diced as neatly as possible.
1 onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 (12 ounce) bottle lager-style beer. Beer and chili, am I right? Save the extra for drinks afterwards.
1 (28 ounce) can fire-roasted tomatoes
1 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons good-quality chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (15.5-ounce) can dark red kidney beans, drained
1 (15.5-ounce) can black beans, drained
Cayenne pepper, to taste


In a large Dutch oven or cast iron pot, heat a few tablespoons canola oil over medium-high to high heat. Thoroughly pat the beef dry, making as many jokes about cow tipping as you can, and season generously with salt and pepper. Working in small batches, sear the beef cubes until all sides are deep brown and a dark fond is forming in the pot. Add more canola oil to the pot if it looks like it is starting to burn. Remove the beef to a separate bowl after browning each batch. After the beef is cooked, add the kielbasa to the pot and saute for another 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the kielbasa and set aside with the beef. This makes the delicious manly (or womanly, depending on your chef, because ladies are badasses too. Hi Lydia!) meat base.

Lower the heat to medium. Add a couple more tablespoons of canola; toss in the onions, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, about 5 minutes, and try not to eat any out of the dutch oven. Add the garlic and saute for another 30 seconds. Pour in the beer to deglaze the pan and remove the fond from the bottom of the pot.

Meanwhile, use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut the tomatoes into chunks while still in the can. Add the beef, kielbasa, tomatoes and juices, chicken stock, chili powder and cumin into the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer the chili for 1 1/2 hours. Add the beans and season with cayenne, salt and pepper. Continue to cook the chili for an additional 30 minutes to an hour, until the beef is very tender and the beans are warm.

Remove from the heat. Bring to room temperature then transfer to the refrigerator. The chili will naturally thicken up as it cools. (I recommend serving this chili 1 to 2 days after cooking. It just keeps getting better and better.)

[ By the time he's finished his little broadcast, Stiles is surprisingly in the zone. It's not until the chili is cooking for another hour that his focus breaks, and he looks away, meeting Derek's gaze in an affectionate look that gets captured on camera. ]

sparkle

[triskeles]

[ Talking Stiles into doing this had, actually, been surprisingly easy compared to the stink he was expecting. Derek was pretty sure that Stiles would flatout refuse to do it, but with enough asking and prodding and charming (not very fair of him but still) he'd managed to get him on the other side of the camera. He's been behind it a few times himself since he got the damn thing and its assorted upgrades and replacements, but this is the first time that he's given up his position as host for his vlogs.

He's more than willing to let it happen, though, considering how good Stiles looks in his kitchen. He'd kind of like it to happen more often, but he's going to keep that to himself for now. After six months of growing friendship, and multiple dates that haven't really been dates because Derek won't actually refer to them as dates to Stiles, he's... actually pretty happy, even if it's just platonic. Part of him is terrified of that fact, but a bigger part is even more wary of tipping over that line. Bickering like a married couple is one thing. Being an actual couple is another.

He has to bring a hand up to cover his mouth and hide his smile-- though the way his eyes crinkle at the corners give him away-- when Stiles smacks himself in the nose, but he shakes his head when he tries to request it being cut. People see him screw up all the time, he's not going to edit or let him start over again. ] Just go, you're doing fine.

[ Rather than keep the camera on a tripod like he normally does, Derek actually holds it and follows Stiles' movements. If he zooms in on his hands at any point, he will just say it's so they can get a better sense of what he's talking about as he works on cutting up his ingredients. It isn't because he has a small crush on just Stiles' stupid hands or anything.

But there's a difference, in his episodes and Stiles', and it almost necessitates Derek manning the camera: Stiles talks with his entire body. It's an enormous contrast to the more muted movements he makes usually, absent hand gestures and shifts in his body. Stiles moves his hands, his arms, shifts his weight, rolls his head. The motions almost seem to slow down a bit when he's focused, but not enough to be completely dampened.

And he likes it.

Just as much as he likes the little look he gets towards the end, and he actually looks down at the camera's flip screen to try and hide his own expression, corners of his mouth downturned as he feels a flush of warmth in his chest. But he doesn't really help himself when he looks up from under his brow at him. ] I think I could get used to this role reversal, so I hope you're all ready for more of Stiles Stilinski's popular recipes as actually brought to you by him.

I feel like you claimed my open post so thoroughly that I need to return the favor.

[triskeles]

I'm okay with this.

[hypercompetent]

[ You know the cliched story, everyone knows how it goes: merperson falls desperately in love with a human, does something stupid and ends up being able to live with the human for the rest of their known lives. Stiles had never really thought his life was a fairytale and nothing works quite like that--he's always tended to do his stories in reverse,anyway. After being captured and nearly scaring the life out of his father, Stiles had been bought on the black market, only to be returned to the ocean by a human with dark hair and eyes like sea glass, who had the nerve to look soft when he let him go.

It had been probably the most confusing experience of his life, and Stiles doesn't do well with confusing.

So he'd started to watch the shore for sights of him again, occasionally getting a little too close to the shallows in his hunt for the human. And it'd been probably a good two weeks since he'd initially been released, enough time to get his curiosity-killed-the-catfish attitude about everything back, so he'd continued to pop up out of the water intermittently, keeping an eye out for the man who'd called himself Derek Hale.

When he spots him, finally, walking on the beach, it's like a moment of serendipity--Stiles can't help his grin as he slides through the water silently, then abruptly lifts his tailfin and smacks an arc of water at the human. ]

[triskeles]

[ Some higher power has had it out for Derek for years now, but it seemed like it was in his favor, just once. Something like it was meant to be, or something. It's not as if he makes a habit of heading into the black market, considering the fairly prestigious position that his family has, but there are some days when he slips out of that position. Those are the days when he disappears from the brighter places of the city, away into somewhere much shadier, where he blends in. And it had paid off, this one time, because it meant he could meet a certain merperson with way too much fight to be contained in a tank.

So of course he had to drop (a considerable amount of) money, only to turn around and let him go home. He doesn't regret it in the least.

But while he doesn't regret it, he's certainly not going to admit to traversing the beach far more than he did before. It's excusable, because Reagan is turning twelve and is still full of energy, it's easy enough to slip out of the estate with his younger brother and his sisters to mill around the shoreline. If he hangs back a little sometimes, walking where the surf rolls up, well. He's just enjoying the moment.

It's what he's doing, pants rolled up at the legs as they play hooky from their responsibilities, when there's a sudden splash of water that washes over him. He splutters, startled and wet, before holding his arms out a little from his body and looking down at himself. And then he looks in the direction the arc came from, eyes narrowing. ]

What if I just.

[triskeles]

scuse me while i cry a river of tears

[hypercompetent]

[ If you asked Stiles Stilinski when his looong long term boyfriend--and boyfriend was kind of a dumb word, they were all but married at this point--had left for Afghanistan, he could tell you the date and the time, right down to the minute. It's not like he's a weeping widow or anything else; life moves on with Derek gone, and Stiles lifts his head up and teaches his kids about it on Veterans Day, has presentations from little girls and boys who bring their dads who aren't abroad in on career day to talk about the army. When it started, he was able to talk to Derek once a week over skype, but as the fighting in the region that they had been stationed in increased, it became less and less common to hear from him. Stiles pretty much lived for their skype conversations and the occasional updated facebook status (after Stiles had more or less made him get one when he first received the order for deployment) for the majority of the time he'd been gone, and he spent much of his Christmas break staring at the television when they talked about explosives or fights, jumping every time his phone went off. It's been a year since the day he drove Derek to the airport and joked about how he looked in his BDU's when he got on the plane, when Derek swore to him up and down that he'd come home to change the lightbulbs and "babysit" their friend Isaac soon.

As nailbitingly unfortunate as each day that passes is, Stiles lives on. The only thing that's concerning, lately, is that he's heard A) no news of Derek's deployment, B) had no skype calls, or C) no news of when he's coming back. Everything had gone pitch dark in the past month or so, and it was like constantly being on the edge of a panic attack, waiting for the soldier to show up with the folded flag at his door.

Today's a day like any other at Beacon Elementary--it's storytime, and Stiles has his carpet full of eager kindergartners gathering as quickly as possible at his feet as he pulls out the story of the week, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. It's the standard before the zoo field trip next week, and as he gets the kids settled, he throws a special small to Talia Hale, Derek's niece. It's difficult to shake his thoughts from her uncle, in the middle of the desert, and he shakes his head visually and throws himself into his reading, opening the first page and starting to read out loud in a bright voice. ]

Way back in Once Upon a Time time, I was making a birthday cake, for my-- [ Old lady voice. ] dear old granny.

I had a terrible sneezing cold---ah, ah--ahCHOO!-- I ran out of sugar!

[ It was Talia's favorite and he knew it was, and he couldn't help but watch her light up out of the corner of his eye, something warm in his chest. ]

ehehehen.

[triskeles]

[ As prepared for deployment as he thought he'd be, Derek figured out pretty fast that skype calls and forced facebook accounts were not enough contact. But he reminds himself every time he has to sign off that it won't be forever, that he'll come back just to make sure that Stiles doesn't get it in his head to hijack any outgoing planes to Afghanistan just to come and kick his ass if anything happens to him. (And he's downplayed everything that's ever happened to him, even when he was hiding the fact he was bleeding through his stitches after one nasty scrape.) His platoon gives him shit for every skype call and status update, but it's not as if he can't do the same to them. Nevermind the fact that they heckle Stiles just as often as they heckle him.

Which sort of got worse when it was time to head home and he told them to keep it quiet. It came down to making them swear not to say anything on a public feed, something a whole hell of a lot harder than getting in contact with Sheriff Stilinski about a surprise trip home. John at least was all for it being a surprise, which made it so much easier to make arrangements.

He's thankful that he comes back on a weekday, since that means he can head home and surprise his parents and siblings-- get knocked flat on his ass by his sisters and brother in one fell swoop, more like it-- before he gets kicked out and told that he's a horrible person for surprising them, and he should go inflict that cruelty on his boyfriend before Stiles has an aneurysm about the contact blackout.

Not that they have to tell him twice, because his fingers are itching to find Stiles and he can feel the jetlag getting pushed down by the very thought of just seeing him again.

Setting aside the past six months for a moment, he makes his way down the halls of Beacon Elementary to where he knows Stiles' classroom is. His BDU's catch a few eyes through the classroom windows and doors he passes, but his attention is devoted to just one door decorated in kindergartener's crafts and an ungodly amount of glitter everywhere. Derek stops in front of it, considers a moment, before he just opens the door. Keeping his hand on the knob, he leans his opposite shoulder in the doorframe, expression softening instantly. ]

leaves you a thing

[triskeles]

[triskeles]

bonus

[hypercompetent]

[ Going to grad school had seemed like a natural path to follow for one "Stiles" Stilinski. 21 years old and having just moved to New York with his best friend, he had a degree in criminology under his belt and an...unsurprising lack of job interviews. Putting himself in further debt seemed like a great plan, but it all had to work out somewhere, right? A masters in criminal profiling would land him a great detective job, maybe even with the FBI. He'd like to work for the BAU, it'd make his dad proud.

But that was all the way in Virginia, and as a big fan of the "we pretend big life decisions don't actually have to happen" plan, Stiles is mostly focused on his little life in New York. He and Scott have an apartment; Scott is a dreamy writer who can't cook to save his life and Stiles is a poor student with an inability to do laundry without turning someone's underwear pink, but they get by. Neither of them sleep much, with Scott's deadlines and Stiles' papers, and finding a coffee shop to frequent hadn't been as easy as walking into a local Starbucks.

It'd been Scott who'd found this one on one of his walks. He talked about the barista with the curly hair for hours, (literally hours) and Stiles pretty much had to check it out, because as his best friend he had every right to stalk the dude he was crushing on, and that was when Stiles came face to face with Hot Barista, when he'd been telling Scott next to him, "relax, dude, I'm not gonna gut him or anything, I just wanna get a feel for it."

Hot Barista was not the curly haired guy of Scott's poetry. Hot Barista was tall and dark and had cheekbones that could cut glass, and a beard and he looked entirely out of place in his white apron, and Stiles told him exactly so when he came up to the counter. They didn't--get into an argument, okay? It wasn't that bad, don't listen to what Scott says. Hot Barista--Derek, his nametag said--asked him if he would be having something frothy with sugar, and Stiles got this gleam in his eyes, Stiles, no, and he smacked his hand down on the counter, looking at him, and ordered a black coffee, dark and "big as I can handle".

Derek gave him a small. Stiles drank the whole thing and pretended not to gag afterwards.

So that was a month or so ago. Scott's infatuation with Isaac had led to them becoming regulars (and given Stiles a taste for black coffee that he built up in his apartment, don't look at him like that, it's a challenge. ) They go to the coffee shop almost every day, sometimes together, sometimes not, and get to know the faces--Laura, the owner, Cora, Derek's younger sister, Erica, Isaac, Boyd. Stiles' coffee is black with a shot of mocha syrup--he's still got a sweet tooth--and it's usually right, but it doesn't taste the same when Derek is hiding in the back. He learns he's a baker, not a front of the line kind of guy (which doesn't shock Stiles in the least), and he only gets to see him every once in a while.

Today, there are a case of godly looking cookies on the counter when Stiles comes in, snow in his hair and a chill on his cheeks, laptop under his arm. He has a huge paper due on Friday, and he's lately taken to the coffee shop as a workplace--his brown eyes almost immediately scan the bar in front before he spots Laura, and there's an undeniable slump to his shoulders when it's not Derek.

(Luckily Laura'll take care of that, now won't she.) ]

RUBS HANDS TOGETHER

[triskeles]

do your part to save the scene and stop going to shows!!

[hypercompetent]

[ New York City is full of seedy bars and places for hipsters and rockers to hang out, take in whatever's new and exciting in the world of music, and try to make it in the big time. There are wannabe stars anywhere and everywhere, from the American Idol contestants to the washed up veterans that occasionally haunt the circuit, trying to stir up their fanbase one last time.

Those are the people that Stiles Stilinski usually hangs around for. He's not much of a performer himself--more of a Robin than a Batman, he'll refer to himself as, just a little tongue in cheek--but he is good at writing, and that was how he found himself writing songs to help pay the bills. It was easy, the kind of thing he could do to destress from tests, and let him just lose himself in the melodies of a piano or a guitar for a little while when college life became an unending, beating drum in the back of his head. The song got sent off; someone made it, people bought a few copies on Itunes, Stiles got a small check in the mail. Easy peasy. There was no personal contact after the first meeting, usually, even, and he got to occasionally hear his songs on indie rock stations, the kind of thing that wouldn't dare touch the charts.

He's here on the hunt for a client today. It's been kind of a rough week, and Stiles settles into a bar stool at a bar called The Beacon and orders a beer, then pauses and looks to his left. There's a guy next to him, big and burly in a leather coat with the kind of face (and body, from what he could see) that looked like it belonged on a model spread, to the point that he almost looked familiar, but Stiles couldn't just place why.

He wasn't going to say anything until he noticed the dude had a pair of headphones in, making him scoff. The group that's up performing right now is one of Stiles' favorites--headed by his best friend, in fact-- and he rolls his eyes heavily and takes a sip of his beer, saying none too quietly-- ] Wow, dude, way to come to a music dive and be an asshole.