selected field observations on canis lupus irremotus
Hey.
So.
Anyone who's been here for any length of time and has read my incoherent babbling (I wouldn't blame you if you've been skipping the babbling) has probably heard tell of a mythical AU I've been wanting to write, pretty much since the thing we call Arctic Dreams. This premise, thought to have gone the way of the dodo and the thylacine (my fave extinct animal, fyi), involved one character being a field scientist and the other being a television host a la David Attenborough, except less old (sorry, Atters). It was going to be an Inception fic (Arthur studied lions or monkeys, I forget which). It was going to be an X-Men fic (Hank studied the genetics of panthers in Patagonia). For whatever reason, neither of those grew legs.
I think you know where this is going.
This fic is largely ridiculous, which in my head accounts for why I didn't have anyone beta it (if a fic falls in the forest, and no one is there to beta read it, it is not embarrassing). Um. Enjoy. You know, if that's your thing. Ignore my Derek's shoddy experimental design, plz, there's a reason my real name isn't attached to these things. Also, before I forget: I made up a field station for this fic, Kakwa Field Station is fabricated.
If anyone's wondering about WIPs, here's the docket (though there are also a few others floating around), none of which are on any particular timeline. Real life things will be gearing up starting with the academic year, so. But I also sometimes get overcome and write...13k of whatever the fic below is:
.selected field observations on canis lupus irremotus
stiles is going to make Derek internet famous, like that one cat and that other cat. derek just wants to do his field research.
pg13 . 13474 words . AO3
Derek Hale would like the record to show that he didn’t ask to be part of the whole National Geographic thing. Furthermore, that he never asked to be part of the whole National Geographic thing, never wanted anything to do with National Geographic (except for, maybe, flipping through the pictures in the back issues in his parents’ bathroom when he needed a break from his family at holidays). And, finally, that when the guy with the camera showed up Derek didn’t know what the fuck he was doing and tried to get him sent away--would have had him sent away if Scott, the most hapless wildlife biologist known to man and also Derek’s first and only Master’s student (what Peter was thinking when he made that hire Derek would never know, and then he had to go all professor emeritus on the department’s collective asses and retire), hadn’t shown up, grinned broadly at the sight of the guy with the camera, and said, “Stiles, buddy, you made it!”
Stiles--Stiles? was that even a name?--shrugged at Derek in a way that was maybe intended to be apologetic but just served to annoy Derek more and pulled Scott into a hug.
“Derek,” Scott said, turning around and leaving one arm looped lazily around Stiles’ shoulders. “This is Stiles! Remember, I told you about him?”
Derek tended to tune Scott out.
“My friend--”
“Best friend,” Stiles interjected, grinning, and Derek wasn’t aware people over the age of fourteen even had best friends.
“Stiles Stilinski,” Scott continued as if Stiles hadn’t said anything. “He’s interning for National Geographic, awesome videographer, wanted to do a web special on our research, coming up for a month, he’ll share my room, you said ‘okay’?”
Stiles gave Derek a sort of uncomfortable thumbs up, coupled with a grin that Derek was kind of tempted to call ‘smarmy’ before settling on ‘ridiculous.’
“Stiles, Derek, Derek, Stiles,” Scott said, flapping his hand between them.
“Hey, good to meet you,” Stiles said, reducing his grin to a normal wattage and holding out a hand. Scott was still draped across his shoulders, so Derek’s the one who had to step forward, closing the space between them and clasping Stiles’ hand in his own.
“I never agreed to this,” Derek mumbled, wishing it came out a little louder and more certain.
That was a week ago--or close to four days, if you want precision, which Derek usually does. So, four days ago Derek tried to come up with a plausible reason for Stiles to leave, but everyone he called back at the university talked about what a great opportunity it was, how the project could use the publicity, how they had talked to Stiles on the phone already and he was just charming. Derek didn’t know how Stiles had talked to everyone but him, but maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. He tended not to answer his phone or check his university e-mail when he was doing field work--voicemail and auto reply existed for a reason, and the field season was that reason.
Now, four days later, Derek is sitting at the long table in the field station mess hall, trying to eat his oatmeal and read the most recent issue of Conservation Biology at the same time, and Stiles slides in across from him with a breakfast that appears to be comprised of a cup of yogurt, Cap’n Crunch without milk, and a hard-boiled egg.
“Hey,” Stiles says. “I haven’t really gotten the chance to talk to you yet. Which means I haven’t gotten you to sign the release forms. Which means--”
“I’m not,” Derek says.
“Not--?” Stiles says, trailing off in a way he probably imagines is encouraging.
“Signing the release forms,” Derek says.
“Oh, okay, I’ll bring them by later,” Stiles replies easily, peeling back the cover of his yogurt and spooning its contents into the bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Derek wasn’t aware that was a combination of foods people ate.
“I’m never signing the release forms,” Derek says, because Stiles seems to be thick.
Stiles looks up at him, and Derek thinks he sees something that might be the narrowing of eyes before Stiles’ expression brightens.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll just cut you from the footage.”
“There won’t be any footage of me,” Derek clarifies.
“Sorry, dude,” Stiles says, leaning forward and gesturing with his spoon. “But Scott signed the release forms--pretty much everyone else did, actually, including the head of your department--a Dr. Deaton, I imagine you know him?--so I’ll be filming, and you might be there when I am.” Stiles shrugs and goes back to mixing his yogurt-cereal concoction. “But if I don’t have a release for you I can’t do anything with it, so nothing will get out, don’t worry about it.” Stiles pauses. “You really should sign the release, but you not signing isn’t going to cause my camera to spontaneously combust, so if you wanted to have a reasonable discussion about this that’s a thing we could do.”
“No,” Derek says, then takes his tray and leaves to spoon his unfinished oatmeal into the trash and hand his dishes over to the students on dish duty. He doesn’t realize until he gets back to his room that he forgot his issue of Conservation Biology on the table, and then he just sighs and gets his stuff together to go into the field, because apparently today is not his day. Tomorrow probably won’t be, either. This might just not be his field season, and that pisses him off inordinately, because field seasons are what get Derek through data entry and analysis, undergraduate lectures and undergraduates crying in his office, faculty meetings with his pie-faced colleagues, and generally everything that’s not the field season, with its shit trucks and shit food and wolves, Canis lupus irremotus.
Derek’s been working with the Kakwa pack since he was a lowly undergraduate, and they got him through everything else--the thing he doesn’t like to talk about, the other thing he doesn’t like to talk about, and the ensuing funding debacle. They remind him of his family, in a weird way. Not that he was raised by wolves, despite what some of his so-called colleagues might think, but the ease of their interactions and the cryptic network of pack dynamics that the wolves navigate so straightforwardly reminds Derek of family dinners, of big gatherings for Thanksgiving that are simultaneously overwhelming and kind of great, even as they teeter on the brink of disaster and only avoid it through old, ingrained social patterns that make sense to family but not much to anyone else.
But the wolves are also better than his family, because they don’t ask him about tenure or why he’s not bringing home a nice boy or girl to meet everyone (and even in the unlikely event Derek met anyone nice, he can’t imagine a nice person who wouldn’t be overwhelmed and possibly eaten alive by the Hale clan).
So Derek tries to focus on the pack instead of on Stiles existing in his general vicinity, because surely they’ll get him through a minor problem with a National Geographic intern, too. Besides, Derek and Scott have to change the batteries and SD cards on their camera traps. Scott should be here already.
Most of their gear--that is to say, the trackers and the shit for the camera traps, plus a first aid kit, a roll of duct tape, and a couple multi-tools--is still in the truck from the day before, so Derek goes to find Scott so they can head out. He goes to Scott’s room, because he’s still trying to pretend Scott won’t be in the Argent girl’s room, and when he’s knocking and waiting Stiles comes loping down the hall, Derek’s copy of Conservation Biology clutched in one hand. He pauses and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly when he sees Derek.
“Uh,” he says. “You know Scott’s at Allison’s, right? I mean, if you need something from the room I can unlock it for you, but if the something you need is Scott--he’s not there. And he said you were weird about the Argents--”
“He what?” Derek asks, stepping forward. Stiles takes a step back that has him bumping against the wall.
“He said you were weird about the Argents,” Stiles says, straightening his back like he’s steeling himself up. “Which, hate to break it to you, but you seem to be being weird about the Argents right now, so I’d say that assessment wasn’t too far off. Even if it did come from Scott.”
Derek looks at Stiles.
“Here, have your magazine back,” Stiles says, pushing it forward. “You left it at breakfast.”
“It’s not a magazine,” Derek bites out. “It’s a journal.”
And then he turns around and strides down the hall towards Allison’s room, because there is really nothing left for him to say here.
“So does that mean it’s actually a diary?” Stiles calls after him. “Because I used to tell my dad my diary was a journal all the time. And I didn’t even have a diary.”
Derek ignores him. This is Derek ignoring him.
He finds Scott in Allison’s room, both of them sitting on the bed looking at their laptops, legs entangled, pretty obviously doing data entry, and it would be kind of sickeningly adorable except for the fact that Allison’s working with her aunt, and nothing to do with Kate Argent is cute.
“You weren’t in your room Scott,” Derek says.
“Yeah, ‘cause I was here,” Scott says. “Ready to go?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Derek says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Come on.”
Scott ducks to kiss Allison, and Derek heads down the hall because he doesn’t need to see this, doesn’t need to see them kiss and rub noses and promise to see one another again at dinner, because parting is such sweet sorrow.
“Camera traps today?” Scott says as he slides into the truck, even though Derek knows Scott knows what they’re doing. “Hey, I told Stiles he could ride along tomorrow night.”
“You did,” Derek says.
“Yep,” Scott replies. He’s got his arms braced against the dash, which might be because the truck is a deathtrap and the logging road they’re on is a disaster, or it might be because he knows that Derek is going to hate this idea.
“Tomorrow night,” Derek repeats. Tomorrow night they were going out to the blind near the den site for observations. It’s Derek’s favorite part of their research, because it lends depth and flavor to their data, although scientifically it’s less valuable than the information on habitat use they get from the radio collars and camera traps.
“Stiles has an awesome camera for night shots,” Scott says. “It’s like--James Bond. Or Steve Irwin. Or Jason Bourne. Or Bear Grylls. Or--”
“Just stop,” Derek says as they veer onto a logging road and higher into the hills. “None of those make sense.”
“Whatever, cool camera,” Scott says. “You said we could.”
Right now Scott reminds Derek of his niece Astrid, who’s able to extract promises Derek doesn’t remember making from thin air and force him to fulfill them, though usually with her it involves more ice cream and less--whatever Stiles is.
“Data entry,” Derek says, swerving to avoid a pothole in the road. “If anything goes wrong because of Stiles, you’re on data entry, for both of us, for a month. And you can’t discuss it with Allison.”
“I don’t discuss data with Allison,” Scott protests, his voice edging dreamy.
“Don’t discuss Allison with me, either,” Derek says flatly, pulling the truck off the road and parking in the ditch. “Come on.”
The first camera trap is a few miles’ hike from the road through spruce forest. A fine network of branches unfolds above their heads as they walk, filtering the light and the air into something that’s a dull, dry green and smells spicy and citrus. Even with Scott trailing behind him--and Scott can almost match Derek’s pace, finally, it only took a month--Derek’s relieved to be out here with the land moving beneath his feet. They change the first camera trap’s cards and batteries, then move on to the next one and complete the circuit before going back to the truck and driving to the next set of traps.
They eat lunch together in the cab of the truck, sandwiches and trail mix while sitting sideways in the truck’s seats with the doors open and breeze blowing through the cab. The mosquitoes aren’t bad, either because it’s still too cool or because this summer is going to be better on the mosquito front than the last. Derek’s hoping for the latter, but--
“Stiles says that they can delay the show’s web release until after we publish if we want,” Scott says, cutting into Derek’s thoughts.
Scott can be annoyingly perceptive. It’s mostly annoying because it always comes as a surprise--Derek never expects Scott to be perceptive, but suddenly there he is, perceiving things.
Derek nods once and doesn’t say anything. Scott takes this as blanket permission to go off on a weird tangent about Scott and Stiles and high school which Derek mostly ignores.
They’re back at the field station for dinner, and Stiles sits down across from Derek again, not even stopping to ask permission.
“I’m not going to talk about release forms,” Stiles says before Derek can say anything. “But Scott’s with Allison, and I don’t know anyone else here.”
“You don’t know me,” Derek says, stabbing at a floret of broccoli with his fork.
“But I could,” Stiles says carefully. “And I know your name, which is a start, and you’re eating alone.”
“Maybe I want to,” Derek says, because he does want to.
“Maybe,” Stiles agrees mildly. “But I know some things about eating alone. Or maybe I just thought that if I harassed you enough you might sign that release. That’s for me to know and you not to find out.”
Derek grunts and Stiles eats, apparently completely engrossed in the process of getting food from his plate to his fork to his mouth, because he’s no longer looking at Derek or making any stab at conversation.
“S’good,” Stiles says eventually, speaking around a mouthful of food and gesturing with his fork.
“For field station food,” Derek says.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know,” Stiles says with a crooked grin. “But it’s better than I remember summer camp food being.”
“This isn’t summer camp,” Derek says, and Stiles shrugs.
“Scott’s acting like it is,” he says mildly. “He always fell madly in love with some girl at summer camp, and then wrote her postcards and long letters on stationary for, like, five months until she told him to stop. Now he mostly writes me long letters on stationary, though, so maybe Allison’s different.”
“Stationary,” Derek repeats.
“I write back,” Stiles says. “We’re friends.”
“Is that why you wanted to film the wolves?” Derek asks. “Because you and Scott are friends?”
Stiles grins, and puts his elbows up on the table to prop up his head on his hands. Derek’s mother always told him to keep his elbows off the table, but no one ever liked that rule, so.
“I wanted to film the wolves because they’re cool,” he says. “I mean, you have to know that. Scott says you’ve been working with them since you were, like, seventeen.”
“Nineteen,” Derek corrects.
“Whatever,” Stiles says. “How old are you now, thirty? I haven’t been doing anything for eleven years. Except, like, bodily functions.”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Derek says tightly. He knows he’s young to have a PhD and a tenure-track position, but he knew what he wanted, so he got it. It was the only thing he had ever wanted with any sort of certainty, really. It was the only thing he’d ever gotten with any sort of staying power, besides.
“So, nine years, then,” Stiles says. “Still a long time.”
“Wolves aren’t just cool,” Derek says. “They’re more than--”
Stiles has looked up, and he’s watching Derek like he’s waiting. There’s a feathering of lashes around his eyes, which are brown, but not quite--too clear, too light. There’s a wolf in the pack with eyes that color, but Derek has only ever seen them through a spotting scope.
“Charismatic megafauna,” Derek coughs. “Just because they’re charismatic megafauna, just because people like to think it’s cool, that they have some sort of lupine soul and could run with the pack and howl at the moon and dismember a caribou--wolves aren’t that.”
“So you never a bought a Three Wolf Moon shirt, then?” Stiles asks. “Because that’s what I’m getting from this.”
“It’s not a joke,” Derek says flatly, staring at Stiles. “They’re animals. They’re just animals. We can’t--project stuff on them, anthropomorphize them. But because they’re animals--” Derek shakes his head. “Everything they do is this perfect marriage of instinct and genetics and environment. They don’t need to be cool, to meet some standards we impose. They just are, living. Here.”
Stiles stares back at Derek for a moment, then he smiles and lifts his hands, bringing them together in two muffled claps.
“That was great,” he says. “That’s what I need, really, for this whole series--an angle, I guess, but also--you give a shit. Genuine shit. Which--Scott does, too, don’t get me wrong, but he’s kind of awful at talking coherently. I am, too, but that’s why I try to record other people talking coherently.”
Stiles looks thoughtful, like he’s trying to suss Derek out, and part of Derek feels like Stiles already has--he doesn’t know why he said all that. It’s more than he’s ever said about this to anyone, except maybe Kate Argent when he was nineteen and didn’t know better.
“Are you sure about the release?” Stiles asks.
“Yes,” Derek says, and Stiles smiles at him wanly.
“I figured as much,” he says. “But, hey, I thought I’d ask.” He shrugs and gets up to go. “See you tomorrow night, Professor Hale.”
The way Stiles says ‘professor’--his voice kind of curls through the syllables, with an undercurrent there that Derek thinks might be respect--it elicits a weird response in Derek, one he can’t even properly define. He watches Stiles go, casually dropping a hand on Scott’s shoulder and ducking to talk to him before disappearing from the mess hall with a grin and a wave of thanks for the research assistants on dishes duty.
Derek shakes his head and goes back to his own meal, pulling his thoughts back to the paper on wolf conservation he’d been reading at breakfast, and everything wrong with that interpretation of Næss and Mysterud. Which was pretty much everything.
The next night comes too quickly. They’re heading out at 2 a.m. to get to the den site before twilight, and Scott must’ve told Stiles to be ready because he’s out leaning against the truck when Derek gets there. Scott is presumably still macking on Allison Argent. Stiles straightens up when he sees Derek, shifting the large bag on his hip and the strap he has slung across his chest.
“He wrote her a poem,” Stiles says, like he knows what Derek’s thinking. “I proofread it for him.”
“Was it any good?” Derek asks.
“Let’s just say--it’s better than any of the poems he wrote for his summercamp girlfriends. Or any of the ones he wrote when they broke up with him,” Stiles says.
“So, no, then,” Derek says, and Stiles laughs. He has an easy laugh, probably to go with the easy smile he flashes at Derek in the dim light.
“Not very, no,” Stiles says. “But he’s happy. Anyway, look, I got out here early because I just wanted to go through this with you.” Stiles digs through the bag he’s carrying and extracts a camera. It is big, or bigger than Derek expected for something that’s going to become web video. Stiles shifts it to his shoulder. “It’s not on, but this is my baby--she’s a digital recorder, and you can call her Lucida. And, look, I’ll cut anything you say and any shots with you in them, but this thing is going to be with us, alright? There’s no point in my coming along without it.”
Derek looks at Stiles, between Stiles’ face and the camera on his shoulder like an uncanny bird.
“Lucida,” Derek repeats, and Stiles shrugs, his mouth set in a tight line.
“Okay?” Stiles asks, when they’ve both been quiet for too many beats, Stiles’ fingers fidgeting with some buttons on the camera.
“Okay,” Derek says.
“And I’ll need space for the tripod,” Stiles adds, gesturing towards the thing slung across his back. “In the blind. Scott said it would probably be big enough, but I’m not entirely confident in his spatial reasoning--”
“It’s big enough,” Derek says.
“And I’m thinking it would be good if I put the camera between you and Scott, so if I need to get a shot of him I don’t need to worry about you being in the background,” Stiles continues. “I don’t really like blurring out faces. It looks kind of crap.”
There’s a question in his eyes when he looks up at Derek, and Derek’s torn between being relieved that Stiles has some measure of respect for Derek’s refusal to be involved with this and wondering if he’s really so bad, that Stiles is being this cautious.
“That will be fine,” Derek says.
“Good,” Stiles says. “Because if it wasn’t, I was going to arm wrestle you for it, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.”
Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles grins in a way that leaves Derek no closer to understanding whether the joke was that Stiles expected to win or lose at arm wrestling. Stiles is smaller than Derek, and he’s not scrawny but he certainly doesn’t look like someone who does push-ups in his room at night (which Derek does, okay), but it’s arm wrestling. Maybe Stiles cheats. Stiles seems like someone who would cheat at arm wrestling.
Scott shows up, then, looking between Derek and Stiles and saying, “Oh, am I late?”
“No, we were early,” Stiles says. He glances at Derek like he expects him to say something but Derek just shrugs and goes to unlock the truck.
The truck has a bench seat, which puts them three across, and Stiles and Scott have a minor scuffle that appears to involve a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors about who will get the middle. Stiles either wins or loses--probably loses--and slides to the middle, followed shortly by Scott. It’s a big truck, so it isn’t tight, but Stiles has to splay his legs to straddle the gearshift, so his knee ends up pressed against Derek’s and Derek ends up consciously not thinking about where he’s reaching when he puts the truck in gear.
They’re mostly quiet on the drive up. Early mornings like this are always a little hazy, in Derek’s experience, characterized by the rattling of the truck on the old roads, the weight of sleep still heavy on everyone’s shoulders, the moon fish-silver above them. Stiles asks Scott how Allison is, so they’re treated to a brief monologue on how Allison is great, and Stiles asks a few questions about the wolf pack, whether they can tell them apart, how big it is.
“Derek has names for them,” Scott says. He’s got an elbow hooked out the open window, and his head’s hanging out so his voice comes to them commingled with wind.
“Really?” Stiles asks. “What are they?”
“Boyd,” Scott says before Derek can cut him off. “Erica, Isaac, Laura--named after Derek’s sister--uh, what are the rest, Derek?”
“I ran out of names,” Derek says. “Scott, you can name some. Not after Allison.”
“Name one after me,” Stiles says.
“There’s this weird looking one,” Scott says thoughtfully, and Stiles socks him in the arm.
Derek thinks he knows the one Scott’s talking about, skinny and quick and sharp with a nose that turns up just slightly, and if it’s the one Derek’s thinking of this is another one of those moments when Scott’s exhibiting the weird sort of perceptiveness that will probably make him an uncannily good scientist, much as Derek is loath to admit it. Eventually, though. Right now Scott is a mediocre to average scientist, but he’s also a Master’s student.
They get to the blind--it’s really little more than a shed pressed into a hill with a tarp for a roof--in good time and settle in, Scott and Derek with their spotting scopes and field notebooks, Stiles with his tripod and camera. There’s a rough wood bench where they all sit down, ducks in a row, and get their respective devices focused on the hillside opposite.
“Man, I can’t even see them,” Stiles mutters, squinting at the hill. “Not without looking through the camera. How do you guys get anything? It’s dark.”
“Your eyes adjust,” Derek says.
“Must have better vision than I do,” Stiles says, and then Scott elbows him and says, “Quiet, we’re doing science.”
“If you get a doctorate, I refuse to acknowledge it,” Stiles says. “Even thinking about it right now--Dr. McCall, you wearing a little professor hat--”
Scott elbows him again, and Stiles falls silent.
“Tell me if that lone wolf you were talking about shows up,” Stiles says to Scott. “I won’t know it from Adam. Adam the wolf.”
“We’ll call him Adam,” Derek says. “If he does.”
Stiles laughs, open-mouthed; in the dark Derek can’t see enough of him to be certain, but he’s seen Stiles laugh a few times now, and that’s how he does it: with his mouth open, and his whole body.
All three of them fall silent after that. Derek and Scott occasionally trade comments on what they’re seeing, but they’re mostly encrypted to the point that Stiles interjects to quip that he’s fairly certain they’ve developed a new variant of pig latin, and he has a friend who’s a linguist and could do an analysis, if they wanted.
Derek, meanwhile, sinks into his observations--there’s a clarity to be found with the wolves, in the dawning twilight and the silence of being so far from the world. On the edge of his brain he’s fitting the behavior into patterns, grappling to tie things together, but here, and now--he doesn’t need to do that just yet, and at the center he can just watch, enjoy the sunrise, jot notes.
He notices Stiles flagging at his side some time after sunrise, when the sun’s full in the sky and they’ve been sitting for hours. Derek watches him out of the corner of his eyes, as Stiles slumps and then shores himself up again, shaking off tendrils of sleep and swiveling his camera on its tripod to track a wolf across the clearing. Derek elbows him and passes along a granola bar, hands him another to pass down to Scott.
They leave a few hours later, and are back at the station in time to catch the tail end of breakfast.
“So I think I’ll just go to sleep now,” Stiles says, sitting across from Scott and Derek and poking at some scrambled eggs with a fork.
“You’ll throw your sleep schedule out of whack,” Scott says.
“Just a little sleep?” Stiles asks, slumping forward so his head is in his arms. “A nap?”
“Should’ve gone to bed earlier,” Scott says.
“Oh, like you went to bed early over in Allison’s room,” Stiles says. “Seriously. I don’t know what you did, but I know it was something.”
“I’m not the one who’s drooling all over the table,” Scott says.
“You’re not?” Stiles asks. “But your mouth--it’s open.”
“Stiles,” Derek says. “Take a nap until eleven, you’ll be fine.”
“What?” Scott asks. “But--”
“I needed you to do data entry that day,” Derek says, because it’s true.
“I think he likes you better than me, Stiles,” Scott says balefully.
“Stiles doesn’t work for me,” Derek says. “If he wastes his time sleeping, it’s not my problem.”
“I don’t work for you, I’m your colleague,” Scott mutters.
“You work for me,” Derek says. “I pay your stipend.”
“Alright, guys, this has been great and enlightening and all, but I think I’m going to waste my time sleeping now,” Stiles says, getting to his feet. “Later.”
After Stiles leaves Scott says something about Allison and heads out, and Derek goes back to his room to enter and code his notes, but when he opens his laptop Laura’s on Skype, and he ends up getting sucked into--that. ‘That’ being a conversation with Laura.
“Brother,” she says. From what Derek can tell in the pixelated video she’s painting her toenails, which is--unsurprising. Laura refuses to wear make-up on her face, claiming sensitive skin and perfect bone structure, but she likes her nails sparkly.
“So how’s the field season going?” Laura asks.
“Scott brought an intern from National Geographic up,” Derek says. “To videotape the pack for a web special.”
“You’re going to be internet famous!” Laura says. “Like that one cat. And that other cat.”
“No,” Derek says. “I’m not. Maybe Scott will.”
“But what about your natural charisma?” Laura asks.
“I’m not getting scooped by a web series,” Derek says. “You know--”
“I know what happened with Kate,” Laura says. “I don’t think a web series is going to capture the level of detail necessary for someone to steal your data--”
“You know how much shit I had to wade through to get funding after that happened?” Derek asks.
“Yes,” Laura says, looking up and almost directly at him, given the vagaries of web cameras. “I know.”
The way she says it makes Derek deflate slightly, because she’s right: she does know, better than anyone. Laura was the one who was on the receiving end of the e-mails Derek wrote when it was late and he was drunk, Laura was the one who proofread every application and placated him after each rejection, until finally the rejections stopped--and, well.
Derek runs a hand through his hair.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not signing the release.”
“Why not?” Laura asks, “You don’t trust Scott’s friend?”
“I don’t know,” Derek says. “But that doesn’t mean I should.”
“Derek,” Laura says. “Kate was nine years ago. ”
“And she’s still around,” Derek says.
“But she’s just rehashing her old research, isn’t she?” Laura says. “She doesn’t have tenure, and she’s signing her own academic death warrant. How many times have you told me that?”
“And you don’t know you’re talking about, so you’re repeating it back to me,” Derek says, and he can hear Laura sigh fritzing across the poor connection.
“This isn’t about Kate,” she says. “Or it is, but only because--Derek, you can’t just close yourself off--”
“Close myself off to, what, a web series?” Derek asks.
“To possibility,” she says. “You keep playing it safe, soon you’re not going to be playing at all.”
“I can’t deny that was pithy, Laura,” Derek says, raising an eyebrow.
“Wasn’t it?” Laura replies. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
“But--” Derek starts, and Laura’s already cutting him off.
“But you’re stubborn,” she says. “Look at it this way, Derek. National Geographic, web series. Valuable opportunity for cross-platform marking. Synergy. No tenure committee in the world would be able to say no to someone with a research record like yours and that little somethin’ extra.”
“Laura, don’t,” Derek says. “You’re using your CEO words on me, and then go off about something extra.”
“Did I use that excuse to get you to do something else?” Laura asks. “Damnit.”
“Laura, you once told me to buy a pair of pants because they gave me that little something extra.”
“They did,” Laura says. “But that was a different something extra, and that didn’t work out, through no fault of my own. You had a relationship nine years ago. It went to shit. Sometimes relationships go to shit, though admittedly they don’t usually do it so epically. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take risks ever again.”
“It’s a web series,” Derek says. “I think you’re reading too much into this.”
“It’s National Geographic, Derek,” Laura says. “I actually remember some things from our childhood, despite what you might think, and one of them involved a pretty deep seated fascination with National Geographic on your part.”
“That was just the medium,” Derek says. “Science was the underlying fascination.”
“But if none of the scientists let anyone document their science, how will children like you know what they want to be when they grow up?” Laura asks.
“So now it’s ‘think of the children?’” Derek asks.
“Damn,” Laura says. “I don’t think you used to be this quick.”
“Go harass your clients, Laura,” Derek says, rubbing his temples. “You can try another angle on me next week, if you want, but I think two in one day was enough.”
“Remember when I used to be able to put you in a headlock?” Laura asks. “Those were the days.”
“Remember the days after that when you tricked me into doing whatever you wanted?” Derek says.
“I think I thought we were still in that era,” Laura says mildly.
“I could tell,” Derek says, and then he hangs up on her and quits out of Skype for good measure, because that’s pretty much the only way to have the last word in a conversation with Laura. He rubs his temples for a few moments, tells himself he’s not going to think about it, and sets about typing up his notes.
Laura has an optimism that Derek finds difficult to fathom, especially after the things that happened with Kate. But she’s Laura, and Derek’s halfway through his notes when he finds himself typing words without thinking about them and instead thinking about risks, and the ones he hasn’t taken.
He hates Laura for putting this in his head. She’s always been able to do this to him, frankly: push ideas into his head until he took them on as his own. Their mother called Laura the ringleader. Derek would really prefer not to be ringlead right now, but she’s his sister.
The field station is set in a slim valley, and there’s a loose network of official and unofficial trails that wind through the valley, along the creek, up into the mountains. The one Derek likes leads up to the ridge and then tracks along it, opening up to the sort of views people write things about. Derek’s not sure what things--poems, songs, probably also geography papers. The geography papers are the only ones Derek really gets, but he likes to go up to the ridgeline anyway and refresh his memory of the lay of the land, the way the rocks bunch and fold into mountains and the trees overlay that them. When Derek’s working with the wolves he sees the mountains at a different scale, a wolf scale, but up higher the world unfolds, the scope widens.
It’s easy to have a research subject, and let that subsume everything else. Derek knows the feeling, when he’s with the wolves and he thinks he could be a wolf. But thinking you could be a wolf is thinking at the kind of scale that doesn’t help your research much at all, doesn’t help with drawing overarching conclusions or anything else, definitely doesn’t help with what Derek was trying to tell Stiles, about avoiding anthropomorphization, about letting the wolves be themselves. And now Derek’s trying to be himself, but his thoughts don’t settle at all, and he’s stuck thinking that humans are more complicated than wolves and he wishes they weren’t, because he gets positive feedback on his research conclusions and has never gotten positive feedback on his social skills.
part 2
So.
Anyone who's been here for any length of time and has read my incoherent babbling (I wouldn't blame you if you've been skipping the babbling) has probably heard tell of a mythical AU I've been wanting to write, pretty much since the thing we call Arctic Dreams. This premise, thought to have gone the way of the dodo and the thylacine (my fave extinct animal, fyi), involved one character being a field scientist and the other being a television host a la David Attenborough, except less old (sorry, Atters). It was going to be an Inception fic (Arthur studied lions or monkeys, I forget which). It was going to be an X-Men fic (Hank studied the genetics of panthers in Patagonia). For whatever reason, neither of those grew legs.
I think you know where this is going.
This fic is largely ridiculous, which in my head accounts for why I didn't have anyone beta it (if a fic falls in the forest, and no one is there to beta read it, it is not embarrassing). Um. Enjoy. You know, if that's your thing. Ignore my Derek's shoddy experimental design, plz, there's a reason my real name isn't attached to these things. Also, before I forget: I made up a field station for this fic, Kakwa Field Station is fabricated.
If anyone's wondering about WIPs, here's the docket (though there are also a few others floating around), none of which are on any particular timeline. Real life things will be gearing up starting with the academic year, so. But I also sometimes get overcome and write...13k of whatever the fic below is:
- Inception, Arthur/Eames roommates AU--I'm about 7k in, still trying to work out relationship dynamics.
- TW, Danny/Stiles fic--2k in, also still trying to pin down the relationship dynamics.
- Inception, last year's big bang that sputtered and died--is still at about 16k and I would still like to finish it, but, um, all in due time? I've hit a point after which the plot's a bit vague in my head.
- TW, seedling in-verse, post season 2 Derek/Stiles--we'll see, we'll see. I have more premise than words.
- XMen:FC, in-verse Hank/Alex powerswap--4k? I sometimes forget about this one. But it's there!
.selected field observations on canis lupus irremotus
stiles is going to make Derek internet famous, like that one cat and that other cat. derek just wants to do his field research.
pg13 . 13474 words . AO3
Derek Hale would like the record to show that he didn’t ask to be part of the whole National Geographic thing. Furthermore, that he never asked to be part of the whole National Geographic thing, never wanted anything to do with National Geographic (except for, maybe, flipping through the pictures in the back issues in his parents’ bathroom when he needed a break from his family at holidays). And, finally, that when the guy with the camera showed up Derek didn’t know what the fuck he was doing and tried to get him sent away--would have had him sent away if Scott, the most hapless wildlife biologist known to man and also Derek’s first and only Master’s student (what Peter was thinking when he made that hire Derek would never know, and then he had to go all professor emeritus on the department’s collective asses and retire), hadn’t shown up, grinned broadly at the sight of the guy with the camera, and said, “Stiles, buddy, you made it!”
Stiles--Stiles? was that even a name?--shrugged at Derek in a way that was maybe intended to be apologetic but just served to annoy Derek more and pulled Scott into a hug.
“Derek,” Scott said, turning around and leaving one arm looped lazily around Stiles’ shoulders. “This is Stiles! Remember, I told you about him?”
Derek tended to tune Scott out.
“My friend--”
“Best friend,” Stiles interjected, grinning, and Derek wasn’t aware people over the age of fourteen even had best friends.
“Stiles Stilinski,” Scott continued as if Stiles hadn’t said anything. “He’s interning for National Geographic, awesome videographer, wanted to do a web special on our research, coming up for a month, he’ll share my room, you said ‘okay’?”
Stiles gave Derek a sort of uncomfortable thumbs up, coupled with a grin that Derek was kind of tempted to call ‘smarmy’ before settling on ‘ridiculous.’
“Stiles, Derek, Derek, Stiles,” Scott said, flapping his hand between them.
“Hey, good to meet you,” Stiles said, reducing his grin to a normal wattage and holding out a hand. Scott was still draped across his shoulders, so Derek’s the one who had to step forward, closing the space between them and clasping Stiles’ hand in his own.
“I never agreed to this,” Derek mumbled, wishing it came out a little louder and more certain.
That was a week ago--or close to four days, if you want precision, which Derek usually does. So, four days ago Derek tried to come up with a plausible reason for Stiles to leave, but everyone he called back at the university talked about what a great opportunity it was, how the project could use the publicity, how they had talked to Stiles on the phone already and he was just charming. Derek didn’t know how Stiles had talked to everyone but him, but maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. He tended not to answer his phone or check his university e-mail when he was doing field work--voicemail and auto reply existed for a reason, and the field season was that reason.
Now, four days later, Derek is sitting at the long table in the field station mess hall, trying to eat his oatmeal and read the most recent issue of Conservation Biology at the same time, and Stiles slides in across from him with a breakfast that appears to be comprised of a cup of yogurt, Cap’n Crunch without milk, and a hard-boiled egg.
“Hey,” Stiles says. “I haven’t really gotten the chance to talk to you yet. Which means I haven’t gotten you to sign the release forms. Which means--”
“I’m not,” Derek says.
“Not--?” Stiles says, trailing off in a way he probably imagines is encouraging.
“Signing the release forms,” Derek says.
“Oh, okay, I’ll bring them by later,” Stiles replies easily, peeling back the cover of his yogurt and spooning its contents into the bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Derek wasn’t aware that was a combination of foods people ate.
“I’m never signing the release forms,” Derek says, because Stiles seems to be thick.
Stiles looks up at him, and Derek thinks he sees something that might be the narrowing of eyes before Stiles’ expression brightens.
“Okay,” he says. “We’ll just cut you from the footage.”
“There won’t be any footage of me,” Derek clarifies.
“Sorry, dude,” Stiles says, leaning forward and gesturing with his spoon. “But Scott signed the release forms--pretty much everyone else did, actually, including the head of your department--a Dr. Deaton, I imagine you know him?--so I’ll be filming, and you might be there when I am.” Stiles shrugs and goes back to mixing his yogurt-cereal concoction. “But if I don’t have a release for you I can’t do anything with it, so nothing will get out, don’t worry about it.” Stiles pauses. “You really should sign the release, but you not signing isn’t going to cause my camera to spontaneously combust, so if you wanted to have a reasonable discussion about this that’s a thing we could do.”
“No,” Derek says, then takes his tray and leaves to spoon his unfinished oatmeal into the trash and hand his dishes over to the students on dish duty. He doesn’t realize until he gets back to his room that he forgot his issue of Conservation Biology on the table, and then he just sighs and gets his stuff together to go into the field, because apparently today is not his day. Tomorrow probably won’t be, either. This might just not be his field season, and that pisses him off inordinately, because field seasons are what get Derek through data entry and analysis, undergraduate lectures and undergraduates crying in his office, faculty meetings with his pie-faced colleagues, and generally everything that’s not the field season, with its shit trucks and shit food and wolves, Canis lupus irremotus.
Derek’s been working with the Kakwa pack since he was a lowly undergraduate, and they got him through everything else--the thing he doesn’t like to talk about, the other thing he doesn’t like to talk about, and the ensuing funding debacle. They remind him of his family, in a weird way. Not that he was raised by wolves, despite what some of his so-called colleagues might think, but the ease of their interactions and the cryptic network of pack dynamics that the wolves navigate so straightforwardly reminds Derek of family dinners, of big gatherings for Thanksgiving that are simultaneously overwhelming and kind of great, even as they teeter on the brink of disaster and only avoid it through old, ingrained social patterns that make sense to family but not much to anyone else.
But the wolves are also better than his family, because they don’t ask him about tenure or why he’s not bringing home a nice boy or girl to meet everyone (and even in the unlikely event Derek met anyone nice, he can’t imagine a nice person who wouldn’t be overwhelmed and possibly eaten alive by the Hale clan).
So Derek tries to focus on the pack instead of on Stiles existing in his general vicinity, because surely they’ll get him through a minor problem with a National Geographic intern, too. Besides, Derek and Scott have to change the batteries and SD cards on their camera traps. Scott should be here already.
Most of their gear--that is to say, the trackers and the shit for the camera traps, plus a first aid kit, a roll of duct tape, and a couple multi-tools--is still in the truck from the day before, so Derek goes to find Scott so they can head out. He goes to Scott’s room, because he’s still trying to pretend Scott won’t be in the Argent girl’s room, and when he’s knocking and waiting Stiles comes loping down the hall, Derek’s copy of Conservation Biology clutched in one hand. He pauses and scratches the back of his neck awkwardly when he sees Derek.
“Uh,” he says. “You know Scott’s at Allison’s, right? I mean, if you need something from the room I can unlock it for you, but if the something you need is Scott--he’s not there. And he said you were weird about the Argents--”
“He what?” Derek asks, stepping forward. Stiles takes a step back that has him bumping against the wall.
“He said you were weird about the Argents,” Stiles says, straightening his back like he’s steeling himself up. “Which, hate to break it to you, but you seem to be being weird about the Argents right now, so I’d say that assessment wasn’t too far off. Even if it did come from Scott.”
Derek looks at Stiles.
“Here, have your magazine back,” Stiles says, pushing it forward. “You left it at breakfast.”
“It’s not a magazine,” Derek bites out. “It’s a journal.”
And then he turns around and strides down the hall towards Allison’s room, because there is really nothing left for him to say here.
“So does that mean it’s actually a diary?” Stiles calls after him. “Because I used to tell my dad my diary was a journal all the time. And I didn’t even have a diary.”
Derek ignores him. This is Derek ignoring him.
He finds Scott in Allison’s room, both of them sitting on the bed looking at their laptops, legs entangled, pretty obviously doing data entry, and it would be kind of sickeningly adorable except for the fact that Allison’s working with her aunt, and nothing to do with Kate Argent is cute.
“You weren’t in your room Scott,” Derek says.
“Yeah, ‘cause I was here,” Scott says. “Ready to go?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Derek says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Come on.”
Scott ducks to kiss Allison, and Derek heads down the hall because he doesn’t need to see this, doesn’t need to see them kiss and rub noses and promise to see one another again at dinner, because parting is such sweet sorrow.
“Camera traps today?” Scott says as he slides into the truck, even though Derek knows Scott knows what they’re doing. “Hey, I told Stiles he could ride along tomorrow night.”
“You did,” Derek says.
“Yep,” Scott replies. He’s got his arms braced against the dash, which might be because the truck is a deathtrap and the logging road they’re on is a disaster, or it might be because he knows that Derek is going to hate this idea.
“Tomorrow night,” Derek repeats. Tomorrow night they were going out to the blind near the den site for observations. It’s Derek’s favorite part of their research, because it lends depth and flavor to their data, although scientifically it’s less valuable than the information on habitat use they get from the radio collars and camera traps.
“Stiles has an awesome camera for night shots,” Scott says. “It’s like--James Bond. Or Steve Irwin. Or Jason Bourne. Or Bear Grylls. Or--”
“Just stop,” Derek says as they veer onto a logging road and higher into the hills. “None of those make sense.”
“Whatever, cool camera,” Scott says. “You said we could.”
Right now Scott reminds Derek of his niece Astrid, who’s able to extract promises Derek doesn’t remember making from thin air and force him to fulfill them, though usually with her it involves more ice cream and less--whatever Stiles is.
“Data entry,” Derek says, swerving to avoid a pothole in the road. “If anything goes wrong because of Stiles, you’re on data entry, for both of us, for a month. And you can’t discuss it with Allison.”
“I don’t discuss data with Allison,” Scott protests, his voice edging dreamy.
“Don’t discuss Allison with me, either,” Derek says flatly, pulling the truck off the road and parking in the ditch. “Come on.”
The first camera trap is a few miles’ hike from the road through spruce forest. A fine network of branches unfolds above their heads as they walk, filtering the light and the air into something that’s a dull, dry green and smells spicy and citrus. Even with Scott trailing behind him--and Scott can almost match Derek’s pace, finally, it only took a month--Derek’s relieved to be out here with the land moving beneath his feet. They change the first camera trap’s cards and batteries, then move on to the next one and complete the circuit before going back to the truck and driving to the next set of traps.
They eat lunch together in the cab of the truck, sandwiches and trail mix while sitting sideways in the truck’s seats with the doors open and breeze blowing through the cab. The mosquitoes aren’t bad, either because it’s still too cool or because this summer is going to be better on the mosquito front than the last. Derek’s hoping for the latter, but--
“Stiles says that they can delay the show’s web release until after we publish if we want,” Scott says, cutting into Derek’s thoughts.
Scott can be annoyingly perceptive. It’s mostly annoying because it always comes as a surprise--Derek never expects Scott to be perceptive, but suddenly there he is, perceiving things.
Derek nods once and doesn’t say anything. Scott takes this as blanket permission to go off on a weird tangent about Scott and Stiles and high school which Derek mostly ignores.
They’re back at the field station for dinner, and Stiles sits down across from Derek again, not even stopping to ask permission.
“I’m not going to talk about release forms,” Stiles says before Derek can say anything. “But Scott’s with Allison, and I don’t know anyone else here.”
“You don’t know me,” Derek says, stabbing at a floret of broccoli with his fork.
“But I could,” Stiles says carefully. “And I know your name, which is a start, and you’re eating alone.”
“Maybe I want to,” Derek says, because he does want to.
“Maybe,” Stiles agrees mildly. “But I know some things about eating alone. Or maybe I just thought that if I harassed you enough you might sign that release. That’s for me to know and you not to find out.”
Derek grunts and Stiles eats, apparently completely engrossed in the process of getting food from his plate to his fork to his mouth, because he’s no longer looking at Derek or making any stab at conversation.
“S’good,” Stiles says eventually, speaking around a mouthful of food and gesturing with his fork.
“For field station food,” Derek says.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know,” Stiles says with a crooked grin. “But it’s better than I remember summer camp food being.”
“This isn’t summer camp,” Derek says, and Stiles shrugs.
“Scott’s acting like it is,” he says mildly. “He always fell madly in love with some girl at summer camp, and then wrote her postcards and long letters on stationary for, like, five months until she told him to stop. Now he mostly writes me long letters on stationary, though, so maybe Allison’s different.”
“Stationary,” Derek repeats.
“I write back,” Stiles says. “We’re friends.”
“Is that why you wanted to film the wolves?” Derek asks. “Because you and Scott are friends?”
Stiles grins, and puts his elbows up on the table to prop up his head on his hands. Derek’s mother always told him to keep his elbows off the table, but no one ever liked that rule, so.
“I wanted to film the wolves because they’re cool,” he says. “I mean, you have to know that. Scott says you’ve been working with them since you were, like, seventeen.”
“Nineteen,” Derek corrects.
“Whatever,” Stiles says. “How old are you now, thirty? I haven’t been doing anything for eleven years. Except, like, bodily functions.”
“I’m twenty-eight,” Derek says tightly. He knows he’s young to have a PhD and a tenure-track position, but he knew what he wanted, so he got it. It was the only thing he had ever wanted with any sort of certainty, really. It was the only thing he’d ever gotten with any sort of staying power, besides.
“So, nine years, then,” Stiles says. “Still a long time.”
“Wolves aren’t just cool,” Derek says. “They’re more than--”
Stiles has looked up, and he’s watching Derek like he’s waiting. There’s a feathering of lashes around his eyes, which are brown, but not quite--too clear, too light. There’s a wolf in the pack with eyes that color, but Derek has only ever seen them through a spotting scope.
“Charismatic megafauna,” Derek coughs. “Just because they’re charismatic megafauna, just because people like to think it’s cool, that they have some sort of lupine soul and could run with the pack and howl at the moon and dismember a caribou--wolves aren’t that.”
“So you never a bought a Three Wolf Moon shirt, then?” Stiles asks. “Because that’s what I’m getting from this.”
“It’s not a joke,” Derek says flatly, staring at Stiles. “They’re animals. They’re just animals. We can’t--project stuff on them, anthropomorphize them. But because they’re animals--” Derek shakes his head. “Everything they do is this perfect marriage of instinct and genetics and environment. They don’t need to be cool, to meet some standards we impose. They just are, living. Here.”
Stiles stares back at Derek for a moment, then he smiles and lifts his hands, bringing them together in two muffled claps.
“That was great,” he says. “That’s what I need, really, for this whole series--an angle, I guess, but also--you give a shit. Genuine shit. Which--Scott does, too, don’t get me wrong, but he’s kind of awful at talking coherently. I am, too, but that’s why I try to record other people talking coherently.”
Stiles looks thoughtful, like he’s trying to suss Derek out, and part of Derek feels like Stiles already has--he doesn’t know why he said all that. It’s more than he’s ever said about this to anyone, except maybe Kate Argent when he was nineteen and didn’t know better.
“Are you sure about the release?” Stiles asks.
“Yes,” Derek says, and Stiles smiles at him wanly.
“I figured as much,” he says. “But, hey, I thought I’d ask.” He shrugs and gets up to go. “See you tomorrow night, Professor Hale.”
The way Stiles says ‘professor’--his voice kind of curls through the syllables, with an undercurrent there that Derek thinks might be respect--it elicits a weird response in Derek, one he can’t even properly define. He watches Stiles go, casually dropping a hand on Scott’s shoulder and ducking to talk to him before disappearing from the mess hall with a grin and a wave of thanks for the research assistants on dishes duty.
Derek shakes his head and goes back to his own meal, pulling his thoughts back to the paper on wolf conservation he’d been reading at breakfast, and everything wrong with that interpretation of Næss and Mysterud. Which was pretty much everything.
The next night comes too quickly. They’re heading out at 2 a.m. to get to the den site before twilight, and Scott must’ve told Stiles to be ready because he’s out leaning against the truck when Derek gets there. Scott is presumably still macking on Allison Argent. Stiles straightens up when he sees Derek, shifting the large bag on his hip and the strap he has slung across his chest.
“He wrote her a poem,” Stiles says, like he knows what Derek’s thinking. “I proofread it for him.”
“Was it any good?” Derek asks.
“Let’s just say--it’s better than any of the poems he wrote for his summercamp girlfriends. Or any of the ones he wrote when they broke up with him,” Stiles says.
“So, no, then,” Derek says, and Stiles laughs. He has an easy laugh, probably to go with the easy smile he flashes at Derek in the dim light.
“Not very, no,” Stiles says. “But he’s happy. Anyway, look, I got out here early because I just wanted to go through this with you.” Stiles digs through the bag he’s carrying and extracts a camera. It is big, or bigger than Derek expected for something that’s going to become web video. Stiles shifts it to his shoulder. “It’s not on, but this is my baby--she’s a digital recorder, and you can call her Lucida. And, look, I’ll cut anything you say and any shots with you in them, but this thing is going to be with us, alright? There’s no point in my coming along without it.”
Derek looks at Stiles, between Stiles’ face and the camera on his shoulder like an uncanny bird.
“Lucida,” Derek repeats, and Stiles shrugs, his mouth set in a tight line.
“Okay?” Stiles asks, when they’ve both been quiet for too many beats, Stiles’ fingers fidgeting with some buttons on the camera.
“Okay,” Derek says.
“And I’ll need space for the tripod,” Stiles adds, gesturing towards the thing slung across his back. “In the blind. Scott said it would probably be big enough, but I’m not entirely confident in his spatial reasoning--”
“It’s big enough,” Derek says.
“And I’m thinking it would be good if I put the camera between you and Scott, so if I need to get a shot of him I don’t need to worry about you being in the background,” Stiles continues. “I don’t really like blurring out faces. It looks kind of crap.”
There’s a question in his eyes when he looks up at Derek, and Derek’s torn between being relieved that Stiles has some measure of respect for Derek’s refusal to be involved with this and wondering if he’s really so bad, that Stiles is being this cautious.
“That will be fine,” Derek says.
“Good,” Stiles says. “Because if it wasn’t, I was going to arm wrestle you for it, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.”
Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles grins in a way that leaves Derek no closer to understanding whether the joke was that Stiles expected to win or lose at arm wrestling. Stiles is smaller than Derek, and he’s not scrawny but he certainly doesn’t look like someone who does push-ups in his room at night (which Derek does, okay), but it’s arm wrestling. Maybe Stiles cheats. Stiles seems like someone who would cheat at arm wrestling.
Scott shows up, then, looking between Derek and Stiles and saying, “Oh, am I late?”
“No, we were early,” Stiles says. He glances at Derek like he expects him to say something but Derek just shrugs and goes to unlock the truck.
The truck has a bench seat, which puts them three across, and Stiles and Scott have a minor scuffle that appears to involve a few rounds of rock-paper-scissors about who will get the middle. Stiles either wins or loses--probably loses--and slides to the middle, followed shortly by Scott. It’s a big truck, so it isn’t tight, but Stiles has to splay his legs to straddle the gearshift, so his knee ends up pressed against Derek’s and Derek ends up consciously not thinking about where he’s reaching when he puts the truck in gear.
They’re mostly quiet on the drive up. Early mornings like this are always a little hazy, in Derek’s experience, characterized by the rattling of the truck on the old roads, the weight of sleep still heavy on everyone’s shoulders, the moon fish-silver above them. Stiles asks Scott how Allison is, so they’re treated to a brief monologue on how Allison is great, and Stiles asks a few questions about the wolf pack, whether they can tell them apart, how big it is.
“Derek has names for them,” Scott says. He’s got an elbow hooked out the open window, and his head’s hanging out so his voice comes to them commingled with wind.
“Really?” Stiles asks. “What are they?”
“Boyd,” Scott says before Derek can cut him off. “Erica, Isaac, Laura--named after Derek’s sister--uh, what are the rest, Derek?”
“I ran out of names,” Derek says. “Scott, you can name some. Not after Allison.”
“Name one after me,” Stiles says.
“There’s this weird looking one,” Scott says thoughtfully, and Stiles socks him in the arm.
Derek thinks he knows the one Scott’s talking about, skinny and quick and sharp with a nose that turns up just slightly, and if it’s the one Derek’s thinking of this is another one of those moments when Scott’s exhibiting the weird sort of perceptiveness that will probably make him an uncannily good scientist, much as Derek is loath to admit it. Eventually, though. Right now Scott is a mediocre to average scientist, but he’s also a Master’s student.
They get to the blind--it’s really little more than a shed pressed into a hill with a tarp for a roof--in good time and settle in, Scott and Derek with their spotting scopes and field notebooks, Stiles with his tripod and camera. There’s a rough wood bench where they all sit down, ducks in a row, and get their respective devices focused on the hillside opposite.
“Man, I can’t even see them,” Stiles mutters, squinting at the hill. “Not without looking through the camera. How do you guys get anything? It’s dark.”
“Your eyes adjust,” Derek says.
“Must have better vision than I do,” Stiles says, and then Scott elbows him and says, “Quiet, we’re doing science.”
“If you get a doctorate, I refuse to acknowledge it,” Stiles says. “Even thinking about it right now--Dr. McCall, you wearing a little professor hat--”
Scott elbows him again, and Stiles falls silent.
“Tell me if that lone wolf you were talking about shows up,” Stiles says to Scott. “I won’t know it from Adam. Adam the wolf.”
“We’ll call him Adam,” Derek says. “If he does.”
Stiles laughs, open-mouthed; in the dark Derek can’t see enough of him to be certain, but he’s seen Stiles laugh a few times now, and that’s how he does it: with his mouth open, and his whole body.
All three of them fall silent after that. Derek and Scott occasionally trade comments on what they’re seeing, but they’re mostly encrypted to the point that Stiles interjects to quip that he’s fairly certain they’ve developed a new variant of pig latin, and he has a friend who’s a linguist and could do an analysis, if they wanted.
Derek, meanwhile, sinks into his observations--there’s a clarity to be found with the wolves, in the dawning twilight and the silence of being so far from the world. On the edge of his brain he’s fitting the behavior into patterns, grappling to tie things together, but here, and now--he doesn’t need to do that just yet, and at the center he can just watch, enjoy the sunrise, jot notes.
He notices Stiles flagging at his side some time after sunrise, when the sun’s full in the sky and they’ve been sitting for hours. Derek watches him out of the corner of his eyes, as Stiles slumps and then shores himself up again, shaking off tendrils of sleep and swiveling his camera on its tripod to track a wolf across the clearing. Derek elbows him and passes along a granola bar, hands him another to pass down to Scott.
They leave a few hours later, and are back at the station in time to catch the tail end of breakfast.
“So I think I’ll just go to sleep now,” Stiles says, sitting across from Scott and Derek and poking at some scrambled eggs with a fork.
“You’ll throw your sleep schedule out of whack,” Scott says.
“Just a little sleep?” Stiles asks, slumping forward so his head is in his arms. “A nap?”
“Should’ve gone to bed earlier,” Scott says.
“Oh, like you went to bed early over in Allison’s room,” Stiles says. “Seriously. I don’t know what you did, but I know it was something.”
“I’m not the one who’s drooling all over the table,” Scott says.
“You’re not?” Stiles asks. “But your mouth--it’s open.”
“Stiles,” Derek says. “Take a nap until eleven, you’ll be fine.”
“What?” Scott asks. “But--”
“I needed you to do data entry that day,” Derek says, because it’s true.
“I think he likes you better than me, Stiles,” Scott says balefully.
“Stiles doesn’t work for me,” Derek says. “If he wastes his time sleeping, it’s not my problem.”
“I don’t work for you, I’m your colleague,” Scott mutters.
“You work for me,” Derek says. “I pay your stipend.”
“Alright, guys, this has been great and enlightening and all, but I think I’m going to waste my time sleeping now,” Stiles says, getting to his feet. “Later.”
After Stiles leaves Scott says something about Allison and heads out, and Derek goes back to his room to enter and code his notes, but when he opens his laptop Laura’s on Skype, and he ends up getting sucked into--that. ‘That’ being a conversation with Laura.
“Brother,” she says. From what Derek can tell in the pixelated video she’s painting her toenails, which is--unsurprising. Laura refuses to wear make-up on her face, claiming sensitive skin and perfect bone structure, but she likes her nails sparkly.
“So how’s the field season going?” Laura asks.
“Scott brought an intern from National Geographic up,” Derek says. “To videotape the pack for a web special.”
“You’re going to be internet famous!” Laura says. “Like that one cat. And that other cat.”
“No,” Derek says. “I’m not. Maybe Scott will.”
“But what about your natural charisma?” Laura asks.
“I’m not getting scooped by a web series,” Derek says. “You know--”
“I know what happened with Kate,” Laura says. “I don’t think a web series is going to capture the level of detail necessary for someone to steal your data--”
“You know how much shit I had to wade through to get funding after that happened?” Derek asks.
“Yes,” Laura says, looking up and almost directly at him, given the vagaries of web cameras. “I know.”
The way she says it makes Derek deflate slightly, because she’s right: she does know, better than anyone. Laura was the one who was on the receiving end of the e-mails Derek wrote when it was late and he was drunk, Laura was the one who proofread every application and placated him after each rejection, until finally the rejections stopped--and, well.
Derek runs a hand through his hair.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not signing the release.”
“Why not?” Laura asks, “You don’t trust Scott’s friend?”
“I don’t know,” Derek says. “But that doesn’t mean I should.”
“Derek,” Laura says. “Kate was nine years ago. ”
“And she’s still around,” Derek says.
“But she’s just rehashing her old research, isn’t she?” Laura says. “She doesn’t have tenure, and she’s signing her own academic death warrant. How many times have you told me that?”
“And you don’t know you’re talking about, so you’re repeating it back to me,” Derek says, and he can hear Laura sigh fritzing across the poor connection.
“This isn’t about Kate,” she says. “Or it is, but only because--Derek, you can’t just close yourself off--”
“Close myself off to, what, a web series?” Derek asks.
“To possibility,” she says. “You keep playing it safe, soon you’re not going to be playing at all.”
“I can’t deny that was pithy, Laura,” Derek says, raising an eyebrow.
“Wasn’t it?” Laura replies. “I’ve been saving it for you.”
“But--” Derek starts, and Laura’s already cutting him off.
“But you’re stubborn,” she says. “Look at it this way, Derek. National Geographic, web series. Valuable opportunity for cross-platform marking. Synergy. No tenure committee in the world would be able to say no to someone with a research record like yours and that little somethin’ extra.”
“Laura, don’t,” Derek says. “You’re using your CEO words on me, and then go off about something extra.”
“Did I use that excuse to get you to do something else?” Laura asks. “Damnit.”
“Laura, you once told me to buy a pair of pants because they gave me that little something extra.”
“They did,” Laura says. “But that was a different something extra, and that didn’t work out, through no fault of my own. You had a relationship nine years ago. It went to shit. Sometimes relationships go to shit, though admittedly they don’t usually do it so epically. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take risks ever again.”
“It’s a web series,” Derek says. “I think you’re reading too much into this.”
“It’s National Geographic, Derek,” Laura says. “I actually remember some things from our childhood, despite what you might think, and one of them involved a pretty deep seated fascination with National Geographic on your part.”
“That was just the medium,” Derek says. “Science was the underlying fascination.”
“But if none of the scientists let anyone document their science, how will children like you know what they want to be when they grow up?” Laura asks.
“So now it’s ‘think of the children?’” Derek asks.
“Damn,” Laura says. “I don’t think you used to be this quick.”
“Go harass your clients, Laura,” Derek says, rubbing his temples. “You can try another angle on me next week, if you want, but I think two in one day was enough.”
“Remember when I used to be able to put you in a headlock?” Laura asks. “Those were the days.”
“Remember the days after that when you tricked me into doing whatever you wanted?” Derek says.
“I think I thought we were still in that era,” Laura says mildly.
“I could tell,” Derek says, and then he hangs up on her and quits out of Skype for good measure, because that’s pretty much the only way to have the last word in a conversation with Laura. He rubs his temples for a few moments, tells himself he’s not going to think about it, and sets about typing up his notes.
Laura has an optimism that Derek finds difficult to fathom, especially after the things that happened with Kate. But she’s Laura, and Derek’s halfway through his notes when he finds himself typing words without thinking about them and instead thinking about risks, and the ones he hasn’t taken.
He hates Laura for putting this in his head. She’s always been able to do this to him, frankly: push ideas into his head until he took them on as his own. Their mother called Laura the ringleader. Derek would really prefer not to be ringlead right now, but she’s his sister.
The field station is set in a slim valley, and there’s a loose network of official and unofficial trails that wind through the valley, along the creek, up into the mountains. The one Derek likes leads up to the ridge and then tracks along it, opening up to the sort of views people write things about. Derek’s not sure what things--poems, songs, probably also geography papers. The geography papers are the only ones Derek really gets, but he likes to go up to the ridgeline anyway and refresh his memory of the lay of the land, the way the rocks bunch and fold into mountains and the trees overlay that them. When Derek’s working with the wolves he sees the mountains at a different scale, a wolf scale, but up higher the world unfolds, the scope widens.
It’s easy to have a research subject, and let that subsume everything else. Derek knows the feeling, when he’s with the wolves and he thinks he could be a wolf. But thinking you could be a wolf is thinking at the kind of scale that doesn’t help your research much at all, doesn’t help with drawing overarching conclusions or anything else, definitely doesn’t help with what Derek was trying to tell Stiles, about avoiding anthropomorphization, about letting the wolves be themselves. And now Derek’s trying to be himself, but his thoughts don’t settle at all, and he’s stuck thinking that humans are more complicated than wolves and he wishes they weren’t, because he gets positive feedback on his research conclusions and has never gotten positive feedback on his social skills.
part 2