undergrounds | CLOSED; Heiji & Derek; 6/16

Early afternoon has set over London when Stiles arrives at Hall Place & Gardens, the location he chose for Heiji and Derek to discuss alliances. The tourist attraction is in Bexley, which is near enough to pack territory that Derek shouldn’t feel too out of his element. And the museum itself should be of interest to Heiji, if the meeting goes horribly awry. Which it very well could. God knows what the hell goes on behind Derek Hale’s broody, angry brow. Stiles suspects not an awful lot, to be honest.

Hanging around the entrance to the gardens, by the parking lot, he waits for the two men to arrive. Maybe he can convince one or both of them to help pay for his ticket… After all, he’s just the third party organizing all this. They should be grateful. Grateful enough to buy him admission, and maybe a souvenir he can ship home to his old man or Scott. Derek is probably loaded with money, right? What’s sixty pounds to him, or six hundred…?

With a restless sigh, he digs out his cell to double check his messages. By the time one of them approaches him, he’s totally absorbed in a game of Angry Birds.

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"I like to think I'd get an 'Exceeds Expectations'," said Heiji cheerfully. If, that was, he ever went to class for any real length of time. His report card would most likely consist of those and the odd plea to please get this fucker out of my class.

"By the way, if you don't wanna run into a lot of fae, there's plenty of space where it's just fields and trees." Those were Heiji's favorite places to visit -- wide-open meadows where he could run as fast as his paws could carry him, enclosing forests where he could find a break in the trees and settle in for a nap with the sun warming his fur.

Heiji's good cheer is less infectious and more intimidating, not that Derek is one to be sent running by such a thing. The problem remains that Heiji should be an idiot, with how he talks, but he's not. Had Derek needed proof, then the shrewdness it took to arrange this meeting is beyond clear.

It's weird. Heiji's weird. And he's inviting him to the Other Realm and Derek would actually really love to see it, which is a secret that Derek intends to take to his grave.

"Is it different, here?" He indulges his own curiosity, reasoning that it's civil to do so. "From how it is in Japan, I mean."

"Totally different," said Heiji easily. So Derek was interested. This wasn't the first time Derek had asked about Heiji's home, so either the guy was a little homesick himself, or he really did want to know. Possibly both.

In any case, Derek's vague pronouns again meant that Heiji was just going to answer the question however he wanted. "From the buildings to the people who live in them. It's true that they've forgotten some things, but back in Osaka, most humans know a lot more about us. They remember a lot of the old stories... and not just the ones Disney makes movies about."

In fact, they might even have the presence of mind to know to bow to a kappa, and that driving away a zashiki-warashi was bad luck.

Derek made a soft, thoughtful noise. It was difficult to imagine. Beacon Hills had always been a case of silence, and so too was London, under pain of law enforcement. Alternatives were few and far between, even if there were plenty of places in Britain where humans still left an item of clothing or a coin bound with their wishes.

"Sounds dangerous."

"It's actually safer than here. Not gonna say there ain't any conflict, but it's not like London, with people jostling elbows and tryin' to rub everyone else's faces in it." If it wasn't clear which area Heiji favored more.

"For all the talk about acceptance and uniting the supernatural communities, the atmosphere here is way more fractious. It's beyond not trusting other people. It's being convinced everyone else is out to get you. Like the way the witches treat us -- like we're always out to screw them over as much as possible, and the only way to make us cooperate is to force us or lawyer us into giving them what they want."

Which predictably went poorly, even with the more sympathetic fae. No one liked being treated like a magical gumball machine, and the fae more than most resented being ordered about by outsiders.

Derek recalls their first conversation, and the bits and pieces of information that Heiji had given him then. It hadn't been through his own personal will that he was here, right? Hearing the way he spoke of his home, it didn't surprise him. He smiles, but it's a sardonic kind of expression.

"Yeah, that great English welcome isn't all it's cracked up to be."

The car door opens, signaling the return of one Stiles Stilinski. His sopping wet clothes are bunched up in a ball under an arm, while the borrowed outfit adorns his body more than a little loosely. Though he and Derek are roughly the same height, their builds are extremely different. Stiles, who hadn’t thought to wear a belt today, keeps self-consciously hiking up the jeans as they slip down his narrow hips.

“So, as a human, let me just say,” he begins, strolling over to them, “that everything really is out to get me. Including that pond and goose.”

Heiji briefly considered making a joke about how Stiles looked like he was swimming in that shirt... only he sort of remembered what it was like to be an awkward teenager, still stuck halfway between the cheek-pinching cuteness of the very young and the luxuriant full fur of adulthood.

"I can't tell if ya got good luck or bad," he said instead. "Coulda broke something, taking a fall like that."

Briefly, Derek's eyes flick over Stiles dressed in his clothes. It's definitely funny, but he doesn't laugh, naturally - besides, it's got to be better than wearing wet clothes. Derek considers removing his own belt for Stiles' sake, since he clearly needs it more, but he's already tuckered out from all his magnanimity today.

"Pretty sure you knew that already," he remarks, without any real venom behind it. "At least the pond broke your fall."

Optimism.

Stiles is aware that both men must have come to an opinion on how poorly he fills out the clothes. For neither of them to comment… Gratitude may wash over him, but he remains too embarrassed to act on it. So he fidgets restlessly instead, bouncing from one bare foot to the other.

“I’m the Summer Prince,” he grouses, tone cross. “I should be the luckiest guy around. Four leaf clovers should be springing up in the wake of my footfalls! Geese should be bowing to me.”

"All right!" said Heiji, throwing one arm around Derek and the other around Stiles shh they were close enough okay.

"Now that that's over with, let's do some sightseeing! I'm new here, so you have to show me around! Maybe we'll find some four-leaf clovers for the Summer Prince, here."

Summer Prince. Derek's initial, sharp curiosity, was swiftly overruled by his reluctance to get involved in any of - this. Perhaps it was too late for that. He'd just made an alliance that said as much, right?

Awkwardly, he shifts from foot to foot, uncertain about whether or not he should hang around and erring on the side of no. Derek did not think of himself as desirous of company, and he also didn't think of himself as desired. The better option was, surely, to leave. Business was done.

But Heiji was yet to retract his arm, and the we was perhaps telling. He stepped out from under the contact with only a fleeting scowl, but did not retreat to his car. He'd have to get his clothes back anyway.

"Yeah, maybe the goose'll bring one," he deadpans, gaze flicking up and down the Summer Prince's form.

CLOSED; Heiji & Derek; 6/16

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