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When Laura tells him she's hired a magician for Jace's birthday party, Derek outright laughs. It's hard for them to get anything past the werewolf kids, much less for a human who does party tricks for a living. But Jace had wanted one so badly, having caught the middle of some movie featuring them. So Laura hires the best magician within a hundred mile radius and hopes for the best.
Derek's pretty much forgotten about it until the day of the party, because Hope—his youngest—is practically screaming about it until they get to his mom's place and gets distracted by her cousins. Laura hands him a beer with a morose look, and Derek raises an eyebrow. "Not so confident about this magician thing?"
"I don't want him to be disappointed." Laura murmurs, staring forlornly towards her son. Lydia, her wife, is currently bent down in front of him and pushing his hair out of his face, smiling at him as he shows off the rock he found.
"I know what you mean." Derek agrees with a sigh, eyes trailing over to his two oldest girls. Hanna is on her phone ignoring the other kids while Haley and Jace's brother Julian are playing Mancala in the grass. Jace takes off to join Hope and his friends, who are all chasing Cora's two dogs, Warner and Colt.
As if summoned by the doubt of Laura and Derek combined, there's a sudden crash and the magician stumbles into the backyard, looking up at all the staring eyes and laughing nervously. "Hale party?" he squeaks hopefully.
"Oh my god." Laura sighs.
"The magician!" Jace screeches, racing for him and in the process encouraging all the kids to also charge.
The magician, for his part, straightens up and lifts what looks to be a regular backpack and his hat up into the air. "Whoa, whoa, watch the supplies!" he laughs. "Don't want anyone getting sucked into any inter-dimensional portals or whatnot."
"Mama! Did you hear?" Jace gasps, getting a hold of the magician's wrist and dragging him forward towards his mom. "The magician is here!"
"I might've heard something." Laura agrees with a nervous smile. "Hi, I'm Laura. You must be Stiles."
"The Splendid." he confirms, bowing. Jace jumps up and down in delight.
Derek resists face-palming.
All the kids sit in a row in front of a table that Stiles the Splendid commandeers, while the older kids and the adults all sit in a row behind them. Hanna hasn't even deigned to look up from her phone, though, which he can't blame her for. If he weren't waiting for the inevitable disaster, he'd be ignoring this, too.
Stiles clears his throat and whips out a red tablecloth from his backpack and smoothes it over the table. Then he twirls his hat in one hand and sets it upside down in the middle of the table. "Alright, let's see..." Stiles taps his chin and then points at the front row of kids. "Eenie, meenie, minie...you!" He lands on Jace. "Are you the birthday boy?"
"Yes!" Jace squeals. "How'd you know?"
Stiles taps his temple with a wink. "Magician's secret, kid. Took years of training to become all this."
Derek snorts unattractively when Stiles gestures to himself. Laura slams her elbow into his ribs. Stiles' eyes flick to him and he frowns a little. It's enough to chastise him into being quiet.
"Okay, so...Jace?" Stiles guesses, pointing at him. Jace nods eagerly. "Awesome. So, you like magic?"
"Uh-huh. It's awesome. Grandma has a friend who does it!"
Derek glances at Laura who is slumped over with her face in her hands.
"Oh, I see." Stiles muses. "So no ordinary tricks will work on you, then."
"Nope!" Jace agrees proudly.
"In that case, I'm going to need my gloves." Stiles decides, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling them up. Derek might not believe in this magician thing, but he definitely can see the appeal in those forearms. Stiles snaps and points a finger gun at Jace again before turning his back to the crowd and digging in his bag.
Derek's too busy admiring the way his pants pull tight over his ass to notice anything else. Which is why the squeals and giggles of the kids don't register until Laura kicks his ankle. He turns to her and then to where she's staring.
Which is the magic pair of gloves currently helping each other out of the hat.
Derek's jaw drops. He hadn't seen an assistant come in, but...but clearly there had to be. Right? Only the gloves hop out and sort of float above the table, and...and there's definitely nothing underneath them. They fist bump each other and then one reaches back into the hat while another points a finger gun towards Stiles, who is muttering about his fruitless search. Miming a gunshot, a tiny spark of light zips out of the finger of the glove and hits Stiles in the butt.
Stiles yelps and spins around, but one glove falls into the hat and the other hides behind it.
The kids lose it. They start pointing at the rouge glove, which somehow manages to seem offended that they've given him up. Stiles frowns and stalks around the hat, and the glove hops around to the opposite side every time. Until the second one appears, brandishing a wand triumphantly.
Stiles shouts "Ah-ha!" and snags the glove with the wand, which struggles for all of a second before the second one hops up and tries to help wrestle it free. After a moment they go obediently limp, and Stiles pulls them on. "There, sorry about that. They don't particularly glove this part."
Derek has to bite his lip to keep from laughing with the kids. Laura sighs heavily and glares at him for thinking it was funny.
"Alright, well, looks like they went ahead and found my wand for me." Stiles twirls it expertly. "Let's see, if the old tricks aren't going to work..." He taps his chin with the wand. "Maybe I could find something else in my hat."
"Like a rabbit?" Jace asks excitedly. He's been trying to convince Laura of getting one as a pet, but Laura explained to him how bad of an idea that would really be. But, just like the magician thing, Jace has never let it go.
"A rabbit?" Stiles hums. "I can sure check."
Stiles rounds the table so they can all see the hat and starts to dig. He reaches in up to his elbow and comes out with a headband that has rabbit ears. He frowns. "Well that's not exactly what we wanted, is it?"
"No." all the kids chime, giggling.
"Let me just..." Stiles tosses them aside and reaches back in. This time he comes out with a raggedy stuffed rabbit. He huffs and sets that aside, too. This time, he bends to peer into the hat, and while he does, the rabbit starts wriggling by itself, struggling to stand. The kids gasp and start nudging each other. The rabbit grabs the ears and tries to put them on its head, but they fall off quickly.
Stiles whips up at the sound of the ears hitting the table. The rabbit looks at him. "Oh, for the love of—okay, you." He grabs the rabbit, which then makes grabby hands for the ears. Stiles sighs and picks them up, fighting them on its head.
In a burst of light, the stuffed rabbit turns into a perfect replica of itself, only it's no longer fake. It's a real gray, spotted rabbit.
And still wearing the ears.
Jace squeals, and Stiles smiles when he hands the rabbit over to him. It's obvious in that moment that Stiles has been aware the whole time what's been going on, at least to Derek. He's clearly pleased with himself.
He does a few other tricks, mostly revolving around the hat. He plucks a few peoples' items out of it, including Hope's hair bow and Hanna's phone, which she stopped looking at the moment the gloves started moving. He finishes the show by letting the gloves juggle and throw fruit at him.
Jace gives Stiles the rabbit back after a little bit of cajoling—and the promise of a safe home for him from Stiles—and the magician plucks the ears off him and the rabbit becomes stuffed once more.
Once the applause are over and everyone's running towards the cake, Derek steps over to him. "So is it the hat or you?"
"Me." Stiles answers easily, folding the hat up and waving it at Derek with a smirk before he shoves it into his backpack. "So did you enjoy it?"
"You surprised me."
"Good." Stiles says firmly, looking up and meeting his eyes defiantly.
Derek grins. "I'm Derek. Jace's uncle."
Stiles eyebrows go up. "Uncle, huh? Not dad?"
"No, not dad. I mean," Derek clears his throat uncomfortably. "I am a dad, just not Jace's. Or his brother's. I'm...the girls, the one who's phone you took and the one with the hair bow. And then Haley. She's the middle child."
"I like Batman." Stiles says, eyes glittering a little. When Derek just blinks, Stiles continues. "Your daughter's bow was Batman-themed."
"Oh! Right, yeah, she's all about super heroes." Derek confirms.
Stiles smiles, chin dipping down. It makes Derek's stomach flutter. "So, you're a dad."
"A single dad."
Stiles peeks up at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Well," Stiles shrugs. "I'm a single magician."
"You're not just a magician, though." Derek chuckles.
"Pays the bills." Stiles chirps. "Besides, shouldn't we have dinner before you start asking these kinds of personal questions?"
Derek snorts and crosses his arms. "What makes you think I want to take you to dinner?"
"The same feeling that has me suspecting you'd be missing this after too long." Stiles says, lifting up his phone. Derek blinks at it and then pats his pockets, but it's obviously not there. Because it's in Stiles' hand.
"My number's in it." Stiles tells him, handing it back over with a smile and a wink. Then he's sauntering away, towards Lydia who is waiting patiently with check in hand and impressed smile on her face.
Derek stares after him, at the sure way he walks. He huffs a small laugh and tucks his phone in his pocket. Hanna appears at his side then. "So, are you going to ask him out?" she wonders absently, though Derek can tell she really cares.
"Maybe." Derek answers vaguely. "Would that be okay?"
Hanna considers Stiles, who is now laughing loudly at something Lydia's said. "He's better than most magicians." she settles on with a shrug, but Derek catches her smirk before she walks away.
And as Derek turns back to watch Stiles hand his wand to Jace, who starts jumping up and down and screaming in delight, he's forced to agree.