Title: A Simple Life
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Categories: AU, fox!Stiles, werewolves shift into actual wolves, romance (no bestiality)
Length: Medium (13,720)
Warnings: Mention of past death of Laura. Offscreen minor character death: Peter

Author on LJ: NA
Author Website: Survivah

Author's Summary: Derek plans to spend the rest of his life holed up in the woods after Laura dies. Then he meets a stubborn young fox, and the stubborn young fox meets an urn of Deaton's magic powder, and his plans change.

Review:
Stiles makes for a charismatic and adorable fox, but to me the heart of this story is the way his exuberance and straight forward joy transforms Derek's grief and loneliness.

I love the dialogue (both silent and spoken aloud), the forest imagery, the magic realism, Derek's solitude, Stiles' slow transformation from actual fox to much more, and the resulting changes in the way he and Derek relate to one another. The characterizations are great, and even when he's still strictly a fox, Stiles' enthusiastic affection wears away at Derek's stoic self-exile. I like pretty much everything about this, and I've read it more than once. It's got loss and love and honesty; it's well written, and it's a great balance between melancholy and funny moments.

A Simple Life (AO3)
On FFn