Title: Spark, Smolder, Catch
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Categories: First time
Length: Long (18,347 words)
Warnings: None

Author on LJ:  qthelights
Author Website:  AO3

Summary: When Stiles starts pulling down Derek's burnt-out house, Derek finds himself letting him. He doesn't know why.

Wherein Stiles and Derek are both broken and doing more damage might just be what they both need to move on.

Review: In "Spark, Smolder, Catch," qthelights delivers some of the best Derek characterization I've read. At the end of season two, Derek is clinging as much to his isolation and misery as to the burnt-out shell of his family home. When Stiles begins to tear down the old Hale house, Derek reacts first with anger, then with carefully unexamined acceptance, trying not to think about why he's helping Stiles dismantle the most tangible sign of his loss.

Despite his initial reluctance to examine his own motives too deeply, this Derek is self-aware in a way that really resonates with me. qthelights does an amazing job of using the setting to convey the emotion rather than lingering too deeply in introspection. The prose in this story is exquisite, atmospheric and often melancholy, but with a quiet current of hope flowing just below the surface. It is the perfect story to read with a cup of tea on a drizzly day. There is something cathartic in it, like exhaling when you've been holding your breath far too long. Whenever two broken characters find a way to help each other heal, I am 100% on board, and this is one of my favorite stories of the type. It's basically slash therapy.

Spark, Smolder, Catch