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Derek was more than halfway done with shelving the new shipment of Young Adult fantasy novels by the time Stiles finally breezed through the door, signaling his late arrival with the dull jingling of the bell. He wasn’t even in his work clothes yet, and Derek noted with disdain the streaks of mud that covered Stiles from head to toe.
“You’re more than an hour late,” Derek stated, more of a fact than an admonishment. Stiles was not only the boss’ kid, he was a snarky, arrogant teenage boy with an abundance of confidence, and Derek could rarely muster the nerve to stand up to him, regardless of his position as manager.
“Good thing this’ll just be our little secret, then,” Stiles quipped over his shoulder as he headed towards the back of the store, nimbly ducking behind the register and beginning to rummage around beneath it. Derek was going to say something this time. He really was. It was two days before Christmas, they were hosting a benefit party tomorrow night for the sheriff’s department, and Claudia had made it explicitly clear that no employee, regardless of their blood relation to her, could get away with being late.
Derek put down the box of what was likely yet another round of badly-written vampire erotica and pushed his glasses up his nose, steeling himself for the confrontation. When he turned around, though, he was faced with the sight of Stiles pulling his lacrosse jersey over his head, putting his disgustingly attractive naked torso on display. Derek stopped dead in his tracks and full-on gaped, before remembering that there were other people in the store and he really had to do a better job of hiding his impossibly pathetic crush.
“Um, could you do that in the employee bathroom, uh, please?” Derek managed to choke out. Stiles just slipped his gray polo over his head and grinned at Derek, running a hand through his hair and checking his reflection in the glass of the display case.
“Nah, it’s way too much fun making you squirm,” Stiles winked at Derek before jumping back over the counter and going off to do... whatever he was supposed to be doing an hour and thirteen minutes ago. Derek had no idea why Stiles had made it his personal mission in life to make him miserable, all he knew was that he was doing a pretty damn good job of it.
Derek had always been shy, he couldn’t help it, and guys like Stiles had terrified and fascinated him his entire life. The way Stiles was able to charm every person he came in contact with, never getting nervous or being intimidated by anyone, it seemed almost impossible to Derek, who had luckily grown out of his physically awkward stage in college but had held on to his social awkwardness well into his mid-twenties.
Working at Claudia’s Corner and getting to be around books every day of the week had been a dream come true for Derek, but the day Claudia had introduced him to her cocky, captain-of-the-lacrosse-team son, that had all changed. Derek fell for Stiles the moment he saw him, which had complicated his life in a not so small way. He was also about 90% sure Stiles knew about his technically illegal feelings, which was not only humiliating but also gave Stiles even more ammunition for his endless antagonization.
Derek was grateful for the fact that Stiles would be graduating in a few short months and hopefully moving away, if he had even gotten into any colleges. Stiles was a self-professed meathead who had probably never cracked a book in his entire life, and despite his stingingly quick wit Derek was pretty sure he was a straight-D student. Sometimes Derek had no idea why he loved him so much.
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Five hours into a nine hour shift and Derek was happily occupied with creating the “Books We Love This Month” display for January, listening to Erica and Isaac’s chatter about the latest Vince Vaughn movie in the background. He was almost done making his selections when something caught his eye from the Classics section. At first he thought someone had put a toy from the children’s section on the shelf, but when he got closer to it he saw that it was an old leather-bound book adorned with a bow that looked like it had been folded by hand from a page of a book.
Derek stared down at the book skeptically, not sure where it was meant to go or who had put it there. He turned it over and saw that there was a note stuck to the back cover, scribbled almost illegibly on a snowflake-shaped post-it note.
Derek,
Hope you like this, I know you have a thing for 18th century French literature.
--- Your Secret Santa ;)
“Erica, can you come over here please?” Derek shouted over his shoulder in her general direction. She took her sweet time making her way through the rows of shelves, and when she finally sauntered up in front of him, she popped her gum obnoxiously loud and stared at him expectantly, no hint of recognition in her face when her eyes darted down towards the book in Derek’s hands.
“What’s up, bossman?”
“Did you, um, leave this here for me?” Derek held up the mysterious gift, putting the post-it note on display. Erica leaned down to inspect it, and when her lips curled into a smirk Derek thought for sure that he had caught her red handed.
“Derek, sweetie, it’s adorable that you think I care so much, but I didn’t do it. But it looks like whoever did has the serious hots for you,” Erica still looked like she was struggling to hold in her laughter, and Derek scowled at her before snatching the book back and clutching it to his chest.
“Why would you think that?” Derek lowered his voice to a whisper, just in case Stiles was nearby enough to hear what they were talking about.
“A winky face says a thousand words, Der,” Erica did laugh then, before turning on her heel and going back to rejoin Isaac in the Crime & Mystery section.
Derek was really at a loss now. He could only think of one other possible option, and he knew he’d be more humiliated than relieved if he turned out to be right. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and reluctantly hit the “3” on his speed dial.
“Hey baby bro! What possible reason could you have to be calling me during your shift? That’s not very manager-ly of you,” Derek took full advantage of the fact that his sister couldn’t see his face by rolling his eyes and breathing out a frustrated sigh. Laura got nearly insufferable around the holidays.
“I was hoping you’d confess to sneaking in here and leaving me a fake Secret Santa present. It’s not funny, by the way,” Derek huffed. He could see Stiles on the other side of the store, helping a little old lady pick out gift wrapping. He momentarily forgot how angry he was at Laura. Stiles was laughing at something the woman had said, and his nose was doing the adorable crinkly thing that made Derek’s stomach twist into knots.
“Someone gave you a secret present! That’s so sweet! Do you know who it was?” All of a sudden Derek remembered why he was mad.
“Do I know who- Laura, were you not listening? No, I don’t know who it was! I thought it was you! Never mind, I’ll see you at the party tomorrow night. Goodbye,” Derek pushed the disconnect button with a bit more force than was entirely necessary before shoving his phone back in his pocket.
He couldn’t waste any more time wondering about the identity of his… secret admirer? Derek wasn’t sure what to think of them as, but he had a party to help prepare for and they were understaffed, so he had no choice but to stuff the book in his employee cubby and try to forget about it for the time being.
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He had been running around all evening in dress pants and a too-tight button down, serving hors d'oeuvres and awkwardly fielding questions from wealthy, intimidating strangers about how the store was doing. Every square inch of the store was draped in tinsel and nearly every Christmas song under the sun had played over the course of the night, and Stiles was wearing a tie. Overall, it had been a stressful couple of hours.
Derek couldn’t manage to sneak away to the back room until after 10, when Sheriff Stilinski was making his big speech thanking everyone for attending. Derek just needed to recharge his proverbial batteries for a few minutes after being surrounded by so many people all night.
In contrast with the bright lights and aggressively festive decorations of the store, the back room was an instant solace. Derek wasn’t even sure what they kept in all of these cardboard boxes, but he figured now was as good a time as any to find out. He assumed it was mostly unpopular books Claudia had never been able to sell, but it could probably also just be boxes of paperwork. Either way, mindlessly sorting through them sounded more appealing to Derek than going back out there and having to endure another hour of aimless chatter and deviled eggs.
Derek made his way carefully towards the back of the room, maneuvering around the stacks of boxes that were piled four or five high, careful not to send them tumbling down in a commotion that would surely attract the attention of everyone at the party.
He was in the middle of brushing the thick layer of dust off of one of the boxes when he noticed the pieces of notebook paper taped to the wall. He had to step over a few more inconveniently placed boxes to get close enough to see what was written on them, and when he did, his heart all but sputtered to a stop. It was the exact same chicken scratch handwriting that he’d found on his post-it note. He ripped the first piece off the wall and brought it up to eye level. Even with his recently updated glasses prescription, his eyes were having trouble making out what was written on the page. He waited another couple of seconds for his pupils to finish adjusting to the dim lighting of the room before taking another look.
The top of the page had “Books Read in 2013” written across it, followed by a list of barely decipherable titles that had Derek once again raising his thick eyebrows in surprise. Whoever was keeping this list had been tackling some seriously heavy stuff, everything from The Waste Land to Foucault’s Pendulum. As an English major and literature enthusiast, Derek was thoroughly impressed.
He ripped another sheet from the wall to see what else this person had been reading, but the lettering on this one was too cramped to make out. All Derek could see was a tiny note scribbled in the margins that looked like... “remember to ask mom about getting the 14th off for practice”.
Derek dropped the paper like he had been burned. Stiles? Stiles was the one who’d left him a first edition copy of his favorite book, and who’d written a winky face on the note, and who was apparently not just a pretty face but actually incredibly intelligent? Derek was sure that this was a cruel joke, now. There was just no way-
Derek’s head shot up when the door to the back room was flung open and Stiles came barreling through it, slamming it shut behind him and leaning against it, panting with exertion.
“Um,” Derek said, staring like a deer in headlights, which was kind of his default setting when it came to Stiles.
“Oh, hey man, are you hiding from my great aunt Mildred too?” Stiles asked, looking for a moment like he thought that might be a reasonable thing for Derek to be doing.
“Uh, no. Kind of hiding from everyone, actually. Parties stress me out,” Derek said, averting his eyes and choosing to focus on the water stain on the ground near his left shoe.
Stiles made a quiet noise of acknowledgment before wandering further into the room, before his eyes fell on the papers at Derek’s feet and he froze. Derek normally wouldn’t say anything, but his curiosity was burning a giant hole in his gut, and he had to know what the point of this elaborate joke was.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” he mumbled, nudging the pages with his toe. Stiles didn’t say anything, but he looked irritated now, almost defensive.
“Yeah, well, I knew you wanted that dumb book really bad and I found it in my attic and I didn’t want it anyway, so,” it was difficult to tell, but Derek thought Stiles might have been blushing. That was... weird.
“Uh, well, thanks, I guess. I still don’t get why you did it, though. Don’t you resent my entire existence?” Derek wanted to clap a hand over his own mouth to keep himself from saying anything else. They were in dangerous territory, and Derek realized too late that he wouldn’t be able to handle hearing Stiles actually say how much he detested him.
Stiles just snorted and rolled his eyes at him. Derek braced for the insult.
“Haven’t you ever heard of pigtail pulling, dude?” Derek let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“What?” Derek may have had a master’s degree but in that moment he felt like his brain had been turned to mush. When Stiles started walking towards him he had to fight the urge to run, too many emotions sloshing around inside him at once. Stiles was right in front of him now, and he still had that infuriating grin on his lips.
“I kind of like you, dumbass. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one,” Stiles said, finally having the decency to look at least a fraction of as nervous as Derek felt.
Derek was still too stuck in the idea that this was all just Stiles’ idea of a hilarious joke, so he shot back with, “You’re the one reading Joyce and Faulkner, I think you’re a little bit smarter than you like to admit.” Stiles shrugged in response.
“Bad for the street cred if people know I’m brilliant,” Stiles smiled, and at such close proximity it was almost too much for Derek to bear. He felt tears welling up behind his eyes, and he tried to shove Stiles away without causing an avalanche of boxes to go crashing to the floor.
“This isn’t funny, Stiles. Can you just leave me alone, for once, I can’t-“ Stiles surprised him by grabbing Derek by the shoulders and holding him in place, staring aggressively into his eyes.
“You’re such an idiot, my God. Do you seriously not know how fucking gorgeous you are? How smart? Funny? Anything?” Derek’s heart was pounding and Stiles was somehow still moving closer to him. He hoped Stiles couldn’t hear just how loudly his heart was hammering against his ribs.
Stiles clearly didn’t feel like waiting for an answer to any of his questions. He put both hands flat against Derek’s chest and shoved him backwards, firmly enough that Derek was forced to move, but not enough that he fell over.
Stiles was so close that Derek could feel his hot breath against his cheek, and he was still too overwhelmed to do anything but lean against him, motionless. Derek thought this may have been the strangest practical joke of all time, until Stiles fisted his hands in Derek’s collar and pulled his mouth flush against his. Okay, maybe not a joke, then, after all. Wow.
Derek made a strangled grunting noise of surprise before Stiles deepened the kiss, nipping at his bottom lip and then diving back in for more. Derek had been kissed before, but never before had a reasonably chaste brushing of lips made him feel like he was going to explode into a million pieces. When Stiles pulled away, they were both out of breath, and Stiles’ lips were even pinker than usual. Stiles finally dropped his hands from Derek’s shirt and stepped back, reaching out to brush an unruly piece of Derek’s hair from his forehead before walking towards the door.
He spun around before he got to the exit, though, and smiled bigger than Derek had ever seen before.
“Merry Christmas, Derek Hale. Enjoy that book, by the way. I found page 239 to be especially... illuminating,” he said before yanking the door open and bathing the room in shocking brightness for a fleeting moment, and then he was gone.
Derek was considering changing his stance on Christmas parties. They might just be his new favorite thing.
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But now his little cousins were playing with their new toys on the rug by the fire, and his dad and uncle were engrossed in the football game in the other room, so he finally had time to read and revel in everything that had happened.
He held his breath as he turned to the infamous page, and his first instinct was to be offended that Stiles would use a highlighter in such an old and valuable book. But then he started reading the passage, and he felt warmth wash over him from head to toe.
“Now, I'm not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it. I didn't understand what was happening to me. And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me: I was in love, for the first time in my life. I knew it was hopeless, but that didn't matter to me. And it's not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave. I'll do anything you say.”
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