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The drumsticks click together one, two, three, four, and then Stiles is off, slipping seamlessly into a fill she’s performed hundreds of times before. The beat settles deep in her stomach, the way it has since she started playing the drums as a child, the pounding the one thing that’s remained the same throughout the years, through her mom’s death and her dad’s promotions and her ADHD diagnosis and the pain of living through middle and high school with only one friend.
Now, at eighteen and a few months away from graduating high school, with only a few more friends and no idea what she wants to do with her life, the beat still feels like it’s the only thing keeping her afloat.
She loses herself in it, imagining the music that would twine around the thump of her bass and the sharp sound of her snare and the clash of her cymbal. Her hands, usually so uncertain and spastic when she talks or thinks or breathes, are strong and steady, keeping up the rhythm seamlessly. The rest of her body isn’t so calm, head banging so her long hair falls around her face and her neck gives a little twinge with every beat, eyes closed, lips pursed, entire body moving with the force of her movements, though her legs are still so she can work the bass and hi-hat.
She improvises a little towards the end, eighths and sixteenths on the toms and snare that she thinks sound just a little better than what they’d had before, and finishes off with a few hits to the crash cymbal, so loud that she’s glad she’s wearing headphones. Satisfied with herself, she leaves her eyes closed until the last vibrations fade away from her set.
When she finally looks up, she jumps so violently that she accidentally hits the cymbals again, because the room is suddenly full of people that hadn’t been there when she’d started the fill.
Standing in front of Stiles, lips pursed and arms crossed over her chest, is Lydia. She starts talking, and Stiles takes off her headphones just in time to catch the last part of Lydia’s sentence.
“…not planning on improvising in the show on Friday, are you?” She asks, eyes narrowing.
Stiles gives Lydia a sharp salute with her sticks. “No ma’am,” she says. “Wouldn’t want to give you a heart attack.”
Lydia is the lead singer and rhythmic guitarist of Negative Reciprocal, which Stiles has been drumming for since the middle of sophomore year. Lydia is beautiful, popular, talented, and the world’s biggest control freak, and Stiles spent the first sixteen years of her life uncertain as to whether she wanted Lydia or wanted to be Lydia.
Two years into their friendship, Stiles knows the answer is neither, even though she doesn’t know what she’d do without Lydia in her life.
Lydia huffs, but gives Stiles a smile, and turns back towards the front of the little band room they practice in. It’s barely large enough for the instruments, but every week they manage to fit at least six people into it.
There’s Lydia and Stiles of course, then Allison, their lead guitarist who looks like a Disney princess but plays like Joan Jett; and Erica, the bassist who’d been almost as invisible as Stiles before joining the band and undergoing a black leather and red lipstick makeover.
Besides the band members, there are those that they jokingly call groupies, mainly Allison’s boyfriend and Stiles’s best friend, Scott, and Erica’s boyfriend Boyd, though Lydia’s on-again off-again (and completely douchey) boyfriend Jackson sometimes shows up just to whine and insult everyone but Lydia.
He’s not there today, thank God, and Stiles smiles in greeting at Scott and Boyd, the latter of whom is hefting Erica’s amp.
“Don’t listen to her, Stiles,” Scott says eagerly. “You sounded great!”
Stiles has long since come to terms with the fact that Scott will never know what he’s talking about when it comes to music, no matter how many times Stiles has tried to educate him, but she appreciates his encouragement anyways.
She opens her mouth to thank him, or perhaps make a snarky remark, she’s not sure, when Lydia cuts her off, all business. “So I’ve been doing some research about our competition on Friday,” she begins, and Stiles resists the urge to groan.
This Friday, there’s a battle of the bands, and it’s all Lydia’s been able to talk about for the past few weeks. According to her, it’s their big break – there’ll be record executives and the like there, and Lydia is bound and determined that they’re not going to leave LA without a three-album deal.
Personally, Stiles isn’t so convinced, doesn’t think a high school girl band with a penchant for grunge is exactly what the market is looking for, but she knows better than to argue with Lydia on this point.
“What’d you find out?” Allison asks, sounding genuinely interested.
“Well, most of the bands that are going to be there are super different from us, so they won’t be in direct competition for the execs’ attention,” Lydia says. “But there’s this one group that I’m a little worried about, Hydrogen Jukebox. As far as I can tell, they’re a family band, except for the drummer. They’ve got two guys, but both their singer and lead guitarists are girls, and they’re pretty good.” Lydia pulls out her phone and with a few swipes of her manicured fingers, pulls up a youtube video.
The six of them all crowd around, pushing in a little too close for Stiles’s comfort to see the tiny screen, though the couples seem to relish the chance to get close.
The video’s grainy and obviously unprofessional, but Stiles is captivated right from the get-go. The singer and guitarist are in the front, of course, and both beautiful, the family resemblance between them obvious.
That’s not where Stiles’s eyes are drawn, though. Neither is the drummer, who looks like just a mop of curls over his set, though she’d usually be all for scoping out her competition.
No, Stiles’s eyes are drawn to the bassist, who is easily one of the hottest guys she’s ever seen. Dark hair, stubble, tight tee shirt that shows off the muscles in his chest and shoulders. He’s clutching his bass into his stomach, fingers a blur on the strings and biceps straining. Though the video quality is too poor to really tell, Stiles bets he has beautiful eyes.
She’s struck speechless, something which doesn’t happen to her often, but apparently Erica has been thinking the same thing. “The bassist’s hot,” she says bluntly, seemingly unconcerned that her boyfriend is right next to her. “I’d like to try that instrument out, that’s for sure.”
“Derek Hale,” Lydia says primly, and Stiles tears her eyes away from the god on the mini screen to stare incredulously at her, wondering about her stalking skills. “The lead singer’s Laura Hale, the guitarist Cora Hale, and I don’t think much of their parents’ naming skills. Drummer’s Isaac Lahey, no relation as far as I can tell.”
“You’re not going to try to assassinate them, are you?” Stiles asks. She feels it’s a valid question.
“Leave the bassist alive,” Erica mutters.
Lydia ignores them both. “Of course I’m not going to assassinate them. I think you have to be famous to be assassinated anyway. If I killed them, it would just be murder.”
Stiles gapes.
“Knowledge is power, Stiles,” Lydia says. “Now come on, we have to be perfect if we’re going to beat them. You heard how good they are.”
As everyone makes their way to their instruments, Stiles realizes she hadn’t even registered what they sounded like.
***
Even though Stiles is, technically, an adult, she still has to work pretty hard to convince her dad to let her go to LA. The thing that finally convinces him is the revelation that Scott will be going as well.
Most fathers would blow a gasket if they were told that their teenage daughter was planning on staying in a hotel room with a boy, but Stiles has been having sleepovers with Scott since the tender age of three, and the very idea of anything less-than-platonic developing between them is laughable, even when Scott’s everlasting love for Allison isn’t taken into account.
The Sheriff is less enthused at the rest of the company Stiles will be having: Allison’s family is notoriously pretty crazy, Boyd is large and intimidating, Jackson is a jerk, and he’s met Erica and Lydia, which was an unequivocal disaster.
At the end of the day, though, the Sheriff trusts Stiles, and so Friday morning finds her squashed into the gigantic and slightly sketchy van that Lydia had bullied Jackson into renting.
Jackson had insisted on driving, and, as such, Lydia has shotgun, effortlessly commandeering control of the radio. Stiles, Scott, and Allison are squashed into the middle row of seats, while Erica and Boyd have managed to carve out a bit of space in the back in between the guitars, amps, bass, mics, and drum set.
It’s not, strictly speaking, legal, but Stiles is confident in the ability of every girl but herself to flirt them out of a ticket, and, even if they can’t, Jackson will have no problem paying for it.
She’s brought her iPod, loaded up with music and her state of the art headphones. She’s hoping to lose herself in the music and maybe take a nap, in order to avoid both her own nerves and the couples that are surrounding her. It’s no dice, though, because even before they’re out of Beacon Hills, Lydia has turned around to address all of them.
“Listen up,” she orders. “I’ve downloaded Hydrogen Jukebox’s EP, and we’re going to listen to it the whole way there, get an idea of what we’re up against.”
Jackson groans. “Lydia, it’s a four-hour drive. We can’t listen to the same six songs the whole way there!”
For once, Stiles agrees with him.
Lydia ignores him, though, and merely plugs her phone into the jack that’s clearly a recent addition to the van. As Laura Hale’s strong, sultry voice fills the van, Stiles tries and fails not to think of what her brother had looked like on video.
So you want to be a rock ‘n roll star
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
And take some time and learn how to play
And when your hair’s combed right and your pants fit tight
It’s gonna be alright
See, the thing is that Stiles knows what she’s got to offer. She’s spastic, sarcastic, and talks far too much. She doesn’t understand makeup, and lives in too-large flannel shirts, jeans, and Converse. There’s a reason she’s still a virgin, a reason that no guy (or girl) has even so much as looked at her for her whole life.
Even if she meets this Derek Hale, as Lydia’s obsession indicates she might, there’s no way on earth he’d ever be interested in her.
And besides, who says she even wants him to be? Sure, he’s hot like burning and knows his way around a bass, but it’s not like she had gotten any indication of his actual personality from the performance video. For all she knows, he’s an even bigger jerk than Jackson.
Satisfied that this little crush she’s developed on Derek Hale without even having met him won’t affect their performance or her life, Stiles drops her head on Scott’s shoulder, smiling at Allison where she’s doing the same thing on Scott’s other side, and closes her eyes, letting Laura’s voice lull her to sleep.
What you pay for these riches and fame
Well, it’s all a vicious game
You’re a little insane
And what you get is public acclaim
Don’t forget who you are
You’re a rock ‘n roll star
***
Stiles doesn’t manage to sleep the whole way to LA, but it’s a near thing, and she’s still hovering in that pleasant state between asleep and awake when Jackson throws the van into park and everyone begins to pile out.
It’s a beautiful day, sunny and hot, and Stiles knows she’s going to be dripping in sweat by the time they finish unloading their equipment. Luckily, their set isn’t for several hours, so she’ll have time to shower and change before then, but she’s still not looking forward to it.
As she unfolds herself from the van, she sees a ton of people milling about: tattooed guys with strange colored hair, girls wearing leather with snakebite piercings, people of both sexes with too-long hair and clothing with flowers on them, confused-looking teenagers like them, burly security guards, and some people who look like they belong teaching at Beacon Hills High School, not at a rock festival.
After a few seconds, Stiles realizes that she’s looking around for the members of Hydrogen Jukebox, rising up slightly onto her converse-clad toes and craning her neck over the crowd. She makes herself stop as soon as she notices, but even as she begins to pull pieces of her drum kit out of the back of the van, she can’t stop herself from hoping she’ll see them.
Jackson has pulled up as close to the main stage as possible, and Lydia is talking to an attendant, trying to figure out where they’ll put the equipment, none of which she is actually carrying.
It turns out that there are areas backstage where they can leave it, complete with attendants to watch it so the valuable stuff won’t be stolen.
As they pass through the room, Stiles notices that there are little cards with band names on them, indicating where everyone should keep their things. She barely registers some of the ridiculous band names (Moose Knuckle, really? And she doesn’t even want to know what Drip Slot for Yuck could possibly mean), too busy looking for the one that says ‘Hydrogen Jukebox’.
It’s pathetic and kind of creepy, how invested she is in this, and it’s not until she sees a young woman with familiar red streaks in her hair that she realizes that Hydrogen Jukebox is setting up their equipment right across from Negative Reciprocal.
It’s just her luck, really, and even more just her luck is when Lydia gets this sharp smile on her face and makes a beeline for Cora Hale, tapping her on one exposed shoulder.
Cora turns around, even more beautiful in person than on video, one perfect eyebrow raised.
“Cora Hale,” Lydia says primly, holding out one hand, and Stiles dumps her equipment unceremoniously next to their sign and goes over to try to prevent Lydia from making anyone cry.
She needn’t have worried. Cora just looks at Lydia’s hand scornfully and says “I know what my name is. Who the hell are you?”
To her credit, Lydia doesn’t even flinch at the less-than-polite reception, or at Stiles’s scrambling to come up next to her. “Lydia Martin,” she says. “And this is Stiles Stilinski. We’re from Negative Reciprocal. Y’know, your biggest competition?”
Cora smirks. “If you say so.”
“Be nice, Cora,” another voice admonishes, and Stiles looks up to see Laura Hale striding their way, shadowed by Isaac Lahey, who’s carrying his own drum kit.
“That is nice, for me,” Cora says, but she takes a step back, allowing Laura to take over.
Laura studies them for a moment, Lydia standing tall and proud like a queen and Stiles lurking at her side. “We’ve heard of you,” she says. “You’re pretty good.”
“As are you,” Lydia replies, and Stiles lets out a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding. Getting into a fight with another band because of Lydia’s sense of superiority wasn’t exactly on her to-do list this weekend.
Laura gives a nod, and, finally, a smile. “I’m Laura Hale, though it seems like you already know that. The rude one is my sister, Cora, curls back there is Isaac, and the one that’s lurking to your left is Derek.”
Stiles can’t help her physical reaction to the name Derek, a full body twitch as she whips her head to the side. She vaguely registers that the rest of her friends have come up, and that Lydia is introducing them all to Laura, but she can barely hear anything over the pounding of her blood in her ears, and she doesn’t think she could look away from Derek Hale even if she tried.
The low-res video hadn’t done him anything close to justice. She hadn’t been able to see his cheekbones, then, or register his lips. His eyes, are, just as she suspected, beautiful, the kind of eyes that don’t have a defined color, swirls of blue and green and colors that don’t even have names combining into one.
And, she realizes after a second, he’s staring back at her, but looking more creeped out than admiring.
Stiles feels herself twitch again, feels the blood go from pounding in her ears to pooling in her cheeks with no warning. Another person, a normal person, might look away or stay quiet, but Stiles has never been what anyone can consider normal, and so she blurts the first thing that comes to her head in Derek’s general direction. “So Hydrogen Jukebox, huh? Pretentious much?”
Goddamnit. Looks like Lydia won’t be the one to start the fight after all. Stiles hears Erica stifle a laugh behind her, the bitch, but she’s come this far, so she stands her ground, staring defiantly at Derek even though it kind of makes her want to pass out.
Derek raises one thick eyebrow, just as Stiles registers that everyone else has stopped talking, focusing on them.
“It’s Ginsberg,” Derek says, voice much less gruff than Stiles was expecting. “Howl. And you’re one to talk, your band is named after math.” He’s still staring intensely at Stiles.
“Yeah, gotta say that the origin story doesn’t make it seem any less pretentious,” Stiles says. “Every single hipster in the world quotes Howl, dude, you’re not unique.” She just can’t stop herself, her ordinarily abysmal brain-mouth filter dissolving entirely.
Scott peels himself away from Allison long enough to stand next to Stiles and stomp, in a less-than-subtle manner, on Stiles’s Converse-clad foot.
Surprisingly, though, none of the members of Hydrogen Jukebox look particularly offended, when Stiles tears her eyes away from Derek long enough to look around. Laura is even full-on smiling.
“I like you,” she announces, making it sound like she’s pronouncing the verdict of a long debated case. “Stiles, was it?”
Somehow, Stiles doesn’t buy that Laura has forgotten her name. “That’s what they call me.”
“Well, all of you should come see our set in an hour,” Laura says, and it’s like a spell is broken. All the members of Negative Reciprocal, save for Lydia and Stiles, go back to setting up their things. Isaac’s the only one of Hydrogen Jukebox who moves, though. The other three stay still, Laura and Cora looking amused and inhumanly beautiful, Derek frowning and also looking inhumanly beautiful.
“We’ll be there,” Lydia promises, and Stiles can’t decide if she’s more excited for or dreading it.
***
This particular battle of the bands works like this: each band performs a set the first day, Friday, then all but the best ten are eliminated, and the remaining ten will perform on Saturday, competing for the title of the top band.
As such, though there’s an enormous amount of pressure on them, it’s not as bad as it’s going to be.
The members of Negative Reciprocal get their equipment stored away relatively quickly, and then Lydia insists that they head to the main stage to try to scope out as much of the competition as they can.
Stiles knows that she’s not going to get away with her little show of stupidity in front of Derek Hale for long, and she’s proven right when Lydia turns to her almost as soon as they’re out of earshot of Hydrogen Jukebox. “Do you have something to share with the class, Stiles?” She asks mock-sweetly.
Stiles groans, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about?” she tries.
Erica snorts. “Please, Stilinski, your ladyboner for Derek Hale could be seen from space.”
Scott makes a grossed out noise, but everyone ignores him.
“Ordinarily, I would say no fraternizing with the enemy,” Lydia says breezily, as though that’s a normal thing to say. “In this case, though, I think Hale could do with a little distracting. You have my blessing.”
Stiles gapes at her. “Thanks for the confidence there, Lydia, but I’m pretty sure that he’s not going to be distracted by me.”
“Why would you say that, Stiles?” Allison asks, concerned.
“He has eyes?” Stiles says. “Also ears, and I wasn’t exactly nice to him.”
“Nice is overrated,” Lydia says. “And I think you’re the one in this situation who doesn’t have eyes. Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you?”
“With hatred and disdain?”
Lydia huffs, her customary ‘Stiles is an idiot’ expression crossing her face. “I can’t even deal with you right now,” she decides, moving from Stiles’s side to strut out in front of the rest of them. “Come on.”
When they get to the main stage, there’s already a band playing. They’re pretty shitty, all simple chord progressions and cliché lyrics, and Stiles ignores them in favor of dragging Scott over to one of the hot dog stands. As they walk away, Stiles can see that Lydia has actually pulled out a notebook and is busily scribbling something down about the band on stage.
As they’re waiting in the, frankly, excessive line for hot dogs, Scott turns to Stiles. “You know you’re really pretty, right?” he says. “And if that Derek jerk can’t see it, he doesn’t deserve you.”
This isn’t the kind of friendship Scott and Stiles have, as Scott usually treats her like a guy, but Stiles manages a smirk despite the weirdness. “Right, if he doesn’t want to get all up on this, it’s his problem,” she says, just to humor him.
“I’m serious,” Scott says, catching her arm.
Stiles shakes him off. “Yeah, yeah. I promise I don’t need the pep talk. And if you try to pull any sort of protective asshole thing on him, or anyone else, I’ll kick your ass, alright?”
Scott rolls his eyes, but drops the topic.
By the time they manage to get their hot dogs, Stiles’s loaded up with ketchup, mustard and relish, while Scott’s is depressingly bare, the weirdo, there’s another band on stage, almost finished with their set.
“Eat quickly,” Lydia snaps at them when they come back. “Hydrogen Jukebox is on next, and I want everyone paying attention to every detail.”
Stiles knows better than to point out that everyone could probably perform all of Hydrogen Jukebox’s songs by heart after the ride here, taking a gigantic bite of her topping-laden hot dog to help her keep her mouth shut.
The band on stage finishes up, and the curtain closes for a few moments. The crowd is large, and loud, enough that it’s impossible to hear what’s going on backstage, but Stiles can picture it, has lived through the frantic scramble to get equipment set up as quickly as possible. In short order, the curtain opens again, and Hydrogen Jukebox stands in the middle of the stage, set up perfectly and looking like rock gods.
There is a certain amount of show in the dress that people choose for their concerts, Stiles knows. Hell, she and Lydia have gotten into more than one nasty argument about the fact that Stiles doesn’t dress as sexy as the rest of them on stage (she maintains that since she’ll be sitting down, it doesn’t actually matter what she’s wearing).
This sort of show is not obvious in the way that Hydrogen Jukebox is dressed. All three of the Hale siblings look casual, jeans and t-shirts, though Cora’s clothes are a little tighter and she’s a little more made up than the rest, the red streaks in her hair catching the bright stage lights.
Stiles respects that, respects the fact that they don’t need to distract from their music with gimmicks or overtly sexual dress, and when they strike up their first song, she can see why.
Much like their looks, Hydrogen Jukebox’s sound is so much better live than it was coming through the tinny speakers of Lydia’s iPhone.
The amps are turned up to face-meltingly loud, and Stiles feels Isaac’s drumbeats through her body, as though she’s the one behind the set.
Derek and Cora come in at nearly the same time, the song wonderfully upbeat. She recognizes it as a cover almost instantly, as the original is on her iPod, one of the most played songs, in fact.
And, loathe as she is to ever admit that a cover is better than the original, this is. The original vocals on the track are male, and, nice as they are, they absolutely cannot live up to Laura’s voice.
She makes the song come alive, and the crowd is captivated, hanging onto her every word.
New York is loud
And we’re turning it up tonight
Tonight
They just look like they’re having so much fun onstage, headbanging and getting into it. Laura actually jumps up and down at one point, making the universal ‘pump it up’ motion at the crowd.
It’s organic and honest, and Stiles knows, in this moment, that she will hear Hydrogen Jukebox on the radio one day.
Don’t let the record
Ever stop playing
Tonight.
The rest of Hydrogen Jukebox’s set goes by in a blur, a few original songs that Stiles remembers from the ride up and another cover near the end, but it’s like a switch has flipped in Stiles’s brain. Instead of being impressed, she’s getting worried. Much as she’s tried not to get her hopes up, much as she’s told herself over and over not to expect anything, she does want to win this, wants the glory and the record deal and the rush, and she’s starting to think that they won’t get it, that they might not even make it past the first day.
Judging by the pinched look on Lydia’s face as Hydrogen Jukebox take their last bow, she agrees. Stiles is unsurprised when she inclines her head and leads the rest of their little group away from the stage without a single word.
***
It seems like both a lifetime and a millisecond later that Negative Reciprocal takes the stage.
Stiles sits behind her drums, feeling the sweat trickle down the back of her neck, and regretting the fact that her shower will probably soon be rendered useless.
Like usual, she hasn’t bothered to dress outside her comfort zone, wearing jeans and navy blue Chucks and an oversized flannel shirt. Her hair is in its natural pin-straight state, down and nothing special. She’s made a few concessions, though, allowing Erica to smear a bit of makeup on her face and Lydia to tie her shirt up, exposing her stomach.
She still looks like the ugly duckling of the group compared to the other three. Lydia’s pale pink and floaty miniskirt is set off by a pair of black high-heeled ankle boots and a tight black shirt that shows off an impressive amount of cleavage. Her strawberry blonde hair falls in perfect waves over her shoulders, and her candy-pink lipstick means every eye in the audience will be drawn to her mouth.
Erica, standing to Lydia’s left and a little bit back, has gone all out: black leather jacket and miniskirt, barely there red Lycra top, and knee high black boots. Her hair is wilder than Lydia’s, her curls puffy and almost tangled, as opposed to the sleekness of Lydia’s. Her makeup is almost too dark, but she’ll need it on stage - it makes it easier for everyone in the audience to see every flick of her big brown eyes, every time she gets really into a riff and bites her lip, half in concentration and half in effort to drive all the boys wild.
Allison, to Lydia’s right, is set apart from both of them. Her dress is almost cutesy, floral and a bit longer than Erica or Lydia’s skirts, but the black fishnets and stilettos she wears underneath keep it from being too childish for a rock show. Her shoulders are bared in the spaghetti-strap dress, and her hair is straightened and the top is covered with a purple beanie. She’s wearing even less makeup than Stiles, but it’s not as though she’s ever needed it; she’s the type of girl who looks impossibly perfect just out of bed.
Stiles can hear the audience behind the still-closed curtain, and she consciously slows her breathing so as not to freak out.
Just as the curtain is about to open, Lydia turns around and looks at each one of her band members in turn. “Let’s kill it,” she says, and then the curtains open and they start to play. All of Stiles’s nerves vanish in that one moment. She doesn’t have to come in until the chorus, but she concentrates on Lydia’s voice, on Erica and Allison’s perfect playing.
The lights are out and I barely know you
We’re going up and the place is slowing down
I knew you’d come around.
You captivate me, something about you has got me
I was lonely, now you make me feel alive
Will you be mine tonight?
Then it’s Stiles’s cue to come in, and she doesn’t miss a beat, effortlessly carrying the song as Allison and Erica lean in to sing the backing vocals, fingers still moving lightly over their instruments.
Take me on the floor
I can’t take it any more
I want you, I want you, I want you to show me love.
Just take me on the floor
I can give you more
You kill me, you kill me, you kill me with your touch.
They’re in the zone, sounding better than Stiles could have hoped for, and the crowd is responding, waves of movement in the pulsing lights, screams and cheers, a few people shouting out the lyrics.
Lydia’s voice soars strong over the background noise, and probably would even without the microphone. Stiles can’t see her face, but she can imagine the look on it: the slight quirk of the lips, the sparkling eyes, and the overall sense of superiority that Lydia exudes when she sings.
My heart is racing as you’re moving closer
You take me higher with every breath I take
Would it be wrong to stay?
One look at you and I know what you’re thinking
Time’s a bitch and my heart is sinking down
You turn me inside out
They had started out a little stiff in their motions, though they sound excellent. Now, though, halfway through the song, everyone has loosened up enough to move. Allison bounces up and down on the balls of her feet. She’s turned slightly to the side, and Stiles can see her sharp focus on her guitar, the way that her lower lip is pulled between her teeth as she plays.
Erica doesn’t have the intensity that Allison and Lydia do while on stage. She’s the one that moves the most though, strutting about the stage a little, shaking her hips, throwing winks at the audience, and doing showy tricks with her bass. It shouldn’t work, Erica being so playful in the face of Lydia and Allison’s seriousness, but it does, the incongruity in their behavior, much like that in their clothes, making them interesting.
Lydia doesn’t walk around either, preferring to leave her mic in her stand and lean into it on the particularly forceful notes.
Stiles, in the back, knows that nobody will be watching her, so she lets herself go a little crazy, lets herself get really into the headbanging, lets herself wiggle around a bit on her stool in time to the music.
Take me on the floor
I can’t take it any more
I want you, I want you, I want you to show me love.
Just take me on the floor
I can give you more
You kill me, you kill me, you kill me with your touch.
The bridge is probably Stiles’s favorite part of this song, dark and building with intensity as it goes on. Here is where Lydia can mess around with the vocals, giving little growls and screams to spice it up.
I wanna kiss a girl
I wanna kiss a girl
I wanna kiss a boy
I wanna…
I wanna kiss a girl
I wanna kiss a girl
I wanna kiss a boy
I wanna kiss a…
The music cuts out, allowing Erica and Allison’s background vocals to take over. The crowd seems spellbound, hanging on their every word, which makes it all the more explosive when the instruments come back in.
Take me on the floor
I can’t take it any more
I want you, I want you, I want you to show me love.
Just take me on the floor
I can give you more
You kill me, you kill me, you kill me with your touch.
Take me on the floor
I can’t take it any more
I want you, I want you, I want you to show me love.
Just take me on the floor
I can give you more
You kill me, you kill me, you kill me
Please don’t stop!
As they allow the last note to fade away, the crowd’s applause and cheers are almost overwhelming, rivaling the reception that Hydrogen Jukebox had gotten earlier in the day. Stiles’s face almost hurts from how hard she’s smiling, and even before they get into the rest of the set, she just knows that they’re going to get through.
It’s an amazing feeling.
***
As Negative Reciprocal makes their way off the stage, high on adrenaline and talking over each other in their excitement, Laura Hale melts out of the shadows.
“Guess you guys weren’t kidding when you said that you were our biggest competition,” she says, sounding completely sincere. “We’re having a little get-together in our hotel to celebrate getting through. You guys should come by?”
“How do you know that you’re getting through?” Lydia asks, but the fact that she can’t seem to stop smiling ruins the sort of icy aloofness she’s probably going for. “In fact, how do you know that we’re getting through?”
“We’ve been watching all day,” Laura says. “Trust me, both of us are getting through.” She turns to walk away. “Room 227!” she calls out over her shoulder.
Stiles is glad to have something to look forward to. Already, her adrenaline is beginning to fade and she’s starting to worry about tomorrow. Even if they do get through, and she trusts Laura’s judgment on that, their job is far from over, and suddenly the possibility that nothing will come of this, a possibility that she’d been okay with just a few hours ago, seems unbearable.
Luckily, they were one of the last groups to perform, so they only have about an hour to wait for the announcement of who’s getting through. Stiles’s bandmates, either because they can sense her nervousness or just because they’re a bunch of nosy bitches, seem like they’ll be content to spend that entire hour teasing Stiles about the fact that she’ll be seeing Derek later tonight.
***
When the seven of them spill into Hydrogen Jukebox’s hotel room that night, they’re all vibrating with excitement. Just as Laura had predicted, both groups had gotten through, and it’s easy to believe, now, that something might actually come of this, that this battle of the bands might actually be their big break, just like Lydia had said.
As Laura ushers them in, huge smile on her pretty face, Stiles knows that the bright, shivery feeling throughout her body isn’t just from her happiness at their success. Rather, a great deal of it is due to the man sitting on one of the hotel beds, looking much softer and more approachable than he had earlier and sipping on a can of beer.
Stiles isn’t usually like this. Sure, she recognizes attractive people, and she gets crushes, but she doesn’t usually feel this strongly.
Fuck it. She’s never been one to be a shrinking violet, and she’s not going to start now. It isn’t as if she doesn’t put her foot in it on a daily basis, and she never has to see Derek again if this goes badly. Gathering up all her courage, and sparing a minute to be thankful that she’d washed all her makeup off and changed into cleaner clothes, she goes over and plops on the bed next to Derek, slightly misjudging and ending up much closer to him than she’d planned.
Derek half turns towards her and raises an eyebrow. “If you’re looking for me to provide you with alcohol, the answer is no.”
Stiles scoffs, bristling at how he dismisses her as though she’s a little kid. “Um, excuse you,” she says. “I am eighteen years old, and if we didn’t live in such a fucking puritanical country, I would be perfectly legal right now.”
Derek gives a little smile. “It sounds like you’ve thought about this.”
“I wrote, like, the best paper ever on the drinking age in tenth grade,” Stiles says. “Unfortunately, the teacher didn’t recognize my genius. Something about how the history of the electric chair ‘wasn’t relevant to the topic’.” She rolls her eyes dramatically.
This startles an actual laugh out of Derek, and Stiles is delighted. “So you are capable of emotions!” she crows. “Who would’ve thought, Derek Hale actually laughing.”
“You’ve known me for like five minutes,” Derek points out. “For all you know, I could laugh all the time.”
“Nah, you don’t cultivate a grumpy face like that by smiling all the time,” Stiles says. Her smile only widens when said grumpy look comes back over Derek’s face. “See, there it is!”
There’s a slightly awkward silence after that, which has Stiles desperately casting around for something to say. Sure, she can babble with the best of them, but she wants to say something meaningful, wants to sound smart and funny and cool and not like a kid with a crush.
It’s Derek who breaks the silence. “You guys were really good,” he says, eyes focused on his beer can.
“Thanks for not qualifying that with ‘for a girl band,’” Stiles says, before realizing that it may not be the most gracious way to take a compliment. “You guys were too. Good, I mean.”
“You honestly think that I could belittle female musicians with those two as my sisters?” Derek asks, raising one eyebrow and gesturing over to where Laura and Cora appear to be in a deep and slightly antagonistic conversation with Lydia.
“I guess not,” Stiles replies. “I’m just used to that, I guess? Even from other girls.”
“Yeah, sometimes people make the mistake of talking to me like I’m the most important one in the band,” Derek says. “It’s not a mistake they make twice.”
Stiles barks out a laugh, slowly beginning to feel more comfortable with the conversation. She wishes she had a beer, though, because she’s overly aware of what her hands are doing, even as she clears her throat and brushes some hair off her face.
Derek’s watching her closely. It’s not exactly the heated sort of look that she sees guys give to other girls sometimes, but it’s still kind of thrilling, having all his attention focused on her. “I was just kidding earlier,” he says. “You can have a beer if you want to.” He gestures towards a cooler at the edge of the room.
Stiles brightens. “You really need to work on the whole joking thing, dude,” she calls over her shoulder while she rifles through the cooler, grimacing at the fact that all three of the beers she has to choose from are shitty. She selects one of the least objectionable kind and straightens up to see that Derek is making a face at her back. She sticks her tongue out at him.
Though a large part of her wants to sit back down and continue their conversation, she also wants to talk to other people, so she begins to walk around the room, gestures getting bigger and laughs getting louder as she finishes her first, then her second beer, the taste seeming to get better the more she drinks.
Stiles is halfway through a conversation with Laura about amp brands when someone manages to locate a set of iPod speakers, and music begins to play.
The song has a great beat, and all around Stiles people are getting up to dance. Allison is the first out to the floor, dragging Scott, who, though he has no rhythm whatsoever, is always happy for a chance to be near her. Cora and Isaac are the next two, though Isaac is way more competent than Scott, managing to spin Cora gracefully, albeit in a manner that’s completely not suited for the song. Laura, Lydia, and Erica all go together, Stiles doesn’t know or care where Jackson went, and Boyd is more the type to stand around looking cool and disaffected than dance. Neither Lydia nor Erica seem too bothered by their absence, and Erica in particular seems to take it as an opportunity to dance as provocatively as possible, grinding up on both Lydia and Laura without a care.
This leaves Stiles and Derek as the only two not dancing, and Stiles has drank just enough to be fearless, so she walks over to him, stretching out a hand. “C’mon, grumpy, let’s dance.”
She expects the protest, the “I don’t dance,” that Derek grumbles at her, but she’s a little surprised at the fact that he takes her hand anyway, allowing her to pull him to his feet.
“I don’t either,” Stiles admits as she leads Derek towards the others, trying not to think about the fact that she’s still holding his hand. “At least not in a way that most people would recognize as dancing.”
“You certainly seemed able to dance on stage,” Derek says, and then immediately gets this look on his face like ‘oh shit, I shouldn’t have said that’.
Ordinarily, someone like Derek admitting that he had watched her on stage, what the fuck would be enough to freak Stiles out, but she just feels loose and happy, unable to even blush properly because she’s one of those people who gets a drunk glow if she so much as looks at alcohol. Even if she had been freaking out, she’d have been distracted by Cora, who notices that her brother is standing on the improvised dance floor and whoops loudly.
“Stiles! How’d you manage to get Derek out here?” Cora asks, and even if Stiles hadn’t seen her not-so-discreetly taking sips out of a small flask all night, she would conclude that Cora was drunk.
Derek, who is perfect and therefore does not get drunk glow, visibly blushes and scowls at his sister. “Don’t you have better things to do than tease me?”
“Never!” Cora replies, then thrusts her flask in Stiles’s direction. “Want some?”
And Stiles shouldn’t really, because they’ve got a big day tomorrow and she’s not cute when she’s falling down drunk, but fuck it, it’s a celebration. She takes the flask and downs some of the liquor, grimacing as it burns down her throat, then she turns back to Derek and begins to dance.
It’s not particularly graceful or sexy, she knows, all elbows and knees, but after a moment, Derek starts to dance as well, and he’s not much better.
The liquor from Cora’s flask - rum, she thinks, though she’s not positive - starts to really hit her then, time moving in a strange way and the corners of the room blurring out. What feels like both seconds and hours later, someone turns off the music and Negative Reciprocal and their friends make their stumbling way back to their own hotel rooms.
Stiles can feel Derek’s eyes on her back the whole way out of the room, and she closes her eyes with a smile and lets Scott guide her back. Life is good.
***
“Life sucks,” Stiles groans seven hours later as she drags herself out of bed. She’s got a splitting headache, which will make it distinctly unpleasant to play the drums later, and she’s pretty certain that she made a fool out of herself on the dance floor last night.
“That’s your own fault,” Lydia snaps at her, already dressed and perfectly made up. She tosses a bottle of Advil at Stiles. “Take some of these; we’re on in three hours.”
Stiles, who has like, negative athletic ability, fumbles and drops the bottle, then swears to herself when the noise of it clattering to the floor makes her head throb even more.
“And take a shower,” Lydia adds, making to sweep out of the room. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks, love you too!” Stiles yells at the now-closed door before groaning and dragging herself to the shower.
***
Stiles feels marginally more human by the time she meets up with her friends near the main stage. Unfortunately, the shower, painkillers and coffee she’d had to use to mask her hangover have caused her to be a little late, and Hydrogen Jukebox are already well into their set by the time she makes her way there.
The fact that there are so few bands remaining in the competition means that the nervousness is palpable in the air. Even the concertgoers are more subdued than they had been last night, though it’s certainly possible that they are also hungover.
Hydrogen Jukebox, it appears, have much more material than was on the EP Lydia had downloaded, because Stiles has never heard the song that they’re playing right now. It’s markedly different to their other work, too, much more mellow and understated, as though they’re mirroring the crowd’s mood.
In the middle of the crowd, Lydia is an anomaly, still bouncing up and down impatiently on her toes, completely at odds with the music. “Are you ready?” She asks as Stiles walks up. “We’re on in forty.”
“I know,” Stiles says, nodding a greeting to her friends. Erica, who looks almost as wrecked as Stiles feels, merely groans in return from where she seems to be attempting to catch a nap on Boyd’s shoulder, but the rest of them greet her affably enough.
Hydrogen Jukebox ends their song then, and the area fills with applause. Laura holds a hand up for silence, and Stiles frowns to herself, confused.
“We’ve got one more song for you this weekend,” Laura says. “And we’re gonna do something a little bit different for it.”
With that, she steps away from the mic, and Derek, from his habitual spot lurking in the background with his bass, steps up to it, handing the instrument off to his sister.
“Holy fucking shit,” Stiles says, and she’s relatively certain that her friends have something to say about that, but she’s not listening, too focused on the stage. She’s half-expecting Derek to speak as well, explain the shift a little bit better, but he doesn’t, merely raises the mic the requisite few inches to make up for the difference in his and Laura’s heights.
Cora starts off the song then, the notes of her guitar so soft that they almost sound acoustic. Laura comes in next with the bass, handling the instrument just as well as Derek does.
Then Derek’s vocals come in and Stiles doesn’t even register the music any more,
Go on and close the curtains
'Cause all we need is candlelight
You and me, and a bottle of wine
To hold you tonight
His voice is softer and sweeter than what one might expect from someone who looks like he does, but it fits the song, and the fact that he’s unpolished, has just a little bit of roughness to him, only adds to the impression.
It’s absolutely devastating, and that’s not even counting the actual lyrics.
Well we know I'm going away
And how I wish - I wish it weren't so
So take this wine and drink with me
And let's delay our misery
Stiles knows, logically, that this song cannot be about her, must have been written ages ago to get to the point where it was performance ready. Chances are, Derek’s not even thinking about her right now, not thinking about the sloppy girl who spent all last night hanging off of him. If Derek’s thinking of anyone at all, he’s likely thinking of someone beautiful and calm, someone like Allison, maybe.
Or maybe he’s not even thinking of a person at all, merely getting into the performance. Stiles finds that hard to believe, though. She’s too far away to really see Derek’s eyes, that swirl of color that she’d stared into last night, but she can imagine how they must look, the intensity in them.
Stiles is spellbound, to the point that when Isaac, who has been quiet the entire song, comes in on background vocals, she’s shocked and even a little disgruntled, despite how well his and Derek’s voices mix together.
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
The chorus is simple, Isaac’s and Derek’s voices entwining, with just a little bit of support from Laura to add richness, but Stiles is still glad when it goes back to the verse, when it goes back to just Derek singing.
There's a log on the fire
And it burns like me for you
Tomorrow comes with one desire
To take me away
Derek looks to be scanning the crowd, gaining confidence as the song goes on. Where he had started out soft, even more softly than the song really requires, he’s now building in volume, taking a few more risks with the vocals.
The shock of Derek’s voice has begun to wear off of Stiles a little, though she’s still enthralled, and she registers that the crowd is no longer as silent as it was at the beginning of the song. There are loud cheers, wolf-whistles, increasing in volume and frequency along with Derek’s confidence. Stiles may be completely irrational over this whole Derek thing, completely letting her crush get the better of her, but at least these cheers don’t make her angry. Derek’s hot, and he sounds amazing, and a little smile is growing on his face the longer he goes on, and Stiles cannot possibly begrudge him any of this, cannot possibly fault other people, both the men and the women, from the sound of it, for expressing their appreciation.
It ain't easy to say good-bye
Darlin' please, don't start to cry
'Cause girl you know I've got to go
And Lord I wish it wasn't so
Erica lets out a particularly loud whoop to Stiles’s right, and Stiles looks away from the stage for the first time in what feels like hours, only to find that most of her friends are staring directly at her. Allison has dimpled up and is clasping her hands over her mouth in a futile attempt to hide her smile. Scott, at her elbow, is smiling brightly at Stiles as well, and altogether it is entirely too much for Stiles to handle, so she makes a face at them and turns back to the stage, just in time to catch the chorus again.
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
This time around, she’s able to appreciate the lush harmonies a little bit better, but it’s a short-lived appreciation, because Derek starts vocalizing in this gorgeous falsetto.
Tomorrow comes to take me away
I wish that I, that I could stay
But girl you know I've got to go
And Lord I wish wasn't so
The music gets, if possible, more stripped-down during the bridge of the song, and there’s a split second, in the pause before all four members of Hydrogen Jukebox pick up the final chorus, that Stiles could swear her eyes met Derek’s.
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Save tonight and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow - tomorrow I'll be gone
Stiles is expecting the applause when the song ends, but it still almost knocks her off her feet: it’s deafening, especially when Erica puts her fingers to her mouth and gives a piercing whistle right in Stiles’s ear.
Before the applause can even end, Stiles, who’s still a little bit stunned from the whole experience, feels an iron grip clasp around her wrist and pull her forward. She knows instantly that it’s Lydia, because this is far from the first time she’s had this experience, but she’s a little confused, because it can’t possibly be time for them to set up yet – there’s still one more act before them.
When Stiles turns her head in order to exchange a look with Scott, she gets even more confused, because none of the rest of the band are following them, still standing in the crowd and a good twenty feet behind Stiles and Lydia at this point, because Lydia can haul ass even in six-inch heels.
“What the hell--” Stiles begins, but it appears that Lydia’s in one of her moods, because she cuts Stiles right off.
“Look, I know that you’re committed to this whole ‘I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love’ thing,” Lydia says. “But you are going to be there when Derek gets off stage, and that’s final.”
Sure enough, they’re heading in the general direction of backstage, and Stiles immediately begins trying to twist her way out of Lydia’s grip, because what.
Lydia digs her hot pink nails into Stiles’s wrist, hard enough to hurt. “Don’t even try it, Stilinski,” she says. “I don’t know if you missed it, but that boy was practically singing his heart out to you. You’re not gonna mess this up, not while I’m around.”
Stiles doesn’t even really register her words, instead beginning to seriously consider gnawing off her own arm in order to escape from Lydia.
It’s too late though, and Lydia brings her right to the stage door just as Laura, beautiful and exuberant and slightly sweaty, comes through it. Stiles stops struggling, not wanting to make this any more embarrassing than it needs to be, and Laura’s face instantly lights up.
“Stiles!” she says, coming around to grip the upper part of the arm that Lydia’s not holding. Her nails are much shorter than Lydia’s, and not painted, but Stiles has no illusions about the fact that Laura could hurt her just as much as Lydia if she tried. “Come with me.”
Her tone leaves no room for argument, and Stiles vaguely wonders if she’s going to spend the majority of her life being dragged around against her will by beautiful yet terrifying women.
All signs point to yes.
Any hope that Stiles might have had that Laura wasn’t about to lead her straight to Derek are summarily destroyed when she’s steered to the backstage area where Hydrogen Jukebox are taking care of their equipment. Cora and Isaac are both in the room, but they seem to melt out of the room as soon as they register Stiles, although Cora, looking much better than someone who’d drank as much as she had the night before really should, gives her a smirk before she goes.
Derek turns around, and he and Stiles lock eyes for a long moment. Stiles vaguely registers Laura leaving as well, so it’s just she and Derek in the room. Derek looks a little uncomfortable, and for the first time, Stiles lets herself consider the idea that her friends might be right, that Derek might be interested.
“You sounded really good,” she says, regretting it as soon as it comes out of her mouth. God, could she sound any more inane?
“Thanks,” Derek says stiffly.
Stiles thinks that the two of them may have stood there staring at each other for eternity were it not for Lydia, who had apparently seen fit to follow them.
“Jesus Christ, just kiss already!” she shouts, and Stiles isn’t able to control the blush that spreads over her cheeks in response. Her gaze has fallen firmly towards the floor, but she musters up the courage to look back up at Derek, simultaneously curious as to what she might find there, and dreading it.
Derek’s blushing too, a fetching shade of pink spreading over his sharp cheekbones, and that color only darkens as Stiles looks up at him through her eyelashes. The curiosity suddenly outweighing the desperation, Stiles deliberately bites her lip, watching as Derek’s eyes track the movement.
“Oh my God, you do want me,” Stiles realizes, and when Derek’s only response is to look down, chastised, and blush a little harder, Stiles suddenly cannot stand that she is not in his arms.
She crosses the room as quickly as she can, almost tripping over her own feet. Derek clearly isn’t expecting her, so his arms, which are crossed over his chest in a defensive posture, don’t come up to catch her, and she ends up running into them and bouncing off.
It’s a little awkward, as most things involving Stiles are, but Derek gets with the program rather quickly, uncrossing his arms to wind them around her waist and pull her close.
Stiles has always been tall for a girl, which she usually finds awkward, but as her mouth meets Derek’s, she finds that she likes the fact that she doesn’t have to strain up to meet him, doesn’t have to go up on her tiptoes or tilt her head back.
His lips are just as soft as they look, just as nice to kiss, and Stiles isn’t even bothered by the hooting and carrying-on in the background from what sounds like all of her friends, as well as Derek’s.
She does have a reputation to maintain, after all.
Derek pulls away before the kiss can get really good, and Stiles is about to complain, but as the general sounds of the venue return to her, as she hears the band that’s on stage now, she remembers what she’s here for, remembers that even a kiss from objectively the hottest guy she’s ever seen can’t distract her from the competition.
Reluctantly, she pulls away fully, and she can see from Derek’s eyes that he understands why.
“I’ll see you after your set?” he asks softly. It’s obviously only meant for Stiles, but the proximity of their friends means that they all hear his words as well, and that sets off a fresh round of catcalls.
Stiles ignores them, just leans in to peck Derek’s lips again, because now that she’s allowed to, it’s all she really wants to do.
“Yeah,” she says, giving him a smile, and then she turns back around to where the rest of her band is waiting. “Let’s do this shit.”
***
They get on stage and Stiles is buzzing, so high on both Derek and the joy of performing that she doesn’t even take a second to be nervous. The first few songs of their set pass in a blur, the instruments and vocals thrumming through her body as she wails on her drums, the sticks almost like an extension of her arms.
They’re supposed to do a Tegan and Sara cover for their last song, which is something Stiles was emphatically against. It’s a great song, but she tends to think it’s a bit too slow-paced for a final song. She’d been solidly voted down, though, which is why she’s so surprised when the other members of the band turn to her instead of going straight into “Guilty as Charged.”
“What?” she mouths in Lydia’s general direction, even though she’s too far away from the mic for her voice to be picked up.
Lydia actually switches off the mic before walking back to Stiles’s drum set. The crowd is starting to make noise, unsure as to whether or not they’re done, and Stiles hisses out “Lydia, what the hell?”
“Change of plans,” Lydia says in an undertone, her back turned to the audience so that they couldn’t tell what the discussion was about. “We decided while you were busy sucking face with Hale.”
“And you didn’t see fit to tell me until right now?” Stiles asks, shooting Allison and Erica betrayed looks over Lydia’s shoulder. Allison has the grace to look sheepish, but Erica, unsurprisingly, just blows her a kiss.
“We didn’t want you to try and wiggle out of it,” Lydia says, and Stiles gets a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “We’re doing “Lonely Boy.’”
“No fucking way,” is Stiles’s immediate response. “Lonely Boy” is a cover that they’ve been working on ever since Lydia had walked in on Stiles practicing it by herself, singing her heart out while she kept the beat on her drums. Lydia had instantly decided that the song needed to be included in their repertoire, a fact that Stiles would normally be all for, because she loves her some Black Keys and tends to think that they need to go a little rockier with their song choices anyway. Thing is, Lydia had insisted that if they were going to do the song, it was Stiles who should sing it, and the other girls had just backed her up. There’s a reason that Lydia is the singer of the group and that Stiles sits in the back on her drums, and Stiles has staunchly refused to change the status quo. “I can’t sing that, Lydia,” she says, slightly panicked.
Lydia just smiles. “Right now, I think that you could do anything you wanted,” she says, and, as usual, she’s right. They’re on the stage at the finals of a competition, and they need to do something to stand out, especially after Hydrogen Jukebox’s performance, and the best way to do that is to switch things up.
Fuck it. “Fine, get me the mic,” Stiles says, consciously working to keep her breathing under control. The sick feeling in her stomach has let up a little, only to be replaced by butterflies.
Lydia runs back up to the mic, conscious of how long they’ve kept the audience waiting. Switching the mic back on with a flick of her finger, she yells into it, “Do you guys want to hear something a little different?” Her voice sounds kind of rough, something that Stiles hadn’t noticed during the earlier songs, and this fact only strengthens her resolve. Stiles knows that her voice can’t hold a candle to Lydia’s at full strength, but if Lydia’s flagging, then she needs someone to take over, and they haven’t practiced any songs with Erica or Allison on vocals.
The audience gives an earsplitting cheer at Lydia’s words, and while they’re waiting for the noise to die down, Lydia brings the mic stand back towards Stiles, keeping the mic for herself to finish her introduction. “For this song, we’re going to have our very own Stiles Stilinski on vocals…” Another pause for cheers, and Stiles salutes the audience with one of her sticks, smiling sheepishly but buoyed by the attention. “...And you’ll probably recognize the song, so feel free to sing along!”
Introduction finished, Lydia pops the mic back into the stand, pushing it close enough that Stiles can adjust it herself. She does so, making sure it’s at just the right height to pick up her voice but not her drums, as Lydia moves off to the side of the stage a bit, leaving Stiles right in the audience’s sightline.
There’s a momentary pause while Stiles finishes getting mentally prepared, and then she taps out the intro, one, two, three, four, and Allison comes in seamlessly, the first few bars of the song showcasing her before Stiles comes in, picking up the beat and providing the tempo for Lydia and Erica, who come in with the instantly recognizable melody. The crowd’s reaction is instantaneous, and Stiles knows that this would have been the right choice regardless of whether or not Lydia’s voice was flagging; she cannot imagine “Guilty as Charged” getting this kind of reaction.
She takes a deep breath, and lets her worries melt away as she comes in on vocals, strong and clear, while her hands and feet keep up the beat effortlessly.
Well I'm so above you
and it's plain to see
but I came to love you anyway...
So you pulled my heart out and I don't mind bleedin'
any old time you keep me waiting, waiting, waiting
It’s usually a male vocal, which is good for Stiles, since her voice is pretty low for a girl. Even with her newfound confidence, Stiles is grateful when it comes to the chorus, because that’s when she gets the support of all the other band members in the background.
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
I'm a lonely boy, I'm a lonely boy
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
It wouldn’t sound as good if it were only women on the chorus, which is why it’s such a relief that the audience seems to have taken Lydia’s advice and are belting out the words as well. They’re quieter than Stiles, Lydia, Erica, and Allison, of course, without the support of the mics that are all over the stage, but they provide just enough variety to add to the chorus.
While they’re singing along, the audience is also dancing, throwing their hands up in the air and jumping up and down, grinding on each other. It’s not like the audience doesn’t do that type of thing on their other songs, but it’s as though Stiles is so much more connected to them when singing than when she’s just drumming, their increased focus on her causing her to increase her own focus on them.
It’s intoxicating, really, the attention, and Stiles can see why Lydia revels in it so much, is so much more driven than the rest of them. Most of it is her type-A personality, sure, but Stiles is realizing that there’s something special about being the singer, a certain give-and-take with the audience that she’s not used to.
Well your mama kept you
but your daddy left you
and I shoulda' done you just the same
but I came to love you, am I going to bleed?
any old time you keep me waiting, waiting, waiting
This is kind of the perfect song to ease Stiles into singing, because there are so few vocals that feature only her, with the majority of the song being repetitions of the chorus. Stiles is much more confident on the second verse than the verse, holding her head up high and allowing Erica’s guitar playing, the dirty little riffs that make up the song, to take her over. Erica shoots a look back at her, her red, red lips pulled back into an exhilarated smile, and Stiles thinks that there’s nowhere she’d rather be than right here, doing just this.
Sure, this whole thing with Derek makes her incredibly happy, but the music will always be her first love. She has the sneaking suspicion that this feeling is something Derek will be able to understand, though, and that choosing between him and performing won’t be an issue.
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
I'm a lonely boy, I'm a lonely boy
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
They’re nearing the end of the song now, one more repetition of the chorus to go, and Stiles almost doesn’t want it to end. She loves this part, though, loves Erica’s guitar solo, how she really goes wild with it. It causes the audience to shift their attention from Stiles for the first time since the song started, but she doesn’t really mind, loves to share in this feeling with three of her best friends in the entire world. As Stiles lets out little background vocalizations, trying her best to sound like a female Dan Auerbach, she looks around at Allison and Lydia.
Allison’s intense and concentrated, because this song is so bass-heavy, but she spares a moment to dimple up at Stiles excitedly.
Lydia, though, looks immensely proud. As someone who takes her position as alpha female and leader of the band very seriously, Lydia doesn’t often let her emotions show through, preferring to keep any vulnerability hidden. She gives Stiles a real smile, face sweet and open, and Stiles feels like her heart is full to bursting as Erica’s solo ends and they go into the final chorus.
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
I'm a lonely boy, I'm a lonely boy
oh oh oh oh, I got a love that keeps me waiting
The song ends, and there’s not even a pause before the crowd breaks into applause, almost as though they had started before the song even finished. It’s all a blur to Stiles as she stands up to take her bow with the rest of the band, taking another one on her own afterwards at Lydia’s assistance.
As she comes off stage, she sees the rest of her friends just out of the audience’s sight. Scott’s bouncing up and down on his toes, shouting his head off, eyes not drifting away from Stiles to focus on Allison even once as he draws her into a hug, still shouting so loudly it makes Stiles’s ears ring.
Stiles hugs him back without reserve, because however much she loves the band, however much they can relate to her feelings on performing, Scott is, and will always be, her best friend in the entire world.
Boyd hugs her next, much more calmly, but his voice is warm when he says, “Good job,” in her ear, having to lean down ridiculously far to accomplish it.
Jackson doesn’t hug her, because that would be just too fucking weird for everyone involved, but there is, for once, no trace of disdain in his eyes as he gives her a nod.
Stiles stumbles out into the hallway as their roadies go on stage to take their equipment down, her cheeks aching from smiling so hard and the adrenaline still pumping through her body, making it even more difficult for her to stand still than usual.
“Stiles!” someone else cries, and then Laura Hale is there, sweeping her up into another hug, one that’s so enthusiastic that she’s lifted off her feet a little. “I didn’t know you could sing!” she sounds ecstatic as she pulls back to look Stiles in the face, no trace of jealousy or bitterness in her face.
“Not as well as you or Lydia,” Stiles demurs.
Cora, who has been following Laura at a much more sedate pace, scoffs as she throws an arm over Stiles’s shoulders and squeezes her tightly. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “You sounded great.”
“Thanks,” Stiles says with a breathless laugh as she hugs Isaac as well, despite the fact that she’s never spoken more than two words to him.
She barely has time to wonder where Derek is before he’s just there, and there’s no trace of hesitation as he comes right up to her, pulling her into a kiss that she can’t help but laugh into. “You were fucking amazing,” he says as he pulls back, no trace of insincerity on his face, and Stiles realizes that no matter how this competition turns out, no matter if they win or not, it’s going to change her entire life.
***
It’s midterm break of Stiles’s first semester of college, and the first time she’s been home in almost two months.
Strange as it had been, adjusting to living away from Beacon Hills, it’s almost as weird to come back. She’s excited, though, can’t wait to see her dad, her friends, and Derek.
Ever since winning the battle of the bands competition where Derek and Stiles had met, Hydrogen Jukebox have been touring the U.S. It’s hardly a stadium tour, but they’re playing venues that have featured in Stiles’s daydreams for years, and she’s bursting with pride for Derek, for all of them, even though she misses Derek like crazy while he’s away.
Laura had told her in a series of teasing text messages that Derek had all but insisted that they be in California for Stiles’s first break, something which Stiles has used against Derek almost daily since.
She and her friends are all squeezed into her ancient Jeep as they make their way to where the Hales and Isaac are staying while in town, a disgustingly expensive mansion in the woods that is apparently “in their family,” whatever the hell that means.
Negative Reciprocal hasn’t stopped, exactly, because Stiles thinks that they’ll be playing for the rest of their lives, rocking the nursing home well into their eighties, but it’s difficult to keep up while the four members are all at different colleges. This hasn’t seemed to dissuade Lydia, however, who has already scheduled a ridiculous number of practices over the five-day break, and constantly spams Stiles’s e-mail with performance opportunities.
Stiles and Scott are fake-fighting over something when they pull up to the house, and all eight of them spill out of the car laughing and joking. Even Jackson seems lighthearted.
As they go up the steps and knock on the front door, Stiles can hear the strains of music coming from inside, and she can’t stop the sappy smile from spreading over her face at the idea that they can’t seem to go one day without playing, even though they’ve been touring for months now.
The door is opened by a smiling Isaac, who greets them all and then says, “They’re in the living room,” to Stiles, pointing her in the right direction.
Stiles bounds into the room to see Hydrogen Jukebox all set up, with an empty drum set in the back. Derek comes up to her and kisses her, just once, and then says “Play with us?” because he knows how much she’s missed playing as much as she used to in college. She can’t exactly fit a drum set into her tiny dorm room, and even if she could, she has the distinct feeling that her roommate would not be too pleased about it.
Stiles kisses him once more before going over to the set, sitting down and snapping Isaac’s headphones over her ears with practiced ease.
Everyone seems to be deferring song selection to Stiles, and she barely has to think for a minute before she knows exactly what she wants to play. “Such Great Heights?” she asks, and even though it’s a song with plenty of electronic elements that they can’t really reproduce with the equipment they have, Derek just nods and gives her that little smile that seems to be just for her.
Derek starts off with his bass mimicking the beginning of the song, and just after Stiles comes in, Derek leans in and begins to sing.
I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images and when
We kiss they're perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate
That God himself did make
Us into corresponding shapes
Like puzzle pieces from the clay...