Archive of Our Own

“You want to what?”

Stiles nearly tripped over the strap of his dance bag before he managed to snatch it up and follow his best friend out of their dorm room. Scott pulled his viola case out of the way just in time for Stiles to careen into place beside him with the ease of practice, but at least he had the good grace to look apologetic when he repeated himself.

“I want to work with Allison for end-of-year projects.”

Stiles almost tripped again out of sheer disbelief.

“Scott, we’ve always worked together. We’ve done projects together every year since we were eleven.”

“Exactly!” Scott said. “Don’t you think it’s time for us to—to broaden our horizons a bit? Get some experience with people who aren’t each other? We won’t always be together after we graduate, you know.”

“But—” Stiles didn’t actually have an argument to counter that considering Scott was right, but he also knew Scott and he was pretty damn sure that wasn’t his real reason. “It’s just because she’s your girlfriend, isn’t it?”

Scott stopped at the end of the hall outside the cafeteria to turn and look at Stiles with wide, earnestly pleading eyes. “She’s a recent transfer,” he said. “She doesn’t know anyone else from the music school.”

Stiles spluttered indignantly. “And I do?”

“Sure you do!” Scott said. “What about Danny?”

“Playing for Lydia.”

“Well, what about Boyd?”

“Playing for Erica.”

Scott frowned. “Corey?”

“Playing for—” Stiles cursed internally. “Okay, he’s not teamed up with anyone yet but, dude, there’s a reason for that. He’s always behind the beat no matter what the tempo is, and I cannot handle that.”

Scott cringed but didn’t try to argue in Corey’s defense. He started walking again, leading the way through the throngs of other students to get in line for breakfast. Most people fell back to give them some space, well acquainted with Stiles’ tendency to gesticulate in unexpected directions, but Scott didn’t seem to notice. He just grabbed them both trays and smiled at the lunch lady like this was a normal morning and he wasn’t ruining his best friend’s life.

“There’s gotta be someone left,” he said.

“Uh, it’s a little late in the game, Scott,” Stiles pointed out, which was both true and not true. The deadline for project partnerships was still two weeks away, but no one ever waited that long. Joining up early gave them all more time to work on the project that would determine whether or not they moved on in the program or, as was the case for him this year, graduated from it. “Everyone worth working with is already paired up.”

“That can’t possibly be true!” Scott insisted, and Stiles had to resist the urge to bash him over the head with a tray; sometimes his optimism was refreshing, but other times it was just infuriating and totally worth dumping his newly begotten scrambled eggs on the floor.

“Scott—”

“Ooh, I know! What about Derek?”

Stiles stopped moving abruptly enough that the girl behind him in line actually ran into him with a squawk of protest.

“Derek?” he repeated blankly. “You mean, Derek Hale?”

“Yeah,” Scott said, tugging Stiles through the rest of the line and toward a table. Stiles dropped his tray and his bag, swung himself down onto the bench, and continued to stare at Scott in bafflement.

“Dude, that guy never plays for anyone but his sister,” he said. “Everybody knows that.”

“Dude,” Scott echoed him in the same matter-of-fact tone, “Laura graduated last year. He has to play for someone else now. Why can’t it be you?”

“Uh, maybe because he looks like he wants to tear me in half and step on my spleen?” Stiles hissed. “Or maybe stab me in the eye with his bow?”

“Bows are not made for stabbing,” Scott said disapprovingly. “You’d never get the blood out of the hair.”

“That is so not the point,” Stiles moaned, letting his head fall forward until it thumped down on the table. “The point is, you’re trying to get me killed. That guy would kill me. And I can’t pass this project if I’m dead, Scott.”

“I really don’t think he would kill you,” Scott said, in a much too reasonable tone of voice that meant he absolutely was not taking this whole situation as seriously as Stiles thought was warranted. “At least, not just for asking. The least you can do is ask. He needs a partner for his project too, you know. Maybe he’s having just as much trouble finding someone new.”

Stiles highly doubted that. Derek Hale was a phenomenal musician, for one thing. The sounds he could coax out of his violin were enough to make angels cry. There was no one in the entire school of dance who wouldn’t want to dance for him. And, on a much more superficial level, the guy was also phenomenally attractive, one of those people with a perfectly symmetrical face and stubble that looked airbrushed on. The only reason Derek Hale didn’t have people vying for his patronage every minute of every day was that they had all known for years how loyal he was to his sister. With her gone, though, he probably had people beating down his door.

“Scott, putting aside how ludicrous it is to think that someone like that guy would deign to team up with little ol’ me,” Stiles said, “there is absolutely no way he doesn’t already have a partner lined up.”

“No,” Scott said, drawing out the vowel thoughtfully. “I’m, like, eighty-four percent sure he’s available.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes and stabbed his fork in Scott’s direction. “You just made that up.”

“All statistics are made up,” Scott told him cheerfully. “Doesn’t make them wrong.”

“Do you listen to yourself when you say things?” Stiles asked, deadpan. “Because I’m really starting to question.”

“Ask him.”

Scott picked up his tray and viola, gave Stiles another completely unrepentant and unsympathetic grin, and promptly moved off to the crowded table across the way where Allison was beckoning to him. Coincidentally, in his path was the table with Derek Hale.

He was sitting alone, as he usually was, looking perfectly content to eat his cereal without having his solitude sullied by obnoxious intruders like Stiles.

But Stiles needed a partner. He needed an original composition as accompaniment for his dance. He needed it soon if he expected to actually graduate from the academy and join a decent dance company and have a shot at the career he had dreamed about having his whole life. And unless he wanted to work with chronically back-beating Corey, he didn’t really have any other options available to him.

Derek didn’t look up from his breakfast when Stiles came to a stop in front of his table. Stiles had to clear his throat to get the guy’s attention, and even then he didn’t look thrilled about being interrupted.

“What?” was apparently what Derek Hale thought was a polite way to start a conversation. Stiles almost turned around right then and resigned himself to two months of counting out loud and hoping Corey was in the same time signature. Instead he took a deep breath, fixed what he hoped was a friendly smile on his face, and took the plunge.

“Uh, hey,” he said, probably too brightly, which was a great start. “Derek, right? You’re Derek. So, uh, look. I need a partner. You also need a partner. Well, I guess I don’t really know for sure that you do, but your sister isn’t here and I figured you might need someone else. I guess, I mean, I just figured I would’ve heard if you had gotten someone else, but maybe not, I mean, I don’t know your life and—”

“You want to do end-of-year projects,” Derek said, cutting him off with a much more succinct way of putting it. “With me.”

Stiles swallowed hard; the look on Derek’s face was not an encouraging one, but he had made it this far, so he said, “Yes.”

“Why?” Derek asked, so flatly the word barely even qualified as interrogatory in nature.

“Because you’re super talented,” Stiles said. That earned him absolutely no reaction whatsoever so he decided that, for once, honesty might be the best policy. “And also because my usual partner ditched me and everyone else is already paired up.”

Okay, maybe it wasn’t the best policy, judging by the way Derek’s usual vaguely displeased expression morphed into something much more actively angry-looking. Stiles tensed up from head to toe, preparing to chassé his way out of danger as quickly as possible, but Derek made no move to eat him alive. Instead he just shoved his breakfast tray away, snatched up his violin case, and practically growled, “Fine.”

Derek was already halfway to the cafeteria door by the time that one little word registered in Stiles’ brain. Made brave by utter disbelief, Stiles raced after him.

“Wait, what? Seriously? Did you just say—”

“I said fine,” Derek snapped without slowing down. “Don’t make me regret it.”

He was out the door in two seconds flat, leaving Stiles staring after him and wondering what the everloving fuck he had just gotten himself into. From a few tables over, Scott waved at Stiles and gave him a thumbs up. Stiles flipped him off.

Derek let his bow glide across the strings, the lightest of touches that sent gentle vibrations through his fingers, across his wrist, up his arm. The melody was a simple one that came to him as easy as breathing, the result of years and years of practice. With his eyes closed like this, he felt almost like the music came from all around him, like it bypassed his body entirely to emerge from the air itself, it was so effortless.

“That’s not your exercises.”

Derek’s bow faltered with an out of tune squawk that his teachers would be ashamed of. Biting back a frown of annoyance, he turned to see Kira leaning in the doorway that had definitely been closed a minute ago, the hulking form of her upright bass leaned up against the wall in its battered case.

He laid his bow down on the velvet lining of his own much smaller case, fully aware that he wasn’t likely to get anything else done, and said, “You know, practice rooms are generally meant for privacy.”

“I think they’re really just for practicing,” she said. “Nothing about privacy in the definition.”

“It’s implied.”

“Was that the Neverland Medley you were playing?” Kira asked, completely disregarding the also implied request that she leave him in peace. She sat herself down on top of the one music stand in the room that was immovably rusted in a completely useless position for actually holding music because she was light enough to get away with doing that and said, “You only play old Kenny Loggins lullabies when you’re stressed. Why are you stressed?”

Derek wanted to say that he was just overworked, behind on his practice hours, struggling with a difficult passage, but Kira looked so earnest and concerned. Also a little shrewd under all that niceness. She knew him too well to let him get away with lying, so he slumped into the only actual chair in the small room with a sigh and laid his violin across his lap.

“I got a project partner,” Derek told her shortly.

Kira’s face brightened considerably, and then it fell as she extrapolated that that was apparently distressing to him somehow.

“Oh!” she said. “Who is it?”

Derek chewed on his tongue for a long moment before he could bring himself to say, “Stiles.”

“Stilinski?” Now she just looked confused. “Isn’t he that super talented one you’ve been crushing on for, like, ever? Shouldn’t this be a good thing?”

“I’m not crushing on him,” Derek said immediately. “He’s just a really amazing dancer. I know how difficult it is to do the kind of things he does and make them look so easy, that’s all.”

“You mean, the same stuff all the male dancers do?” Kira asked, eyebrow raised.

“He does it better,” Derek insisted through gritted teeth.

“You should be really excited about the chance to collaborate with him then,” Kira said. “So why the comfort song?”

“Because I’m a last resort!” he bit out, unable to hold back the bitter thought that had been bouncing around his chest for the last hour. “He only asked me because he ran out of other options, and he didn’t exactly look enthused by the prospect either.”

“Why not?” Kira asked, sounding heartwarmingly offended on his behalf. “You’re the best violinist in the whole school!”

Some of Derek’s aggravation bled out of him. He let out a weak laugh. “I don’t know about that,” he said, “but I appreciate your support.”

“Well, it’s true,” she said staunchly. “And if that Stilinski guy doesn’t realize how amazing you are, then he’s clearly tone deaf. He is beyond privileged to have the chance to work with you. He’ll realize that soon.”

“Thanks, Kira,” Derek said, smiling at her despite the urge he still had to snatch up his bow and bury himself in the soothing soundtrack of his childhood. “It’ll be fine. It’s just one project anyway. A few weeks, one performance. We’ll get through it and then we’ll part ways and he’ll never have to put up with me again.”

Stiles scoffed and closed out the email before tossing his phone back into his bag. As far as pseudo-professional correspondences went, he had never received one so brusque. At least, not from someone his age. There wasn’t a smiley face or an LOL to be seen anywhere. For a millennial, that was practically rude! And presumptive too, assuming that Stiles had time in his busy schedule for that. Maybe he had something planned that evening for 8pm, did Derek think of that? No, of course not.

A tug on the bottom of his sweatpants dragged Stiles’ attention down to Erica, splayed out on the wood floor and already halfway through her warm up stretches.

“Grab my foot and tell me what that face is for,” she demanded.

Stiles obediently leaned down to cup her heel in his palm and lift her front leg off the floor, hyper-extending her split and letting her sink down into it.

“Derek Hale is an ass,” he informed her.

“That the super hot violinist who never talks to anyone?” she asked.

“Yes,” Stiles said, “and apparently we should all be more grateful for his habitual silence because, let me tell you, as soon as he opens his mouth he becomes far less attractive.”

“Boyd likes him,” Erica said.

“Boyd doesn’t have to do final projects with him.”

“You’re doing projects with Derek Hale?” Lydia asked, one graceful arm coming into view over Stiles’ shoulder as she stretched, holding onto the barre and bent backwards at the waist. “Congratulations on your upcoming award-winning collaboration.”

“I think it’s more likely we’ll kill each other by the end of the week,” Stiles said. He would’ve said more on the subject—maybe tell them how Derek had practically summoned him or how his pretty face didn’t make up for rudeness like that—but Madame Morrell clapped her hands and called everyone to center.

As one of the few men in the class, it was pretty typical for Stiles to get passed around the room when they practiced lifts or other partner work. By now he was intimately acquainted with every girl at his level, not in the sexy way but in the “I have had your sweaty armpit in my face and you’ve had my hand on your ass for hours at a time” sort of way. They were all very comfortable with each other by necessity.

Except, of course, for Allison, who hadn’t been attending the academy since she was eight years old like most of the rest of them had. Not to say that she wasn’t a beautiful dancer, because she never would’ve been accepted as such a late transfer if she hadn’t been, or that she wasn’t a cool person, because Stiles never would have let Scott date her if she wasn’t. She was just relatively new and things were still a little awkward.

It was twice as awkward as usual today when Morrell led Allison into Stiles’ arms, walked them through the combination, and left them alone to practice.

Between attempts four and five, Allison paused to say, “Are you mad at me?”

“No, of course not,” Stiles said, mostly sincere.

Allison bit her lip, tucking a stubbornly flyaway hair back into her bun. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Because you looked pretty upset this morning. I didn’t mean to, like, poach your partner or something. When I asked Scott to work with me, I didn’t know he usua—”

“Scott can work with anyone he wants to,” Stiles said firmly.

Then he gestured for her to back up and make the jump again. She did, her hips colliding hard with his hands. She got most of the way up this time before overbalancing and beginning to tip. Stiles caught her on the way down, tucking and twisting so she still landed mostly on her feet. She groaned in frustration but patted his arm anyway.

“So,” she said brightly. “You’re working with Derek Hale then? He’s first chair, isn’t he?” She was obviously hoping that he was pleased with the arrangement so she wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about stealing Scott out from under him.

“Yeah, he is,” Stiles said and left it at that. It was better than admitting that Derek clearly hated him and this project would probably flunk him out of the academy and ruin his life. “Come on, try it again, for Scott’s sake. Take it from me, you’re gonna have to look really good to make a viola solo worth listening to.”

Derek had picked out one of the joint dance and music practice rooms for this meeting for Stiles’ sake, just in case he had ideas already in mind for the kind of dance he wanted to do, moves to showcase, things to demonstrate. The onus of the storytelling was mostly on his end, after all, though Derek would be the one composing the piece itself. Derek didn’t have his violin with him tonight, though there was a piano at the far side of the room if he wanted to plunk out an idea or two for a melody. This was just meant to be a preliminary brainstorm.

At least, it would be if Stiles showed up at all. Considering it was now six minutes past eight and Stiles wasn’t here yet, that apparently wasn’t a guarantee. Maybe he hadn’t even gotten the email; he had never responded to confirm. Or maybe he just blew it off and would email back tomorrow with some bullshit excuse. Derek knew Stiles didn’t want to partner with him but he had thought Stiles would suck it up and put in the work anyway. He had tried to set a professional tone in his email, at least, all official business.

Just when he had almost decided to give up and go back to his dorm to listen to Boyd wax poetic about Erica’s form, the door came bursting open and Stiles tumbled through. He was still in what was probably his rehearsal attire, loose sweatpants with elastic at the ankles and a ratty white-ish t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he panted. “Got a pas de deux with Heather, had to finish up a few things.” He tossed his dance bag down on the floor and collapsed on the piano bench. “Couldn’t possibly have picked a harder to find room further from where I was either, so thanks for that.”

Derek crossed his arms and said, “You’re welcome,” through gritted teeth because he’d picked this room to be fucking thoughtful. It wasn’t as if he’d known where Stiles would be coming from anyway.

Stiles rolled his eyes expansively which, in Derek’s opinion, was as far from professional as it was possible to get.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, quiet enough that he probably thought Derek wasn’t going to hear it. He pushed himself to his feet again, held out his arms, and said, “You’ve got ideas. Hit me.”

“Who said I had ideas?” Derek said, eyebrow raised. “You’re the one telling the visual story. You should be the one with ideas.”

“Well, you’re the one who wanted to ‘discuss’,” Stiles said, complete with mocking finger quotes. “So sue me for assuming you actually had something to talk about.”

Derek fought the urge to throw his hands up and just walk out then and there. This was infuriating; how had he ever thought Stiles was worth admiring?

“So are you telling me you don’t have any idea what you want to do?” he demanded instead. “Because if you don’t, then I’m just gonna start writing and you can work with whatever I give you.”

Stiles opened his mouth to say something—probably something very uncomplimentary judging by the look on his face—and immediately closed it. He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute and when he opened them again he was, if not calmer, then more contained.

“Yes, in fact, I do know what I would like to do,” he said steadily. “You know why? Because I’ve been imagining it since the day I first heard about this assignment. My final project is kind of my dream, as well as the biggest factor in determining the rest of my life from this point. So if you could maybe—”

“It’s all of that for me too, in case you’ve forgotten,” Derek put in. “So I’d like to get to work, if you don’t mind.”

Stiles made a noise of aggravation that Derek wholeheartedly agreed with and then bit out, “Fine.” He took a moment to pace before he held his hands out to the sides.

“Okay, so,” he started. “The concept I’ve got in my head is, like… There’s this Romantic ideal about, like, the self, you know? Like, the essential self, right?”

“The self, right,” Derek echoed blankly.

“Right, so... and you can’t tell anyone what it is.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t,” Stiles insisted. “Like, you can try all you want, but you can’t ever really express your truest inner mechanisms, or whatever. No one can communicate that.”

“You certainly can’t,” Derek said dryly.

Stiles made another of those noises, almost a strangled scream, and said, “Jesus, you know, Scott would know exactly what I mean.”

“Well, Scott ditched you,” Derek snapped.

Stiles stared at him, mouth hanging open, and then his eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Yeah, he did,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. What about you, Derek? Why’d you end up so late in the game with no partner? Could it possibly be because you’re such an ass that no one is willing to put up with you unless you’re related? God, I pity Laura if this is what she had to deal with every year.”

“Shut up about my sister,” Derek growled, fingertips digging into his own biceps with how hard he was fighting not to throw a punch. “And for your information, I had other options. I still have other options, so if this is such a miserable fucking prospect for you, then go find someone else to dance for. I certainly won’t stop you.”

Stiles was out the door in an instant, ramming into Derek with his dance bag as he stormed past. Derek stared after him for a long moment, fuming, berating himself for ever even considering the possibility that this could work out. He should’ve known better, should’ve remembered that he always fell for terrible people, but he’d let himself think that maybe Stiles would warm up to him despite his initial misgivings. He should’ve fucking known better.

He hurt his toe kicking the wall. He kicked it again anyway just for good measure, and then slumped down against it to sit on the floor, letting his head fall back with a thump.

The worst part was that Stiles wasn’t even wrong. Derek had lied when he’d said he had other offers. Now he had none, and it was entirely his own fault.

Derek Hale was the biggest asshole to ever asshole and fuck that guy. Stiles would dance a cappella before he voluntarily set foot in the same room as that jerk again. So what if it completely screwed his chances of being recruited to literally any reputable dance company in the country? It would be worth it.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t quite worth that. But Stiles still had time before the deadline to find someone else to play for him. At this point, Corey wasn’t looking like such a bad prospect. Stiles was a great dancer! He could totally compensate for Corey’s lag and make up for it with technical skill and artistic vision and pull out something amazing!

Okay, no, goddamn it, he couldn’t do that. Corey would fuck him over big time and also drive him around the bend. He needed someone who was actually up to his standards. Just as long as that person wasn’t—

“Have you seen Derek?”

It was Kira, her bass case at her side standing taller than her by a good bit. Not that that had ever stopped her from hauling it all over the place like it was no heavier than a flute. That girl was stronger than she looked.

“What about Derek?” Stiles asked, still caught up in his anger enough to be a little slow on the uptake.

“You were meeting him, weren’t you?” she asked. “To work on final projects? I didn’t know when you guys would be finished, but Derek promised to facetime my little cousin tonight and play her favorite song for her. He’s her favorite person in the world, and he learned it special for her birthday.”

Stiles blinked at her for a minute while those words worked their way into his brain. The image was both adorable and incongruous compared to the interactions Stiles had had with him so far. He hadn’t seemed like the “goes out of his way to play songs for little kids on their birthdays” kind of guy.

“Uh, yeah,” he said finally because, as pissed as he was at Derek, he couldn’t possibly say no to Kira’s hopeful face or leave a little girl waiting on her birthday. “He’s in room 19. We’re done.”

Kira obviously didn’t hear the undertone of finality in Stiles’ voice, the implication of done forever, game over, everybody go home. She just smiled at him, said, “Thanks!” and headed past him down the hallway. She turned around before she reached the corner though.

“You guys are gonna be great,” she said brightly. “I mean, you’re both amazingly talented, obviously. Derek’s always said you were the best dancer in the company. He’s really excited to work with you, and I know you two are gonna create something really special.”

It was a damn good thing Kira didn’t wait for a response before rounding the corner because Stiles had absolutely no idea what to say to any of that.

This was a bad idea, Derek knew that. The last meeting had gone terribly; clearly they were unable to work together in a civil and productive manner. It would be best for both of them if they just found other people to partner up with.

But Stiles had sent him an email last night, long after Derek had been in bed, apologizing for being a dick and asking if they could still move forward as a team. Well, not quite in so many words, but that was the gist of it. Derek had stared at the email for half an hour the next morning, overanalyzing like a champ until he was almost late to his first lesson and trying to decide if it was worth it to give this another go.

On the one hand, Stiles was a phenomenal dancer and any project he was a part of was guaranteed to be high quality and earn them both a good grade. On the other hand, working with Stiles so far was aggravating enough that it might actually kill him. On the metaphorical third hand, Derek literally had no alternative options at this point with practically everyone else already partnered up.

They had to try again, no matter how disastrously the last attempt had gone. After having a night to cool down, it was painfully obvious to Derek that neither of them had exactly been at their best the night before, but that didn’t mean anything in the long run. It was a rocky start, yes, but surely they could do better with a little time to get used to each other. Surely, if they put in a bit more effort, everything would be great!

Or maybe he was just weak where Stiles was concerned. For years he had found every excuse to watch Stiles dance, to see him move so gracefully and paint such a vivid picture with nothing but his body. It was a beautiful thing. Derek couldn’t give up the chance to be a part of that so easily.

So he had emailed back in the affirmative and now he was back in that same practice room, once again waiting for Stiles to arrive. His violin sat in his lap, more for his own comfort than because he really expected to play it, and he fiddled with the clasp as an alternative to pacing. He refused to pace.

This time Stiles wasn’t late. He didn’t throw his bag down either, holding onto the strap over his shoulder instead as he hovered just inside the door and shifted from foot to foot. He looked almost as uncomfortable as Derek felt.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Derek responded.

Stiles released his hold on his bag to clap his hands together. “Okay!” he said. “So, take two on this whole...thing. Maybe we should focus on the practical bits for the time being and hope the artistic vision follows. Sound good?”

“Sounds better than yesterday,” Derek said dryly. As if anything short of an all out brawl could be worse than yesterday.

“Okay, well, um...I’d like to have a chance to show off both slow and fast, if possible,” Stiles put forward. “So a piece with contrasting movements maybe?”

Some of the tension in Derek left him; that was something concrete he could work with. It wasn’t much, but it was a place to start. “A sonata or a rondo then,” he said. “Which do you want to start and end with?”

“Is it cliche to say slow?” Stiles asked. “Ramp up and then wind back down?”

Derek managed to smile a bit. “It’s only a cliche because it works. Builds tension automatically to increase tempo.”

“Cool, cool,” Stiles said, nodding a truly unnecessary amount of times. “So...thoughts on meter?”

Stiles had to dig around in his dance bag for a solid two minutes before he could get a hold of his headphones, but he needed them if he was going to hear anything over the babble of the cafeteria. He plugged in to his phone and pulled up the audio file.

True to the email, it was just a few minutes’ worth of short phrases played with the smooth, pure tone of Derek’s violin and, in Stiles’ opinion, it was downright rude that this guy could make even sound bytes so freaking evocative. Stiles had to stop when he realized halfway through that he wasn’t actually listening to the notes or anything, too caught up in savoring the timbre of it.

Once he’d finished having his moment, he restarted the file and listened to it a few times through, closing his eyes and trying to really focus, to connect and visualize and whatnot. A few of the tunes were catchy, but he didn’t think that was quite what they were going for. The third one had promise, at least for the more upbeat movement. The second to last one though, that one tugged at a heartstring.

Stiles was just contemplating sending a return email that was sure to be full of his completely useless attempts to transcribe his thoughts and opinions when a tray plonked down on the table next to his and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Jeez, Scott, can you not with the scaring the hell out of me?” Stiles sighed as he tugged one earbud out and waggled it in the air. “We’ve talked about this, pal. Headphones in means gentle nudges.”

“How’s it going with Derek?” Scott asked, completely ignoring the rebuke as per usual. Allison, Erica, and Lydia followed in his wake, settling down on the other side of the table from them with their own trays.

Stiles pulled his own tray closer to him, remembering now that he actually had food that he’d abandoned in favor of Derek’s email. He shoveled a few forkfuls of egg into his mouth before answering just out of spite for the eager, gossipy looks on all his friends’ faces.

“Dude, it’s been like one day,” he said finally.

“And you were complaining about him as early as four hours in,” Lydia pointed out. “So I figure by the twenty-four hour mark, there should be something really interesting.”

“There’s nothing interesting,” Stiles insisted. “He’s kind of a dick, but he’s a great violinist and also my only option.”

“And super fucking hot,” Erica put in, oh so helpfully. “That’s gotta be a plus.” She was looking over Stiles’ shoulder with an expression on her face that made him a little bit uncomfortable with how lustfully appreciative it was, and he was willing to bet she had Derek in her line of sight.

“No, Erica, that is not a plus,” Stiles said.

She nodded sympathetically. “Mm, I get that. That face is distracting. I couldn’t focus on choreo and proper technique with that face nearby either.”

“Oh god, no, that is not—” Stiles stopped himself by shoving more scrambled eggs in his mouth. “I just mean,” he tried again, “the guy’s face, attractive or otherwise, has no bearing on our working relationship.”

“So there’s a relationship now?” Lydia asked immediately. “Interesting.”

Stiles contemplated dropping out of the academy entirely and going into a solitary profession, like carpentry, or goat herding. He dropped his head onto the table with a thunk instead, very nearly face-planting into his toast in the process.

“Leave him alone!” Allison said. Stiles knew there was a reason he liked her. “I’m sure their project is gonna turn out great, and that’s all that matters.”

“Yeah, of course,” Scott said bracingly. “Have you started working on it for real yet? Did you tell him about your vision and stuff?”

Stiles’ appetite disappeared again. He shoved his tray away and propped his head on crossed arms instead.

“He doesn’t get it, Scott,” he said, trying not to sound pouty and probably ending up somewhere around sulky instead. Of course, either of those was better than sounding as heartbroken as he’d been the night before, so he supposed he couldn’t complain too much. “I tried to explain it and he had absolutely no clue what I was saying.”

“What vision?” Allison asked.

“Stiles has had a vision for his final project since, like, birth,” Erica told her. “He has, at least once, referred to it as his ‘heart-dance’.”

“You know, like the heart-song from that tap-dancing penguin movie,” Scott said. “That perfect dance that encapsulates who he is as a person and what he wants to say to the world. His true self, brought forth for the world to see, in dance form!”

“Yeah, well, it’s been fun to imagine,” Stiles grumbled, “but it’s a lot harder to make into reality. Especially if your composer has no idea what you mean and you’re utterly incapable of explaining it.”

“But then, that’s kinda the point, isn’t it? That it’s an unexplainable concept?” Scott said. Then he frowned. “Oh. Yeah, I see the problem here.”

“See, you get it!” Stiles cried, waving wildly. “You already know what I mean! I’ve spent literal years getting you to understand! I wouldn’t be having this problem if I was just working with you!”

Scott’s face fell and so did Allison’s. They shared an overwhelmingly guilty, heartbroken look, and Stiles knew without a shred of doubt that they were about to offer to switch partners, to let Stiles work with Scott and make Allison partner up with Derek in his place. And that was ideal, wasn’t it? That was exactly what Stiles wanted, to do projects the way he always had, with his best friend who knew him better than anyone in the world. And that way Derek could work with someone more articulate and agreeable than him. It was a win-win.

But that motif, the second to last one in Derek’s audio file, floated through his mind, just as achingly bittersweet as the first four times he’d heard it. And he couldn’t.

Stiles let out a gusty breath, dropping his arms back onto the table and hoping with every fiber of his being that he was not screwing himself over as he said, “No, don’t. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Scott asked, all big distressed puppy eyes. “This is, like, super duper important to you. Like, even more than for most people. I mean, if it’s not gonna work with him, then—”

“I’ll make it work,” Stiles said. “You two do your thing, okay? I will make it work with Derek. We’ll figure it out.”

Lydia put a well-manicured hand on Stiles’ arm and blessed him with one of her rare, truly genuine smiles. “Just give him a few days,” she said. “If this vision is supposed to be your true self in dance form, then it’s no wonder he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know you yet. Just let him get to know you.”

“Yeah, Stiles,” Erica said, nudging his knee and raising her eyebrows. “Let him get intimately acquainted, if you know what I mean.”

Stiles kicked her under the table, hard, and then he kicked Scott too when the traitor laughed so hard he snorted milk out of his nose.

Derek stared at the pile of staff paper on his desk. Most of it was blank. Some of it was full of scribbles and eraser dust. None of it had much in the way of a coherent composition. All he had so far was a time signature at the beginning of the first staff and, really, even that was up for debate. He threw down his pencil and rubbed both hands over his face.

It shouldn’t be so hard. Derek was good at this, okay, he was. This was far from the first piece he had composed for violin, and several of his previous pieces he had performed to great acclaim from his teachers. He had never had any more trouble getting notes on a page than he’d had pulling them from his violin. And yet here he was, two hours after he’d first sat down, with nothing to show for his efforts.

With a heavy sigh, he pulled up Stiles’ email again.

So either 3/4 time or 6/8 time, bouncy in the faster part and utilizing that one motif in the slower ones. Yeah, that was really helpful.

Derek closed his laptop again and pushed it aside, scattering staff paper across the floor. He couldn’t even be bothered to pick it up. He reached for his violin instead, standing and settling the instrument in place on his shoulder. Just holding it went a long way toward lowering his blood pressure, if nothing else. His fingers found their positions instinctively, the lightest of pressures on the strings.

He played the motif Stiles had said he liked. It was legato, long pushes and pulls of the bow that let each note swell into the next until the last leapt up to tremble on the octave. It was a lovely line, one that Derek liked a lot too, but he really wished he knew what Stiles meant when he said he was “feeling that one.” “Feeling it” was a frustratingly vague sentiment that didn’t actually tell Derek how to elicit more of that feeling, whatever it was.

Derek wasn’t usually one for vocal expressions of his frustration, but for once he didn’t try to hold in the groan when it welled up in his throat. He was almost ready to throw his violin (gently) on the bed and call it quits when the door opened and Boyd sidled in, one eyebrow already raised in question.

“You alright there?” he asked mildly.

“I hate everything,” Derek told him.

“You do not.” Boyd laid his violin case and backpack on his own desk and let himself fall gracelessly onto his bed. “You like music. And you like Stilinski.”

“He’s gonna be the death of me,” Derek said.

“Doesn’t mean you don’t like him.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Derek, you’ve been at this for, what, a day and a half?” Boyd asked. “Chill out, man. You’re stressing way too much for a project that’s barely even started.”

“I am stressing just enough for a project that will determine both of our futures, thank you very much,” Derek said. “A project that Stiles has apparently been planning for his entire life, and planning with someone else whom he is convinced would do it better than me. How does that not warrant stress?”

Boyd didn’t answer for a moment, just looking at him steadily. Then: “Did you really just use the word ‘whom’ in casual conversation?”

Derek snatched up his case and laid his violin back in it, fitting the bow in place with care despite how much he sort of wanted to break something. With his very expensive and precious instrument out of harm’s way, he collapsed back in his desk chair and threw his head back with another groan.

“How can someone so talented be so difficult to work with?” he demanded of the ceiling.

“Erica says he’s an acquired taste,” Boyd told him. “Brilliant, but weird. He gets easier to understand the longer you know him. Just gotta get used to him.”

“Well, we only have so long,” Derek said. “We graduate in two months.”

“Hopefully.”

Derek closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Yes, Boyd, hopefully. Thank you for that sobering reminder that it’s entirely possible to flunk final projects and not graduate at all. That’s very helpful.”

There was a rustling of fabric as Boyd pushed himself upright, apparently deciding now was the part of the discussion where he had to actually be a good friend.

“Look, man,” he said. “I know you want this to be great. I know you want to impress Stilinski and prove that you’re good enough to match him—” Derek made a noise of protest that he ignored. “—and I know that you want Stilinski to like you. All of these things are more likely to happen if you relax just a little bit. Take the stick out of your ass.”

Derek gritted his teeth against the heat rising in his cheeks. “I am not uptight.”

“Dude, you are so uptight I can hear your molars grinding from over here,” Boyd said, rolling his eyes, and he just laughed when Derek flipped him the bird. “Try to go with the flow,” he said. “Stilinski seems like a pretty go-with-the-flow kinda guy, but I get the feeling that the harder you push, the more he’s gonna push back. Whether he means to or not.”

“Great,” Derek said.

He was sort of known for pushing. He pushed himself and he pushed everyone around him. That’s what made him great at what he did, what made him a good performer, a good tutor, a good section leader. He pushed and he practiced and he studied and he disciplined himself until things were perfect. He didn’t know how to go with the flow. Maybe that’s why nothing Stiles said made any sense to him.

With a sigh, Derek bent down to scoop up the staff paper he’d knocked over earlier, tapping it into a neat pile and depositing it on his desk once more. It sat there, staring up at him with its blank lines and lack of notes, mocking him.

Boyd’s hand came down on his shoulder, squeezing. “One other thing to keep in mind,” he said. “Remember that even your absolute worst is better than most people’s best.”

Derek snorted and shook his head, but the knot in his stomach loosened just a bit. As Boyd shuffled around getting ready for bed, Derek flicked on his desk lamp and picked up his pencil.

Stiles liked to think he was a decent choreographer. Granted, he didn’t have the opportunity to choreograph his own routines as often as he’d like, but Madam Morrell always had good things to say when those opportunities arose. He and Scott had gotten very high marks on their end-of-year projects the last six years running, and Stiles knew that was in large part due to his grasp of visual storytelling and fluid motion.

And yet here he was, flopped out on his back in the middle of a practice room, cursing up a storm because his mind was a jumbled mess and nothing was working the way he wanted. The opening he’d originally thought up felt awkward, he had tripped over his own feet more times in the last half hour than the last six months combined, and he kept over-rotating on his turns like he hadn’t done since he was fourteen.

In the background, the practice CD Derek had passed off to him at lunch the day before played on. It was just a preliminary draft, he’d warned, a very rough and unpolished cut to give Stiles an idea of how the composition process was going so far.

It was nice? Everything Derek played was nice, honestly, the notes didn’t even have to make sense for Derek to make them sound nice. But it wasn’t...right. It didn’t feel like what Stiles had always envisioned his final project feeling like, no matter how pretty it was. He didn’t have the technical terminology to convey why he thought that, he just knew that this wasn’t his dance.

As evidenced by his complete and utter lack of inspiration, and hence his undignified prostration.

The door to the practice room creaked open and shut again. Stiles didn’t have the energy or the motivation necessary to lever himself off the floor, so he just raised a hand in half-hearted greeting.

“Did you break yourself?” Derek asked from somewhere Stiles couldn’t see him. “Or have you just given up on life as an animate being and decided to become one with the wood paneling?”

“The latter,” Stiles said miserably.

The music stopped. Derek appeared in Stiles’ field of vision, violin case in one hand and the other outstretched. “Come on,” he said. “Up. We won’t get anything done like this.”

His hand was warm around Stiles’ when he pulled him to his feet, strong and calloused from years of playing the strings. Stiles thought maybe it lingered before pulling away. Then he mentally slapped himself and cursed a little bit more. It had been a lot easier for Stiles to ignore how goddamn gorgeous the guy was when he’d been able to focus exclusively on the abrasive personality, but the last few days had shown a marked decrease in Derek’s asshole-ishness, at least in the brief moments before they started working in earnest.

Honestly, Erica had sort of been right in saying that Derek’s face was distracting. It was a very pretty face and Stiles very much appreciated it from an aesthetic point of view, and that only made everything ten times as frustrating. Stiles didn’t want to be attracted to Derek Hale. For one, he was rude and short-tempered and difficult to work with. For another, Stiles was utterly incapable of not looking like a total moron in front of him, and that would be much less humiliating if a large part of Stiles wasn’t so keen on impressing him.

Derek had his case open and several sheets of music spread out across the top of the practice piano. It was all handwritten, notes and dynamics and whatnot in Derek’s tight scrawl. Scott had always used a notation program for his arrangements and printed the final product out. That way the software would play the notes back to him and he could tweak it without having to erase and rewrite. By now, Stiles knew that Derek preferred a more organic compositional experience. He couldn’t decide if that was charming or pretentious.

“Thoughts?” Derek asked, like he always did.

And Stiles froze up, like he always did. “It, uh…” He swallowed, digging up positive words to say when all he could think was not right. “It’s sounding good. Defined movements, like we talked about. Uh, I like the 6/8 in the second movement. The modulation sounds nice too! The major to minor shift at the end, I like that, mirroring the first movement but with that tonal shift. That’s good.”

“But?” Derek asked, not the least bit convinced.

Stiles scratched at an eyebrow and bit back a sigh. “It’s just… The, uh, the transitions between the movements need some smoothing out, I think. The first one is a little choppy.” He leaned over the sheet music, following the little line of notes as they marched up and then down and back, trying to hear them in his head again. “The middle bit is a little… I’m sort of picturing ballottés, if you know what those—”

“Yes, Stiles, I know what ballottés are,” Derek said shortly, like he was mortally offended or something. “You’re not the first dancer I’ve worked with.”

Stiles huffed. “Whatever. So ballottés, and probably some jeté battu if I can find my way into them. Just light on the feet, you know? Quick footwork. It should feel—”

“If you say ‘bouncy’ one more time, I’ll punch you in the throat.”

And there was the asshole-ishness again. It never took too long to make an appearance.

Stiles pushed away from the piano, fighting valiantly against the urge to plant his foot in Derek’s pretty face. He was more than flexible enough to do that, and only the thought of being stuck with back-beating Corey kept both of his feet firmly on the ground. He needed this to work. He had told Scott and Allison that he would make this work. No matter how fucking infuriating his partner was.

He forced his jaw to unclench enough to speak and said, “That section’s still feeling a little heavy. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Well, if you could say something a little more useful for a change, that would be great,” Derek bit out.

His hands were in fists, braced on either side of his music like he was shielding it from Stiles’ criticisms. Stiles had the mental image of Derek taking up his composition, ripping it to shreds, and throwing it in the air in a fit of pique. Or maybe he would just actually punch Stiles instead, like he so clearly wanted to whenever they were in the same room together for more than six minutes.

But then Derek closed his eyes, dropping his head and taking a deep breath, and his hands unclenched to press flat against the wood. When he raised his head again, his scowl was more thoughtful, almost determined-looking.

“I could try a bariolage,” he said evenly. Then, with a quick shake of his head: “No, a bariolage would work better in the final movement. Pizzicato.”

He took up his violin and reached for his bow.

“Wait,” Stiles said, a little thrown by the abrupt switch from arguing to not arguing. “Isn’t that plucking? Like, with the fingers?”

“Yes,” Derek said, “but there’s a Paganini technique that uses the bow to emulate the pizzicato sound with more intensity. Like this.”

He was off like a shot, playing some piece that definitely wasn’t the one he was writing himself but was quick and precise, using the very end of the bow to strike out the first note in a run and then a pluck of the fingers on his left hand to keep the sound going through the notes that followed.

The passage only lasted a few seconds, and before the last note had even faded, Derek was squinted down at his own music again, considering. Stiles was sure that, if he’d had a pencil at hand, he would have been scribbling amendments onto the page already. Instead Derek settled back into position and began playing, improvising a new line that was reminiscent of the one he’d written before but was more suited to this new style.

Stiles watched all this with an open mouth, hardly daring to breathe. His heart was racing, his muscles tensing with the need to move, though he didn’t know how or to where. It was oddly thrilling, bearing witness to this, to Derek in his element. And Derek was right, that technique did feel more energized than the other pizzicato passages Stiles had heard. Bouncier, even.

For a long minute, Derek was so focused on his rearranging that he seemed to have forgotten Stiles entirely. He’d dug up a pencil from somewhere and was hunched over the papers, striking things out and writing over them and making notes in the margins. His brow was furrowed, eyebrows pulled down, but for once it didn’t look like a hostile expression. Every few seconds the tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips.

Stiles looked away from that frustratingly appealing sight with yet another bout of internalized profanity. Then he cleared his throat. Derek looked up at him, startled. A delicate flush of pink rose in his cheeks, like he was embarrassed to have gotten into the zone where someone could actually see him. He dropped his pencil and coughed.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

“Better,” Stiles said hoarsely. “That was...that was a lot better.”

Derek sat cross-legged on his bed, despite that not being the recommended stance for playing pretty much any instrument. He wasn’t much concerned with technique at the moment. If that had been the case, he would’ve been properly situated and playing the Kreutzer etude Deaton had assigned him a few days ago. But that’s not what he was doing because he was in no state of mind to play anything that required his full attention.

He tried to keep his dynamic level to piano or softer, for the sake of the dorms on either side of his. Really, it was against the unspoken etiquette to play in his room past eight o’clock, but Boyd was out with Erica for their weekly date night, and Derek had spent most of the afternoon working—and he used that term loosely—with Stiles, and the prospect of getting re-dressed and walking to another building and fighting his way into a practice room was much too stressful to even contemplate.

Playing quietly didn’t have quite the same soothing effect as really sinking into the notes and letting them resonate, but the familiar strains still helped some. It was difficult to overthink when his hands were moving and his ears were filled with gentle sounds that trembled in the air around him.

That didn’t stop Stiles from butting into his head though, at least not completely. Three hours they’d spent together that day, and at least two and a half of them had been taken up with, if not arguing, then vehement disagreements. It seemed like every time they took one small step forward, like introducing the pizzicato passage and finally achieving bouncy, they managed to take three more steps in the opposite direction just by virtue of their combined tempers and innate stubbornness.

None of it was helped by the fact that, as of that morning, it was set in stone. The forms were signed, the teachers notified, and the sign-up deadline past. He and Stiles were now officially confirmed partners for their end-of-year projects, and Derek was so anxious about it that he sort of wanted to throw up. He wasn’t even sure why exactly, but he was.

Maybe it was because this project would determine his entire career from this point onward and Stiles now had the power to completely wreck his future by fucking it up. Maybe it was because this project would determine Stiles’ entire career from this point onward and Derek now had the power to completely wreck his future by fucking it up. Maybe it was because they still couldn’t seem to agree on a single goddamn thing, and there was no longer any option of walking away and just finding someone else.

Maybe it was because even when Stiles was angry, he was still the most beautiful thing Derek had ever laid eyes on.

Derek gritted his teeth and very deliberately loosened his grip on the bow; he’d been picking up volume without realizing. Any louder and Danny would be banging on the wall and yelling for him to knock it off. He tried to focus on the way his left hand curved around the neck, the pattern his fingers followed across the strings. He didn’t want to think about Stiles, or the way his pale skin flushed, or the graceful arc of his neck when he stretched, or the low rumble of his voice. He wanted to think about music and nothing else.

Derek actually managed that for the length of a whole song. He went immediately into another, chasing that mindlessness through simple melodies and the weight of nostalgia. His hard-won peace was broken by a knock on the door. It opened before he’d even blinked himself out of his trance.

“Wow, Der,” Laura said, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed and a lopsided smile on her face. “I drive two whole hours to come see my little brother and I find him playing his lullabies? I had no idea my presence would be so distressing to you.”

“Laura,” he said, too taken aback to respond with anything pithy like he normally would. “When did you— I didn’t even know you were coming.”

“I know,” Laura said. “That’s what makes it a surprise visit. Now are you gonna come act appropriately excited or are you gonna sit there and mope some more?”

Derek obligingly laid his instrument down and let his big sister drag him off the bed and into a hug, even as he grumbled, “I am not moping.” She just laughed at him and squeezed him tighter. He hugged her back just as fiercely, realizing all at once how much he missed seeing her every day instead of once or twice a week via skype. The grainy video feed never did her justice anyway.

She finally pulled back to put hands on his cheeks, squinting like she was judging just by sight whether or not he was taking care of himself. He made a face at her and she snorted, giving him a shove that resulted in him half-sprawled out on his bed again, though thankfully not near enough to endanger his violin. Laura immediately took up her place beside him, leaning back against his pillows and toeing off her sandals so she could kick her feet up in his lap.

“Mm, comfy,” she said. “You know, I sort of miss these dorm beds.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “No, you don’t.”

He shifted Laura’s feet out of his lap so that he could tuck his violin safely back into its case and out of harm’s way. Once he was comfortably settled, crosswise on the bed, the feet returned and he accepted his fate like he had every other time the two of them had ended up in exactly this position over the years. This abrupt return to what he still considered normality, even after all these months without her, was more relaxing than even his lullabies and he could already feel the muscles in his shoulders unclenching bit by bit.

“Laura, not that I’m not thrilled to see you,” Derek said with the utmost sincerity, “but what are you doing here? Did you forget you graduated or something?”

“What, I can’t pop in to catch up with my favorite brother?” she asked.

“You didn’t just ‘pop in’,” Derek countered. “You drove two hours out of your way on what I know for a fact is your only day off in weeks. You have a reason.”

“I miss you,” Laura said with a pout. “That’s more than reason enough in my book.” Her pout tugged up into a much more familiar grin. “And maybe I wanna see how your final project is going too.”

Derek let his head fall back against the wall with a painful thump. Danny on the other side responded with banging of his own, but Derek ignored him. “Have you been talking to Kira?” he demanded.

“What would I be talking to Kira about?” Laura asked, poking him in the stomach with her big toe. Her tone was utterly innocent and also entirely misleading. Derek knew her too well to fall for it; that tone was always trouble. “This is just the first project you’ve done without me! Can’t blame me for being concerned. And besides, I heard you were working with that one pretty dancer boy. What’s his name again?”

“You know damn well what his name is,” Derek said through gritted teeth. That relaxed feeling was gone again. He’d really hoped it would last longer than this.

“Oh right, Stiles,” Laura said, like it was some big revelation. “The boy you’ve been crushing on for literal years.”

Derek’s face burned. “Shut up, I have not!”

“Okay, okay. I guess I just imagined all those recitals and showcases you weren’t required to go to but went out of your way to attend anyway just because Stiles was featured in them.” Laura shrugged. “My mistake.”

Derek pinched her leg and she yanked it back with an indignant yelp. He knew he was still blushing but there was nothing he could do about that but scowl more deeply and hope that offset the obvious embarrassment. His scowls had never had any effect on his sister though, not even when they were little.

Tonight she seemed inclined towards mercy. She curled her legs underneath her with a sigh and smiled at him in a much less mischievous way.

“Stiles is a great dancer,” she said. “If nothing else, you’ve always admired him in a purely professional capacity. And now you get to work with him one-on-one! There’s no way that’s not gonna be stellar. It might even turn out better than you and me. So tell me for real. How’s the project going?”

Derek wanted to be optimistic. He wanted to say that things were going great. He wanted to tell his sister that he was capable of being successful without her and she didn’t need to worry about him. But he wasn’t in the habit of lying to her and those words just wouldn’t form. What came out instead was: “I’d say we got off to a rocky start, but it would be an insult to rocks.”

Laura made a noise of dismay. Derek avoided seeing the look on her face by rubbing at his eyes, all the tension from prior in the evening creeping up on him again.

“I don’t know what it is, Laur,” he said, and even to his own ears he sounded tired. “It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or even that he’s an obnoxious person, because he’s really not. He’s great, I know that objectively. Sometimes, every once in a while, we click and for a few minutes everything comes together perfectly and it’s amazing!”

“And the rest of the time?”

“The rest of the time we’re at each other’s throats,” Derek told her. “We’re constantly frustrated and snapping at each other. Half the time I don’t even know what we’re fighting about. I just… I’ve always wanted to work with Stiles, and now that I have the chance, it’s just not working.”

“Well, do you have an idea of what you’re going for?” Laura asked. “A direction? A concept?”

Derek couldn’t suppress a bitter laugh. “A concept. Sure, Stiles has a concept. I just wish I understood it. Half the things he says, I have no idea what they mean.”

And that was the root of all their trouble, wasn’t it? Derek was the problem here. Derek and his complete inability to even comprehend Stiles’ grand vision. Derek had never thought of himself as someone who lacked vision before, but Stiles’ capacity for abstract expression was apparently above and beyond what he was capable of. Stiles deserved a composer who could match him, who could give him what Derek couldn’t.

Laura was frowning at him. “What is Stiles’ concept?”

“Something about the essential self and not being able to convey it,” Derek said, gesturing vaguely. “Like there are some things it’s impossible to put into words. It’s a Romantic ideal apparently, one’s true ineffable self. I don’t know.”

His words were met with silence. A long enough silence that he had to look up. Laura’s frown was still firmly in place, only now there was the little crease on her forehead that meant she was confused.

“That’s what you’re struggling with?” she asked.

As if the last two weeks of pure aggravation weren’t proof enough. He shrugged helplessly. “He’s tried to explain it a million times. I just don’t get it.”

“Don’t you though?”

Derek stared at her. “Do you?”

Laura lifted her eyes to the ceiling, shaking her head, but there was a quirk to her lips that was almost a smile. She shifted down the bed, squirming around until she was tucked up close against Derek’s side.

“Derek,” she began, “you know I love you dearly—”

“You only say that when there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Derek cut in, already stung.

“I say that,” Laura reiterated, “so that you know I don’t mean it badly when I say that you’re not exactly the best communicator.”

There wasn’t really any way for Derek to argue with that. She wasn’t wrong. That didn’t stop him from huffing or crossing his arms over his chest. But Laura took hold of his wrist and tugged until he uncrossed them, taking one of his hands in hers and tangling their fingers together.

“Der, you should know better than anyone that there are some things you just can’t put into words,” she said gently. “That’s what your music is for, isn’t it? All those emotions you can’t talk about. They come through in your music. That’s the difference between a good musician and a great one, being able to channel those feelings like you do.”

Derek looked at her, then at his violin, at the sheet music on every available surface of his room. He thought about the itch in his fingers he got when he was anxious, about how he automatically reached for his bow when he was angry or upset, about the way he buried himself in music to make the most of his good moods. He had never thought of any of that the way Laura was describing it, but he couldn’t deny it either. He played like some people kept diaries, writing his thoughts and experiences in the vibration of the strings.

Laura squeezed his hand to get his attention and she was smiling outright this time. “See?” she said. “You do get it. You know how that kind of self-expression feels with music. That’s all Stiles is trying to do, just with movement, using his body as an instrument to say what his words can’t.”

“Then why isn’t it working?” Derek asked around a sudden lump in his throat. “Stiles is…struggling. He’s trying so hard with this dance, so why is it so difficult?” He pulled his hand from Laura’s and ran it through his hair, pulling. “It’s gotta be me, doesn’t it? It’s my music. I’m doing something wrong, and I keep trying to fix it but nothing turns out right, and Stiles just keeps trying anyway, and—”

“Why don’t you just ask him?”

“I’ve tried,” Derek hoarsely. “We’ve both tried. But what if this is one of those things he can’t explain?”

Laura’s hand fell to his knee, a gentle, reassuring pressure. “Then maybe he’ll just have to dance for you until you understand.”

The mirror was cold when Stiles collided with it. His breath fogged up the surface in the few seconds it took for him to shake the dizziness out of his head. He shouldn’t be dizzy anyway; it meant he wasn’t spotting well enough on his turns. He gripped the barre with both hands and pushed away from the wall, back toward center, and reset his position.

He was good at fouettés, supposedly. In last year’s projects, he had done sixteen perfect rotations to the strains of Scott’s viola. But now, to Derek’s third practice CD, he could barely manage five before he lost track of his spot and over-rotated.

Prep, breathe, move. Head up, spine straight. Keep the core tight. Watch the arms, careful of the turn out in second, spot—

He caught himself on the barre to avoid face-planting into the mirror again. Then he slammed his palms down on it, making the whole length of wood vibrate in protest.

In the background, the track faded out and the repeat function kicked in to take it back to the beginning again.

Stiles didn’t even want fouettés in this routine. There was no reason for him to be doing this except that he knew he should be able to do it. The rehearsal with Derek earlier had been a disaster, Madam Morrell had commented on his abnormal lack of finesse in class, and he had botched his pas de deux with Heather repeatedly in their practice. He hadn’t dropped her at any critical points, thank god, but Stiles set his personal bar far too high for him to consider that a success in any way.

He managed five turns before he stumbled, and this time he landed at just the right angle to trip over his own ankle. He hit the ground on his side, already counting the bruises this would add to his ever-present collection of them. It was far from the worst fall he had ever taken, more in line with the normal everyday spills that were the occupational hazard of all dancers, but that didn’t stop him from snapping out, “Damn it.”

“Stiles? Are you okay?”

Allison was leaning into the practice room. Her hair was down from its usual tight bun, curling around her face, but she was still in her leotard and leg warmers so she must have just finished with a practice of her own. She was biting her lip and eyeing him with concern.

Stiles let his head fall back against the wood floor for a second before shoving himself into a sitting position instead. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just— I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Allison asked, edging further into the room. “‘Cause you don’t sound all that fine.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles said one more time. “I need to work this.”

He forced his sore limbs to engage and get him on his feet again. It wasn’t easy; on top of his classes and both practices that afternoon, he’d also spent two hours in the gym that morning after he and Derek had turned in the forms to finalize their partnership. He’d needed to burn off his anxious energy, but now every muscle felt like a stretched out rubber band.

He tried the fouettés again. And again.

Allison didn’t leave. She hovered near the door and watched as he turned and stumbled and cursed and turned again. She didn’t say anything. Stiles doubted he would’ve heard her even if she had. The music wasn’t turned up very loud, but it was all he could hear, the same motifs over and over again in the dulcet tones of Derek’s violin. Around and around, just like Stiles and his turns and just as wrong.

Stiles stopped turning, head spinning and breathing hard, but the violin sang on.

Allison said his name, reaching out to him, but Stiles cut her off.

“Will you just turn that shit off?” he snapped. He caught sight of her startled face in the mirror and guilt hit hard. “Please?” he amended.

Slowly, Allison made her way to the CD deck and turned it off. As soon as silence fell, Stiles all but collapsed, sitting heavily on the floor. He leaned back against the cool expanse of the mirror and let his eyes fall shut.

It was only a few seconds before he heard the soft shush of Allison’s leg warmers as she approached. She hesitated beside him, probably waiting for him to say he wanted to be alone or otherwise indicate that her presence wasn’t welcome, but when one didn’t come she folded herself down to sit beside him.

Her voice was loud in the quiet room when she asked, “Was that Derek’s composition?”

Stiles nodded.

“It sounds nice,” she offered. Then: “You don’t like it though. Clearly, or you wouldn’t be dancing yourself into the ground like this.”

“It’s...nice,” Stiles echoed her hopelessly.

“But it’s not what you want,” Allison guessed. “It’s not your vision.”

Stiles snorted before he could stop himself, disdainful. His vision, right. His grand plan, the perfect dance that he had been dreaming about since he was a little kid leaping and spinning around his living room like he actually knew how. What a joke.

“It’s not exactly turning out like I imagined,” he said. An understatement, but true. “I don’t know what I thought it would sound like, really, but apparently it’s not this. I just—” He blew out a long breath. “I’m a little frustrated, is all.”

“With the music?” Allison asked. “Or with Derek?”

Stiles opened his eyes to look at her. He almost said that those were the same thing, but the hint of shrewdness in Allison’s eyes stopped him. That was the same look that Lydia gave him sometimes, when she was seeing through all his pretenses and excuses, just tempered with infinitely more patience and a bit of hesitation, like she wasn’t quite sure she wasn’t overstepping somehow. That look cut his protest off at the knees and he sighed, defeated.

“Both, I guess,” he admitted. “I mean, it’s not that Derek’s not trying, you know? He is, he just—”

“He still doesn’t get it.”

Stiles pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. His thighs were shaking a bit, overworked and protesting the abuse. His calves burned and his feet ached like they always did and he sort of just wanted to go back to his dorm and ice his entire body until the pain went away.

No, that wasn’t quite true. What he really wanted was to go home, back to the house he had grown up in. Back to his dad and the warm hugs he offered up every morning like clockwork. Back to the days when his mom would watch him practice the routines he made up, clapping along to the beat and laughing. Back to the old, age-weathered stand-up piano in the sitting room where his mom had played Swan Lake ten times in a row so that he could get the dance just right.

“He doesn’t get it,” Stiles said. “He’s never gonna get it. I don’t know why I ever expected him to.”

“That is the idea, isn’t it?” Allison asked.

“Yeah, it is.” Stiles laughed weakly. “I’ve illustrated my point a little too well.”

He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. That hurt too, but he didn’t stop until he had to.

“Was it wrong of me to hope that he would understand anyway?” he asked suddenly. “Was that an unreasonable expectation to put on him?”

“It’s never wrong to hope,” Allison said, which was a lovely sentiment but didn’t take into account just how much damage false hope could do to a person.

Stiles shook his head. “I shouldn’t have put that on him,” he said, and his voice broke. “It’s not his fault that he didn’t just magically see into my soul so he could write me the perfect music. That’s stupid and unrealistic and naive, and I never should’ve let myself want it.”

“Want him, you mean,” Allison said.

Tears burned in Stiles’ eyes and he wiped them away with another pitiful attempt at a laugh. “Yeah, sure, maybe,” he said. “Apparently I’m as much a lowercase romantic as I am an uppercase one.”

Allison laughed too then covered her mouth with her hand, looking horrified, like she was worried she’d mortally offended him by being amused by his suffering. Stiles had to smile though. She smiled back tentatively and bumped his shoulder with hers. He responded in kind, fully understanding in that moment what it was Scott was so enamoured with. She was someone worth falling in love with. Maybe if he had just found someone like her to fall for instead of a stubbornly obtuse violinist, he wouldn’t be almost-crying on a practice room floor in the middle of the night.

“I guess I always thought I’d find someone who just knew,” he said. “I mean, I’ve got Scott and my dad, and they know me pretty well. Even Lydia and Erica can keep up with me when I go down the metaphorical rabbit hole by now. But that took years, you know? And it’s still not the same as that real, bone-deep connection. Like how you and Scott took one look at each other and you were just sold. Love at first sight.”

“I don’t know that I’d call it that,” Allison said, a light blush staining her cheeks.

“Scott looks at you like you hung the moon in the sky,” Stiles told her. “He has since day one. He knows you, and you know him, even though you’ve only been together for like four months. And I bet your project is going just swimmingly, isn’t it?”

She blushed more and tucked her hair behind her ear. “It’s going...pretty well, I guess,” she said reluctantly.

“You’re almost done, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“See, I want that,” Stiles said. “I want— As a kid, when I thought about this dance and who I would get to share it with if not Scott, I wanted someone who would take one look at me and see everything I didn’t know how to tell them. But that didn’t happen, and it keeps not happening, and I don’t know if it’s because of me or him or just us.”

“Or maybe it’s just now,” Allison said with a shrug. “No matter how Scott and I look at each other, love doesn’t just happen right off the bat. And neither does music or dance or any other kind of art. It always takes work, and it always takes time. Not having an instant connection doesn’t mean it won’t all come together in the end.”

Stiles scrubbed a hand through his hair, wishing that was less damnably reasonable. “So what you’re saying is that Happy Feet gave me unrealistic expectations?”

“For your heart-dance?” Allison asked, eyes twinkling, trying and failing to suppress a grin.

“Hey, don’t make fun of my heart-dance,” Stiles said, mock-offended.

“I would never!” she said on a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they always say.”

When Allison’s laugh faded away, she looked at him for a long moment. Then she scooted closer and leaned her head on his shoulder. He let her, warmth blooming in his chest. It didn’t make the ache any less, didn’t wash away the frustration and disillusionment, but it was nice anyway. They stayed that way for a long time, soaking up the simple companionship of the moment.

“Don’t give up just yet,” Allison said finally. “Okay? You’ve got time. Give him time.”

Stiles wished he thought that time would be enough. He wished he had her kind of faith.

“I’m really glad Scott has you,” he said.

She shifted against him but didn’t lift her head. “You don’t...resent me?” she asked, sounding small. “For taking him away from you?”

“You’re way too nice to resent,” Stiles said. “It’s almost annoying how nice you are. I mean, really, look at us right now! How am I supposed to be mad at you when you do shit like this, friend-stealer or no?”

Allison made a noise of offense and she pulled back so he could see her indignant face, which was much less convincing than it could’ve been considering she was still fighting a smile. She would probably have made a very witty retort—or resorted to tickling, Scott said she was prone to starting tickle fights when she thought she was losing an argument—when Stiles’ phone beeped loudly from its place in his backpack.

Stiles fished it out with a frown to see Derek’s name on the screen. It wasn’t an email like it usually was though and he frowned harder. They had exchanged numbers last week, but Derek had never texted him before.

“The fuck?”

“What is it?” Allison asked, leaning in to peer over his shoulder. She frowned too. “It’s almost eleven o’clock. What does he want this late?”

“What does he ever want?” Stiles muttered.

“Are you gonna go?”

Stiles stared at the text until the screen went dark. He was tired. Not because it was late and it had been a long, busy day, but in general. He hadn’t actually cried but he had the same sort of hollowed out feeling as if he had and he didn’t know if he could do this right now. He didn’t have the energy to fight with Derek, not when he felt so pulled thin, rubbed raw, like every touch and every word would hurt.

Allison put a hand on his arm, small and warm.

“Don’t give up on him yet,” she said. Then she kissed his cheek and stood, pushing a stray curl behind her ear and gracing him with one more smile. She closed the door behind her.

Derek was pacing. He wasn’t usually one to pace, but for once his restless energy wasn’t manifesting in any productive way, wasn’t forcing its way out of his hands, his fingers. His violin sat on top of the practice piano, waiting for him to take it up. He just didn’t have the notes. Not yet.

Laura hadn’t been able to stay for more than an hour or so; she had rehearsal the next day and still needed to drive all the way back to their parents’ house for the night before heading back to work. They’d spent that hour gossipping and talking and sharing anecdotes, catching up as if they didn’t talk on skype once a week and on the phone three times more. It had felt good, having her back with him. The two of them had been inseparable for most of their lives, even as they followed different career paths, and Derek wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to not having her by his side.

She’d finally left him with a kiss on the forehead and a hearty push out the door. Her parting words had been about Stiles, about the talk they’d had when she first got there. Derek still wasn’t sure if the advice she had given him was good or bad, if it would end in an utter disaster or if it would be exactly what he needed. What they needed.

So he was pacing, wringing his hands and rehearsing his speech as if anything ever went to plan when Stiles was involved. Hell, he didn’t know for sure that Stiles was going to show up or had even gotten the text. After all, it was late and there was every chance the Stiles was already asleep or busy with homework or so sick and tired of everything that he would deliberately ignore the text. At this point, Derek couldn’t even blame him if he did that. Stiles had every right to be fed up with him.

As if on cue, the door to the practice room burst open and Stiles came storming in, already saying, “What the fuck is this? You can’t just snap your fingers and expect me to show up, Derek, I’m not a fucking genie!”

Derek refrained from pointing out that he did show up, because he really wasn’t looking to argue tonight. But something else gave him pause too. Stiles looked a little off. Angry, yes, but also just less put together than normal. His hair was a mess, there were sweat stains on his tank top and smears of dust on his cut-off yoga pants, and his eyes were red like maybe he had been crying earlier.

Derek swallowed hard. “I didn’t— I just needed to talk to you,” he said, before he could lose his nerve in the face of Stiles looking so pissed off and worn down all at once.

“In the middle of the night?” Stiles demanded. “If you need to talk in the middle of the goddamn night, you send a fucking email, okay, you’re good at emails. Or a text! You just proved you know how to text, so why not do that like a normal person, huh?”

“I needed to see you in person,” Derek said. “It’s about the project.”

Stiles huffed out something that might have been a sad attempt at a laugh, raising his eyes to the ceiling like he was waiting for a lightning bolt to strike him down on the spot.

“Of fucking course it is,” he muttered. “Why would it ever be anything else?” He rubbed his head, fingers coming up to scrub over his face and then further up, dragging through his hair to lock together at the nape of his neck. “Look, Derek, whatever it is, I am really not in the mood for it. Okay? I am not up for this right now.”

A tight, urgent feeling took hold of Derek’s gut. It grew into something a little akin to panic when Stiles turned back toward the door. Stiles couldn’t leave, not right now. If he did, Derek knew—he knew—that this would be the end of it. Derek would lose his nerve and Stiles would close off completely and they would lose whatever slim chance they had at making something great together. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Wait, just—” he said, reaching out even though Stiles couldn’t see the aborted gesture. “I just want to talk.”

Stiles spun around to face him, hands thrown up in such aggravation.

“We’ve been talking!” he shouted. “We’ve been fucking talking about it, Derek. We’ve talked and talked and talked some more. And it hasn’t done us a single goddamn bit of good, has it? We could talk ourselves blue in the face and it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Stiles—” Derek tried, but Stiles held a hand up to stop him.

“No, Derek, I am done talking,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe that’s ironic coming from me, and maybe I’ll feel different tomorrow or next week, but right now? I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

He turned to leave. There was a slump to his shoulders and a drag to his usually graceful steps, and Derek couldn’t let him leave like this.

“Then don’t.”

The words got Stiles to stop, but he didn’t turn back around. He barely turned his head, like he didn’t even want to look at Derek, but he wasn’t moving away at least. Reluctantly, he asked, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk,” Derek said. “Just dance.”

“What do you think I’ve spent all day doing?” Stiles asked, sounding every bit as exhausted as he looked, even when Derek could only see him in profile. “And all of the last two weeks, for that matter?”

“You’ve been talking,” Derek said. “Isn’t that what you just said? We’ve been talking. But that’s not right. It’s not working, of course it’s not. Because that’s the whole point! That you can’t explain it in words. So show me, Stiles. Show me.”

Stiles faced him, disbelief all over his face. “Just show you,” he repeated. “Easy as that, huh?”

“Maybe it is,” Derek said, earnest and maybe the tiniest bit desperate for that to be true. “This dance— It’s supposed to be you, isn’t it? So it’s in there. It’s gotta be in there, Stiles, and if you can’t tell me then maybe you can show me. Maybe I’ll understand what you’ve been trying to say this whole time if you just dance for me.”

Stiles was shaking his head again, but he didn’t look angry anymore. He looked almost spooked, pale and uncertain. His eyes darted around the practice room like he was searching for a way out, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He had to swallow twice before he could speak.

“I don’t have anything to show you,” he said hoarsely. “The dance isn’t— The choreography isn’t there yet, and we don’t have the music down yet—”

“You don’t need it,” Derek said without a shred of doubt. “You don’t need music, and you don’t need choreography.”

“You don’t know what I need,” Stiles snapped. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re a dancer,” Derek shot back. “If you’re anything, Stiles, you are a brilliant dancer. I’ve known that since the first time I saw you onstage and couldn’t look away.”

A recital, the year after Derek had followed in Laura’s footsteps and joined the academy, only in the music school instead of the dance one. Studious and reserved and already very serious about what he did, he had taken a break from his practicing to watch his sister and her classmates showcase what they’d learned so far.

But the class below Laura’s had performed first, and smack dab in the middle had been this gangly boy with braces who had belied his long, knobby limbs with the sort of grace and elegance that no one would ever expect of a ten year old. Even then, he’d lit up the stage. Derek had barely been able to focus on Laura after that, too caught up in trying to find out who that boy was. And Stiles had only gotten better, more skilled, more vibrant, more engrossing to watch. Seven years later and it still took Derek’s breath to see him onstage.

Stiles was looking back at Derek now, mouth open just a little bit and eyes wide. He wasn’t gangly anymore and the braces were long gone. He’d grown into himself, widened in the shoulders and packed on the sort of wiry muscle required to throw equally muscular girls around like they weighed next to nothing. He was strong and capable and he looked at Derek like he was afraid, like he had no idea what to do in the face of him.

“Stiles, I like to think I know a little bit about ballet,” Derek said with a half smile, years of helping Laura practice and listening to her bitch about her training running through his mind. “At least enough to know exactly how good you are at what you do and how much passion you have for it. I don’t know much about you, but I know that. And that’s why I know that you don’t need any music from me, not really. All you need to do is let yourself move.”

There was nothing but stillness for a long moment, like a fermata on a rest, or a tremolo at pianissimo. Derek hardly dared to blink, holding Stiles’ gaze until the intensity of it threatened to make him lightheaded. Looking away wasn’t even an option, not when Stiles was all brittle tension, wound too tight and ready to snap.

He didn’t break when Derek took one step forward, and then another. He didn’t move at all as Derek drew up in front of him, closer than he would’ve dared at any point in the last two weeks. When Derek’s fingers touched his face, tracing their way down his cheek and along the edge of his jaw, he shivered, but he didn’t pull away.

“Show me, Stiles,” Derek whispered, and even that felt too loud in the moment, too loud for the way Stiles was looking at him. “Dance for me.”

It took several seconds for Stiles to pull away from him, and when he did, it was only to stumble backward a few steps. He pulled his eyes away and Derek felt it like a physical loss, but he was only looking down so he could toe off his sneakers. Then he was skirting around Derek to stand in the center of the room, facing the mirror on the far wall with his head down.

At first, it was so subtle that Derek barely recognized it for what it was. Small things: the roll of a shoulder, the lift of a hand, a tilt of the head. Every movement was economical, tightly controlled and precise, and the rest of him remained frozen. The utter stillness of it was captivating all on its own, suspenseful in a way as Derek waited to see what would come next.

Next was relevé; Stiles lifted up, heels leaving the floor until he was balanced on the balls of his feet. Derek had no doubt that, had he been wearing the proper shoes, Stiles would’ve been en pointe. Before the motion was even finished, Stiles’ head was up and his arms had fallen into second position, a gentle circle held down in front of him. Then his arms slid up and out and he was moving.

It was slow, sweeping, and utterly graceful. The muscles in Stiles’ back rippled as he swung his arms into the next position or held them out for balance. He was perfectly poised as he raised up on one leg and extended the other in the air behind him, knee straight and bare foot pointed. He turned, a pirouette en attitude that made him look like a figurine in a music box.

The first leap took Derek by surprise, low as it was, just a petit jeté. It made his breath catch in his throat, but what made his heart race was seeing the small smiling tugging at the corner of Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles didn’t seem to notice it. He wasn’t noticing anything beyond the next step, the next turn, the next jump. With every movement he grew bolder, surer. He threw himself into the air like he was made to be there and touched down for barely an instant before he was gliding across the floor. It was like he had forgotten entirely that Derek was there.

He wasn’t dancing because there were eyes on him. He was dancing for himself. For the sheer joy of it. God, it was beautiful. Derek’s chest felt tight, like it was too small for his lungs or maybe like his heart leaping up to catch in his throat. This was nothing like that first recital, or any of the ones that had followed it. There was something so much purer about bearing witness to this unscripted moment, seeing what came out of Stiles when there was nothing to fuel it but his own pleasure.

There were the ballotés that Stiles had wanted so badly for the middle section of Derek’s composition, rocking back and forth as his feet swept out underneath him to point one way and then the other. He swung from there into a jeté entrelacé, so high off the ground it was a miracle he could land so lightly. Then he was back into quick steps across the floor and small leaps in place, feet beating together what seemed like a half dozen times before he touched down again.

For all that it was new and unchoreographed, something about it felt familiar. Sure, Derek had seen the individual moves before, even certain combinations of moves, but it was deeper than that. Just a feeling. It made Derek’s fingers itch, yearning for strings to press and vibrations that would draw forth the notes that quivered just beneath his skin. As he watched Stiles move and move and move, he could hear the strains of a melody he’d never heard before, and it fit.

It fit.

The notes were still echoing in his head when Stiles slowed and finally stopped. His chest was heaving, his skin shining with sweat and his hair dark with it, and his eyes when they met Derek’s were alight like he had never seen them before. Derek didn’t blink, and neither did Stiles. There was nothing but the sound of Stiles’ heavy breathing and the thump of Derek’s heart in his ears until—

“Do it again.” Derek’s voice sounded so loud, but neither of them flinched.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“Those last four eight-counts,” Derek told him. He reached out blindly until his fingers found the neck of his violin. He settled it on his shoulder and took up the bow, almost clumsy in his eagerness. He could barely get enough breath in his lungs to repeat: “Do it again.”

As Stiles started to move once more, the music came to him as easy as a lullaby. It flowed from his fingers like water, like air, like voiceless words set free after a lifetime trapped in his throat. Every pull of his bow across the strings made something in him shake and he couldn’t have looked away from Stiles if he’d tried.

When the last note trembled in the air, Stiles stumbled to a stop right in front of Derek. He was trembling. Whether from exertion or from emotion Derek didn’t know, but Stiles was trembling and his eyes were wet. His mouth opened to speak, but no sound came out. Derek knew the feeling well; it was as if every word he’d ever used had disappeared.

That was okay though. Words couldn’t describe this anyway, this shivery feeling that raced through his veins and left him so unsteady on his feet. He swayed forward, into Stiles’ orbit, and Stiles leaned in to meet him. For a brief, dizzying moment, the two of them shared breath, almost close enough for their lips to brush.

And then he was gone.

Stiles had the back of his hand pressed to his mouth. His eyes were on the floor where before they had been locked on Derek’s, so bright and insistent. Derek blinked at him stupidly for a second, too drunk on the moment to comprehend the sudden retreat. Before he could regroup, Stiles was scooping up his abandoned shoes and pulling open the door.

At the last moment he turned back, silhouetted against the bright light from the hallway outside. He didn’t meet Derek’s eye again, but his voice cracked under the weight of his sincerity when he said, “Thank you.”

He was out the door before Derek could say it back. All Derek could do was watch him go, his fingers pressed against lips that tingled with the phantom press of a kiss that hadn’t happened.

Stiles flexed the front foot of his split and pointed it again. Then he did the same to the one behind him. He shifted his seat a bit and laid forward to press his chest against his forward leg, forehead to his knee and hands stretched up to grab onto his ankle. After a few seconds, he sat back up and brought his back foot up so he could take hold of it over his shoulder, feeling the burn in his hip flexor.

He let that leg fall and went nose-to-knee again. He flexed his front foot.

“Are you really sure you need to stretch this much?” Scott asked from somewhere to his right. “It seems a little excessive at this point.”

“Scotty, my boy,” Stiles said with forced calm. “I am not going to fuck up my tour de force in the most crucial performance of my entire life to date, flunk out of the academy, be rejected and shunned by every prestigious company in the contiguous United States, and become a homeless bridge troll all because my hamstrings are tight. So yes, I do.

The silence that followed this assertion sounded like Scott was looking at him like he was a crazy person. “Dude,” he said. “You don’t even have a tour de force in this routine!”

If Stiles hadn’t already been flat to the floor, he would’ve flopped down specifically to bang his head against the carpet. As it was, he could only groan and lift up once more, casting around for someone more sympathetic. He caught sight of Lydia and Erica coming their way, both in their standard leotard and tights, hair tightly bunned and pointe shoes tied together and tossed over their shoulders.

“Erica!” he called. “Come lift my leg.”

“No way, babe,” Erica said easily as she plopped down beside Scott on the bench he had claimed as his own. “You’ve been doing this for like an hour already.”

Lydia chose to loom over Stiles instead, arms crossed and judgmental eyebrow raised. “There is such a thing as over-stretching, Stilinski,” she said.

“Yeah, Stiles!” Scott said at once. “You don’t want to over-stretch, do you? Not before the most crucial performance of your entire life to date.”

“That’s easy for you guys to say!” Stiles said. He shifted from his right split into a middle one and set about rotating his knees to the back, bracing on his elbows so he could glare up at his friends. “You three have all already had your panels. You’re in the after and high on adrenaline. I, on the other hand, am firmly in the before. I still have time to fuck it up.”

“Oh hush, you’re gonna be fine,” Erica said. “As long as you don’t break yourself preemptively. Why don’t you go bug Derek instead? Bet he’s freaking out just as bad.”

Stiles busied himself with getting out of his split, shaking the strain from his legs and getting them back underneath him, in the hopes that a non-answer would be less suspicious than the croak that was guaranteed to come out of his mouth if he tried to respond to that suggestion. Apparently though, silence was twice as damning as any noise he could’ve made because Erica groaned exaggeratedly.

“Really, Stiles?” she demanded, unfairly exasperated considering it was none of her business to start with.

“Dude, I thought you guys were cool,” Scott said, much quieter than Erica because he was a good friend. “Are you guys not cool?”

“We’re cool!” Stiles told them quickly. “We’re totally cool, we’re fine. Doesn’t mean it’s not...a little awkward sometimes.”

He found his eyes scanning the enormous room without his permission. It was the lobby of the academy’s largest theater and was currently full of students waiting their turn to go inside, take to the stage, perform their final creation, and be judged by a panel of their teachers and independent adjudicators. Stiles was far from the only one laid out on the floor; there were half a dozen others warming up by way of contorting themselves into various, equally impossible-looking positions.

The musicians were doing their own warm-ups too, scattered around the room playing scales and doing finger exercises. It all blended together into one giant cacophonous mess that was really kind of grating on the nerves, truth be told. At least they were trying to be quiet, but there was only so much you could do to stringed instruments to make them quieter. Most of them were clustered on the other side of the lobby just for that reason, farthest away from the theater itself so the clamor didn’t carry over and mess up someone’s performance.

Among that number was Derek. He had set up camp in front of one of the tall windows, a stray sunbeam falling across his face and making the dark polished wood of his violin gleam. Kira and Boyd were there too, both of their instruments in their cases since they’d already performed, but Derek wasn’t paying them any attention. He was turned away and entirely focused on the motion of his fingers, the glide of his bow across the strings.

“Tell me again why you didn’t kiss him?” Lydia asked abruptly, pulling Stiles harshly out of his Derek-induced daze. He scowled at her.

“I panicked,” he said.

“And tell me why exactly you haven’t so much as mentioned the almost-kiss since that night?” she asked.

“Because I’m still kinda panicking, okay?” Stiles snapped.

“It’s been two months,” Scott pointed out. “You can’t possibly still be panicking.”

“Man, do you know me? I go through life with constant, low-grade anxiety as my truest and most loyal companion,” Stiles said. “I can absolutely panic for two months straight. Especially when I almost kiss Derek Hale and then chicken out.”

“Oh my god, this is pathetic,” Lydia sighed. She took hold of Stiles’ arm and pulled hard, succeeding in dragging him bodily off the floor and halfway to his feet before he could scramble enough to stand up on his own.

“Ow, ow, ow! Lydia, I need that arm! I can’t do final projects short one arm!”

“Go talk to Derek before I have to smack sense into you,” she said shortly, ignoring his affronted look and the way he was rubbing at his newly abused shoulder.

“I talk to Derek all the time,” Stiles reminded her. “We’ve spent the last two months practically living in each other’s pockets getting this project together. I do not lack for time spent with Derek Hale. I just saw him last night, okay? We rehearsed for like three hours! And practically every night before that, so—”

“Stiles,” Lydia cut him off, one of her sweetest and most dangerous smiles on her face. “Go talk to Derek or I will go talk to him for you.”

That was no idle threat and Stiles knew it. He didn’t know what Lydia would say if he allowed that to happen, but he wasn’t sure he was willing to take that risk.

“You better go, man,” Scott said. “Before either of you morons works yourself into a panic on your own. Trust me, it’ll do both of you good.”

Stiles made a face at him, but his feet were already moving. He staunchly ignored the stupid kissy noises Erica made, and the wolf whistle, because he was the bigger man and he would not sink to her level. He was just going to talk to his project partner, there was nothing embarrassing or salacious about that.

Besides, it’s not like he didn’t want to see Derek. He did. He really, really did. And that was half the problem. Or more like all the problem, honestly.

He had almost kissed Derek. He had come so fucking close to kissing Derek that night in the practice room, riding so high on the elation of finally making that connection he’d been looking for, of being truly understood for the first time in his life. God, he had never felt anything like what he’d felt when Derek took up his violin and poured out the kind of song that made Stiles’ entire body feel like it was lighter than air, like he was too big to be contained. Like he was a whole world unto himself.

He had wanted so badly to kiss Derek then, but he hadn’t. At the last second some lingering shred of rational thought had kicked in and pulled him back from that ledge, reminded him of who they were and what they were doing. When emotions were running high like that was no time to make big decisions, like kissing people. And, he’d thought, they were partners, in a professional and businesslike manner. They’d had a vitally important project to complete and what would happen to their collaboration after a botched romantic overture ruined even their working relationship?

That was what he had told himself in the moment, at least. It was the rational decision to make, the reasonable and mature one.

And maybe he had just been scared. That night, dancing like he had danced, with no music and no choreography and nothing to hide behind. He had never felt so exposed, naked in the deepest way, and having Derek’s eyes on him had been— Intense didn’t even begin to cover it. And then Derek had played his song, the one he had been waiting for, and the enormity of the feeling that had risen up in Stiles’ chest had choked him, had taken hold of his heart and squeezed until he couldn’t breathe.

That was what he had run from. And that was what he had been panicking over for two months, because that feeling hadn’t gone away. He had seen Derek the next morning and it had been there, clogging up his thoughts and making his heart do funky things. It had stayed through weeks of rehearsal, even when they argued until they were blue in the face and especially when things clicked into place so perfectly that Stiles wanted to cry with it.

Even now as Stiles made his way across the crowded lobby to where Derek was practicing, the feeling was there, making his palms sweat. And he didn’t know what to do about it now any more than he had two months ago.

Kira and Boyd had cleared off somewhere, leaving the space around Derek empty. His eyes were closed, the sunlight catching on his eyelashes where they were splayed out against his cheeks, and he was so focused on what he was playing. It didn’t sound like scales or exercises, though it was hard to tell over all the discordant sounds around them.

As Stiles drew near, he began to pick out his notes from the rabble, something sweet and somehow familiar. It reminded him of home, of smiles and laughs and chipped piano keys. He found his heart rate slowing down, nerves fading away, and his next breath came easier than the last. By the time he’d reached Derek’s side, he was grinning.

“Is that The Last Unicorn?”

Derek nearly dropped his bow he was so startled.

“Sorry!” Stiles said, both hands held out. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Derek was staring at him, wide-eyed and a little astonished. “What did you just say?” he asked.

Stiles licked his lips, a little taken aback by Derek’s taken-aback-ness. “Just, the uh…the song. That you’re playing,” he stammered out. “It’s The Last Unicorn, isn’t it? My mom used to play that on piano when I was a kid. Always put me right to sleep. I haven’t heard it in years.”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “We had it on cassette tape. All of Kenny Loggins’ lullabies.” He looked down, and Stiles thought maybe his cheeks looked a bit pink. “I, um. I play them sometimes, when I’m stressed.”

“I can see why,” Stiles said. “That’s better than xanax. Not that I would know!” he added quickly. “Not actually, anyway. Just, you know, from secondhand anecdotal evidence. It’s just very relaxing is all, you know, soothing and whatnot, so I—”

“I get what you mean,” Derek said, chuckling. He’d been doing that a lot lately: laughing when Stiles started talking nonsense, instead of getting frustrated like he used to do. It was a welcome change, and not one that did anything to stop that feeling in Stiles’ chest from growing.

“So you’re stressed?” Stiles asked, overly bright. “If you’re playing that song, it probably means you’re stressed, right? That’s what it’s for? Stress relief?”

“Not as stressed as you, it sounds like,” Derek said, eyeing him with some concern. “Are you okay?”

Stiles waved him off. “Nah, I’m fine. I’m always a wreck before panel, just ask Scott. This time last year I was shitting bricks, metaphorically speaking. The year before that, I was throwing up. Not a metaphor, I mean I was actually physically ill because of nerves. I’m doing damn good this year in comparison, even though this is the one that really matters. Like, really matters, a lot. Kind of utterly crucial. Like really fucking important.”

“Stiles,” Derek said. “Take a deep breath.”

He did so, realizing belatedly that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, a constant up-and-down motion that was probably half the reason Derek was looking so worried. He made a conscious effort to stop doing that.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just nerves. Nervous energy.”

“You don’t have anything to be worried about,” Derek said, tucking his violin under his arm. “You could do this dance backwards in your sleep at this point, and still look just as stunning doing it. It’s too much a part of you for you to mess it up.”

Stiles’ heart did one of those funky things again where it skipped a beat and tripped over itself and all around didn’t do its job properly.

Derek was giving him that look, the look that made Stiles think that maybe he should’ve just thrown caution to the wind and kissed him after all. The look that made him think that maybe Derek had wanted him to. It was sort of wondering, like Stiles was something beautiful and amazing. He was used to getting that look from people when he was onstage, when he was dancing, but he wasn’t dancing now.

He’d caught Derek watching him eating lunch with that look on his face, watching Stiles chew on his eraser while he tried to annotate the changes he’d made to his choreo that day, watching him make funny faces and bitch about how hot it got in those stuffy practice rooms. Whenever Derek thought he couldn’t see, it seemed like. It made Stiles’ face heat up every time, the flush creeping over his cheeks and down his neck, just like it was doing right now.

He ducked his head and ran fingers through his hair, thinking with mild dismay that he was gonna have to fix that before he went on for panel. Then Derek’s hand was there, brushing the strands back into place. Stiles stared at him, and Derek froze like he’d just realized what he was doing. Pulling his hand back, he coughed.

“Anyway,” he said, “if anyone’s gonna mess it up, it’ll probably be me.”

“What? No way!” Stiles said. “Dude, you never mess up. Like, literally never. I haven’t heard a single even slightly out of tune note from you in the last two months, and this composition is your baby, your pride and joy. It’s amazing and you’re amazing and everything is gonna be amazing, okay?”

Derek blew out a breath and said, “If you say so.”

He was starting to look a little wound up again, eyes darting over to the double doors leading into the theater then to the big ornate clock that hung on the wall. Their slot was 7pm, but the schedule for projects wasn’t exactly set in stone—it was largely dependent on how much the panel had to say to the students about their performance, and the quality of the choreo and composition—so their number could come up anytime in the next two hours, which did not make for a relaxing wait. Scott had been right: they were gonna drive themselves nuts.

“You know, if we’re both this nervous, we could break out the lullabies again,” he said, half joking and half not. “You could play for me.”

It wasn’t until after the words were out of his mouth, after Derek had turned to him with a look on his face that was even more affecting than his normal look, that Stiles realized how much weight those words carried. He could still hear the way Derek had said “Dance for me” so ardently, almost pleading, every bit as desperate to bridge the gap between them as Stiles had been.

Now Stiles’ casual words hung in the air between them, suddenly thick with the memory of that night. The hustle and bustle of the crowd pressed in around them, but Stiles barely heard any of it with Derek’s eyes on him, pinning him to the spot with an unspoken question. Stiles licked his lips and those eyes followed the motion.

Derek swallowed, throat working. “Stiles—” he said, almost too soft to be heard, and Stiles had to do something. That feeling was there again, and so was the swell of panic, but he couldn’t let that stop him. Not again, not when Derek was looking at his lips like they were something sacred and there was no high to blame it on this time. There was only him, only them, and he couldn’t let this go.

“Play for me, Derek,” he said.

He could hear the way Derek’s breath caught in his throat even from a distance. For a long, stretched out second, Stiles didn’t know what Derek was going to do, if he would step back and lift his bow and play or if he would move forward, close the distance between them and do what Stiles had been too much of a coward to do himself. And he ached with how much he wanted that, wanted to be closer, wanted to feel Derek against him and never let him go—

“Stiles!”

Allison’s shout was jarring. It hit Stiles like a physical weight and nearly knocked him off his feet. Derek too was swaying, rocking back on his heels and breathing like he hadn’t had the opportunity in a while.

Reeling, Stiles shook his head and tried to remember where he even was as Allison came jogging up to them. She was in her leotard still but had sweats on over her tights now and there were wisps of hair escaping her bun to curl around her face. She was beaming until she caught sight of what must have been shellshocked expressions on their faces. Then she bit her lip, suddenly apologetic.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, or anything.”

“No, it’s okay,” Derek said quickly. “It’s— It’s fine.” The smile he gave her was anything but genuine and Stiles wanted to wipe it off his face and make sure it never came back. He wondered when he’d figured out how to read Derek’s face so well and decided it didn’t matter.

“Right,” Allison said. “I just came to get you guys. They’re on schedule for once and they’re calling for you.”

“The panel?” Stiles asked, nerves sparking up in his gut again, the bad kind that had made him want to throw up earlier. “It’s our turn? Right now?”

“You’re up,” Allison confirmed. “Break legs.”

Derek nodded to her, a blank mask sliding over his features as he fought his own upwelling of anxiety. He nodded a few more unnecessary times, grabbed his case from off the floor, and set off through the crowd toward the theater.

It took Stiles a minute to unstick his joints and force his feet to actually carry him in the right direction, but Allison took hold of his hand before he could follow the path Derek had cut. When Stiles looked back, her eyes were on Derek’s retreating back.

“Stiles,” she said, “I know I said you should give it time.” Give him time, Stiles remembered from all those weeks ago. “But I think you’ve given it long enough.”

She leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek and then she was off, waving back over her shoulder as she wended her way toward Scott and the others. Stiles watched her go, thoughts running circles in his head and heart pumping hard but steady.

The clock struck seven and Stiles was running before it reached the second chime, dodging his way through the crowd in search of the only person who mattered.

Derek was hovering outside the double doors, maybe waiting for his partner or maybe just too nervous to go inside just yet. Either way he turned when Stiles called his name. He started to say something, to ask what was wrong or why Stiles was sprinting or why he had that manic look on his face, but he didn’t manage to get any words out before Stiles was there. He was right there and Derek’s lips were warm and soft and pliant with his surprise.

There was a clatter as Derek’s case fell back to the floor. He had enough sense to keep a tight hold on the violin at least, even as his newly freed hand came up to grip tight onto Stiles’ waist, pulling him closer and holding him there. Whoops and cheers sounded all around them, and a piercing wolf whistle that was definitely from Erica, and Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care in the slightest that all his classmates were bearing witness to this moment. He didn’t even care about the teachers and adjudicators on the other side of the door, probably wondering what the hell all the applause was for and what was taking their next pair of students so long.

He was panting by the time they broke apart. Derek was no better, cheeks flushed, lips red and wet and swollen, and Stiles had done that. Stiles had made him look like that and it was a goddamn miracle.

“I’ll dance for you,” Stiles said, still close enough for their noses to brush. “When we go in there, the panel can watch all they want but you’re the only one I’ll be dancing for.”

Derek nodded, dazed. His arm was still around Stiles’ waist, apparently unwilling to let him put even an inch of space between them, and Stiles couldn’t say he didn’t understand that sentiment. He sort of never wanted to move from exactly where he was. But they had a piece to perform and a panel to impress.

Reluctantly, Stiles pressed one more quick kiss to Derek’s lips and then forced himself to pull out of his hold. Derek made a noise like the separation hurt him and Stiles smiled so hard it made his cheeks ache. He knelt down to retrieve the abandoned violin case, but he didn’t give it back to its owner. Instead he held onto it himself and took Derek’s hand in his own.

“Will you play for me in there?” Stiles asked.

“Just name the song,” Derek said.

Stiles squeezed his hand, strong fingers around his and rough calluses against his palm, and said, “I only want to hear you.”

Derek smiled, bright and warm and the most beautiful thing Stiles had ever seen. He squeezed Stiles’ hand back and pushed open the door.