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Usually Derek was agile and graceful with his movements. He never went through the awkward, long limbed, clumsy phase that all his peers did. But being a werewolf and all - that was expected.
What wasn't expected was that the first time he saw Stiles Stilinski, he fell down the stairs.
It was potentially the most embarrassing moment of his entire existence.
One minute, he was walking behind Erica and Boyd and complaining about being the third wheel since Isaac had disappeared off somewhere and the next minute, he had spotted Isaac talking to some sophomore with a buzz cut and moles everywhere and these full pink, pretty lips and fuck - he missed a step. He ended up falling into Erica (who was holding Boyd's hand) and they all just sorta tumbled down the rest of the stairs.
It ended up with Derek sprawled across the ground in front of the pretty sophomore while Isaac laughed until he was crying and Erica fumed at him.
Again, it was potentially the most embarrassing moment of his entire existence.
-
It literally just got worst after that.
Every single time Derek saw the kid - who he later found out was called Stiles (and by later, he meant when Isaac stopped laughing) - something embarrassing happened.
First, it was small stuff like when Derek had saw Stiles standing alone at his locker and decided to go introduce himself.
It ended up with Stiles not seeing him approach and letting his locker door swing open and hit Derek in the face.
And let me tell you, that fucking hurt. Like a lot.
"Dude," Stiles panicked. "I'm so fucking sorry. Don't kill me."
Rubbing his nose, Derek managed to say "Why would I do that?"
"You're Derek Hale, right?" Stiles said, backing up while doing so - nevermind that he hadn't closed his locker yet - "It's basically in the school orientation to not piss you off and I just hit you in the face with my locker. So I'm just gonna go now."
"Oh."
"Yeah,"
Stiles ended up running away before Derek had to chance to properly introduce himself. But at least he knew his name.
-
Later that same day, when Derek next saw Stiles, he started violently choking like an idiot. In his defence, Stiles had just appeared. One minute, Derek was eating lunch with Isaac, Erica, and Boyd (all who had just stopped mentioning the falling down the stairs incident) and the next, he inhaled a strong whiff of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Axe body spray, adderall, and curly fries all rolled up into one person. And to make things worst, Stiles was asking if he and his friend, Scott, could sit with them.
So excuse Derek for violently choking on the school’s awful rendition of a bratwurst with a hamburger bun because they had ran out of hotdog buns.
"I'll take that as a no... C'mon, Sc--"
"No!" Derek gasped as Erica whacked him on the back. "Y-you can sit. Both of you."
Stiles and Scott shared a wary look between each other before sitting down.
No one said anything about Derek's red face for the rest of lunch.
-
Even though Stiles was in a grade below Derek, they were still in the same Spanish class. And it was horrible because Stiles was fluent in Spanish and the way words just rolled off his tongue made Derek's chest hurt.
Derek was passing back papers (against his will, by the way. He knew he's stumble across Stiles' papers sooner or later.) And when he finally did, he should've prepared himself for an impending injury. But he didn't. And so when he awkwardly handed Stiles back his paper and Stiles smiled hesitantly and said "Gracias, hombre.", he should've expected when all the papers he still had to pass back fell to the ground as he tried to mutter back "De nada, Stiles."
Two damn words and Derek was ready for Stiles to ruin his life.
Derek grunted as he bent down to pick the papers back up and attempted to ignore the fact that as if on instinct, Stiles had slid out of his desk to help Derek collect the papers.
"You know," Stiles said offhandedly. "You're awfully clumsy for someone who is supposed to be the co-captain of the lacrosse team."
Derek shrugged and looked up to grab the papers back, "I'm not usually this clumsy."
"Yeah? So what's got ya fallin' all over the place then?"
Derek opened his mouth to answer, but then Stiles licked his lips and Derek went to back up before did something stupid like kiss attack Stiles unfairly beautiful face like his wolf wanted to and suddenly, he was flat on his back because he had tripped over some kid's backpack.
He didn't even bother answering Stiles' question after that.
-
Besides the one time that Derek fell down the stairs upon seeing Stiles, the second most embarrassing moment of his life is when he gave Stiles and Scott an concussion.
Once again, it had been all Stiles' fault.
All Derek wanted to do was to go to the library and check out a book - any book - he just wanted to finish a book report due in two days. But nope. Stiles and his friend, Scott, had to be in the library too. On the other side of the bookshelf that Derek was conveniently leaning against.
And sure, in retrospect, Derek should've been expecting this. I mean, he was a werewolf. He could probably smell Stiles' scent from a mile away. It was pretty overwhelming on his poor sniffer, to be honest.
"--Derek?"
Derek's ears perked at his name and he leaned even closer even though he could hear them perfectly fine without supernatural hearing abilities.
"I don't know, man." He could hear Stiles shrugging. "He has this rep for being a badass, right? And he totally has the look - you've seen him. He totally pulls off the leather jacket, overly tight henley, ' I'm a serial killer ' look, but Jesus Christ, I've never seen anyone so clumsy since--"
"Yourself?"
"Shut up."
Derek heard them laughing amongst themselves before sighed and said, "Ya know, his friend, Erica, told me he's got this weird crush on me and the only reason he keeps hurting himself is becaus--"
Stiles didn't get to finish his sentence because Derek who was apparently putting too much weight on the book shelf, made tip over and rock back into place which ended up knocking four rows of books on both Stiles and Scott as well as his own head.
-
He ended up giving both Stiles and Scott a concussion and getting himself temporarily banned from the library.
Needless to say, he failed the book report assignment.
-
Derek only embarrassed himself a handful of times after that. And it wasn't anything as bad as before. It was all stuff like accidentally spilling his lunch on himself in front of Stiles, accidently making his pen ink explode all over him, accidentally spilling Xylene on himself and having to take an emergency shower because he saw Stiles in the hallway...
Stuff like that.
(It was horrible.)
-
Eventually, Stiles just started avoiding him all together. Not because he was intimidating or anything. Just because at the rate he was going on, he was going to end up killing Stiles one day.
-
"Stiles is gonna hurt you one day," Peter tutted one day when Derek came in holding an ice pack to his head. (He had ran into a wall after watching Stiles cheer up Scott by dancing in the hallway to a non-existent song that apparently required a obscene amount of hip rolling.) "That, or you're going to hurt yourself."
"Shut up. I have a headache."
"Stiles related incident, I presume?" Peter held up his hand. "Wait, don't tell me. I'll just find out later on when you're on the phone, complaining to one of your friends."
Derek flopped on the couch and held up his middle finger.
Peter laughed and left him alone.
-
When Derek finally asked Stiles out on a proper date, it was after he had tripped half way down the bleachers to congratulate him on winning his long distance run competition.
And even then, he technically didn't ask Stiles anything.
It was more like Derek was picking himself up off the ground, blushing and grumbling how ridiculous this was when Stiles sighed.
"I can't tell if you're doing this on purpose or if you're really fucking clumsy, but if I agree to ask you out on a date with you - like your friends and really creepy uncle keep badgering me about asking you on - will you stop bruising me - and yourself?"
Derek just stared with wide eyes.
"Is that a no?"
"Uhm,"
"Well, Derek?"
-
Derek ended up saying yes and tripping on his way to hug Stiles.
(Stiles huffed and rolled his eyes before telling Derek that he's lucky he's cute.)