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"No," Stiles says, "no, no, absolutely not, Scott, and I swear to god if the phrase 'I'm the Alpha' comes out of your mouth, I will... well, glare impotently at you but also I will keep saying no. Because this is a terrible idea."
"They already know what Allison and Isaac and I look like," Scott points out. "Lydia's got that thing in San Francisco this weekend, everyone else is gone on campus visits, so that just leaves you and Derek."
"Yes," Stiles says, "that leaves me and Derek to try to infiltrate a murderous werewolf-worshipping cult and pretending to be a bonded couple like that's even a thing and this is still a terrible idea!" He throws his hands up into the air. "Even if we ignored the fact that there's no way in hell that we"—Stiles points a quivering finger back and forth between himself and Derek—"could ever pull off being a normal couple. Werewolf twosome. Thing."
Derek frowns at him. "Could too."
"Could not," Stiles says with devastating emphasis, because if they're going to go the elementary school playground argument route, Stiles has got a lot of practice here. Stiles went to elementary school with Greenberg.
Derek folds his arms. "I was in drama club in high school."
"You were not," Stiles says, gaping, because it doesn't matter that Derek looks absolutely serious, that is the kind of image that's going to haunt him forever—a teenage Derek monobrowing his way through an amateur production of Godspell or South Pacific, pretending to be Joseph in a coat of many colours—and Stiles can't even tell if it's going to haunt him in the bad way or not.
He's totally looking up the old high school yearbooks the moment he gets back to school.
"Was too," Derek says, and frowns harder before visibly shifting, except not in a way that Stiles has ever seen before—his whole body relaxes, shoulders loosening, and when he grins he suddenly looks like a college student instead of a predator. He bumps shoulders with Stiles, like there's affection between them, like their very physical closeness is an old, shared joke, and holy shit, this Derek, this Derek—
Stiles swallows hard.
"See?" Scott says, looking pleased, "you're practically like an old married couple already."
"Okay, buddy," Stiles says, "I will admit that it's not like Beacon Hills is strong on examples of old married couples so your past encounters with… Derek, what are you doing?"
"Holding your hand," Derek says.
"Yes," Stiles says slowly, "I got that part, but I thought the 'why,' 'and also why', was strongly implied in my first question."
Derek shrugs. "We're a bond pair, right? That's what bond pairs do."
"Hold hands?" Stiles says, voice cracking embarrassingly, because his brain chooses that moment to favour him with vivid, Technicolour images of all the other things bond pairs can do, could do.
Having an unrequited crush on a werewolf is no fun.
"Yes," Derek says, looking right at him, and he's still got that unfamiliar wide smile on his face, but there's also a hint of something in his eyes that Stiles can't quite figure out, something that looks like a challenge. "Consider it practice."
"Well," Stiles says, struggling for equilibrium and sarcasm, "wouldn't want to put in a bad performance in front of the psychopath serial killers."
Scott frowns. "Isn't that tautological?"
"Dude!" Stiles says, high fiving Scott with his free hand, "That SAT vocab practice is totally paying off!"
Scott beams at him. "I know, right?"
"And ordinarily, yes, that word would apply, but these people believe that a fearsome werewolf god is going to usher in the end times right here in Cali, so." Scott's still smiling at him, and Stiles can feel his resolve failing. "Fine, okay, I'll do it, but this is the only time I'm going to infiltrate a murderous werewolf-worshipping cult for you, I mean it. I have college applications to finish."
"You're the best," Scott says, and waves them off from the front porch of his mom's house as they head out to Stiles' jeep.
"Uh," Stiles says as he opens the driver side door, "so it would be helpful for, you know, the whole safe operation of a motor vehicle thing if you let go of my hand now, Derek."
Derek looks down at their joined hands; that unfamiliar contentment is gone from his face, but it's been replaced not by a frown or a blank look, but by something equally new to Stiles. Derek looks nervous. "Things aren't going to start until sunset, right? That gives us four or five hours."
"For?"
"Practice," Derek says, and when he looks back up at Stiles this time, Stiles has one of those Eureka, light-bulb-switching-on moments.
"Holy shit," he breathes. "Oh my— Wait, okay, first off, this is the moment you choose to make any sort of move? No one is ever allowed to make fun of my game ever again, ever again. Second…" He looks around Derek and yup, there it is, a dark mop of hair just visible through one of the living room windows. "Scott Esteban McCall," Stiles yells, "you come out here right now!"
There's a moment's silence, and then the front door opens slowly. "You guys okay?" Scott says, and as an attempt at nonchalance, it's painful.
"Is there actually a murderous werewolf-worshipping cult in Beacon Valley?" Stiles says.
"Uh, there could be?" Scott says. When Stiles glares at him, he continues, "But there's not."
Derek's head whips around. "You made it up?"
"Well, I actually sort of robbed it from the plot of Attack of Werewolf Satan," Scott says. "Kira and I watched it last week, it's totally awesome."
Stiles squints at him. "And you just decided, what, to prank us? Make us go burst in on a perfectly innocent Rotary Club meeting for no good reason?"
"No, see then on Tuesday Kira and Lydia were watching some romcom and they started arguing about whether any of those kind of plots are ever realistic, and if they could ever be repeated in real life under controlled conditions, so, uh…"
"We're lab rats?" Stiles yelps, outraged. "This goes totally against the bro code, dude."
Scott winces. "Is it really experimentation if Kira and Lydia think you two would be really cute together?"
Stiles blinks, a little nonplussed. "Cute?"
"Kira says you guys have a thing," Scott says; he clearly thinks he's being helpful. "Like, a… vibe."
"A vibe," Derek says, and Stiles wonders if it's unusual to find dry-as-a-bone sarcasm really hot.
"Look," Scott says, "you guys should actually be grateful that I talked them out of video-taping all of this and then Lydia writing the results up for some psych journal. They were really committed. Also, you're still holding hands, so yeah: a vibe," he finishes, sounding more than a little smug. Is a True Alpha allowed to sound smug like that?
Stiles looks back down at his hand, his fingers still tangled with Derek's, and recalls his first realisation. To wit, he's pretty sure Derek wants to put his face on Stiles' face. He blinks. Why the hell is he still standing here? He tugs on his hand until Derek looks back at him.
"So that diner on Albany is open til late, they do some good burgers and really great pie and it's quiet there and we could talk? You know. If you wanted." Stiles makes himself stop talking, takes a deep breath.
"Okay," Derek says softly. That's it, that's all he says, but there's a flush high on his cheekbones and there's a tiny smile lingering in the corners of his mouth and there is, Stiles realises faintly, an excellent chance that he's going to end the evening making out in the back of his jeep with Derek Hale.
Holy shit.
Stiles resolutely doesn't punch the air because hello, he has some game, he does.
He reluctantly lets go of Derek's hand, nods for Derek to go around to the passenger side while he digs his keys out of the pocket of his jeans. "We're going to have words about this later," he calls to Scott, "and tell Lydia I'm going to yell at her about how this is the kind of shit you need IRB approval for!"
Scott huffs, which, fair, because would Lydia ever let a little thing like professional ethics stop her? Probably not.
"Also, you and me, next Bro Night we're totally watching Attack of Werewolf Satan, that sounds awesome, how could you see that without me?"
"He turns into a wolf on full moons!" Scott says excitedly. "Except instead of a wolf's tail, he has a devil's one, and he's got these huge horns! The special effects are really terrible, it's great, you'll love it."
Stiles climbs into the jeep, coaxes the engine into life, and they're halfway down the street before his curiosity wins out over his nerves and he says, "So, drama club, huh?"
"Not going to discuss it," Derek says, but he's still smiling faintly. His hands rest loosely in his lap, but when Stiles reaches out a hand to him at the next stoplight, Derek holds on tight.