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1
It's shaping up to be a nice, easy shift. There haven't been any car crashes, and the ER has been pretty quiet. The only emergencies they've had are a stupid kid who climbed a tree on a dare and then fell off and broke his arm, and an elderly lady who dislocated her hip.
Stiles is more than ready to head home, but it's still an hour or so before his shift ends. He finishes his rounds and then heads for the coffee machine. The sludge it gives him is weak and tastes like shit, but it's the only form of caffeine in this place and he's going to take whatever he can. He takes his coffee and wanders over to the front desk, which is being manned by Melissa tonight.
“Heya,” he greets her. “What's up?”
“Hey, kid,” she answers, offering him a smile. “Slow day, huh?”
“Yeah,” he says, taking a sip from his coffee and grimacing. “Anything on the news?”
They both turn to the TV propped up in the corner. It's only got two stations, the news and the sports. Stiles changes the channel from the Yankees' highlights to the news. There's nothing on, though, so Stiles switches it back to the Yankees.
It's almost like Stiles has jinxed his nice and easy day, though, because not five minutes an emergency breaks out. A cop's been shot while stopping a burglary, and he's on his way to the ER. Along with the burglar, who's in much worse condition – he took three bullets to the legs and abdomen while facing off the cops, it seems.
The nurses begin prepping for the situation, and Stiles chucks his coffee in the trash before heading over to scrub up. “Will I go to hell if I say I'm almost glad this happened?” he asks Melissa, who's helping him.
“Probably,” Melissa answers. “I'll be right there with you. We can swap stories with Satan.”
Stiles chuckles darkly. “I'm not glad he's hurt, I'm glad that there's finally something to do around here tonight. Though of course I'd have preferred something less... nasty.”
The cop is brought in a minute or so later, and taken straight to the OR, where Stiles awaits. It's not a particularly dangerous wound – he was shot in the arm – but it's going to hurt like a bitch. And if the gunshot's hit an artery, it's going to get messy.
Stiles is mildly surprised to see he doesn't recognize the cop at all. It's an attractive guy, a few years older than Stiles. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his teeth are gritted in agony. His eyes are a brilliant gray-green. Stiles thinks he'd have remembered seeing someone this attractive at the police station.
His shirt is off, but Stiles decides to leave the appreciation of his rugged physique for later. For instance, when it's not caked with drying blood.
They settle him in one of the rooms for overnight observation, his arm in a cast. Stiles estimates he won't be doing any heroics for a couple of months at least.
The cop - Derek Hale - is not happy when Stiles cheerily tells him that the next morning, checking his vitals as he does so. “What do you mean, I can't use my arm for a couple of months?” he questions.
“Just that,” Stiles answers. “Your vitals are fine, by the way. How's the pain?”
“Manageable,” Derek tells him, scowling. His eyebrows are doing the thing where they furrow together and make one thick, hairy line of judgment. “But – what am I supposed to do?”
“Desk work!” Stiles says, so cheerfully it's infuriating. “My dad'll hook you up.”
“Your dad.”
“He's the Sheriff?”
Derek blinks. “You're Sheriff Stilinski's son? Stan something?”
“Stiles,” he corrects, rolling his eyes. “And yes.”
“Your parents named you Stiles Stilinski?” Derek looks horrified.
“No, you idiot,” Stiles tells him, taking his temperature and doing one last overall check. “It's a nickname. My first name is horrendous.”
“What is it?” The question is automatic.
“Nope, not telling you,” Stiles says, and then adds, “You're free to go, by the way.”
Derek nods, grabs the change of clothes his colleague got him, and then nods to Stiles in greeting. “Thank you.”
Stiles waves a hand airily. “Welcome, dude. Just doing my job.”
Derek stares at the long, slender fingers. Surgeon's hands – they look really graceful, steady somehow, like there's nothing they can't fix. They're a direct contradiction to the rest of Stiles, who bumps into things as he walks and flails at everyone.
He blinks himself out of it and decides to blame the weird feeling in his stomach on the painkillers.
2
They meet again three months later, when Derek winds up in the emergency room courtesy of a knife wound to the side. Stiles rolls his eyes when he sees him, but proceeds to stitch him up without comment.
Until–
“You just couldn't resist, could you?”
“You make it sound like I do it on purpose,” snaps Derek.
Stiles waggles his eyebrows. “Well, maybe you do,” he says, grinning. “Maybe you just like seeing me.”
Derek's eyebrow twitches. “Why on earth would I just like seeing you? I barely know you,” he points out.
“Don't be all shy now,” Stiles says. “My dad's told me you asked after me. Quite a few times, in fact.”
Derek doesn't blush. At all.
Derek is good at denial.
Stiles is an idiot. He also has a really nice laugh.
Derek's just going to sink into the ground now.
Stiles finishes stitching up the wound and then says, “Okay, you're good to go. You're lucky it wasn't much. Don't strain it too much or the stitches will tear.” His grin takes on a positively devilish quality. “You know what this means, don't you?”
“Paperwork,” Derek groans quietly.
“Say hi to my dad from me,” Stiles says cheekily.
Derek kind of hates him a little. He also hates those fingers that Stiles won't stop waving everywhere.
And Stiles's grin. He definitely hates Stiles's stupid grin.
(Derek Hale is not generally known for his maturity.)
3
“You're joking,” Stiles says flatly when he next sees Derek in the emergency room, two weeks later. “You couldn't wait some time before getting yourself injured again?”
Derek huffs and does not answer.
“I'm starting to think you either really do wanna come see me, or you have the shittiest luck.”
Derek rolls his eyes. “How about neither? Actually, how about you shut up and fix my fucking broken ribs ?”
“I can't believe you got into a car crash,” Stiles says when Derek's been fixed up. “What the fuck were you even doing?”
“Driving,” Derek grumbles. “Some idiot skipped the red light at the intersection. And now my car is ruined.”
“At least you're alive,” muses Stiles, ever the eternal optimist. “So. Not even a little happy to see me?”
“Considering every time I see you I'm in a lot of pain... no, not particularly.”
“Oh, you break my heart.”
“Well, if your heart's that fragile you should be more careful with it.”
“Excuse you, my heart isn't fragile.”
Derek does the eyebrow judgy thing again. Stiles just sighs. “Just try not to get yourself killed, okay? Or the next time I'm just going to keep you here indefinitely.”
“You can't do that.”
Stiles grins evilly. “ Can't I?”
Derek doesn't like the way he's holding his clipboard. He does like the teasing and the banter, though. It makes the hospital visits slightly more bearable.
4
The next time Derek sees Stiles, he has a brilliant shiner, and is holding himself somewhat gingerly. Almost as if...
Stiles groans. “You broke your ribs again, didn't you?”
“Yes I did,” gripes Derek, “and it would be wonderful if you could deal with it without bitching.”
“I don't bitch.”
“Yes, you do. All the time. You bitch at your dad about healthy food. You bitch at the police officers about their filing system. You bitch at the nurses when you're bored. And you bitch at me every time you see me. Now shut up and fix the shit.”
“What did you even do this time?” asks Stiles.
Derek just looks at him, and he's clearly reluctant to answer. At Stiles's raised eyebrow, he sighs and answers, “I may or may not have gotten into a fight with someone... but in my defense, he said he was going to key my car.”
Stiles just rolls his eyes. “I'm going to yell at you for that later.”
Derek surprises himself when he realizes he doesn't mind. Concern is nice. Especially concern from a person like Stiles.
Also, his bitching is kind of entertaining. He has a nice voice.
(Derek blames that one on the broken ribs.)
5
Derek's expression would be comical, if it isn't for the fact that it's twisted in pain. Somehow he's managing to look agonized and disgruntled both at the same time.
Stiles doesn't even bother to sigh. “What was it this time?” he asks after he's reduced the fracture and is busy casting it.
“Broke my arm.”
“Yes. I can see that. How?”
Derek clams up and refuses to reply.
“How, Derek?”
He gives in. All it took was a stern look from Stiles, and he's given in. He's such a pathetic wimp. Well, it's not his fault Stiles looks so cute when he tries to be firm. He didn't ask Stiles to be that way.
So there.
“I fell off a tree.”
“You what.”
“You heard me.” He isn't quite sure how exactly Stiles has reduced him to a mumbling mess. He's a very tough cop, thank you very much.
“What were you even doing up in the tree?” Stiles asks incredulously, his mouth hanging up. Derek has to physically tear his gaze from Stiles's lips.
“I was rescuing a cat,” he tells Stiles, resigning himself to the fact that he's forever going to be known as the cop who broke his arm falling from a tree.
To his surprise, Stiles doesn't laugh at him or otherwise mock him. Instead, he regards him with an impressed look on his face, and then says, “Well, that is heroic, so I'll let you off with just a warning this time.”
Derek can't help but ask, “Okay, so – stopping a burglary, winning a knife fight and a fist fight, surviving a car crash – these aren't heroic, but saving a cat is?”
“Okay, first of all,” Stiles begins, “you didn't survive a major car crash. You survived an idiot ramming into your side of the car. Stop exaggerating. Secondly–” he holds up a finger to shush Derek, who'd opened his mouth to speak. “All those other things you did? I'm not saying they weren't awesome, even though you did get hurt, but – they were just part of your job, you know? Like, you had to do them whether you wanted to or not. But saving a cat? You didn't have to. You didn't have to, but you did, and that's pretty damn selfless and heroic.”
Derek's left speechless as his brain tries to register Stiles's monologue. Completely unbothered by this fact, Stiles continues doing his work. His fingers occasionally come into contact with Derek's skin as he works, and leave it tingling in their wake. Derek isn't sure what to make of this.
Finally he says, “Looks like I should rescue more cats, then.”
Stiles laughs. “You should.”
A comfortable silence passes before Stiles asks, “So, don't you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or something, someone who tells you not to do all the stupid things that you do?”
Derek shakes his head. “No. My family's in New York, and I'm single.”
“How come? Face like that, I'd have figured people would be lining up to date you.”
“They're not,” Derek says before he can think it through.
Stiles snorts. “Must be your sunny personality.”
“No, it's just – I don't want to date anyone just yet.” Derek wonders why he's telling Stiles all of this. Stiles is his doctor. Granted, they have a more easy-going relationship than most doctors do with their patients, but that's because that's just the kind of person Stiles is.
“What about you?” he asks a second later.
“Me? Nahh. Had a crush on this girl for ten years before I finally got the hint that she wasn't into me, and moved on. She's married to her boyfriend now. They've even got a baby girl. They named her Sara. She's adorable.”
Derek ignores the information overload on a person he doesn't know, and instead asks, “So – there's no one you got your eye on?”
Stiles laughs. “Dude, the only people I interact with on a daily basis are nurses and patients. Sometimes my best friend Scott. Doesn't give me many options, don't you think?”
Derek wonders uneasily why exactly he's so relieved at that.
6
“Dude, you're severely dehydrated,” Stiles tells Derek, who's lying on a bed with an IV hooked into him. “You throw up anything you eat. You feel faint and dizzy. So no, you can't go home now. Not until you recover.”
“It's just food poisoning,” Derek says, annoyed. He tries to glare and intimidate Stiles, but it doesn't work because by this time they know each other too well for that kind of tactic to be successful.
“Food poisoning is a big deal!” Stiles exclaims, flailing angrily at Derek. “You can't just – just come in here looking like you just had all the water drained out of you, and then ask to go home three hours later!”
Derek folds his arms and huffs.
“Real mature, Derek.”
“Says the man who put a tack on Nurse Meridian's chair.”
“That old hag had it coming.”
They glare at each other, testing, seeing who'll back down first. It's Derek who does, mainly because Stiles's glare is also underlined with worry and he's decided he hates seeing that look on Stiles's face. “Fine,” he sighs angrily. “ Fine .”
Stiles visibly relaxes. “Look, it's not like I enjoy keeping you here, okay? Sure, you're funny, and entertaining, and sometimes you're really nice to be around, but that doesn't mean I like forcing you to stay overnight. It's – for – your – own – good.” He enunciates each word with a poke to Derek's knee.
Derek, who's still slowly going through Stiles's words. Did he just–?
“Did you just compliment me?”
Stiles rolls his eyes, but the gesture is more fond than exasperated. “Get some rest,” is all he says. “I'll be back in to check on you later.”
Derek would be lying if he says that he doesn't look forward to it. Even if all it entails is Stiles fussing over him.
7
“This one isn't my fault,” are Derek's first words when he regains consciousness to find Stiles hovering over him.
“It's appendicitis, it couldn't be your fault even if you wanted it to be,” Stiles answers, but he's smiling.
Derek feels woozy from the drugs and knows that if he talks, sooner or later he'll wind up saying something stupid. But he doesn't care, so he says, “You're like, my own personal doctor now. You fix me up and shit.”
“Well, someone's got to,” Stiles says with a laugh. “Otherwise you would probably be dead by now. Or worse.”
“That would suck,” Derek says. “A lot.”
Stiles nods. “You're hilarious, you know that? You should be on painkillers, like, all the time.”
“You're cute,” Derek says suddenly, like Stiles hasn't spoken at all. “Like. Really cute.” He blushes furiously even as he says it.
Stiles is staring at him with his mouth open, shock evident on his face. “I'm – what?” he finally says, eloquent as always.
“You heard me,” Derek says with a half-hearted flap of his hand. “You move a lot when you talk and you're really clumsy except you're also good with your hands and you talk a lot and you just. You're so... so you.”
“These are the drugs talking,” Stiles finally says, and Derek thinks he looks maybe a little sad.
“Don't look like that,” he tells Stiles. “Not a good look on you. You should be happy, like, all the time.”
Stiles quirks a small smile at that. “Go to sleep,” he tells Derek. “I've got work to do. Contrary to popular belief you're not my only patient, you know.”
“Wish I was,” mumbles Derek. Stiles doesn't reply, just smiles and leaves.
8
“Okay, this is the last time,” Stiles fumes as he shines a light into Derek's eyes. “This is the last fucking time you get to walk in here with some sort of injury or the other. The next time this happens I'm going to tie you to a chair and put you in my basement.”
“Because that's not creepy at all,” mumbles Derek, shrinking away from the light.
“Don't tell me about creepy, okay, you've been stalking me through my dad,” retorts Stiles
“I have not,” snaps Derek. “I've just been... making polite small talk.”
Stiles snorts. “Derek, he told me you asked him if I was single, and if he happened to know my preferences. That's not polite small talk.”
“Why does your father tell you everything,” grumbles Derek, having the decency to at least blush.
“Because he's my dad,” Stiles points out. “Have you been having trouble sleeping, or been sleeping too much?”
“What – no, I've been sleeping fine. 4 hours last night.”
“Okay. Trouble remembering things?”
Derek makes a face as he tries to answer.
“Okay, how about this – what did you have for breakfast yesterday morning?”
“Uh...” At the expression on Stiles's face he says, “Just give me a minute, it'll come to me.”
Stiles says nothing, just crosses his arms and taps his foot, clearly waiting. Derek tries, he really does, but he can't come up with anything more specific than, “Food?”
Stiles sighs in resignation. “Okay. Food. Well, have you been feeling lethargic? Tired? Grouchier than usual?”
“Yeah,” admits Derek. “Just don't feel up to anything.”
“Headaches?”
“Yes.”
Stiles puts his flashlight down and scribbles something on his clipboard. “You've got a concussion,” he announces. “At this point I don't even know what to think, except for – you're an idiot who enjoys getting himself into dangerous situations just so he can harass me.”
“Harass you?”
“Yes! And make me spend my free time wondering whether or not you're okay! Because you're an asshole who can't adult properly and responsibly, dammit, and you make me worry!”
“Did you just use adult as a verb?”
Stiles makes a frustrated noise and a particularly energetic flapping gesture. “Out of everything I just said, that's the bit you caught?”
Derek rolls his eyes, even though there's a happy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Stiles worries about him. “No, of course not. I understood the rest just fine, too. And don't talk to me about being a responsible adult, your dad told me you watch cartoons on Saturday mornings with an entire bucket of Ben and Jerry's.”
“Why does he tell you everything,” grumbles Stiles, and Derek grins.
“I did spend a lot of time doing paperwork for him while I was recovering. It got boring sometimes.”
“And of course you'd discuss me.” Stiles throws his hands up in the air in mock frustration.
“Don't be so self-centered now,” Derek says, teasing. “We also discuss your YouTube videos.”
Stiles flails some more. “Oh my God I was thirteen! You can't hold that against me, okay, it's not fair–” He stops when he sees how close Derek is to bursting out in laughter, which in his lethargic, concussed state probably isn't a good thing. He snaps back to professionalism, even though, to be honest, he hasn't been professional with Derek for a long time.
“Okay, you're gonna find someone who can stay with you for 24 hours and monitor you. Get some rest, and get your babysitter to wake you up every two hours and check up on you. And get me their number so I can explain things. If your headache gets worse, take some Tylenol. You should be fine in a few days or so.”
Derek considers asking Stiles to babysit him, but he remembers that Stiles has work. That, and the fact that since he's going to spend his time concussed and confused, there's a very good chance he'll do or say something stupid. He still can't get over the fact that he called Stiles cute to his face.
He really hates his brain-mouth filter sometimes. His only small comfort is that while his may be bad, Stiles doesn't even have one.
So he calls his partner on the force, and gives the number to Stiles.
9
Stiles plonks his pen down when he sees Derek approaching. The man looks to be in perfect health, but with Stiles's luck, he's probably sporting a tumor somewhere and has come to inform Stiles of his impending death.
The thought is kind of upsetting.
“What?” he groans when Derek is near enough to hear him.
Instead of answering, Derek leans over the desk where Stiles is sitting and says, voice firm, “Your shift ends in five minutes. Have coffee with me.”
“What?” yelps Stiles, attempting to make the connection between the two seemingly disconnected sentences.
“You heard me,” Derek says, the tips of his ears just slightly pink. “I want you to have coffee with me.”
Comprehension hits Stiles like a speeding eighteen-wheeler, and he grins so widely he thinks his face might fall off. “About time, you idiot,” he says, and crashes his face into Derek.
Of course, because this is them and injury seems to be predestined, he ends up slightly miscalculating and smashing his forehead into Derek's nose.
“Ow – what the fuck, Stiles?”
“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!” Stiles all but yells, scrambling to find something that will stop the flow of blood from Derek's nose. “I was going to kiss you, I swear I didn't mean to break your face, here, try this!”
He slams a roll of gauze into Derek's face, nearly hitting him in the eye.
“Good thing you're a doctor,” Derek says deadpan as he attempts to stem the flow of blood. “Or I would probably be dead just by being in close proximity with you. At least this way you can fix me after you're done breaking me.”
Stiles flails indignantly, concern momentarily forgotten. “It was an honest mistake, you asshole,” he gripes. “And I'm not the one who gets into trouble on a daily basis and then comes crying to me.”
“I don't come crying to you,” Derek says irritably.
“You totally do,” Stiles says, hands on hips. “You bitch at me about the paperwork you have to do while you're in recovery, like it's my fault somehow that you can't look after your own ass, and you come in here bleeding more often than not, dripping blood everywhere and judging people with your eyebrows and being grouchy as all hell and–”
He's cut off when Derek makes a frustrated noise and presses his lips against Stiles's, nosebleed stopped and blood wiped off his face while Stiles had been ranting. Stiles is perfectly still while his brain takes a second to understand this new development, and then responds with an enthusiasm Derek is quite sure he's never shown his patients.
“So, coffee,” Derek says, when they finally break apart for air.
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, slightly breathless. “But first–” He leans forward, and more kissing ensues.
10
Derek receives free medical care for the rest of his life. He also gets to kiss Stiles whenever he wants, so there's that. And it's a good thing because this means he'll no longer have to be distracted by Stiles's mouth or his fingers or his moles or–
Yeah, okay, he's never going to get tired of looking at Stiles.
(And if sometimes he fakes getting hurt just so he can go see Stiles at work? Well, no one has to know.)