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Derek glanced down at his phone, checking the information for the pickup. He cursed when the cancellation notice flashed across the screen. Pulling off the road into an empty church parking lot, he made a quick check for other pickups in the area. Surprisingly, there were none.
Usually, Friday nights in this part of New Orleans, were huge for him since regular taxi companies stayed away. He remembered asking the guy that lived downstairs from him and had gotten him the job, Stiles, about it when one of his fares had mentioned it. Stiles had grown uncharacteristically serious and spouted off some urban legend bullshit about ghost riders. “So, since ghosts don’t normally use apps or credit cars, ride-hailing services are popular in the areas when the bars are hopping.”
Derek had laughed it off, feeling bad when hurt had flashed through Stiles’ amber eyes, but he didn’t believe in ghosts and werewolves and all the other mumbo jumbo that Stiles so clearly did.
“You live in one of the most haunted cities in the world! How can you not believe?” Stiles repeatedly asked whenever they got into their spats about the supernatural.
“When a ghost walks up to me and introduces themselves, I’ll believe,” Derek always countered.
“When I die, I’m haunting you,” Stiles would threaten.
“You better. I’d miss you otherwise,” Derek would respond, grinning when Stiles got flustered and inevitably changed the subject.
When Derek had first moved to New Orleans to follow his daughter that his ex-wife had dragged across the country, he’d expected to be miserable. In fact, he had been miserable for the first few months as he’d struggled to find work and make a place for himself that included his daughter but not his ex-wife who had a hard time accepting he didn’t love her anymore. Even the fact that she had remarried didn’t change her delusion that Derek only loved her and would never even look for someone else.
Then he’d met Stiles and his life did a complete one-eighty. He went to work as an office assistant at Stiles’ father’s detective agency where Stiles worked as a private detective. They’d both helped Derek get enrolled in some criminal justice courses so he could move up one day. He’d also gotten Derek started with the Uber-type company he did work for occasionally, allowing Derek flexible hours.
Apart from helping Derek secure a relatively steady income, Stiles became his best friend in NOLA. If they weren’t working or Stiles wasn’t with his other friends or Derek wasn’t with his daughter, they were together. Sometimes Stiles even hung out with Derek and Minette, enough that he’d overheard her telling her mom all about Papa’s boyfriend. He knew he should’ve corrected her, but the warmth in his chest and the look on Lilith’s face kept him from speaking up.
The idea of Stiles being his boyfriend stuck with him and he spent many hours trying to figure out how he could try to make that happen without risking their friendship if Stiles didn’t return his affections. He’d decided earlier in the day he was going to see if Stiles wanted to get dinner and just lay it all out on the table and pray things went well.
Unfortunately, before he could say anything, Stiles had texted to say he was going bar hopping with his friends and to see if Derek wanted to come along. He’d thought about it, but he knew he’d spend the entire night being glared at by Stiles’ friend Scott who acted like Derek was trying to steal his favorite toy.
In the end, he passed on the invitation and tabled his plans for a heartfelt confession. Instead, once he’d heard Stiles and his friends leave, he’d activated himself in the system and waited for runs. Now he was sitting in a church parking lot, rain beating down on the car, with too much time on his hands and too many thoughts in his brain.
Movement across the parking lot had Derek blinking and rubbing at his eyes as he squinted through the windshield past the rapidly moving wipers that were hardly effective in the torrential downpour. A figure was moving slowly down the street, shoulders hunched against the elements, a familiar red hoodie becoming visible as the figure moved between dim circles of the streetlights.
Derek leaned over and pushed open the passenger side door, the one closest to the figure as it grew closer to the car. “Stiles!” he shouted. “Get in!”
Stiles didn’t even lift his head as he climbed into the car and Derek ratcheted up the heat, hoping to keep his friend from catching a chill. “Where’s Scott?” he demanded and Stiles just shrugged as Derek pulled out of the lot, determined to get Stiles home and into dry clothes.
He fussed at Stiles to put on his seatbelt, but he just continued to stare out the window. Derek realized he still hadn’t seen his friend’s face and he swallowed hard imagining the worst. “Stiles, where is Scott? Did he ditch you again?” It definitely wouldn’t be the first time Derek had to pick Stiles up after Scott had left him stranded to go home with someone else. Stiles shook his head and shrugged, but kept his face turned away.
Derek wasn’t used to Stiles being silent, ever since the day they’d met, his mouth was moving and spilling stories about things Derek didn’t believe in. His eyes would glow and arms flail as he argued, trying to get Derek to see things from his point of view. This silent Stiles was disturbing, but no matter how many time he asked what was wrong, Stiles remained mute.
Traffic was slowing to a crawl and Derek thought he saw flashing lights ahead of them. If it was an accident, they would be stuck for a while. “Should we open one of the back doors and see if one of the ghosts you're always going on about gets in? This is the area, right?” Derek teased, surprised when Stiles’ shoulders stiffened and the car shook in a sudden gust of wind, the rain blowing sideways, pelting the window on Derek’s side hard enough he wouldn’t have been surprised if it cracked.
After he’d been unable to get a rise out of Stiles about the ghosts, Derek decided to leave him to his own thoughts while Derek fought off his to focus on the road in front of them. The traffic creeped along, Stiles still silent but his body became jitterier the closer they got to the flashing lights.
Finally, Derek couldn’t take the oppressive silence in the car anymore. “Can I tell you something and not make things weird between us?” After a few beats, Stiles nodded, his hands twisting together in his lap, but his face still turned away. “Can you look at me?” Stiles shook his head and Derek sighed.
“Fine.” Derek reached a hand out to turn off the radio, it hadn’t been audible because of the storm anyway and gave him something to do. “Look, I was going to ask if you wanted to get dinner tonight so we could talk.” He looked at Stiles out of the corner of his eye as he let his foot off the brake and rolled forward a couple of inches before flexing his ankle and coming to a stop again. “I wanted to tell you that I like you.” The wind outside let up suddenly, the rain falling almost lazily and the flashing lights grew brighter.
“I mean, I really like you,” Derek continued, hating that his tongue was itching with the urge to babble. He didn’t babble, that was Stiles’ job and he wasn’t doing it at that moment and it was driving Derek insane. “If there’s even a chance you might feel the same way, I’d like to give us a try.” He saw Stiles clench his hands into tight fists he knew would leave crescents in his palms from his roughly bitten nails as the wind started blowing again, shaking the car and howling mournfully.
The traffic began to move and they were almost to the lights, but Stiles still hadn’t spoken. “Look, you don’t have to say anything right now and if you just aren’t interested in me like that, we can just forget this whole-”
Derek cut off when his eyes were drawn away by the flashing lights and the sight of a very familiar car nearly split in half by a tree. “Stiles, that looks just like your Jeep,” he said as the paramedics went by with a stretcher containing Scott who was yelling something he couldn’t hear over the storm.
Derek yanked hard on the wheel to pull onto the side of the road, despite a cop waving his arms and shouting. He whipped around only to find the passenger seat empty and dry, no sign that a soaking wet Stiles had just been sitting there. He swallowed the bile that crept up his throat and pushed out his door, stumbling toward the Jeep, screaming Stiles’ name.
The cop that had shouted at him, grabbed him around the middle, struggling to keep him away from the vehicle. “Sir!” he shouted. “You can’t go over there!”
Derek continued to struggle. “The driver. Where is he?”
“They just took him in that ambulance,” the cop said, pointing to the taillights of the ambulance Scott had been loaded into.
“That’s not the driver! Scott can’t drive a stick!” Derek screamed as he jerked free and raced over to the vehicle, shouting for Stiles as his entire body tried to shake apart when he saw the shape of the driver’s side of the vehicle.
Derek’s brain kept trying to tell him there was no way Stiles could have survived the crash, he couldn’t even see any sign of him in the vehicle. He began racing around the area near the tree, his eyes catching on something several yards beyond the tree. A hand was clutched around the picket of a fence.
“I need a medic!” he screamed as he slipped over the wet ground, falling on his butt and sliding the last few feet and coming to a stop beside Stiles who was twisted in a way that couldn’t mean anything good.
Despite the mud, Derek could tell Stiles was dressed exactly as he had been in his car just minutes earlier. Gently moving aside the hood, needing to see his face, Derek wanted to throw up when he saw the gash down the right side of Stiles’ face from temple to the jawline. His hand shook as he pressed it gently to the side of his neck, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
“He’s got a pulse,” Derek cried out as one of the paramedics came to stop beside him, trying to push him away. “Help him,” he pleaded as he slid himself out of the way, but didn’t go too far.
The paramedics worked, shouting to each other as they got Stiles into a neck brace and stabilized him on a stretcher. Derek scrambled to his feet and glared when they tried to bar him from the ambulance. “Sir, you can’t leave your car here,” the cop from earlier said to him and Derek just tossed his keys to him as the doors to the ambulance closed and the sirens started up, a good sign as far as Derek was concerned.
The paramedic in the back pointed to a bench seat next to the stretcher. “Sit there,” she instructed as she started an IV and Derek was glad Stiles wasn’t awake for that. “You can talk to him,” she said when she was done and started filling out paperwork, asking Derek for info which he provided answers for what he did know.
Derek rested his hand over Stiles, curling his fingers slightly and squeezing gently. “Hey,” he said, using his other hand to wipe away the tears he hadn’t noticed until that moment. “You need to wake up, alright? You need to wake up so I can tell you something.” He gasped when Stiles muttered something and the paramedic looked up with a smile, nodding to Derek to continue speaking. “C’mon, you’ll never believe the night I had. It might not be quite as exciting as yours, but something life-changing did happen and you love hearing about that shit.”
Derek watched Stiles’ eyes moving beneath the lids and he started letting words tumble out of his mouth. “You can’t die on me, dammit, because I finally believe. I had a freaking ghost rider, you asshole.”
Stiles’ lips quirked and his eyes fluttered. “Told you I’d haunt you,” he whispered as his eyes opened slightly and his face twisted in pain. “Ouch.”
“Take it easy,” the paramedic told him, Stiles’ eyes flicking to her. “We don’t know the extent of your injuries, but we’ll be arriving at NOLA East shortly.” Stiles’ eyes went back to Derek before his fingers squeezed at Derek’s hand, making him grin widely before Derek noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, Stiles’ feet were twitching. “That’s a great sign, but knock it off until we can get you checked out,” the paramedic scolded before looking at Derek. “Is he always like this?”
“Always,” Derek told her, the grin on his face hurting and the tears now happy and hopeful.
“Yeah, but you like me,” Stiles said. “You really like me.”
“W...w-hat?” Derek stammered, the phrasing just too familiar.
“I don’t know what happened after the crash,” he said, “but I remember being in your car.” He bit into his lower lip, hissing when his teeth hit where it had split. “I was in your car, right? I didn’t just hallucinate and make a fool of myself, right?”
“You were. You were in my car, Stiles.”
“You don’t believe in mumbo jumbo,” Stiles teased, but his smile was becoming more relaxed as whatever the paramedic had put in the IV took effect.
Derek leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of Stiles’ nose, the only part of him completely clear of blood. “Well, guess what, now I’m a believer.”
Stiles’ grip on his hand tightened and his eyes closed, but the smile remained on his face and Derek allowed himself to relax back against the wall of the ambulance for a moment before it arrived at the hospital. “If you ever die on me, I’m going to kill you,” he muttered, smiling when the paramedic laughed.