Chapter Text
action.
Stiles sprints around the corner, following the couple in front of him as they duck into an alleyway. People shout at the disturbance, and Stiles can hear the police closing in on them, heavy boots smacking against pavement.
“Cahill! Come on!”
Stiles puts on an extra burst of speed. The couple stops at a metal garage door; the man pulls it up half a foot, making a harsh grating sound, and Stiles swears. “What the hell, man, they’ll hear us!”
“Shut up and get over here,” the man snaps as the woman slides under the door.
“Like hell I will,” Stiles mutters. He drops to his knees and whips off his backpack, yanking the zippers and reaching into the bag.
“For the love of God, Cahill, what are you doing?” Luke shouts. “I’m going to leave you to the police –”
“Give me one damn second!”
Stiles finds the device. It is a bomb, small enough to fit in his palm but strong enough, if wired correctly, to blow out the entire block. Stiles does not need that much, though; he only needs a distraction and minimal damage to public property.
His fingers quickly wire the thing, moving by muscles memory wire A to plug 3, match the yellows, wait for the green light, wire B to plug 2, and in a second he has it ready to go. The police round the corner, shouting and raising their guns, and Stiles hurls the bomb in their direction. Luke grabs him by the arm of his jacket, and with gunfire ringing in his ears, Stiles slides under the garage door.
“Luke!”
Luke is halfway in when the bomb goes off. Stiles flinches, rolling away from the sound and ramming into the woman’s legs. Luke shouts and jerks into the room, letting the door fall shut. The woman kicks Stiles off and kneels next to Luke.
“Shit shit shit –”
“Oh, God,” Stiles mutters.
There is a huge piece of shrapnel sticking out of the shoulder of Luke’s shooting arm. Stiles’s stomach squirms at the sight of the blood, but he reminds himself it is fake.
“We’re not gonna make it,” Stiles says.
The woman glares at him, blue eyes flashing. “Yes, we are,” she insists. “We can’t give up –
“Are you kidding me?” Stiles asks, standing up. “We’re being chased through the city by law enforcement, we already lost Denny, Maria is probably dead –”
“Don’t you mention Maria!” the woman shouts. “Maria wouldn’t be missing if you hadn’t screwed up –”
“Skylar!” Luke snaps.
Skylar drops back to Luke’s side. “I can try to take it out,” she says, “And we can –”
“Well, isn’t this just perfect,” a voice says from the shadows.
Stiles freezes. He knows that voice. He turns, slowly, and there he is: Zeus himself, the head of this whole damn operation.
Zeus smiles at them, hands curling around the end of his cane. “I would offer my sympathies for the loss of Maria,” he says, “but really, you’ve done me a great service.”
Five armed men come out of the darkness, and Stiles swallows. This is all going to shit, real fast.
He reaches into his waistband and curls his fingers around the base of his gun.
cut.
“Dude! You killed a guy!” Scott exclaims.
“Actually, Scott, I killed seven guys,” Stiles replies, “About twenty times each.” Those action scenes were hell to take, because Mariette, the actress playing Skylar, kept bitching about the choreography being too difficult to manage in her costume. “Why are we even watching this anyway? You’ve already seen this.”
“He just likes watching his best friend be a badass alongside other badasses on screen,” Allison says from where she is hugging her pillow.
Stiles rolls his eyes, because Scott, Scott is giving him the dopiest smile right now, and sinks further into the cushions. “It’s so embarrassing,” Stiles moans.
“What? Stiles –”
“It is!” Stiles flings at his hand at the screen, where he – or Vince Cahill, actually – is driving a taxi as Luke leans out the window and shoots down their pursuers. “I just – it – ugh.”
“We could be watching Annie and Dex instead –”
“No! No, Contrapposto is fine,” Stiles says.
“I think the eyeliner was a decent look for you,” Allison says with a teasing smile.
Stiles throws a handful of popcorn at her, and Scott retaliates for her by dumping the kernel bowl on Stiles’s lap. “Dude!” Stiles yelps, and jumps at Scott.
Stiles’s phone starts ringing, and he immediately forgets Scott, lunging to pick it up. “Hello?” he asks breathlessly.
“Don’t tell me you’re in the middle of jerking off.”
“Lydia, that was one time –”
“One time too many.”
“I swore I’d never answer the phone again if I was –”
“Who is it?” Scott asks.
Lydia, Stiles mouths, and Allison pauses the movie.
“Can we get to what I want to talk about?” Lydia asks. “I have a daughter who needs a bath and a husband who needs some sex, and they both have very little patience to wait for my work commitments.”
“Yeah! Yeah, of course,” Stiles says. “What’s up?”
“I heard back from A Little Push.”
Stiles nearly drops his phone. He slams it onto Scott and Allison’s coffee table and turns it to speaker. “And?” he asks, buzzing with anticipation.
There is a pause. Then, “You got the part.”
Stiles shouts, throwing his arms in the air, and Allison and Scott cheer with him. Scott tackles him to the ground, and it takes Stiles a second to straighten up again.
“Oh, my God!” he shouts into the phone. “Are you serious? Like, seriously? I’m playing Cory?”
“Yes, you are.”
“They chose me? To be Cory?”
“Oh, my God, yes, Stiles,” Lydia huffs. “Congratulations, you idiot.”
Stiles shrieks and throws his arms around Scott, who is doing a victory dance on Stiles’s behalf. “Wait, wait, wait,” Stiles says, sitting up, his smile still impossibly wide. “Who’s playing Ryder?”
Lydia does not answer right away, and Stiles’s smile fades a bit. “Lydia?” he asks, gripping Scott’s shoulder tightly.
She inhales deeply and drops the bomb. “Derek Hale.”
Scott and Allison shriek. “Derek Hale?” Allison demands gleefully, hands flying to her face.
“It’s gonna be one hell of a film,” Lydia says, and Stiles swears he hears the smirk in her tone.
“Fuck,” Stiles breathes out, and Scott, bastard that he is, cheerfully ruffles Stiles’s hair.
“Dude! You’re in a movie with Derek fucking Hale!”
“Oh, fuck,” Stiles says and flops onto the floor.
“Derek? Derek, Amy’s on the phone!”
Derek groans, rolling up from his exercise mat. He ruffles Cora’s hair on his way out, earning himself a glare, and takes the phone held out by Liam. “Thanks,” Derek tells his brother, then steps out of the house to take the call.
“Amy?”
“Derek!” Amy says, sounding chipper as ever. “How has your break been?”
“Not bad,” Derek says, when he really wants to say, I am sick of this house and all my relatives, please tell me I have a job so I can escape this place.
“I have news for you,” Amy said. “A Little Push called back. You’ve been offered the role of Ryder Styles.”
Derek’s heart thuds crazily. He was psyched to be able to audition for A Little Push – he fell in love with the script the moment he read it, and he was able to audition after filming for Lost Causes finished.
“Do you want it?” Amy asks.
“Yeah! Yes, of course,” Derek says. He laughs with relief, his lips curling. Ryder. He landed Ryder.
“Great! I’ll start sorting out the paperwork. Congrats, Derek.”
“Thanks, Amy.”
“The rest of the cast looks good. Jennifer is also in the film.”
Derek perks up. He met Jennifer Blake a couple years ago, costarring with her in The Lady of the Dark Oak, and they quickly became friends. Jennifer is one of the most easy-going, gracious people Derek knows.
“I’ll send you the e-mail I got this morning, okay?” Amy continues.
“Sounds great,” Derek says.
Ryder Styles. A Little Push.
Maybe his career is looking up again.
A few hours later, it is dinner time at the Hale ranch, and an unusually small one at that – only thirteen people. Thirteen people is still plenty enough to cause a racket, though, and this dinner is no exception.
“Der! Did you see this? Kira Yukimura is in your movie!” Laura exclaims.
“Yes, I did see that,” Derek says. “That is my phone you’re reading off of.”
“Didn’t you do another project with her, Derek?” his mother asks.
Derek nods, but before he can answer, Caitlin says, “He got to make out with her on her TV show!”
Derek glares at her. “I didn’t just make out with her. Neil was an important character –”
“Who died thirty minutes into the episode,” Puck interrupts.
The table laughs, and Derek narrows his eyes at his cousin. “Not helping,” he says, and Puck tosses his bread roll at Derek’s face.
“Oh, and look! Jennifer is playing … Carmine?”
“Jennifer still scares me,” Liam mutters as he helps his daughter make a picture out of her pasta and green peas. His son babbles happily as he makes a mess of his cheerios on his high-stand tray.
“You’re not scared of Jennifer, you’re scared of how well she played a psychotic murderer in The Lady of the Dark Oak,” Cora says.
“It was really convincing,” Liam defends himself, and his wife knocks over the pyramid of peas Liam is constructing. Liam pouts, and little Harper laughs delightedly.
“Hey, Derek,” Laura says, “Who is Stiles Stilinski?”
“He’s playing Cory,” Derek says.
Derek’s phone pings in Laura’s hand. She taps it a few times, then turns it around so Derek can see. “Amy just sent this to you.”
It is a small interview clip from some convention, if the bright colors and casual dress are any indication. The man on the screen is pale and dark-haired with a few moles scattered across his face. Stiles Stilinski. Derek recognizes him, vaguely, but that is not why Derek’s heart is suddenly pounding like crazy. No, Derek is having trouble breathing because he does not remember Stiles being this strikingly attractive.
“Mr. Stilinski, we heard you earned a lead role in A Little Push,” the interviewer says from offscreen.
Stiles nods and scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did. Somehow.” He laughs nervously, and Derek immediately likes the sound. It is light, easy.
“He’s cute,” Laura coos, and Cora shushes her.
“Are you excited to work with Derek Hale?” the interview asks.
“Yeah, I mean – the guy’s a legend. It’ll be a good experience for sure.”
The interviewer thanks him, and the screen freezes on Stiles’s face, his head tilted and his mouth half open.
“Aw, Derrie, he called you a legend,” Des teases, clasping her hands together.
Derek blushes when everyone starts laughing, and Derek sends Peter a pleading glance. Instead of addressing his daughter, though, Peter smirks and says, “You look a little dazed, my nephew. Does it have to do with how you feel about your new costar?”
This is why Derek should never go to Peter for help. “I hate you all,” Derek says morosely as Laura and Cora excitedly search the internet for shirtless photos of Stiles Stilinski, cackling mercilessly the entire time.
Eight weeks later, Derek is freezing his ass off on a rooftop in Vancouver.
Derek loves Vancouver; he has loved it since he filmed his first movie here. During his first stay he discovered the beauty of the city lights at night, and since then, Derek always spends a majority of his free nights hanging out on rooftops. Winter is approaching, though, so it is colder than Derek is used to. He grumbles and pulls his hat down further, burrowing his chin into his scarf and wrapping his hands around his ankles.
The door to the roof access opens, and Derek glances to the side. A tall young man wearing at least three hoodies appears, hands shoved deep into his pockets.
“Cold, are you?” the man asks.
Derek shifts, hiding his face deeper in his scarf. “Shouldn’t you be cold?”
“Ah, well, I never said I wasn’t cold,” the man says. He sits down a few feet away from Derek, eyes cast out over the city.
“Protip: Canada is freezing after October. Always bring a scarf.”
The man laughs, leaning back on his hands. “I’ve been here a few times before,” he says.
“What for?”
“Work.”
“Me too.”
The man glances at Derek, but his features are lost in the shadows of his hood. “What do you do?”
“Variety of things,” Derek says. He wants to avoid the whole, Oh, my God, you’re Derek Hale! thing. “You?”
The man snorts. “I guess you could say I usually just help out the top guns.”
Fair enough. If Derek is going to be vague, so can this guy.
“So what brings you out to the roof?” the guy asks.
“I could be asking you the same thing.”
“Okay. Well, I’m out here so when I get an angry voicemail tomorrow morning from Lydia, I can truthfully I say I wasn’t in the room to get her check-in call.”
Derek briefly wonders if Lydia is of amicable, familial, or romantic relationship. “Why go through all the trouble if you’ll just talk to her anyway?”
“She seems to think I’ll do something like trip going up the stairs and end up breaking my neck if she doesn’t constantly check in on me.” He snorts. “Knowing me, I probably could do something that stupid, but Lydia has her own husband and kid to worry about.”
“I don’t think your plan will make her worry any less,” Derek points out.
“It’s a slow process. If I repeatedly prove to her I can survive a plane ride without her hovering over me, she’ll eventually stop fretting so much.”
Derek snorts. “Good luck with that.”
The man pokes Derek’s arm. “How about you?” he asks. “I believe I was the first one to ask a question.”
Derek bites back a grin. “I forgot what you asked,” he replies, and what? Is he flirting with this stranger? Yes, he is. Derek blames the effects of the city at night.
“What deep and profound reason do you have to be freezing your ass off on a hotel roof?”
Derek smirks, following a light as it bobs along the bay several miles (kilometers? This is Canada) away. “I just like the lights.”
The guys laughs. “That’s it? No deeper, philosophical reason?”
Derek shrugs. “I don’t see why there has to be.”
“Fair enough.”
“What made you think there’d be a profound reason, anyway?”
“Ordinary guys don’t exactly brood on Canadian rooftops in freezing temperatures.”
“It’s not freezing temperatures.”
“Shush, I’m trying to create an atmosphere.”
Derek raises an eyebrow though the stranger cannot see it. “An atmosphere of frostbite and potential hypothermia?”
“Oh, shut up.”
Silence falls between them, and Derek listens to the city traffic below them. It is only a Tuesday, so the traffic is already slowing down as most people turn in for the night in preparation to get up early the next morning. Derek himself should probably return to his room soon; he wants to fit in a short workout before the first script read-through tomorrow morning.
The man next to Derek checks his watch, then stands up. “Well, it’s late enough for Lydia to give up calling,” he says. “Thanks for sharing the roof with me.”
“Anytime.”
The guy wiggles his fingers in a small wave, then retreats back into the building. Derek exhales into his scarf, enjoying the feeling of warm air blossoming over his chin and cheeks.
The night really is beautiful.
From Scott: allison wants to know if youve met him yet
From Scott: i also want to know if youve met him yet
From Scott: allison asks if his biceps are as huge as they look onscreen
To Scott: no i haven’t met him yet
To Scott: why isn’t allison just texting me herself?
From Scott: her stomach hurts too much to get up and get her phone so im texting for her
Stiles rolls his eyes. His best friend is a besotted idiot, but Stiles absolutely prefers the besotted idiot to the lovesick idiot.
Stiles casts his eyes around the hotel conference room; it is already halfway full with people. These are the people Stiles is going to spend the next several months working and living with, trying to pull off A Little Push. This morning is the first read through with everyone, and Stiles? Yeah, Stiles admits he is a bit nervous.
He slides his phone into his pocket when a short Asian girl comes up to him. “Hey, are you Stiles?” she asks, smiling brightly.
“Yeah! Yes, I am,” Stiles says, standing up and sticking out his hand. “I am him, he is me. You’re … Kira Yukimura?”
“That’s me!” Kira responds brightly.
“Wow, it’s so great to meet you,” Stiles says. He is talking to Kira Yukimura, Hollywood’s deadliest female actress. Literally – Kira has had training in traditional Japanese and Korean fighting styles since she was a young girl. If she wanted to, she could probably murder Stiles in ten seconds flat with nothing but her own body. Stiles tells her as much, and Kira laughs, hiding her mouth with her hand.
“I have yet to actually kill someone,” she says. “I’m also pretty sure my agent would kill me with all the press that would attract.”
Stiles shudders. “Agents can be terrifying.”
Another woman comes over, her heels clicking across the wooden floor. “Kira!” she calls, waving a hand, and Kira waves back with gusto.
“Jen! So good to see you. Have you met Stiles?’
“Jennifer Blake?” Stiles asks, mind reeling at a thousand miles per hour. “You have no idea how many nightmares I got from watching The Lady of the Dark Oak.”
Jennifer laughs, and thank God it sounds nothing like her psychotic murderer laughter. “Good to hear! Means I did my job well.”
Stiles smiles, shaking her hand. “Way too well.”
“Mm, Stiles! Jen and I were talking – what, about a week ago? We both saw The Circus Freak, and you did such an amazing job –”
“Oh, God,” Stiles groans.
The two women laugh. “No, you were good!” Jennifer says, smiling earnestly.
“Let’s just say, if I never have to wear a leotard ever again, I will die a happy man,” Stiles says.
“Did you learn to how throw knives to play Twirler?” Jennifer asks.
“Yeah! I did, actually,” Stiles says. And he had a hell of a good time learning it, too, particularly because he was damn good at it. He completely freaked out Scott the first day he came back from filming, and since then knife-throwing has been one of his favorite party tricks – balance an apple on a friend’s head, nail it from all the way across the room. It is a trick that could get Stiles in a shit-ton of trouble if it ever went wrong, but Stiles believes in his skills. Plus, he has always been a bit reckless.
Kira’s eyes light up. “What throwing style did you learn? Or did you learn more than one style? I’ve never been big on knife throwing, but –”
“Kira!”
Kira turns around, distracted, and sees someone across the room. “Oh, hey! Jen, it’s Crystal, didn’t you want to talk –?”
“Oh! Good.” Jennifer waves to Stiles. “Nice meeting you!”
Kira smiles sheepishly at Stiles. “Sorry, but we gotta –”
Stiles waves his hand. “Nah, it’s all right. See you around.”
Kira disappears into the crowd after Jennifer, and Stiles digs into his pocket to grab his incessantly buzzing phone.
From Scott: wait wasnt jblake that serial killer in dark oak?
From Scott: she gave me nightmares man
From Scott: allison is making fun of me
From Scott: that movie was scary as shit im allowed to have nightmares about it
From Scott: allison asks if youve met derek yet
Stiles rolls his eyes as he taps out a hasty reply.
To Scott: dude it’s been five minutes no i haven’t
To Scott: i met kira and jblake though
From Scott: dude!!!!!!
From Scott: allison wants to meet kira
From Scott: wants to talk about weapons?
Stiles snorts, already thinking of a witty response, when he knocks into someone. He instinctively jumps back and barely avoids getting splashed by the person’s drink.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Stiles says.
“No, it’s fine, only got my hand –”
Stiles looks up and nearly chokes. “Oh – shit. Derek!”
Derek Hale raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes.”
“Okay. Um. This is embarrass – um. I’m Stiles,” Stiles finishes lamely, sticking out a hand.
Both of Derek’s eyebrows are raised now. “I’d shake your hand,” he says slowly, as if Stiles is a simpleton, “But I got my drink all over mine –”
Stiles winces. “Oh, God, right. Sorry about your coffee –” He glances at Derek’s cup. “Tea. You drink tea.”
Derek looks vaguely amused as he sets down his cup and shakes out his hand. “Yes, Stiles, I drink tea.”
“Great! I mean, cool. That’s cool.” Stiles makes a mental note to tell Scott that Derek Hale drinks tea instead of coffee, but then remembers talking to Scott is what got him into this mess in the first place. “Maybe Lydia is right,” Stiles muses aloud. “I’m a danger to myself and everyone around me. I should be locked up –”
Derek freezes. “Lydia?”
Stiles nods. “Yeah, Lydia. She’s my agent. Also a bit of a mother hen, but let’s face it, I have a talent for getting myself into messy situations –”
“I’ve met you before.”
Now Stiles freezes. “What?”
“Last night. You came onto the rooftop.”
Stiles’s jaw drops. “That was you?” he demands.
“Yeah.”
Stiles spent last night flirting with Derek Hale, his fluffy-haired, unfairly attractive, five-o’clock-shadow-at-nine-in-the-morning costar.
One of the powers above must take mercy on Stiles, because at that moment the producer whistles loudly to call their attention, and Stiles does not have to try to salvage the sinking ship that is his first face-to-face conversation with Derek Hale.
Two hours later, Stiles is drowning in the feeling of being in way, way over his head.
The reading so far has gone no better and no worse than any other script reading Stiles has done before, but with this one, there is a mounting pressure building up on Stiles’s back, causing his spine to curve and shoulders to hunch. As soon as they are dismissed for a short break, Stiles flees the conference room, walking quickly and aimlessly until he eventually ends up in a locker room of some sort. Stiles braces himself against the sink, telling himself to breathe deeply and steady his heart.
It is just another movie, right? A movie with great potential, sure, and a well-written screenplay and talented cast and crew. But that does not make it any extraordinarily different from any of the other films Stiles has done. Right? Right? Right.
Stiles cannot even convince himself.
The locker room door opens, and it takes Stiles a second to realize he is being addressed. He looks over his shoulder, and of course, it is Derek who has followed him here.
“This looks really unprofessional, doesn’t it?” Stiles asks weakly.
Derek shrugs, sitting down on a wooden bench that is bolted to the floor. “There isn’t much of a norm for professionalism in our field of work.”
Stiles chokes on a laugh. “Dammit, of course you’ve funny,” he says, and Derek looks confused. Before he can say anything, though, Stiles presses on.
“I’m kind of scared shitless, okay?” he admits. “Because this – this is going to be big, and I’m afraid of screwing it up, and, and it’s not like I’ve ever done this before, this type of film with this type of role. I probably have the least experience of everyone here, and everyone else is so chill about it all that I have to wonder what’s wrong with me.”
Stiles sees Derek shaking his head in the mirror. “You’re freaking out,” he says, and Stiles barely prevents himself from rolling his eyes.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Stiles drawls instead, and that really is not much better than an eyeroll. He turns around so he can make proper eye contact with Derek.
Derek, who is glaring at him like Sties just offended him. Great. Ten points to you, Stilinski, you have pissed off your costar.
“You think I’m not feeling the pressure?” Derek asks.
Stiles shrugs. “I mean, you’ve done these things before. Big, important films. Award-winning films. Hell,” he exclaims, flinging out an arm, “You’ve won more than one Oscar.”
Derek shakes his head. “I need this film just as badly as you do,” he says. “You need it to make the final jump. I need it to hang on.”
Stiles opens his mouth to argue but then realizes how right Derek is. Stiles needs this role to launch him beyond the realm of sidekick; Derek needs this to keep his career from falling off the tracks. Derek has not had a good film in a couple years, now, and he is nearing the age when some actors who started out younger begin to drop out and leave the business.
Stiles cannot imagine being forced out of acting.
“So are you going to give up?” Derek asks. “Are you going to cave to the pressure, pack your bags and head home?”
Stiles bristles. He can smell a challenge from miles away, and Derek’s eyes are alight with a daring fire. If there is one thing Stilinskis are known for, it is for never backing down from a challenge, and Stiles sure is not going to start doing that now. He steels himself, looks Derek straight in the eye, and says:
“We are going to make one hell of a movie.”
Derek grins, sharp and feral and beautiful, and fire blazes beneath Stiles’s skin.