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A knock on Stiles’ apartment door at 11pm was not completely unheard of, but it was still unusual enough to make him get off the couch to answer it instead of just calling for his guest to let themselves in like he usually did when friends turned up unannounced. What was completely unheard of was for it to be Derek at the door, head down with both hands buried in the pockets of his still-crisp new deputy’s uniform.
“You knocked on the door?” Stiles asked, too surprised for a normal greeting. “I don’t think you have ever knocked on a door in your life. Did my window get painted shut since the last time you came Spiderman-ing through it?”
Derek opened his mouth, but a sudden burst of realization had Stiles interrupting before he could get a word out.
“Hold up!” he said. “You would only act like a normal, non-furry human if you were sucking up. You want something. What do you want?”
Derek huffed in annoyance, but he didn’t deny it. “I need a favor.”
Stiles narrowed his eyes. “What kind of favor?”
Derek growled and pushed him aside, striding into the apartment as if he owned it. Although really, since he was using the door instead of werewolf-ing his way through the bedroom window, he was still being more respectful of Stiles’ space than he usually was. Stiles just rolled his eyes and closed the door behind them.
“Derek? What kind of favor?” he repeated.
“The kind that won’t require a lot of effort on your part,” Derek said, which Stiles noticed technically answered his question but didn’t actually tell him anything. It was a very cop thing to say; Stiles was impressed.
“And it will save me years of therapy,” Derek added. “Honestly, you’ll probably have fun with it.”
Stiles snorted. “I think the you-needing-therapy boat has long since sailed, buddy.”
He was really lucky that werewolf superpowers didn’t include laser vision or he would probably be a pile of dust.
“Alright, I’m intrigued,” Stiles said instead, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tell me more. Though I do reserve the right to refuse.”
Derek growled again, shoulders hunching in an uncharacteristic display of what looked to be discomfort.
“The station is doing a charity thing,” he bit out. “I got dragged into it against my will.”
“Wait a minute, you mean the Date Auction?” Stiles asked in complete disbelief because surely that could not be what he meant. “The event where they auction off romantic outings? Where they sell people to the highest bidder for a night? You’re doing that charity?”
“Against my will.”
It sounded like Derek was gritting his teeth hard enough to crack them. Frankly, Stiles was surprised his wolfy fangs weren’t making an appearance.
“How did that even happen?” Stiles asked. “It’s supposed to be on a voluntary basis!”
“Your father is out to get me.”
He was not. He just maybe still held a tiny bit of resentment towards Derek for dragging his only son into such a dangerous world, no matter how many times Stiles pointed out that that was Peter’s fault and not Derek’s. Not enough resentment to stop him from proclaiming Derek as one of his finest and most promising new recruits, but enough to pick on him a little.
And obviously enough to bully him into this dog-and-pony show.
Wolf-and-pony show.
Stiles tried very hard to keep his amusement under control out of deference to Derek’s obvious distress over the matter, but he was definitely grinning as he said, “So, what, you want me to find a way to get you out of it?”
“It has been made very clear to me that there is no getting out of it,” Derek said, grumpy in that way of his that would probably come across as homicidally enraged to anyone who didn’t know him as well as Stiles did.
“Then what?”
“I need you,” Derek said, slowly and clearly and as if every word caused him physical pain, “to bid on me.”
Stiles blinked at him. “What?”
“You are going to bid on me,” Derek said more firmly and, for all that it was supposed to be a request, it sure sounded like an order. “And you are going to keep bidding on me until everyone else stops.”
There were a number of problems with this plan—one of which being the fact that the mere suggestion of Derek going on dates made Stiles’ stomach flip over in strange and disconcerting ways—so he pointed out the first non-humiliating one that came to his mind: “Dude, I don’t have the money for that.”
“Dude, I will give you the money,” Derek volleyed back. “All you have to do is raise the stupid little paddle thing and make the bid.”
Stiles raised his eyebrows. “You want me to buy your date with your own money? Wow, you really are desperate to get out of this.”
“Of course I am, Stiles!” Derek said, eyes wide and maybe a little bit frantic. “Otherwise I’ll end up having to spend an entire night with some random person, and we all know how horrifically that would go for everyone involved. I can’t spend several hours making small talk with Mrs. McGilvray or getting ogled by Danny Mahealani, okay, I cannot. So for the love of all that is holy, you are going to help me.”
“Whoa, dude.” Stiles held up his hands in surrender, stepping back from where Derek was suddenly all up in his face. “Chill out. I got your back. No need to get snarly.”
“I’m always snarly,” Derek said with marginally less hostility. “That’s the problem.”
“I don’t know, man, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you smile at least three times,” Stiles said, hoping the gentle teasing would coax Derek out of his strange mood. It didn’t really work, but Derek didn’t pop claws or threaten him with bodily harm so at least it didn’t make anything worse.
“The auction’s on Thursday night,” Derek said, already heading for the door again. “Don’t be late and don’t tell anyone about this, especially not your father.”
Stiles had a thick wad of bills pressed into his hands. He flicked through it quickly, counting, and almost dropped it.
“Jesus H, Derek! This is three thousand dollars! Where am I supposed to tell my dad I got all this money? I’m not exactly making bank these days.”
“Plead the fifth,” Derek threw over his shoulder, and then the door was closed and Stiles was left with no one to hear his groan of utter exasperation.
Derek hated suits. Not because they were constricting or itchy or anything like that, but just because of what they represented. There had never been a time in his life when he’d had to wear a suit that hadn’t also entailed schmoozing and kissing up and being on his best behavior. It had been bad enough when he was a teenager, getting dragged along to some high society event or gala with his mother, but at least then it was only his cheeks at risk of being pinched and not his ass too.
That was the worst thing about suits: he looked damn good in them. Derek was not unaware of his own appeal, physically speaking. He could never forget it, honestly, not when every woman in the tri-state area (and plenty of men) seemed intent on letting him know just how attractive he was to them, whether he wanted them to or not. And he didn’t. He really, really didn’t.
Which was why he had tried so hard to avoid getting roped into this stupid event. It would literally be him standing up on a stage, inviting people to objectify him so they could ogle and drool with a clear conscience, and then subjecting himself to an entire evening with whoever was willing to pay for it. He couldn’t think of anything he would enjoy less than being trapped on a “date” with someone like that, even if it was all meant in good fun. He didn’t want to be looked at like that. He especially didn’t want to not be able to leave.
Derek tugged on his bow tie. The little lights around the mirror’s edge made his white shirt look yellow and it clashed with the green of his tie and cummerbund, but that would hardly matter once he got onstage. With a sigh, he tugged the bowtie back the other way until it sat straight again.
He was pretty sure that, if he had been vocal about being genuinely uncomfortable with this whole ordeal, the Sheriff wouldn’t have forced him into it. Sheriff Stilinski was a good man and he would’ve understood. But the auction was a fundraiser specifically to raise money to rebuild the station after all the times it had been half-destroyed by various supernatural battles over the last few years, and Derek couldn’t help but feel a little bit responsible for that. He helped wreck the place, so he should help fix it.
Besides, this was supposed to be a fun thing. Or funny, at least. It was meant to be a light-hearted joke of an evening spent poking fun at the deputies and doing something nice for the community as a whole. Derek was the only one with an issue, and he didn’t want to bring even more attention to himself by refusing to participate. Everyone would demand to know why, and he wasn’t telling any of them about how badly Kate had fucked him up and in how many ways.
God, he hoped Stiles pulled through. Granted, Stiles could be a jokester and there was a possibility that he would shrug off Derek’s request and laugh with everyone else, but Stiles knew more about his past than anyone else did. If there was anyone who could understand why Derek didn’t want to do this, it would be him. Whether or not he would insist on cashing in on the evening he’d won was even more up for debate, but Derek would deal with that thorny mess when he had to and not a moment sooner.
Deputy Clarke showed up to elbow him out of the way, taking her place in front of the mirror. It was the only one in the building—the town’s old dance hall, left over from a time when towns actually had dances on the regular—tucked into the one small dressing room behind the stage. Derek let her have her turn; she looked amazing in her floor-length evening gown, but she still had a few curls hanging loose from her updo and in desperate need of pinning.
“You okay?” she asked, glancing at him through the mirror. “You look a little green around the gills.”
Derek shrugged, trying to smile. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t need to be nervous, you know,” she said. “People will be chomping at the bit for a shot at you. You’re hot stuff!”
Derek let out a weak laugh and said, “With you in that dress, Val, no one will look twice at me.”
She stopped fiddling with pins long enough to turn and smile at him. “Such a charmer,” she said, winking. “We both you know you’ll take top dollar. But as long as I go for more than Wilkins, I’ll be happy.”
Derek just nodded, unable to summon up more reassurances that Val was far more bid-worthy than Patrick Wilkins when his stomach was squirming like this. Distantly he heard murmurs being passed around that they were almost ready to start and, beyond that, the chatter of a considerable crowd. When the auctionees were finally called to their places, Derek couldn’t make his feet move until Val took him by the arm and led the way.
Lining up in front of the audience was sort of a surreal experience. Derek had done and seen a lot of very strange things in his relatively short life, but for some reason nothing compared to bright lights and a wash of upturned faces all spread out before him. For once there was no danger, nothing around him that should set off his well-honed fight or flight response, and yet Derek’s heart was pounding within seconds of setting foot on the auditorium stage.
He was very distressed to realize that he was the last person in line, furthest away from the auctioneer, which meant he’d be the last lot called and would have to stand up here through all the others. Swallowing hard, Derek stuffed his hands in the pockets of his dress pants like his mother had always scolded him about at galas and ducked his head until the bright lights didn’t sting his eyes so much. If he couldn’t see all the people watching him, it was easier to pretend they weren’t there.
He only half paid attention to what was being said—first an introduction to the event and explanation of its charitable purpose, and then the pitch for each deputy and bids being called out. Usually he had perfect control of his senses, which sounds he honed in on and which he tuned out, but he was too anxious now and everything sort of blended together into a wall of noise punctuated every few minutes by sharp bursts of applause that made him flinch.
When Val next to him stepped forward, turning this way and that with a wave to the bidders, Derek’s heartbeat ratcheted up another level. By the time she was blowing a kiss to a gentleman with his paddle raised high and moving back into line, Derek thought he might be sick. But it was far too late to back out now, and he had Stiles. Stiles would win the bid and he would be okay.
Derek forced his feet to move forward. He dragged his hands out of his pockets to wave and, when he caught sight of Sheriff Stilinski down by the front of the stage making exaggerated faces at him, he did his best to hitch a smile on his face. He didn’t hear what the auctioneer read off about him, but he heard the first bid called.
“Two hundred!” from a woman in the middle of the cluster of tables that covered the old dance floor.
Then: “Three-fifty!”
“Four!”
“Five-seventy-five!”
“Six-fifty!”
Paddles were flying up all over the room, voices shouting over each other and groaning when someone else inevitably outbid them. None of those voices were Stiles’ though, and Derek was struck with a sudden fear that Stiles had backed out, that he hadn’t even shown up, that he was at home counting Derek’s money and laughing over his misfortune. Derek didn’t know what he would do if Stiles had done that because there was no way he could fake his way through pleasant, flirtatious conversation after this, there was just no way.
“Fifteen-hundred.”
Derek sucked in a sharp breath, and it was the first one to feel like it really reached his lungs.
Stiles had never had so much money on his person at one time and, honestly, it made him kind of nervous. He kept one hand in his pocket, wrapped firmly around the paper bag he’d stuffed the wad of cash into, just to reassure himself that it hadn’t fallen out or gotten lost. He was pretty sure Derek would kill him if that happened, both because then he wouldn’t be able to win the bid and also just because it was a fuck-ton of money.
The dance hall was more crowded than it had been in years, the whole dance floor filled up with little round tables covered with flimsy white tablecloths to make them look sophisticated. People from all over town were milling around the room with cocktails in hand, chatting and networking and whatever it was the upper class did at gatherings like this. Stiles felt a little out of place in his good jeans and nicer-than-usual button up.
At least he wasn’t the only peon here. Scott and his mom had come, with Kira as Scott’s date. Lydia had dragged Jackson along specifically so they could both bid on Parrish. There were a few high schoolers who he thought were younger siblings of some of the deputies, though he couldn’t remember which ones. All in all, it was a decent bunch, and there were more than enough moderately wealthy people to make this kind of event worthwhile.
Scott clamped a hand on Stiles’ knee to make it stop bouncing.
“Dude, what’s up?” he asked. “You’re, like, super jittery.”
Stiles made an innocent face, as ineffective as he knew it would be. When Scott raised an unconvinced eyebrow at him, he rolled his eyes and slouched lower in his seat.
“Nothing,” he lied. “Forgot my Adderall, that’s it.”
“Uh huh,” Scott said. “Sure. What’s in the bag?”
“What bag?”
“The paper bag in your pocket that you won’t let go of.”
“Psh! No!” Stiles said, immediately releasing his death-grip on the bag holding his hands up to prove it. “There’s no—I don’t even know what you’re—”
Scott gasped, mouth a perfect O of shock and excitement.
“Dude!” he whispered. “Are you finally getting a date with Derek?”
“No, of course not, why would I— Wait, why do you say ‘finally’ ?”
Scott looked at him like he was being particularly slow. “Because you’ve been crushing on Derek for years…?”
Stiles really wanted to deny it, but his face had already gone red and his heart was kicking in his chest loud enough that Scott and any other werewolf in the room had surely already heard it, and there was just no point. With an inarticulate grumble of frustration, he snatched a bidding paddle from one of the ushers weaving through the tables, offering them to anyone who wanted to participate, and stubbornly ignored the way Scott laughed.
He was not doing this because he had a crush on Derek. He was doing it because Derek had asked him to. He was doing it specifically so that Derek wouldn’t have to deal with people who had crushes on him, so he could not let on that he was one of them. He was not going to be one of those people. He was cool and calm and completely unaffected by the glory that was Derek Hale in a tailored suit.
Fuck, Derek looked so good.
The Beacon Hills Sheriff Station had always been blessed with a couple of high quality faces, but this was just ridiculous. Out of the twelve people lined up across the stage, Derek stood out like a sore thumb as the only one there who could call himself James Bond and have no one even question it.
But that didn’t matter. All Stiles had to do was raise the paddle and pretend he wasn’t swooning over Derek like everyone else was.
He had his work cut out for him.
“Fifteen-hundred.”
Derek’s eyes finally found Stiles. He was slouched low in his seat right at the very back of the room, paddle held as high over his head as he could get it. There were gasps and exclamations of surprise all around him, but Stiles kept his eyes on Derek as the hubbub grew. They were too far apart for Derek to really see the expression on Stiles’ face, but he was probably smirking, reveling in the outcry over his remarkable jump-bid.
Val was steering Derek toward the stairs to the dance floor before he realized that the auction portion of the evening had been concluded. The winning bidders were filing over to the collection table to hand over their money, and the auctionees were being herded toward them to meet their dates for the evening.
Derek found Stiles with his father, no doubt being interrogated on the origin of his newfound wealth. The shit-eating grin on Stiles’ face told him that the Sheriff was getting nowhere and his son was thoroughly enjoying it. Stiles turned that grin on him as he approached.
“Derek!” he cried. “My eminently gregarious companion for the evening!”
Normally Derek’s vocabulary was pretty extensive, but the ebbing of the adrenaline rush that came with intense anxiety meant that his brain was feeling fuzzy and dull, exhaustion already creeping up on him. He couldn’t muster much more than a half-hearted grin of his own.
Stiles’ smile wilted a little and he turned to whack his dad in the chest with the back of his hand.
“Sorry, daddy-o,” he said. “Hate to ditch you, really, but Derek and I have a very romantic evening planned and we can’t be late. It would be a shame to lose out on our reservations at that lovely little place in Aruba just because we missed our flight.”
The Sheriff rolled his eyes expansively and then gave them both a look that said quite plainly that he wasn’t done with this conversation and he’d be having words with both of them eventually. But he left without further complaint, traipsing off to help at the collection table. Stiles stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, blowing out a breath with puffed out cheeks.
“So,” he said. “You look like you wanna get out of here.”
“Please,” was all Derek could say.
He followed in Stiles’ wake, letting Stiles bulldoze a path through the milling crowds in the direction of the parking lot. They passed Val, who had her head thrown back in a laugh over something her date had said, and Wilkins, striking exaggerated sexy poses while his date took pictures on her phone. They both looked like they were having fun, like this whole thing was no big deal and they were good sports determined to make the best of it.
Derek ducked his head and walked faster.
The fresh air was cold but welcome, especially after the close, insistent press of warm bodies from inside. Derek breathed it in deep and let it out slowly. He looked up to find Stiles already leaning against his jeep, watching him with a frown that disappeared in an instant.
Stiles said, “Climb on in, babydoll,” and slapped the roof. “Don’t wanna be late to the sock hop, am I right?”
Derek rolled his eyes. It was so ridiculous that he couldn’t help but lose some of the tension in his shoulders. He climbed into the passenger seat and said, “Don’t ever call me that again.”
“Whatever you say, snookums.” Stiles threw him a wink before firing up the engine.
Ridiculous. Over the top and silly and obviously not intended to mean anything, just like everything about Stiles. They weren’t actually going to a whirlwind night in Aruba, or to a sock hop dance (as if such things even still existed nowadays). The big plans and the pet names, they were all just one big joke, and that made it safe.
And yet a thin trickle of nerves made its way back into Derek’s head. Because he didn’t know where Stiles was actually going. All jokes aside, they were driving somewhere, and Stiles had technically bought a full evening with him—with Derek’s own money, of course, but no one else knew that, and did it even matter where the money had come from?—and maybe he wanted to actually go somewhere, do something, get his borrowed money’s worth of Derek’s time and company. He had done Derek a favor, after all. He was bound to be expecting to get something out of the deal.
Any other night, Derek might’ve welcomed the idea. He might’ve jumped at the chance to spend a romantic evening with Stiles, even if it hadn’t come about in the traditional manner. It was something he had been thinking about for weeks, even months, and trying to work himself up to finally asking for. But he couldn’t do it tonight. Not when he was frazzled and on edge, fighting that irrational, trapped, back-to-the-wall feeling. Not when he couldn’t be sure of exactly how much of everything was a joke.
Derek was so caught up in his head that he hardly registered Stiles’ uncharacteristic silence. It wasn’t until they pulled up outside Derek’s loft that he realized Stiles hadn’t said a single word the whole drive. His thoughts stalled out as Stiles threw the jeep in park right in front of his building and settled back into his seat.
“Here’s your stop,” Stiles said brightly. “Thank you for flying Stilinski Airlines and have a wonderful evening.”
Derek blinked at him, feeling painfully slow on the uptake all of the sudden. “You’re just...dropping me off?”
Stiles’ grin faltered a bit and he shrugged. “Well, yeah?” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I mean, you kind of looked like you were about to bolt. I figured you might just wanna go home.”
Derek looked up to the windows of his loft, dark and empty and blessedly free of people who wanted things from him, and the sudden rush of relief made his head spin a bit. Still: “You don’t mind?”
He turned back to see Stiles with his thumbnail in his mouth, a nervous tic he’d had as long as Derek had known him. “Why would I mind?” he asked, only a little muffled. “This was kind of the point, wasn’t it? That you didn’t want to do the whole song and dance.”
“Yeah, but…” Derek shifted in his seat, not sure why he was even pushing this. Stiles was giving him the out. He should be upstairs in bed already, not saying, “You paid for an evening.”
Stiles snorted. “Dude, you paid.” He abandoned his nail-biting to pull a crumpled paper bag from his jacket pocket. “Here’s your obscene amount of money back. Or, you know, the rest of it. It’s all there, I promise I did not steal any. I may be a broke-ass college student, but I’m not that broke.”
Derek took the bag. He didn’t bother checking the contents, just let the paper crinkle in his fist as he glanced back out the window. The hand that came down on his shoulder startled him, but Stiles huffed and nudged him again, making a shooing gesture with his other hand.
“Just go, man,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. You bought yourself a very expensive night of uninterrupted solitude, just like you like. Go enjoy it.”
Derek popped the latch on the door and was halfway out before he found himself hesitating. He bit his lip, eyes on the dark, empty windows, then glanced back at Stiles, idly tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel. Without any conscious thought on the matter, Derek’s mouth said, “Do you want to come inside?”
Stiles’ eyebrows nearly jumped off his face with surprise. “Wha— I thought you—” He shut his mouth and just stared at Derek for a moment, and Derek fought not to squirm under the scrutiny. He didn’t take back the offer, though.
Finally, he said, “You don’t mind?” in a direct echo of Derek a few minutes ago.
Derek thought about saying that he never minded Stiles’ company. Or that he had been waiting for an opportunity like this for weeks and he couldn’t let it slip through his fingers. Or that the loft always felt a little too empty at night. Or that he didn’t like solitude nearly as much as everyone seemed to assume.
He thought about saying a lot of things that made his heart race. But in the end, he just shook his head. The slow smile that bloomed on Stiles’ face—smaller and infinitely brighter than the joking grin from earlier—didn’t slow it down at all, but for once he didn’t mind.