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"And for first chair we have…is that a B? I can’t even read my own handwriting."
"Come on, Finstock, just tell us already!" Stiles yells.
"Bilinski!" Finstock reads, rolling his eyes.
It takes a moment, and Stiles whoops in happiness. “Me! I’m first chair! Yes!” He pumps his fists in the air, almost knocking his cello over. Luckily Scott catches it and Stiles gives him a grateful smile.
"You know that means you also have to represent our school in the tri-city orchestra," Finstock says, levelling Stiles with a hard look. "Which means no fooling around and making our school look bad."
"Me? Of course not," Stiles says, grinning.
"And I don’t know why you’re celebrating about being first chair, Bilinski, you’re the only cellist we have!” Finstock calls back at him, but Stiles is still too giddy to care.
Unfortunately going to tri-city practice also means getting up at 5.a.m to take the short bus with all the other first chair instruments to Beacon Valley High School where the practice is at.
Stiles is barely awake and is taking his cello out of his case when another boy stares him down. “That’s my seat,” he says.
Stiles blinks at him. “Does it have your name on it?”
"Yes, it does," and he yanks Stiles forward, rude, and Stiles turns around and sees D. Hale, 1st Chair Cello written in neat print on masking tape.
”You can sit there,” D. Hale, apparently, says, pointing at the seat next to him, where the tape reads, C. Hale, 2nd Chair Cello.
"Excuse me," Stiles says, "I am also a first chair, and I am not going to sit in a chair that’s labeled for seconds."
Their staring contest is broken when the conductor, a tall woman with dark hair, raps on the music stand in front of Stiles. “I see you have met one of our fellow tri-city orchestra members, Derek,” she says, “Thank you for welcoming him so kindly to our music room. Why don’t you guys get warmed up together?”
Stiles stares down Derek and they both grab their cellos and reluctantly run through a few scales together, but Stiles is so affronted by his arrogant attitude and smug pretty eyes that it’s clearly on from the minute they met that he is definitely Stiles’ nemesis.
Scott frowns when Stiles tells him at their own practice later while Scott polishes his trumpet for the millionth time. “I don’t understand how he can be your nemesis, Stiles, you’re not a superhero,” Scott says.
Finstock keeps the band late after school, but the percussion section is over-rowdy as usual (not everyone makes the switch from marching band season to concert band well, but Stiles just preens because it means he doesn’t have to ring a stupid triangle while marching around the football field and he can justplay).
It’s late, and people have scattered to various practice rooms to practice bits of their latest song with their section, but Stiles is his section, and he’s already memorized this song and got it down pat. He can vaguely hear Finstock speaking with someone in the distance, like someone is visiting, maybe? Whatever.
Stiles drifts into a version of Smooth Criminal that he’s been working on, strumming through the first few chords, getting into the beat, when someone sits down across from him and pulls out another cello from a case. It’s Derek, watching Stiles intently, and Stiles raises his eyebrow in a challenge, not lifting his fingers from his strings for one instant.
Derek draws his bow across his own cello strings; the notes ring out an octave lower than the chords Stiles is playing, and they play in perfect harmony for a moment, but the song rushes them faster, and Stiles climbs higher with the melody, body moving in frenzied motion, but Derek keeps up perfectly, even throws in a countermelody, and Stiles blood is running hot, and his hands can barely keep up, and it feels fantastic, at first like a race to see who can finish first but then Stiles realizes with a breath that they’re working in perfect tandem, the song flowing between them, the chords thrumming hot beneath their fingers.
They finish to a scattered applause; Stiles hadn’t even realized people had come into the room.
"Well, when I brought Derek here to apologize for his rudeness this morning, I certainly didn’t expect this," the Beacon Valley High School’s conductor says, looking at them.
"Mom," Derek protests, embarrassed.
"Well, you two have quite the energy together, I hope you can apply it to the songs we are actually planning to play for the showpiece," she says.
Stiles and Derek look at each other, and then look away just as quickly, a blush threatening to form on Stiles’ cheeks.