Work Text:
Derek sat on top of a picnic table near the docks. He could still hear his sisters’ teasing as he’d risen before the sun and ran out of the front doors of the hotel their family-owned. He didn’t care what anyone had to say, it was the first day of the summer season, and his best friend was coming back.
Derek and Stiles had met when they were five and seven, the first summer the Stilinskis had come to stay at the Hale Hideaway on the small island off the coast of California where they lived. The two boys had wreaked havoc on the hotel and all of its guests, but most found them entertaining more than anything else. As the years passed, the Stilinskis came every summer to stay at the hideaway, except for the year that Mrs. Stilinski had passed away. That had been the longest summer of Derek’s life to date.
When they’d gotten older and gotten phones, the time between summers became easier because they’d been able to text and call. Sometimes they Facetimed but it was weird staring at Stiles’ face when he wasn’t there. They’d both had busy senior years and hadn’t kept in touch as often as they had before, but now Stiles was coming to work at the hotel for the entire summer before heading off to college.
Derek jumped to his feet as soon as he saw the ferry in the distance. He squinted, trying to spot Stiles’ Jeep. He’d only ever seen pictures of it before, but Stiles had texted him the night before to tell him that he would be bringing it. When he thought he spotted it, he started to look for Stiles’ buzzcut and lanky form wrapped in flannel.
Frowning, Derek went over every person he could see, but none of them were Stiles. He might have gone below deck, but Derek had thought he’d be as excited as Derek to be reunited. Moving as close to the edge of the dock as he could, Derek kept his eyes on the ferry. When it was still about a hundred yards out, his eyes caught on a man standing against the railing. He had broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist beneath a blue henley. Skinny jeans finished off the outfit and Derek’s mouth went dry.
The boat was still too far for Derek to make out the man’s face, but his jeans grew a bit tighter anyway. He was almost afraid that he would come in his pants in the most embarrassing way if he did see his face. He could make out the guy’s hair, brown and sticking up in the front while still shorter on the sides but nothing else. Rubbing a hand over his face, Derek let out a groan. He’d come to the conclusion a few summers previous that he was bisexual but hadn’t told anyone except his parents, who weren’t surprised in the slightest. They’d surprised him when they’d asked if it was because of Stiles, and although he had been a catalyst in the self-discovery, it wasn’t necessarily because of him.
Shaking his head, he pushed those thoughts from his mind as he tried to figure out if there was anyone scheduled to check into the hideaway that day, but as far as he knew, Stiles was the only expected arrival. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels as the ferry grew closer. The guy had disappeared, and Derek pushed him from his mind in anticipation of seeing Stiles again.
The ferry hit the dock, and as soon as the gate was dropped, the blue Jeep rumbled onto the dock and towards the road. Derek ran alongside to catch up but couldn’t see inside until the Jeep pulled into a parking spot at the end of the dock. The door flew open as Derek skidded to a stop, and he was knocked backward by a blur of blue. Laughing, he returned the hug from Stiles, pressing a smacking kiss to the side of his friend’s head.
He pulled back when he didn’t feel the prickle of the familiar buzz cut. Stiles’ eyes were sparkling, and his smile was wide as he took in Derek’s appearance. “Derek! Dude, I’ve missed you!” Stiles shouted in his face.
“Stiles?” Derek questioned, his mouth reacting before his brain could catch up. Stiles was the hot guy from the ferry. Gone was the awkward, lanky teenager of summers passed, replaced by the epitome of Derek’s wet dreams.
“Who else would it be, asshole?” Stiles asked, punching him in the shoulder. “Now climb in Roscoe, and let’s get to the Hideaway. Your mom promised me her famous apple pie as soon as I got here.”
Derek stared at Stiles while he clambered into the Jeep, attention focused on his denim-clad ass, and suddenly the summer seemed like it was going to be torturous instead of terrific. “Hey, you coming, or am I going to tell the family I killed you to take your place?”
That snapped Derek out of his trance. He hurried around, grabbing the door and jumping inside just as Stiles took off toward the hotel. “Like my family would let you,” Derek said, watching Stiles’ hands working the stick and imagining it working a different kind of stick - his stick. He nearly smacked himself in the forehead to keep his mind out of the gutter.
“They’ve liked me better since the day we met,” Stiles teased, turning to wink at him at the one stoplight in town, and Derek felt his ears growing warm. Stiles made an interested sound before pulling away at the green light. “So, we’re both graduated. We’re adults, dude!”
“Don’t call me ‘dude,’” Derek said, but he was laughing too hard for Stiles or anyone else to take him seriously. “You’ll never be an adult.”
“Not if I can help it,” Stiles answered. “Although, college might make it a necessity.” They both fell silent. Derek had no idea what Stiles’ plans were now that he’d graduated. They never talked past this summer except to mention the following summer. “Right now, let’s just focus on the summer. What’s your family going to have me do?”
“Maintenance, mostly, with me,” Derek said. He spent his time fixing things around the hotel and helping out in the restaurant when he could.
“Awesome! That way, I don’t need to try and figure out how to sneak away to spend time with you,” Stiles told him. “Is the Big Barn still open?”
The only place to hang out on the island for teens was the Big Barn. It had a club atmosphere but was for the under twenty-one crowd. Derek and Stiles would spend most of their Friday nights there the previous three summers trying to pick up girls, or rather Stiles would try, and girls would hit on Derek, but he only wanted to hang out with Stiles. At the end of the night, they’d head back to the hotel together and play video games.
Looking at his friend, he thought Stiles would have a pretty good chance of hooking up with someone with how he looked. Derek didn’t like how that thought made him feel, and when they got back to the hotel, he left Stiles in the loving arms of his family and headed up to his room. All his previous excitement at seeing Stiles had disappeared in a blink of an eye, and he just wanted to crawl into bed and never come out again.
The door to his room opened, and he groaned, forgetting that his parents had agreed to let Stiles bunk with him for the summer and most likely given him a key. Pulling the covers over his head, he ignored Stiles as he started unpacking. He could feel Stiles’ eyes on him, and he knew his friend was worried, but he didn’t want to talk about it. It was only the first day, and if Stiles found out Derek was attracted to him, it would make the entire summer awkward.
The bed shifted next to Derek, and he heard Stiles sigh deeply. “You figured it out, huh?” Derek furrowed his brows, confused at the question. What did Stiles think he’d figured out? He bit his lip to keep from asking, just wanting Stiles to go away for the first time in his life. “Four years I’ve kept it a secret and one day of being back, hell, one hour of being back, and you figure it out.”
The bed shifted again as Stiles stood up, and Derek heard all of the drawers opening and closing again. Peeking out from under the covers, he saw Stiles repacking his suitcase. “Where are you going?”
Stiles jumped, arms flailing and his clothes hitting the floor. Normally, Derek would have laughed, but he frowned instead. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah, better to leave and live with good memories than stay and make you hate me,” Stiles said, picking up his clothes and shoving them into his suitcase. Derek spied a shirt of his that he thought he’d lost the previous summer.
Derek pushed himself to sit up, the blankets falling around his waist. “Stiles, I could never hate you. You’re my best friend.”
“Fuck, Derek, best friends don’t fall in love with their best friends,” Stiles said, rubbing a hand over his face, and Derek felt sick to his stomach.
“I didn’t mean to,” Derek started. “I can make it stop.” He didn’t know how he could make it stop, but he would figure it out to erase the look on Stiles’ face.
“It’s not like you could help it,” Stiles scoffed, and Derek felt a flush of anger. Stiles hadn’t been so full of himself before, but maybe getting hot instead of just cute and adorable had turned him into a little bit of a jerk as well. “Fuck, one summer, you’re this freaky kid with big ears, glasses, and braces.”
“What?” Stiles never had braces or glasses. His ears were always the correct size. Derek had always been the one his sisters called Dumbo when they weren’t calling him Thumper for his overgrown bunny teeth. Now, Derek was perplexed. It felt like he and Stiles were having two separate conversations.
“Come on, you know puberty was kind to you. I left here one summer and came back, and you’d turned seventeen, and it was like you’d turned into a model or something.”
“Wait...you’re talking about me?” Derek asked.
“Duh!” Stiles said. “Who did you think I was talking about? Your sister?” Stiles shuddered. “Let’s just say she doesn’t have what I’m interested in - fuck, I’m sorry. This is not helping. Look, I’m just going to go. I’ll head off to NYU with the memories of our summers to keep me warm at night.”
He stood up, and Derek scrambled off the bed, nearly braining himself on the headboard in the process. His mind spun with everything Stiles had just said. “Wait! Stiles, don’t go!” he shouted, lowering his voice when someone, probably one of his sisters, knocked on the wall behind the television. “You’re going to NYU in the fall?”
“Thank God that’s all you got from my word vomit,” Stiles muttered. “Yeah. I need to figure out where I’m going to live, though. I don’t want to live in the dorms with a stranger, but I can’t afford a place on my own. My dad suggested I find a room to rent in a house, but that’s not an easy task.”
Derek’s eyes lit up. “What about a room in a hotel?”
“Dude, hotels are ridiculously expensive,” Stiles said.
“Not if it’s a Hale Hideaway. You’ve always got free room and board at those,” Derek commented, smiling as his mind began forming a plan for the upcoming year.
“I don’t think I could handle a commute from here to New York every day,” Stiles said, laughing. “It’s a nice thought, though. This place has always been like home for me.” He sighed. “Which makes leaving already even harder.”
“You don’t have to leave. I want you to stay,” Derek said, forgetting about the New York part of the conversation to focus on the immediate problem, Stiles trying to leave.
“You don’t want to put up with me crushing on you all summer, at least now that you know about it.” Stiles moved to his suitcase again, and Derek jumped up to yank the suitcase away from him, sending it to the ground with a thud.
Derek thought back over Stiles’ words. “Okay. We need to have one conversation,” he said authoritatively. “You want to leave because you think I found out you have a crush on me?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying! You’ve been moody and withdrawn since I got here. It’s the only explanation!” Stiles was shouting again.
“Or,” Derek interrupted before Stiles could start ranting or packing again, “I’m afraid to ruin our summer because I realized just how much of a crush I have on you .”
“Don’t pretend to make me feel better. There’s no way that someone as hot as you could possibly be interested in me.”
“Have you looked in a mirror at any point in time over the last year?” Derek asked. Stiles scoffed, and Derek grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to look into the mirror over the dresser while Derek stood behind him, holding him in place. “That is a hot guy.”
“Yeah, the one in the back,” Stiles muttered.
“No, the one in the front. The one with a smile that brings a smile out of everyone around him. The eyes that glow in the right light, not to mention the moles that are like stars across his skin. Not to mention the things that changed this year." Derek moved his hands to Stiles’ shoulders. “These widened and filled out. I bet you even stretch out the shirt you stole from me last summer.”
Stiles stammered, and Derek moved his hands to Stiles’ waist. “You’ve always been thin, but now you’re lean. Your gangliness has given way to lankiness that is incredibly attractive.” Derek rested his chin on Stiles’ shoulder, waiting until Stiles met his gaze in the mirror. “Even without all of that, even if you were still the awkward Stiles with the buzzcut and the questionable taste in clothes, I would be incredibly in love with you.”
Stiles’ gaped and shook his head. “Yes, because you are my best friend, the smartest person I know, and also the best person I know. You are amazing, and I will spend every day you allow me to stay in your life, whether as your friend or, hopefully, more convincing you of that fact.”
Derek bit his lip to stop himself from talking. He’d already said far more than he’d wanted to, and he was expecting Stiles to jerk away and run screaming from the hotel, never to be seen again. He waited while a dozen emotions crossed Stiles’ face until his smile returned and grew brighter.
Instead of pulling away, Stiles turned in Derek’s hold, wrapping his arms around Derek’s neck in a way that was familiar and yet not. Derek was surprised to realize that Stiles had grown a few inches over the year and was now only a few inches shorter than him. Derek pressed his forehead against Stiles’, laughing as his eyes blended into one eye.
“So, you’re in love with me?” Stiles said, and Derek hummed in agreement, pulling back enough to watch Stiles’ mouth move. He wanted to groan when Stiles’ tongue darted out to wet his lips. “And I’m in love with you.” Derek raised his eyebrows in question. “I am. And I think you are really hot and, for some reason, you think I’m really hot.” Derek pinched his side, smiling when Stiles giggled and tried to twist away from the assault and only succeeded in pressing closer to Derek.
“With all of these observations, what conclusion have you arrived at?” Derek teased, tightening his arms around Stiles’ waist and brushing their noses together.
“That I’m going to have the ultimate hot guy summer, and everyone else can live in jealousy,” Stiles quipped, and Derek threw his head back to laugh, yelping when Stiles nipped at his chin. “Now, what was with all the talk about me living here while I went to college?”
It took Derek a second to remember what Stiles was talking about and when he did, his grin became even broader. “That’s the big secret project my family’s been working on all year. We’re opening a Hale’s Hideaway East in New York City. It’s a bed and breakfast twelve blocks from NYU, and my parents want me to run it, so I’ll be living in the attic.”
“And you want me to live there? I don’t know if I can afford something so nice,” Stiles said, blinking his eyes up at Derek and unsuccessfully trying to appear innocent and coy.
Playing along, Derek leered at him. “Oh, I’m sure we can come up with some form of alternative payment,” he whispered.
The door to Derek’s room opened, and the two of them leaped apart and whirled around to face Derek’s mother, who held a pie pan and two forks. She raised her eyebrows at both of them. “I have a feeling we will be rethinking the sleeping arrangements for the summer,” she said, eying them both sternly before breaking into a smile and shaking her head at their objections.
Setting the pie down on the table, she moved forward and pulled Stiles into a hug, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I am so happy the two of you figured things out. Your mother would be happy, too.”
Stiles blinked back the tears that sprang to his eyes at the mention of his mom. “Why do you say that?”
“Sweetie, we started planning your wedding the summer you met,” she told him, smiling when Derek worked his way into the hug, rubbing a hand up and down Stiles’ back when he let out a quiet, surprised sob. “Claudia had dubbed it ‘Cute Boy Summer’ if I recall correctly.”
They laughed at the silliness of it, but as Derek’s mother left the room telling them to behave but closing the door behind herself, he found he wanted to ask if there were any notes on their wedding lying around somewhere. He smiled as Stiles tightened his hold around Derek’s waist. “So, what do you want to do?” he asked him.
Stiles looked thoughtful. “You wanna go to the Big Barn? They’ll still let you in, right?”
Derek swallowed. “Looking to pick someone up?” he asked nervously.
Stiles wiggled his eyebrows and startled Derek by lifting him off his feet. “I already did,” he assured. They burst into laughter when Stiles lost his balance, and they fell onto the bed with a bounce.