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At first, Stiles can’t fucking believe that Derek Hale is sitting at table 22. That’s Stiles’ table. The table that Stiles waits on (one of the many) five nights a week at some fancy steakhouse owned by Natalie Martin. And Derek is sitting right there, in the flesh, sitting across from Jackson Whittemore, one of Calvin Klein’s newest models. (Stiles doesn’t give two shits if Jackson is shiny and new—Derek Hale is and always will be his favorite CK guy, but that’s beside the point.)
Danny, fellow waiter and classmate at Stanford, nudges him. “Go. What are you waiting for? They don’t even have drinks yet.”
Stiles blinks. “That’s Derek Hale.”
“Is he famous?” Danny asks.
“He’s the gay man’s Miranda Kerr, Danny,” Stiles nearly hisses. “Remember my photography project for Andrews? It’s based around a shoot Derek did like seven years ago. He’s my wet dream. He’s on my list of celebrities I could cheat on my significant other with.”
Danny hums. “Well, good thing you don’t have a significant other, then. Now go, before Nat comes out from the back and sees you gawking instead of serving.”
Natalie’s is a five-star, high class dining establishment, smack dab in the middle of San Francisco. It’s expensive and fancy and so Stiles has seen Lady Gaga, Jonathan Groff, and Kanye West one time, so Stiles is used to famous faces. But he’s never been obsessed with any of them the way he is with Derek Hale.
He’s dressed nicely, black suit jacket and green tie, hair perfectly coiffed, beard perfectly trimmed. He looks like sex. Jackson looks—acceptable, Stiles supposes. He’s dressed in a burgundy suit instead, with a grey tie, and he looks bored. Stiles can’t imagine being bored on a date with Derek Hale.
“Hi,” Stiles says quickly, “my name is Stiles and I’ll be your waiter this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?”
“Sparkling water,” Jackson says, not even looking at him.
“We have Perrier and Nestle and San Pellegrino—”
“Whichever,” Jackson dismisses. “Cold, but no ice.”
Stiles forces a smile and looks to Derek. “And for you sir?”
“Newcastle, dark,” Derek tells him. “Please.”
He decidedly doesn’t swoon. “Coming right out, gentlemen.”
He puts in the drinks with Liam to prepare in chilled glasses, one of the guys behind the scenes, and goes to take other orders from the rest of his tables, check up on them, and grab a bus boy to clear some dishes before another couple sits down. When he walks by a minute later and sees that Liam has dropped their drinks off for them, he can hear Jackson say snidely, “Probably shouldn’t have too many of those, huh, Derek? Don’t want to put on the pounds. What else would you be good for, right?”
Stiles is immediately stunned, so shocked that he actually just stands still in the middle of the restaurant, staring at them. He’s behind Jackson, though, so Jackson can’t tell. Derek, however, looks up and meets his eye, and Stiles scurries away, embarrassed.
The rest of the hour he’s bringing people salads and drinks and introducing the sommelier so they can have a wine selection. He can’t stop glancing back at Derek and Jackson, though. (Derek’s having a prime rib and Jackson is having some chicken and quinoa concoction that’s pretty unpopular, to be honest. It’s a steakhouse. Not a chickenhouse.) When Stiles had taken their order, Derek had asked for his sautéed vegetables to be turned into onion rings, and Jackson had rolled his eyes so grandly Stiles had wanted to punch him in the face. But onion rings Derek got, and Stiles even asked the chef to sneak a few extra onto his plate.
Every time Stiles passes by or stops to ask them if they need anything else, he finds Jackson blabbering on about work. It’s always about him, too, not Derek. It’s Jackson, Jackson, Jackson, the entire evening—bragging about the next runway he’s been asked to do, about how many Twitter followers he has, about designers constantly trying to steal him away from CK. Stiles wants to gag.
“Would you like another beer?” Stiles stops by to ask towards the end of their meal, having just brought Jackson another water.
“No,” Jackson answers for him. “He’s fine. Aren’t you, Derek?”
Derek’s smile is so forced that it looks painful. “I’m fine, thank you,” Derek tells him.
Stiles is still close enough to hear Jackson say, “I’m sorry, Derek,” as he walks away, and there’s a little bit of hope that maybe the guy’s not such a douche. Then he follows it up with, “I shouldn’t be bragging about my career seeing as you’re on your way out.”
But even that is not as bad as when Stiles is collecting a bill from a table twenty minutes later and is flagged down by Derek. “Can we see a dessert menu?” he asks, and Stiles is already saying yes when Jackson snorts.
“No, thank you, we won’t be needing one. My date’s already had enough to eat; his six-pack is probably going to be non-existent when I get him home tonight.”
For a split second, Stiles is shocked into silence. His jaw is probably on the floor, honestly. Stiles can’t remember ever having a customer as rude or dismissing as Jackson Whittemore, and it’s made all the worse by the fact that it’s Derek Jackson is really being rude to.
“You know what,” Stiles says before he’s even actively decided to get his mouth moving. “If you’re going to be so insulting and derogatory, you don’t get to eat in this restaurant. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the guy sitting across from you right now is gorgeous and anyone would be lucky to be on a date with him, seeing as he’s an internationally recognized model and you’re some no-good bitch riding his coattails to fame with one stupid, sleazy photo shoot in your portfolio, but no real talent. Honestly,” Stiles laughs breathlessly, “I thought you were trying to make your way into some pretty low grade porn when I saw your spread—which was only two pages, by the way. Two page spreads are what Derek Hale started on because he’s talented and absolutely breathtaking. And you’ve got to be a fucking moron if you think you’re actually going home with him tonight after all the crap you’ve said to him.” Stiles takes a breath, points to the door. “Now get the fuck out of this restaurant, and take your crappy attitude with you.”
Jackson looks like he swallowed a lemon. More than that, he looks fucking pissed, which Stiles probably should have expected. He stands immediately, loudly demanding to see Stiles’ manager. (That’s Lydia, who is standing towards the back of the room, watching with a glint in her eye.) Then, when Stiles does nothing but glare, Jackson turns to Derek.
“Are you going to let him speak to me that way?” he asks, eyebrows high on his forehead.
It’s the worst few seconds of Stiles’ adult life, waiting in purgatory while Derek looks back and forth between him and Jackson. Then he shrugs, leans back in his seat.
“Yeah,” Derek decides. “He’s right. You should leave.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jackson spits. “You ungrateful, washed-up—” He scoffs, grabs his phone off the table and his overcoat off the back of the chair and vanishes out the front door in a huff, leaving behind an awkward energy of silence.
Lydia starts going table to table, offering them free drinks and more bread, apologizing for the outburst, explaining that Natalie’s does reserve the right to ban inappropriate clientele, so on and so forth. Stiles just watches, grinning, as people tell her that the “cute waiter with the moles” did the right thing.
Then he remembers that he’s standing right next to Derek Hale and his heart skips a beat in his chest.
“Ohmygod,” he says, turning to look at him, smile dropping off his face. “I’m so, so sorry, I can’t believe—”
“No.” Derek shakes his head, standing. “No, don’t apologize. You said everything that I should’ve. You saved me.”
Stiles is struggling with a response, staring at Derek looks him up and down.
“How can I thank you?” he adds then, and a million situations present themselves for Stiles’ overactive imagination.
Stiles’ throat feels tight. “I. I’m a photography student at Stanford and I have your 2010 shoot in my car because I’m doing a project based off of it and—I—would you sign it? Maybe? I’m sure you get asked all the time—”
“I’d love to,” Derek tells. “But you have to do something for me first.”
“Anything.”
Derek laughs, soft and genuine. “Remind me what your name is.”
“Stiles. Stiles Stilinski.”
Derek arches an eyebrow.
“It’s a long story.”
“You can tell me it while we go to your car.”
Ten minutes later, Stiles is pretty sure he’s dreaming when Derek slides his hand down the back of Stiles’ neck and kisses him, right on the mouth. But that doesn’t mean he wants to rush to wake up. Not at all.
“This is amazing, Stiles,” Professor Andrews tells him. “Your subject looks so much like a model I saw on a billboard near the mall the other day.”
“No shit,” Stiles laughs. “What a coincidence.”
“Where’d you find someone with such similar features?”
“Oh, this guy? He’s just my boyfriend.”