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There was this one seat, just by the window, that offered the best view of the campus, and Stiles was determined to sit there, constantly, for the rest of the year. It was the best seat in the entire library, because it was right by the Psychology books (that was his major) and he had the perfect view of the football field. It was always nice to watch a whole lot of guys run around all sweaty for a few hours as he did his homework, even if he struggled to actually get any homework done.
And this plan worked great, for the most part. For the first few weeks, he was left alone, sitting at the best table in the library.
Until today.
He walked in, as usual, a heavy pile of psych textbooks in his arms, and he would have walked over to his usual table (a.k.a. the table of destiny) and plonked them straight down, if it wasn’t for this guy who was sitting firmly in his seat. Stiles would have gone over and given the guy a piece of his mind, but he had the world’s most killer hangover, and that wouldn’t have ended well for anyone.
So he shot the guy the sharpest daggers he could manage, and resigned himself to sitting at the next best table in the library, which was the one next to the vending machine.
And because there was no hot football players to distract him, he was forced to actually do his revision, which in his mind, was a fate worse than death.
Curse you guy. Curse you.
Stiles looked up at the clock after what felt like forever, and noticed that it was like 9:00 at night. He’d usually clock out at like 10, when the football game finished, but he just wanted the endless torture of homework to be over, so he was clocking out now.
Unluckily enough for him, the guy who had been sitting in his seat had the exact same idea as him, and was also gathering up his textbooks and preparing to leave.
Stiles could not leave when this guy left, because that’s just a not okay thing to be doing, so he was forced to sit back in his seat and watch the guy walk past him, a heap of textbooks in his arms as well.
And damn, that guy was hot as fuck.
Suddenly, all of the rage that Stiles had felt for the guy was gone, replaced with regret, because damn, he had a good view of that guy and he wasted it on studying. But what was also bubbling up inside him was the feeling of competitiveness, because he still wanted his seat back. And tomorrow, he would get it.
Derek, on the other hand, knew Hot Psych Guy’s, or HPG as Erica had taken to calling him, schedule off by heart. He came into the library every day whenever HPG was in the library, because he was trying his hardest to work up the nerve to talk to him, which was something he definitely struggled with. Derek could probably win the prize for most emotionally constipated human on the planet if he was honest with himself.
But today, when he walked into the library, HPG was not there. He looked over at his usual table, but found that he wasn’t there.
Perhaps he would sit in his seat, and have HPG come over and ask if he could share the table, which would start up a conversation. Yes, that would probably work. Well, he hoped.
Turns out he was wrong. HPG walked straight past him and sat at the table closest to the vending machine, sending daggers at him every five seconds. Derek’s plan totally and utterly failed, and ended with HPG hating him for stealing his seat.
Derek, you have well and truly fucked up badly now.
Come tomorrow, he would move, and nothing would come of it. He would just go back to pining over HPG from a distance and everything would be okay.
Derek’s luck in life totally dictated that that would not be how this all worked out.
And it was so right. Tomorrow when he rocks up to the library, vet studies textbooks in hand, he sees that the only free table is HPG’s usual table. Fuck.
He stands in the doorway awkwardly for a few seconds before eventually deciding to go and sit down at the table, because he had trekked all this way and needs to get some sort of study done.
Poor HPG is going to hate him now.
Stiles rocks up to the library ten minutes late, soaking wet from having to run for a bus, and expects the table of destiny to be free. But no, the guy from yesterday just has to be sitting there, ruining Stiles’ day and quite possibly the rest of his life.
He looks around, and finds that there aren’t any free tables around, and the only free seat is next to the table thief, and he isn’t going to sink that low and go and sit next to him. He would go to Starbucks instead, and take advantage of the half an hour of free wifi.
“Bad day?” Allison Argent asks him when he orders a venti hot chocolate from her. She’s a god that woman, because she had memorised all of his Starbucks orders for all of his different moods. That hot chocolate was specifically reserved for the bad days.
“There’s this one table in the library, right? And I always sit there, and then this guy walks in and takes it. And he does it two days in a row, so he has to be doing it to piss me off!” Stiles vents at her, while Allison snickers behind the coffee machine.
“Sweetheart, I think you are just looking for drama when there is none. Go sit down and I’ll bring this to you, and you can vent more about how this guy is ruining your life,” Allison said kindly, and he grinned at her.
“Thanks a bunch, Ali,” he smiled at her, walking over to one of the free booths and dumping his psych stuff on the table, groaning when the weight left his arms.
That woman was a real godsend sometimes, he thought, as she came walking over with his venti hot chocolate clutched firmly in her hand. She shifted around his psych textbooks and made room for herself, making herself as comfortable as she could be.
“Now, what seems to be the problem?”
For the next three weeks, the table of destiny only had two users. Stiles and Derek. And both of them were now locked in a battle of who was going to sit at the Table of Destiny today?
Stiles was now winning, because he was in the seat today, but when he saw his rival standing awkwardly in the doorway, looking around the library for another available seat. Stiles knew that there weren’t any others, but could he really invite his bitter rival over to come and sit with him, potentially ruining the whole ‘thing’ that they had going on.
Derek was also thinking the same thing, because he couldn’t just go over and sit with HPG, however much he wanted to. They had this ‘thing’ going, where they would see who could get here first to sit at the special table, and he didn’t want to ruin it.
“There’s a free seat over there, with that guy. I’m sure he won’t mind,” said a guy who was stocking books in the shelves.
“Thanks man,” Derek said courteously, his insides feeling like they were about to spontaneously combust.
Stiles, in this moment, wanted nothing more than to kill Scott McCall, because he had just sent his mortal enemy walking towards him.
“Sorry, do you mind if I sit here?” Derek asked politely, not wanting to offend HPG.
“If you sit here, will you ruin our ‘thing’?” HPG said, putting quotation marks around the word thing. Derek, much to his chagrin, found himself laughing.
“Most definitely,” Derek said definitively.
“Then why not. I’m Stiles, by the way,” Stiles said, sticking out his hand. Derek shook his hand before pulling out a chair and sitting down, spreading out his textbooks over the table.
“Derek.”