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Stiles couldn’t help it - the dog was just too cute . Sure, it was impolite to stare and he hadn’t heard a damn word his professor had said in the past ten minutes but seriously - who could focus on some dead old, white dude’s pretentious novel and the symbolic meaning of shirt colors when there was the cutest fucking dog just ten feet away. Who?
When it seemed only five minutes had passed until everyone was suddenly standing and moving around, Stiles realized he’d had a problem. Because not only had he been consistently staring at this random dog in his English class for the past three weeks but he had somehow lost track of nearly 90 minutes, not heard a single word, and was totally lost on any current assignments and projects.
With a small huff, Stiles cast one last glance at the dog and their handler before pulling himself out of his chair. Worth it, he thought gleefully as he watched the dog’s tail wagging happily as fingers gently smoothed the dog’s ears.
+.+.+
Derek Hale.
Stiles didn’t know his name until the second week of class. Until then, he had only known his dog’s name - Neko - and had honestly barely even noticed said dog’s handler. Which, admittedly, was a shame. Because while Neko was the cutest, sweetest pup to grace the earth, Derek Hale was the most devastatingly beautiful man to walk the earth. They were an ethereal pairing, truly, Stiles was overwhelmed by cuteness, hotness, and all the in-between. It wasn’t fair.
Derek was a well-known individual on campus despite his tendency to stay private (perhaps that’s what made him so well-known, ironically, his essential refusal to interact with others drawing the exact thing he tried to avoid - attention). Stiles rarely saw him with other students outside of class as he seemed to have a preference to be a lone wolf, as the saying goes. Though, considering the fact that sign language isn’t a common thing for people to know, it’s not all that surprising.
Unlike others, Stiles wasn’t going to let something as trivial as a language barrier stop him from talking to the beauty that was known as Derek Hale. By the end of that second week, Stiles had made it his personal mission to have at least one proper conversation with the guy by the end of the semester. Which is exactly how Stiles found himself holed up in his room on a Friday night, stacks of flashcards in hand, books splayed across his desk, and laptop brimming with one too many open tabs.
“Dog…” Stiles murmured, mimicking the step-by-step hand motions in the book. He huffed in exasperation, turning to his laptop and Googling a video that showed how to mimic the sign. He repeated it several times and mumbled the word quietly to himself.
“Great! Next one…” Stiles hummed to himself as he flipped to the next page, his eyes tracing the short description about how to make the gesture, his eyebrows squinting as he once again pulled up a video to make sure he was doing it right.
Stiles Stilinski, if nothing else, was determined.
+.+.+
Over two months into the semester and it had become nearly ridiculous just how wrapped up in the duo Stiles was. He was still wasting time away during English to stare at Neko, his lips twitching into a smile whenever Neko would nudge Derek’s hand or rub up against his leg, sometimes giving the softest of yips that Stiles was 90% sure were unintentional considering his role.
Despite having a translator stationed near the front of the class relating everything that was going on and being said, Neko still had a duty. He nudged his nose against Derek’s hand whenever the timer went off for timed writing. When he was called on by the professor, Neko softly bit at the hem of Derek’s shirt and tugged on it. If a student out of sight forgot about his lack of hearing and tried to get his attention to pass out papers or attempt to ask a question, Neko bumped his shoulder into Derek’s hip until the man looked up.
It was endearing. And it was the cause for Stiles’s current D in the class. He couldn’t help but watch those cute little interactions and make heart eyes at the duo every chance he got! It was asking just a tad too much of him and he was only human, after all. It also didn’t help that the time he should have been dedicating to English assignments and homework he was instead spending on reviewing his ASL flashcards and testing out basic conversations in the mirror (the tactic sounded silly at first but it actually proved to be quite effective!).
Nevertheless, his neglect of English proved to be successful! Stiles knew he was no expert but with the amount of time he’d dedicated to learning sign language and his stubborn determination to be halfway decent, he thought he had progressed quite well.
This is why Stiles found himself walking a tad bit too fast out of the classroom once the professor called out the usual dismissal. He had packed up as quickly as he could but Derek always seemed to be one of the first people packed and out the door without fail every day, making it that much harder to catch up.
Stiles had just about caught up to Derek and Neko and was about to call out when he paused, realizing his oversight. Quickly regaining his composure, he quickened his pace just a tad bit in order to be directly to the side of Derek and he tentatively reached out to gently tap the other on the shoulder.
With a small jerk, Derek stopped walking to turn towards Stiles. After a couple of seconds of realizing what was going on, the dark-haired man immediately frowned and gave a short puff of a sigh. He looked like he was about to turn around and continue walking, seemingly having no patience for other people, which spurred Stiles into action.
“Wait! Wait… please,” Stiles spoke, stopping to shakily sign the words as he did so. He still found the sign for wait kind of silly and he was sure he was wiggling his fingers a bit excessively, but he did the best he could! And his best seemed to have been decent enough, because Derek immediately stilled, his eyebrows raising as he watched Stiles slowly edge out the signs with his hands.
“I… okay, yea, here it goes,” Stiles mumbled, knowing he’d have to speak out loud as he signed otherwise he’d completely lose himself. “I just wanted to tell you… that Ne..ko…,” Stiles paused as he fingerspelled the dog's name, fumbling only briefly, his lips shaping out the natural filler words as he signed the bare basics, trying to remember the basic conventions for stringing sentences together, “is a really… cool dog. He makes class fun and the… relationship between you two is cool.”
Stiles furrowed his eyebrows, silently mouthing words to himself to try and make sure he signed everything correctly. When he looked back up at Derek, the guy was just staring at him. His hands were twitching at his sides, seemingly contemplating if he was going to respond.
Feeling the tension and nerves settling around him, Stiles cleared his throat and pasted on a tight smile, trying to look as sincere as possible. “Sorry… if that was weird. I’ll… I’ll leave you alone now. Bye, D..Der..ek,” Stiles fumbled, his fingers seemingly moving more sharply and his finger spelling causing him to stutter momentarily. Despite feeling fairly confident during his practice rounds in the mirror, signing in front of a person who knows sign language was nerve-wracking, and finger spelling still made Stiles fumble because of how long it took him to sell things out - slowing down his train of thought.
As soon as he finished his hastily signed farewell, Stiles turned and power walked away, not even bothering to look behind him - afraid to see if Derek was sending him a weird look. Christ, that was weird, Stiles quietly berated himself, who does that?! Fuck-
The internal rant continued well into his next class after he made his way across campus. He went over the entire interaction, realizing he hadn’t even introduced himself, which caused him to quietly groan and slump down low in his seat in the middle of class, drawing the eyes of several of his disgruntled peers.
This was perhaps one of Stiles’ worst ideas ever, he miserably realized.
+.+.+
Thankfully, Stiles had stupidly approached Derek on a Thursday, meaning he had until Tuesday before he had to be in the same vicinity as Derek again. He was already making plans about slipping in right before class started, sitting as far back in the class as he could manage, and either hiding under his desk to avoid Derek when he left class or just leaving early to avoid the possible run-in altogether. He was pretty proud of his plan so far, it seemed foolproof enough.
With the realization of how offputting the whole sign language endeavor was, Stiles now had a lot more free time on his hands (figuratively, literally - all the above). And seeing as how he hadn’t left his room for the past five weekends in a row, he decided he’d allow himself a change of scenery while he attempted to catch up on all the missed work from English (thank god for lenient deadlines and college professors not giving a fuck).
While not the most exciting scenario, Stiles was fairly content with his current setup. It was Saturday night, nearing just past 9 PM, the library was fairly vacant considering, and Stiles had just managed to get the last of the blueberry scones for half price when he bought his last coffee from the cafe, the barista all but begging him to take the last of the baked goods from the day.
The only downside was the stack of books, the handful of unfinished worksheets, and the glaring reminder of his nearly failing grade blinking up at him from his laptop screen.
Scones and coffee could only make up for those pain points so much, but this was after all Stiles’s own doing.
With a sigh, Stiles broke off a piece of a scone, stuck it between his lips to lazily chew, and began flicking through papers. He had already done the math and knew exactly the bare minimum of points needed to get himself to a solid C. He hoped he could do better than that but he was reminding himself that anything above that was icing on the cake.
Stiles had become so wrapped up in his work that he didn’t even notice a presence lingering at his table. It wasn’t until a soft ‘boof’ was heard that his eyes snapped up, promptly causing him to freeze immediately after.
Standing just across the table was one Derek Hale, a book clutched in one hand and Neko’s leash loosely gripped in the other. He must have been trying to get Stiles’s attention for a bit as he looked quite annoyed, a small downtick to the corner of his mouth and a dip between where his eyebrows pinched together.
Smiling sheepishly, Stiles waved at him. He clumsily pushed his chair back a bit more to make sure he had enough room before he haphazardly attempted to sign. “Hey! What’s up? Need… something?” Stiles looked at Derek timidly, chewing on his lip as he waited for a response.
You know sign?
Stiles cocked his head to the side, a bit stunned Derek actually said anything to him, and then he promptly became red in the face. Unable to meet Derek’s eye, Stiles nodded before signing and mumbling his response softly, “Taught myself. Sorry, I know… I’m, uh, not that good.”
Why? Derek signed. When Stiles squinted and furrowed his eyebrows, Derek huffed a bit before signing again. Why did you teach yourself sign?
“Ah, haha… uhhh…” looking around, Stiles flailed his hands a bit before meeting Derek’s eye again and signed a simple ‘you’. When Derek raised his eyebrow, Stiles groaned and muttered as he elaborated, “I wanted… to talk to you. Proper..ly.”
Derek didn’t make a move to respond and Stiles was slowly sinking lower in his seat, wishing for the floor to open up or aliens to invade earth and beam him up for testing or anything that meant getting him out of the library as quickly as possible. But just as Stiles was debating on how cowardly it would be for him to just keep sliding lower and lower until he was under the table and out of eyesight, Derek pulled out a chair and sat down.
Derek settled into his seat, Neko at his side, and pushed several of Stiles’s books and papers out of the way. Once it was to his liking, he turned to properly face Stiles head-on and leaned into the table.
How much have you learned?
“Ah, the basics and a bit… more. I understand more than I sign,” Stiles muttered, fingers spazzing a bit as he curved them to flow in the appropriate directions and motions.
I can teach you.
Stiles’s eyes snapped upwards to stare at Derek, his mouth falling open a bit. He tilted his head and gave the man a questioning look, confused. After a moment of silence, Derek gave a somewhat shy smile. And that was all Stiles needed before he was beaming back a smile of his own and nodding his head.
Without further preamble, Derek began shooting off random words in sign language. If Stiles knew them he said yes, repeated them back, and nodded. If Stiles frowned and shook his head, Derek pulled out a pen and wrote it out on the notebook between them.
Homework forgotten, Stiles fully turned his attention to Derek, watching him smoothly work his hands, his movements sure and clean. Stiles copied, his movements a bit more shaky and jagged, but Derek smiled each time he correctly mirrored the sign.
And if Stiles purposefully began screwing up a bit more once he realized Derek would pull on his hands and curl his own fingers around Stiles’s to shape them appropriately when he made mistakes, well… no one could necessarily prove it (and if Derek had any suspicions, he surely didn’t seem to mind anyways).