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It’s Derek’s favorite channel.
Every Tuesday and Thursday a notification appeared on his open browser, showing that a new video has been uploaded to “moviekidd826”. It was never about the same topic and it never appears at the same time, but Derek couldn’t help but smile every time he saw the red symbol appear. Derek wouldn’t admit it to himself, let alone his sisters, but he might have a bit of a crush on Stiles.
It started off simple; one day Derek was home sick, bullied into taking the day off by his mother who can’t stand to see him the slightest bit under the weather even though he is 28 years old and can take of himself. So, in order to stop her from throwing her pinched, worried look his way every five minutes, he agreed to stay home for a long weekend. Bored and without access to his email to occupy him (his mother threatened to extend his sick leave if he didn’t turn off his work phone), he took out his laptop and looked through YouTube.
He had never been a big fan of online videos, something that Cora often scoffed at and proclaimed that he wasn’t a big fan of anything, but with only daytime talk shows on tv and too many options on Netflix, he decided to find some of the vloggers that Cora and Laura were always going on about. Looking through the recommended to you section, he stumbled up a video talking about how the Young Avengers deserve to be included in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following Civil War. As a comic book fan, he couldn’t help but feel intrigued.
As he clicked the video, it opened on to a new tab, revealing a young man with disheveled hair, wide whiskey eyes, and pale skin dotted deliciously with moles. Derek didn’t know where to look. And as he began talking, ranting about Marvel’s lack of diversity and how it has already have three blond Chris’ represented in the universe and not a single female or person of color in a lead role, Derek found that if he found Stiles attractive before, it was nothing compared to watching his eyes light up and his hands wave around as he talked about things he was passionate about.
Hooked, Derek spent the rest of the day watching older videos on Stiles channel. He discovered his name when someone appeared on screen in one of his personal videos, asking if he wanted to get pizza while Stiles talked about his love for Star Wars and how excited he was for Episode VII. Seeing the man behind him, he had pulled him into view and told his audience that Scott had still not seen any of the Star Wars movies and that they should shame him on social media until he relented. Derek pouted (something he also would never admit) until he found out in another video that Scott was Stiles’ best friend and roommate at UCLA. They had known each other since they were in kindergarten and Scott had a girlfriend that he couldn’t go 30 seconds without talking about.
At seven, Derek heard a knock at the door and disgruntled about being disturbed, he paused the video and shuffled to his door. Looking through the peephole, he sighed, knowing that he would have to let his sisters in and finish watching the videos later.
He opened the door, barely jumping away before it burst open, allowing Cora to stride into the room with Laura in her wake. Laura walked toward the couch, shouting at Cora to get the wine while Cora looked in the freezer for ice cream specifically bought to help his throat. And because he was craving ice cream.
“So Der-Bear,” and here Derek shot Laura a look, silently hoping that she would stop calling him that and knowing that she wouldn’t, “What have you been up to today? Stewing in your own misery since Mom made you go home?”
“No,” Derek bit out, the satisfaction hollow as Cora laughed at Laura’s reply, handing her a glass before seating herself in the adjacent sofa. Resigning himself to a long conversation, he plopped down across from Laura. “I’ve been scrolling through the Internet.”
“You?” Cora burst out, surprise clear on her face. Derek scowled; contrary to popular belief, he wasn’t incapable of using technology, he just didn’t see the point of wasting your day online when you could be doing other things like going outside. Today may have changed his mind, though.
“Yes me,” he replied, hoping desperately to change the subject before they started asking what he had been looking at. For some reason, he didn’t want to share his love for Stiles’ videos. Even though he knew it wasn’t true, and that Stiles had thousands of subscribers, he liked to imagine that he was the only one who knew about the videos, almost as if Stiles was speaking to Derek directly.
“What are you two doing here?” looking between them and trying to discern their reason for visiting.
“We can’t just stop by to see our favorite brother?” Laura asked, smirking in a way that suggested she knew that excuse wasn’t believable. “Fine, I’m avoiding my casework and Cora here is pretending her midterms don’t exist.”
“I’m not avoiding them,” Cora interrupted, rolling her eyes at Laura’s choice of words. “I’m waiting to hear back from my partner for my stupid assignment in Comm class. He apparently is great at video production and we are going to film together this weekend. More importantly, I want to know what you’ve been doing on the Internet, Derek. You hate screwing around online and if something piqued your interest, I want to know what it is. Did you find cat videos? Viral videos from 2005?”
“No, nothing interesting or anything,” he said, glancing between them and his laptop where he could still see Stiles face light up the screen.
“Oh! What’s that?” Cora exclaimed, tracking his movement and jumping up to grab his computer. He replied, “It’s nothing!” but it was too late; Cora had already lifted the screen to its fullest height and clicked the video.
“And what about that badass ending with the T-Rex?” came Stiles’ voice from his speakers, talking about the short film Kung Fury that had come out in May. “I can’t believe they thought of it, but I’m jealous that I didn’t first.”
Cora turned to him, a strange expression flitting across her face before settling onto a smirk as she viewed his history. He knew he should’ve cleaned that out before opening the door. “Oh Der-Bear, does someone have a crush?”
“No! I just like his opinions about comic books, that’s all.” Derek could feel the blush creep on to his ears, and saw Laura and Cora share a grin as they noticed it too. “It’s okay, Der-Bear” came Laura’s retort, trying and failing to stifle a giggle, “We aren’t judging you at all. He’s very cute with his wide eyes and Bambi looks. Definitely your type.”
“Could we talk about something else please?” Derek burst in, and surprisingly his sisters complied, though he knew he hadn’t heard the last of this.
Weeks later, Derek had now watched every video on Stiles channel and had even created a Twitter so that he could follow him on it. He hadn’t tweeted anything and still wasn’t sure what the point even was, but now @dhale got updates whenever Stiles updated his Twitter.
His phone dinged, and Derek raced to grab it, seeing that Stiles had posted a link. Curious, he opened it and saw that Stiles’s previous tweets talked about a livestream where fans could talk to him about his videos. Derek grabbed his laptop, excited to get to see Stiles face to face, even if it was with other fans.
He navigated to Twitter and clicked the link, remembering to turn his sound on belatedly as the screen adjusted a revealed that the session was about to start. The numbers were already in the thousands, and Derek sat back on his couch, waiting for Stiles to appear.
After only a couple of minutes, Stiles burst into view. “Hey guys! Wow, a lot of you are on here right now, that is amazing! Anyway, I wanted to do this livestream to just talk about what kinds of things you all would like to see me talk about and as a thank you for your support. And at the end, I have a special announcement about a contest I’m putting together.”
Derek became distracted by the thought of a contest as Stiles began answering questions from fans that came pouring in. He paid attention to each word that Stiles uttered, becoming fixated by Stiles’ lips, his neck, the slight view of his collarbones that peeked out from his shirt. He blushed, and felt glad that no one could see him right now.
“Alright, so this contest,” Stiles said, and Derek jerked to attention, knowing that he would never win but wanting to know what it was anyways. “I’m going to have a private Skype session with one fan who tweets me to suggest a new video idea by Friday. The best idea wins. I’ll private message the winner on Sunday to set up a Skype time. I’m so excited guys, I really want to incorporate new ideas and maybe I’ll even collaborate with whoever wins? I haven’t thought this through, but yeah. Does anyone have any more questions? Scott’s coming by for video games soon, but I could answer a few more.”
And with that, Derek became distracted again, this time panicking as he tried to think of a new idea. Nothing came to him, probably because the only thing Derek wanted more of was Stiles in his entirety. Crestfallen, but still determined, he tweeted that to Stiles and threw himself into his work, hoping that he could distract himself enough that he wouldn’t obsess over the contest.
This strategy, while flawed, nonetheless worked until Sunday. Derek didn’t know when Stiles would announce the winner, but he spent the entire day pacing, alternating between watching old videos and watching his phone. Midway through Stiles talking about the travesty that is DC’s attempt to create a cinematic universe like Marvel, his phone dinged, signaling a new message. He turned toward the screen, and couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a PM from @moviekidd826. Stiles had messaged him.
“Hey DHale! I really liked your answer and I was hoping that we could Skype. Is your Skype username the same as your Twitter handle? Are you free to talk now? Let me know and thanks for liking my videos enough to suggest more of me ;)
Derek felt his breath stop. How had this happened? He had won? Shuddering, he typed out his Skype information, said he was available now, and hit reply.
Within moments, Skype was open on his computer and he was accepting a friend request from who could only be Stiles. Hitting the video button, the screen buffered until Stiles appeared before him, with a smaller screen revealing his slightly flushed face. If he had known this was going to happen, he definitely would have splashed some water on his face or something.
“DHale! What is your name, by the way, your account is really sparse and I don’t want to keep calling you by your Twitter handle, it feels weird. Unless you want me to! Which I don’t know why you would, seeing as we are Skyping one on one, but you never know.”
“It’s uh, Derek,” Derek replied, feeling himself blush further at his own awkwardness. Stiles either didn’t notice or didn’t care, his grin growing broader at Derek’s words.
“Derek, then. I have to say man, I am so excited to talk to a fan one on one. The livestream was fun but really overwhelming. That’s why I like making videos, it’s just me and the camera and I can choose to interact with the fans in comments if I feel like it. So, what’s your favorite video?”
“The one about the ridiculousness of Marvel rebooting Spider-Man and Fantastic Four after the had two failed franchises in the last ten years,” spilled out of Derek’s mouth, surprising him even as Stiles seemed to grow more animated. “Oh dude, Cora totally didn’t tell me you were a comic book fan too, I would have-“
“Cora?” Derek asked, stunned at Stiles words. He hadn’t thought about it beyond thinking that they lived in the same city, but could it be possible that Stiles and Cora knew each other. UCLA was a big campus, and the likelihood of that happening seemed low, but Stiles saying Cora’s name couldn’t be a coincidence.
It was Stiles’ turn to blush now, a lovely shade of pink washing over his cheeks. “Yeah, uh, so this contest may have been a way for me to meet you? Cora’s my partner in Communications and came in to class one day talking about how she caught her older brother watching my videos and thought we would be perfect together. She may have also shown me your photo, which I’ve got to say dude does not do you justice. I would accuse her of showing me a bad photo on purpose, but she seemed really determined that we meet.”
Derek felt lightheaded, not knowing how to process this information. Stiles was Cora’s partner? Cora (and probably Laura) had convinced Stiles to create a contest on the sheer hope that Derek would actually reply?
“So if you want to keep talking about comic books, I am such a fan of that idea, but I’d also like to know more about you. Maybe eventually use Skype for another reason, if you know what I mean,” Stiles kept going. At his last words, Derek went crimson and couldn’t help but notice the mischievous glint in Stiles’ eyes. Gulping, he responded, “Maybe we could meet in person first? I live in LA too and could stop by for coffee?”
“It’s a date,” Stiles answered easily, and with that they exchanged numbers and promised to meet this week on the UCLA campus. As Derek said goodbye to Stiles and closed out of the window, he couldn’t help but feel glad for his sisters meddling. It didn’t usually help him in his day to day life, but this time might be an exception.