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Derek always feels like a cliché when he’s wiping the bar down with a dish rag, but he’d just poured tequila shots for a rowdy softball team in matching (and oh-so-clever) “Ball Busters” tee shirts, and he hated the wet rings that shot glasses left on the glossy wood. He’d rather be a cliché than have a sticky bar.
He’s buffing a spot that is slightly less glossy than the rest when a guy plops heavily onto a stool in front of him and crosses his arms on the spot that Derek had just cleaned.
“Barkeep, I would like three fingers of your finest scotch.”
Derek cocks an eyebrow and holds out his hand for ID. The guy slides it across the bar and Derek lifts it up so he can look back and forth from the plastic card to the guy’s face. It’s legit, and he’s 21 though he looks like he could still be in high school.
“Genim?” Derek asks, handing the ID back.
“It’s a soft ‘g’, actually. Horrible family name. I go by Stiles.”
Stiles’s ID picture shows him grinning goofily with a buzz cut, but the Stiles at the bar has longer hair that sticks up in front and bags under his eyes. He’s frowning so hard Derek can practically hear his face creaking.
“I don’t really have any fine scotch, and you look like you’d pass out after three fingers of anything that hard,” Derek says, then replays the sentence to himself after Stiles’s eyebrows look like they’re going to crawl off his forehead, and clears his throat. “I have whiskey and cheap bourbon, pick your poison.”
Stiles hunches back in on himself, but two spots of bright red have bloomed on his cheeks, matching his hoodie almost perfectly. “Whiskey it is. I’ve never had scotch anyway, I’ve just always wanted to say that.”
Derek reigns in his urge to explain the differences and instead asks, “Straight?”
The red in Stiles’s cheeks starts creeping down towards his neck and Derek wonders when his normal jargon turned into innuendo, or if maybe it always was and he just hadn’t noticed it before.
“With Coke?” he asks, unsure. Derek nods, but makes the drink more whiskey than soda since Stiles looks like he could use it.
Stiles grabs up the cocktail napkin Derek lays down before he can lower the glass onto it, and starts picking it apart. Derek takes another napkin from the tray (he really hates the wet rings) and sets the drink down, pushing it forwards.
“Four fifty,” he says, and Stiles takes a break from methodically destroying his napkin to pull cash from his wallet. Derek brings back his change in singles, like any well trained bartender would do, but doesn’t expect more than the two quarters to be left behind. He’s surprised when Stiles drops a single and the two quarters into the well, pocketing the rest.
"Aren’t you supposed to ask me why I’m so long in the face or something like that?”
Derek casts a longing glance at the book he has stashed next to the cash register but figures a guy who tips well and looks as dejected as Stiles does could use an ear to bend. Derek’s been a bartender long enough to know how to fake it, at the very least. He hooks an elbow over a tap and leans. “Why the long face,” he drawls, teasing, and Stiles’s mouth twitches slightly.
“How horribly cliché would I be if I told you I was just dumped?”
Derek touches the bar rag sticking out of his back pocket and shrugs. “Is it the truth?”
Stiles presses his lips together and nods, then straightens his shoulders determinedly. “I’m not sad about it. Or, I guess I am, I’d be stupid if I wasn’t, right? Who spends two years with someone and then isn’t sad when the relationship ends? But I’m not going to, like, wallow. Well, I guess that’s a lie, too, because I plan on getting wasted this evening and spending tomorrow in my PJs with nothing to keep me company but the Lifetime channel and Ben & Jerry’s.”
Derek hmms, his eyes drifting up to the television screen as a scuffle breaks out between the werewolves (he’s assuming that’s what the bad glued-on sideburns and Dollar Store fangs are all about) and the humans armed with crossbows.
“It doesn’t make sense to mourn the loss of something that’s ultimately bad for you, right? Then again when I stopped eating fast food for my dad, solidarity and all that, I missed that. Especially chicken nuggets. And fries. Man, now I want some fries.” Stiles gulps his drink and grimaces, and Derek can’t help but chuckle at his face.
“Oh, sure, laugh at the poor kid who can’t handle his whiskey. I’m used to crappy beer, dude, I haven’t drank whiskey since I was in high school. Funny, that was because of a breakup, too. Though that one wasn’t mine, I didn’t have any relationships to break up in high school. In fact this was my longest relationship to date and of course it crashes and burns. I sure know how to pick them.”
Derek doesn’t even have to make an encouraging noise this time and Stiles is off on another tangent, this one about some girl named Lydia that he’d been in love with most of his life. Derek tunes out for the most part, catching bits and pieces and keeping an eye on the level of liquid in the glass.
“ … in love with her since third grade … never knew I existed until I had already started liking someone else … figured I was using her as a crutch so I didn’t have to come to terms with being attracted to guys … “
Derek refocuses, and Stiles is staring right at him. “That brings you back into the conversation, doesn’t it. Not really a proclamation I’m used to making to strangers, but since I’m apparently telling you my entire life story you may as well hear that I’m bisexual, and please god get me a refill because I’m going to want to not remember this tomorrow.” He slaps another ten on the bar and Derek scoops ice, grabs the soda gun and sloshes whiskey into the glass, and ends up with another buck fifty as a tip. He turns fully away from the television and leans his forearms on the bar.
Stiles talks straight through three drinks, and assures Derek he’s not driving when he stumbles over his own feet as soon as he stands up. Derek watches him go and washes his glass, then picks up his book and props a hip against the register to read.
*****
Stiles comes back two weeks later. It’s midterms time, and the bar is filling up as classes end and happy hour begins. Derek is going through Jaegermeister like it’s been discontinued and he’s hauling another case of Red Bull up from the storeroom when someone in a red hoodie crashes into his side, almost knocking the cans out of his arms.
“Watch it,” he says, readjusting his grip.
“My bad, dude, oh hey!”
Stiles is grinning sheepishly at him, running a hand over his hair. Derek feels a corner of his mouth tick upwards in surprise. “Hey.”
“Sorry, that looks heavy, I didn’t mean to literally bump into you.”
Derek catches the stress on literally and wonders if that means Stiles meant to do it figuratively instead, then shakes his head at himself and hoists the Red Bull higher. “I should get this behind the bar.”
Stiles laughs, a self-deprecating sound that sounds well practiced. “Of course, yeah, the natives will get restless without their Jaeger bombs.”
Stiles looks jittery, fingers twisting up in his hoodie strings, and Derek wonders how his wallowing went, if the ice cream and bad movies helped, if he’s over his ex, how his midterms are going. He frowns at himself but still asks, “You need a drink?” He cocks his head towards the bar.
The other bartender on duty takes the Red Bull from Derek with a slightly desperate look and unpacks it, and Derek twists caps off light beers until a spot opens for Stiles to slide into.
“What’ll it be today?”
“Just a beer. Midterm stress is not nearly as bad as just-dumped misery.”
Derek touches a tap and raises his eyebrow and Stiles nods. “Your wallow helped then? The Haagen Daz and chick flicks?”
“Hey, Lifetime movies have important messages for men and women alike. And it was Ben & Jerry's." Stiles looks surprised when Derek puts down two napkins before setting the pint on one of them. He pushes two dollars out of his change at Derek.
“Thanks.”
Stiles lifts a shoulder and presses his glass to his bottom lip. “My wallow did help. Studying helps too, staying busy.”
“I’m glad,” Derek says, and he finds he means it. He turns away to take an order and pulls a few more drafts. Stiles is gone when Derek turns back, and Derek does not look for his hoodie in the crowd.
*****
Stiles becomes a regular. He comes in on weekend nights when the bar is packed and on weekday afternoons when the bar is empty. He comes with friends and he comes in alone. Sometimes he wears the red hoodie that Derek can pick out in a crowd and sometimes he sneaks up on him, grinning when Derek startles and ordering a cheap beer.
Derek gets stuck covering for a day shift bartender for an entire week and finds himself wishing Stiles would come in and ramble at him for a while to save him from the boredom. The last day of the week the door opens two hours into Derek’s shift, at a time of day Derek thinks no one should be drinking, and Stiles comes in, hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Hey,” he says, coming up to the bar but not sitting down.
Derek looks at his watch and then at Stiles, and Stiles chuckles. Derek thinks he sounds nervous.
“What can I say, you’ve turned me into an alcoholic. No, I came in a couple nights this week and you weren’t working, so I asked last night and they said you were working days.”
Derek raises his eyebrows. Stiles’s eyes skip around the bar before landing back on Derek’s face.
“Would you want to get a drink with me?” He rolls his eyes and does the self-deprecating laugh that Derek has heard before. “God, what a dork, asking a bartender to go for a drink. We don’t have to go for a drink. I mean, obviously we don’t have to do anything at all if you don’t want to, I just thought maybe you would? Want to?”
Derek laughs, and realizes that may have been the wrong reaction when Stiles’s mouth droops so fast Derek’s surprised it doesn’t slide right off his face.
“Yes.”
Stiles is gearing up for another ramble, Derek can tell, his shoulders pulling back as he breathes in deep, but he deflates a little and stares. “Really?”
“Yeah. A drink sounds good.”
“Really?” Stiles is looking at him like he’s grown another head, like Stiles isn’t the one that asked Derek out. Derek wants to pull him under his arm and give him a noogie or something ridiculous, or kiss the shock right off his face. He doesn’t know when he went from tolerating a good tipper to missing Stiles’s rambling to wanting to make out with him, but that’s where he’s at nonetheless. The sooner the better, now that he knows the possibility is on the table.
“Are you free tonight?”
“Tonight?” Stiles repeats, his eyes still wide. “I’m probably supposed to say no, right? ‘Cause it’s short notice and I should play hard to get or something.” Stiles snorts. “Though I guess me being in your bar before noon after asking your coworker why you weren’t in is exactly the opposite.”
Derek grins, leaning one elbow on the bar. “Is that a yes?”
Stiles nods.
“Meet me here after my shift, and we’ll have a drink.”
“Here?” Stiles looks disappointed, and Derek shakes his head.
“I’ll take you somewhere we can have a real cocktail. A good cocktail.” He never thought about how dirty the word cocktail sounded before, but Stiles looks like he has, and Derek grins again.
“Okay, great.” Stiles backs towards the door, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pockets. “I’ll see you later then.”
He bolts like he thinks Derek is going to change his mind.
*****
Derek waits outside, and Stiles pulls up in a light blue Jeep. He’s wearing a black tee shirt and a grey zip up sweater that is ten times nicer than the plaid shirts and hoodies he usually wears, and his hair still looks damp. Derek leans in the open passenger window.
“You can just follow me,” he says, pointing towards the back of the lot where his Camaro is parked.
“Where are we going?”
Derek tilts his head and watches Stiles’s hands twitch on the wheel. “My place.”
“What?” Stiles’s voice comes out high pitched, and he coughs to cover it up. Derek grins.
“I’ve got a bar. The drinks will be excellent. And free.”
“Well then.” Stiles looks out the windshield and when he looks back his mouth is curving up into a smirk. “Lead the way.”
Derek’s apartment isn’t anything to speak of, a small one bedroom in a brick block of a building. The walls are bare and the furniture is sparse, but he has an antique bar cart that his sister had given him for Christmas and an impressive array of liquor bottles, if he does say so himself.
Stiles apparently agrees, whistling as he runs his fingers over the labels. “I don’t even know what half of these are.”
Derek sets out everything he needs - cocktail glasses, a plate for sugar, his good metal shaker. He brings in an orange and a lemon from the kitchen. Stiles hovers near the cart and watches, and Derek shows off a little, peeling the orange and filling a jigger with cognac. He slices the lemon and takes his time running a wedge of it around the rim of two cocktail glasses before rolling them in sugar, then shakes the cognac with ice, Cointreau and lemon juice before straining the drink into the rimmed glasses.
Stiles whistles again. “That was much more impressive than watching you pour Jack into soda.”
Derek cocks an eyebrow and shaves a bit of orange peel, holding it out to Stiles.
“What do I do with this?”
“Just hold it.” Derek strikes a match.
“Whoa, whoa,” Stiles says, backing up. Derek grabs his wrist and holds him in place, waving the lit match slowly in front of the orange peel.
“I won’t burn you,” he says, rubbing his thumb where Stiles’s pulse is jumping. “It brings out the oils.”
He blows out the match and takes the peel, dropping it gently into one of the glasses, then giving Stiles the second piece. Stiles doesn’t flinch when he lights the next match, and he watches Derek flame the peel with wide eyes.
Derek hands Stiles his drink and holds his glass out. “Cheers,” he says, and Stiles clinks his glass against Derek’s.
“Cheers.”
Derek watches Stiles’s throat bob when he swallows.
“Whoa,” Stiles says, looking down at his drink and licking his lips.
“Good?”
“Yeah. Strong, but really good. Where’d you learn to do all that?” Stiles’s gesture encompasses the entire bar cart. Derek motions towards the couch and settles into one corner, Stiles inching across the room behind him, holding his glass with both hands. He sees Derek watching him and hunches his shoulders a little. “I don’t want to spill.”
Stiles sets his glass on the coffee table and perches on the end of the couch, waving his hand. “Well? Tell me all your secrets.”
Derek takes another sip of his drink, rolling the liquor in his mouth a little before swallowing. Stiles’s eyelids droop closed, his eyelashes a dark sweep over his skin.
He clears his throat.
“My parents ran a bar. A lounge, actually, one of those old fashioned places with red vinyl booths and mirrors on the wall. My dad was a mixologist, he specialized in pre-prohibition cocktails. I started working for him when I was young, cleaning and bussing tables. When I was old enough he let me bar back, running bottles up from the storeroom and washing glasses.” Derek gets lost in his memories a little, watching the orange peel swirl around in his glass.
“I spent a lot of time watching him make drinks. I learned how to shake properly, how to strain. We made our own simple syrups, and he let me mess around with the flavors. I infused liquors behind the bar, and we’d have experimental drinks on the menu on Sunday nights.”
“Like what,” Stiles asks, and Derek tilts his head, remembering.
“Cilantro tequila and pineapple juice was my favorite.”
Stiles sticks out his tongue in a grimace and Derek laughs.
“It was good. A little sweet, a little savory.”
“I cannot handle tequila. Something I learned freshman year of college.” Stiles sips his drink. “Did your dad teach you to be a mixologist, then?”
Derek presses his lips together and exhales through his nose. This is the first time he’s had this conversation with anyone, and it’s harder than he thought it would be. Stiles stops fidgeting at the other end of the couch.
“Sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s okay. He did teach me, but indirectly. He promised he would when I turned twenty-one, but he died a few months before my birthday.”
“Oh. Oh god, Derek, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Why didn’t you just tell me you went to bartending school or something?” Stiles slides closer on the couch, his hand fluttering at the edge of Derek’s vision until it finally lands on Derek’s knee.
“I don’t lie.” Derek meets Stiles’s eyes. “It was six years ago. I don’t talk about it often. I don’t have a reason too, usually.”
Stiles squeezes Derek’s knee. “Thank you for talking about it with me.”
“Thanks for listening,” Derek says, quirking his mouth up wryly. He lays his hand on top of Stiles’s and slots their fingers together.
“I gotta say, I was not expecting our first date to be at your apartment.” Stiles rolls his eyes and laughs. “I actually didn’t expect a first date at all.”
“You didn’t think I’d say yes?”
Stiles gives him a look. “Uh, no.”
“Why not?”
“To start, I wasn’t positive you were into guys. I thought you’d been flirting with me a little, but you’re a bartender, bartenders are always flirty. Tips and all that. Beyond that, I find it hard to believe you’re into me.” Stiles scratches his jaw, scrunching his nose. Derek wants to kiss him.
“I’ve never made anyone a cocktail outside of the bar before.”
Stiles is about to drink, and the glass stalls midair. He lowers it slowly, but some of the sugar from the rim of the glass is clinging to his lower lip. Derek grips Stiles’s hand and tugs, dragging him closer.
“You have sugar on your lip,” he says, eyeing it. Stiles licks at the crystals, and Derek can’t resist leaning forward and following Stiles’s tongue with his own.
Derek fits his mouth over Stiles’s, and Stiles is still for only a moment before moving his head to better the angle, opening his mouth wider and deepening the kiss.
Stiles pulls back after a minute, blowing out a breath and rubbing a finger against his lip. “I think I’m going to need another drink.”
“You’re not even done with the first one.”
“I know. I’m just saying that after this one I will definitely need a second one.”
Derek laughs and pulls Stiles closer.
*****
Stiles spends the night on the couch, and sneaks out the next morning before Derek wakes up. There’s a note scrawled on a napkin on the bathroom sink, “Next time I won’t insist on sleeping in the living room. -S”
Derek smiles at himself in the mirror.
*****
Derek can hear Stiles muttering to himself as soon as he opens the door to the apartment. Stiles has had a key for months but this is the first time he’s been there when Derek gets home. There’s music playing, some obnoxious pop song that Stiles is constantly singing, and Stiles is standing by the bar cart, cursing to himself.
Derek shuts the door quietly, toeing off his shoes and shuffling as silently as he can to lean against the living room wall. Stiles is making drinks, Derek can tell that much, but he’s scowling down at the orange in his hand like it has personally offended him, and the scrunch of his nose has Derek laughing before he can stop himself.
Stiles jumps, arms windmilling and orange flying, and spins, holding out the tiny knife.
“Jesus, Derek, you scared the piss out of me. Creeper.”
“I hope that wasn’t a literal statement,” Derek says, pointedly looking at the fly of Stiles’s jeans.
“Ha ha.” Stiles turns his lower body away.
“My peeling knife is not exactly intimidating.”
Stiles purses his mouth and glares, jabbing in Derek’s direction. “Shut it.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making drinks.”
“You never make drinks, you’re awful at it.” Derek had tried to teach him a few times, and Stiles would watch but never practice, saying he had been awful at chemistry and didn’t want to blow anything up. Derek assured him that cocktail-based explosions were rare, but Stiles said he’d leave the mixology to the master.
“Yeah, well, I wanted to try tonight.” Stiles’s cheeks are going red in that way that Derek loves, a bright spot spreading out under each cheekbone.
“Why tonight?” Derek asks innocently, even though he’s well aware of what the day is. Stiles rolls his eyes and retrieves the orange that he’d flung earlier.
“Very convincing,” Stiles says, going back to the cart and slicing two pieces of peel. He looks back over his shoulder. “Please don’t watch, if you’re watching I’ll end up setting my eyebrows on fire or something.”
Derek pushes away from the wall with a chuckle and goes to change clothes, replacing his beer soaked tee shirt with a fresh one. When he comes back into the living room Stiles is holding two glasses, and he presents one to Derek with a shy smile.
“I won’t make a flowery speech, even though I am prone to ridiculous bouts of romance and melodrama.”
Derek rolls his eyes. “I’m aware.”
“Tone down the sarcasm, I’m trying to be nice here.” Stiles holds out his glass and grins. “Friends may come and friends may go and friends may peter out you know, but I’ll love you through thick and thin, peter out or peter in.”
“Oh my god, Stiles.”
Stiles looks immensely pleased with himself as he touches his glass to Derek’s. “That’s a good one, right?”
“Not at all what I thought you were going to say.”
“Yeah, well.” Stiles’s grin goes crooked. “Happy anniversary, studmuffin.”
“That’s more like it.” Derek shakes his head. “Peter out or peter in, honestly.”
Stiles hitches his chin, waiting for Derek to try his drink. The sugar on the rim is clumpy, and when Derek sips it’s a little unbalanced, and not as citrusy as he likes, but it’s passable. Stiles looks so anxious about it that Derek smacks his lips a little, humming.
“Not bad at all,” Derek says, curling his free hand around the nape of Stiles’s neck. He feels something gritty and furrows his eyebrows.
“What?” Stiles asks.
Derek licks his palm and Stiles’s eyes go wide. “You have sugar on the back of your neck.”
Stiles reaches up and swats awkwardly under his hairline. “I do?”
Derek chuckles. “Come here.” He puts his drink down and turns Stiles around, pressing up against his back and licking the sugar from his neck. Stiles shivers, his hand coming back to press against Derek’s thigh.
“I wonder where else you have sugar,” Derek murmurs, breath wafting over Stiles’s skin.
“Knowing me, everywhere,” Stiles says, his voice low and teasing.
Derek noses along the collar of Stiles’s shirt, nipping at the juncture of shoulder and neck. “Knowing you, you’re probably right.”
“Maybe you should find out.”