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It’s 3am, and the apartment Stiles shares with Scott and Lydia is eerily quiet. He pokes his head out of his and Scott’s bedroom, checking the hallway twice before stepping silently out onto the hardwood. The space beneath Lydia’s door flickers blue, and he can hear the faint sound of a laugh track, signaling that she’s probably fallen asleep with the TV on. The coast is clear.
He tiptoes towards the living room, Richard clutched tightly in his hand. If he was a lesser man he might be embarrassed about having his fingers wrapped around a laminated, hand drawn, life size penis, but well, he has no shame. Also, he spends a lot of time with his hands (and mouth, and other parts of his body) on and around and day dreaming about dicks, so this isn’t really all that revolutionary. And he has the perfect hiding place in mind.
He should probably explain what’s going on here.
It all started about three months ago. The whole crew was there, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Allison, Kira, Malia and Isaac. They were passing around a couple of joints, spending a lazy, rainy Saturday watching old Disney movies. Somehow, Stiles really can’t remember exactly how it came up, they got onto the subject of penises and how teenage boys seem to have this urge to draw them everywhere. Isaac claimed he never really did that shit, but Scott and Stiles were never exactly mature for their age and had been notorious in high school for leaving dick drawings everywhere. Allison had been homeschooled and never witnessed this phenomenon, and her wide eyed amazement when she whispered,
“Dicks just pop up everywhere?” sent the entire group into hysterics. Stiles likes to take credit for the creation of Where’s Richard?™, but in reality Lydia was the mastermind behind it. They elected Kira, who has only ever been with Malia, to draw it. Lydia guided her through it, smirking as she told her not to forget the veins, smoke slipping prettily from her lips. The end result was… what you would expect from a girl who hadn’t spent any time up close and personal with an actual penis. While Scott and Stiles dissolved into helpless giggles, Allison cut it out and Lydia somehow procured those sticky plastic sheets to laminate it. That night, once they’d come down from their hazy high a little bit, Scott was given the honors of hiding the dick, now dubbed Richard, somewhere in the apartment. Whoever found it would get a point added to the scoreboard drawn on the dry erase board hanging on their refrigerator.
Stiles is currently tied with Malia, with Scott only one point behind them. With the exception of Isaac, who acts like he doesn’t care, the entire group has reached new levels of competitiveness centered on Where’s Richard?™ They spend more time than ever in the apartment, though most of it is wasted peering around in hopes of spotting the hidden dick. It’s probably more distracting than it’s worth, but there’s nothing more satisfying than being the last person to hide Richard and watching your friends make fools of themselves trying to nonchalantly find it.
Stiles checks over his shoulder one more time before carefully removing the fire extinguisher from the wall. He sticks Richard to the back, wincing as it thuds against the wall when he replaces it. With his hands on his hips he admires his work for a moment, adjusting the fire extinguisher just slightly before returning to his bedroom and crawling back under the covers with Scott. He falls asleep with Scott’s arm curled around his waist and a smug grin pulling at his lips.
The smoke alarms are going off again.
This time, at least, it’s not because they were smoking in the apartment and forgot to take the batteries out. Stiles is pretty sure their landlord would have to like, fine them or something, even though Laura is pretty chill. He rubs his eyes and half rolls out of bed, stumbling towards the living room. Scott’s bundled in a blanket on the couch, his eyes barely open as he stares blankly at the TV and lifts a dripping spoonful of Lucky Charms to his lips. Stiles can’t help but smile softly, stopping to press a kiss to the top of Scott’s head.
Lydia is fully dressed in her customary skirt and heels, strawberry blonde hair hanging down her back in perfect curls. Stiles shuffles past her on the way to the kitchen, halfheartedly listening in on her phone conversation as he starts up the keurig.
“Yeah, I think they’re malfunctioning,” she says, tone bordering on snotty. “I’ve taken the batteries out and they’re still going off.” She pauses for a moment, shaking her head in response to Stiles’ interrogatory expression. “I promise we weren’t smoking again. I actually do other things, like go to class, and work, you know.” He can’t faintly hear a tinny voice coming from her phone, and judging by the nature of the conversation, he assumes it’s Laura, their landlord. “Good. I’ll be waiting for him.” If Lydia had a flip phone she probably would have snapped it closed, but instead she just huffs and jabs irritably at the touch screen.
“Who are you waiting for?” Stiles asks, stirring a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. He follows Lydia out into the living room, where Scott has the TV turned up so loud it almost drowns out the annoying beeping of the smoke alarms.
“Supposedly Laura is sending her brother down here to check out our little problem.” Lydia says distractedly, nose already buried in a text book. Stiles sinks down onto the couch beside Scott and attempts to burrow under the blanket with him without spilling his coffee. It doesn’t really work, especially since Scott seems to be ignoring him in favor of continuing to stare blankly at the TV. Which is super rude honestly, because he’s watching an episode of SpongeBob that they’ve definitely seen like eighty times. He’s considering informing Scott that good boyfriends pay more attention to their lover than fucking SpongeBob, when there’s three sharp knocks on the door. “Oh good.” Lydia mutters under her breath, standing up and marching over to the door (she’s always marching around. Stiles doesn’t get it. It’s like she’s on a mission 24/7. She never like, ambles or walks like a regular person. It’s scary is what it is).
He takes an awkward, sideways sip of his coffee, ignoring Scott’s squawk of protest as he props himself up on one elbow pressed into Scott’s thigh. He can hear the creak of their door opening, a young sounding male voice, and then Lydia, speaking in a tone Stiles hasn’t heard her use since she and Allison finally became official six months ago. It’s her “vixen” voice, low and sultry and the kind of thing that may have starred in his wet dreams when he was sixteen. Which can only mean one thing. There’s a hottie in the building.
Stiles carefully sets his cup on their coffee table, before twisting around so that he faces the back of the couch. Stealthily, so stealthily, he pushes up on his knees, just enough so that he has an unobstructed view of the door.
“Oh my god.” He grabs blindly at Scott, too enraptured by the man standing just inside their apartment to turn away. “Scott, look.” He hisses, fingers finally grasping a handful of Scott’s shirt and tugging.
“What the hell dude,” Scott grumbles, even as he complies. “I was in the middle of… oh my god.” Stiles just nods. ‘Oh my God’ about sums it up.
The guy is tall, towering over Lydia even in her high heels. He’s got dark hair that sticks up in the front, and this scruff that’s too neat to be normal. His eyes are startlingly pale and pretty in comparison to the rest of him, somewhere between gray and green and gold. He’s wearing a t-shirt with BHFD on the front, stretched tight across his shoulders and chest and around his biceps. There’s a god forsaken tool belt hanging from his hips, and there’s definitely a possibility that this is what heaven looks like.
He’s so focused on admiring the beauty in front of him that he totally forget about the whole, stealthy, thing. Which means that when the Adonis happens to follow Lydia’s gesture towards one of the smoke alarms with his eyes, he gets a nice view of Stiles and Scott peering over the back of the couch, staring at him. Adonis’ eyebrows (and wow, those are certainly impressive and expressive eyebrows) raise, head tilting just a bit as if he expects an explanation for their current position. Stiles’ cheeks heat as he forces his expression into what he hopes is a chipper grin, even though it probably just looks deranged. Beside him, Scott waves like the adorable little prairie dog he is.
“These are my roommates, Stiles and Scott,” Lydia explains, shooting them a scorching look. “They’re idiots.” Adonis looks like he might be considering smiling, but doesn’t feel like putting in the effort. It really shouldn’t be doing things for Stiles, but it totally is. “This is Derek,” Lydia continues, finally shutting the door. “Laura’s brother.” She pauses and wraps a curl around her finger, smiling coyly. “He’s going to help us out.”
“Subtle.” Stiles coughs into his hand, earning a laugh and a high five from Scott and another glare from Lydia. Neither of them move as Lydia shows Derek the smoke alarm in their bedroom hallway, and Stiles is pretty sure he’s not the only one admiring the way Derek’s ass looks in those jeans.
Lydia returns a few seconds later, expression almost somber as she leans over the back of the couch between them. “I’d be in for a foursome with that,” she whispers, looking Stiles right in the eye. “If you guys are in.” Stiles is normally pretty open to any and all sexual activities, and he may have thought about him and Lydia and Scott together before, after that one time the three of them got cross faded and made out for hours, but this is not a normal situation. Stiles would be down for like a ten-some as long as this dude was involved, and judging by the slack jawed look on Scott’s face, he’s totally in too.
“Do you think he’d be in?” Stiles whispers, shooting a glance in the direction of the hallway. “He seems kind of uptight.” Lydia hums and leans heavily against the back of the couch, that little crease that she gets when she’s thinking hard appearing between her eyebrows.
“I’m definitely getting some sort of-”
“Um?”
Stiles whips his head up so fast, there’s a chance he might have whiplash. And if he does, it’s totally worth it, because he’s got an eyeful of Adon- Derek, again. “Um, sorry,” Derek continues, ducking his head like he might be shy. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with the alarms, so I’m uh,” he lifts one hand to the back of his neck, and Stiles’ mouth instantly goes dry. “I’m gonna try and replace them all. I’ve got to go to the hardware store and pick some new ones up, but I’ll be right back.” He looks up at them through his lashes like he’s expecting them to actually be able to form words or something. Even Lydia seems to be struggling, but true to form she manages to pull herself together first.
“Of course,” she practically purrs, eyelashes fluttering even as Stiles makes faces at the side of her head. “We’ll be here!” Derek just nods, eyes flickering momentarily to Scott and Stiles as a flush rises high on his cheeks. Stiles considers commenting on how adorable it is that a grown ass, sexy as fuck man still blushes, but before he can, Derek is gone.
“Dude,” Stiles whines, face buried in Scott’s thigh. “How hot was he though? Like, how is he even a real person?” Scott sighs softly, his fingers brushing through Stiles’ hair, over and over.
“I know man,” he says softly. “I would wife him up so hard.”
“Aw come one, I wanna wife him up.”
“Dude.”
Stiles turns his head just enough so he can catch Scott’s eye, not at all surprised to find him wearing a matching excited expression.
“Dude, we should totally wife him together,” he crows, whooping loudly when Scott throws his head back and laughs.
“You guys are so strange,” Lydia huffs, grabbing her tote bag off the kitchen counter and slinging it over one shoulder. “I’m off to class, try not to creep out the handyman when he comes back. I know you two don’t realize this, but life isn’t actually a porno.” Then she’s off, marching again, curls bouncing with each step.
“If this was a porno you’d be naked!” Stiles yells after her. His only response is the door slamming behind her.
Only seconds later the door opens again, and Stiles’ immediate thought is that Lydia has come back to maim him for that last comment.
“I promise Lyds, I was only kidding,” he mumbles into Scott’s thigh, waving a hand in the hair so that she knows he’s talking to her. “We all know that if this was a porno, you’d be wearing dominatrix gear anyways.”
Lydia doesn’t say a word, which is highly unusual. Usually by now she’d have shot back a scathing remark that would have him feeling three inches tall. Instead, the apartment is unnervingly silent. Stiles turns his head just enough so he can see Scott’s face, who looks somewhere between mortified and confused.
“Um…”
Yeah. So, that is definitely not Lydia’s voice. Stiles groans and slowly sits up, looking over the back of the couch to find Derek standing behind it, holding a paper bag from the hardware store.
“Come on man,” Stiles smirks, trying his hardest not to give him obvious elevator eyes. “Don’t tell me she isn’t the dommiest dom you’ve ever met.”
“You haven’t met my sister,” Derek mumbles, his cheeks pinking up before he even gets the words out. He only flushes darker when Stiles grins at him, turning away quickly and heading towards the smoke alarm in the hall.
Stiles flops back down onto Scott’s lap with a sigh, squawking when the sharp corner of a text book jabs his back. “We should totally ask him out on a date,” he whispers, poking at Scott’s chin. Scott swats his hand away and readjusts his notes, eyes scanning slowly across the page. “Scotty! Listen to me!”
“Stiles, I’m trying to study.”
“Stiles, I’m trying to study,” Stile mimics, doing a poor imitation of Scott’s voice. Scott doesn’t even react, ten years of friendship and two years of a relationship giving him the ability to ‘tune that station out’ as Stiles’ dad likes to stay. “Dude, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”
“You don’t even know if he likes guys,” Scott murmurs, uncapping a highlighter with his teeth and blowing the cap in Stiles’ face. “Never mind if he’s down with polyamorous relationships.”
“Well if he doesn’t want to get all up on the two of us then…” Stiles trails off as a shadow falls over the couch.
“Um…” Derek is umming at him again, although this time he seems to be more concerned about how he’s going to get to the smoke alarm in the middle of their living room.
“I just usually stand on a chair bro,” Scott offers, covering Stiles’ mouth nonchalantly with his hand. Stiles licks at his palm, scowling when Scott doesn’t as much as flinch.
“Have you been messing around with the detectors?” Derek actually growls, his eyebrows dipping dangerously low over his too pretty to be real eyes. Stiles tenses, prepared to defend Scott’s honor to the death, pretty green eyes be damned, but when he glances back up, Derek is blushing. Again.
“I think he might be into guys,” Scott whispers when Derek walks into the kitchen to get a chair.
“What did you do?”
“I just smiled at him and he got all red!” Scott clamps his mouth shut when Derek walks back into the room, the tips of his ears still adorably pink.
They both watch as he steps up onto the chair and reaches for the alarm, his shirt riding up and giving them a glimpse of sculpted abs and a dark trail of hair below his belly button. Stiles suppresses a groan by rolling until his face is buried in Scott’s (also pretty sculpted, to be honest) stomach. Scott pats his back like the wonderful, loving boyfriend he his.
“He has a hard time around really hot people.”
Okay. Stiles totally takes that back. Scott is actually the worst boyfriend ever. He wants so badly to look at Derek, just to see the expression on his face, but that would involve a lot of twisting and turning and this whole morning has already been humiliating enough.
“While I’m here, I’m just going to check and make sure you’re fire extinguisher isn’t expired.” Derek says, his voice sounded slightly strangled. Stiles sits up so fast he feels dizzy, the entire room sloshing through his vision for a second. He watches with horror as Derek reaches for the fire extinguisher hanging on the living room wall.
“So you should probably know we play this game,” Stiles starts, cringing as Scott whips his head around, eyes wide with mortification. When Stiles looks back to Derek, he’s got the fire extinguisher in hand, staring hard at the back, his entire face blotchy red.
Stiles slips his hand into Scott’s, unable to do anything but watch and wait for Derek to just do something. It seems like hours, but was probably only seconds, before Derek moves, pulling Richard off the back and holding it between two fingers.
“This is a penis.” He says, waving it slightly. “There is a penis on the back of my fire extinguisher?” His eyes have to be the size of baseballs, all wide and innocent and just full of confusion. Stiles blinks at him a few times, not sure exactly how he should handle this, when Scott bursts into giggles.
“Oh my god,” Scott groans, flopping back onto the couch with tears streaming down his cheeks. “This is the best day ever.”
“You won!” Stiles shouts, jumping off the couch and running towards the kitchen. He vaguely registers Derek following him, muttering what suspiciously sounds like ‘a penis’ under his breath repeatedly. Stiles add his name to the whiteboard in the kitchen, right under Isaac’s, putting a little tally mark with it. “Look, you’re already tied with Isaac.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Derek says slowly, Richard still clutched in his left hand, the fire extinguisher in the other. “Who’s Isaac? Why is there a weirdly detailed drawing of a dick? And why is it laminated?”
“It’s kind of like Where’s Waldo,” Stiles explains, guiding Derek back towards the living room with a hand pressed against his back. “Whoever finds Richard gets to hide him again. And it’s laminated because Lydia is weird.”
“But why?” Derek repeats, looking up at Stiles with lost eyes.
“Because it’s fun dude,” Scott answers, wiping the tears away from his cheeks. “Come on, it’s your turn to hide it!”
“I can’t be hiding a penis in your rooms! That’s creepy!” Derek says it so innocently, and Stiles knows he shouldn’t say what he’s thinking, knows it’s probably crossing some kind of line, but the opportunity is there and he just can’t let it pass by.
“Naw dude, we always hide Richard in the common areas, but you’re more than welcome to come look for dicks in our room.” He winks roguishly at Derek if only to maybe play it off as more of a joke than it really was.
“Wow Stiles, that is definitely not the way to ask a guy if he wants to date us,” Scott drawls. “And you definitely have better material than that, that was weak.”
“Oh sorry Scott, I thought you were too busy being a chicken.”
“Says the guy who hid a hand drawn penis and left it there for the hot firefighter to find.”
“How is that even related?” And stop looking so smug it makes me want to-”
“Um…” Stiles freezes and moves only his eyes in Derek’s direction, willing down the half chub forming in his pajama bottoms (What? It’s a thing that happens when he and Scott argue. Their back and forth usually ends in a wrestling match which ends with hot sex against the nearest available surface. It’s not his fault he’s like Pavlov’s dog over here). “You guys want to date me?”
“Well, we should probably actually get to know you first,” Stiles says gently, not exactly sure what the look on Derek’s face means. “But we uh, it’s something that we uh, um, Scotty a little help here?”
“Would you want to get a coffee with us?” Scott offers, his smile like sunshine and rainbows and puppies. “I mean, after you hide Richard.”
Derek glances back down at the penis still clutched in his hand, and in the moment before he says anything, Stiles manages to convince himself that they’re about to get rejected. Hard. But then Derek glances up and actually smiles, and it’s probably the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen in his entire life.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, glancing shyly back down at his feet. “I’d like that.”
(It only takes two weeks for Derek to become a permanent fixture in the apartment. It only takes a week after that for him to totally surpass both Stiles and Malia in Where’s Richard?™ points. Stiles suspects that Kira and Derek are in cahoots somehow, but he hasn’t been able to prove anything. It doesn’t help that whenever he gets close Derek magically decides that now is a good time to drag Scott and Stiles into their bedroom and get it on. Not that Stiles is complaining about that or anything. Because you know, he’s definitely winning something by having two ridiculously hot boyfriends who can’t wait to get their hands all over him.)