Chapter Text
The hallway near the door was crowded. They didn’t know what was happening, and Stiles, a natural-born curious person, was already in the middle, pushing through people.
Not that there were that many people, so it was very easy for him, with his nerdy little arms, to dig through and look toward the parking lot. The place everyone was staring at.
It was no surprise to anyone when it came to the Hales.
They were rich, lived on a reserve, and the eldest of them was a complete knockout. She looked like she had come straight out of a movie made for men, hot as hell this year.
She had brown hair that almost shone in the sun, her eyes carrying that vibe of a woman who could punch you.
On top of that, she had been driving a red convertible since she got her license a few years ago. He could see the excitement of all the boys watching a pretty girl inside a car like that. Fast and Furious style.
But the attention seemed to be divided this time.
He bet half the group was there for the eldest, the other half for the curiosity of who the youngest was, and that was why Stiles was staring too.
It was almost not a surprise, because in the middle of the year there had been rumors about the younger sister. Stiles vaguely remembered her as the youngest because she was two years younger than him, and she had kicked Jack when he tried to take her snack.
That earned him half a year in behavioral rehabilitation camp. That was ending now.
Laura passed by them, which was already normal. While the model aspirations walked off in that direction.
What happened was that a child model appeared, and he would bet most of the younger ones sighed. They knew they didn’t have a chance with Laura, the senior—actually with either of them—but they had more of a chance with someone new.
Or more time, since Laura was almost graduating high school.
He saw the same brown hair as the rest of the family, but her eyes were brown, just like his, except hers weren’t hidden behind resting glasses.
She looked prettier than before, which was enough for the popularity vultures. Stiles looked around and had to twist his body to get out from the middle of so many people.
He didn’t want to stay between the lovestruck looks of the guys or the angry looks of some girls who were sure the Hales weren’t natural.
Stiles always spared himself from all of that, especially because they were the Hales.
He never had the crush of half the people there, maybe because he never had any hope with the girl two years older than him.
Or three years younger, like the youngest Hale.
Okay, he did have a crush on his friend Lydia for most of his life, and that cost him almost half of his dignity (or all of it).
But nowadays they were close friends. Victories!
Okay, almost everyone at school had a crush on the Hales… alright, everyone. No one escaped their charm. He couldn’t count on his fingers how many teachers dressed up for parent-teacher meetings.
The teachers, both women and men, since Talia Hale had a husband on her same level. A hottie straight out of a Calvin Klein cover.
Stiles shook his head, feeling sorry for the people there, as he walked into the school.
A little while later, a few steps away, reaching the corner, there was Derek Hale.
Derek Hale, the brother of the rich beauties of the school, the middle and detached brother.
Of course he didn’t care about not coming in with his sisters and on purpose didn’t take rides with them to the school parking lot.
In the end, even if Derek were with them, he wouldn’t be noticed the way they were.
Let’s say… the family genes didn’t hit him directly.
At least not the beauty genes everyone speculated about in the corners. They said there was witchcraft involved.
But not him. Ha ha.
Derek had blue braces thanks to his human grandfather’s teeth. He had bunny teeth that got a little worse with the metal, which was very unfair, since his sisters’ teeth were perfectly aligned.
The teeth combined with the big ears, and honestly he loved his weird shirts that matched all of him, and his glasses. And his backpack full of buttons. And the hair that he was still testing which haircuts suited him.
He once had to fight with his sister because she mocked his weird shirt with a wolf in the middle—tacky, yes, but he was the one wearing it, so why the drama?
He rolled his eyes hard when the entire crowd followed his sisters into the school like moths hypnotized by the light. He could even hear a few sighs from there.
He was skinny thanks to genetics, but that didn’t seem to matter when everyone ignored his existence.
Don’t get him wrong, he loved that, really. But it still deeply irritated him, the ridiculous comments about him.
“Hey.” A dark-haired boy pretending to be rich stopped him at his locker. Derek took a deep breath before closing it.
It took a few months for the guys to stop coming up to him; it seemed midyear would be a repeat thanks to Cora.
Derek looked at the guy and couldn’t even remember his name, only his strange obsession with his older sister ever since she magically became pretty and less masculine at the start of adolescence.
To each their own mental problems.
“Hi,” Derek said in the driest tone he had.
“We could play video games at my place, I always invite you. And you never come!” The boy shrugged as if he were hurt, and Derek, being a Hale, was tall and only because of that looked down at the idiot.
“I’ll think about it,” he answered sarcastically.
“Thanks, I was thinking—”
“No. My sister isn’t going,” Hale cut him off before he could even finish the sentence.
The guy started leaving down the hallway as fast as he had appeared.
“That’s a shame… anyway, I’ll text you with the times!”
No, he wouldn’t.
To Derek’s deep relief.
He bet the guy didn’t even know his name, but that he could forgive—let’s not be huge hypocrites.
He started leaving the hallway, practically shoving the books into his backpack, and at some point he heard a girl murmuring.
“Laura’s brother.”
Derek rolled his eyes once more.
Every time it was that: “Laura’s brother,” “Talia’s son,” and recently “the middle Hale brother.”
He scoffed, bored, and headed to class—or at least tried to, because someone bumped into his shoulder.
“Sorry, man, I’m super late!” A red blur passed by him and Derek almost wanted to start a competition over what was more ridiculous: his wolf shirt or Stiles’ Flash shirt.
Yes, he knew the idiot who was just as much of a nerd as he was. In that town of nothing, he and his little group of weirdos were well known.
They shared some classes and had once entered a debate against each other, and it was even a challenge since not even the teacher could figure out which group had won.
And there was also the fact that there was something about his idiotic way that was cute, even if he would die before admitting that to anyone.
Seriously. His sister would never let him hear the end of it.
He was always such a smart idiot and was tackier than Derek could ever manage to be.
The bell finally rang, and he was forced to move out of the way of two idiots who suddenly stuck their feet out to trip people, even though it never worked.
•
At lunch he went straight to the table by the window to stay alone during the break, even though it never worked because his sister showed up minutes later.
He had already forgotten the new fact. His sisters together went to sit with him.
Cora looked around as if searching for someone, the only one in the whole family who knew about his small crush on the boy we will not name.
The favorite sister, but he wouldn’t say that either—Laura would kill him.
Laura smiled wickedly and left without waiting for the younger one. She knew exactly where Derek sat. She irritated him once a week.
“My brother, always alone. We came to keep you company,” the oldest said as she dropped down in front of him.
“You’re going to fill my table with idiots who follow you,” Derek answered immediately, swallowing his snack as fast as he could.
“Oh my dear Bannicula, all your fault. You don’t like staying with me and now you ignore your little sister, what kind of brother are you?!”
Dramatic, as always.
Laura looked when her little group called her, and when she refused, the group of girls grabbed their trays.
Ready to go to Derek’s table.
“I’m going to hide in the library,” Cora said, her charming look scanning everything, scared, almost the way Derek felt.
Hale beauty had hit her when she was abroad; she must be suspicious of all that attention, especially since she had been a mini Derek just a few months ago.
Honestly, almost identical—but now she refused to wear glasses even though she couldn’t see properly.
Derek waited a few minutes after his youngest disappeared through the doors and waited for his older sister to become the center of attention so he could escape to anywhere else.
Laura’s friends looked at him like he was a wet, ugly puppy.
Okay, he did look like one, but as always he hated it. He went outside and headed to the back of the school.
He hated everyone at that school, at least those who pitied him. Spare me pity—for what?
Besides his appearance and his lack of friends.
“Hey?”
Derek jumped inside his own skin. Beside him, Stiles smiled awkwardly, sitting on the ground without that usual disaster shine he always had when he showed up, his backpack between his legs.
“Sorry… are you okay?” Obviously not. He was terrible at this. The silence when he paused was horrible. He wasn’t born to talk to people.
“Do you happen to have extra work on the industrial revolution?”
Stiles smiled awkwardly, and for a moment Derek felt like he was in an alternate universe where he could talk to people.
“If I say yes, are you going to call me crazy?”
Derek was almost calling himself stupid for how he spoke like a slow idiot.
Stiles stared at him for a while, as if they didn’t speak the same language, confused, as if he were a mirage or a hologram.
Since his work was stolen last year, he kept an extra one in his locker, even after the guy was expelled for the trouble he caused.
In the end, he had extra work for each subject. At first it was to keep his grades up, later it became a habit.
“Are you serious?” Stiles looked stunned.
“Yeah… actually it was easy. I won’t even charge anything if it gets you off the floor,” he joked, and he swore he blinked before the boy was standing up in euphoria.
He liked that—the fact that the boy could never hide his excitement. And there he was, the reason for it.
“Don’t mess with me. If you really do this, I’ll pick you up at your house for two… three! Three weeks! Dude, you have no idea, I can’t finish it. Honestly, I can’t even start. And I can’t take recovery again, my dad would kill me!”
Derek could barely keep up, but at the end of it all he was holding back a smile. Not that it mattered.
“Alright, we’ll save your ass and think about those rides.”
No one needed to know he was dropped off on the corner of the next neighborhood by his sister.
•
His mother always had the same personality as Derek.
Derek remembered all the time the story of how his parents got together. His father wasn’t the most sociable person in the world, but he was sociable enough to stay close to his mother.
His father was in the middle—he could talk until dawn with strangers or ask the girl he liked out. But he had limits.
Now Laura was the natural social one. Since childhood she was the spotlight at home and at school.
Derek and Cora would turn into walls if they could, and if it depended on Talia’s only son—well, the only son for now—he would never talk to anyone.
That was why he always took a deep breath when his name was called or shouted by people, even when his sister or mother honked at him on the street.
But this time the only reaction his body had to that honk was his heart missing a beat. Derek almost growled at that.
The day before, Stiles took Derek’s paper like it was a parchment straight from God. He looked up, thankful, then lowered his honey-colored eyes and smiled.
Man, he made smiling look easy with his whole being.
After that, Stiles started running to class, and before disappearing he shouted, “Seven o’clock in front of your house!” Disappearing while running and slipping in his noisy sneakers, his shine almost leaving marks on the walls.
He stayed with that thing in his head. His mother kept staring at him while he stared at his plate at dinner, and he even went to sleep at two twenty-four in the morning after stalling.
In the morning, at six, he grabbed his favorite shirt of all time. It was a mountain landscape with wolves. He’d had it since he was a kid.
His father had bought something twice his size, which was still loose to this day. His father was excessive, but he still loved him.
Laura hated it and said several times that if he wore that shirt she wouldn’t take him to school and would leave him on the street—which, by the way, wasn’t going to happen.
He thought.
Derek went downstairs to eat. Everyone was always a morning person in his house, all happy and talking. His mother was still active, walking up and down. She was still watching Derek.
The boy ignored it and ate, and saw his sisters going upstairs to get ready. Then he waited.
And waited…
Derek was on his phone, but he heard the honk that made his stupid heart jump as if it only existed to hear honks.
Especially that one.
Then the sound of wheels stopping. Derek was already at the door.
The Jeep came into view, and Stiles gave a smile of an idiot who would never need braces.
Derek grabbed his backpack and went to the car. He ignored it even when his sisters called him; head down, he ignored the indignant sound his sister made.
He got in and pulled the seatbelt, needing a moment to remember how to do it properly, fumbling a little.
“Hi!”
Derek opened his mouth twice before nodding slightly.
“Hi.”
“Cool shirt,” Stiles said, pointing at Derek.
It was awkward the way Hale had to hold back a stupid laugh, somewhere between embarrassment and nervousness, that almost escaped his throat.
“Thanks. Yours too,” Derek pointed as well. He had only seen the shirt in passing, but it was the best he could think of right now.
“Should I be worried about your family wanting to murder me with their eyes?”
“Let’s just leave. They can smell fear.”
Derek’s tone was almost serious, but somehow it made his classmate let out a nervous laugh—a joke, maybe.
Maybe.
The ride was actually pleasant. Funny how a paper traded for a ride could yield so much, especially with a chatterbox as a driver.
How Stiles commented that the teacher didn’t like him, and how Scott didn’t remind him to remember the assignment.
Stiles asked if Derek had a phone, and Derek took three seconds to process and answer yes.
Now he had Stiles’ number. A Stiles with red glasses today. One who didn’t have braces but wore a colorful beanie that matched his shirt.
And even knowing Cora would talk nonstop in his ear later, it was worth it.
In the end, it wouldn’t go much further than that.