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“Oh god, he’s here.” Stiles looks across at Lydia, eyes wide and fearful as Derek walks into to the nail salon, his usual delivery uniform on, package in hand. Pun not intended.
“You can do it. Remember, bend and snap,” Lydia says, giving Stiles a determined nod.
“Right…right, bend and sn-oh shit, he’s coming over here,” Stiles says frantically, dropping Lydia’s hands he’d been in the middle of filing perfectly before Derek had walked in.
Stiles’ loses his breath as Derek comes closer and closer, feels like he’s about to faint when he stops right at his station, staring at Stiles.
“Hi, I need you to sign for this,” Derek says, voice gruff but still somehow lighter and softer than Stiles is always expecting.
“Right. Of course.” Stiles fumbles out of his seat, glances at Lydia who is giving Stiles an encouraging nod, a big smile on her face. As Derek gives Stiles the pen, he starts to get the right package, his focus elsewhere, and so with one last glance at Lydia, Stiles drops the pen in as casual a manner as he can. “Oh, oops. Clumsy me. I’ll just get that.” Stiles bends down, gets his hand around the pencil, gets in position.
“No wait, here, let me-”
But it’s already too late. Stiles comes up in the perfect execution of the bend and snap, except his head connects with something solid, and then there’s a loud thump and Stiles is smiling, because he did it, he did it, except…except Derek had been bending down to get it at the same time like the gentlemen he is and oh fuck me, Stiles thinks. “Derek?”
There’s a groan from the floor as Derek holds his now bleeding nose.
“Oh no, Derek!” And then Stiles runs to his side, frantic.
~*~
Later, when Derek’s nose is all bandaged up and he’s sitting on the hospital bed, waiting to be discharged, Stiles looks at Derek sheepishly.
“I am so, so sorry."
"It’s okay, Stiles. For the hundredth time.” But Derek smiles softly through the pain, looks at Stiles with shining eyes, and Stiles blushes, looks down at his fingers.
“I just feel horrible.”
“Well, in retrospect…it was kind of funny,” Derek says, and Stiles looks up sharply, eyes wide. And then Derek is laughing, and Stiles is covering his face.
“Oh my god, no, it was embarrassing! I was trying to impress you, to get you to notice me and I did it in the worst way possible-”
“Stiles.” Stiles peeks between his fingers at his name being said, sees Derek giving him a fond look. “You didn’t need to do that. I’d noticed you since moment I laid eyes on you. I’m just horrible at the whole…conversation thing and asking people out on dates.”
Stiles feels his face flush, but this time for completely different reasons. “Asking people out on dates, huh?”
Its Derek’s turn to look sheepish as he looks down at the bed sheets, starts playing with a loose thread. “Yeah.”
Grinning sheepishly, Stiles stands up, walks over to Derek, and tentatively takes his hand. “I’d like that, a lot. A date. With you.”
And Derek looks up at Stiles, the skin around his nose looking horribly bruised, but still somehow managing to look as handsome as ever and take Stiles’ breath away.
And then Derek smiles, wide and sure. “Me too.”