Chapter Text

Prologue: Three Phone Calls

Call #1 – Stiles calls his father, the Sheriff

“Dad, it was a scam.”

“Your scholarship?”

“No, that’s fine.  I just don’t have...”

“So you were scamming them? You’re not actually attending university?  Are you in New York to explore your previously unrealized passion for performing in musical theatre?  Oh! I know, are you trying out for the Mets?”

“This is serious,” Stiles started, and then paused.  “Wait... you can’t really just try out for the Mets.  That’s not how baseball... don’t derail me. My lease isn’t real - the landlord I signed papers with and wrote a check to for First and Last skipped out with my money.  I’m at the police station now, but it turns out there are about four of us so far who rented out the same apartment.”

“That’s too bad, son.”

Stiles could hear his father almost laughing over the phone, and Stiles suspected it was because when his dad had skeptically said ‘this all seems overly easy’ Stiles had assured him that it was fine.  He may have used the phrase: ‘come on, dad, I’m the son of a Sheriff, it’s difficult to get things past my keen bullshit meter.’

So yes, laugh it up old man.  You were right about something, and it definitely was not those pants you wore to the End of Summer town picnic.

“How much did you lose?” his dad asked, cutting straight to the point.

“A little over two thousand.”

His father hummed thoughtfully.  “What’s your course of action?”

“I guess I’ll find a hotel,” he said, kicking at the leg of the desk in front of him, half worried it would topple over immediately.  

“Staying at a hotel will put it up to about three thousand, minimum, if you don’t find something by the weekend.”

“I will.”  He basically had to find another apartment, even if that wasn’t a lot of time.

His dad sighed.  “Stiles, just let me...”

“No!”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Don’t call Mrs. Hale, dad.  I don’t care if her son has an apartment in Manhattan - I don’t want to live on Derek Hale’s shitty futon in whatever roach motel he can afford as a sports coach or whatever really fascinating job field he entered on his pea-sized jock mentality.”

“I’m calling Mrs. Hale,” the Sheriff decided in his most Sheriff-y tone of voice.  “And don’t give Derek a hard time.”

“I don’t think that’s a... oh crap, look, I got to go.  They just brought the sketch artist in.  Don’t call Mrs. Hale! I don’t care how great she seems during city council meetings when she makes fun of the mayor’s toupee with you.”

“I’ll text you the details.”

“No! Dad!”

It said a lot about Stiles as a person that he was more upset over the fact that his dad wanted him to live with one of his friend’s sons than he was about the fact he’d gotten conned.  

x.x.x.x.x.

Call #2 – The Sheriff calls his friend, Mrs. Hale

“Talia, John here.  My son just landed in Manhattan and his living arrangements fell through.  I thought, who do I know who can help...”

She laughed.  “I’ll call Derek, he’ll be happy to put Stiles up for a while.  He’s paying premium prices for a two bedroom just because he likes the gym on the ground floor.  If he’s going to have the room, he has to put up with the occasional visitor.”

“Are you sure?”

“It won’t be a problem.”

x.x.x.x.x.

Call #3 – Mrs. Hale calls her son, Derek ‘no’ Hale

“No,” Derek answered.

“You have a spare bedroom.”

“It’s an office.”

“Laura told you to put a bed in it.”

“Yeah, so she could visit more often and not have to sleep on the couch.  It was a high priority, let me tell you.”  The fact he was rolling his eyes was evident over the phone.

“So help me... I don’t know how I raised such selfish children.  This is one of your kin in need.”

“Kin? I wouldn’t even do this for a cousin. It’s just some dumb kid from my hometown.  I’ve never even met him.”

“He and his father were at our Christmas party last year.”

“I wasn’t home for Christmas,” Derek reminded her.

“Well, you remember the Sheriff.”

“Old Bartholomew? Yeah, didn’t know he had a kid.”

“Sheriff Stilinski.”

“I don’t keep up with Beacon Hill news, mom.  And it’s not like I’ve ever been in trouble with the law.  Wait... you mean Deputy Stilinski?  He gave my class a lecture on safe driving right before graduation.  His kid’s like 13 years old!  What’s he doing in Manhattan on his own?”

“You graduated a decade ago, Derek.  Don’t be deliberately obtuse.”

“My point is, mother, I don’t want to open my apartment up to some kind of immature partying freshman just out on his own for the first time.”

“You graduated a decade ago!” She reminded him with exasperation.  “I thought you were good at math.  Never mind, you’ll see.  Pick him up in the lobby of Columbia’s Architecture building after work. He’ll be waiting.”

“Mom!  Don’t do this to... fuck.”

Dial tone.

Part One: Life with Derek

“So basically it was a Harlem Shake-down,” Scott suggested with barely veiled laughter over the phone.  

“I wasn’t actually held at gun point,” Stiles reminded him.  “It was white collar if anything, because these guys were good.  They brought me into the landlord’s rental office to sign stuff and everything.”

“They’d have to be to get one over on you,” Scott suggested, outright laughing.

“That’s not funny,” Stiles said, scowling across the expanse of the architect building lounge area.  He bounced his leg over the side of the arm of the leather chair he was sitting in, wondering about the logistics of spending the night on campus.  Surely people had already tried that and security knew more about places to watch out for than Stiles did on his first day.  “The city might never sleep, but I’m going to have to.  It’s a thing humans do.  Do you know what this does to my apartment budget?  It drops it.  Way down.  Significantly down.  Below the balls, verging on eating out of the ass down, Scott.”

“I told you to stop using blow jobs as a metaphor that time you suggested that we go stand as precome on the top of the Space Needle.  You’re going to be an architect!  It’s weird.”

“We all need our coping mechanisms,” Stiles answered sardonically as the woman sitting across from him got up and left with a look towards him of pure judgement.  “I’ll have you know that it’s actually a very common metaphor among architects – you want weird?  Try sitting through a lecture about your favourite architect and listen to his vision about the majestic rod-iron rising out of a thicket of oak trees, strong and robust with enough malleability to give into the blowing wind.  Architecture is phallic, there’s no getting away from it.”

“It makes so much more sense now,” Scott mused.  “At first I thought you were in it because it allowed you to be creative and mathematical.  Then I thought you had a passion for it.  Now I know you’re just in it for your dick.”

“Well, pssshtyeah,” Stiles said.  “Are you telling me that you’re becoming a doctor to help people?  Please, I know it’s the hot nurses.”

“Stiles!” Scott yelped.  “Eww, my mom’s a nurse, you know my mom’s a nurse!  This is worse than that t-shirt from high school.”

“I support single moms,” Stiles remembered in an amused tone.

“I SUPPORT SINGLE MOMS!” Scott echoed back, his outrage obvious over the phone.

“Besides, you know I didn’t buy it about your mom.  It was to wear to supper that time dad brought Candy and her three brats over for lasagna because of his weird five-date-meet-the-family rule.”

“Her name was Cynthia.”

“She had three kids!”

“She worked at the bank.  She still works at the bank.  Implying she was a stripper was probably the reason they didn’t make it to date six.”

“I know, genius, right?  Can you see me with three step-brats?”

Scott was silent for a moment.  “I really can’t.  Your poor dad.  You’re enough.”

“Aww, thanks buddy!” Stiles said, grinning into his phone.  Sometimes Scott really got him.  “You know, the chairs here are ok.  I might be able to sleep in one if that guy never shows up.”

“How’s campus?”

“The building is fantastic! There’s something fitting about getting a degree in Historic Preservation in a building that has been historically preserved.  And... oh my god, Scott, I think the people who go to school here might be beautiful people because I swear the most gorgeous guy just walked in.”  Stiles’s eyes tracked the man as he hooked his sunglasses into the breast pocket of his suit and slowly looked around the atrium of the building. “Maybe he has a couch I can stay on. Or even in his bed, because hot damn this guy is super hot and...” and his gaze landed on Stiles, pausing for a second before he moved forward. “Oh my god, Scott, he’s heading this way I-got-to-go-talk-to-you-later-bye.”

Rarely did the hot guy ever single Stiles out.  Usually, Stiles was the one who was drawn to people so far out of his league that they may as well be the Kraken.  It dawned on Stiles then that maybe this guy wasn’t a peer, maybe he was a professor who just wanted to welcome Stiles to the school (or lecture him about his luggage taking up so much space).  That would be just his luck, Stiles considered, but par to the course for Stiles’ habit of falling for the one unattainable person in the room.  He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do that anymore.  Hell, he’d promised Scott he wouldn’t do that anymore.

As if, somehow, promises to Scott carried more weight.

Though he had promised Scott he’d never wear the Single Moms shirt again, and he hadn’t.

Around Scott.  And maybe also because his dad threw it in the barbeque before his next date.

The possible professor, but definitely a professional (maybe, if Stiles was lucky, he’d be an alumnus), was now standing over him, staring down at Stiles with some kind of expectation written all over his expression.   It was all in the eyebrows, climbing the guy’s forehead like the King Kong up the Empire State Building.  Stiles took a moment to subtly look around to make sure the luggage at his feet wasn’t blocking the guy’s way, because this was starting to get a little strange.

“Well?” the guy prompted.  “I don’t have all day.”

Stiles squinted up at him, because what the heck was the guy talking about, looking at Stiles like he anticipated Stiles knowing something?  Stiles knew nothing!  Stiles didn’t even know how to select an apartment without being conned out of a few thousand dollars!

Stiles’ stomach sank to the point where it rolled over like a capsizing boat, the swells making him nauseated because of course.  Of course this would happen.

Of course.

Fuck.

“Derek, right?” he asked with crushing disappointment, because not only did this incredibly attractive guy not approach Stiles out of any sort of deliberation caused by actively choosing Stiles (maybe because say he thought Stiles attractive), but because this incredibly attractive guy was actually about to take Stiles home with him.  It was not a dream coming true; it was a nightmare.  “Of course you’re Derek.  You’ve got the same –“ Stiles gestured to his face.  “—as all the Hales.”

Damn, those Hales.  They made the curve of attractive exports from Beacon Hills so unreasonably high that Scott couldn’t even rank, let alone Stiles.

Derek stared at him for a moment, turned and walked away now that names had been established.  Stiles assumed he was leading the way back to his car, but Stiles couldn’t be sure that Derek wasn’t just leaving him there.  Full stop.  

Stiles struggled with his three bags as he scrambled after Derek’s retreating back, scowling at the fact that Derek hadn’t even offered to help.  It wasn’t that Stiles needed help or even wanted it, he was a firm believer in being able to do things himself and stubbornly only brought as many bags as he could carry (a rule which had served him pretty decently now that he was homeless and wandering the streets of New York City with his luggage) but it was a politeness thing.  If Derek was that much of an asshole already, it certainly did not bode well for the next week (but hopefully less) that Stiles would be living with him.  Stiles had to take a moment to pause on the pathway between the Architecture building and the campus chapel next to it, puffing as he readjusted the weight of his large duffle back over his shoulder.  The next few steps took him right off the quiet hallowed pathways of the campus and right onto the sidewalk of Amsterdam Ave.

If he had been kind of smug about his ability to navigate with his luggage, that was only before he was trying to navigate on a sidewalk with people.  He’d read a lot of ‘what to expect in NYC’ blogs, and the whole ‘everyone is an angry asshole’ cliché had been debunked, but Stiles assumed that was within the parameters of not rolling over someone’s foot with about a hundred pounds of luggage.

Because it seemed to Stiles that New Yorkers were huge jerks who kicked a guy's luggage over as said guy was trying to drag it down the street.  This day was kind of the worst.

There was someone living under the nearby overpass created for students to walk across.  Stiles could see the sleeping bag sticking out from beneath the pillars, and he realized that he had all this stuff but no sleeping bag.  He was so ill prepared for being homeless it wasn’t even funny.  Who cared if Derek Hale seemed to be trying to get away from him? Stiles decided, mentally asserting his newfound stance on the matter (his stance of not living under a tunnel right outside of his campus, despite the convenience of the location).  Stiles would likely not survive any kind of ordeal that didn’t have a shower and access to a toilet without limitations, and he hurried after the retreating ass, quickly gaining ground on him.

Yes, him, because ass stood for asshole in this scenario.

Though, objectively… Derek Hale’s was mighty fine.

Because Stiles had decided from that one short impression that that’s what Derek Hale was.  An asshole.

The kind of asshole who drove a really sweet Camaro in a city known for personal vehicles being an unnecessary and expensive expenditure.

Great, if Derek Hale spent more on his car than on his apartment, Stiles was going to sleep in the back seat.  “It’s a nice car,” Stiles said awkwardly after his bags had been stowed in the trunk and he was settled into the nice leather interior, the leather seats hot from the midday sun.

Derek just adjusted his sunglasses and pulled out of his parking space.  It was immediately eaten by one of the cars on the road behind them, and Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if Derek was some kind of parking space whisperer, or if the reason it had seemed like Derek was late was because it had taken the man two hours to find a parking space.  That might actually explain his mood.

And, really… who owned a car in New York City.

“So, where do you live?  And what do you recommend I do in the city once I settle in – to my own place, I mean.  I don’t plan on settling in with you.  No, I will be out of your hair before you even notice I was here, which won’t be hard considering the layer of gel you have as a buffer – never mind.  Have you ever been to the top of the Empire State Building?  Architecturally speaking it is a…” Stiles trailed off as Derek aggressively merged with traffic, cutting off a taxi driver who looked like he was moved to paroxysmic levels of anger in response.  “Er, I’ll shut up.”

“That would be a good idea,” Derek said, hands tightening perceptibly around the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. 

x.x.x.x.x.

It wasn’t that Stiles successfully managed to keep quiet for the full thirty minutes it took to drive downtown, it was that every time he opened his mouth, Derek seemed to get slightly more aggressive behind the wheel of his car until Stiles was clutching the armrest and shutting his mouth in terror.

It reaffirmed Stiles’ stance on Derek Hale being a huge asshole.

Finally, they pulled up outside of a seriously ugly apartment building.  On the way through the upper west side, Stiles had been charmed.  When they crossed town to the east side, he’d enjoyed the cut through Central Park.  He was about eighty percent sure they drove past places he’d seen on television and that they were stopped beneath a scene from the Avengers movie.

“Are we here?” Stiles asked as Derek got out of the car.  At the sound of his voice, Derek clenched his teeth and Stiles had to crane his neck to make sure he was opening the trunk.

Ok, so either they were at Derek’s apartment or Derek had decided he had enough and was leaving Stiles on the street. 

“Come on,” Derek indicated.  “It’s down the block.”

Yeah, down the block of really ugly buildings from the 70s that kind of killed Stiles’ soul a little.  “Oh no, it’s fine,” he muttered sarcastically, grabbing his luggage.  “Don’t offer to help me or anything.  It’s do-able.  One of my suitcases practically piggybacks the other.  I mean it’s a good job I have this whole strap-on thing working for me…” Stiles trailed off as Derek frowned at him over his shoulder.  “That’s not what it’s called, is it?”

For the first time Derek showed signs of being a human under the whole Terminator shtick he did so well, his lips curling slightly in amusement. “I’m pretty sure it’s not, no,” he said, indicating for Stiles to enter what was actually a decent looking apartment building.

Decent until Derek actually grabbed one of Stiles’ bags and started climbing the stairs.

“What floor?” Stiles panted behind him, because Derek had grabbed one bag.  One.  Out of three.  It felt like Stiles was being pulled, slowly, to his death, because surely he’d run out of steam and collapse, only for the luggage to drag him down to the bottom floor.

“Sixth.”

Eugh, asshole.

“This isn’t a two bedroom apartment,” Derek said, shoving open the door to his place and actually helping Stiles through it by depositing the first suitcase and reaching for the duffle so Stiles could fit through the door.  “It’s a one bedroom plus den.”

Stiles knew what he was expecting from Derek.  He figured if he was lucky it would be a cramped room with a tiny couch, because the myth of all the television shows based in New York City was the illusion of space.  Derek would have to be rich to afford something that wasn’t basically a closet, and in Beacon Hills the Hales might be slightly well-to-do, but Beacon Hills standards were far removed from New York City standards.

Whoa, Stiles decided once he stepped firmly into the apartment.  Either Derek Hale was making bank, or his dad had just gotten him in bed (metaphorically?) (no, definitely metaphorically) with some kind of mobster.

A criminal with a really nice apartment.  Stiles could live with that.  Literally.

For a week.

He'd been expecting back pain, but his dad made it sound like he'd be able to sleep on a real bed in a real bedroom... well, a real den.  But it couldn't be that bad, right?

“It’s a nice place!” Stiles started enthusiastically.  It was nice, just like the car, but Stiles’ appreciation for vehicles that weren’t his jeep was negligible, but Derek lived in a pre-war apartment, all hardwood floors and exposed bricks.  Shamefully, someone had gutted the rooms at some point, probably when separating a larger apartment into two units at some point in the 70s (Stiles could see a few familiar markers in the design of the interior walls) and only retained the high ceiling, crowned moldings, and high windows.  The coil heating system was gone, converted into forced air, and actually... determining when all the changes had been done, an architectural palimpsest of New York eras, would probably be able to distract him from the awkward for at least an hour.   Maybe he could do an assignment on it for one of his courses, and this whole thing would be worth more than the eye candy.

He was mostly talking about the building.  Derek Hale counted too.  Stiles hadn’t missed the way his thigh muscles had moved in his suit as he climbed the stairs.  That was definitely easy on the eyes.

Derek dropped Stiles’ bag beside the couch.  “And this is where you’ll be sleeping.”

Stiles stared.  He’d been led to believe that he’d at least be sleeping on a bed.  Maybe...

“It doesn’t pull out,” Derek finished, likely reading the expression on Stiles’ face.

Stiles dropped his bags and sat on his new bed.  At least Derek seemed to like nice masculine utile comfort things so it wasn’t a loveseat or one of those delicate frufru-y couches or cheap futons that felt hard as a rock while sitting on it.  He could manage a couch for a few days, it just added to his commitment to get out as soon as possible.

“It’s a nice couch,” he managed indifferently, noticing the repetitive nature of his compliments.  

Derek cleared his throat, standing at the foot of the couch/bed/torture device like some kind of General about to give orders.

Stiles barely managed to keep from rolling his eyes and the only thing that stopped him was that if Derek Hale wanted to throw down some rules, Stiles was a guest in his home.  And Stiles wasn’t stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, or, as the case might be, roll his eyes at Derek’s orthodontically straight teeth.

“Rules first,” Derek started in a stern tone. “No partying.  No friends over.  No drugs.  No alcohol.  No smoking.  No Axe Body Spray.  No sex.” Derek eyed Stiles.  “Don’t even think about masturbating on my leather couch.”

“... wha...”

Who said things like that?

Stiles wouldn’t do that!

Ok, he probably would, but give him some credit... he wouldn’t have done it on the first night!

Mostly because his wrists ached from dragging his luggage up six flights of stairs.

“No loud noises after 10 PM,” Derek continued on blithely.  “You can eat whatever food I have and you can shower in the morning once I’ve gone to work.”

“You’re not the kind of crazy who enforces a bathroom schedule, are you?” Stiles questioned suspiciously, because of course.  Derek Hale was getting less hot by the moment.  Stiles was kind of glad that he wasn’t finding all of this out based on his previous ‘attractive man, get him to bring me home for sex and a place to stay’ scenario, because there was nothing less sexy than being told he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom whenever he wanted to.

“It’s a one bedroom plus den,” Derek reaffirmed with emphasis, and Stiles wasn’t sure he actually understood how emphasizing things worked, because Derek had actually stressed the entire sentence.  “There’s a half bath wedged next to the front door beside the laundry closet that you can use, but the full bathroom with the shower is an ensuite to my bedroom, so you’ll use it when I’m gone.”

“When you’re gone?” Stiles echoed, slightly horrified.  And, ok, that didn’t actually sound as bad as a lot of alternatives, but still.  Having to schedule his showers around another person sounded like an invitation for Stiles to suddenly feel the burning need to be clean whenever Derek was around.

And really, if he wasn’t allowed to masturbate on the couch, the whole shower situation might get sticky if Hottie Hale kept wearing business suits, because if there were two things Stiles really appreciated, it was a man in a nicely fitted suit and a man in really tight jeans, and Derek was definitely not the type for the tight jeans.

Derek looked at his watch and hesitated.  “I have to go back to work,” he said tersely, staring at Stiles for a full minute in what Stiles would label as a distrustful way.

“I am the son of a Sheriff,” Stiles reminded him.  “I’m not going to steal your things.”

“I’ve met the children of law enforcement professionals, before,” Derek told him, making it sound like an insult, as though reminding Derek who his father was had the opposite effect of what Stiles intended.

And yeah, maybe Stiles could see that.  One of his dad’s deputies had a daughter who sold marijuana all through high school, and in his undergrad years, well he didn’t really want to think about what one of his dormmates, the son of a rather prominent Lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department did in his spare time.

Derek frowned at him again, an expression that Stiles basically read as regret for allowing Stiles into his home in the first place.  “There are spare towels beneath the sink,” he allowed.  “And a key in the kitchen drawer nearest to the fridge.”

Then he was gone.

Heh, Derek was more trusting than Stiles had given him credit for.  He was more trusting than Stiles would be in his position, but maybe that was because Stiles was fully aware of how much of a nosy snoop he was, whereas Derek didn’t have the slightest idea that leaving Stiles alone in his apartment didn’t mean Stiles would take his stuff and sell it, it meant Stiles would look through his underwear drawer and beneath the bed and through anything that even suggested that Derek might use it as a place to hide things.

Like the bedside drawer!  You can’t hide your porn from Stiles, Derek Hale.

x.x.x.x.x.

Stiles ended up not snooping through Derek’s bedroom because, frankly, he had enough things to think about.  Maybe it was a mistake not to check to see if Derek had any indicators of being a serial killer, like a trophy box, or a leather kit full of knives stored away from the kitchen, or a collection of Edgar Allan Poe, but Stiles was still trying to wrap his mind around the tiny little closet of a bathroom situated right across from the front door.  There was a toilet and a sink, and barely even standing room to reach either of them.  The fridge was filled with condiments and food that had gone bad weeks ago, and the couch...

Well, it was comfortable enough to sit on, but the first thing Stiles tried was stretching across it, and it felt like inside of the couch was a series of bars specifically designed to hit all of his pressure points.  It felt like a gridiron - the torture kind, not the football kind - was digging into his shoulder, hip, and knee when he turned on his side.  It was really going to test the parameters of Stiles’ claim that he could sleep anywhere, that was for sure.

And! And! To add insult to injury, the ‘den’ was basically an empty room with a desk and a computer chair on wheels that had been left, forgotten, in the center of the floor about three feet away from the desk.  

Stiles understood why there wasn’t a bed in there.  He wasn’t sure a bed would fit in there, even those tiny cot-sized ones.

Fuck Derek Hale, Mrs. Hale, his dad, the con men who stole his money, and the administration who had accepted him to Columbia but not SCI-Arc because he didn’t fulfill their ‘out of state’ quota.  Whatever that meant.

Stiles was seriously contemplating his chances of staying in a hotel so he didn’t wake up with a hernia when he finally got around to checking out the ensuite bathroom, immediately fumbling for his phone.

You’ve reached the voicemail of ____Scott McCall__. Please leave your name, number, and brief message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Beep.

“Scott, you douche, personalize your voice mail.  And since when does your phone go to voicemail?  It doesn’t matter - Scott, Derek Hale has one of those showers that is like sex.  You know, the ones with the wall full of sprays that hit your body like a million little pulsating firehoses massaging your muscles?  It practically masturbates for you.  So have fun with your one showerhead, loser, because I might be sleeping on a couch....”

End of message.  To save this...

Screw it, he’d send Scott a picture instead. Only, once he checked his messages, he found a ton of progressively more anxious ones from Scott.  Not anxious enough for Scott to answer his phone, apparently, but anxious enough to fill up Stiles’ inbox.

New text from Scott:

so what happned w the guy?

New text from Scott:

Did he take you home to make you his mistress?  Are you a kept man now?  Solves all your prblems.

New text from Scott:

Did Darren Hale show up?  Is he terrible?  Remembr when mom got me that drive back to SF with her coworker’s daughter and the entire ride smelled of mushrooms and feet? Terrible.

New text from Scott:

Are you having sex right now?  I don’t want to know deets but I’m worried.

The future is now. Beam me up, Scott! Stiles sent back, and then took a picture of the really awesome shower.

New text from DAD:

Answer your BFF or you’ll be returning home for a funeral.  Mine, if Mrs. McCall has any say in it.  Talia says Derek says he found you.

Derek was so whipped.  Definitely a momma’s boy, and Stiles would mock if it didn’t make him feel the absence of his more keenly than usual, because he’d be a momma’s boy, too, probably, and would take in strays if she asked him to.

He was halfway through composing a message to his dad confirming that Derek had found him, when he realized that maybe that wasn’t the best way to go.  Stiles got kind of assholey when he was hungry, and the last thing he had eaten was a vending machine snack cake, he wasn’t even sure what kind since Twinkies didn’t even exist anymore and it had kind of looked like a Twinkie.

Actually, that narrowed it down.  He ate a not-a-Twinkie, unless Twinkies were back now?

And now he was so hungry he was fixating on the not-a-Twinkie but maybe-a-Twinkie he ate.  It made his rational mind go out the window, and when Stiles was no longer thinking rationally he did things like buy I Support Single Moms shirts, because not being sensible meant he had to rely on being underhanded.

Should he?  Well, he was really hungry and the key wasn’t in the drawer Derek had indicated, so...

Dad, I’m going to have to check into a hotel.  I don’t know who Derek Hale picked up, but it wasn’t me. Maybe pass on my cell so we can coordinate?

Five minutes later his phone rang from an unknown number.

“Hello?” Stiles said in a questioning tone.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, kid, but call your dad and tell him you’re...”

“Who is this?” Stiles asked, interrupting Derek before he could get a good rant going, grinning to himself as he flopped back on the horrendously painful couch.

“Derek... Hale.”

“Oh, Derek!  I’ve been waiting here for hours.”

“Don’t give me that,” Derek warned, tone hard.  “I just spent the last five minutes on the phone with my mother assuring her that yes, I did pick up the right Stiles.  Then I was forced to find your Facebook and swear to her that the Stiles in the display picture was the same Stiles staying in my living room.”

“Makes you feel better to verify it, doesn’t it?” Stiles asked, smirking as he stared at the ceiling.  “You don’t really have anything to eat.  Can I make the bacon wrapped scallops in the freezer or were you saving them for something?”

“I don’t care,” Derek answered, definitely furious.  He was practically hissing venom. Awesome.  Stiles was going to be murdered in his sleep. “Don’t bother me at work again.”

“You called me!” Stiles answered indignantly before hanging up, already making his way towards the freezer.  Seriously, his choices were hors d'oeuvres or little tupperware containers of miscellaneous frozen leftovers, and he’d seen the first few episodes of Hannibal, ok?  He was never eating miscellaneous leftovers again.

x.x.x.x.

When Derek got in closer to 10 PM than 9 PM, his business suit was wilting a bit around the edges.  He stared at Stiles, sitting on the couch with spare bedding he found in the laundry room - thanks for the heads up, Derek - and kind of deflated around the edges, like he was hoping Stiles was a bad hallucination caused by a rancid pulled-pork sandwich and would be gone by the time he returned from work.  Derek was giving Stiles the impression he would rather have been robbed blind than return to his apartment to find Stiles still on the couch.

Derek glowered, half-heartedly if Stiles was a reliable judge of these things based on the hour or so he’d spent in Derek’s company ever, and closed himself into his bedroom.

… and didn’t emerge until the next morning, his hair perfectly coiffed, business suit spiffy and in a charcoal color this time, and if Stiles hadn’t just spent the night failing the test of his ability to sleep anywhere, he’d think he landed himself in the middle of a montage for a Hugo Boss commercial.

Because, yeah, at some point around 4 AM, he’d convinced himself that no one that attractive could possibly come from Beacon Hills, Hale or not, so he was about 80% sure he was remembering the face of the model in a magazine ad he’d seen on the plane.

And hey! he hadn’t been murdered in his sleep, so bonus for him! he thought as Derek stalked into the kitchen and yanked open the freezer.  His every movement seemed to be fueled by rage, so Stiles was a little surprised when Derek looked into his living room and noticed Stiles sitting up on the couch, blankets pooled and twisted around his legs, and jerked in surprise, the ice tray in his hands jolting.

Stiles raised his hand in an awkward wave as Derek oriented himself.  He still got that squint of distrust as he stood, kicking sheets out of his way on the hardwood floor as he stepped towards the kitchen.  There was no way Stiles wanted to be awake at 7 AM, even if he’d been training himself to go to bed earlier so he could wake up at a decent time in Beacon Hills, knowing that 7 AM in New York City was.... yikes! 4 AM back home.

He’d rather have been eased into this, maybe with a few mornings of waking up just before they stopped serving breakfast at most fast food chains.

“I couldn’t find the key yesterday and I have to run up to campus today, so...”

Without a word Derek dropped the ice tray on the counter and reached for the drawer he indicated.  He ended up shaking the contents, a step away from taking the whole drawer out of the cabinet and dumping it on the floor.  Instead, he shoved the drawer closed and started rummaging through a bowl of fake fruit on the counter.

The keys were underneath a large plastic apple.

“Funny, Laura,” Derek muttered, tossing them onto the counter before getting back to his breakfast of champions.  The kind of champions who consumed their protein as liquid.

Which... most of them, these days?

“So, I really meant it when I said this was a nice place,” Stiles said, rubbing his foot down the pajama pants seam of his other leg.  He felt totally conspicuous being the only one of them not dressed and ready for the day, even if it was barely 7 AM, and Derek was crazy to be awake and in his business suit this early.

Derek just looked at him while throwing powder into his blender.

Figured.  The only thing in the fridge not past the expiry date was the almond milk and maybe a tub of yogurt, though that was on the iffy line between maybe still good and maybe soured.  “I should know,” Stiles continued.  “Places like this are kind of my thing.  I mean, my specialty... the topic of my advanced degree, even.”

Derek threw some ice into the blender.

Yep, if Derek was going to wake him up this early, Stiles was going to tell him his life story.

“I lived in this cool old apartment building in San Francisco and they were doing this historic preservation project that kept the original building as the foundation, and then built up.  They brought in this guy who was supposed to preserve the historical significance of the neighbourhood, but he was a total hack and just fucked over the entire building, man.  When I pointed that out at one of the preservation meetings, his firm basically said ‘if you can do better, kid...” And well, it was the project I used as my studio track project in architectural design so of course I could do better, and I did. They totally bought my design, but not really because I’m not accredited yet, but unofficially win/win all around.  So the firm didn’t get fired and I’m getting my Master’s degree paid for - pretty sweet deal, right?”

“It’s just an apartment, kid,” Derek responded mockingly, pouring his gross gelatinous shake into a to-go mug.  “It’s nice that you approve of the structure, but don’t get too comfortable.  You’re only going to be here for a week at the most.”

Yep, Derek was still a Grade A a-hole at 7 AM in the morning, which was fine because Stiles enjoyed jerks.  He took it as free rein to unleash his own inner jerkiness, because if Derek wanted to play?

It was game Stiles always...

Derek paused at the front door before Stiles could finish that though, squinting at him over the length of the apartment.

“Did you just say you finished your undergrad?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles responded, wondering if Derek expected him to wash out the gross bottom of his blender before it cemented.  He was no one’s maid!  “I’m getting my M.Arch.  I said that like three times already, man.”

Not like Stiles actually thought Derek was listening or anything.

Derek just frowned at him.  Stiles supposed that close up a look like that might be penetrative, but from this far away Derek just looked like he was sucking on a lemon with his eyebrows.  “It’s been a decade since I graduated high school,” Derek said, as though that meant something.

“Congrats,” Stiles answered sarcastically.  “Hey, are you still friends with any of your classmates on Facebook?  Because I’ve been thinking of doing a purge.  There are only a few I still talk to, the rest are kind of people I don’t know anymore.  Most of them are huge idiots, but every so often someone will post something so stupid that I’m entertained for hours with the knowledge I used to know some guy who is now going viral on Failbook.  I mean, it’s only right I put them on Failbook, right?”

Derek left without giving Stiles a straight answer.