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Stiles dashed up to the subway car and jammed his shoulder into the door just as it was starting to close. He stumbled inside and let momentum carry him down into the nearest seat, which happened to be right next to someone. He thought about moving—the train car was practically empty, which was a goddamn miracle at 8:30 in the evening—but instantly reconsidered when he twisted his head and caught sight of who was sitting next to him.
Tall and broad, with thick-rimmed dark glasses and a heavy layer of stubble that Stiles could only describe as artful, he was engrossed in a paperback and completely unperturbed by Stiles’ acrobatic entrance. Stiles was no stranger to ogling hot guys on the train—hell, it was practically an official hobby—but this was something else.
Inspired by the sight next to him, Stiles opened Instagram on his phone and started scrolling through one of his favorite feeds. But after a few minutes, all of a sudden his phone was being yanked out of his hand, and the guy was shooting him a murderous glare. It was mostly in the eyebrows.
“What the—”
“Who are you?” the guy demanded. “Are you stalking me or something?”
“What the fuck?” Stiles yelped, holding up his hands. He’d had his fair share of interesting experiences on the subway, just like any New Yorker, and this one was quickly climbing the list. “No! I’ve never seen you before in my life. What the hell is your problem, dude?”
“Then why do you have a picture of me on your phone?”
Wait, what?
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stiles said slowly. “Can you please just give me my phone back, and I’ll leave you alone?”
The guy glared harder and tilted the phone screen so Stiles could see. He looked closer, taking in the greenish eyes and messy black hair, and glanced between the guy and the phone.
“Holy shit, that is you,” Stiles said, leaning in over the guy’s shoulder to see better.
“So you just take pictures of random people on the subway?” he asked, clearly still offended, and Stiles rolled his eyes.
“For fuck’s sake, dude, that’s not my photo. That’s like my favorite Instagram account, Hot Dudes Reading.”
The guy blinked. “Huh?”
“Instagram? Social media for photos? Is this ringing any bells?”
“I know what Instagram is,” he said grumpily. “I just don’t know why I am on it.”
“Okay, then we’re making progress. For this one, people send in photos of, uh, hot dudes reading. Pretty self-explanatory.”
“What.”
“Okay, was that even a question?” Stiles said, but the guy ignored him as he looked through the feed. He still looked somewhat wary, but at least the eyebrows of death had relaxed a bit. “And hey, what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you the guy in my head. And when I tell this story in the future—which believe me, I can’t wait to do—I’m gonna need a name.”
“It’s Derek,” he said absently.
“Nice to meet you, Derek, I’m Stiles,” he said, but Derek didn’t seem to want to pay attention to social niceties at the moment.
“I think this explains why my students were acting so weird a few weeks ago.”
“Your students?”
“Yeah, I’m a professor.”
Stiles cleared his suddenly-dry throat and nodded, then snatched the phone back from him. “I’m practically in the presence of royalty here, this is so cool.”
“No, this is so embarrassing.”
“Dude, you should totally be flattered. Almost 30 thousand people liked that photo,” he said, and Derek groaned.
“Oh, this is amazing,” Stiles said, laughing as he kept reading.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“Reading the comments.”
“Let me see,” Derek said, trying to grab for the phone, but Stiles kept it out of his reach.
“You sure you really want to read these? ‘With a body like that and all his skin showing, I’d love to be the Rose to his Jack and steam up these windows ourselves,’” he recited. Derek’s flush deepened, and Stiles cackled.
“Oh my god,” Derek grumbled, reaching for the phone again, and Stiles laughed. He held Derek back with a hand on his chest while he extended his other arm and continued to scroll through the comments.
“And that was just the caption. This person thinks you have nice lips. This one is betting that you have a great dick.”
“For the love of god, please stop.”
Stiles stopped resisting Derek’s hold—as much as he loved the adorable little blush on Derek’s face, he could tell he was actually embarrassed—and as a consequence, fell back against his chest when the subway car jerked. Their faces were suddenly really close together, and it felt like all the air was sucked out of the train. Stiles tried to drag his gaze away, for plausible deniability purposes, but he couldn’t quite make himself do it.
“I’m sorry I accused you of stalking me,” Derek said softly.
Stiles chuckled, slightly hysterically, and shook his head. “No worries. The evidence seemed pretty incriminating, dude.”
The subway screeched to a stop then, complete with the garbled announcement of the conductor, and Derek twisted in his seat to look through the window behind them as Stiles sat up. “Fuck,” he said, with a little exhale of a laugh. “I missed my stop.”
Stiles swallowed and worried the strap of his bag between his fingers. “My, uh—my stop is the next one, if you…”
He trailed off—he was not good at this, whatever this was, and didn’t do it often—but Derek just tilted his head, smiling slightly and clearly challenging him. “If I what?”
“Ice cream!” Stiles blurted. “There’s a good place nearby. I’ve had a long day, you’ve had your privacy egregiously violated on the internet, I think we both deserve some ice cream.”
Derek laughed as he stood up and used the grip he still had on Stiles’ arm to haul him to his feet, also. “Yeah, sounds good. But you’re buying.”