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Stiles slumped heavily against the metal lockers with a tired sigh and said, “If classes started an hour later, I'd be so much more willing to go.” He tilted his head back until the back of it rested against the lockers, and he momentarily closed his eyes, his right hand reaching up to grab the strap of his bag before it slid down his shoulder.
“No, you wouldn't,” Scott said with a snort and opened his locker, narrowly catching the lacrosse ball that rolled out between the books messily shoved into it. “If classes started an hour later, you'd say the exact same thing.”
Stiles hummed quietly and noncommittally, staring up at the ceiling for a minute, before he tilted his head back down and turned it to look at Scott. “Hey, remember how there were nap times in kindergarten?” he asked, smiling crookedly. “Why didn't that make it into high school, too? That would make this hell so much more enjoyable.”
Scott scoffed softly at him and grabbed a few books, giving him a raised brow. He started talking, but whatever he said went right through Stiles' one ear and out the other, Stiles not hearing a single word of what he said. Because his attention had been grabbed by a certain someone hurrying past them and toward their own locker.
Derek Hale, the nerd that owned Stiles' heart.
A little and fond smile slowly formed on his lips, and Stiles shifted to lean his shoulder against the locker next to Scott's, eyes locked onto Derek as Derek unlocked his own locker, nerdy glasses slowly riding down the bridge of his nose and shoulders hunching under the weight of his backpack – the backpack that was decorated with geeky pins.
He and Derek – they didn't run in the same crowd, at all. Derek was a nerd in every sense of the word; invisible in the mass of people and kept mostly to himself and a select few fellow nerds, academically brilliant in pretty much every subject. And Stiles, he was your typical jock. Popular, loud, out-going, the whole shebang.
Except, of course, not so much of a lady killer as movies would like to make every jock look like. That wasn't for lack of interest, because Stiles was a seventeen year old guy and openly bisexual, but it was more for the lack of interest in anyone that wasn't Derek Hale.
(Stiles wasn't a dumb jock, either. No, he did pretty well academically. Near the top of some of his classes, just below Lydia and Derek fighting for the top.)
Funny thing was, as terrible as it sounded, Stiles didn't even know Derek existed until a few months ago. It was even more terrible, because Derek was in his damn history class, and he still hadn't noticed him. Not once.
He only started noticing him, because Derek had interrupted their teacher only to correct him and get in trouble for sassing him, when the teacher had told him to not disturb the class. Derek had been send to detention, and Stiles had fallen in love.
Alright, maybe not in love, considering they'd never actually had a proper conversation, but a crush had blossomed that day and had kept growing ever since.
And now, Stiles couldn't stop noticing Derek, and it was increasingly becoming a bit of a problem.
Every history class, Stiles zoned out. Derek always sat near the front, while Stiles sat near the back, behind him and slightly to the left, which gave him a perfect view of him. He zoned out staring at the little curls at the nape of Derek's neck, curling under his cute ears. He zoned out staring at his lips, the way the tip of his tongue would stick out in the corner of them whenever he wrote down the notes from the board.
He zoned out staring at Derek's adorable bunny teeth worrying his bottom lip whenever their teacher sidetracked or, apparently, said something wrong that had Derek rolling his eyes but refraining from saying anything. He zoned out making heart-eyes at Derek so often, that if you asked him, he couldn't tell you what they were learning about in history class.
Before Stiles had started noticing and crushing on Derek, history had been the most boring class he had ever had to suffer through in all of his school years, and that wasn't an exaggeration. Not even Coach Finstock's Eco class was as terrible as history. History was still boring as all hell, because Stiles couldn't care less about the subject and the teacher didn't make it any better, but now he had something pretty to look at, which made it so much more tolerable.
Only problem was, Derek didn't seem to like him very much. Not that it had ever stopped Stiles from flirting with him before.
A couple of fingers snapped in front of his eyes, and he blinked back to reality. He turned and stared dumbly as his best friend for a moment, before he asked, “Hm, what?”
Scott was grinning at him, a teasing glint in his eyes. “You were making heart-eyes at Hale again,” he told him, gesturing to where Derek was shouldering his backpack after stuffing a few books into it.
“Duh, can you blame me?” asked Stiles, not ashamed in the least. Looking back over at Derek, he saw him start to close his locker, so Stiles straightened and said, “See you at practice,” before he darted down the hall toward the man of his dreams.
“Hey, nerd!” he greeted him as he casually leaned against the locker next to Derek's – after throwing himself against it, but he didn't wince despite the pain shooting through his shoulder – and smiled widely and toothily at him.
Derek lifted his head and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his knuckles, and then immediately scowled at him. “What do you want, Stilinski?” he asked, annoyance clear in his voice.
“Nothing,” Stiles said with a shrug. “I was just wondering if there was a magnet in here.”
Derek's hand stilled on his locker door, narrowed eyes looking at him curiously from behind the glasses. “Why?” he asked slowly.
“Because I'm attracted to you, duh,” Stiles said and lightly nudged at him, waggling his brows.
The response he got from Derek was the same as it always was; an unimpressed look and those adorable ears turning a slight red color. Stiles grinned widely, while Derek scoffed and shut his locker.
“Funny,” Derek told him dryly. He turned and started walking down the hall, and Stiles followed him.
“Oh, come on!” he exclaimed, only picking up speed when Derek did. “That was a good one, you gotta give me that.”
Derek rolled his eyes and said, “It was as bad as every other one, and I'm still not falling for it, so you can quit it now.”
“Well, are you a tower?” Stiles went on, shouldering past the students in an attempt to keep up with Derek. “Because Eiffel for you!”
Derek groaned. “Go away, Stilinski!” he said loudly, before ducking into the classroom for history, that was slowly filling with the rest of their class.
Stiles followed him in and sat down in the seat behind Derek, determined to throw out at least one more line, but then their teacher walked in and yelled at them to be quiet.
[ … ]
Ignore it, Derek told himself for the fifth time in a row, when yet another tiny ball of paper bounced off the back of his head, narrowly missing his ear. Again. Ignore it and he'll stop eventually, he kept telling himself, even though the paper balls weren't stopping and he doubted they ever would.
Inhaling slowly and exhaling in a huff, Derek leaned heavily back on his chair and kept his eyes glued to the teacher, trying very hard to stay focused on what was being said – it was wrong again, but after last time, he wasn't going to correct him – and to ignore the menace sitting behind him.
The menace being one stupidly annoying jock; Stiles Stilinski.
Stiles had been a constant pain in his ass ever since that one time he had been send to detention. Constantly, the guy would come over and throw lame pick up lines at him, flirt with him, even though Derek made it blatantly obvious that he wasn't interested.
Which, as stupid as it was, was a total lie, because he was. He was interested, had been interested for a solid year now, because Derek was a total cliché and had fallen for a jock. A jock with a wicked sense of humor, a jock with beautiful, brown eyes that shined in the sunlight. A jock that was always smiling and incapable of sitting still, even when he was benched during lacrosse practice – because Derek was pathetic and occasionally sneaked onto the field to watch him. Just to watch Stiles play, because when Stiles played, he was beautiful.
Derek was pathetic, all his friends – Erica, especially – liked to point that out. His sisters too, because of course they knew as well.
Which was why having Stiles come constantly flirt with him was so painful. Because Stiles wasn't actually interested in him, why would he be? Derek was a nerd in every sense of the word – with his glasses and his love for history and the way he dressed and the way he spend his free time.
There was no way a guy like Stiles Stilinski was interested in him. Derek figured the flirting was because he had become the butt of a cruel joke. Why else would Stiles be going for him, of all people?
It hurt and Derek hated it. And maybe he hated Stiles a little bit too for going along with it.
“Psst,” someone said behind him, and with a heavy exhale through his nostrils, Derek slowly turned just enough to glance over his shoulder. Just enough to glare at a wide smiling Stiles sitting right behind him, a mountain of small paper balls stacked on his desk.
“What?” he hissed through clenched teeth, ignoring the way his heart fluttered like it always did when Stiles' attention was on him.
“Read this,” whispered Stiles and held out a folded piece of paper to him, his smile widening as Derek's glare deepened.
Derek yanked the paper out of his hand and turned back around, but he didn't unfold it nor did he read it. Not right away, at least. He put the paper down next to his notebook on the desk and turned his attention back to the teacher still going on at the front of the class, back turned to the students and hand adding something to the board, that Derek quickly scribbled down in his notes.
He managed to focus back on the class for all of one minute, before yet another paper ball bounced off of his head, and he craned his head around to glare at Stiles once again. “Stop it,” he told him coolly.
“Read it,” Stiles mouthed in reply, finger pointing at the folded piece of paper resting on Derek's desk.
With a sigh, Derek grabbed the paper and unfolded it with a slight shake of his head. And the moment he read it, he inhaled sharply and held his breath.
“If you were a triangle, you'd be acute one,” was written in the top right and along with it, several others filled out the whole paper, and Derek stared at it for far too long, his ears and face heating up slowly as he flushed involuntarily.
With a shaky hand, Derek curled the paper into a ball in his fist, ignored the harrumph from behind him, and glued his eyes to the board.
When the bell rang and the students started rising from their seats and the teacher started raising his voice over the noise of scraping chairs, the paper was still crunched up in Derek's fist. It was still there, while he packed away his things, and it was still there as he shouldered his backpack and headed for the door, trying to hurry out before Stiles could catch up to him.
But because the universe was against him, of course he didn't make it.
“Hey, wait up!” he heard Stiles call out from behind him, just as he ducked out of the classroom, and he clenched his fist around the piece of paper, not walking faster but not slowing down either.
“Hey,” Stiles repeated once he caught up to him, and Derek didn't lift his gaze from the floor. “Dude, where's the fire?” There was humor in Stiles' voice, a little chuckle in his words, and Derek noticed how close he was walking to him. So close that their shoulders were brushing, and the hallway wasn't even that crowded.
Subtly, he shifted away just slightly and tightened his grip around the strap of his backpack.
The distance between them was short lived, however, because then a wave of students washed out of a classroom, and Stiles sidestepped to avoid the first bunch, which meant bumping into Derek's side. And bumping turned to Stiles lifting his arm and wrapping it around Derek's shoulders, head turning to send him a wide and toothy grin.
Derek grunted and shrugged his arm off, ignoring his flaming face and the way his heart pounded in his chest.
“Man, I'm so excited for the weekend,” Stiles said after they avoided the loud wave of students, and despite Derek trying to hurry up and find his friends to get rid of this idiot jock, Stiles just kept following him.
“It's Tuesday,” commented Derek in a low murmur, that could just as well be described as a grumble.
“And I've been looking forward to the weekend since the minute I walked into school yesterday,” Stiles said, and Derek rolled his eyes. “Hey, you got anything fun planned for the weekend?”
He did, actually. He had plans with Erica and Boyd to go to the movies, which, to the outside viewer, would make him an awkward third wheel for his two friends' date, but they never made him feel like that when they hung out. And he had plans with Isaac to hang out and do homework too, so yeah, he did have plans.
“No,” Derek said instead and rounded a corner.
“Well, I'm gonna be practicing all weekend long,” Stiles said, and Derek resisted the urge to tell him how much he did not care. “We've got a big game coming up and I have to make the cut this time, 'cause there's no way I'm sitting on my ass on the bench for half the game again. Coach Finstock can eat my ass if he thinks I'll be okay with that.”
Derek dug his front teeth into his bottom lip and held back the snort that threatened to escape him.
“I'm gonna show him,” Stiles continued. “I'm gonna prove him wrong and I'm gonna-”
“Yo, Stilinski!”
Both Derek and Stiles turned around to see who interrupted him, and Derek thanked his lucky stars quietly, when he saw Lydia Martin and Allison Argent coming toward them, Jackson Whittemore standing further down the hall with the rest of the lacrosse team, lacrosse sticks in their hands.
Stiles' attention was off of him, and Derek took the opportunity to duck away and hurried down the hall toward Boyd's locker.
[ … ]
“I don't get it,” Stiles whined against the lunch table, where his forehead was resting between the trays.
“Maybe he's straight,” Scott suggested, words muffled slightly by the food in his mouth.
“That's what I thought too, at first,” Stiles said with a heavy sigh, and he lifted his head from the table, knocking away Kira's hand that had been sympathetically patting his head since he slammed it down on the table. “But then I asked Lahey at practice a few weeks ago, and asshole just laughed at me, so I'm gonna take a wild guess and say probably not.”
“Maybe he's just not interested,” Jackson suggested from the other end of the table, looking way more interested in the apple core between his thumb and forefinger than the conversation of Stiles' failed attempt of catching the cute nerd. “I don't blame him. Hale's a nerd, but he can do better than Stilinski.”
Stiles scoffed and turned to him, mouth hanging open in an offended gape. “Yeah well, Lydia's a goddamn genius and she can do way better than you, and yet she still sticks up with your sorry ass, Whittemore.” He bit out the name like a curse, and Jackson gave him an unimpressed look in reply, before biting into what was left of his apple and said nothing.
Stiles stuck his tongue out at him, because he was so very mature.
With a sigh, he slumped back over the table, spread his arms out to the other side and toward Allison's tray and rested his chin on the cool table. “I'm running out of good pick up lines,” he whined. “I don't know what to do, you guys.”
“I have a question.”
Stiles rolled his head to the left and looked at Lydia, slowly lifting his head just an inch or two off the table as he said, “Shoot.”
“Have you ever actually asked him out?” Lydia asked, quirking a brow at him. “And been very specific with your intentions,” she added just as he opened his mouth.
Stiles snapped his mouth with an audible clack and thought about it. He … actually hadn't. He had flirted and used a stupid amount of pick up lines and complimented Derek on his glasses and shirts and hair and bag and pointed out when he wore new shoes after throwing the old, ratty boots out, but had he ever actually said, “Hey Derek, wanna go out on a date sometime?”?
The answer was a big, hard no.
“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath as he scrambled to get up and off of the bench along the lunch table. “I'm an idiot.”
He ignored Jackson's agreement and instead rushed through the cafeteria toward Derek and his friends on the other end, spinning around the few people already leaving.
[ … ]
“Incoming jock, six o'clock,” Boyd warned in a mutter, jerking his chin to behind them.
Taking his glasses back from Erica, Derek put them on and craned his head around to see Stiles coming toward them with a wide grin on his lips. He groaned and shot back around, hunching down just slightly as if that would somehow hide him. “Why the hell won't he just leave me alone?” he complained in a mumble.
Erica snickered, mouth too full to make a proper comment, and Isaac said, “Like you don't enjoy the attention, Derek.”
“I don't,” Derek hissed through his clenched teeth.
All three of them shared a look – the kind of look that meant he was either being made fun of or none of them believed him. Sometimes both, and he suspected now was one of those times.
“I hate all of you,” he told them in a grumble, and then immediately shut up when Stiles came to the table, all smiles and bright as the goddamn sun.
“Hi!” he greeted cheerfully, and Derek lifted his gaze from the table to him. There was a slight pink color dusting Stiles' pale cheeks, he noticed, and he'd almost say he looked nervous. The kind of nervous look he always had before a game.
Not that Derek would know, because when he was going to a lacrosse game, it was all to support Isaac and not to ogle Stiles, no matter what Erica said and no matter what Boyd insinuated with his nudging elbows and knowing looks.
He may use practice as an excuse to ogle Stiles, but no one needed to know that.
“Hey,” Derek greeted him back in a lowered voice, and then looked away and hunched over again, hanging his head.
“'Sup, Lahey,” Stiles continued. “You coming to practice this weekend?”
Isaac may be on the lacrosse team, but he was as much of a jock as Derek was. He didn't hang out with the lacrosse players in any way other than the required practice hours and pre-game pep talks. “You guys are way cooler than those dumb jocks,” he'd said when Erica had feared, just slightly, that he'd abandon them.
“Maybe,” was Isaac's response, and Derek saw him shrugging a shoulder and taking a bite of his lunch, obviously disinterested in getting that conversation further.
Stiles hummed noncommittally and stood silently for a moment. He then lightly nudged his foot to Derek's calve and said, “Hey, nerd.” There was no teasing in the latter word, Derek would almost say it was fond. Almost, but he knew better. “You wanna go out sometime?”
A pang of hurt flashed in his chest.
Slowly, Derek lifted his head and look at Stiles, staring at him as the guy flushed. “What,” he said flatly. It wasn't a question.
“You and me,” said Stiles, head tilted to the right and lips pulled into a smile. “Go out. On a date.”
The table fell quiet and while the rest of the cafeteria was loud and full of talking students, Derek couldn't hear them. All he could hear was his own heartbeat, as hurt made his heart ache.
“Alright,” he said in a scoff, brows furrowing and face turning hard. “Aren't you taking it a little too far now?”
Stiles' face fell and his shoulders slumped just slightly. “Wha-”
“I know you're not actually interested in me,” Derek barreled on, reaching under the lunch table to grab his backpack. “And I know this is all a stupid bet or joke or whatever that your friends have made you do, but it's not funny anymore, so quit it.”
He got up from the table despite his friends' protests, shouldered his backpack, and went around Stiles with a quiet huff, before he sped through the cafeteria toward the exit. His hand clenched around the strap of his backpack and his eyes stayed glued to the floor below him as his feet moved over it.
It hurt. To have someone like Stiles ask him out on a dare, it hurt. And Derek hated it.
He knew he wasn't the most desirable guy in their high school, knew that Stiles was way too good for him, he knew that. But he didn't need it rubbed in his face. Not after Kate had done the same thing just the year before, he didn't need a repeat of that. Especially not with Stiles. He couldn't handle that.
Derek only made it one foot out of the cafeteria, before there was a hand on his elbow and a familiar voice saying, “Hey, wait!”
He stopped moving, tensed, and slowly took in a deep, deep breath, before he looked over his shoulder and glared at Stiles. “What the hell do you want?” he spat out, yanking his elbow free from Stiles' grip.
“There's no bet,” Stiles let out in a rush of a breath, face flushed and eyes wide with determination and confusion and... something else, that Derek couldn't place. “There is no bet, Derek,” he repeated, slowly and firmly. “I'm actually really interested in you, and I want to take you out on a date, because I want to get to know you. And hopefully hold your hand and maybe kiss you a little, if you're okay with that.”
Derek blinked at him, ignoring the heat that gathered in his cheeks. He didn't believe him. “I don't believe you,” he told him in a small voice.
Stiles' face fell again, eyes flickering across his face as his brows furrowed. “Who hurt you?” he whispered softly, and Derek looked down at his feet.
He didn't answer either, so Stiles continued. “Okay, how 'bout this? One date, just one date, and if you still don't believe I'm genuinely interested in you, then I'll leave you alone for good. How does that sound?”
Derek stared downward for another ten seconds, before he lifted his gaze to meet Stiles'. “If this is just some stupid joke-”
“It's not,” Stiles interrupted quickly, words said like a promise.
Derek hesitated for another moment, before he sighed and said, “Fine. One date.”
Oh, he was going to regret this. He could tell just from the way Stiles beamed at him.
[ … ]
Derek looked at himself in the mirror, took in his own reflection, and frowned.
“I look stupid,” he decided in a mutter, lightly picking at the shirt covering his torso and he watched as the frown deepened in his own reflection.
Laura tsk'ed from his closet, where she was picking out a button-up shirt to throw over. Because apparently that was necessary. “You look adorable, is what you mean,” she said, throwing him a green one. “Put that on. Goes with your eyes.”
Derek rolled his eyes and sighed, but he shrugged the button-up shirt on anyway and let it fall over the gray tee shirt he was wearing, an artistic print on the chest. He'd never worn it before, had let it sit in the back of his closet for far too long, according to Laura. He was much more comfortable in his washed out comic tees, actually.
“I'm not trying to impress him, Laura,” he insisted, his eyes finding his reflection in the mirror again, and his hand moved up to the top of his head, fingers lightly touching his hair.
He really wasn't trying to impress Stiles. It was one date. One pretend date, so why would he?
“Of course not,” Laura said, sounding completely unconvinced, and she grabbed his shoulder and turned him to face her. “Stubbornness isn't cute, Der, neither is denial. It's okay to crush on the cute jocks in your school, you know. I used to do that too, back when I went there.”
“That was different,” Derek said and ducked his head slightly to let her fix his hair.
It really was different. Things were just a little bit more complicated with Stiles and Derek than it was with Laura and the boys she brought home. Derek wasn't as openly out as Stiles was, didn't flaunt his pansexuality around like Stiles did with his bisexuality. He wasn't ashamed of it, but he also didn't go around telling everyone.
Beacon Hills High didn't tolerate bullying in any way, and different sexualities hadn't been an issue for years, but... Kate hadn't taken it well when he'd come out, and all things went south for him after that.
“I know,” Laura said and slid Derek's glasses onto his nose, smiling at him. “If he hurts you in any way, I'll beat the living shit out of him.”
Derek huffed and rolled his eyes, pushing the glasses further up his nose and scrunching slightly until they settled. “You can put away your claws, Laura,” he said. “It's one date and then I'm never dealing with him again.”
The thought hurt, but if Stiles had only asked him out for a bet or a joke, well... he would rather deal with heartbreak than humiliation again.
Laura gave him an unconvinced look, patted his cheek, and opened her mouth to say something, but their mother yelling up the stairs cut her off.
“Derek, your date's here!”
Derek rolled his eyes and groaned, ignoring the way his palms dampened and the way his heart pounded in his chest.
“Good luck,” Laura told him with a wink, as she shoved him out of his room and toward the stairs. “I'd say use protection-”
“Laura!”
“- but I know you won't put out on a first date with a jock,” she said, emphasizing the last word.
Derek grunted at her and shoved her away, before he headed down the stairs. Stiles was standing by the front door talking to his mom with a wide smile on his face and his hands in his pockets. His hair was styled, messy but stylishly so. He looked good, and Derek hated that.
He hated even more the way Stiles gaped at him, when he turned to him. “Oh my God,” he breathed, and Derek shot his mom a glare when she snickered. “You look... wow.”
Derek shuffled awkwardly by the foot of the stairs, his ears heating up along with the rest of his face, and he huffed and scowled at his mom grinning back at him, before he grabbed his jacket. “Let's just go,” he said to Stiles, and to his mom he said, “Bye, I'll be back later.”
He reached out to grab Stiles' wrist, pointedly not going for his hand though he did consider it for a split second, and dragged him out of the house, before his mom could make any sort of comment and before either Laura or Cora made it down the stairs. Once they were in the car – Stiles' old, beat up jeep that Derek was surprised still worked – he let out a heavy sigh and leaned back against the seat.
They weren't moving, the car wasn't starting, and when Derek turned, he found Stiles staring at him. Gaping at him.
“What?” he asked, shifting slightly uncomfortably and flushing.
“Nothing,” Stiles croaked and shook his head, still not taking his eyes off of him. “You just look really good, Derek. Is that a new shirt?”
Derek looked down at himself and shrugged. “If by new you mean it's the first time I've worn it, yeah.”
Stiles chuckled lightly and said, “So just a shirt from the back of your closet? Dude, I know that too well. You should wear it more often, though. Looks really good. This does too.” He pointed at the green button-up. “Brings out the green in your eyes. 's pretty.”
Derek took his eyes off of Stiles and looked out the front window of the car. “Thanks,” he mumbled, then spoke up. “Where are we going?”
“Well,” Stiles smiled widely and finally turned on the car. “I'm glad you ask. There's this really nice diner in town, and they make the best milkshakes. You're gonna love it.”
The milkshakes were good. Really, really good, and Derek nearly moaned when he took the first sip. He blinked and met Stiles' gaze from the other side of the table. Stiles was grinning widely at him, nodding his head, and he said, “Right?”
The first five minutes were spend in awkward chit-chat, with Derek mostly grunting in response to Stiles' boring questions. But then Stiles started talking about the new Star Wars movie, and Derek just stared at him with wide eyes in surprise.
It took Stiles ten minutes to actually notice that and when he did, he stopped talking and smiled knowingly at Derek.
“Oh yeah,” he said, smile turning into a grin. “Didn't you know? Us jocks can be nerds too.”
Derek let out a huff, one that was almost a laugh, and rolled his eyes. He didn't push away the little smile that curled at the corner of his lips, but he did duck his head and sipped at his milkshake to hide it a little.
The conversation flew easier after that, Stiles still holding most of the conversation but he didn't seem to mind it. And Derek started to slowly realize that Stiles was, actually, genuinely interested in him.
Because Stiles' foot was rubbing against his own under the table, hooking around his ankle, and Stiles' hand slowly slid across the table to touch Derek's halfway through their milkshakes, and Stiles never once took his eyes off of Derek, and Stiles listened intently to whatever Derek had to say and actually asked into it, even though he talked about history and Derek knew how much Stiles hated it.
And the diner was practically empty, so Stiles wasn't acting.
Derek's heart flared and pounded in his chest, as he turned his hand over and let Stiles' slide into it. Stiles beamed at him and smiled widely as he clasped his hand around his, and Derek ducked his head and silently cursed his face for growing hot for the billionth time that night.
Time flew by, and Derek didn't even notice. One hour became two and two become five, and they finished their second milkshakes and shared a plate of fries – curly fries, which Stiles ate most of and slapped away Derek's hand when he tried to take the last.
“I like you, but fries and I are soulmates,” Stiles said before stuffing his mouth with the last fry.
Derek mock scowled at him, and Stiles just took his hand and offered him the last of his milkshake.
By the time Stiles paid for them (“Gotta prove myself to you, remember? So I'm paying.”) Derek realized how big of a jerk he had been to Stiles. Stiles really was interested, and even though that was hard to believe for more reasons than one, Derek had been a jerk and had acted like an asshole to him. And Stiles didn't deserve that, he realized as Stiles held the door open for him when they headed out.
He said nothing, though. Not on the way to the jeep parked by the sidewalk, and not on the drive back to the Hale house, despite having plenty of opportunity to do so.
“So,” Stiles said when they stood back on the porch in front of the Hale house, his hands in his pockets and a small, bashful smile on his lips. “Do you believe me now?”
Derek could apologize for being a dick, right then and there. For letting a horrible past experience cloud his judgment, and for everything he had put Stiles through over the past several months. He could apologize, grab Stiles by the shirt, and kiss him like he so badly wanted to.
But he didn't.
Instead, he shrugged and said, “Get back to me on Monday,” and then headed into the house without as much as a single goodbye kiss on the cheek.
[ … ]
Come Monday, Derek walked the halls of the high school with his heart in his throat and his eyes darting around the students he passed – both hoping to spot Stiles and hoping not to.
Derek believed that Stiles was genuinely interested, yet there was still that nagging voice in his head that kept him from getting his hopes up too much. Stiles could either come up to him and act like he always did, throw out flirts and lame pick up lines. Or he could laugh at him with his friends, and Derek would have become an even bigger butt of their joke, because he had actually started to believe him.
God, he hoped this hadn't all been a joke.
Derek made it all the way to his locker without bumping into Stiles, and he only passed a few lacrosse jocks, but they didn't even so much as glance his way, which made breathing a little bit easier. Letting out a heavy breath that made his shoulders lose some of the tension in them, he reached up to unlock his locker and pulled it open.
He only managed to put one book from his backpack into it, when someone leaned against the locker next to him. And looking over, he saw Stiles leaning there, smiling warmly at him.
“Good morning, nerd,” he greeted him, voice fond and a twinkle in his eyes that wasn't teasing. No, Derek would maybe call it adoring. Loving.
“Morning, jock,” Derek greeted back and allowed a little smile to pull at the corner of his lips, as he reached into his locker to grab his history book.
There was a silence between them, where they just looked at each other. A lingering look that seemed to drown out the other students making noise around them. Because in that moment, it was just the two of them.
Not a joke. This was real.
A minute later, Stiles' warm smile curled into a grin, and he broke the silence by saying, “Hey, Derek. Did you invent the airplane? 'Cause you seem Wright to me.”
Derek stared at him, gave him a flat and unimpressed look as he blinked. Stiles waggled his brows.
Rolling his eyes and scoffing, Derek slammed his locker shut and turned to walk down the hallway with a shake of his head.
“Oh, come on!” Stiles called after him, and Derek heard footsteps running up to him. “That was a good one!”
“Sure,” Derek said dryly and shot Stiles a side-glanced look.
Stiles huffed at him, pouted a little, but he said nothing more. Instead, they walked side by side down the hallway toward their history classroom. And slowly, after they had walked in silence for a good minute or two, Derek felt fingers brush against the back of his hand, felt a hand slide into his own.
He glanced downward and saw Stiles' hand slide into his own. He bit back the little smile that curled at his lips, ignored the heat going straight to his ears and cheeks, and grabbed Stiles' hand back.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stiles beam and grin proudly, saw him walk a little taller as he gripped his hand tighter.
And as they passed a group of lacrosse players, there were loud whistling and at least three of them yelling out, “Get it, Stilinski!” which only made Stiles walk taller and grin prouder, and Derek blush brighter.
Stiles didn't let go of his hand until ten minutes into history class. Derek didn't mind it.
[ … ]
The Hale house's noisy residents were shut out by the closed door. The sun was setting outside, and the remaining light from it set a warm and orange light into the room, the simple and white curtains framing the window pulled away to let it in.
The only sounds in the room were the sound of pen against paper every now and then, a small sigh every few minutes, and the distant sound of a house alive outside of the room.
A book was open in Stiles' lap, notebook laying open next to him where his hand holding a pencil was resting. His attention wasn't on the book or his homework, however. No, he was fully focused on Derek sitting on the other side of the bed, history book propped open and notebook laid out as he scribbled into it and glasses sliding down his nose just a little.
Stiles hadn't been paying attention to his own homework for a good ten minutes now, too busy watching Derek. Derek and the way he got so swallowed up in his work and the way his lips moved just a little bit once in a while as he read.
It was stupidly cute, and Stiles wanted to kiss him.
Which, hello, he could do now. They had only been on two dates – Stiles had taken Derek out to a movie the weekend prior to now. He had hoped for a bit of back row making out, but Derek had ended up completely swallowed up in the movie and Stiles had spend a good ninety percent of their date just watching him – but they still hadn't kissed.
Stiles was going to change that right now, he decided as he pushed his school book out of his lap and crawled over.
Not even the bed dipping under Stiles' weight made Derek look up from his book, so Stiles reached out to put his hand under Derek's chin and gently lifted and turned his head.
“Hm, wha-” Derek started, but he didn't get further, before Stiles leaned in and pressed a soft but firm kiss to his lips.
Derek's lips were soft, the feeling of growing stubble tickling Stiles' upper lip just a little, and he almost smiled widely in pride when he heard Derek take in a shuttering breath in surprise. However, smiling would mean pulling back and he wasn't up for that.
Not until a few seconds later, when he realized Derek still hadn't kissed back.
Slowly, Stiles leaned back and licked his lips, hand still cupping Derek's chin. He smiled softly at the shocked and slightly dazed look on Derek's face. Settling down in front of him, he reached up to pull off Derek's glasses and gently laid them aside, before he grabbed the back of his neck to pull him back in.
“I'm doing homework, Stiles,” Derek muttered, barely an inch between their lips.
Stiles hummed quietly and said, “Do it later.”
He leaned in and kissed Derek again. Derek didn't protest and this time, he kissed him back. Derek was a good kisser, their lips sliding together softly but staying innocent and sweet. Until Stiles let his tongue brush against Derek's lips, and Derek let out a little, broken moan, and Stiles was gone.
In the end, they didn't get much homework done.