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It’s kind of improbable that Stiles even met Derek, if he thinks about it.
It wouldn’t have happened if Stiles’ dad hadn’t been a cop. If Stiles hadn’t made a habit of snooping through his dad’s files and listening to police scanners. If he hadn’t fallen in love with the idea of a life in law enforcement. If he hadn’t decided to go to college in New York, across the country from his dad and Scott. If his college hadn’t required Elementary Statistics for the Criminal Justice major. If he hadn’t waited until fall semester of his junior year to take it because he’d hated stats class in high school. If, on the first day, he hadn’t spotted a blonde girl in the front row. If he hadn’t noticed she was wearing a Wonder Woman T-shirt, and if he hadn’t been drawn to it like a moth to flame. If he hadn’t been wearing his Batman T-shirt that day, and if he hadn’t had the guts to sit beside her, and if they hadn’t talked and realized they were both from Beacon Hills. If they hadn’t hit it off.
And, most of all, if Erica hadn’t leaned over one day a little before Thanksgiving and invited him to her party on Friday. If Stiles hadn’t said yes.
*
Stiles hadn’t been to many college parties (or, who was he kidding, many parties period, he’d never been Mr. Popular in high school). Based on all the college movies he’d ever seen, not to mention Erica’s love of bright lipsticks and fast cars and loud music, he kind of expected this to be a rager. Based on that assumption, he’d carefully styled his hair and worn his clubbing clothes, a tight black tee and burgundy skinny jeans.
Instead, when he knocked on the door of Erica’s apartment, he could hear faint pop music filtering out into the hall. She answered the door dressed as Luna Lovegood, complete with radish earrings and a Ravenclaw tie. Over Erica’s shoulder, he could see a handsome, very well muscled guy dressed as Captain America go wandering down the hall and disappear into one of the rooms.
“Crap, is this a costume party?” Stiles said.
Erica eyed him appreciatively. “No, but you could probably pass for a rocker.” She fiddled with a time-turner on a string around her neck. “Boyd and I just felt like dressing up. We were digging around in the closet for balloons and found our Halloween costumes from last year instead.“
So instead of the kind of mass dance party in a dark, sweaty basement he’d been expecting, he was faced with a handful of people sitting around on the floor of Erica’s living room in T-shirts and jeans (and the one guy in the Captain America suit), eating pizza off paper plates and playing Cards Against Humanity. An iPod dock by the door was belting out "Hooked on a Feeling.” There were a few red and black balloons floating in a corner, and a snack table against the wall laden with pizza boxes and chips and dip. It felt pretty much exactly like all the parties Stiles had ever been to in high school.
Except that those parties had never featured a (hot) guy who looked up when Stiles came in and raked curious, appreciative eyes down Stiles’ body before meeting his eyes, smirking, and going back to studying his cards. Holy shit.
*
Long story short, they hadn’t been able to stop snarking at each other for five minutes once they were in a room together. It was the most fun Stiles had ever had playing Cards Against Humanity. And karaoke. And Uno. Eventually everyone else one by one drifted into the other room to eat cake while Stiles and Derek—the hot guy’s name was Derek—kept on playing the most intense game of Jenga of Stiles’ life. They’d pretty much forgotten about everyone else by that point.
At some point after that, they’d ended up in Erica’s hall bathroom, making out furiously against the sink, and Derek had panted, “Come home with me,” and Stiles had nodded because hell yes.
Derek’s apartment had been tidy and somewhat somber, not that Stiles had seen much of it. He’d been pretty much glued to Derek’s mouth. Mostly he’d seen Derek’s bed, which was nice. Dude slept on a cloud.
They’d fucked, pretty much just as competitively and awesomely as they’d played party games, and then they’d fallen asleep together. And then this morning Stiles had almost been late to the airport because he had to (reluctantly) wiggle out of Derek’s awesomely muscular arms, scramble around the apartment for his scattered clothes, and race home to pack.
*
The most improbable thing of all, though, is that when Stiles finally gets down the aisle to seat 32A, only hitting a few people in the face with his duffle bag in the process, there’s someone already sitting there, looking out the window. Someone with dark spiky hair and a leather jacket and some frankly ridiculously tight jeans, someone who looks an awful lot like—
Derek.
“Are you following me?” Stiles blurts, and the guy’s head turns, and yep, it is Derek. His eyes widen minutely when he sees who it is, and then his face settles into deeply unimpressed.
“Yes, Stiles, I spent three hundred dollars two months before I even met you, just so I could follow you three thousand miles to California. That’s exactly it.”
“Why are you going to California?” Stiles asks, because this has to be the biggest coincidence in the history of ever.
Derek rolls his eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I live there. That’s how Erica and I know each other. In fact, that’s how about half the people from the party last night know each other.”
Stiles shrugs. “Okay. Well, anyway, you’re in my seat.”
“I’m not,” Derek says, so Stiles whips out his ticket and shows him.
“32A, that’s me, buddy. And that’s where you’re sitting.”
And then, unbelievably, Derek turns to the flight attendant checking overhead bins to their left and says, “Excuse me, would it be possible for me to get a different seat?”
Stiles flails. “What? No, he doesn’t mean that. Ignore him. He’s just—tired. Stressed. Caffeine-deprived. He can have the window seat. I don’t care.”
The flight attendant looks between them, unsure.
Derek stands and starts gathering up his stuff. “Yeah, actually, I do mean that. I’d like to sit somewhere else if possible.”
Stiles gapes, because what the fuck? “You seriously don’t want to sit next to me when a few hours ago you literally had your dick in my—”
“All right, all right,” Derek interrupts hastily, while the woman in the aisle seat sucks in an affronted breath, looking hilariously scandalized. “Fine. I’ll sit with you. Just—shut up.”
“Okay,” Stiles huffs. “Jeez. Fine.”
Once they’re all settled in their assigned seats—Stiles at the window, Derek in the middle, Constipated-Face Woman in the aisle—Derek looks like he’s set on studiously ignoring Stiles for the next eight hours. He puts on his headphones, hunches his shoulders, and looks sternly down at the paperback book he’s brought, even though Stiles can tell he’s not actually reading it. He’s just staring at it like a weirdo and not turning any pages.
Stiles honestly doesn’t know what’s happening here. Like, did Derek not like last night after all? Is this his way of saying Stiles sucks in bed? Or has he been replaced with a pod person? Or is he just shy and waiting for Stiles to make a move?
Stiles can safely rule the last one out after he pokes Derek’s arm and tries to strike up a conversation by pulling Derek’s headphone cord out of his iPod.
Derek glares and says, “Can you please just leave me alone?” and plugs his headphones back in.
And, well, that’s pretty unambiguous.
Stiles slouches down in his seat, stung. “Look, I’m sorry if me leaving you my number was, I dunno, moving too fast for you or something, but I swear to god I’m not going to sit here and force you to be my boyfriend if you don’t want to. We can just hang out. Chill. Be bros who bone.”
Derek takes his headphones off. He looks genuinely confused. “What?”
“Or bros who don’t bone,” Stiles adds hastily. “I’m cool with that, too.” (Which is a bit of a lie; he’ll probably go home and eat his weight in chocolate ice cream and maybe make a secret shrine to Derek in his closet, but whatever.)
“No, I mean—” Derek looks frustrated. In the background, the flight attendant starts making announcements. He goes on in a furious whisper. “You didn’t leave me your number. You snuck out without saying goodbye.”
“What? No, I didn’t!”
“You did! You literally just did that a few hours ago.”
Stiles crosses his arms. “I put it on a note on your fridge! I swear. I used the cute little snowman magnet.”
Derek eyes him like he’s trying to tell whether that’s true. Then, reluctantly, he says, “I didn’t check there. I just assumed if you left me your number, it would be on my bedside table, where a normal person would leave a number.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Oh, well, sorry I didn’t follow proper number-leaving etiquette, but I almost forgot to do it until I was walking out your door, and by that point I was closer to your kitchen than your bedroom. I thought you’d see it when you got breakfast.”
“I didn’t eat breakfast. I overslept and had to run to get here.”
Stiles throws up his hands. “Then how the fuck—” There’s another affronted sniff from the woman in the aisle seat. Stiles rephrases. “—how the frick did you get here before me?”
“I dunno,” Derek says. “Maybe I drive faster. I get a lot of speeding tickets.”
“…Good to know. Anyway,” Stiles shakes his head, “we’re here now and— Look.“ He rips a page out of the Sky Mag from the back of the seat and writes his number. "Here. My number. For you. So you can call me. I want to see you again, if you don’t hate me.”
“No,” Derek says quietly, looking down at the paper. “I don’t hate you.”
“That’s good, I guess, since we’re about to spend roughly the next eight hours together. It’s like the longest first date in history. If—” He pauses. Derek is smiling at him, small and pleased. Good sign. “If you wanted it to be a date? Because I do. I definitely do.”
Derek pretends to think about it. Stiles smacks his arm and he relents, grinning. “Yeah, okay.”
Stiles fist-pumps. “So what do you want to do first on this date? Hang-man?”
Instead, Derek leans over and kisses him softly.
“Or that. That works,” Stiles agrees, a little breathless, when Derek sits back. After what they did last night, one chaste little kiss shouldn’t be giving him butterflies, but it is, and it’s awesome. “You are a really great kisser, in case you didn’t know.”
“Oh, I know,” Derek smirks, and Stiles smacks him on the arm again.