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It was kind of adorable really, that Derek didn’t really know how to text all that well. Stiles would get messages from him (labelled Alpha McGrumpypants in his phone, because reasons), and they would always be paragraphs long, full words, no abbreviations, and complete sentences.
With punctuation. He even used a semi-colon once.
Whatever, the point is, Derek doesn’t know how to text. So logically, Stiles took it upon himself to learn the werewolf some basics.
"Dude, you gotta get a better handle on this whole texting thing," Stiles said one day. He and Derek were alone at the loft, the rest of the pack having dispersed; Boyd and Erica had gone off to pick up chinese take-out with Cora, rolling their eyes at the fact that it was like the third time this week they had done that (What? It was Stiles’ favorite, and it was friggin’ delicious, plus he always got copious amounts of chicken fried-rice, and let’s face it, ridiculous amounts of chicken fried-anything is never a bad thing). Scott, Allison, and Isaac had simultaneously disappeared as well. Stiles thought they were probably off in some corner somewhere, in some weird, makeout-triangle.
Whatever, it’s a real thing. Stiles had proof.
…Okay, well porn is a type of proof, but…
Derek’s response snapped him back to reality from his slightly perverse train of thought.
"I am a perfectly good text-…-er."
"Texter?"
"Yes, text-er. It’s a word."
"Unh-hunh. I’m sure the people at Miriam-Webster would debate that, but I’m willing to turn a blind eye. But this is why I am here to help." Derek glared at him, and Stiles would have been threatened if it had been three years ago and he had also been slammed up against a wall.
But it wasn’t, and last time he checked, he was still sprawled out on Derek’s bumpy blue sofa, eyeing the brooding werewolf as he leaned up against the ridiculously long, wooden table near the back windows of the loft.
"You?" Derek’s eyebrows did that thing where they shot up his forehead. Stiles did not notice it. He did not. "I’m supposed to take grammar advice from you? The guy who messages me saying," Derek paused to pull out his phone to find the offending text, “‘hey D ill b by l8r 2 pik up thos books i no how u luv 2 c my face lol.’" As if to prove the grammatical crime Stiles had committed, he marched across the room to show him the message, an expectant look written across his face.
Stiles regarded it as one might regard a random raw potato.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s texting lingo.”
Derek looked incredulously between him and the phone, a barely formed, frustrated word slipping from his mouth.
”It’s the 21st century, Derek. You gotta know how to use basic technology.” No small amount of sarcasm was worked into that statement at all. “Do you want me to help you, or not?”
Derek let out an exasperated growl. “Fine. But first, tell me what the hell L-O-L means. It has been driving me up a wall.” Stiles definitely did not notice how adorable Derek looked spelling out the simple acronym, as if it were the bane of his existence.
Without thinking, and because his mouth is a traitor to everything else that belonged to him, Stiles jokingly blurted out “It means ‘lots of love’.” So that is what it feels like to shoot yourself in the foot.
Derek just kind of looked at him, slightly confused, and blinked three times in succession.
"Oh." He turned around quickly and padded to the kitchen, but not before Stiles thought he saw a flush of color rise to his cheeks. He was a horrible, horrible person. A horrible person who was actively screwing with a werewolf. A stupid, perfect werewolf with stupid, perfect cheekbones and stupid, perfect stubble.
A few minutes later, his phone vibrated. Stiles pulled it out and looked at the message. It was from Alpha McGrumpypants.
"Lol." Nothing else. It took Stiles a full second to register what was actually going on. Once his brain put it together, his heart skipped an actual beat. He panicked, and flailed wildly in a vain attempt to remove himself from the couch. He slid into the kitchen on his socks, where Derek was literally hiding in the corner, staring down at his phone. Stiles couldn’t stop the big, stupid grin that was spreading across his face, and he chuckled to himself.
"Are you freaking kidding me with this?"
Derek eyed him quizzically, raising one, skeptically confused eyebrow of doom at the human.
"Is it really that easy?" Stiles asked, more to himself than Derek. He had been pining after Derek since, well, ever, and it could not, should not, simply be undone by one wayward text-message-based prank.
Derek still looked confused. “Is what that easy?”
"This." Stiles pulled the alpha in by the collar of his henley, bringing their lips together with more strength than he realized he had. Derek didn’t resist. It almost seemed like he wanted it. Stiles only briefly registered this as Derek’s tongue slid past his own, and sparks of electricity flicked between them. Before he knew it, Derek’s hands had dropped his phone, and slipped up underneath the hem of his shirt, nails digging into his back.
Stiles gasped into Derek’s mouth with a sound he was not proud of, nerves across his entire body misfiring beautifully as he arched into Derek, grinding their bodies together. Nothing, ever, in the entire existence of Stiles Stilinski, had ever felt so goddamn right than Derek’s lips locked one-over-the-other with his own. Stiles felt a warm and tingly sensation slide down his throat into his chest, where his heart fluttered uncontrollably. As it spread throughout his body, he wondered if it was possible for a human being to spontaneously combust and liquefy at the same time.
It was the sharp, clearly exaggerated cough behind them that pulled them apart suddenly, Stiles’ lips swollen and screaming at the sudden lack of contact.
Erica looked at them with an evil, shit-eating grin. Her gaze never left them as she yelled out the side of her mouth. “Cora, you owe me twenty bucks!” Then she grabbed plates from the cabinet and turned to leave, but not before essentially killing Stiles where he stood. “By the way, Derek, I got your text earlier. L-O-L does not mean ‘lots of love’, it means ‘laugh out loud’.” She gave a vile little wink, and left without another word. Stiles considered sprinkling some wolfsbane in her leftovers tomorrow.
He turned back to Derek, certain that he was about to die. He smiled sheepishly at the werewolf, and gave a nervous chuckle, trying to figure out how to explain himself.
Except that Derek didn’t look like he cared, at all. He was just kind of staring into Stiles’ eyes, and not in the hard I’m-the-alpha way that he usually did. They were soft. Longing. Hungry. A hint of red sneaking up behind the seafoam-and-gold-flecked irises. Stiles felt unable to speak, to look away, despite the fact that he was probably beet-red with embarrassment. Derek slid a hand up the side of his neck, fingers teasing at the sensitive skin underneath his jaw as he slowly brought their lips together again.
So the massive crush Stiles had on Derek had been undone by three little letters sent via text message. Sometimes technology does make things easier.
Lol.