There's a time in everybody's life where the showerhead has had enough and sends you out into the world. This happens for Stiles when he turns seventeen and an old friend of his moms arrives early to the block party and hears him belting out something embarrassing.
It would have never occurred to Stiles, that he was even half decent, but the chorus fades into the guitar solo and he takes the respite to shove his head completely under the spray. The break is short lived, however, for a voice much to close to him just breathes, "Sing that again."
Stiles doesn't think he's ever seen this man before in his life, but he sits there in a towel belting out different lines of some of his favourite songs, laughing and relaxing when the guy jumps in harmonizing and taking off where he drops a note.
They sit in the bathroom until the steam creeps from the mirror and Stiles' dad finds them in the bathroom and almost has a heart attack.
Later when Stiles actually has pants on and is sheepishly slinking down the stairs all he hears is. "I swear, Peter, if you hadn't introduced me to my wife you'd be out the door."
This is how less than a month later Stiles finds himself clearing his schedule one Saturday to take an impossibly high number and clutch to his dad's hand like he's five again. Stiles doesn't let go until they call the number now crumpled and crushed in his hands and he follows the man to the wings of a stage where he's not only on camera, but stammering something about being discovered naked and how that was less embarrassing than this.
"What's your name?" a strawberry blonde goddess asks when he's found his way to the middle of the stage.
"Stiles." He swears his voice didn't crack.
"Last name?"
"Stilinski?" it couldn't have sounded more like a question if he wanted it to.
"Your name is Stiles Stilinski?"
"No. Well, yes. I…everyone just calls me Stiles. Just…call me Stiles." Stiles has never been good in front of cameras.
"And what will you be singing for us Stiles Stilinski?"
The name of the song runs out of Stiles' head and he can't seem to will it back. "Uh…" he runs a hand through his hair before grinning a little unsurely down at the judges. "Can't I just serenade you?"
The judges' eyebrows are trying to be absorbed into the hairline but the girl nods anyway and the music starts up. Stiles has to close his eyes and imagine the pulse of water against his back and the comfortable solitude of his bathroom.
The intro starts building for the drop and Stiles tries to follow all the steps for the weird breathing trick Peter had taught him but he's practically hyperventilating. He inhales deeply, the water relaxing him, then he opens his eyes, opens his mouth, and sings.