Stiles Stilinski was, more or less, at the point in his musical training when he'd stopped being intimidated by his fellow musicians. He hoped.
When he'd started his training as Professional Musician (his capitals, but he always felt that they were implied by the weight in his professors' voices when they said the words), he'd walked into his first class and immediately felt overwhelmed. It seemed that everyone was somehow both supportive and terrifyingly aggressive towards each other. Stiles was a good musician, and he knew it. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have bothered to audition into a music performance major, and he definitely wouldn't have bothered to actually pursue music as a career, as he was.
Something Stiles learned early on, from the age of twelve or so when he became serious about his music, is that being a musician at any level requires spending a lot of time alone. Not in a way of not having friends, just in a way of spending almost all of his time outside of rehearsal and class in a tiny room with just a music stand, a piano, and his euphonium. He spent more time in a week practicing than he did sleeping. Which was to be expected; everyone had warned him that this was how a music major spends their time.
The thing was, though, that Stiles couldn't have been happier. He'd spent the better majority of his time in college in the basement of its fine arts building, where it housed the practice rooms. The practice rooms that could have been better sound-proofed, and left a lot to be desired in the way of elbow room, but Stiles was happiest there. It was home. There, he could put his entire focus and being into his music.
That's what got him through the first semester of college. His peers had intimidated him like it was their job and a couple times he'd considering quitting simply because he never thought he could catch up to them. They seemed to be miles and miles ahead of Stiles.
But once he got into a practice room, closed the door, and started on his pieces or his scales or whatever his main focus was that day, nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed, really, for Stiles.
He was undistractable and unreachable while he was practicing (except for that one time when his best friend, Scott, hunted him down to gush about a girl he'd met named Allison who was apparently perfect in every fathomable way and disturbed everyone in the general vicinity), which is why what's happening to him right now feels completely out of place in Stiles' life.
He just can't help it, though. He heard a beautiful piano piece wafting out of the practice room across the hall from his when he came back from a quick break to refill his water bottle. Normally, Stiles isn't distracted by other people's music-he appreciates and respects his peers and their art but he focuses solely on his-but there's something about this piece that he just can't ignore. It's so...so-stiles can't figure out what word would do it justice. There's so much emotion. Pain, joy, agony, ecstasy all joined together into one and the only thing Stiles can imagine creating such music is a lifetime full of love and loss. He's tempted to peek through the tiny window on the door of the room and see who this insanely talented pianist is and possibly ask what the name of the piece is so as to find it at a later date.
Stiles is so wrapped up in his internal debate that he doesn't hear the music stop. Nor does he hear the door open. He's still wrapped in thoughts when a voice interrupts with, "What are you doing?" and Stiles jerks and flails out of his inner dialogue.
"Uh," he clears his throat, "sorry. That piece is just...wow. Uh, it-" and then he looks up at who he's talking to and if anything is more beautiful than the music he was just listening to, it's definitely the man who was playing it because damn. He's all tall, dark, handsome, and clad in some seriously nice-fitting jeans and he's even wearing a leather jacket. Stiles is practically drooling. He glances up at the man's face, the mouth on which is currently drawn into a smirk and the eyes are...whoa. A gorgeous blue-green. One eyebrow is raised, bringing Stiles back to making excuses for himself. "Uh..sorry. I just, I heard you playing and the music was so intense I just stopped for a second to listen and I guess I got kind of carried away. Uh. Sorry," he pauses and attempts a smile. "Sorry," he apologizes again, starting to stumble backwards towards his own practice space, a tangle of limbs just like he's sixteen again.
"Derek," a voice says from across the hall, making Stiles stop short.
"Sorry?"
"Derek," he repeats, almost a question, "my name?"
"Oh, right," Stiles grins sheepishly. "Stiles. Uh, is mine. I'm Stiles. Yup," he concludes awkwardly, mentally kicking himself in the head for making such an ass of himself.
The guy-Derek-looks at the ground and the glances back at Stiles from under his eyelashes, smirking a little. "Did you really like it?"
Stiles takes in the sight in front of him and fuck yes he likes it, before realizing Derek must be referring to the piece. "Yeah," he breathes out, "it's beautiful. I mean, like, whoa. I, uh-who wrote it?"
"Oh," Derek suddenly seems shy. "I did."
"What?!" Stiles all but shouts. "Please tell me you're a comp major because holy shit that's legit stuff right there. Like Beethoven great," he's babbling again, but Derek looks pleased with the compliments so Stiles isn't really embarrassed.
"Thanks," he says. "I'm not. A comp major, that is. But it's a hobby of mine."
"Damn," Stiles breathes more than says, wishing he was that talented. The two men maintain eye contact for a few seconds before Stiles drops his eyes away from the intensity of the gaze.
"Well," he exhales awkwardly, "I guess I should get back to practicing."
"Yeah...sounds good," Derek nods. "Maybe I'll see you around," he smiles. Genuinely smiles, and Stiles feels like the wind's been knocked out of him.
He takes in the sight for another moment before replying, "yeah, that'd be cool" and stumbling back into his room and shutting the door before he can make an even bigger ass of himself.
Stiles contemplates telling Scott about Derek, but decides against it because a) he's not a huge fan of watching Scott gush about Allison; why make it a double-sided thing and b) he doubts anything would come of it so why broadcast his embarrassment to his best friend? He did, however, go on the music department site and search for any Dereks he could find. He finally stumbled across Derek Hale, and based on the headshot accompanying his name and basic information, this was Stiles' guy. Even just looking at the picture, Stiles' breath caught in his throat. This guy was not only unfairly gorgeous, he was also an amazing musician and Stiles had barely met him once yet already wanted to know everything about him.
Stiles leaned back and rested his head on the back of his chair, groaning. This wasn't going to end well for him, he could just tell.
Stiles, as usual, spent most of his time in the practice rooms the week following the Derek Incident, as he called it in his mind. He pushed every possible thought he could of Derek out of his brain and dove back into his music. It was stupid, really, that Derek was already taking up so much of his brain space. Stiles didn't like it; he wanted Derek out of his thoughts. Now, preferably.
Stiles groans as his fingers run away from him during a particularly difficult run in the piece he's working on for juries. He takes a deep breath, slowly exhales and tries refocusing. After another hour or so, Stiles feels good about the progress he's made and starts to pack up. It's then that he vaguely hears Scott's voice saying, "oh, sorry man, my bad," and rolls his eyes. He sticks his head out the door, euphonium in hand and bag on his shoulder, about to give Scott shit, but his comment gets stuck in his throat when he finds Scott standing there with the one and only Derek freakin' Hale.
He sighs, "Scott? What are you doing here? If this is about Allison, I swear to Go-"
"No, no. It's not," Scott promises.
Stiles lifts an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, maybe it is," Scott grins sheepishly. Stiles rolls his eyes.
"C'mon," he says, "let's go get dinner and you can tell me all about this recent development. I'm starving." He can't help but peek back at Derek as he walks through the double doors to the stairs at the end of the hall. He's surprised when his gaze locks with Derek's, and turns away before Derek notices the blush painting his cheeks.
Scott and Allison have now been "officially" dating for 12 days, and Stiles knows this because Scott, being the considerate best friend he is, makes sure Stiles is perpetually aware of it. That means it's been 17 days that Stiles has been crushing and Derek and 17 days, he's proud to say, that he has avoided searching him on Facebook. Part of him is kind of afraid of what he might find. If he's being honest, he's aware that Derek is almost guaranteed to be not only straight, but taken. Or at least gay and taken. There's no way someone that attractive and interesting (Stiles assumes he must be interesting, based on that piece) has stayed single for any amount of time since puberty.
Stiles, however, being the masochist he is, eventually gives in and finds him on Facebook. It's late one night about two weeks later when he finally caves. He tries to convince himself it's just because the music history paper he's working on is kicking his ass, but if he's being truthful, it's mostly because he's sleep deprived and his will to keep his delusion alive has been overcome by his curiosity.
Derek's profile is nowhere near as private as Stiles would've guessed it to be, and Stiles can see most of the activity on his page. Not that there's a lot of it; clearly, Derek is a sparing Facebooker. Regardless, Stiles goes through most of his photos and appreciates his beauty, while also appreciating that he looks even better in real life than in those photos. Which is seriously saying something, because he looks like a model in his photos. Even the ones where he's in the background and completely unaware that a camera is on him.
Stiles groans, a mixture of sexual and emotional frustration. Why did Derek have to be so perfect? How was that fair to any other human being in existence? Even worse, why couldn't Derek have a freakin' relationship status? Single, taken, whatever; just not the stupid status that just doesn't exist. Stiles groaned again, before closing his laptop and flopping face-first onto his bed to get some sleep.