"Hey, Derek? You think you could read this over for me?"
Stiles barges unceremoniously into the office, glasses askew in a way Derek absolutely does not find adorable. He's waving a student essay around in the air with his usual amount of flailing.
"Why?"
"Because, see," Stiles flips it over to his comment in red on the back, "I'm not sure if I've given her the Marx she deserves." He gives Derek an eyebrow wiggle, which is completely ridiculous and not at all endearing.
"Ha ha," Derek deadpans. "Go away, Stiles." He pushes his own glasses up the bridge of his nose and absolutely does not watch the way Stiles' jeans cling to his ass as he walks off.
The door to the staff lounge bangs open with a clatter and a whoosh of water. Stiles practically falls inside, soaking wet, and did he really have to wear those pants today? Derek can see everything. Not that he's looking, of course.
"You're late," he calls across the room, nursing his nearly-empty coffee cup close to his chest. Stiles glances up from cleaning the rainwater off of his glasses and grins.
"You know me," he laughs. "Never early, always Russian."
Derek tips the last dregs of his coffee into the sink and beats a hasty retreat before Stiles can say anything more.
"So," Stiles says, dropping down onto the seat beside Derek. He's got an apple in between his teeth as his ridiculous hands struggle with removing his hoodie, and Derek has absolutely no idea how he can talk around it. But that's Stiles, he supposes. Nothing will ever shut him up.
"What?"
"You know that essay I'm writing on Eastern European politics?"
Yes, Derek knows the essay. The West is his speciality; when Stiles had first told him about what he was writing, Derek definitely didn't spend the whole night afterwards researching exactly what Stiles was talking about.
Not at all.
"Yeah," he says, trying to ignore his stupid brain and his even stupider heart.
"I know it's not really your area," Stiles continues, taking a large bite out of his apple, lips stretched wide and –
No. No, Derek. That train of thought is off limits.
" – was wondering if you'd mind reading over what I've done so far and maybe edit it? I mean, it's not done, but this journal is kind of a big deal, and –"
"Sure," Derek agrees, not regretting it at all when Stiles practically lights up like a Christmas tree at the word.
"Oh my God, thank you, I don't think it's totally awful, obviously, but –" he stops abruptly, apple halfway to his mouth. A grin slips across his face that Derek doesn't like at all, thank you very much. "But I'd really like a fresh Engels on it, you know?"
Derek computes his words. "You're insufferable," he bites out and misses the way Stiles' grin falters. "Fax it to me, yeah?"
Stiles rolls his eyes. "Sure, dinosaur. Let me know when you're in the twenty-first century?"
"Excruciating," Derek intones. "Unbearable. Intolerable."
"Gee, Der," Stiles says dryly. "Who says chivalry is dead?" He chucks his apple core away and watches as it sails directly into the bin. "Lacrosse, baby," he fist-pumps, before checking his watch and doing a double-take. "Shit, gotta go – but I'll email you, okay, pops?"
He's gone in a blaze of red skinny jeans that Derek wishes weren't so firmly imprinted in his mind's eye.
Derek, being the socially-competent person that he is, actually knocks on Stiles' office door before walking inside, because unlike some twentysomethings with no concept of privacy, Derek's thirtieth birthday was last month, and he knows these things.
That's what he tells himself, anyway.
"Stiles –?" he says, pausing in his question because what.
Stiles is lying on the floor of his office, legs propped up in a right angle against the wall, lightly-muscled arms – which Derek does not notice at all – holding a book precariously close to the tip of his nose. He tilts his head back at the sound of Derek's voice and smiles; the effect, upside-down, is not so much creepy as endearing.
Derek tries not to dwell on that observation.
"What are you…?" he settles with asking instead, waving his hand around in a Vanna White-esque gesture.
Stiles, to Derek's absolute horror, chucks his book to the side and proceeds to lower his legs down until they're bracketing his ears. "Yoga," he grins, and Derek has to look away because Jesus. He knew Stiles was flexible – he'd been witness to enough monumental flails during their acquaintance – but this. This? "Be with you in a moment," Stiles adds, and Derek thinks about his mom, about dead kittens and Brussels sprouts and his Uncle Peter and –
Yep. That does it. Derek lets out a long, slow breath, calming down so much that when a light hand comes to rest on his shoulder, he only startles a little.
"What's up?" Stiles grins, his cheeks pink and his tie – because apparently he was doing yoga in a goddamn tie – askew.
"Um," Derek manages eloquently. Stiles' loosened neckline is showing an unhealthy amount of small, edible looking moles dotted across his collarbone. Derek thinks having that many moles should be outlawed.
"Come on, Der," Stiles teases, stepping thankfully back and sitting down on his desk. "Quit Stalin and Enlighten me."
It is the pun, more than anything else, which snaps Derek out of his stupor. Nothing like a bad joke to ruin the mood. "Here," he says gruffly, thrusting the stack of paper he's been holding on to for dear life into Stiles' hands. "I read it. There're some comments and stuff, but it was really good, Stiles."
"This my essay?" Stiles flicks through the pages, smile forming like a rising sun across his lips. "Derek, I emailed this yesterday. It's twenty-three pages long." He looks up, eyes wondrous. "You did all this last night?"
Derek can feel a flush rising up from his neck to his forehead. "Um, yeah. I didn't – I mean, I finished the kids' essays, so."
Stiles shakes his head, disbelieving. "You crack me up like the Liberty Bell, Hale," he laughs, and the spell is broken.
"You headed off with the others?"
Derek jerks up from where he'd been nodding off in his chair. "What?"
Stiles gives a small smile and drops down into the seat opposite Derek. "Are you going down to Stinson Beach for the weekend with the others?"
"Who?"
Stiles rolls his eyes. "You know. The faculty? Scott, Lydia, Kira, Boyd? Isaac and Erica? Allison Argent? Ringing any bells?"
"I know who they are, Stiles, but what –"
"They're all going down to Stinson for the weekend. Rented out this villa, or something, since it's, you know, end of term and all that. I was asking whether you were going."
"I –" Derek pauses. "I wasn't invited."
"You weren't?" Stiles doesn't sound indignant, or even shocked. There's a small grin gracing his lips and Derek wonders what they would feel like to kiss. "Good. You can come over mine, then."
At this, Derek's heart decides to increase its tempo tenfold. "What?"
"This weekend," Stiles enunciates. "You. Me. My place. Movies. Take-out. History puns."
"No history puns."
"But Derek," Stiles whines. "You don't mean that. Serfs up for the others, but why can't we just tell jokes in peace?"
"That was terrible," Derek tells him, then pauses again. Stiles is looking at him from under his lashes, head tilted to the side, and Derek wants so badly to say yes –
But the last person who asked him around to their place screwed him ten ways to Sunday, and besides, there's no way Stiles is interested in him the way Derek wants. He's seen the way Stiles looks at Lydia; he doesn't have any illusions about the matter.
So, "I can't," is what he says, and this time he doesn't miss the way Stiles' smile slips. It's nothing, he tells himself. "You should go with the others."
"Right," Stiles says stiffly. He stands and doesn't smile. "Maybe I will. See you 'round, I guess."
Derek watches him go, feeling sick all the way from his stomach to his head.
"You absolute bastard."
Derek glances up from where he's been packing away his books. He's just taught his last class for the term, and is eager to get out of this place as quickly as possible – all this week he's been avoiding Stiles, and at least at home he won't be assaulted by glimpses of honeyed eyes and sinful mouths.
Lydia Martin is in his doorway. Lydia Martin is in his office. Lydia Martin is marching over until she's right in his face.
He's not scared of her. Not really.
"Can I help you?"
"Can you –" She lets out a sharp breath from her nose, and Derek could've sworn he saw smoke come out from her ears as well. "You string him along for weeks, break his big, dumb heart and don't even give a good reason why? You, Derek Hale, are a complete and utter shit." She plants her hands firmly on her hips and gives Derek an explain yourself glare. Problem is, Derek has no idea what she's talking about.
"Sorry?" he says slowly, testing the waters. "I don't really know what you're talking about."
Lydia narrows her eyes. "You don't, do you?" At Derek's minute head-shake, she sighs in exasperation. "You two are perfect for each other, you know that? Exactly the same emotional capacity."
"What are you –?"
"He's just as crazy about you as you are about him," Lydia interrupts with, and narrows her eyes even further. "Don't you dare screw this up, I swear to God, because his dad might be the Sheriff but I am far, far worse, and if you hurt him, so help me I will castrate you, understand?"
Derek stares at her. No, he doesn't understand, he really, really doesn't.
"Here." Lydia snatches a pen and a notepad from the desk and scribbles something down. "He'll be at home moping all weekend, thanks to your stupidity. Surprise him. You might just have time for an apology before he jumps you, though I wouldn't bet on it."
Lydia rips the sheet of paper off the pad and slips it inside Derek's breast pocket. "Castration," she emphasises with a judgemental eyebrow, before turning on her heel and stalking out of the office, slamming the door behind her.
It takes Derek a long minute of staring at his bookcase before he can convince his limbs to move again. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the note.
5/127 Walnut Street it reads. And on the back, circled: Stiles.
Derek's brain catches up to his ears, and utters a soft, small oh.
He knocks before he can change his mind. There's some shuffling and muttered cursing, before the sound of a deadlock sliding back and the door swings open.
"What do you –" Stiles stops. Stares. Gapes a little. "Derek?"
Derek clears his throat and takes a deep breath. "I'm about to Babylon, so feel free to interrupt me if you think I'm Russian. I'm in love with you, Stiles. I'm in love with you like industrialised countries were in love with raw materials gathered from their colonies for the purpose of mass production and increased profits. I'm in love with your eyes and your smile and your tsarcasm, and your terrible history puns and the even worse way I find them all funny. I've been in love with you since we met, I think, and that's not a Romanticism. You're the Bonnie to my Clyde, the Caesar to my Cleopatra, so if you could maybe quit Stalin and Enlighten me as to whether you feel the same?"
Stiles blinks. "You made, like, ten really, really bad jokes in there, Derek," he says, and Derek nods. "And you likened us to a couple famous for mass murder and kidnapping. And another couple who were assassinated and committed suicide respectively." Derek nods. "And you said you loved me like the bourgeoisie loved exploiting the proletariats."
"I did. I do."
Stiles nods, as if considering. "You had me at tsarcasm," is what he finally says, smile as bright as the sun bursting across his face, and suddenly his fingers, those long, ridiculous fingers are wrapping around the lapels of Derek's coat and reeling him in, tugging him closer. Warm breath ghosts across his mouth and then Stiles' lips are on his, and Derek can feel his smile through the kiss, and it's warm and it's real and a million times better than he ever imagined it would be.
They watch Doctor Zhivago together that night, wrapped up in blankets and each other. Stiles keeps up a ridiculous whispered commentary throughout, but Derek doesn't mind, because he's not really paying attention to the film. He's watching the rise and fall of Stiles' chest instead, the flutter of his eyelashes, the curving of his cheekbone in the muted light of the television. And if Stiles notices him looking?
Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Derek's really not as subtle as he thinks he is.
Author's Note: WHAT AM I DOING. I have an 1800 word essay and a 1500 word story due Wednesday I haven't started. WHAT AM I DOING.