Chapter Seven

Don't Phunk With My Heart

Allison eyed Stiles suspiciously. The two had been riding in her Pontiac G6 for over an hour and Stiles had been oddly giddy. He was playing non-stop love songs ranging from "Brown Eyes" by Destiny's Child to "From This Moment On" by Shania Twain to "Taking Chances" by Celine Dion and even up to "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepson and "Till The End of Time" by Beyonce. It was scary, both that he was playing the music and that he knew all of the words to each song. By the time Stiles had worked his way up to "Teenage Dream" Allison yanked his iPod from her radio dock and shut off the music.

"What's up with you?" Allison asked, "You said you wanted to talk, but all you're doing is playing love music. We both know love doesn't exist." She smiled and winked at him.

Stiles shrugged, "I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't."

"Stiles Stili-"

"Okay," Stiles laughed, "don't use the full name thing on me, it's scary. I have news."

"Of?" she listened expectantly.

"Guess who hit it off with Derek during the break?" Stiles' smile spread ear-to-ear.

Allison gasped, "Aww! Boo boo!"

He nodded, "Oh yes, we've talked every night since Thanksgiving. And we click so well, it's kind of scary. Oh my God, Allison, he's so freaking sweet!"

Allison looked at Stiles, "I'm happy for you. I'm glad you finally came clean with him, I told you it'd be for the best."

Stiles paused and looked down at the car's floorboard, "Um, not exactly."

Allison, who was looking at the road, stared at him, "But y'all talked on the phone, that means phone numbers were exchanged."

Stiles shook his head, "His number was exchanged, not mine."

Allison nodded. She glanced back to the road and held herself back from saying anything. She did not want to nag him, but when her better judgment spoke to her it was usually right. Allison had an odd intuition, and that was telling her that his situation was not going to end well.

Instead of nagging, she smiled, "Well, do it all in your own time. Have you seen him yet?"

Stiles cocked his eyes at her, "That is so not what you wanted to say. But good job censoring yourself." He smiled, "And no, I'm not sure if I should Facebook stalk him, since he can't do the same to me. Plus, he could be lying too."

Allison grinned, "He'd do the same thing! I say we find out."

Stiles thought for a moment. He then nodded, "Ok, let's stalk."

Allison nodded and turned up the radio which picked up the local pop station. As soon as she turned it up she and Stiles locked and began to belt the song on the radio.

"OH I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY!"

-X-X-X-X-

They typed in his first name on the Facebook advanced search engine, along with his class year, major, and dorm that he lived in. What did they get? Nothing.

"What?" Derek eyed the computer screen, "No way, try his AIM screen name."

Laura sighed and typed in Stiles' screen name at Derek's command. Still nothing. Derek, Laura, and their other roommate Megan were all in their kitchen. Megan was eating Phish Food straight out of the Ben & Jerry's pint. She had been ranting for most of the day about her parents' reaction to her arrest through the break, and how horrible it was for her.

After her fifth re-telling of the events over break, Derek decided to be more concerned about finding "Scott." Nothing they tried turned up results, at least not ones that Derek believed was the real "Scott." Laura had done this before with Derek. Derek had always been open to her about his sexuality, and in the Deep South gays tended to stay as closeted and hard to find as possible. She was particularly protective over Derek, mostly because he was a little too naïve for his own good.

"What if he gave you a fake name?" Laura asked.

"He didn't," Derek replied, pacing in front of the island where Laura had her laptop stationed.

"It's happened before," Megan said through a mouthful of ice cream, "not like me getting arrested, even though my parents don't act like it."

Derek shook his head, "No, he wouldn't. Me and him, the talks, it's different."

"Different how?" Laura cocked her eyebrow at Derek.

Derek opened his mouth to speak, but was at a loss for words. He could not describe what happened between him and Stiles; he just knew that something did. That something was powerful, not like anything Derek had felt before.

"We bonded," Derek finally said.

"Bonded?" Laura sighed, "You don't even know what he looks like, or who he is, or if he's some crazy serial-rapist."

"Is he crazy?" Megan asked, with her mouth still full of ice cream, "Did he want to be a florist when he was a kid, because that means crazy. He's a psychology major, right? That means he's a little cooky."

Derek eyed Megan and yanked the Ben & Jerry's from her, "Quit eating that or you'll be as fat as your mom."

Laura threw the nearest thing in her reach, which was a fork, at Derek. Megan yanked the ice cream from him and continued eating, "You reach over here again you'll pull back a nub." Megan winked and swallowed her mouthful of chocolaty deliciousness.

-X-X-X-X-

Allison shrugged, "Well, he's got no way to find you so maybe it's only fair that you can't find him. That would spoil the surprise when you finally meet." She glanced over to Stiles as they exited the computer lab and caught an odd inflection on his face. "Wait—you are planning on meeting him right?"

Stiles pressed his lips together to give him a moment to compose an appropriate response that wouldn't end in Allison hitting him, "I mean—yes and no. I want to, but then again things seem so natural now. If we meet then there are the complications of getting physical and getting seen together. I can't even really say I want to meet him while I'm still with Lydia. She's still my girlfriend. And what's worse, what if I meet him and I'm not attracted to him at all. Or if I'm crazy attracted to him and he's not into me."

"Aww," Allison locked arms with Stiles, "I'm sorry, baby, you sound really frustrated about this. But don't worry, he's going to think you're gorgemous." She kissed him on the cheek as they rounded the corner to the SLC's lobby, "Oh, hey, there's Maria."

Allison and Stiles instinctively put a bit of space between them as they approached the feisty Latina. She was texting on her phone as they approached, but quickly pocketed it when she saw them.

"Oh hey!" she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Stiles and giving Allison a quick smile.

"What are you doing here?" Stiles asked, "You know the tequila shots are on Broad Street, right?"

"I'm doing some Spanish tutoring for my friend," she sighed, "at least he's cute to look at." She then turned to Allison, "I thought you were going to join in?"

"Oh," Allison rolled her eyes, "I totally forgot. I've got time now before my next class, if that's cool."

Maria was about to speak until a set of strong arms wrapped around her. She laughed as she was squeezed, then wailed to be put down. She turned and slapped the boy behind her on the arm, "Ow! That hurt!"

Derek laughed, "I'm sorry, I forgot you were fragile." He glanced to Allison and Stiles and smiled, "Hi, you're Allison right?"

Allison nodded, "Yeah. I remember you, what was your name again?"

"Hold on," Maria stepped back and looked to Derek, "you're actually talking to other people. I NEED to call your sister, this is a revelation."

"She actually just told me I need to be more social over the break. Why not start now?" Derek turned to Stiles and held out his hand, "Hi, I'm Derek."

Throughout the conversation Stiles felt he should have recognized his voice. Without a name he could not place Derek's voice, but as soon as he heard his name he understood. Stiles fumbled in his stance and dropped the books in his hand. He froze and looked down to the ground and then to Allison. From her he frantically gazed to Maria and Derek, soon realizing they were all utterly confused.

"Uh," Stiles said as he deepened his voice, making him sound ludicrous, "Hi I'm Stiles."

"Oh, okay." Derek leaned down to help him with his books.

"No," Stiles shook his head, still speaking in his low voice, "I've got it."

That's when it happened. As if Stiles needed any more cliché moments making him feel he was in more of a romcom than in his actual life, they touched. Derek's hands brushed against Stiles' for no more than a second, but as soon as they did the two boys locked stares. Stiles felt a sort of gravity pulling him to Derek. A short moment passed where Stiles felt as though he could lean in and kiss Derek's lips, his unshaved stubble tickling his face, without a care for who would see him.

"Are you okay?" Derek asked, snapping Stiles out of the apparent staring contest.

Stiles soon realized he had been staring at Derek while Derek's eyebrows were arched in confusion. Their romantic, cliché moment was little more than an awkward stalker moment where Stiles looked like he was high.

"Uh—Yeah, I-I'm just—just—" Stiles fumbled over his words, his voice slipping in and out of its low tone, "—constipated."

Derek jumped up to his feet and handed Stiles the book he picked up. Stiles locked it in place with his others by his side. Allison and Maria were utterly perplexed.

"Maybe I'll join next time," Allison smiled sweetly, "you two have fun." She grabbed Stiles and yanked him out of the SLC doors.

"CONSTIPATED!" Allison exclaimed, "What the hell just happened in there!"

Stiles jumped out of view of the door and leaned against the building's brick exterior. He slammed his books on the ground and began twitching, which was a signal that his mind had overloaded.

"That was him!"

"Who!"

"DEREK!"

Allison jerked away from Stiles in shock, "DEREK!"

"YA!"

"He was fine!" Allison attempted to move back to the door for another view of Stiles' crush, but he grabbed her and pulled her back in front of him.

"I just told one of the hottest guys I've ever seen that I'm constipated."

"Are you?"

"NNNNO!"

"Stop yelling!" Allison commanded as she shoved Stiles against the building, "Calm down, you're okay."

Stiles began breathing at a more normal pace and stared up at the cloudy sky above him. He then replayed his previous encounter and sighed heavily, "Now I can never see him face-to-face."

"What? Why?"

"He's like 20 times hotter than me, he can find someone who doesn't announce his difficult bowel movements to complete strangers."

Allison shook her head and embraced Stiles in a hug, "You've already met, now you just have to tell him who you are…when you're not constipated."

"Haha." Stiles said as he made a disgusted face at Allison.

Allison rubbed Stiles' arms and shrugged, "At least he's gorgeous."

Stiles pursed his lips together and nodded, "Yeah, but I'm still not ready yet, I don't think."

"Whenever you're ready. It'll be kind of like coming out, everything in time, right?'

"I came out to Laura," Stiles blurted out.

Allison hit him, "You bastard"

Stiles held his shoulder, "You crazy devil woman! Why are you hitting me!"

"You're trying to get a new Grace!" Allison smiled at him.

Stiles laughed, "No, I'm not!"

Allison grinned, "Good, she'd best be Karen, or there's gonna be a bitch fight, and I'm the queen B."

Stiles eyed her, "You should be smacked. Queen B? Seriously? Who says that?"

Allison hit Stiles again.

-X-X-X-X-

The following week passed by in a rush of studying and class assignments. Aside from a few trips to the gym with Scott, the occasional dinner with Lydia, and work, Stiles barely had room to breathe. But even with the stacked schedule, Stiles found himself yearning to talk to Derek more and more. He called him every night, always at 10, and they talked one another to sleep. Indeed, each conversation grew more comfortable and natural than the previous one, save for the one where Derek talked about the cute but kind of weird boy who told him he was constipated in the SLC. At least he thought Stiles was cute.

Stiles convinced Lydia to sleep at her place because he would be in and out of the house at random hours, going from the SLC to study to the Dining Halls to eat. Lydia complied, but could feel something different in Stiles. He was happier, if that was possible. But he also spent much less time talking to her. She could not quite decide what was causing the change, but she knew it was odd. Most students buckled down and showed no sign of life during the final three weeks of the semester, but Stiles was overly bouncy.

She also noticed a serious drop in their sex life. Before the break they would hook up at least once a week, but Stiles had barely kissed her in the week since they had been back from Thanksgiving.

Regardless, Stiles was oblivious to the way he was changing.

"So he's definitely not cheating?" Maria eyed Laura.

"There's no other girl in his life," Laura eyed Maria back, being sure to cleverly leave out the fact that there was a guy in Stiles' life, "I've told you this."

Maria glanced outside of the window to Stiles. He was laughing and talking on the phone, they could not hear what he was saying.

"Whoever he's been talking to is NOT Lydia." Maria said.

"What?" Laura leaned back and shook her head, "No way, it's definitely Lydia."

Maria scoffed, "She never makes him laugh like that."

Laura shook her head. She was not technically lying to Maria, but she felt horrible keeping such a big truth away from her. "Well if you think he's cheating then why don't you ask him?"

Stiles hung up the phone and began to walk through the front door.

"Maybe I will," Maria fired back and then immediately smiled to Stiles, "Hey sexy!"

Stiles winked, "Hola, mamacita."

Rico came over and slapped Laura's butt, "Mamacita?"

Laura bit her lip and eyed Stiles. Ever since she found out Rico was gay she hated him; he had been flirting with her for so long and she had bought into every second of it.

"Adios," Laura walked off. Stiles had tried to console her by claiming Rico could be bisexual, but that didn't help.

"Mmm," Maria grinned at Rico, "looks likes someone's losing his game." She walked by, bumping Rico hip-to-hip as she walked.

Rico shrugged and looked back, the two walked into the kitchen. Rico then subtly brushed Stiles' lower back and whispered, "Che pasa papi chulo?"

Stiles eyed Rico. He blinked quickly and did a double take of the previous moment. Was Rico hitting on him? He eyed the Latino, "I think I've got an order up."

Rico winked as Stiles awkwardly rushed off.

-X-X-X-X-

"AHH!" Lydia quietly exclaimed as she ran her hands through her hair. She leaned over and placed her head on Stiles' shoulder. He rubbed her head.

"Aww, baby," Stiles looked at her, "frustrated?"

"Yes." she sighed, "Classes really get in the way of college."

Lydia, Stiles, Allison, Britney, and Laura were all sitting at the same table in the SLC with their noses crammed in their books. They had been like that for over two hours.

"What are you studying?" Allison asked as she leaned over the table towards Lydia's pile of papers.

"Spanish!" Lydia exclaimed, "And I seriously need help."

"Really?" Allison asked, "I'm taking Spanish too."

Lydia shook her head, "This is the second intro course, and I can't believe I'm struggling so much."

Allison looked at Stiles, "Maria!"

Stiles nodded, "Yeah, she could help you. Allison's already going to get some of her help for her Spanish class."

Lydia shrugged, "That would work, can I get her number?"

Stiles nodded and got it out of his phone. Lydia took it gratefully, and she and Allison, despite their distaste for one another, began to set up a time that they both could meet with Maria.

-X-X-X-X-

It was about 3 AM when Stiles pulled into his fraternity house's parking lot. He was on the phone with Derek, and had been for almost two hours. Although he knew he should get off of the phone and sleep, he never did.

His entire situation with Derek had been throwing him for an odd loop ever since it began. He knew he should not feel the way he did, but he was growing emotionally close to Derek. He was such a good guy, and so sweet. He was also a little goofy, earlier in the conversation he spent a good ten minutes trying to convince Stiles to go to Publix and buy some Nutella because it was "so freaking awesome."

Stiles was listening to Beyonce in his car, and Derek was jamming to Kelly Clarkson, a point in the conversation where they said they'd let their feminine side show. Both agreed that they were not much for the "flaming" gay culture. They enjoyed dancing, and liked some techno and trance music, but neither was outright feminine, though Stiles confessed it slipped out when he was helping his friends shop.

After talking for a few more minutes, mostly about friends, Stiles came to a funny conclusion.

"You're definitely the bitch in this relationship," he laughed.

"What?" Derek asked, zoning in and out because of how tired he was, "I am not, you're definitely the chick."

"No," Stiles replied, leaning back in his seat, "I'm in a fraternity, listen to rap, and have you calling me all the time…that makes you the girl."

"I can grow facial hair," Derek said, "and you can't."

"I could be lying about that, you know."

"I want you to come over," Derek spat out plainly, and without pause from Stiles' previous statement. It was an interjection shoved into the conversation that was obviously thought about long before it was brought up.

Stiles did not know how to respond. His first instinct was to say yes and rush over there as fast as possible, but he knew that was not possible. But there was problem, Stiles was supposed to be a freshman, he was supposed to be younger, he was supposed to be Scott. His lies were his trap, and he was starting to understand what Allison had warned him about before.

No matter what his better judgment was telling him, Stiles had to say something.

"Meet me downtown at The Grill," Stiles said, "in about an hour?"

"What?" Derek asked, he had asked Stiles to meet up several times before and he had always turned him down, "Seriously? I don't want you to think that you have to, I was just saying."

"And so am I," Stiles stated, "I'll be there around 4, and I'll be in an orange polo."

"Wow," Derek replied, "cool, okay, pre-sunrise meetup, I'll be there."

-X-X-X-X-

Derek hung up his phone. He jumped out of bed and looked at himself in the mirror. His hair was sloppy from lying down, he was in a wife beater and pajama pants. He was nervous, even though it was just a casual meeting. He was actually freaking out, so much that his first instinct was holler.

"HOLY SHIT!" he exclaimed, "LAURA! MEGAN!"