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Isaac Lahey @officialisaaclahey Anyone wanna dance?
Danny Mahealani is my god @dannydancefan Please please PLEASE it is time for @dannymdance to be @divinemovesdance champion! Give him a good partner PLZ!!
Divine Moves Fansite @dmdanceblog Did you see the tweet from @officialisaaclahey tonight? Rumors are also flying about Olympic Champion @archeryargent (How good would she be with @dannymdance?!) and possibly a favorite reality TV mom?? Looking at you, @realhousemelissa.
Divine Moves Fansite @dmdanceblog OH WOW!! FIRST SAME-SEX COUPLE IN DIVINE MOVES HISTORY! Who could have predicted this?? Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski. What’s their team name, Divine Fans: #Derinski? #Stales? #Haleinski? #Sterek?
Samantha Burns @bisexualsam Representation Matters!! Thank you, @divinemovesdance I haven’t watched the show before, but I will this season!
Pamela Healy @pamela1973 @divinemovesdance Really? A same-sex couple? I don’t want that on my TV. My kids and I used to watch the show together, now we won’t be able to.
Will Always Will @waw2392 So, anyone else ticked off that they waste the first same-sex pairing on someone like Derek Hale?? Guy is a disaster. It’ll be our luck he’ll get kicked off the first week….AGAIN.
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“I can’t fucking do this, Derek!”
Stiles pushed away from Derek’s grasp after stumbling out of a hold they were practicing. Again. He was breathing hard, the sweat dripping off his temples into droplets on the floor.
It wasn’t the first time they had run through the intense program that Derek had developed, but after all the weeks of partnership, of dancing together and learning routines, at this point in the week, Stiles usually had at least the basics down. The last couple of days before the live show were for fine-tuning, but this week for some reason, Stiles was still having trouble getting even the basic positions down in this routine. His skin was sheened with sweat, his gray t-shirt (today emblazoned with ‘Fluent in movie quotes and sarcasm’) darkened in patches, proof that they’d run this routine through multiple times, to no avail.
Derek, for his part, was frustrated, too. This dance was the most important—they had made it to the finale performance, and the finale performances were worth twice the points. With only four couples left in the competition now, their dances would get more attention. They had to win over the fans of the dancers that had already been eliminated, and putting in a rough performance wouldn’t do anything to help their chances. Derek couldn’t believe it, but they had the chance to actually win Divine Moves. Take home the mirrored trophy and everything. Derek had never even come close before, and now, it was right there, within their grasp. He could practically taste it.
Apparently, Gerard Argent, the showrunner, recognized that they were close to winning, too. And given his personal feelings about Derek, it wasn’t a surprise that the dance that was chosen for them this week was specifically meant to bring about the maximum amount of drama possible. And it was about to break Stiles.
“The judges chose this dance on purpose. The fucking Argentine Tango? They want us—they want me—to be sexy? Are you kidding me?”
Derek roughed his hand down his face, the sweat dripping from his palm. “It’s the finale, Stiles. The whole purpose of this choice is to challenge us.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t a challenge. This is an impossibility. I’m not sexy. There’s no way I can do these moves you have choreographed. My stupid body doesn’t move like this, dude!” He looked down in disgust at the microphone attached to his shirt.
“You’ve been incredibly good at all of it so far, Stiles. This is just one more dance…”
But Stiles wouldn’t hear it. He was pacing now, his hands clenching and unclenching in front of him as he got more and more agitated. “Yeah, well it isn’t surprising that it’s all breaking down now. I can’t get the steps, I can’t get the stupid hold right, my timing’s all off. I just...I can’t fucking do it!”
At that, Stiles picked up his water bottle and threw it forcefully across the room into the wall— thankfully, not the mirrored one. It slammed off the concrete blocks, shockingly not bursting apart, coming to a halt next to the foot of one of the camera men, who cocked an eyebrow at the scene in front of him.
Derek eyed the cameras in the two corners of the room, a wary smile on his face. Gerard’s going to love this moment. Paint his favorite picture of the gay drama queen, melting down at the last minute. He loves his stereotypes, to hell with what Stiles is really like.
Derek hated it. America only saw one, maybe two minutes of the hours they spent perfecting each routine. One minute of the getting to know each other, of the sweat and the injuries and the tears. The editors took the best moments of drama, plastered it together, and presented it as some kind of picture of what Derek and Stiles were really like.
But it wasn’t.
One minute didn’t show anything.
Stiles had been working his ass off for weeks, months now. He had never been a drama queen—not even when he found out he was one half of Gerard’s Big Same-Sex Dance Experiment that was broadcasted on national primetime television every week. Any less-confident man would have walked out immediately, being played in that way. Stiles hadn’t been a drama queen when he found out that not only was he partnered with a male, he was paired with Derek, the “Bad Boy of the Ballroom” whose reputation was less than stellar on the dance floor (and even worse off of it). Stiles didn’t even pitch a fit when they threw him into sequined lycra and filled in his eyebrows on a weekly basis (though he did refuse to be put in the deep-v-necks that Derek was fond of. ”Let’s normalize same-sex dancing and wearing flannel in performances!” Stiles had said.).
Derek had watched all the taped packages the editors had come up with for them before every episode. He knew how they were being portrayed to the country. As if it wasn’t enough being the first same-sex couple, they were also being scrutinized every week for every little detail of every performance: the music, the costuming, the choreography. All of it told a story.
And what a story it had been. Stiles Stilinski, the openly bisexual head of Speak Out, the first LGBTQ production company in Hollywood; paired with Derek Hale, the possibly-gay Latin Dancesport champion of the ballroom and 9-time Divine Moves professional. Stiles, the outgoing, bitingly sarcastic, eager to laugh and gesticulating celebrity; with Derek, the scowling, sexy, eye-rolling, serious professional.
The LGBTQ community was loving the whole thing. The first episode of the season had debuted during Pride Month, and since then they had ridden “The Gay Wave,” as it was referred to (offensively, to be honest) in the media. They had equal amounts of love (from the gay and ally community) and hate (from seemingly everywhere else), and through it all, Stiles and Derek had to go out every week and just dance their asses off. The only way they could shut people up about “the same-sex thing” and focus on their actual dancing was to be good.
Even though Stiles had seemed to be a prime candidate for an early exit—he wasn’t an A-list celebrity, just a well-respected producer and businessman (his robotic pizza company was one of Fortune’s fastest-rising companies in America), and he seemed to have about eight limbs on a regular basis—he had actually done really, surprisingly well. They had put enough solid, consistent routines together in the first few weeks to make it through (it also helped that some of the contestants they had chosen this season had an impressive lack of coordination—Bobby Finstock, the Super Bowl-winning coach would go down as one of the worst celebrities in Divine Moves history, not just for his lack of rhythm, but because he yelled at the judges’ table during a live taping, saying they “were a bunch of pussy-livered sons of bitches” when Kira Yukimura, one of the judges, told him his footwork was off).
It wasn’t to say that Stiles and Derek didn’t have any issues.
Derek wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. “The Bad Boy of the Ballroom,” his unofficial nickname, was not without reason. His penchant for black leather and tight jeans withstanding, he also had Resting Bitch Face and a real frustration when it came to celebrities who were sandbagging him. Stiles seemed to think that he was in a perpetual bad mood, and had taken it as a reason to apparently try to weasel a smile out of him at any opportunity. Derek hated to admit it, but it had been relatively successful so far—Stiles was funny, though Derek would never tell him that, since Stiles would become insufferable.
What no one outside of his sister Cora knew was that his last girlfriend, Kate Bishop, née Kate Argent (Derek learned later that she used the stage name to hide her identity as Gerard’s daughter) had managed to completely bankrupt him in the time they had been together. He wasn’t even really sure how it happened, which was even more frustrating. No matter how he looked at it, it didn’t make sense. He had saved up good money from his time as a professional dancer—his wins in the Dancesport circuit, his own studio—but after being with her, all the money—and more heartbreakingly, his studio—were gone. He couldn’t even take the time to investigate it properly because she had sent bounty hunters after him and he had to scramble to find enough work to keep them at bay. What she had done to him had to be something illegal, he just didn’t have the time or the resources to figure it out.
Derek had hoped that Gerard was unaware of the whole thing, but when he had threatened to quit last season, the pointed “you need this show...you know it, and I know it” was enough to let Derek know that not only did Gerard know, he was also handcuffed to the show until he could figure out how to get out of it.
When Derek had been paired with Stiles, he was frustrated. Not just because of the same-sex thing, but because it was yet another pathetic partner that Gerard saddled him with, further ruining his dance reputation and ensuring that he’d never get out from under his debt, never get his studio back, never get past the memory of Kate. To make matters worse, Kate had been named the third judge on the show, ensuring that Derek and his partner would never get a fair shake. The blogs went crazy when the pairings were announced, and it seemed like no one had given him and Stiles a snowflake’s chance in hell of winning.
They were the first same-sex pairing in Divine Moves history. Representation on television had skyrocketed on cable networks for the last ten years, but on network television? And in something as gender-rigid as ballroom dancing? It felt like half of America had written them off before they even did their first dance, angry that the producers had even dared to put a same-sex couple on network TV in the first place. From the way some of them talked, you’d think Stiles and Derek were planning on having sex out on the dance floor in front of America every week. It didn’t matter that Stiles was in a relationship with a woman right now. The anti-LGBTQ army of fanatics latched on to the idea of the pairing and wouldn’t let it go. What was more frustrating was that Stiles and Derek got flack from within the LGBTQ community itself, with several particularly loud people on social media citing Stiles’ relationship with actress Caitlin Heather as proof that he was “invalid,” or “hiding his true gay identity,” or even worse—saying that “he was just using the attention to further his business ventures” (Derek had never seen Stiles get as angry as he did when an interviewer mentioned that one).
But, as vocal as the antis were at the beginning (including a “boycott” of the show from One Million Moms), over the course of the season they had been drowned out by the very vocal portion of the viewing public who was wildly in favor of the pairing, especially when they turned out to be decent together. What had started as just a few noisy supporters on Twitter was now a massive following, with #TeamSterek trending in the top ten in the US almost every episode. After last week’s playful Jive, they had stayed the #1 trending topic in the US for hours after the episode aired. Gerard was positively giddy, because all the controversy and chatter directly translated to a massive ratings upswing.
As in every season, support was split between the other contestants: The Howlers’ frontman Isaac Lahey; MMA fighter Theo Raeken; fashion designer Lydia Martin; Real Housewife of Beacon Hills Melissa McCall; her son Scott McCall, the celebrity dog trainer; boxing champion Liam Dunbar; Olympic biathlon champion Allison Argent; fighter pilot Mason Hewitt, soap opera star Erica Reyes, and controversial NRA President Braeden Tandy. The main competition had been from Allison, Scott, and Isaac, the other three celebrities in the finale, which Derek partly believed was because of their dancing ability, and partly because the editors had done a masterful job at creating a believable love triangle between the three of them.
Not that Gerard cared. If it worked and made him money, he stuck with it. It didn’t matter if social media called his programming “old” or “tired” or “baby boomer paradise—” if it brought in viewerships and advertising revenue, he kept it going. Divine Moves, once considered a surprising newcomer to the network, was in its ninth season, and the chatter prior to a new season had died down significantly. It was still consistently the highest-viewed program of the night, but the heyday of seasons two and three were gone, and Gerard had been chomping at the bit to make it a buzzable hit again. So when the media storms of #TeamSterek, Coach Finstock’s outburst in week one, and the Scott/Isaac/Allison triangle developed, Gerard sat back in his comfortable executive chair and just watched the dollars roll in with a smug look on his face.
Derek watched Stiles as he paced back and forth in front of the mirror, rubbing at his neck and muttering to himself. Derek found himself frustrated again, but for the first time it wasn’t directed at his celebrity partner. He was frustrated at himself now, at his inability to explain to Stiles how much he believed in him, in his ability to do the dance, and do it well.
Derek would be the first to admit he never thought that the two of them would work. He had never partnered with a guy before. There were nuances there that needed to be tread upon lightly. He didn’t want to make Stiles effeminate, he wanted him to look just as strong, just as much of a leader in the dance as he was. Not only that, but there was an entire world of same-sex dancing that they were suddenly representing, and the last thing Derek wanted to do was make it look like it wasn’t a viable option in partnering. It took some studying of some incredible same sex partners on YouTube to figure out the magic of double leading, and even longer to work through the concept of it with Stiles. But Stiles had made it work. He had picked up every lead, been strong and confident and talented, and Derek was...well. Derek was in his ninth season of Divine Moves. He had had all manner of partners—outrageous divas, people with no manageable dance skill whatsoever, people with some skill but the personality of a wet mop—but Stiles? Stiles was...different.
Oh, Stiles was irritating. And impulsive. And sometimes a real goddamned fucking menace. But he was also whip-smart, and playful, and pretty stinking beautiful, too. And on top of all of it, he had actual dancing skills. It has surprised Derek at first, because Stiles seemed to be all flailing limbs, but he had amazing rhythm, and his ability to memorize routines was incredible. Plus, once he warmed up, he was kind of freakishly flexible. They hadn’t really used that to their advantage in the routines so far, but this one was going to outshine them all.
Their first few dances on the show were mostly side-by-side: a cha-cha, a swing dance, a mambo, even the jive was more of an open-hold dance. Derek wondered if they were chosen by Gerard specifically so that America could be eased into watching a same-sex couple dancing together. Derek wouldn’t put it past the old man. He thought of every detail and how it would come across to the public. But the Argentine Tango? That was something completely different. It was the definition of a closed-hold dance, as well as an emotionally charged one.
Derek had never—in his 9 years of Divine Moves and the years of Dancesport competition before that—never been able to do the kind of routine he was planning for this Argentine Tango. He wasn’t a sexist person in the least, but the fact was he hadn’t had a female partner yet that could have pulled off the holds, the spins, and the lifts that they were going to attempt in this routine. It was really a dance with two leads—Stiles would be doing just as much of the work as he was, and Derek was practically buzzing with excitement about it—if he could get Stiles to believe in himself.
Derek had learned a lot about working with Stiles over the last couple of months. First, don’t let him have coffee after 4pm. Second, if you let the conversation veer off too far, the rabbit trails will lead into scary territory featuring circumcision and baby sacrifices. And finally, if you push Stiles to the breaking point, he’ll start to do really really well.
Which was why, in this moment when Stiles was completely frustrated and annoyed, discarded water bottle on the floor, Derek knew he could keep going.
“Stiles,” Derek said gently, getting him to turn around. His posture screamed frustration, but his eyes—Derek could see the fear in those eyes, the doubt that had plagued Stiles from the minute he entered the competition. Derek wanted to wrap Stiles up in his arms, but he wouldn’t...he couldn’t let himself get that close, or more rumors would follow them. They’d been nothing but professional in front of the cameras so far. In fact, compared to the what was going on in the other rehearsal rooms (Lydia and her professional dancer Aiden Steiner were particularly bad), Derek and Stiles had nearly been hands-off. It didn’t seem to matter too much—Twitter exploded over the merest eye-contact between the two of them at this point. He knew that the soft discussion the cameras were capturing right now were sure to get the virtual tongues wagging even more.
“What is the problem?” Derek asked as softly as possible, not wanting Stiles to think he was being accusatory in any way. “You’ve never been this frustrated before. What’s going on?”
Stiles moved a little closer to Derek, coming to stand directly in front of him. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits. He looked absolutely miserable, and Derek’s heart broke, watching Stiles shuffle in place, looking back and forth between the cameras and Derek’s face. Derek sighed. Whatever Stiles wanted to say, he wasn’t going to say in front of the cameras. It wasn’t the first time this had happened in the history of their partnership, but it was definitely the first time that Derek refused to let the issue go. There was no way they’d be able to work on their dance when there were things that Stiles needed to get out.
He put his hand on Stiles’ upper arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. Then he reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his phone, tapping the screen a few times. He looked up at Stiles, and grinned a little at the confusion drawn across his features.
“Uhh...Der? What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
“Hey now, you expressly told me that I’m not allowed to have my phone in here. And you’re telling me you’ve had your phone on you the whole time?”
“I’m not addicted to it like you are,” Derek smirked, turning his attention back to his phone.
Stiles sputtered. “I—I’m not addicted, Derek Hale. I’m a working professional. A very busy working professional, I might add!”
There was silence for a moment or two, as Derek continued to give the phone his attention. Derek could tell the moment that Stiles couldn’t handle not knowing what was going on (he threw up his hands and huffed), and it made him laugh internally. He was figuring out all of Stiles’ tells.
“Alright, fine. What are you doing?”
Derek smirked, keeping his eyes on his phone. “Well, I hear there’s this amazing app where you place a pizza order, and they cook it in the truck on the way to your location so it’s piping hot when it arrives.”
The humor was laced through Stiles’ tone. “Y’know, I think I’ve heard of that one.”
Derek smirked. “I heard the creator is surprisingly good at the Jive. So, I am using said app—” He looked up from the phone to look at the cameraman across the room. “—Stevie, you like mushrooms, right?—” He caught a surprised nod from across the room then turned his attention back to the phone. “—to get our lovely camera crew out of here.” He pressed one final red button on the screen, then put his phone back in his pocket, looking into the camera as he did it. “There. Okay, pizza will be here in 15, guys. Take off your mic, Stiles. And then all of you?” Derek pointed at each crew member in the room. “We’re going to need you out of here for...about 45 minutes after that, alright?”
The guy named Stevie slid the camera away from his eye. “But...Gerard will never—”
“—Ah, but who says Gerard is ever going to know?” Derek interrupted him, and took a couple of steps toward the camera, giving it—and the people behind it—his best intimidating look. It must have worked, because both cameras lowered quickly, the people holding them walking out of the studio space without a word, grabbing both Derek and Stiles’ mics as they passed. The guy named Stevie stopped at the door, though, and turned back to give Derek a look.
“You do know what we got so far, right?”
Derek sighed. Yes. He knew what the editors would have to work with. It wasn’t the prettiest: Stiles failing and yelling and throwing the water bottle, Derek watching helplessly. But making sure Stiles was okay right now was way more important than whether or not America thought Stiles was emotional and Derek was a douchebag. He nodded at the cameraman, who shrugged and left, closing the studio door behind him.
He took another deep breath before turning around to Stiles, whose mouth was open in surprise.
“What?” Derek asked.
Stiles shook his head briefly. “Nothing! I just...I’ve never seen your death glare in person, that’s all.”
“Well, consider yourself lucky. My last celebrity partner thought it was the only expression I had.”
Stiles grinned at that, but the expression left his face quickly as he remembered what they had been doing. He uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in the pockets of his shorts.
“So,” Derek said gently, gesturing to Stiles to sit with him against the wall, “you wanna tell me what’s going on?”
Stiles settled onto the floor, his back against the mirror. He grabbed for another bottle of water and took a few chugs before answering. “I’m just...I’m wondering if all of this is worth it anymore, Der.”
Derek rested his back against the mirror, his shoulder barely brushing Stiles’ next to him. His knees were pulled up to his chest, and he rested his forearms against them. “What do you mean?”
There was a long, slow inhale and exhale, and Derek waited patiently. Stiles usually thought through things a mile a minute. If it was taking him this long to gather his thoughts, it must be something big. No wonder he was having trouble dancing.
“I keep my ear to the ground when it comes to what people are saying about me. Most of it doesn’t bother me. After being in business almost ten years now, it’s really hard for anyone to say something I haven’t heard before, or to say something that really matters. People make fun of my clothes all the time, and my hair, and my stupid mannerisms. None of that—I just don’t care about any of it. I do my best to run my businesses with integrity, and give back, and keep my nose clean. All the stuff you have to do when everything you do is under scrutiny.”
Derek nodded. It made sense. Stiles was always pretty unfazed with what people thought of him; it was something about him that Derek admired. Stiles took another deep breath and continued, “But every week that we get further into this show I can’t keep ignoring what I’m hearing. The things about me: the questions about my bisexuality, the reports about Caitlin and I fighting, the threats against my company and what we stand for? That’s nothing new. But now? The threats and the comments...they’re about you. Rumors about your sexuality, and your relationship with Kate, and about...some financial stuff?”
Derek’s mind was swimming. People were talking about his money? How would they even know about any of that? Did Kate go public? He ran through their mutual acquaintances in his mind, making a mental list of who she would’ve told, who might sell him out to the paps, when he realized Stiles was looking over at him.
“Your face tells me everything I need to know, man. And look, I don’t need to know your business at all. I know Kate’s a piece of shit, and whatever happened could not possibly have been your fault. And I don’t care if you’re straight or gay or bi or whatever, and it isn’t my business either way. But I just...I can’t help but feel that if we win this competition… I just feel like it will ruin your life. That the shitstorm we’ve been weathering this whole season will come crashing down on your career. Is that stupidly overdramatic of me?”
Derek dropped his head between his knees. His voice bounced off the floor, muffled into his long legs. “Gerard’s been trying to destroy my career for years. I think it’s why he put us together this season. Probably thought that the backlash against our pairing would put the nail in my proverbial coffin.”
“Why is he trying to bury you?” Stiles asked gently. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me, really. Just...if you want to talk to someone…”
Derek sighed. He never thought he’d have to say this out loud to anyone. He had hoped to pay off the debts quietly and start his own business in his own quiet corner of the dance community. But of course Kate would shit all over that reality, too. The thought of saying anything filled him with embarrassment and made his gut clench with nerves. But Stiles was looking at him with such care. He wouldn’t hold this against him, would he? No, he trusted Stiles.
“Kate and I dated for almost a year. It was...really great at the beginning. She had some connections in the dance world, got me some key auditions… I was grateful to her for the help, and I don’t know, she thought I owed her, I guess? Anyway, she was mad that I was standing on my own two feet, or something. But she started being more controlling. Little things at first, like telling me not to go out at night, and firing my trainer and hiring one of hers that was ‘better.’ Then she stopped letting me see any of my female dance colleagues unless she was around. Me and my partner at the time used to rehearse at my studio, but all of a sudden every studio space was booked whenever we tried to practice. It’s one of the reasons she moved on to another partner. Kate had slowly taken over my business, at first doing things that really helped its organization and standing, telling me about all the systems she had set up at her own studios, but it wasn’t until it was too late that I realized she had effectively turned it into her studio with my name on the door.” Derek noticed Stiles’ raised eyebrows, and felt the need to explain. “It seems crazy that I didn’t see the signs and dump her right away, I know. But—I mean, you’ve seen her every week. She has this way about her. It was easy to fall under her spell. And then I was too deep in it that I didn’t feel like I could leave. My professional career started to slip, Cora was on the DanceSport circuit so I only heard from her occasionally, and I never saw Boyd.”
“But you guys are inseparable,” Stiles said
“Yeah, he’s really stepped up for me the last couple of years.”
Stiles looked down at his hands, gripping them together nervously. “So, what about the money?”
Derek’s focus turned to his lap. “No one knows about this, okay? I mean, Kate and Gerard are in on it, but...in my life…”
Stiles put a hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Hey, hey. You don’t have to tell me anything, okay? I just want to make sure you’re alright.”
Derek looked over and saw Stiles’ big brown eyes looking at him in earnest. The weeks of partnering had fostered an incredible physical trust with his partner, but it wasn’t just that. There was a stronger bond there—something more real. It was a little scary for Derek to process in depth, but...it was impossible to imagine Stiles betraying him.
“I—I was in my fifth season of Divine Moves, and she couldn’t control who I saw. Boyd helped me realize that nothing about our relationship was healthy. I finally got up the nerve to break it off with her, and I tried to take everything back, but my name wasn’t on the deed anymore, somehow. Then a couple of months later I started getting bills: studio improvements, back pay for employees I never hired, fines for non-appearances that I didn’t know I was scheduled for...and the worst, payments for a second mortgage on my studio and credit cards in my name. I tried to contest things, pay things out of my own pocket, but my savings were gone, too.”
“But...that’s gotta be illegal, Derek!”
Derek ran his hands through his hair, his frustration buzzing through his limbs. “I know...but the bounty hunters came after me so fast, and then Gerard threatened my removal from Divine Moves, and threatened to out that I’m bisexual...I mean, I’m fine with people knowing, but I want it to be on my terms and not a coercion. This show’s all I have left right now, Stiles. She ruined my reputation with DanceSport, with potential partners...I just…I don’t have anything left.”
Stiles sat up, away from the mirror, and turned to sit cross-legged facing Derek. His hand reached out again, resting it gently on Derek’s forearm.
“I believe you, okay? What happened to you is not your fault.”
“But I let her into my life, I let her in my house and..my business and...my bed...I just—”
“—Derek, no.” Stiles leaned in close, putting his other hand on Derek’s forearm. “She preyed on you. She manipulated you. That isn’t your fault. You had no reason to guess she would abuse your trust that way. It’s just...why haven’t you confronted her?”
“I’ve tried. It isn’t easy to confront her at the studio with so many cameras around, and she moved and changed her number. Gerard has also been stonewalling me. Plus, I wouldn’t put it past her to slap me with a restraining order or sue me for harassment or something.”
“Sounds just like her to do something so incredibly heinous to literally the last person on earth who deserves it.”
Derek stared into his partner’s eyes. Stiles looked so sure—so confident that Derek was innocent in the whole situation. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to be free of the self-flagellation that came from knowing you ushered in the thief that stole your whole life. If Stiles believed he wasn’t at fault...maybe he wasn’t? He felt a lump rise in his throat, his hand reaching over to cover Stiles’ long fingers, still wrapped around his arm. It was a sign of affection he had never dared to do when the cameras were around. “W—why do you believe me?”
Stiles’ eyes were locked onto where Derek’s hand covered his own. He wiggled his thumb out from under Derek’s palm, gently placing it atop the back of Derek’s hand. The simple gesture made Derek’s heart pound a little more erratically. “Because, Der, I know you. I’ve spent months with you, watching you work; I’ve seen how you are with the other pros, how you are with me. You’re kind and patient and trusting, an amazing teacher and unbelievably talented. You go out there every week, even with what Kate did to you, and you face her and her criticism and you’re never anything less than a professional about it. If it had been me, I would’ve jumped across the judges’ table and ripped out her throat with my teeth a long time ago.”
Derek chuckled. “Guess I’m glad it wasn’t you, then. It’d be hard to win this thing if you were rotting in a jail cell for attempted larynx removal.”
Stiles shrugged. “Eh. It’d be worth it.”
The pair of them sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments, neither of them moving. Stiles’ hand still enveloped Derek’s, his long thumb pressing lightly into the skin beneath his fingertips. Derek wondered if the same, swooping horde of butterflies that was in his stomach was matched by the man holding his hands. He didn’t want to move too quickly, speak and break the quiet of the moment. It was the first bit of calm that they had shared in one of these studio sessions, and Derek was thankful that the cameras hadn’t witnessed it. It definitely felt like something that was meant for just the two of them.
Derek looked up to see Stiles’ gaze fixed on their joined hands. He must have noticed Derek’s eyes on him, because he looked up, giving him small smile and squeezing Derek’s hand, before releasing his gentle grip. Derek tried not to let his disappointment in the action show.
Stiles turned back around and rested the back of his head against the mirrored glass. “I don’t know if I can pull off this dance, Derek.”
Derek started to raise his voice to protest, but Stiles lifted up his finger to silence him. “Look, I know you’ll argue with me. But...it’s like...God, I never thought we might actually win this thing. And the pressure is even greater now, and it feels like there’s just more and more hate on us. And...this routine? I can see it in my head, y’know? And it’s just...it’s so good.”
Derek flushed, raising his head slightly to peer over his elbow at Stiles. “Yeah?”
He nodded rapidly. “Like, whoa. And you should deliver this routine with someone that will get you the attention you deserve. Not with me, someone who is just going to get you more hate and negative attention and keep you under Kate’s thumb forever. You deser—”
“—Stiles, stop. I can’t do this routine with anyone else. Not just because of the lifts and the holds and the technical part of it—that’s the easy part.”
Stiles couldn’t help the snort that accompanied his look of incredulity. “You think lifting me at least three different times and the footwork and holds in this routine are easy?”
Derek grinned at that. “The technical part is easy because we’ve been doing it for weeks, and I know you can handle it. Your holds are strong, you’ve got amazing footwork for someone who’s never done this before; I have no doubt that you will simply dominate this routine technically. But the Argentine Tango also requires something more. And it’s something that I have never been able to pull off with any of my previous partners. It’s...it’s...”
“—My biting sarcastic wit, eh? My adorably ruffled good looks?”
Derek chuckled. Typical Stiles. Diffusing the tension with a well-timed quip. It was something that Derek really loved—er, liked—about Stiles. His ability to make Derek laugh. Derek hadn’t felt like laughing much over the last few years. But Stiles had him looser, more comfortable, more himself than he had been in a long time. It was too bad that Caitlin was in the picture, or Derek may have… But no, Stiles was his partner. His amazing, incredible partner. Derek looked into the brown eyes that seemed to hold onto his heart, and swallowed thickly over his nerves.
“It’s the emotional part of this routine where I really think you’ll shine. The parts where we have to show our connection with each other to the audience. The story of this Argentine Tango is about a forbidden passion between two people. We have to connect with each other through our hold and our footwork, but also through our hands and our eyes, the tilt of our heads and the slow-quick-slow-quick steps. The audience is going to read every emotion in this dance. And you’re the first partner I’ve had that can handle that kind of gravity in the story.” Derek didn’t add that Stiles was the first partner that he had that kind of emotional bond with. Derek felt the story of the dance was probably a bit on the nose for his feelings for Stiles, but It wasn’t his place to say anything. He was with someone. But Derek’s heart felt it, and he’d channel it into the dance, his own feelings be damned.
“Emotional, I can do. But Gerard specifically said he wants to “see some sex appeal” in our dance. Come on, Derek. He totally said that because I have zero ability to be sexy. I’m in the dictionary under skinny nugget, not sexy beast.” Stiles gestured to his ankles.
“Okay, stop it. Get up.” Derek pushed himself to his feet, and extended a hand to Stiles and pulling him up next to him.. He grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face the mirror. Stiles slumped at his own reflection, but Derek put his hand on the small of Stiles’ back, and pushed slightly to get Stiles to stand upright.
“Sex appeal is subjective. Different things are sexy to different people. Also, you’ll never understand your own sex appeal. People say I’m sexy, and all I see are eyebrows that are too thick, a beard that refuses to slow down, and these stupid front teeth that are a little too long.”
Stiles turned to eye Derek over his shoulder. “Aww, you don’t like your bunny teeth?”
Derek turned Stiles’s face back to the mirror with an eye roll and a chuf to the back of the head. “Anyway, sex appeal isn’t what this dance is about. This dance is about the art of seduction. Let me show you.”
Derek took a deep breath, and closed his eyes for a few moments. He let the character of the dance cloak him. It straightened his posture, it made his arms and fingers more fluid, it pointed his toes a bit more than was comfortable. He felt his hips loosen, his chest lift, his chin rise. He opened his eyes when he felt the character completely fill him. He heard quick inhale of breath from Stiles, and he turned his chin to look at his partner, who was watching their reflection in the mirror, wide-eyed. The hands that held Stiles in place were now loose, resting atop his shoulders gently. Derek pulled his left hand back to rest behind his hip, and as he stepped to the side, his right hand trailed across the wide band of Stiles’ shoulders, his middle finger just grazing the cotton of the gray shirt. Stiles turned his head to follow the line of Derek’s arm with his gaze, and when they finally locked eyes, Derek felt a sense of satisfaction at the shallow breaths he saw in his partner, the wide-eyed amazement at Derek’s slow and intentional movement. He stepped slowly and purposefully in a circle around Stiles, his eyes never wavering in their contact with his partner. When his hips brushed past Stiles, he pressed the pads of his feet more firmly into the ground, sending his hips in a purposeful roll. The hand trailing around Stiles’ shoulder slid across the chest now, Derek pleased to see the quick dart of Stiles’ tongue, the quick rise and fall of his chest. Derek’s hand traced down his partner’s right arm to just under his elbow, where, with a flick of his wrist, he flipped the loose-hanging arm into the air and caught Stiles’ hand in his own. Derek stepped in close, his right hip matching up with Stiles’ left, Derek’s free hand wrapping around Stiles’ waist and spanning his lower back. With a quick movement, he bent Stiles backward into a dip, supporting him with ease with his legs and his arms. Then, slowly and steadily, he raised Stiles back up and into his chest, their foreheads nearly touching.
Stiles’ eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted; Derek stared at them, feeling the pounding in his own chest. They had held each other this close in other dances, but this felt different in every single way. There was a buzzing beneath Derek’s palm where it was connected to Stiles’ own, a heat that was flowing up his arm and into his chest that had nothing to do with Stiles’ sweaty shirt.
“Holy shit,” Stiles breathed.
Derek flushed with pride at the reaction, and pulled back slightly. Stiles gripped his hand tighter into Derek’s. “No, dude. Don’t let go. I may fall over.”
Derek chuckled. “Wouldn’t want to do that.” Derek held him up for a moment or two, until Stiles shook his head and stepped back slightly, so they weren’t so close. Derek tried not to be disappointed by the space between them, but his heart yearned for the closeness even in the seconds they were apart.
Stiles released his grip and ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, dude. Seriously. That was insane. You, like, completely transformed in 3 seconds.”
Derek nodded. “Seduction is not about how you look or what you wear. It’s about eye contact. It’s about slow, deliberate movement. It’s about an awareness of your body that you allow to flow through your veins, and fill you up from the inside. Every other dance on this show you’ve performed for the audience. You’ve talked to them with your movement and your energy. You’ve seduced them for weeks, and they love you for it. For this dance, I want your body to talk to me, and me alone.”
Stiles stared briefly over Derek’s shoulder at himself in the mirror. Derek wondered if he had gone too far, scared Stiles off. They still had time, he could rework the routine, make it simpler. He’d do whatever he needed to do to make Stiles feel comfortable. He still believed that Stiles had all of the talent and ability to perform it, and perform it exquisitely. But he wouldn’t push Stiles if he wasn’t ready.
Derek was pulled from his thoughts by Stiles’ nod. He lowered his head slightly, biting his bottom lip for a moment before stepping forward, back into Derek’s space.
“Alright then. It’s a good thing I like talking to you.”
He lifted his arms into position, and Derek smiled a small smile as he accepted the invitation to talk.
*****************
Five hours later, Stevie exited the dance practice space carrying the large camera, his assistant and the other cameraman and assistant following close behind. He closed the door behind them and exhaled audibly. When he turned around, three pairs of expectant eyes were on him.
“I gotta call Gerard.”
The grumbly voice picked up on the second ring. “Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to have the Hale and Stilinski footage to me hours ago, Levine.”
Stevie winced at the tone in his ear, but he knew his words would soothe the old man. “Sir. We got it.”
“You’d better have it. I need my content before I die of old age.”
Stevie rolled his eyes, happy that they weren’t on a video call. “Yeah, I think you’ll be happy. The internet is going to explode over this one.”
*****************
Divine Moves Official @divinemovesdance Four couples remaining! Who will hold the mirrored trophy at the end? Scott McCall, Allison Argent, Isaac Lahey, or Stiles Stilinski?
Divine Moves Fansite @dmdanceblog Poll Question: Will Kate Bishop actually judge #Sterek fairly this week? Ha! We don’t even need a poll for that one. That girl has got the crazy eyes, and she is out for Derek’s blood. Hopefully their fans can make up for her low scores!
Arie saw Howlers 4x @all4isaac We gotta be ready to VOTE, #LaheysArmy!! Those Sterek fans are crazy, but Isaac has been so good so far this season!
Pop Crave @PopCrave Allison Argent and her partner Jordan Parrish seen out at Nobu this week with Scott McCall and dance partner Malia Tate.