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One leg bouncing, Stiles sat on the front steps of the high school before the first bell rang with his textbook on his lap and skimmed over the Chem chapter one last time. He knew Harris was going to give them a pop quiz. He knew it.
“Four,” said one of the girls at the top of the steps, and the rest of them laughed.
Stiles flipped the page and tried to pay more attention to the rules of covalent bonds than the memory of the evil gleam in Harris’s eyes yesterday, the even more evil than usual evil gleam.
“Three,” said another girl. “And seven.”
“Six,” a different one corrected.
Ionic bonds were next, and Stiles tapped the chewed eraser of his pencil against his mouth and moved his leg out of the way as a group of guys walked up the steps like they owned the place.
“Oh, eight,” a girl sighed.
There was a burst of breathless giggles. “Nine and a half.”
“He’d be a nine and a half if he weren’t so focused on Lydia,” another one commented archly.
Stiles looked up as Lydia’s name set off its usual sparks of recognition and resigned longing in his brain. She was nowhere to be seen, but he caught a familiar profile walking away: Jackson.
His attention was diverted by someone stumbling over his no longer outstretched foot. “Dude!” he said, shooting Greenberg a glare. “Not exactly invisible here.”
Greenberg didn’t reply as he kept walking up the steps.
“Five,” said one of the girls with a roll of her eyes in Greenberg’s direction, and oh. That’s what they were doing. They were rating the boys passing by.
And Greenberg was only a five, Stiles thought with more than a little smug delight. Though that was probably kind of charitable, honestly. He really rated as high as average?
“Hmm. Six,” said another.
“Greenberg?” asked a girl, her voice thick with disdain.
Right? thought Stiles.
“He’s on the lacrosse team.”
“So?”
“That makes him cooler by default.”
Stiles sat up straighter. Wait. He was on the lacrosse team, too. That made him cooler. That made him cool. He, Stiles Stilinski, was at least marginally cool. He sat up and puffed out his chest proudly. That was awesome. He might be sitting on the bench most of the time, but he still was on that bench.
“Would you think about dating him?” one of the girls asked.
“Ew, no. He’s Greenberg,” was the reply.
Stiles slid his book back into his backpack and slung the bag over his shoulder with a smile on his face. He might have a sadistic teacher about to give him a pop quiz, he might have a social life that consisted of way too little - i.e. no - kissing and way too much running away from and/or trying to vanquish scary monsters, but at least he was sort of cool.
Cool. Huh. He smiled to himself as he walked up the stairs, his head held high. He could get used to that. And maybe he should be trying harder to get a date with the girls in the school since they actually were impressed by guys being on the lacrosse team. It wasn’t like Lydia was going to be changing her mind any time soon, but he had options. He might have lots of options. Options who smelled nice and laughed at his jokes and might want to get a taste of his awesome Stilinski lips.
And then, from behind him, he heard a bored, “Four.” When he looked over to see who the poor guy was who only ranked a four he realized he was alone on the steps, and they had been talking about him.
Him.
“Hey!” he protested, but the knot of girls ignored him just like they always ignored him, just like Lydia always used to ignore him. It hurt, like he’d been punched right under his ribs. It wasn’t new, but it hurt.
And maybe he should be used to that, and maybe he shouldn’t care what a bunch of stupid girls thought when Lydia Martin, who was a million times more awesome than they would ever be, at least talked to him and liked him and cared about him even if she wasn’t flinging herself into his arms for manly comfort and tender nuzzling, but... but...
“Come on,” he sighed in their direction, his shoulders slumping before he turned around and headed in toward his locker, “Greenberg was a six.”
*
Stiles poked miserably at his slice of chocolate cream pie and watched the waitress flirt with Derek on the other side of the diner.
“Look at him. He doesn’t even know what he has,” Stiles said as she leaned in, flaunting her very impressive and probably not entirely natural chest right in front of Derek’s unfairly attractive face.
Derek wasn’t a four. Derek was a ten. No, with that face and with him getting that kind of attention, Derek was probably an eleven. And a half.
“Huh?” Scott asked around a huge mouthful of pecan pie.
Stiles gestured in Derek’s direction. “She’s pretty much seducing him with her ample bosom, and it’s like he doesn’t even notice. It probably happens so often that he doesn’t even care.”
Derek leaned back as the waitress edged closer, like he was trying to avoid contact, but then again he was in danger of getting her name badge in his eye. This was a problem Stiles would be very willing to have.
Scott shrugged. “He does get hit on a lot,” he said. “Like that lady at Home Depot the other day. And that other lady at the library. And that guy with the motorcycle at the pizza place.”
“I know, and he doesn’t even appreciate it,” Stiles said. “I would appreciate it. I mean, I don’t even require an ample bosom. I’d happily take a regular bosom or even a small but perky bosom.”
“You’re kind of freaking me out with the word bosom,” Scott muttered and took another bite of pie.
“What does he have that I don’t?” Scott made a choked, questioning noise around his mouthful of pie, and Stiles waved away the thought. “Okay, besides piercing eyes, and a glowering pretty-boy face, and seriously good hair, and perfectly distributed scruff, and a bad-ass leather jacket, and an unfair amount of muscles?” He sighed and slid down further in his seat, because yeah. Okay. Question answered.
“A car?” Scott suggested, not at all helpfully.
“I have a car!” Stiles pointed out of the diner’s window into the parking lot, where his Jeep sat in all of its glory.
“Not a good one. Not a cool one. You know what I mean.”
“My Jeep was good enough to get you here,” Stiles began, because it was a great Jeep, an awesome Jeep, a totally not nearly as sexy a car as Derek’s Camaro further down the lot Jeep and there was no way he could even argue about it, “oh my god, fine, you’re right.” He slumped down some more. His car wasn’t cool. He wasn’t cool. He was never going to be offered anybody’s bosom, ample or otherwise. He was destined to live the rest of his life bosom-free, and not even in the awesome two-dudes-no-bosoms-required kind of way, because it wasn’t like he was being offered that, either.
“Hey, are you going to finish that?” Scott asked, nodding at Stiles’ pie.
“No,” Stiles said, then grabbed for his plate, because seriously. Nothing was too upsetting for pie, not even the sad state of his social life. He had to keep his priorities straight. And his strength up, because quality moping required dedication and focus. “Yes. Yes, I am. I may be bosom-free, but I still have my taste buds.”
“Dude, really,” Scott said, “the bosom thing is creeping me out.”
Stiles watched the waitress sway ever so obviously right into Derek’s firmly muscled arm. Derek seemed to ignore the touch completely and just inched back out of her way, like it wasn’t awesome to be offered something like that on a virtual plate. Maybe - although Stiles couldn’t quite believe it could be true - you got used to it if you had people throwing yourself at you.
Not that he was ever destined to find out for himself.
Stiles sighed. “You and me both, buddy,” he said and went back to his pie.
*
The thing was, though, that it wasn’t like Stiles shouldn’t be cool. Sure, he was kind of a huge dork, and sure, he was probably too smart and definitely a little too uncoordinated for his own good, but he wasn’t, like, horribly ugly or socially inept or anything. Besides, smarts were good, and a little flailing never hurt anyone, well, usually except for himself. The point was that he was likable. He was on the lacrosse team. He sat with the popular kids at lunch, or at least more often than not they seemed to sit with Allison, which meant with Scott, which meant with him.
And he knew how to kick some serious werewolf ass, which was pretty damn cool if you asked him, which, of course, people didn’t.
He just needed to think about what was separating him from the cool guys, the ones who had girls and guys swooning when they walked by, and fix it. He could do that. He totally could. He just needed to figure out what that was.
Step one was, of course, to ask an expert. And he knew just who that was, the guy who embodied everything that was mellow and awesome, strong and silent, the guy everybody seemed to admire, the guy even Jackson thought was cool.
“Danny,” Stiles whispered, leaning forward over his desk in study hall.
Danny ignored him. Or maybe he didn’t hear him. Or maybe he was just being cool.
“Hey, Danny!” Stiles tried again, a little louder.
“What?” Danny whispered back out of the corner of his mouth.
“I have a question.”
Danny glanced up at the proctor, who was reading a newspaper at the front of the class. “Can’t it wait?”
“This is really important,” Stiles told him, leaning over his desk toward him even more.
Danny watched the proctor for a moment, then half-turned with his eyebrows raised. “What?”
“How can I be cool?” Stiles asked.
“You?”
Stiles nodded hopefully and sat back up to show off the raw material.
Danny’s eyes roved over him from his feet to the top of his head, he seemed to think for a moment, and then he said with a shrug, “Look, I like you, but I don’t think you ever can be.” And with that he turned back around in his chair to face his desk.
“But - “
“It’s just who you are, Stiles,” Danny said and focused on his work, refusing to look up again even when Stiles pelted him with tiny balls of notebook paper to try to get his attention.
Glaring at the back of Danny’s perfectly coiffed head, Stiles chewed thoughtfully on the cap of his pen. No. He couldn’t accept defeat so easily. Danny might be cooler than cool, but he didn’t know everything. It wasn’t that simple. He only saw what was in front of his face, and maybe he was suffering from the same lack of vision as everybody else in the school.
Stiles knew better, and he wasn’t going down without trying. There was no reason for everyone to see him as a four. There was no reason for nobody to give him a second glance as boyfriend material.
He was funny, he was smart, and he was determined. He was a freaking spark. He could do whatever he set his mind to.
And if he wanted to be cool, then he was going to be cool.
*
“But why would you want to be?” Scott asked when Stiles told him of his plan that afternoon.
“So people will want to date me?” Stiles said, spreading out his arms like it was obvious, because duh. “So people will like me?”
Scott frowned at him for a long moment, like he just didn’t understand. Maybe he didn’t, because he was the one with the hot girlfriend and the co-captaincy of the lacrosse team. He probably wasn’t the best person to help in this process, especially because until recently the two of them had been partners in uncoolness. Stiles probably needed to do this part on his own.
“I like you,” Scott offered, adding one of his dorky little smiles.
“Thanks, buddy,” Stiles said with a smile of his own, patting him on the shoulder and then reaching for the game controller. “I like you, too.”
He’d just have to find other people to help him in his quest.
*
“Lydia!” Stiles said, pulling a chair over and sitting down across from her in the coffee shop. He was thrilled to have seen her in the window when he was passing by; it saved him having to try to track her down later and risk her pretending not to be home. “Dear, beautiful, intelligent, utterly terrifying Lydia.”
She didn’t glance up from the glossy magazine she was flipping through. “I’m waiting for Jackson.”
“I need your help,” Stiles told her.
“You need way more help than I can give you,” Lydia said, but she stopped reading and looked up at him. “What?”
“I need you to help me learn how to be cool.”
She froze for a second, just stared at him, not even blinking, and then she said, “First of all, the idea of you being cool is laughable, but even if it weren’t - “ She held up one perfectly manicured finger to forestall the argument about to trip off of his tongue. “ - being cool isn’t something you can learn.”
Stiles sat forward. “But - “
“It’s something you either are or you aren’t,” she said.
“But I’m smart,” he protested. “If I could figure out those calculus proofs I’m sure I can figure out being cool.” He flung a hand out in dismay and very nearly hit a customer walking by. “Sorry.”
Lydia took a sip of her coffee. “Stiles,” she said, crossing one lovely leg over the other, “being cool is way harder than calculus.”
“But - “
“I know I make it look easy, but trust me. Oh!” She lifted her hand, all grace and poise, and smiled across the coffee shop to Jackson. “If you’ll excuse me.” She stood up, gathered her magazine, and left him alone with her abandoned cup.
Frustrated, Stiles leaned back in his chair and chewed on the inside of his lip for a minute. Hard? What in his life wasn’t hard? His best friend had been turned into a werewolf by a raving lunatic, there were hunters and crazy lizard creatures out to get them, and more supernatural creatures seemed to crawl out of the woodwork each week. You know, not to mention the fact that his mother was dead, he was lying to his father every single day, and he was in freaking high school, which sucked for everyone.
So what if being cool was hard? Stiles wasn’t afraid of hard.
He pushed up out of his chair and headed toward the door. He was going to eat hard for breakfast. He was going to make hard his bitch.
Or whatever. Some sort of thing like that that made sense. He’d figure out the wording later. Super cool heroic lines took time.
Or maybe they didn’t when you were cool, so yeah. If he waited until he was cool the line would just roll off his tongue and save him the time of trying to figure it out now.
See? His plan was shaping up already.
*
Stiles was well on his way to mastering a G major chord on his dad’s old guitar, thanks to the amazing wonder that was the internet, when he heard a pained noise coming from outside his window.
He looked over to find Derek crouched halfway inside, his face set in a horrible grimace.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Stiles asked, dropping the guitar with a clang and hurrying over.
“I’m fine,” Derek said. He clambered through the open window, brushing off Stiles’ helping hands.
“You look like you’re in pain. Did something attack you?”
“I’m fine,” Derek said again, but his expression was still tight in a different way than it usually was. “I came to talk about the amulet you were researching.”
Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. “If something attacked you, I’d really like to know about it now so we can get you patched up and not have to repeat the ‘my god, son, what is this large and unexpected blood stain on your bedspread?’ incident of last month.”
“I’m fine,” Derek said a third time, but this time he softened enough that Stiles had to believe him. He glanced over at the guitar and said slowly, “Learning to play?”
“I am!” Stiles replied with a happy nod. “And I’m really getting the hang of it!” The fingering was slow to figure out, but he had the strumming completely under control. He was a master strummer, already making beautiful, beautiful music. His fingers were hurting, but that was a small price to pay.
Derek’s nod was much less enthusiastic, and his jaw tensed a few times before he asked, “Do you need some help tuning it?”
Wait, what? “You mean it’s not already tuned?”
“Not even close,” Derek told him.
Stiles turned on the guitar, utterly betrayed. Out of tune? It had sounded fine to him! Which maybe didn’t mean anything, now that he considered it, because his piano teacher when he was little had said something to him about a tin ear, which at the time he’d thought was a Wizard of Oz reference.
“Really?” he asked Derek, resigning himself to the answer.
“Really,” Derek said.
Stiles sighed. How was he supposed to be the cool guy with the guitar if he couldn’t even tell that the guitar was out of tune?
He wasn’t. Obviously. New plan.
*
“No,” his father said, not even looking up from his paper.
“But the place on Elm is clean, and I’d pick out something tasteful and awesome,” Stiles said. Like a Dalek. Or the Enterprise. Or Andúril. Yeah, he’d totally look cool with Aragorn’s sword tattooed on his arm.
“No.” His father flipped to the next page.
“But - “
“Stiles, you are not yet eighteen, you cannot get a tattoo without your parent’s permission until you are, and as your parent I say no. So no.”
“But - “
His dad glanced up at him, and Stiles knew that look of warning all too well. It came right before lectures and ten tons of extra chores. “Do I need to make an appointment to get your hearing checked?”
“No,” Stiles said and dropped the subject.
He also decided he should probably get out of the house before his dad gave him those chores anyway, just for thinking about it.
*
“What are you doing?” Derek asked, plucking the cigarette out of Stiles’ mouth. “Are you an idiot?”
“No?” Stiles replied. He was proud that he hadn’t reeled back in shock from Derek a) suddenly appearing at his side out of nowhere at the dark side of the gas station convenience store and b) grabbing the cigarette from between his lips when he was just barely getting the hang of breathing with it hanging there. He knew it didn’t matter that he’d held himself together that much, though, because Derek could certainly hear the rapid-fire, panicked beat of his heart and see the flush he could feel creeping up his cheeks.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a yes,” Derek told him sharply. “Because this - “ He held up the cigarette in his hand before crushing it between his fingers. “ - is something only an idiot does.”
“It’s one cigarette. I wasn’t even inhaling!” Stiles had tried once, but then there’d been coughing and gagging, and he decided those went directly against the long-held Hollywood idea that cigarettes made you look cool. So he’d tried for a James Dean kind of dangle instead, which had worked until some creepy werewolf stalker guy had stolen it away from him.
Derek just glared at him. “You’re still breathing. Haven’t you heard of second-hand smoke?”
“I don’t think you can get that from your own cigarette,” Stiles said.
“No, then it’s called first-hand smoke.” Derek looked around at the shadowy corner and said, “What are you even doing here?”
“Hanging out?” Stiles shrugged over at Kev and Joe, two stoner guys he vaguely knew from school who’d offered him the cigarette to begin with when he’d stopped by to pick up a gallon of milk and some corn chips. They’d moved a few feet away when Derek had appeared and were watching with ill-disguised interest.
“With them?”
“What’s wrong with them?” Stiles asked.
Derek looked over at them through narrowed eyes. “Why aren’t you with Scott?”
“I can have other friends besides Scott,” Stiles said, not that Kev and Joe were friends, but still. He could have friends. He could have plenty of friends. People could like him! Who was Derek to judge his social life? “And what are you doing here?”
“Saving you from lung cancer, apparently,” Derek snarled, and it was his sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitude that just did it for Stiles. His mood went from freaked-out-from-being-caught-smoking-by-maybe-the-third-worst-person-after-his-dad-and-Scott’s-mother to angry. Derek of all people was going to lecture him about healthy habits? Derek the creeping creeper who lived in various burnt-out buildings without obvious access to running water or basic refrigeration?
“Right,” Stiles snapped right back, “because hanging around with you isn’t more hazardous to my health than one stupid cigarette. Do you know how many near-death situations I’ve been in since you came into my life? No? Well, neither do I, because there have been too many to count.”
“Stiles - “
“No,” Stiles said, pointing a finger at him. “No, you do not get to lecture me about my life choices. Not you.”
Derek stared at him, his expression absolutely flat, before he narrowed his eyes and said, “Suit yourself.” And then he turned around and walked away, vanishing into the night.
Stiles stood there looking after him, his chest heaving and his blood pumping like he was ready to get into a fight, only Derek had left. There was no fight to be had. And he knew he couldn’t just yell into the darkness, because even if Derek would still hear him Stiles knew it wouldn’t look cool at all to do so. He was filled with anger and frustration and couldn’t do a goddamn thing with them.
He wasn’t a rebel without a cause; he was a rebel without an outlet. It officially sucked.
“Wow,” Joe said, wandering over.
“That guy was cool,” Kev agreed.
Stiles considered it a point of personal growth that he didn’t go slam his head repeatedly into the brick wall of the building. Instead he went to Scott’s, because smoking was stupid. And Scott was pretty awesome.
*
‘Go big or go home’, that was Stiles’ motto.
Fine, his motto was more like ‘Walk softly and hope nobody notices you’re not carrying a big stick’, but this new one was going to work out better.
The thing was, even if Joe and Kev were totally wrong about the appeal of tobacco and the fun of doing something that would get him grounded for the rest of his life and well into the afterlife if his dad caught him, they were right about one thing: Derek was cool. Derek was super cool. And it wasn’t just the muscles and the face and the oh-so-gorgeous eyes and the werewolfly grace, though obviously those helped.
There was something more that made Derek cool, something that Stiles could copy. He’d made quite a study of Derek over the past months, after all, what with thinking he was out to kill everyone and stuff and then him appearing in his room more often than Stiles could have expected, and he could put it to good use.
He just had to do the things that Derek did, not all of them but some of them, and he’d be cool. Everyone would see it.
The most obvious thing to try first was the glare. It was subtle but distancing. Cool people were distant. They were aloof. They were judgmental.
Stiles practiced the glare in the mirror for one whole evening - directly, indirectly, under his lashes, over his shoulder - until he was sure he’d mastered it. He was awesome at it. He had an expressive face, after all. It was made for glaring.
The next morning before school when he and Scott sat out under one of the trees Stiles pulled out the glare and tried it on. He glared at Jackson, who ignored him. He glared at a group of girls, who ignored him. He glared at Harris, who glared back and then ignored him.
He glared at a freshman, whose eyes bugged out and face went pale before he scurried away.
Stiles was about to crow in triumph, because it was working, when Scott looked up from his math homework and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Stiles said happily. “Nothing is wrong!”
“I don’t know,” Scott said, screwing up his nose. “You look weird.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“No, I mean... Is something wrong with your face?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my face,” Stiles told him. He reached up a hand to touch his face, though, just in case. Two eyes, one nose, two cheeks, one mouth, all in the right places. Nope, nothing wrong that he could tell. He glared at another freshman walking by; she ignored him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Scott just peered at him and then went back to his work. “Maybe you need glasses.”
*
Stiles didn’t need glasses. That was dumb. He had twenty-twenty vision that was even better in situations of extreme panic or some guy trying to frag him on Halo. Not that there was better than twenty-twenty vision if you weren’t a werewolf, but still. His eyes were fine.
Still, Scott’s comment lingered with him all day, because what if he was seeing things the wrong way? If being cool was hard, according to Lydia, and something you were born with, then maybe it wasn’t a state of being but a state of mind. Maybe coolness was not how the world looked at you but how you looked at the world.
It became like a kind of Buddhist mantra in Stiles’ mind, the idea of how he was looking at the world making him cool. He needed a new view, a new perspective. That would help him on his quest.
When he got home from school, he sat cross-legged on his bed and tried to meditate. He breathed in slowly and then blew it out, trying to clear his mind of everything that wasn’t important. He pictured himself walking through the hallways at school, girls smiling at him, guys coming up to him, teachers giving him proud little thumbs up signs from their classroom doorways, Lydia offering him a cookie, lunch ladies giving him extra servings of tater tots, the vending machine by the gym spitting out an energy drink as he walked past...
“Okay, this isn’t working,” he muttered to himself and clambered to his feet.
After Stiles got a snack, he flopped on his bed with his head hanging upside-down over the side for a while to see if that gave him the perspective he needed. Then he went to lie on the couch. Then he went to lie down outside.
The clouds were really pretty today, he thought as he twirled a blade of grass between his fingers, but they brought him no closer to answers. Besides, it wasn’t like the clouds were going to think he was cool. They were just clouds.
Stiles stood up and brushed himself off, carefully dropping a ladybug that had crawled onto his shirt onto a bush at the edge of the yard. He’d gotten off track. He didn’t need to see the world like a Buddhist; he needed to see the world like a cool person. Not that Buddhists weren’t cool, but they weren’t exactly the top of the Beacon Hills High social ladder, as far as he knew.
Although Danny could totally be a Buddhist, actually.
“Nope, not the point,” Stiles muttered to himself. He swung his arms back and forth. “I need to be cool. Distant. Apart from everything. Like Derek.” He turned back toward the house. From the tree line it seemed smaller and less imposing. It seemed less important. It seemed like someone else’s home.
“Huh,” Stiles said and sidled a little bit behind a tree. It all seemed even more distant and separate like that. Sure, it was hard to see anything from back there, with the tree and leaves in the way, but he could understand why Derek would lurk around instead of just standing in the middle of things. It gave him a whole different perspective. It made him feel like an observer, above it all, better, smarter, not stuck in the middle of the drama but apart from it, a superior being watching the kids around him -
“Stiles?” his dad called out of the back door. His eagle eyes - darn that great Stilinski vision - landed immediately on Stiles standing in the border. “What are you doing out there?”
Stiles made a show of leaning against the very nice tree he was totally not lurking behind like a creeper. He patted its sturdy trunk. “Just, uh, checking the trees. You know, for, um... worms?” He grimaced. Did trees get worms? No, that was dogs, fuck. Trees got moths or ants or something.
“Okay,” his dad said slowly. “Well, it’s dinner time now, so come on in. And make sure you wash your hands really well before we eat.”
“Sure, dad,” Stiles said with a sigh and stumbled out onto the lawn. He dared anyone to look cool when his dad was lecturing him about personal hygiene.
*
So yeah, that had been another dumb idea, the perspective thing. Coolness was totally about how other people saw you. He just had to figure out what that was.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Stiles asked Allison at lunch when Scott had scampered off to get her some ketchup like the good puppy-slash-boyfriend he was.
“Um?” She tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “I see Stiles.”
“Okay.” He gestured with a french fry for her to elaborate.
“You know.” She gestured back, far less eloquently. “You’re Stiles.”
“Okay,” he said again, this time with more frustration. His heel began tapping on the ground beneath his seat. “And what do you see when you look at me?”
Allison raised her eyebrows and said, “I don’t know. Your smile?”
His smile. Bingo!
“Bingo,” Stiles said, jamming a couple of fries into his mouth. “Thank you.”
Because, yes. He smiled. A lot. Because he was happy a lot, or at least contented enough to pass for happy if he didn’t think about it too much, and that was good. That was great. Being happy was awesome, actually. But cool people weren’t happy, or if they were they never showed it.
Although most of the cool people he knew didn’t ever seem happy. Jackson, Lydia, Derek.
Especially Derek.
So he’d just have to stop smiling so much to look cool. Right. That would be easy. He started by only raising his water in greeting when Scott came back. See? Totally easy.
Given that Harris gave them another hellish pop quiz right after lunch, it was actually very easy.
But then there was lacrosse practice, and that was harder, because Scott was still there - friendly, dopey, best buddy Scott - who kept shooting Stiles worried looks during Finstock’s motivational speech about toe fungus and the showers, because Stiles was working very, very hard to keep a straight face as he leaned against the lockers, no matter how many times Finstock said the words ‘toe jam’. It required a lot of chewing on the inside of his cheek and the occasional recitation of elements of the period table (fuck you, Harris).
“Are you okay?” Scott leaned over and asked worriedly when the lecture was over.
“This is torture,” Stiles replied with feeling, because toe jam. There were so many jokes. And also his cheek hurt. He rubbed it with his fingertips and reached for his helmet.
“But - “
Stiles just barely stopped himself from smiling his reassurance at Scott. “I’m fine, dude,” he said instead, patting him on the arm.
“Stilinski!” Finstock called from the doorway.
Stiles swung around, raising his eyebrows in reply.
“What’s wrong with your face?” Finstock asked.
“What?”
“Seriously.” Finstock pointed at him and made a little circle with his hand, like Stiles might not know what or where his face was. “You look weird. You should get that looked at.”
“I knew it wasn’t just me,” Scott muttered.
“Oh my god,” Stiles said and thumped his head into his locker. This was never going to work.
*
Okay, so he couldn’t control his emotions. He’d have to work on some more exterior changes to sway how people perceived him. He’d have to change what they associated him with. He was going to have to say goodbye to his most dependable friend in the world, and it was going to hurt.
“It’s not you; it’s me,” Stiles said, and his voice caught in his throat, because this was hard. He had to look away; he couldn’t bear the sadness.
“No, really. You’ve been a great friend,” he said. “You’ve been by my side for years, in good times and in bad. You’ve never judged me. You’ve never let me down. You’ve seen me laugh. You’ve seen me cry. You’ve seen me at my best and at my worst. Ours is a history built on good music and even better take out and lazy afternoons just the two of us doing our thing.
“We have a lot of good memories, you and me, but now... now I’m growing up, I’m trying to be someone different, and I think it’s time to say goodbye.”
His hands shaking, he squeezed his eyes shut and reached out for one last hug.
“I always knew you were desperate, Stiles, but are you molesting your car?” Jackson asked, walking by Stiles in the school parking lot.
Stiles squinted open one eye from where he was hugging his Jeep’s sun-warmed fender and said, “I’m contemplating making a horrible sacrifice for a greater good.” The greater good, being, of course, his coolness, which would have to soar if he got a stupid but awesome muscle car like Derek had.
“Okay, freak.”
Stiles closed his eyes again and hugged his beloved Jeep once more. “You wouldn’t understand. This is a private moment.”
*
In the end, of course, Stiles couldn’t do it. For one, he couldn’t afford a new car, but even more he was a loyal friend. He couldn’t change who he was underneath; all he could change was the exterior. Like a leopard changing his spots or an emperor changing his -
Huh.
Stiles stopped throwing pine cones at the gate to the Preserve while waiting for Scott and Isaac to arrive and looked over from his seat on the hood of his Jeep to Derek sitting next to him.
“Hey, can I borrow your leather jacket?” Stiles asked.
Derek glanced up from frowning at the woods and instead frowned at him. “Are you cold?”
“No. I’m good. It’s a nice night. I just want to borrow your jacket.”
“You can’t borrow my jacket.” Derek hunched his shoulders, his eyes narrowing.
“Aw, come on. Just for a week until I see if I like it.”
“Until you see if you like it?”
“Then just for one day,” Stiles said.
“You can’t borrow my jacket, Stiles,” Derek said firmly.
Even Stiles knew that tone of voice meant there was no point in asking again. He kicked his feet against the bumper and threw another pine cone at the gate.
“For five minutes?” he asked.
“No,” Derek told him.
*
“I don’t even need a leather jacket,” Stiles told his reflection in the mirror the next Monday morning. “Because I have this. And this is awesome.”
‘This’ was a smaller but even more organic outward change to his image that proved that he could be just as cool as Derek Hale. ‘This’ was a sure-fire bad-ass game-changing display of his awesomeness. ‘This’ was going to get him all of the right attention.
‘This’ was just the right amount of fine, dark scruff on his cheeks and lip from not having shaved for six days in a row. (Not that he usually shaved every day, but whatever. He hadn’t shaved for almost a week, and now he had manly scruff. It had only taken pretending to be sick over the weekend to keep his friends from seeing it before it was ready.)
“Look out, ladies and gentlemen of Beacon Hills High,” he said and sauntered back to his room to get dressed.
He pulled into the parking lot at school a few minutes early and parked beside Lydia. He swung his backpack onto his shoulder with panache and sauntered in her direction. (Sauntering was important. It was strolling for cool people. He was really getting the hang of it.)
“Did you hurt yourself or something?” Lydia asked as he joined her, and then she got a good look at him. Her beautiful eyes widened in shock. “What’s wrong with your face?”
“What?” Stiles rubbed his fingers over his mouth before he caught himself, because no, his face was fine, he would notice if something had happened to it, even in this freaky town.
She leaned forward and peered at him for a moment before pulling back in disgust. “Did you roll in the dirt this morning or something?”
“What?”
“Oh.” Lydia’s disgust turned into amusement. “You grew that.”
Stiles bounced up on his toes, because she finally got it! He was cool and manly, and she was seeing him do cool and manly things like grow stubble. “I did!”
She let out an arch little laugh and adjusted her books in her grip. “I wouldn’t sound so proud of that if I were you.”
“But - “
“You really should take a good look at your face,” she said. “And then do something about it.” She walked off without a goodbye.
Stiles threw his hands up in the air and cried to no one in particular, “Why does everyone think there’s something wrong with my face?!”
*
Glaring hadn’t worked. Not smiling hadn’t worked. Lurking hadn’t worked. Growing stubble hadn’t worked. He was still as uncool as ever, only his friends seemed to be giving him weird glances all of the time.
Stiles had to do something different, totally different, something that set him apart as mysterious and special, like Derek was. Of course, Derek was also older, and hot, and a freaking Alpha werewolf, but Stiles could cultivate an air of mystery and danger.
Better than he could cultivate facial hair, anyway.
Because, damn it, he was cool person material. He was sure of it. He was still awesome. Or great, anyway. He was still smart and funny and caring. Sure, he might not have all that Derek had in terms of looks and muscles and strength and agility and flexibility and raw, animal magnetism...
You know, Stiles thought as he leaned back on the steps of the Hale house with his legs sprawled out in front of him, maybe the best place for this internal conversation wasn’t while Derek was helping the other werewolves train, which mostly consisted of them rolling around and grabbing each other’s really impressive bodies without wearing their shirts.
Stiles took a sip from his water bottle. Was it suddenly getting warm outside? Even though it was sunset?
Anyway, his new plan was to look the same, because it wasn’t like he was really going to be anything other than gangly no matter what he wore or grew, but to be silent. Because silent was mysterious. Silent was brooding. Silent was -
Scott ran at Derek with a roar and was brought down with a neat side-step and an outstretched foot. Scott flipped over and fell to the ground on his back, staring up at the sky in obvious surprise.
It was so perfectly simple and human that the Three Stooges could have done it. Stiles could have done it. He wanted to crow and laugh and point.
Instead he took another drink of his water and pressed his lips tightly together, even when Scott reached up to take Derek’s hand and, instead of getting up, yanked a shocked Derek down onto the ground beside him.
It was like Bad Movie Fighting 101. You never take your opponent’s hand like that. It was an excellent reason for a little friendly mocking.
Except he couldn’t.
Wow, he realized as he flexed his hand around his water bottle in a frustrated crunch-crunch-crunch motion, being silent was really, really hard.
“I’d rather be running than doing all of this stupid wrestling stuff,” Jackson said from where he was standing watching the two of them get up.
Brave Sir Jackson ran away, Stiles sang inside of his head, his fingers tapping the beat on the worn wooden step. Bravely ran away away.
“We do lots of running for lacrosse, though,” Scott said to Jackson.
“Maybe we need an obstacle course,” Isaac said. “To hone our reflexes.”
Right, Stiles thought, because it’s the supernatural creatures with already awesome reflexes, pointy claws, and fast healing who should be training to get away faster. And does it really matter? Like that joke about the campers and the bear, they don’t have to outrun the monster for it not to catch them; they just have to run faster than me.
“Oh! Good idea!” Scott said with one of his bright, excited smiles. He grabbed a bottle of water and opened the cap. “Like, we could jump over fallen trees and stuff.”
Rolling his eyes, Stiles fingers flexed around his own bottle again. Because those fallen trees were their most wily and dangerous enemies.
“Or we could rig things to swing at us, like logs?” Scott continued, warming to the topic. “And boulders to come after us like in that Indiana Jones movie. I don’t remember which one, but you know what I mean.”
Stiles just stared at him. It actually sounded kind of fun if you weren’t in actual danger of getting squashed, but obviously that was from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“Temple of Doom?” Isaac suggested.
Scott scratched his head as Stiles widened his eyes in disgust and disbelief.
Jackson made a noise of agreement. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
Stiles flung out hand in frustration. First of all, Temple of Doom was a stupid, racist, abomination of a movie, and no sane person would ever think of that first when they were listing Indiana Jones movies. Secondly - and more importantly - the giant boulder was in Raiders of the Lost Ark! It was a classic.
“That’s a good one,” Isaac said.
No. No, it was not a good movie! Stiles bounced his heel against the tread of the step and chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep the words from bursting out.
“And maybe something could throw knives at us, too?” Scott said.
Stiles leaned forward, barely able to keep from springing off of the stairs.
“We aren’t doing any of that,” Derek bit out, brushing off his hands and looking surprisingly tidy for having been rolling around on the ground. He glanced at Stiles for a moment before turning back to Scott. “And the boulder was Raiders of the Lost Ark.” He sounded annoyed, but for good reason, because hello. Totally different movies. And also no sane person or werewolf was going to trust Scott - or any of them - with knives.
Stiles slumped back on the step in relief that it wasn’t just him who knew these things.
“But - “ Scott began.
“No,” Derek said, and that was that.
Later, when happy fun werewolf fighting time was over and Isaac and Scott were arguing less happily over who had to go get the pizza, Derek stopped on his way up the steps.
“You okay?” he asked Stiles, his eyes sharp on Stiles’ face.
Stiles waved a silent hand to say never better, even though it was far from the truth, but could werewolves tell you were lying if you weren’t talking?
The answer was apparently no, because Derek just frowned at him for a minute.
“If I have to go then you can’t order anything with anchovies,” Isaac said to Scott.
“What’s wrong with anchovies?” Scott asked.
“You sure?” Derek asked Stiles.
Stiles shrugged his reply.
“Everything is wrong with anchovies,” Isaac said more loudly. “And it doesn’t matter, because I won tonight.”
“Are you sick?” Derek said, still watching Stiles intently.
Stiles shook his head, and Derek frowned a little more, looked out at Isaac and Scott with a sigh, and then went inside.
Scott’s voice ratcheted up another notch. “I don’t care if I have a car; I definitely got an extra point because of the backflip!”
“Anybody can do a backflip,” Isaac said with a roll of his eyes. He demonstrated, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
It was very, very cool.
“Yeah? Well, I can do three backflips in a row,” Scott said.
“I can do five - “ started Isaac, and that was it. That was it.
“Oh my god, dudes, shut up already!” Stiles snapped and pushed himself off of the step. “I will go get the pizza myself.”
No wonder Derek always looked so grumpy, he thought as he stalked to his Jeep, if that’s the kind of thing he had to listen to by being silent.
*
If he couldn’t be silent, then maybe Stiles could be a leader. He could be decisive. He was good at that. He was good at looking at situations and trying to fix them. He was good at coming up with solutions when they were in the thick of problems. He was good at yelling at people and telling them what to do.
And cool people told other people what to do, so here was an obvious solution that played right to his strengths. Stiles was a natural.
“No spring rolls,” he told Scott when they got Chinese food on Thursday. “Chicken wings.” And they got chicken wings.
“I want to watch a movie,” he said on video game night on Friday, and they all watched Iron Man 2 instead of playing Mario Kart.
He turned toward the ice cream stand instead of the burger place after their night lacrosse practice on Sunday, and he smiled to himself when the scooper handed him his big double chocolate cone. This being a leader thing was awesome.
“Stiles, what’s going on?” Scott said, trailing him back to the car with his own cone in his hand and his brow furrowed in confusion.
“We’re having ice cream,” Stiles told him. He gestured with his tasty dessert.
“But we always have burgers after late practice.”
Stiles shrugged. “I wanted ice cream.” He licked his cone. Mmm, chocolatey and delicious. He was full of good ideas.
“I thought we were having burgers.”
“I wanted ice cream. And thus - ” Stiles waved his hand at the parking lot. “ - ice cream.”
“But... I mean, I like ice cream, but you didn’t even ask,” Scott said. His brow furrowed further, making his nose wrinkle up in that way it did. Stiles wasn’t used to seeing it directed at him, at least not when studying for Chemistry wasn’t involved.
Stiles felt a pang of guilt, because he hadn’t asked. But leaders didn’t. Leaders just led, all the way to the ice cream stand. “I was being decisive.”
“Decisive?” Scott looked even more confused, and Stiles wasn’t sure if it was because of the vocabulary word or the concept.
“A leader,” Stiles explained and leaned back against the fender of his Jeep. “Like Derek, or Jackson, or Lydia. They don’t ask; they just lead. Because they’re cool.”
A light flipped on in Scott’s eyes, but it wasn’t a happy light. He clenched his jaw and looked out over the parking lot to where Lydia and Jackson were walking up to the window. Clearly all cool people wanted ice cream. “You’re still trying to be cool like Derek or Jackson?”
Stiles nodded. Duh.
“They aren’t being cool when they do that, Stiles,” Scott said with frustration and hurt clear in his eyes. “They’re just being dicks.”
“Hey - “ Stiles began, his chest seizing around his falling heart, but Scott just walked away. He obviously heard, but he didn’t stop or turn back. “Scott - “ Even though Allison had appeared at Lydia’s side, Stiles was pretty sure for once she had nothing to do with Scott leaving.
Stiles slumped back against his car and watched his best friend leave him behind.
Being cool would be awesome. It would be amazing. It would change his life and make it better, make him feel less like a stupid, fragile, lonely guy hanging around gorgeous humans and supernatural creatures and more like a guy people liked on his own merits. It would make him feel less isolated, less left behind, and more wanted. It would ease a lot of the holes in his heart that never seemed to be filled.
He’d give up a lot for that. He’d give up his sense of style. He’d give up his sense of humor, at least some of it.
He’d even give up his Jeep.
But he’d never give up Scott. He’d never, ever give up his friend. Because that was giving up his heart entirely.
“Screw being cool,” Stiles said and pushed away from his Jeep.
The movement made the top scoop of ice cream slide off of his cone and fall with a wet plop at his feet.
“Yeah, that’s about right,” he said to himself. He scrubbed a hand over his head and laughed, because who was he kidding? “I’m never going to be cool. I never even had a chance.”
He was still laughing when he set off across the parking lot to join his friends. It felt really good.
*
“Ah, I think you have something on your nose,” Scott said, dabbing his cone on the end of Allison’s nose and leaving a little blob of ice cream behind.
Stiles gagged to himself over his own ice cream, because a) ew, noses were not hygienic, come on and b) it was so cute that it was sickening.
“Are you okay?” Derek asked, and Stiles jerked in surprise in his seat at the picnic table and nearly lost the rest of his cone in the process.
“What?” he asked Derek when he was sure he had control of his limbs and his delicious dessert. Or as much as he ever was going to, anyway.
“Are you okay?” Derek was standing there next to him, one hand in the pocket of his jacket and the other holding a single scoop cone of what looked like mint chip. Stiles wasn’t sure how he was doing it, but he even made holding an ice cream cone look manly.
“I’m fine, now that I’m not having a heart attack from being startled,” Stiles told him.
“You haven’t been okay,” Derek said. “Something about you has been off. You’ve been acting weird.” There was an infinitesimal pause, but Stiles expected it and wasn’t really offended. “Weirder.”
“I’m fine,” Stiles said again, waving away the concern with his free hand even as his brain boggled at the idea of the concern coming from Derek at all. “I’ve been trying to be cool. Don’t worry. I’m over it.”
Derek’s strong and masculine brow furrowed into something even stronger and more masculine. “Why?”
“Because it wasn’t working.” Stiles licked at a drip of ice cream that was working its way down his wrist. See? There was no way he was ever going to be cool.
Derek made a strange, strangled sound. His cone, of course, was behaving properly and not melting down his hand.
“You okay, big guy?” Stiles asked, chasing the drip with his tongue.
Derek stared at Stiles wrist, then shook his head like he was clearing it and walked away.
“Good talk,” Stiles called after him. “Glad to see everything’s back to normal.”
*
“I meant why were you trying to be cool,” Derek said later that night.
“Gyah!” Stiles cried, flung out his arms for balance, and promptly fell off of his bed where he’d been catching up on The Colbert Report on his laptop. He hit the ground on his shoulder with a hard thump but somehow managed to save his computer. He levered himself up on an elbow and glared at Derek. “And hello to you, too.”
“Before,” Derek said, standing by the window he had just silently entered through and watching Stiles climb back up on his bed. “I meant why were you trying to be cool. Not why you stopped.”
Stiles crossed his legs - criss cross applesauce, the part of his mind that was still five whispered - and set his laptop safely out of the way. “I wanted people to like me,” he made himself say, because there was no point in lying to a werewolf.
Derek’s frown grew. “People like you.”
“Scott likes me,” Stiles said. He shrugged.
“People like you,” Derek said again, taking a step toward him.
Stiles could see in the stubborn light in Derek’s - gorgeous, intense, very cool - eyes that he’d have to spell it all out if he wanted this conversation to be over. “I wanted more people to like me, okay? More of them. In new and different and probably relationship-related ways.”
Derek’s jaw worked for a moment, clenching and releasing, and then he said, “If you’re cool, people don’t like you. They fear you.”
Stiles shrugged; Derek was probably right, but it wasn’t like he was going to admit it. “I’d take that at this point over people laughing at me. You know, the bad kind of laughing.”
“Stiles.” Derek paused again, his gaze darting around the room as he sighed. After a moment, he focused back on him. “You’re never going to be cool.”
“Thanks,” Stiles said dryly, his heart plummeting into his feet because yeah, he knew that, but it wasn’t like he really needed to hear it, thanks. He pushed off of the bed and walked over to put his computer on his desk. “You’re a great friend. Nice pep talk.”
“I mean that in a positive way,” Derek told him as Stiles turned back around. “You’re too nice. You think about other people. You care.” He took another step closer, and another, coming to stand right in front of him. “You’re not cool; you’re good.”
Stiles shook his head, trying to remember how to breathe. “I’m just me.”
“Exactly.” Derek hesitated for a long moment, his fingers flexing at his side, and then he put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. His warm, strong hand. On Stiles’ shoulder.
Stiles stared at it, then up at Derek’s face, in utter disbelief. “What?”
“Don’t change,” Derek said softly, almost desperately, like this was something he needed. Derek, who never needed anything besides some quick and dirty research or a new shirt when the old one was shredded.. “Please. You’re better the way you are.”
Stiles stared at him some more. He knew what the words meant, but he didn’t understand them. “You don’t want me to change.”
“I don’t.”
“And you think I’m good.”
“I do.”
“Because - “ Stiles’ brain, which had been stuck in the off position for a few seconds, came online and spun frantically, making up for the lost time. “Oh,” he said as an imaginary light bulb turned on above his head. “Because you like me.”
Derek’s expression went pinched, but he nodded.
“You actually like me. All of the glaring and the staring and the lecturing about health hazards and the showing up at my window and giving me a heart attack, that’s because you like me,” Stiles said as he figured it out. It was a wild realization. “And you didn’t like it when I wasn’t being myself.”
“Stiles,” Derek said, like maybe he was regretting saying anything, but he didn’t move away.
“You like me just the way I am,” Stiles continued, his mouth going and going the way it did when he was getting frantic or had had too much sugar or apparently if he was in close proximity to a really hot guy saying super nice things about him, and yeah, he was never going to be cool, there was no chance in hell. “Just like Mister Rogers.”
“Stiles - “
“I mean, yeah, that guy was a genius, right? Did you know he was the one who wrote all of his songs? Sure, they were cheesy, but they’re for kids.”
“Stiles - “
“Kids get that there’s real heart beneath, real and true and honest and maybe a little cheesy but - “
Derek moved forward in a flash - a masterful, truly cool flash - and pulled Stiles against him, against his very hard and very strong and very muscular and very, very appealing body. It was like being pushed against a wall, a move with which Stiles was very familiar, except that the wall was alive and breathing and rippling with muscles and smelled really good and -
“Oh my god,” Stiles breathed as Derek’s mouth hovered just beyond his, because suddenly this was something entirely different than he thought it was, which was a bro-cheering-up-bro thing from an unexpected source. “So, uh, I don’t have game. I have no game. I have, like, the antithesis of game, whatever that is. Work? In the grand scheme of game-having, I have something entirely un-game-related like work. You know that, right?”
The corner of Derek’s mouth lifted, and something in his eyes warmed. “I’ve figured that out, yes.”
“Okay, good.” Stiles found that actually kind of reassuring. Derek did know him. Stiles didn’t have to cover up any of his utter surprise at this situation, because a) Derek knew him and b) Derek would be able to hear the thundering beat of his heart, anyway. Stiles could just be himself. In fact, he had to be, which was pretty awesome. And Derek liked it. Which was even more awesome. “Bear with me, but I’d kind of like to clarify what’s going on here.”
“Sure,” Derek said, almost conversationally, like he wasn’t holding Stiles against him (and also holding Stiles up in general) with two firm hands on his biceps. But then Derek was cool like that. Derek was cool in many, many ways.
“So when you say you like me you don’t just like me. You like me.”
“Yes,” Derek said, quiet but sure.
Stiles laughed, because what? And also yes.
But maybe Derek wasn’t as good at reading him as either of them thought, because at Stiles’ nervous burst of laughter Derek’s face froze, his grip started to loosen, and he shifted his weight like he was going to move away.
Stiles’ yes became a hell, no, and he flung his arms around Derek’s neck and kissed the hell out of him before he could think about it. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose, like his reputation, and if he didn’t go for it - and make things perfectly clear - he might lose the opportunity to do it at all.
There were a few tense seconds where the kiss was all misaligned mouths and bumping noses, because Stiles really shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of these things his first time out, no matter how fast a learner he was, but then, finally, Derek kissed him back, hot and wet and with more than a hint of scruff, and by the time they came up for air they were both breathing hard where they stood plastered against each other.
“Wow,” Stiles choked out. “Okay. Wow.” He watched Derek’s mouth turn up into a small but charming smile and felt his heart flutter in response. “I seriously hope that isn’t how Mister Rogers liked me, otherwise a beloved memory of my childhood has just been ruined forever.”
Derek’s smile didn’t disappear, but his eyebrows raised in judgement. “Why are you talking about Mister Rogers?” he asked and leaned in to drag his lips along the corner of Stiles’ mouth.
Stiles suddenly had to concentrate to keep his legs working well enough to hold him upright. “I have no idea,” he said weakly and kissed Derek again.
Sometime later, when they were settling onto Stiles’ bed - fully clothed, thank you, even if Stiles’ face was feeling the effects of beard-burn - theoretically to watch a movie until the sheriff came home, Stiles looked up from fiddling with his laptop and asked, “Hey, if we’re doing this - “ He gestured back and forth between them, because he wasn’t sure that it counted as dating yet, even if it totally was going to be dating, because Stiles Stilinski did not do casual. He did boyfriends. And he was going to be awesome at it, he just knew it. “ - does this mean I can borrow your coat?”
Derek’s jacket creaked as he shuffled stiffly back against the pillows. “No.”
Stiles narrowed his eyes; he’d have to work on him about that. He would look great in that jacket. “Well, can you at least take it off? Because it’s not good movie-watching apparel. It’s too noisy.”
Derek looked at him for a second, like he was weighing Stiles’ perfectly innocent motivations, then sat forward and stripped off his jacket. Underneath he was only wearing a thin, tight t-shirt that clung to his chest and abs and left his muscular arms bare and Stiles’ mouth utterly dry.
“Sometimes,” Stiles said to himself as he scooted back to find a place in the circle of Derek’s amazingly nice arm, “I have very, very good ideas.”
Because even if he wasn’t ever going to be cool, this definitely was.