Bilateral Equity via Downtown

*suspiciously* “Yeah? Where’s it at?”

Oh down by

Her: “Sure thing!  Where??”

AND STILES JUST CALLS BACK

WHENEVER

“I agree,” Derek says, head buried in the side panel of the malfunctioning copier. 

“Resources are clearly available,” Stiles continues, sounding like he’s pacing back and forth near Derek’s feet; “but they aren’t being utilized fully!”

“Mmhmm.” Derek smiles to himself. “I hear the Vice President never even went to business school. He even skips out on the budget meetings, most days.”

“What a hack,” Stiles sighs. “Hey, do you want some candy? What am I saying, look at you. Of course you don’t eat candy.”

Derek is grateful that there’s a plastic panel hiding his overheating face. “I prefer the grape ones, actually, but sure.”

“Eugh, gross.” Stiles has to crouch down next to him to give him the candy, pressing right into his side. “Like, for example: okay, you’re clearly really smart, I can tell. Despite your seriously gross taste in Twizzlers. They’re wasting you in this position.”

Derek coughs, trying to focus on locating the paper jam. It’s been so long since someone said anything like that to him that he can’t actually tell if Stiles is being sarcastic or not.

“Thank you?” he tries, after a too-long pause.

“Anytime,” Stiles says, palm warm between Derek’s shoulder blades. “Although, in a strictly literal sense, I have to admit that this position really works for you.”

It’s just that he really likes his conversations with Stiles. A lot. Okay, maybe he just likes Stiles. 

So Derek is surprised one morning when he’s finally decided he should just go ahead and ask Stiles out one of these days when he doesn’t get a call. Stiles usually calls in once or twice by noon at least, even if it’s just to complain about the coffee in the breakroom. 

When Derek walks by Stiles’ desk and finds it empty, not just of Stiles, but in fact all his personal belongings have been swept into a cardboard box. Horrified, Derek raps on the cubicle next to him. “Hey, do you know where Stiles is?“ 

The guy, A. Greenberg by his nameplate, just shrugs. “Stiles came into work as usual and then he was flipping through the company phonelist, started freaking out about something and just packed everything up. He said he was going to HR." 

Derek dashes towards the elevator, making it to the ninth floor where Human Resources is just in time. He barges in office after office, making quick apologies, and finally finds Stiles with an exasperated and bored looking Erica Reyes. 

"You can’t file a sexual harassment claim against yourself, Mr. Stilinski,” she’s saying. “Ah, hello, Mr. Hale,” she says when she sees Derek at the door.

Stiles turns, face flushing red. “Ah– I am so sorry Der– I mean, Mr. Hale, I really didn’t know, I mean, this morning all my phone presets were gone so I had to reprogram everything, and then when I called IT and asked for Derek’s line, they said they didn’t have a Derek, and then when I looked through the phonelist, I realized the only Derek was–" 

"It’s fine,” Derek says. “Erica, can you just forget this–" 

"Sure,” she says, grinning at him. 

“Stiles–” Derek pulls him into the hallway. “Were you seriously trying to fire yourself for flirting with me?" 

look at this thing i got at the airport when leaving germany

They have some good discussion in the second half of the episode about how to differentiate between conspiracy theories and fantasies, and they say the same thing; actual conspiracies have a concrete and narrow goal, are focussed on a particular time and place, and get more likely to be discovered the more people are part of them.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that the government disseminates disinformation to create conspiracies, but they gladly allow conspiracy theorists to have platforms because it muddies the informational waters.