#simplyn2deep

It looked like a lot though, those eight bottles, and kind of daunting. Stiles hadn’t painted his nails since he was just a kid, when he and his mom had done it together, and Claudia had done most of the work back then, so he was fairly sure he would thoroughly suck at painting nails. Derek had faith in him though, was positive and optimistic and encouraging, and Stiles couldn’t help but think he would be an awesome dad one day.

”It’s all wobbly,” Stiles grumbled as he carefully painted Derek’s fingernails, pinkies purple, ring fingers white, middle fingers grey, index fingers black, the colors of the ace flag.

”It looks great,” Derek said. ”You’re doing fine.”

”If you say so,” Stiles mumbled, fully focused on trying not to get nail polish all over Derek’s fingers. ”You’re the one who’s gonna have wonky nail polish.”

”I couldn’t do it better on myself,” Derek said. ”It’s fine, it looks great.”

Derek wanted his thumbs to have the bi colors, pink, purple, and blue, and Stiles bit his lip as he carefully painted them, glad he had to pause for the nail polish to dry so he could take breaks, but also antsy to have it done. He painted the pink and blue first, then taped so it was just a line across Derek’s nails to paint purple, and Stiles grinned when he was done.

”That actually looks awesome,” he said. He beamed at Derek. ”I did that!”

Derek laughed softly. ”I told you, you could do it.”

Derek painted Stiles nails, pinkies and ring fingers blue, middle fingers purple, and index fingers and thumbs pink, and he made it look super easy, used swift but careful strokes, looked like a fucking pro.

”How are you so good at this?” Stiles asked.

”Growing up with sisters mostly, but mom loved it when I did her nails too,” Derek said, didn’t look up from painting. ”Laura made me do it in New York too, she ruined it every time she shifted, so she didn’t want to spend money on getting it done professionally all the time, but she also really loved having painted nails.” He smiled, glanced up at Stiles as he switched bottle. ”She was so bad at it though, so she asked me and it became a thing. I did it at least weekly.”

Stiles smiled at him, he was a little sad he had freshly painted and not yet dry nails, because he really wanted to touch Derek, cup his cheek or squeeze his hand. He sat still though, let Derek continue painting.

”You’re a good brother,” he said softly.

Derek smiled, made a face. ”Not sure she’d agree, but sure,” he said.

”You’re a good boyfriend too,” Stiles said, wiggled the fingers of his free hand. ”And someday you’re gonna be an amazing dad.”

Derek looked up at him, brush halfway between the bottle and Stiles’ hand, and Stiles smiled and nodded.

”You think so?” Derek asked carefully.

”I know so,” Stiles said. ”The best.”

Derek smiled, dipped his chin and looked at Stiles’ hand, brought the brush to his nail, but he paused a moment before he started to paint, his brows furrowing slightly.

”Do you want that?”

”Kids?” Stiles asked, and Derek nodded, slowly painted Stiles’ nail. ”With you, yes. Not yet, but eventually. Do you?”

Derek finished painting the nail, took Stiles’ other hand and carefully started on that. ”Yeah. I think so. Not-. Not yet, but yeah.”

”Awesome,” Stiles said. ”Now give me a kiss.”

Derek smiled at him as he leaned in for a quick peck, then he finished painting, still smiling.

When they were done, after having painted on the top coat and let that dry too, it was about time to leave, so Stiles put the ace necklace on Derek, kissed him a few times, then they smiled as they got in the car. Once at the pride parade, they walked hand in hand, and Stiles showed everyone they knew his nails, beamed as they all gushed about them. He squeezed Derek’s hand, smiled at him.

Second grade passed, then third, and Derek started to sneak food into the library so he wouldn't have to find a table in the cafeteria. There was a new kid this year, Stiles, who was gangly and loud and annoyed the shit out of him - a word he was told by his mom not to use when he stated this fact over dinner, but was encouraged even harder to keep saying it by Peter - and Derek immediately took to being jealous of him. The new kid slipped into Scott's social circle like he'd been there all along. Sometimes, Derek would watch the two of them screw around during class, feeling his stomach tighten as they laughed and never listened and got yelled at by their teacher.

He liked him. Derek had gotten used to not having any friends, over these past couple of years. He'd been fine with it. That feeling changed, suddenly.

Fourth grade came, and with it, Derek grew a little more distant from his family. Cora had started growing into herself, and it turns out that she's a bit of a handful, which is great, because she takes after their mom, but horrible, because she's going through a phase where she likes to bite. Laura had started dating, which was frankly disgusting, and the less he heard about that, the better - and Peter, who he'd started spending most of his afternoons with, had begun to side with Talia on this whole not being a nerdy, terrible loner anymore thing that she's constantly on his case about. Always telling him to make friends his own age. Always being annoying about it. God.

Stiles kept being funny. Stiles kept making friends. More and more of them. Derek wanted to be his friend, too.

Weeks of deliberation passed, but eventually, Derek watched Stiles try to laugh until milk came out of his nose to see if it worked in real life the way it did in cartoons, and after he nearly choked to death and Scott cried from how hard he was laughing, Derek felt a sweeping sense of courage in his stomach. It was time to do something about all of this.

He asked Coach if they could maybe set up a basketball team for the students his age - just something small, just for people who were interested in playing together, they didn't have to compete with any other schools or anything, don't worry - and, despite the unwieldy and unnecessary insult directed at Greenberg that seemed to come out of nowhere, Coach agreed. More than that, Coach made him captain.

It was less of a real team and more just something to do after school on days when the lacrosse field was being used by the older kids, but that was enough. Those few nights Derek spent waiting for Coach to announce sign ups to his class felt like hell. He was missing out on sleep, too busy staring at the ceiling above his bed until the early hours of the morning, worrying about everything and putting too much stock into this. He'd have imaginary conversations with himself. He would talk to Scott and Stiles and Kira about how to play ball, bragging about the dope shots he never really took. He'd act cocky and kind of obnoxious, but in his head, that was charming. He'd use basketball as a crutch to finally be looked at as more than just that quiet, unfriendly kid who barely spoke two words to people. He'd make friends.

And he did. But not with Scott, and not with Stiles.

Fourth grade passed, and then fifth, and then sixth. Junior high turned out to be pretty great for Derek, who made friends with his teammates and grew into his own. Basketball turned out to be so well received that it became a bit of a rival to the lacrosse team, snowballing into something real with actual games and actual competition. The kids who liked sport in Beacon Hills were becoming actual athletes, who took their sport of choice seriously and built their fledgling identities around it.

Scott and Stiles didn't sign up, but Derek still made friends with the kids who did. That should have been enough. It wasn't, but it should have been.

By seventh grade, Derek's made a name for himself. He's smart and he's funny and he's sociable, and even though he still never really talks to people he doesn't know, he's been to birthday parties and he's actually flirted with a couple of girls, which was exhilarating, if scary. He's happy. Took a while, but he's happy. He eats in the cafeteria, these days. He's starting to think that he's kind of weird for doing it, but he still just - likes watching Stiles, and Stiles is always at his best in the cafeteria.

On Friday, Scott and Stiles are racing to see who can eat the most curly fries the fastest. They're in their lacrosse uniforms even though it's starting to rain, and they'll probably be forced to share the gym with the basketball team if they want to get any practice in this afternoon. Scott's an idiot who filled up on pizza before he challenged Stiles to the race, but that just makes him all the more determined to win. Derek watches the race, still as hooked on the way Stiles laughs now as he was when he was little. Back when he was just shy and lonely and wanted a friend, instead of - whatever this is, now that he's older. Now that he shouldn't feel jealous anymore, seeing as he has a life of his own.

The race is neck and neck, but ultimately, Stiles wins. He crams his face full of deep fried garbage and chokes it all down with the propensity of a starving pelican. Scott contests the win, arguing that he ate more, but Derek knows that's a lie. His feet start moving before he can stop them.

"Stiles won."

Scott and Stiles look up, alarmed, a fry slipping from Stiles' still open mouth and onto his unreasonably messy tray. They both look at him like they know full well who he is - the quiet guy, the basketball guy - and they cast quick glances at each other, communicating silently the way best friends do.

Derek feels heat prickle his skin, but he doesn't blush. He doesn't think he does, at least. He just stares at the two of them until they look at him again, jaw set and teeth rigid. He must look angry, or something, because Stiles' eyes keep drifting back to Scott like he's in trouble, or something, and Scott looks seconds away from having an asthma attack. Shit.

"Stiles won," Derek repeats with determination, as if aggressively siding with the kid he's been staring at in silence for half a decade without so much as saying hi to him is a normal thing to do. If he was trying to kickstart the conversation, it doesn't work. Other tables are talking and going about their day and nobody's noticed what's going on, but the cafeteria feels awfully quiet, suddenly.

Stiles looks at Derek. Derek looks at Stiles. They haven't ever made eye contact, before. Derek feels his lungs go tight, so he looks back to Scott.

"Uh, thanks, dude," Scott offers to the silence. Stiles cracks a grin, watery and awkward. Derek keeps staring until he feels like he's a brick wall stopping the two of them from having fun with their... fries, and he ultimately nods, turning on his heel and bailing.

He doesn't talk to Stiles for the rest of the year.

Eighth grade is when things start getting messy. Jackson and Lydia start dating and they both want everybody to know about it. Lydia's parties are killer, but Derek never goes to them, which pisses her off a little, because he's turning into the kind of athlete that everybody thinks is gonna get a scholarship, make state and earn millions. Scott and Stiles never go, either. Derek only knows that by chance, having given up on staring at the two of them from across the room all the time. Stiles started staring back, after all. It's hard not to be embarrassed, once you've been caught.

Derek's in the equipment closet, putting everything away after gym class, when he hears Stiles and Scott through the door.

"Dude, why don't you just ask him?"

That's Scott. Derek holds his breath, his grip tightening on the dodgeball in his hands. He'd accidentally hit Scott pretty hard with this, about twenty minutes ago. He still feels guilty. Coach had laughed pretty hard, at least.

"Oh, yeah. Wow. Genius plan." That's Stiles. Derek's stomach does a flip like he's driving down a steep road. "Hey, big arms. Remember me? I know we've never really talked, except for that one time where I was desperately cramming curly fries down my throat like I was the squirrel from Ice Age and it was the only way to keep them safe for the winter, but. Just curious - are you going to Lydia's party this weekend?"

There are footsteps, and Derek panics, looking at the door and waiting for it to open. It doesn't; there's just a soft, gentle thud as Stiles leans his back against it, sighing under his breath.

"Well... maybe don't start with that, but." There's another small thud when Scott rests against the door, too, right next to Stiles. Derek can see their shadows under the door. "I mean, if that's how you wanna go about this, he lives right by the woods? He probably likes squirrels."

"Super helpful."

Scott laughs, but it's not malicious. It's soft and endeared. Derek can't see it, but Scott nudges Stiles' shoulder with his own, rattling the door a little.

"C'mon, man," Scott says. "Just ask him if he wants to go with you."

Stiles makes a noise that's entirely non-verbal, just this long, frustrated grunt. He's about to say something else when Finstock tells them to stop lazing around and they push themselves off the closet door, heading out. Derek stands still, gripping the dodgeball as tight as he can, waiting until the squeak of their sneakers over wood go quiet before he moves again.

His heart is beating so hard he's surprised they couldn't hear it.

By Friday, Stiles and Scott haven't had any more conversations about Derek within his earshot, but Derek's started watching the two of them again. From the way he falls asleep at his desk with his head hidden behind his history book, Stiles doesn't look like he's too worried about anything, which is kind of annoying to Derek, who has spent the entire week stressing the hell out about why Stiles wants to invite him to Lydia's party. Assuming he's "big arms", that is. There's every possibility that Stiles has made an embarrassment of himself eating horrible, greasy food in front of more than one person he never really talks to. Derek would not be surprised.

But he thinks it's a safe bet to assume that Stiles wants to go to the party with him. Or - wants him to be at the party, in any case. So why hasn't he just... asked?

Stiles gets yelled at in history class and wakes up with a sheet of paper stuck to his face. Math goes horribly, with Derek breaking the lead in his mechanical pencil over and over again from pressing it too hard against his notebook. Stiles sleeps in art class, again. Gym rolls around and Derek camps out by the equipment shed, but Scott and Stiles just go straight to their lockers.

Derek's in a bad mood when he slings his bag over his shoulder and makes a beeline for the bus. Lydia catches him in the hall at the last second.

"Derek Hale," she starts, thoughtful and singsong. She's standing in front of him so she can't leave, Jackson's arm slung around her shoulders like he'd rather be anywhere but here. Jackson's turned into a bit of a jerk this year, but Derek doesn't care enough about him to be offended.

She tells him he simply has to come to her party this weekend, saying something about how being shy and mysterious worked for him when they were younger, but they're seconds away from entering highschool, so it's time to start taking the bull by the horns and getting out there. She asks him if he needs her to set him up with one of her friends, and the sharp furrow of his eyebrows and widening of his eyes is enough for her to take that as a no, and she tells him that all of his friends will be there.

He takes this to mean the basketball team and shrugs, pushing past her and Jackson to head out, until she adds, lilting and happy -

"Stiles and Scott were hoping to see you there."

- and he decides that a party might not be so bad.

Laura helps him pick out his clothes. He didn't want to ask her, at first, but he panicked, and she could tell, and even though he's sick of hearing about the guy she's dating, he still relies on her more than anyone. Peter helps, too, once Derek's dressed. He makes Derek take off the tie and leave the jacket at home, because he says it's a party for children, not a business luncheon between CEOs. Derek's about to say something, but then Peter roughs his hand through Derek's hair to give it some life, and Derek's slapping him away and heading out the door.

The party is... a party. Derek's been to a few, but again, never any like Lydia's. For a team filled with guys that actually have a shot at making it if they keep training their skills into adulthood, the basketball team is still kind of nerdy. Most birthdays go by with a gaggle of thirteen and fourteen year old boys playing lasertag while wishing they were old enough to be playing paintball.

Lydia's party is about as sophisticated as a middle schooler's party can be. There's soda served in red solo cups, there's giggles and whispers about games like spin the bottle and seven minutes in heaven that everyone's too weirded out by to actually play, and when Lydia's mom tells them she'll be in the guest house if they need her instead of hovering around and offering people snacks, it feels like they're being given their first real taste of freedom. Life is good for the eighth graders at Beacon Hills.

Derek's nervously rubbing his biceps when he heads inside, looking for someone he knows. He finds Lydia, whose squeal of joy hurts his ears the second it pierces them. She hugs him and starts talking way too fast about way too much, and when she offers him a tour of her house, dragging a sympathetic Allison along with them, he feels like he's being paraded around like some weird guest of honor.

He's shown the garden, the kitchen and the living room before Allison mercifully distracts Lydia by complimenting her dress, and as Allison winks at him and smiles, Derek silently gestures his thanks to her and slips away. He heads out to the pool, already in need of fresh air, and he finds Scott and Stiles sitting on the edge of it, dangling their feet in the water.

Scott sees Derek first and perks up like a puppy, slapping Stiles's arm and telling him to look, pointing at Derek in that way where he either doesn't realize he's being obvious or is too excited to care that he is. Derek feels butterflies in his stomach and immediately heads inside, walking back into the kitchen with his head down and shoulderchecking Greenberg as he goes.

He doesn't know what's wrong with him.

Derek has always been drawn to Stiles. He's funny, he's smart. Everybody loves him. For all the progress Derek has made since he was a little kid, he's still shy and awkward, deep down. Basketball is great, his friends are great, even the suffocating and unnecessary attention he's getting at this stupid party is great, but his formative years were still spent hiding out in the library because he was too afraid of just going up to somebody and saying hello. Without all the bells and whistles, that's all he is. A loner. A loner who has to try really hard not to be one. Abnormal, maybe.

Looking at Stiles makes Derek feel like a little kid again. Like he's afraid of saying hello. That stupid, pointless, small little moment in the cafeteria last year - that inconsequential, irrelevant moment based on Stiles' powerful curly fries-eating skills not getting the recognition it deserved - that moment where they actually, for the first time, talked? It came from nowhere, and it filled him with adrenaline, and he's thought back to it again and again and again every time he's toyed with the idea of just going up to Stiles and saying hello. The excitement he felt, from having Stiles look at him. The eye contact they made. It felt better than anything. He wants that again.

He just wants Stiles to be his friend.

So he takes a breath. He thinks of the work he's put into being sociable, being strong, and he looks back to the pool, and he starts to walk. He swerves away from the door leading outside at the last second, deciding he needs a drink to get through this, and that even though soda isn't booze, it's the closest he's gonna get until he's older and it'll do in a freaking pinch. He throws back a full cup of coke and pours a second, then gets back on track, mouth already dry as he steps outside onto the wet ground.

Beside the pool, Stiles is talking to Greenberg.

Derek watches the two of them for a second, faltering, feeling the wind leave his sails now that his big moment has been interrupted by that dick. Derek suddenly understands Coach's resentment for Greenberg. He bites the inside of his cheek, patiently waiting for them to be done so he can talk to Stiles, really talk to him, like he's been wanting to for years. It's then a thought strikes him - what if Greenberg is big arms? As far as he knows, this is Greenberg's first Lydia Martin party, too, and he's on the lacrosse team with Stiles; if anyone had the opportunity to see Stiles do something stupid and embarrassing, it'd be someone like him.

Derek feels his stomach drop. He stares at Stiles, and Stiles catches his eye, and Derek suddenly feels like coming here was a mistake. He turns around, he walks through the house, and he leaves.

Lydia's voice catches him as he heads out the front door, an inquisitive "Derek?" followed up by an "oh my god, can you stop" from Jackson. Derek ignores them both, walking fast with his drink in his hand, something which ruins the otherwise dramatic atmosphere that typically pairs so well with a guy bailing from a party due to a cliched romantic misunderstanding. He walks, and he walks, and he realizes he's going to have to go back inside and ask Lydia's mom to call Laura for him seeing as he doesn't own his own phone, and that's when Stiles catches up to him.

Derek turns, and Stiles is right behind him, panting hard with his hands on his knees. Way too hard, given how short that run was. He's making these horrible noises with his throat, like his chest has collapsed in on itself and he's having trouble breathing, or something, but when Derek looks at him with concern, Stiles just holds up his hand and tells him to wait.

Taking a sip from his drink, Derek waits. Stiles keeps panting. Derek offers him his drink. Stiles shakes his head, bent over with his hands on his knees. Derek keeps waiting.

"Where are you going?" Stiles finally asks, each word punctuated with a hard wheeze.

"Uh."

Stiles says oh my god, bending even further down, his fingers gripping his jeans as tight as they can. Derek takes another sip of his drink.

"How are you this out of breath? I literally just walked to the end of her driveway."

"Shut up," Stiles wheezes.

"You're on the lacrosse team," Derek says, actually laughing. "How are you this out of shape?"

"Oh my god," Stiles says again.

"It's like you've never used your legs before."

"Can you-- shut up?" Stiles says, pounding his fist against his knee as if it'll make him catch his breath faster. Derek takes another drink and waits.

It takes a bit of time for Stiles to stand up straight, but he does, soon enough, and Derek doesn't say anything. He just arches his eyebrows and presses his lips together like he's trying not to smile, which makes Stiles sarcastically pull a face, almost annoyed. Derek smiles a little wider at that.

"Hey," Derek says, clutching his solo cup close to his chest. He's still not good at forcing himself to smile when he doesn't want to, so he's relieved one is coming to him genuinely.

"Yoooooooo," Stiles says, with the look of horror that could only belong to a boy who has never said yo in his life and doesn't know why he's starting now.

"Ran pretty fast there," Derek says.

"Yyyyeaaaahhhhh."

Derek takes another sip of his drink, but there's none left in his cup. He doesn't want to look like an idiot who takes a sip from an empty cup, though, so he pretends that there's still some soda left, holding the cup up to his lips until a sufficient amount of time has passed. Stiles saw that the cup was empty before he did this, but he doesn't say anything about it.

"Where are you going?" Stiles asks again.

"I was just, uh." Derek drops his arms to his sides, then feels like he's not doing enough with his hands, so he crosses his arms over his chest, instead. It's hard to do while he's holding the solo cup, so there's a bit of a shuffle that looks about as awkward as it feels.

"I was just gonna go home," Derek says, lamely.

"Why?" Stiles asks, a little red.

"I... just... was. Why do you want to know?"

"I don't? I mean." Stiles pales, now, awfully quickly. "Everyone wants to know. Everybody. Scott. Lydia. Not Jackson. Jackson's kind of a dick. Boyd wanted to know, though. Isaac, too. You're friends with them, right?"

"Right," Derek says, staring.

"Right," Stiles says, staring back. The conversation ends.

Stiles dusts his hands off on his shirt, his palms sweaty and his face evening out to its normal pasty complexion. Derek nods like he's listening to a relative spout political diatribes he doesn't agree with, but is too polite to say so. They look at each other until the silence feels like an enemy, and they both need to do something to kill it.

"Do you want to -"

"How long have you -"

"Oh, sorry."

"It's - no, it's..."

This isn't really how Derek thought their first real conversation would go. He throws his head back, looking up at the sky, the moon glowing overhead. He watches the clouds listlessly drift on whatever current is taking control of them, and again, he feels a vice in his stomach and a fear he wants to conquer. Swallowing, Derek looks back at Stiles, who is staring at him with a softness in his eyes, like he was captivated by the way Derek looked in the moonlight. Derek's too amped up to say what he wants to say to notice.

"Look," Derek says, pulling himself together. "Listen," he says, immediately losing his nerve.

Stiles waits. This annoys Derek, who both wants to speak his mind and desperately wants the earth to swallow him whole. He takes a breath.

"I really like you," Derek says, finally, running his fingers through his hair. "I've liked you since - well, not since I first saw you, because I felt like you were stealing my friends. Which is insane, because Scott wasn't ever actually my friend, because we never even talked, but. But I've liked you since... okay, actually, I don't even know if I like you? I just watch you a lot. Which - I know that that sounds sinister, but it's not, not really. I just think about you, and I look at you, and I used to get jealous and annoyed with how easygoing and friendly you are, but now I... okay, I still get jealous and annoyed, but it's..."

Wow, Derek did not prepare for this at all. He opens and closes his mouth, staring at Stiles, and if he were a better man, he'd be able to recover from this and say something charming. Instead, he just stares, and Stiles stares back, and it feels like all they ever do is stare at each other. Derek regrets this. Derek hates this.

"Like..."

Stiles said that. Derek thinks he did, at least. Derek's not really sure what's happening right now.

"Like - like like me? Or..."

Derek keeps staring, and then he realizes what Stiles just asked, and he holds his hands up in horrified surrender.

"What."

"What?"

"What."

"Don't what me," Stiles says, combative. "You're going full romcom on me. This is, like, Notting Hill if everybody in Notting Hill had each suffered from some pretty major headwounds. Multiple major headwounds. Successively."

"What--"

"I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her, said Anna, like a stupid idiot with no friends."

"Excuse me?" Derek stands a little taller, and Stiles waves his hand through the air like he's annoyed with Derek for getting defensive.

"I'm just saying," Stiles rushes, tripping over himself. "I don't know what I'm just saying. But - I - okay."

He drops back down, hands on his knees, taking another few breaths. Derek's starting to get annoyed again. He's not even sure why he's still here, honestly.

"I like you too," Stiles says, standing up straight and trying to put some real punch into the words. "I like like you."

Derek stares. Stiles stares back! Derek's sick of Stiles staring at him like that! His heart's in his throat and his stomach is twisting over itself and he feels like he might pass out, and no matter how many times he opens and closes his mouth, he can't seem to make the right words. Part of him wants to push Stiles in the mud, and he thinks that's because he like likes him, but he can't really make heads or tails of this to know what he's thinking.

He's happy. He's just terrified, and awkward, and Stiles has never even spoken to him before. Well - except for that one time.

"Wait," Derek says. "Wait. We've only spoken once, and it was when I told Scott that you--"

"When you defended my honor, yeah. Curly fries. Very valiant." Stiles takes Derek's cup like he needs a drink, then remembers that it's empty, and he looks at Derek in such a way that Derek realizes Stiles absolutely knew the cup was empty when he pretended to drink from it.

"But that just started it," Stiles says, a little shy. "You were this weird, big, strong dude who just came out of nowhere and knew my name. You were funny and weird and awkward and I started noticing you. The way you play basketball, the way your eyebrows pinch when you read. It's... I don't know."

Stiles shrugs his shoulder, looking for the right word.

"C... ute?"

This time, when Derek feels heat prickle his face, he knows he's blushing. Noticeably, for that matter. He scratches his cheek, red and speechless, and he doesn't really know where to go from here. This hyperactive, insane little asshole likes him, and Derek thinks he likes him back. It's - a lot.

It's a lot.

"Do you want to..." Derek falters. "We don't-- we don't have to. But do you want to go back to the party? With me, I mean.".

Stiles laughs, visibly relieved. He has the air of someone who's been watching someone else, waiting for a chance to speak to them, hoping to connect with them, hoping for something, and getting far more than he ever thought he would get. Derek knows that feeling, because he's got it, too.

"Okay."

He smiles, shy, and he laughs, dragging the heel of his shoe in the ground. They're young, and they're clumsy, and it's too early for this to be anything more than just... something, but it's exciting, and it's thrilling, and Derek feels like it could really be something good. Stiles keeps looking at him like he wants to make a joke, or like he wants to be funny, and Derek keeps trying to pull himself together so he can look cool and collected and mature, but.

They're both just happy. They're happy, and they have somewhere to be. Together.

"Okay," Stiles repeats. "Wait, one thing."

Derek looks up, eyebrows together.