Chapter Text
You were in college working part time waiting tables
Left a small town, never looked back
Right, so...Stiles is hungover. So fucking hungover. He definitely should not have listened to Scott when Scott said, “Come on man, we’re only in college once. Fuck morning classes!” But, see, Stiles was already drunk at that point, so of course he clinked a shot glass full of - shiver - Silver Tequila - shiver - with his best friend and shouted, “Fuck morning classes!”
And, well, now it’s 7:47AM. His class starts at 8AM and he is in desperate need of a bacon, egg, and cheese. Sure, the cafeteria is an option, but he would have to make the sandwich himself and he doesn’t feel like it, okay? He just doesn’t. Plus, there’s a diner right down the street from his dorm that Stiles walks by constantly, but never actually goes into. Why not today? Why not the day that he’s already running late? Why not?
So, he runs down the street. The top left corner of his forehead is pumping painfully every time one of his feet hits the ground. Finally, blissfully, he busts through the diner doors and is greeted with the sweet, greasy smell of breakfast food. He walks up to the counter and plops down on a stool. It’s now 7:54AM. If he could get the sandwich by 8AM, then he would only be like five minutes late for class, which is really not bad for a hungover college kid.
A grunt interrupts his thoughts. He looks up to find an unimpressed eyebrow raised. “Did you want anything?”
“Is that the proper etiquette of asking for orders? Did you go to waiter training school?” Another eyebrow up and now both eyes are open wide. This boy is pretty. Too pretty. Stiles is on edge. “Or...do you think that being pretty means you don’t need waiter training school? You know, that’s just not right! I’ve known many pretty waiters that were also polite, so I know for a fact that they went to -”
“There is no such thing as waiter training school.”
Stiles scoffs. “Apparently not if you’re interrupting your customers!”
The waiter rolls his eyes. “Did you want anything?”
Stiles throws his hand flat against his chest and looks to the left and then the right, and while staring to the right of him (where no one is sitting), he says, “Can you believe the nerve of this guy?”
When he turns back to the waiter, the waiter’s eyebrows are now scrunched together in the middle. “Can you...do you think there’s someone sitting next to you?”
Stiles fights back a smirk. “Yeah?” Stiles pauses. “Rude. He just said ‘Hi’ to you and you’re ignoring him. Apparently it’s just me that you save your charm for.”
“Uh, let me just…” and then the waiter starts to back away. He refuses to turn his back on Stiles and Stiles can’t take it anymore. He starts cracking up, not even feeling the pain in his forehead.
“Dude, your face. Holy shit. That was incredible.”
The waiter stops in his tracks. “You were joking.”
Stiles goes to lean back in his chair cockily, as he usually does when nailing a joke, only to forget he’s sitting on a stool. He flails unattractively for a moment while he tries to catch his balance before plummeting to the ground.
When he peeks up, he sees the waiter standing with his arms crossed over his chest, teeth digging into his bottom lip. Stiles slowly gets up. “Okay, so maybe you at least started waiter training school if you can resist laughing at that.”
Stiles watches as the waiter releases his bottom lip and swallows down the laugh he was very clearly trying to hold in. “Did you want anything?”
Stiles sits back down on the stool and mumbles, “A bacon, egg, and cheese and curly fries.”
The waiter smiles, just the tiniest bit, and walks into the kitchen. Stiles almost falls off the stool again. That ass. That ass is...indescribable. It is irrefutable. He thought his eyes were pretty, but god, that ass? That ass is beautiful. A work of art. Before Stiles even knew it was there, it’s gone, into the kitchen, where Stiles can’t see the definition of each cheek moving with each step through those indecently tight jeans. A crime, truly.
Seconds too early, much faster than Stiles is able to recover, the waiter is back. “If you need anything, let me know.” The waiter hesitates before stating clearly, “It’s Derek.”
“What’s Derek?”
The waiter’s mouth forms a thin line. “Derek is my name.”
“Right, yeah, right.” Stiles clears his throat. “Yeah, of course. Uh, thank you,” Stiles says as he does a mock-bow while still in his seat. “Derek.” Derek turns to walk away and Stiles has to stop him quickly before he has to face That Ass again. “Where are you going?”
“To work…”
“I’m the only person in here,” Stiles refutes. “Shouldn’t you show good waiter manners and stay with me, Derek?”
“I already gave you my name in case you needed anything - something I’m beginning to regret. What more do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Company? A hand to hold? A shoulder to cry on?”
“Why would you need a shoulder to cry on?”
“I’m hungover.”
Derek looks away, his eyes crinkling slightly at the sides. “Boohoo.”
Stiles pouts, looking up at Derek. “I thought we were over this. You know I’m a ray of sunshine in your morning.”
“Right, I love dealing with hungover college kids.”
Stiles chuckles and looks away from Derek, thinking about how this diner opens at 6AM, so Derek probably got there by at least 5:30AM. Maybe Derek lives on campus; he couldn’t be much older than Stiles. He could sleep until 5:15AM probably and still get to the diner on time. What college kid wants to wake up that early, though?
“Order up,” Derek mutters as he places the food in front of Stiles. Stiles doesn’t even look at it.
“Do you go to UCLA?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Are you in school?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Eat your breakfast.” Derek turns to walk away.
Stiles won’t have that. “Come on, humor me, Derek.”
Derek looks around him, as if checking to make sure it’s still only him and Stiles. “I moved out here with my sister when I was sixteen and even after she was...gone, I stayed. Haven’t really thought about college. I got it pretty good here.”
“Where are you from?”
“Small town.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Okay, yeah, me too. What small town?”
Derek stares down at the curly fries. Stiles picks one up and Derek follows the action. “Beacon Hills.”
Thankfully, Stiles hasn’t started chewing yet. “Dude! That’s where I’m from!” When Derek doesn’t reply, Stiles continues. “I can’t believe we don’t recognize each other. If you were sixteen when you left, that meant I was thirteen. We were probably in the same school at some point! That’s so cool - I haven’t met anyone here from Beacon Hills, yet. Me and my best friend Scott were the only people I knew of that lived there.”
Derek nods. “Small world.”
“Anyways…” Stiles draws out the word before shoving a curly fry in his mouth. “What made you and your sister want to leave?”
Derek looks away, jaw clenching. “Family stuff.”
“Oof. Sounds pretty rough.” When Derek doesn’t move to elaborate, Stiles switches gears. “My dad’s the Sheriff. Sheriff Stilinski? He may have been a deputy when you still lived there. Point is, I don’t think he’ll ever move out of Beacon Hills, so I’m kind of stuck there, too.” Stiles thinks for a second about what it would be like to permanently move from Beacon Hills, to not regularly see his father and to have to depend on Skype calls for comfort instead of a firm, bear-like hug. He takes a bite of his bacon, egg, and cheese, refusing to even imagine it.
Derek looks at Stiles and gives him a crisp nod, like he understands the reluctance to live away from family. “Alright, if that’s all…”
Stiles sputters, “What? Are you not enjoying the quality conversation, good sir? Would you be more responsive if I offered you a curly fry?”
Derek rolls his eyes—and what an impressive roll it is—before crossing his arms over his chest. “Let me get your check ready for you.”
Derek turns to walk away and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them, Derek has turned back around toward him, both eyebrows raised in what may be considered amusement. “Uh...are you okay?”
“Fine! I’m fine! Ya’ know, Derek, this is a very inconvenient time for you to choose to care about how my dining experience is going, okay? So, please, as I’ve asked over and over again, may you just leave me be?” Stiles takes another bite of his sandwich, in an attempt to convince Derek to get away from him before the heat in his cheeks becomes visible in the way of splotchy redness.
Derek scoffs, clearly not buying Stiles’s avoidance techniques, but seemingly choosing to spare him. “Are you paying cash or card?”
Stiles gives Derek his card and after signing the receipt, he leaves a 30% cash tip for Derek. What can Stiles say? He’s a sucker for stilted conversation and nice asses.
He never made it to class, but so what? Fuck morning classes, right?
♦
I was a flight risk with a fear of fallin’
Wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts
Stiles tip toes down the stairs when he hears a door slam. He’s only ten years old, but he knows that loud noises are only there for celebration, like fireworks on the Fourth of July, or for anger, like his dad bringing his fist down on the kitchen table and roaring at Stiles to go to his room when he’s used all of the shaving cream to draw pictures on the table in front of the couch again. He sits on the only step that never creaks and he waits.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me, Claud. You’ve gotta be.” His dad sounds like...like him, almost, like when he tried really really hard to explain why he needed to go to Scott’s house even though he was grounded because Scott said he was scared of the dark.
He hears his mom breathe out. It sounds like she let so much air out that it shouldn’t even be possible for her to ever breathe again. He grips the railing, about to check on her, when she says, “I’m sorry it happened like this. But — .”
“You can’t say sorry, then say ‘but.’ You may as well not even say sorry at all.”
His mom keeps talking, almost like she didn’t even hear his dad. “But...you can’t be surprised.”
“We could’ve talked about this.” His dad pauses, and Stiles imagines him running a hand through his hair. “We could’ve tried. We — I would’ve done anything that I could. What about Stiles, huh? What’s he gonna think?”
Stiles wipes at his cheek and it surprises him to find that it’s wet. Jackson says that crying is for girls and losers and babies. Stiles knows he’s not a girl or a baby, so he guesses that means he’s a loser. He doesn’t really like the idea of that.
“John, I wish you didn’t find out like this. I wish that it happened differently, but you know, you know, that we haven’t been okay for a long time.”
“So, you just go ahead and fuck somebody else without trying to talk to me about it?”
Stiles gasps, heart beating as fast as his pencil hits the desk when he wiggles it between his two fingers, like the Flash. He knows that word. He knows that it’s something that kids aren’t supposed to say and he knows that even when grown ups say it, it’s not good.
He hears footsteps and then a broken sound coming out of his dad. He tiptoes further down the steps, peeking around the bottom of the stairs, and sees his mom’s hand on his dad’s shoulder as his dad cries. But, his dad isn’t a girl or a baby or a loser. Jackson must be wrong. Stiles thinks his dad might just be really sad. He watches his mom squeeze his dad’s shoulder and say, “I’m sorry, John. But I think it’s time we both move on. You and I both know that Stiles deserves better than this.”