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He meets Lauren at the restaurant he’s waiting tables at every day after his classes at the BHCC are over. Lauren is new and she’s flustered and Stiles wants to calm her down.
Lauren is nothing like Lydia, despite having long strawberry blonde hair and an amazing figure and a sharp mind. She wears her hair straight most times, she never uses her mind against others, and she’s incredibly, incredibly sweet. While a little part of Stiles will always love those he’d fallen in love with before Lauren, he’s grateful when he realizes he hasn’t fallen (yet again) for the same type of personality Lydia has.
He touches a hand to her shoulder and looks at her with a crooked smile on his face. “My first day, I dumped an entire order of vegetable soup across the lap of the kindest old guy I’ve ever met. I was mortified and positive I was going to be fired. Liz said she’d seen worse, clapped me on the back, and made me go back to work with soup all over my shirt.”
Lauren takes a deep breath and looks up at him with worried eyes. “So I’m not absolutely terrible?” she asks, biting her bottom lip. She doesn’t wear lip gloss like Lydia, and her lips aren’t chapped like Derek’s always seem to be, and her smile is kind, not sharp or fake. Stiles squeezes her shoulder once and offers her an even wider smile.
“Liz still hasn’t told me the story of the worst waiter/waitress ever, but I hear tell from Bob that it’s somewhat traumatic.”
Lauren laughs. “Awesome,” she says, and they get back to work.
After work, they sit in one of the corner booths while Liz adds up the numbers and counts out their tips for them. Stiles has his hands wrapped around a coffee mug – “Don’t think you’re not washing that, Stiles.” – and Lauren is sitting across from him with a kind smile on her face as she tells the story of how she ended up in Beacon Hills, going to community college.
“I just went on this road trip after high school, and I landed here,” she’s saying, and Stiles thinks that’s inspiring, awesome, that Lauren had the nerve to leave the place she was born and raised in, uproot her entire life to come to some new small town and where everybody knows everyone, and everybody gossips about everyone (new people especially) and start going to college. “Liz was the first person I met, and she hired me on the spot, thank God.”
Across the dining room, Liz snorts. “Don’t thank me; thank Stiles, the worst waiter ever. If he didn’t bring in the in the same customers every week, I’d have sent him packing ages ago.”
“I am not the worst waiter ever,” Stiles says indignantly, and Liz just arches a brow at him.
The coffee date turns into a dinner date the next week, and suddenly Stiles finds himself leaning in to kiss Lauren. She’s laughing, a big, heartfelt laugh at something Stiles has said, and her eyes are twinkling and Stiles has never felt so attracted to someone than he does in that moment, with Lauren sitting in the booth next to him laughing at his stupid joke, so he leans in and kisses her. It’s awkward because Lauren is still grinning, but the grin quickly fades and she kisses back.
“That was good, right?” Stiles asks, and Lauren laughs again, rolls her eyes.
“That was great.”
++
The pack loves Lauren. Stiles introduces her slowly, first to Scott and Allison, then to Isaac and Boyd, Jackson and Lydia. When she’s met them all after about three months, they meet up for a group hangout, and she tells Stiles, “I was really worried your friends would hate me.”
“They don’t hate you,” Stiles smiles. “They really like you. They say that you’re good for me.”
Lauren smiles and grips Stiles’ hand a little tighter as they walk into the bowling alley. Scott likes Lauren because he says she makes Stiles happy, and she’s funny. Allison and Lydia like her because they have the same taste in clothes and they’re all sweet in their own ways, but also fierce. Jackson likes her because she’s competitive when it comes to a good game of basketball, Isaac likes her because he likes everyone, and Boyd likes her because she likes working on muscle cars, which Boyd does in his spare time these days.
Stiles never expected to knock it out of the park with his first serious girlfriend, but here he is with what he thinks is the perfect girl. She accepts him for who he is; a hyperactive, lanky, clumsy, intelligent Hot Mess, who never thinks before speaking. He’s told her he’s bi, he’s told her how much his friends and his father mean to him, and he’s admitted his serious obsession with anything Marvel.
Now she’s just got to meet his alpha.
++
Stiles avoids this for as long as possible. Meaning, for six months, until Lydia mentions her at the pack meeting right around Valentine’s Day. “Where are you taking Lauren for Valentine’s Day?” she asks, sipping on her caramel macchiato. Lydia will avoid anything with empty carbs and calories, but she will never give her coffee up; Stiles has learned to always have one in his hand when he’s about to break bad news to her, or beg her to tutor him for his college Latin class.
Derek is at the stove poking at something in a frying pan. Stiles would guess it’s supposed to be scrambled eggs, but it mostly looks like a chunk of burnt food that has tiny yellow crumbs sticking out, and smells terrible. Stiles whistles. “That’s gonna take a lot of ketchup to drown out that taste.”
Derek says tightly, “Who is Lauren?”
“Huh?” Stiles blinks. “Derek, surely you know about Lauren.” He figures playing dumb is the best option here, and tries very hard to keep his heartbeat steady. “Red hair, hazel eyes, ye tall,” Stiles holds his hand up right around his neck and waves it a little. “Witty, kills Jackson in basketball every Saturday when we meet up to play, outdoes me in movie trivia, shops with Lydia and Allison once a month?”
“Stiles, you’re rambling and avoiding the question,” Derek says. He doesn’t look amused. “Who is Lauren?”
“She’s my girlfriend,” Stiles says, shrugging.
“Girlfriend,” Derek repeats flatly. “And you didn’t think to tell me you had a… girlfriend?”
“Well I mean… I thought about it,” Stiles offers weakly.
Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. “Stiles, she could be anybody. You need to tell me these things; as your alpha it’s my responsibility to make sure people outside of the pack are not intent on harming you.”
“Already checked, she’s clean,” Lydia says, blowing on her macchiato.
Stiles narrows his eyes and turns to face her. “She’s clean,? Lydia, what do you mean you checked?”
“I had Danny do a background check, and I researched her last name to see if it was tied to any… supernatural aspects,” she replies, rolling her eyes. “Surely you didn’t think I was going to risk my life while I went shopping with a strange girl. I suppose it was to make sure you didn’t get kidnapped again, too. It’s always such a pain when you get kidnapped. Derek is even more short-tempered.”
Derek growls.
“Derek’s just mad he has to find me yet again whenever I get kidnapped,” Stiles says. Derek growls louder, and Stiles thinks he can hear his molars grinding together. “Whoa, I don’t think werewolf healing includes dental work, buddy.”
Derek’s face tells Stiles everything he needs to know, which is: get the hell out of Dodge before he’s in some serious pain.
Stiles flees the kitchen.
++
“You need to invite Lauren to the house for dinner.”
The coffee mug Stiles is holding crashes to the ground, and shatters everywhere. “Holy shit Derek,” he says. “You can’t just – do that!”
Derek purses his lips and stoops down to pick up the broken shards, slapping Stiles’ hand away when he tries to help. “You’ll cut yourself,” he snaps, and picks everything up. He throws the shards into the trash bin and picks up the broom to sweep up the pieces he missed. “I need to meet her, Stiles.”
Stiles chews on his bottom lip. “I haven’t told her much about you.”
Derek just looks at the floor as he sweeps, so Stiles continues, “I told her you’re one of my best friends, but you’re older, already graduated college, and you work a lot. I told her you’re kind of the one who organized this ragtag group, and that you… I don’t know. You’re good at making sure we’re taken care of.”
“So I’m your father,” Derek says dryly.
“No,” Stiles huffs. “That’s not what I mean and you know it, Derek. But you know perfectly well without you, none of us would even be here. Maybe even alive.”
Derek huffs, but there’s a flush on his cheeks that says he’s pleased with what Stiles has said. “Some aren’t here,” he says, and frowns.
Stiles reaches out and pats Derek on the shoulder. “When?”
“When what?”
“When do you want Lauren to come for dinner?”
“This Friday,” Derek says slowly, raising his eyes to meet Stiles’. He stands up and empties the dustpan into the garbage.
“I’ll tell her,” Stiles says, smiling, and Derek smiles back.
++
“Derek wants to meet you,” Stiles tells Lauren in the middle of an important HALO game. Lauren shoots and kills him and then pauses the game and turns to look at Stiles.
“Derek… the one who you said never likes anyone?”
“The one and only,” Stiles says, keeping his eyes glued to the pause screen.
“He wants to meet me? Is this some kind of brotherly approval thing? Like the older brother who warns me not to break your heart or he’ll cut my balls off?”
Stiles snorts. “Your balls?”
“I have lady balls,” Lauren insists.
Stiles eyes her. She’s got her hair piled up on her head, and her contacts are out, glasses on. She doesn’t have makeup on, and she’s wearing a pair of sweatpants that Stiles left at her apartment last week, and a sports bra. “I don’t believe it,” he says, and she socks him in the shoulder. He winces. “Never mind, I believe you.”
“I’m just saying,” Lauren says. “Warn a girl before a dude threatens her lady balls.”
“Consider yourself warned.”
++
Stiles ends up cooking because he’s the only one with any talent in the kitchen. The rest of them are lucky they can press the start button on the microwave. Stiles considers his ability to boil water and add pasta gourmet in comparison to the friends he lives with. He buys one of those salad in a bag things and some dressing, throws it in a bowl, adds croutons, and sets it on the table next to the pasta and sauce. There’s garlic bread but it’s kind of blackened at the edges.
Lauren takes one look at the dinner and presses her lips together, trying not to laugh. The rest of his friends are already digging in, because they’re lucky when they manage to convince Stiles to make pasta; the rest of the time they’re living off Easy Mac and takeout, and in Lydia and Allison’s case, salads from the Italian place that delivers. Stiles shrugs. “No one here is really known for their cooking talents.”
“You cook,” Derek says, and glowers at Lauren.
“I boil water and add noodles and make sure I remember to turn the stove off when the timer goes off so the noodles don’t turn to mush,” Stiles replies. Lauren laughs.
“You’re a step above me,” she offers.
Derek clears his throat. “You don’t cook?” he asks. Lauren rolls her eyes.
“God, no. I’m lucky if I remember where my stove is most times.”
“That’s… unfortunate, for you and Stiles,” Derek says.
Lauren narrows her eyes. “You think I should cook for Stiles?”
Stiles’ eyes widen. Derek says, “I mean, partners should take care of one another.” Stiles resists the urge to slap his head against the table, and everyone else sitting there awaits Lauren’s response. It’s deadly silent.
“Should I, what, be barefoot and pregnant, too?” Lauren asks. “Let Stiles take care of all the manly jobs, call for him when there’s a spider on the wall?”
Derek shrugs and Stiles inhales sharply. Lauren turns to him with a tight smile. “Stiles?” she asks, “Are you some kind of old fashioned traditionalist? Is this something you want? You seemed to enjoy me kicking your ass at HALO before now. Jackson never really minded me killing him when we play basketball. Allison and Lydia surely don’t clean and cook for their boyfriends.”
“I’m all for feminism,” Stiles says weakly. “Go, women! Kick ass! Um.”
“I’m not saying you need to be a perfect housewife,” Derek interjects. “I just think it’s good for partners to have skills that balance each other out, so they can provide for one another.”
“So where’s the problem in role reversal?” Lauren demands.
“Stiles doesn’t have the time or patience to be a housewife,” Derek says calmly. “Stiles is going to be an amazing person, and he’s going to have a lot of work on his hands when he gets his degree. He’s going to be creating amazing houses and buildings.”
“I would be a great housewife,” Stiles says, offended. “Wait – um. Househusband?”
Lydia and Allison glare at him, Jackson snorts, Scott and Isaac shrink down in their seats, and Boyd just keeps on eating. Stiles heaves a sigh. “I have no problem with role reversal,” he offers. “I mean, I’d make a great stay at home dad or whatever.”
“Stay at home dad?” Lauren repeats, turning to look at him with wide eyes.
“You don’t want kids?” Derek pounces on her question immediately.
“You do want kids?” Lauren asks Stiles, pointedly ignoring Derek.
“Wow, this escalated really quickly,” Stiles squeaks. And then, “I think I smell something burning!”
++
“What the hell is your problem?” Stiles shuts the door after everyone has left and rounds on Derek. Derek has his arms crossed and he’s glaring blankly at the wall.
“She’s not right for you,” he says.
“She’s perfectly fine for me!” Stiles yells, throwing his arms up. “Derek, you can’t just invite someone to dinner and start asking for their life plans. Lauren and I have been dating for six months, not six years.”
“You want none of the same things,” Derek growls back. “She has no future plans to settle down.”
“Derek, she’s twenty one, same as me. Our future plans aren’t exactly going to align at the moment. I don’t even know what I want for the future. You – you have got to stop doing this, Derek. You’ve got to stop – stop cockblocking me at every right turn. No, that’s not even the right word! Stop relationship-blocking me, Derek! I’m an adult, if I want to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, I can! You can’t just be the jealous ex. You’re not even an ex.”
Derek flinches. Stiles reels back like he’s been slapped. “You – no,” he says lowly.
“Stiles – ”
“You said no!” Stiles shouts. “I asked you and you said no.”
“I thought you weren’t serious!” Derek shouts back.
Stiles barks out a short, bitter laugh. “Derek, I came to you in the middle of the night and told you I was falling in love with you, and you told me it couldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen, and that I should move on. I remember, because then I cried and got snot all over your pillow begging you to rethink it.”
“You don’t understand –”
“I can’t do this right now,” Stiles interrupts. “I cannot be around you.”
++
Lauren answers the door to her apartment with her arms crossed and her body blocking the entrance. “Hey,” Stiles says hesitantly.
“Stiles,” she says flatly.
“I’m really sorry about tonight. I didn’t know Derek would be so – ”
“You could have warned me,” she interrupts loudly.
“I did warn you, he’s overprotective – ”
“You could’ve warned me you were in love with him, Stiles. I knew we weren’t gonna last forever. We’ve got great chemistry but we don’t really want the same things, I get it. But I didn’t know you were using me to forget about the guy you lived with, and I didn’t know I was going into a dinner where absolutely no one was going to stick up for me.”
“I’m not – ”
“Yes you are, Stiles,” Lauren straightens up and points a finger at him. “You never once tried to defend me. You tried to defuse the situation, sure. But did you even once try and tell him to shut up, or tell him neither of us wanted those things.”
“Right,” Stiles says softly. “But… I do want those things.”
“But you don’t want them with me,” Lauren shouts, throwing her arms up in the air. “Stiles, be honest. When you picture those things – kids, a house filled with people, warm dinners, fighting over the dishes – who do you picture them with?”
Stiles blinks. It’s true, he realizes. In all these months, he’s never once pictured a future with Lauren. He’s never pictured her on their wedding day, or pictured kids with her red hair and his big brown eyes. He pictures babies with dark hair and bright amber eyes that will flash blue someday. He pictures arguments about how the garbage has needed to be taken out for two days, and burnt suppers for a year before Stiles manages to get it right, and Derek doing all the handiwork around the house because Stiles couldn’t tell a person the difference between a flathead screwdriver and a Philips screwdriver.
“Ohmigod,” he says in a rush of breath, slapping his hand against his chest. Lauren nods at him.
“Look, Stiles,” she says quietly. “We both knew that it wasn’t – it wasn’t like that for us. You’re an amazing person. I just – I don’t want to be around you right now. I’ll see you at work next week.”
And she gently shuts the door in Stiles’ face.
Stiles goes and spends the night at his father’s, in his old bedroom, staring up at the ceiling wide eyed.
++
Derek walks in the door, steps into the kitchen, and sniffs. “What’s burning?” he asks cautiously. Stiles looks up from the kitchen table, where his books are spread out, different colored highlighters opened all over them.
“Shit, I swore I wouldn’t forget about the chicken!” Stiles shouts, jumping up, grabbing an oven mitt and yanking the oven door open.
“You made chicken?” Derek asks blankly. He looks into the oven. “You… burnt chicken? Uh. Why?”
Stiles sighs. “Derek, when you picture the future, who do you see it with?”
Derek looks at him. “Stiles.”
“No, seriously, Derek. Who? I mean, do you see kids, and dinners, and like, is that what you want? A future with me? A family with me?”
Derek drills his gaze into Stiles, eyes wide, lips parted. Stiles chews on his bottom lip. The chicken is burnt and the mashed potatoes are instant, and Derek says, “You know what I want.”
“I didn’t. Why did you tell me no, back – back in high school?” Stiles asks hesitantly.
“You’d just turned eighteen,” Derek shrugs. “And what I wanted – how much I love you – it’s fierce and demanding and I was afraid you’d be scared of it. It wasn’t something cheesy, as though I wanted you to experience the world first and then come back to me. It was just me being a coward,” Derek shrugs. “And you’ve never really had a partner you’ve brought to meet me, or one who you were with as long as you were with Lauren. I never… I was always jealous, but I never had to worry so much as I have since finding out you had some serious girlfriend.”
“She wasn’t that serious,” Stiles murmurs.
“You thought she was,” Derek states.
“I – I liked her,” Stiles admits. “She was… comfortable. And she was fun, and we had similar interests and – and it took other things off my mind. That’s not to say you’re always on my mind or something,” Stiles adds hastily.
“You’re always on mine,” Derek says casually, shrugging.
“What,” Stiles says, eyes widening. Derek rolls his eyes.
“You’re my favorite thing to think about,” Derek says softly.
“Oh god just – come here,” Stiles says, grabbing the front of Derek’s shirt and reeling him in against his chest. He throws his arms around Derek’s neck and slams his lips against Derek’s, and starts kissing him fiercely. It’s not a great first kiss because Stiles can’t stop grinning and Derek can’t stop huffing laughter against Stiles’ lips, but it’s a memorable kiss, nonetheless.
When they pull away, Stiles shoves at Derek. “You jealous idiot,” he says, and Derek rolls his eyes, grumbles something unintelligible under his breath. “Now sit down and eat, because this is the first of at least a year’s worth of burnt dinners.”
And it tastes terrible but Derek eats it anyway and asks for seconds, too, with a huge grin on his face, and Stiles knows they’ll be okay.
fini.