Chapter Text
It’s Monday and Mr. Harris is going on and on about this upcoming chemistry project and Derek is mostly ignoring him because it’s first period and he’s really fucking tired. Then, he hears Mr. Harris say “It’s a partner project; I’ll be assigning you to the person I think you’ll work best with.”
Derek starts to silently panic because he doesn’t do well with partner projects. He’d rather just work alone – he ends up doing most of the work by himself most of the time, anyway. Why should someone else get to take credit for a project that they didn’t put any work into? The teachers definitely know when certain students do that too, so Derek doesn’t understand why partner and group projects aren’t simply banned everywhere.
As Derek is ranting in his mind, Mr. Harris starts announcing the partners. Derek’s hoping that he gets someone that will at least pretend to put some effort into helping.
Derek is taken from his thoughts when he hears Mr. Harris’ dry tone of voice say his name. “Derek Hale, I’m going to partner you up with the delinquent of the class, Stiles Stilinski. Hopefully some of your quiet attentiveness will rub off on him.”
Derek’s heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest. He’s had a crush on Stiles since the beginning of high school, when Derek first realized that he was attracted to guys and not girls. He slowly turns his head around to make eye contact with Stiles. Stiles connects eyes with him and then looks to his left and then to his right as if checking that Derek was meaning to be staring at him. Finally, Stiles looks back to Derek and gives him a one handed wave. Derek gives him a slow smile in return before turning back around.
“I’ll give you five minutes to speak with your partners at the end of the period but until then, here’s a pop quiz.” The class groans but Derek is too busy trying to come up with something to say to Stiles after the quiz to care.
♦
Derek walks up to Stiles’ desk after everyone finishes the unsurprisingly easy – for Derek, at least, he loves chemistry – quiz to make plans for the project. Stiles is chewing on his pencil while scrolling through his phone. Derek clears his throat and Stiles finally looks up at him.
“Yeah?” Stiles is looking at him as though he doesn’t understand why Derek is standing there and it throws Derek off from the eloquent words he had planned to say when he walked over here.
“Uh, did you want to talk about what we’re gonna do for the project?” Stiles is still looking at him like he’s crazy and it’s making Derek squirm. “We’re partners for the upcoming chemistry project and I was just wondering if you wanted to discuss what we’re gonna do for it?”
Stiles makes a face like a light bulb just went off in his head. “Oh, right! The project that Harris just assigned. You any good at chemistry?”
Derek feels a shy smile form on his face. “I’m not too bad. I like how everything in the world makes sense, you know? With the periodic table.”
Stiles just nods slowly. “Right. So, I have lacrosse practice –”
Derek hears himself blurt, “I can type the report. I don’t have anything – I mean, I don’t have lacrosse after school or anything.”
“I’m sure you don’t. I’m sorry, what is your name again?”
Derek feels his heart break a little. He’s had a crush on Stiles for a little over a year and he doesn’t even know his name? He just looks at Stiles and quietly answers the question. “Derek. It’s Derek.”
♦
Derek has already typed the entire report out and even got all of the stuff prepared for the poster that Stiles and him will have to present. Derek found that he actually didn’t mind doing all the work when it was Stiles he was doing it for, but he wasn’t going to let Stiles get away completely. He was going to get Stiles to come over and help with the poster, so help him god.
Derek runs into Stiles in the hallway some time the next week and Stiles tries to keep walking.
“Wait, Stiles!”
Stiles slowly turns around and looks both ways again as if there’s actually somebody else named Stiles in this fucking high school. “Uh, yeah?”
“I already typed out the report for our project so we just have to do the poster now.”
“Well, uh, I have lacrosse –“
“You can come over after practice. I’ll see you then.” Stiles looks dumbstruck. Derek turns around and continues on his way to class. He prides himself in the fact that he didn’t stammer nervously once during the conversation. Now, he just has to get through the rest of this day without freaking out.
♦
Derek has planned everything out pretty perfectly. Lacrosse practice is from 3:00 to 5:00 and if Stiles goes home to shower or drop off his stuff, he should be to Derek’s by approximately 6:00. Derek figures that they could work on the poster – he’s already set it out on the floor of his room with all of the things that need to go on it – then he could mention being hungry and offer to order a pizza so they can hangout for a bit.
It’s currently 6:30 and Derek is beginning to get discouraged. What if Stiles just doesn’t show up? Derek knows that on the surface Stiles seems like a total jerk but every once in a while Derek thinks he catches a glimpse of something more in Stiles. It’s what drew him to Stiles in the first place. He’s a puzzle that Derek wants to spend time figuring out.
The doorbell rings a few minutes later and Derek runs down the stairs to answer it. He takes a few breaths to compose himself and then opens the door.
Stiles walks in as soon as the door is opened. “Dude, you’re so fucking lucky that you don’t play any sports. Coach killed us today, I swear to god. I honestly think that I died for a second and was only brought back to life because Coach used his sheer force of will to make sure that I would be alive to run ten more laps around the field. Man, you live in the middle of fucking nowhere, by the way. It was a bitch finding your house.”
“I –“
“Coach ended up not letting us out until 5:30 today because we had to wait for everyone to finish laps and fucking Greenburg was crawling on the ground for the last two. The poor dude vomited. I don’t even know how he made the team.”
“That su –“
“Anyway, where we doing this? Lead the way, man. Why are we still standing at the door?”
“It could possibly be because you haven’t shut the fuck up since you walked in, but that’s just a guess. It could be any other reason.” Stiles just stares back at Derek’s completely stoic expression before letting out a surprised laugh.
“Fuck you, dude.” But Stiles is still smiling and shaking his head like he thinks Derek calling him out was funny and Derek can’t fight the slow smile that spreads across his face.
♦
They’re sitting on Derek’s bed playing Mario Kart and eating pizza and yelling cruel but unserious words to each other when one of them hits the other with a red shell or slips on a banana peel and the poster is completed and set off to the side and Derek genuinely believes this couldn’t have gone any better.
Stiles stretches and his shirt rides up slightly and Derek catches the beginning of a happy trail and has to quickly force his gaze elsewhere.
“Alright, dude, I think I’m gonna head home now. Every single one of my bones hurts from practice today and I just wanna sprawl across my bed and never move again.”
Derek smiles and moves to get up when Stiles starts putting his shoes on. “Remember, we present our project tomorrow.”
“Okay, I’m sure we’ll do fine. You’re really smart, right? Maybe you can just write up some index cards for us for tomorrow to make it easier.”
Derek had already wrote up the index cards for himself but he guesses he can write a few for Stiles too. “Sure, yeah, no problem.”
Stiles smiles his biggest smile up at Derek and Derek vows that he’ll do anything and everything to make Stiles smile like that at him all the time. “You’re the best, dude. See you tomorrow in class.”
With that, Stiles leaves and Derek thinks that even though he did do 95% of the work for the project, it was worth it if it meant Stiles playfully shoving him while Derek laughed and threw a blue shell at him just as Stiles was about to hit the finish line.
♦
They get an A on their project and Stiles gives Derek a high five and even though they're not immediately best friends and eating lunch together everyday or sitting next to each other in class, they’re smiling at each other in the hallways and Derek thinks that’s a start.
It’s hope that this could eventually turn into something more.