Derek Hale-- Even in the Wind His Hair Is Perfect

Chapter 2

It’s been a few months at this new station, but Derek likes it okay. Erica, his producer, seems to like him enough, which is always refreshing since the producer at his last station was a psycho, it’s one of the reasons why he quit and moved to Beacon Hills to find a job. He’ll admit, it takes him a while to warm up to people, but his coworkers haven’t started sneering at him, so that’s gotta count as a win.

He has one coworker in particular that he just can’t seem to act normal around, and it’s starting to stress him out to the point where just tries to avoid the guy. It’s mainly because Derek finds him incredibly attractive, and that never works out well for Derek. Last time he decided to follow-through with his feelings for a coworker, it ended incredibly badly and made the whole rest of his time there so awkward (the other reason why he quit and moved).

He knows his name is Stiles, but he’s not entirely sure what he does, thinks it has something to do with their online website and headlines and closed captioning? No, that’s not it. Derek doesn’t remember because he was too busy staring at Stiles’s lips when Erica had introduced him. He didn’t even catch Stiles saying hi because his eyes were so round and large, and Derek was hating himself for getting distracted by them.

It wasn’t a good first impression, and now when they do run into each other Stiles just grunts and walks away, and Derek thinks it’s probably better that way. He knows he’d embarrass himself if he tried to hold a conversation with Stiles because what the hell would he say? “Your lips would be perfect against mine?” “I could get lost in your eyes?” “How can your nose look so damn cute?” No. Derek can’t say any of those things, but he knows that’s what would spew out if he were to try to talk to Stiles, so he nods when Stiles grunts and leaves.

He is fine with catching glimpses of Stiles during staff meetings and in the break room when he can. It’s probably better for everyone if things just stay that way. Pining works for him. No one but Isaac, his cameraman, knows about his crush on Stiles, and he’d very much like to keep it that way.

~

“Derek, we’re going to need you to follow up on that story you did last month on the city hall protests,” Erica tells him as soon as he walks into the studio.

“Uh, alright, is the bill up again?” Derek asks, setting his bag down to pull out his iPad.

Erica nods, “Yeah, but I don’t think another protest has been organized. I think city hall’s been trying to keep everything hush-hush. I only heard about it because a buddy of mine is the assistant to one of the councilman.”

“Do you want there to be another protest?”

Erica grins, wide and scary, if Derek’s honest. “I think there should be. I don’t want my taxes going up to pay for the mayor’s new house, do you?”

“I don’t think that’s what the tax money—“

“Don’t care, Derek,” she says in a singsong voice. “Go back and look at the tape at what the protesters were saying, see if you can find them again, bring it up. The bills up for discussion next Thursday, so you have till next Wednesday to give me a completed story to air.”

She turns to walk back into her office, and Derek stops her, “Wait, do you remember what day that story aired?” Erica turns and narrows her eyes at him; he immediately back-pedals. “No, it’s fine. I’ll find it. No problem. I’ll have it ready by Wednesday.” Erica’s smile returns, and she whips her hair behind her shoulder and saunters off back to her office.

Great. Now he has to go and review tape for his old stories, something he hates doing because he hates watching himself on screen. He could probably ask someone else when the story aired, but he’d rather just suffer. He vaguely remembers when it was and thinks he can figure out which day once he’s looking at it.

He goes to Greenberg, the keeper and editor of their footage, and asks to pull up the files for the week he thinks the story aired. Greenberg obliges and then tells him as long as he doesn’t delete anything or mess with his organization (what organization? Derek thinks) that he’s free to use his office for the next hour because he’s going to lunch. He leaves Derek with some basic instructions on how to move from video to video and then disappears.

Derek sighs and then gets down to it, the faster he can find the old story, the sooner he can start on the new one. He fast-forwards through the first video until he sees his face and listens long enough to determine whether or not it’s the story he’s looking for. It’s not, so he fast-forwards it again to be sure he didn’t have another story that night. He does the same for the second video, pushing play when he sees his face, waits till he gets the gist of the story and determines it’s not what he’s looking for and moves on.

It’s not till he gets to the third day’s footage that he notices the caption beneath his name. Under where it says “Derek Hale,” it says “His eyes are like rare gems” instead of what he is pretty sure is supposed to say “Channel 6 News.” He pauses it and stares at the caption, and yes that is totally what it says, and now he’s starting to wonder what all the other ones have said.

He starts back at the first video he had watched, goes to his story, and then pauses on the caption. This one says “Even in the wind his hair is perfect.” Derek is flattered and a little embarrassed since he knows their news is broadcast to at least the 80,000 plus people of Beacon Hills and the surrounding cities. Do all of his stories have these captions? What do the rest of them say?

When Greenberg gets back to his lunch, Derek has reviewed an entire month’s worth of his stories just to see the captions, some range from hilarious, to downright romantic, and he has to know who’s in charge of writing them because he kind of wants to take them out for coffee.

“Did ya find what you needed?” Greenberg asks Derek once Derek’s stood to give him his desk back.

“Uh yeah… Hey, do you know who writes the captions?”

Greenberg smirks. “Stiles. Man, he’s got some funny ones, doesn’t he? Last week he had one about—“

Derek nods and cuts him off, “Right. Thanks, Greenberg!” He leaves before he can hear Greenberg’s muttered words of annoyance.

He goes back to his desk to think over this new information. He had found the story he needed already, but he had time to come up with something for Erica. But the information about Stiles? He kind of didn’t know what to do. He did want to take him out for coffee, has always wanted to ask Stiles out, but he had always thought Stiles didn’t like him? Obviously that wasn’t the case if his captions on Derek’s stories were anything to go by. Some of the compliments Stiles gave him in the captions made him blush; he never thought anyone noticed his dimples under his stubble, or appreciated his stubble for that matter.

After some consideration, he decides that he needs to confront Stiles. Derek needs to know if he really did think all those things about him or if he was saying those things to get a laugh. He had seen some of the captions on other stories and some of them seemed like a joke. He looks up where Stiles’s cubicle is on their intranet site and makes the trek over, all the while hoping and praying that Stiles really meant all those things. Cause if he did, Derek is definitely asking him out for coffee, drinks, and to come home with him afterwards.