Stiles Stilinski + Derek Hale

so it goes

A/N: writing this AU made me want to claw my eyes out. It was so hard. Shoutout to Leah for putting up with me as I forced her to reread it over and over again.

Who is your favorite Teen Wolf character?

Derek fully acknowledged that sitting and watching his crush from the back of the bleachers was single handedly the most embarrassing way to spend his afternoons, but he'd been doing it so long now that it had become an essential part of his routine. Ever since Stiles had made first line, Derek was on the metal bleachers, eagerly watching him run back and forth across the field (and not so secretly admiring his physique).

That was three years ago.

Okay, so maybe it was even more embarrassing than Derek assumed. And maybe even a little bit creepy.

Derek was also well aware that his and Stiles's friend groups did not mix, so he made no attempt to approach Stiles, not even in the classes they had together. Stiles was one of the "popular" kids and hung out with people like Scott McCall and Jackson Whittemore while Derek preferred to hang with the "lowlife". That, and Derek's ability to interact with other humans was incredibly limited. Instead, he chose to admire Stiles from afar and hoped that he wouldn't get caught in a compromising position. 

Not that Derek was a stalker.

Five minutes before practice ended, Derek took one last glance at Stiles's sweating form, grabbed his things, and rushed towards the parking lot to avoid being spotted. In this sad, gone-on-way-too-long crush, avoidance was key. Every time they had a class together, Derek would try to get a desk as far away as possible. Even at lunch, Derek forced his friend group to sit at a table at the opposite end of the cafeteria. Isaac hated this, as it resulted in being farther away from the counter with the tater tots.

What Derek did not plan on was being assigned as Stiles's partner in an English project.

And it wasn't just any project, it was a project that covered a book that they would be studying for an entire quarter of the year. So instead of engaging in a finely tuned system of avoidance, Derek would be required to sit in a desk directly beside Stiles for two whole months. Derek wasn't quite sure if his heart and sanity would be able to handle that. Best case scenario, he'd last a whole week before dying of absolute humiliation.

"Derek Hale!" Stiles exclaims while dumping his copy of the text and pencil on the desk directly beside Derek. He quickly ruffled his dark brown hair and slid the pencil behind his left ear. Derek tried to ignore the warm feeling in his chest at the thought of Stiles knowing his name.

Derek winced and felt his body go completely still as Stiles slid into the chair beside him. He tried to ignore the adorable dimples that pressed themselves into Stiles's cheeks and the way that his honey colored eyes sparkled in the crappy fluorescent lighting.

Stiles took the small, red book in his hand and waved it in Derek's direction, "Generally I'm pretty good at English, but I never understood Vonnegut, so I apologize in advance."

Derek just nodded and tried to remember how to breathe.

Throughout the forty-five minute period, Stiles tried several times more to engage in conversation with Derek, trying to get him to crack a smile with a crappy joke, but the largest contribution Derek gave was a quiet "uh huh" when Stiles started brainstorming potential approaches to the project. His silence only seemed to encourage Stiles to try even harder.

"I said, Can I give you my number? Because I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this book and we're only on chapter one. Plus we'll be working on this project all quarter so it sounds like a good idea, right?"