Whoever You Want Me To Be by The_Forgotten_Nobody
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Stiles hated Lydia. Actually, that wasn't quite true, he could never hate Lydia, but he was extremely unimpressed with her right now.
Stiles had been planning this meal for ages. He'd known Lydia was guaranteed to get a promotion soon and when she finally did, he had arranged to surprise her with reservations to her favourite fancy restaurant. However, when such event had finally occurred it turned out his best friend and once long-term crush had cancelled. Apparently she'd been offered an interview by a rival company offering more money and now was spending her time preparing and not joining Stiles on this elaborate, expensive dinner. Stiles couldn't really blame her, not really since she had no idea what they were doing nor how long he'd been saving up for it, but it really sucked to be eating alone. Especially with a second menu placed in front of an empty chair.
Not that he'd even ordered yet. Maybe he just looked so pathetic that the servers were just avoiding him in order to prevent catching his patheticness.
Stiles sighed as he took a sip of his water, glaring at the pitying stares some of the other customers gave him, in particular this one guy whispering to who was presumably his girlfriend (who was so out of his league it wasn't even funny and Stiles knew about that sort of thing).
Eventually, he couldn't take it any longer. "You know buddy, I can see you-"
"Thomas?"
"Uh, who what now?"
Stiles' head snapped around towards the guy who had suddenly appeared at his table and nearly had a heart attack. The man was absolutely gorgeous. Chiselled face with stunning green eyes and mouth forming the most adorably shy smile Stiles had ever seen. He was dressed in a casual shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal some delicious muscles along with some smart black pants and his smell...the cologne alone made Stiles want to jump him. Stiles had no idea who this Thomas was but if it kept Mr. Handsome here then he'd be whoever he wanted him to be.
"Thomas! Yes, that's me. Nice to meet you..."
"Derek. I guess Lily didn't even tell you my name, huh?"
Lily? It had been years since Stiles had attempted some improve acting but he guessed he could try and rustle up those dusty skills. "Oh yeah, Lily didn't tell me much at all, only that you were extremely good looking and she was right."
For a second, Stiles wondered if he should be doing this. What if Derek was here on some sort of business meeting and Stiles had misread the situation entirely? What if Stiles had just acted completely unprofessional for the person Stiles was supposed to be? What if Derek called the police on him for impersonation?
Stiles' mini internal meltdown was calmed when a light blush rose on Derek's cheeks and his smile grew. "Thanks, you look good too."
Stiles looked down at his old shirt he'd matched with a dusty blazer and pants that ended just above the ankle. "Um, thanks, I, uh, thanks."
"Can I sit down? Sorry I kept you waiting, traffic was horrible."
"No, no. Be my guest." A glance over to his side showed whisper guy was looking on in confusion while his girlfriend appeared slightly jealous. He barely just resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at them, so settled on smirking. See, he wasn't pathetic at all! And Stiles couldn't feel it within him to feel bad about this because he would have noticed if there was another guy looking as tragic as he did. Stiles was doing Derek a favour, he didn't have to know he'd been stood up!
It was almost like magic that at the moment Derek sat down a waitress appeared.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" She asked politely, as if she hadn't been ignoring Stiles for something close to half an hour.
"Would you like to share some wine? Laura told me you liked it." Thomas may have liked it, and so this Laura may be correct, but Stiles hated wine. After a bad college experience involving too much white and a bit of red, Stiles would never willingly drink the stuff again. However, he was Thomas tonight who most likely had not had such an experience and so he just nodded with a strained smile.
"Sounds good. You can choose." Derek gave the name of some posh sounding wine he'd never heard of and Stiles made an approving noise.
"So Derek, tell me about yourself," Stiles said once the waitress left, flashing what he hoped was a charming smile. It had been a while since his last date, okay?
"Well, there's not much to say about me really, I'm kind of boring." Derek gave a quiet self-deprecating laugh, scratching the back of his neck.
"I'm sure that's not true. C'mon dude, tell me your interests and stuff. You gotta job." It occurred afterwards to Stiles that he was pretty sure you're not supposed to call your date dude, but it just slipped out and thankfully, Derek didn't seem to mind. Either that he was just extremely polite.
"Sort of. I'm an artist. I know it's not the most stable of jobs but-"
"You kidding me? That's awesome. I'd draw but I don't have an artistic bone in my body."
Derek blushed again. "Oh that's right. Laura told me you were an accountant."
An accountant. Jeez Thomas was sounding like a boring guy, really, he was doing Derek a favour.
"Haha, yeah, an accountant. That's me, I love numbers." Stiles internally winced. "But I'm more interested in you. What sort of artist are you, do you paint, sculpt?"
"I do paint and I also work with charcoal and pencil. Depends what mood I'm in."
"Awesome. What do you draw?"
Derek shrugged. "Whatever gives me inspiration."
"Well, you'll definitely have to show me your art sometime," Stiles declared without thinking. It then dawned on him what he'd said and almost smacked his head on the table. This whole thing wasn't even going to last beyond dinner because Stiles wasn't Thomas, the guy he'd actually wanted to meet. At best, the dinner was going to finish, Stiles might get a kiss if he was lucky and then they'd leave, Derek eventually finding out the truth, becoming angry at being tricked and the two never seeing each other again. Even if Derek expressed an interest in seeing him again, it wasn't him he wanted to see, it was the guy Stiles was acting as.
"I'd like that."
The wine arrived at that moment and as a considerate person, Derek let Stiles taste the wine. It took all of his willpower not to gag.
"Tastes good," he choked out, glad he'd drunk a load of water before Derek had arrived.
The waitress poured Derek a glass then asked if they wanted to order. Stiles, having picked out his meal the moment he sat down, patiently waited for Derek to choose then rattled off his order.
"I'll have the steak please, medium rare with fries. And ketchup if you have it." He saw the brief look of 'why are you even here you heathen' before the expression on the waitresses face returned to its pleasant state for Derek, who he'd noted had given him a confused glance at his order.
Derek ordered the same as him, steak, rare, and then brought up his confusion.
"Laura told me you were a vegetarian. Part of the reason we chose here was because this place did some of the best vegetarian food."
Oh yeah, that was the reason Stiles had chosen it for Lydia. Thank god Derek hadn't mentioned that earlier or Stiles might have felt obliged to order some flimsy, unsatisfying salad. As it was, he quickly had to come up with a lie.
Faking a look of embarrassment, Stiles said, "I've been trying and it's what I tell people but it's hard you know? I'm thinking of just giving up on the idea." He downcast his eyes and jerked in surprise when Derek placed a hand on top of his.
"Hey, it's ok. Honestly, it's a bit of a relief. I'm not very good at cooking vegetarian meals." Oh god, another insinuation that they'd see each other again, along with the revelation Derek cooks. He couldn't deal with this. He wanted to see Derek after this. And he couldn't.
They continued talking until their dinner came and Stiles gazed at his ridiculously overpriced steak adoringly, making Derek laugh.
"I did hear the steak was also pretty good. Let's hope it's worth the money huh?"
"You're telling me," replied Stiles and then promptly began to devour his steak which he had to admit, was absolutely delicious. Derek finished his at a more reasonable pace and just as he took his last bite, a crash sounded from the table opposite.
For a second, and it was barely even that, Derek's eyes flashed blue and hair protruded from his face. There were almost invisible dents on the table. That was all it took for Stiles to know.
"Holy shit, you're a werewolf!" He whispered because, you know, he wasn't an idiot.
Except, maybe he was as Derek could recoil in alarm fast enough, an angry, panicked look on his face.
"How do you know about us?" He hissed. "Laura told me you had no knowledge of us at all, had assured me of it. Is this some kind of sick joke? Are you a hunter?"
What broke Stiles' heart was that along with the anger and panic, Derek looked sad. Shit. This was what he had wanted to avoid, not that he thought this of all things would happen. It wasn't every day your unexpected blind date turns out to be a wolf. Oh man, he was going to get ripped to shreds.
"No, no. Listen. My best buddy Scott is one of you. Bitten in high school. We kind of learnt to deal with it together but that's a whole other story. The point is while I may have dealt with hunters thanks to Scott's furry little secret I am in no way one of them and I am not here to kill you. Up until just now I was completely oblivious. Um. I guess now would be a good name to tell you my name isn't Thomas. Stiles Stilinski, pleased to meet you."
The offered hand wasn't shook and Derek's nostrils flared. "Explain."
The waiter who had just arrived to clean their plates away disappeared in record time. Stiles wanted to join him, but he was a semi-responsible adult so he did the right thing and explained to Derek what had happened, averting his eyes from Derek the whole time.
"You know, I'm surprised you couldn't smell Scott on me. I thought that werewolves could catch the scent of other wolves on people," Stiles asked once he was finished.
"Normally, but I wasn't expecting you to and your cologne is really strong."
Stiles sniffed himself. He may have been a bit heavy handed by hey, it was his dad's good stuff and a special occasion.
"I guess. So, uh, are you mad at me? I mean, I completely understand if you are. After all, I pretended to be your blind date, basically lied to you all evening, nearly caused you to wolf out, stop me any time you like."
Derek sighed and Stiles took it as a good sign he didn't look murderous, not even slightly wolfy.
"Stiles, while I am certainly not fan of the lying, at all and I'd prefer you didn't do it again, I guess it means Thomas didn't show up?"
Stiles gave an apologetic shrug. "Looks that way, sorry dude."
"Then I suppose not only did I save you from eating alone, you saved me the embarrassment of being stood up. Also, I won't lie, Thomas didn't sound like the most interesting of guys."
"You have no idea how hard it was to be this guy. I nearly puked up the wine. And thank god you didn't mention he was a vegetarian sooner."
Much to Stiles' delight, Derek laughed. Perhaps this whole situation was salvageable after all.
"That was a nice save by the way."
"Thanks. Hey, so if you thought Thomas was boring why did you agree to go on a blind date with him?"
Derek huffed. "My sister. I've been on a break from dating for a few years after a bad break up and so she set this up for me and demanded I go. The only reason I got some information about Thomas was because I told her I wouldn't agree unless she did. The key attribute about him, I might add, was that he had no connection with or any knowledge about werewolves."
Stiles grimaced. "Oops, sorry about that."
"No, it's fine. I'm actually kind of glad I met you instead of Thomas."
With a grin and sudden burst of confidence, Stiles wiggled his eyebrows. "Does this mean I still get to come over to yours?"
There was that blush Stiles was already coming to love. "If you want to. Um, in fact. Since we haven't already had dessert, we could have it at my home. I don't live far."
Stiles' brow creased. "I thought you were late because of traffic."
"Actually I was just nervous. Laura practically had to shove me out the door."
Laughing, Stiles had a thought. "She won't be there when we get back, will she?"
"No, I told her to leave when I was gone. I think she'll actually do as I say this once since she forced me out."
"Good." Stiles planned to have dessert but whether that be on a table or Derek's body? Well, they'd just find out later.