Hi guys, welcome to our new weekly segment: Feature Friday. Once a week, we’ll be hyping up one of your favourite authors and recommending five of their fics, some old and some new, so that you can re-read all of your old favourite stories, or maybe even discover a new favourite! If you have someone you’d love to see in this segment, send us an ask here on Tumblr, or message one of our helpful mods on discord.
Our author of the week is maraudersourwolf who has been writing on a03 since November 2017. A talented artist as well as author, they really can do it all! They have written 64 teen wolf fics, with 38 focused on our favourite boys. Mauraudersourwolf is known for their fluffy and hilarious fics, with occasional forays into angst, and is a definite favourite here at OTL. If you haven’t already obsessively read every single one of their fics, then you’re in for a real treat!
Find below five of officialthiamlibrary’s favourite thiam fics that mauraudersourwolf has written:
astripta [ Teen // 3.5K // Complete ]
Liam saw black and white since he had memory.
Theo sees things, feels things, taste things the way they’re not supposed to be.
This story was written as part of the thiam week in 2018 but it’s been stuck in our mind ever since. It’s about embracing differences, and it really tugs at the heartstrings. If you love canon divergence stories with enemies to loves, this will definitely be your jam.
***
chimera’s day care [ Not Rated // 10K // Complete ]
Puppy pack.
From the bunch of things that could turn around and bite him in the ass, that’s quite literally the one he less expected.
Puppies everywhere!! The puppy pack has been de-aged by a vengeful witch, and shenanigans ensue when Theo is left in charge of the kids. It’s hilarious, sweet and moving, and it’ll leave you feeling like you’ve been hugged for at least 12 hours.
***
and they were rommates [ Explicit // 5K // Complete ]
Every time Liam brings someone to bed with him, is the same fucking story.
Every.
Fucking.
Time.
He swears to fucking god.
Again, like so many of their fics, this one is so funny. Mostly because so much of Liam’s horny angst is completely unnecessary. It takes him a ridiculously long time to realise why Theo is deliberately sabotaging his dates, but when he does, god, it’s amazing. The characterisation in this fic is perfect, with Theo oozing sarcasm and charm, and Liam more than a little hopeless. But like always, the two of them just work. We’re still getting shivers from this one.
***
three time’s the charm [ Mature // 7K // Complete ]
It all started with an afternoon at the museum.
He should have known that breaking his routine would be tempting his luck.
Oh, Liam. It’s adorable how often he shoves his foot in his mouth. And the drooling over Theo and gentle ribbing from best friend Mason? This story is the perfect balance of fluff and humor and you can’t help but smile as you read about these two idiots. Mostly Liam, but we all know Theo has his moments.
***
capable of being loved [ Not Rated // 1K // Complete ]
There’s a notepad on his hands and it weights more than all his fears and memories together, more than anything he could ever have experienced and at the same time it weights nothing more than what a couple of paper sheets and a cover would.
This is the closest thing to Theo’s soul that Liam have ever seen.
Ever wonder what’s going on inside of Theo’s mind? Of course you do, we’ve all contemplated it. This fic has it all. Introspection. Angst. A peer into someone else’s soul. Liam seeing parts of a broken chimera that he’s only just beginning to scratch the surface of and recognizing there is so much more to this man than he ever knew. It’s an emotional roller coaster, but an important journey to take.
What a coincidence, today is my birthday too 😂 Wish you a happy birthday! Hope you get lots of cake (if you are into that) and all the happiness your heart can take before bursting of joy ✨
WE HAD THE POUND CAKE I MADE. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU AS WELL
A small reminder that you carry so much talent in your bones that it's unbelievable and you're an incredibly amazing soul that does nothing but shine. I just wish for you to know how much light you bring to this world and how much happiness you deserve ✨
Now I’m going to cry. Thank you so much, Des. You’re wonderful ❤️❤️❤️
For the fanfic ask meme: 1, 8, 17 and 18 please :)
Oh! Someone asked me something! Thank you! I love talking to people. Hopefully, I don’t disappoint :)
1. If you’re an author, how many WIPs do you currently have? (Be honest!)
Honest? Oh god, so many. 17, I think. Seems about right.
8. Bed sharing or roommates AU?
Bed sharing. I love bed sharing. It’s so cute. I’m weird though. I love it even when it's not necessarily romantic.
I once wrote a fic where one character was drunk, and the other character brought them home, and just stayed because his friend seemed lonely, so the drunk character woke up in the middle of the night to find that he had been tucked into bed and his friend passed out on top of the covers beside him.
17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.
Stiles is a powerful spark, and alpha’s all across the country, the world even, are courting him to bind him to their pack. None of the alphas feel right, so Stiles refuses to bond with anyone, but Talia Hale is one of the alphas attempting to woo him, and she’s becoming increasingly aggressive about it. It’s not a sexual thing at all. It would just involve Stiles permanently binding himself and his magic to a pack, so it would need to be an alpha he trusted implicitly. Even Scott doesn’t feel right, though Deaton is pushing for Scott to try and seal the deal with Stiles too.
Derek, who is a beta in the Hale pack, comes back to Beacon Hills. He’s been away at college, something Stiles hasn’t gotten to do yet because of the increasing pressure from alphas. They meet by accident, and not knowing who the other is, start dating.
Of course, Talia eventually finds out and tries to use their relationship against Stiles, and things spiral out of control.
18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?
I read where ever, and whenever I can. I’m in my last year of university, so I have a lot of academic reading to do, which I procrastinate by reading fanfiction and fiction. I read a lot on the bus.
As for writing, I write at a coffee shop near my apartment and drink copious amounts of tea.
Aww, thank you so much! This was a lot of fun to write so I hope you like it! (also on ao3!)
In the month and a half since Cas had officially moved into the Bunker, strange things had been happening.
After the Darkness had decided to leave peacefully, God in tow, Cas had decided to stay in the Bunker with Sam and Dean. It was partially because he had nowhere else to go, the other angels in Heaven still refusing to accept him back into the fold, and partially because the Bunker felt more like home than Heaven ever had.
He had been given room fifteen and free reign to rearrange furniture whichever way he wished, whether it be moving around the bed or adding more bookshelves. He had opted against any changes, content with having a room of his own for the first time in his life.
He had quickly adapted to life with Sam and Dean, assisting them with various translations of dead languages and other forms of research in general. He never failed to accompany them on even the most routine of hunts, either, helping with tracking creatures and healing any injuries the brothers sustained.
In the mornings, he went for runs with Sam who showed him around Lebanon and invited him to attend a yoga class with him at a local gym. In the evenings, he volunteered to help Dean make dinner, usually getting relegated to simple tasks like peeling potatoes.
When they didn’t have a case, Cas spent most of his days wandering through the Bunker to get better acquainted with its many rooms. On occasion, he would spend hours in the library, perusing through dozens of ancient tomes and the more contemporary novels that both Charlie and Claire had recommended him.
Other times, he simply lingered in his room, delighting in the wonderfulness that was sleep, cocooned in warm sheets and thick blankets. After billions of years of consciousness, sleep was a welcome recourse from the stresses of life, one that he relished with gusto.
Life at the Bunker was, for a lack of better words, heavenly. From eating dinner every night with Sam and Dean to meeting Jody and Alex when they accompanied Claire for a visit to Netflix marathons with all of them squished together on the couch as they argued over what to watch.
Yet a month into his stay, very odd things had begun to happen.
One morning, when he went to brush his teeth, a hygienic routine that Dean had taught him after explaining how awful morning breath was, he found that his teeth had turned blue after using his toothbrush. After inspecting his toothbrush, he found that some sort of blue fluid had been poured over the bristles of the brush, staining them.
He’d had to throw out his toothbrush and rummage around in two different supply closets for a new one. It had taken three more times of brushing his teeth to get rid of the blue tinge on his enamel.
A couple days later, he had retired to his room for a quick afternoon nap after going grocery shopping with Sam, having to drive a couple towns over just to pick up a few essentials like bread and beer, intent on sleeping for an hour or two. But when he plopped down in bed, stretching his legs and yawning, he was startled by a loud pop that sounded the second he laid his head on his pillow.
He had jolted upright on his bed, twisting to look at his pillow that looked oddly deflated. It appeared that the pillow itself had been removed from the case to be replaced with balloons, Cas sighing as he pulled the tattered pieces of multicolored latex out of the pillow case.
The next morning, Cas had woken up much earlier than he would have liked, unable to get a good night’s sleep after the incident with the balloons. He had dragged himself to the kitchen in the hopes that Sam or Dean had already made a pot of coffee. They hadn’t.
Grumbling under his breath, he had crossed the room to grab the coffee pot, rounding back to the sink to fill it. But when he turned on the tap, he was blasted with a spray of cold water on his chest, soaking through his borrowed t-shirt.
Muttering curses, he had fumbled to turn the sink off while trying not to drop the coffee pot. After he managed to shut off the water, he had inspected the sink, finding that someone had wrapped a rubber band around the trigger of the sprayer.
It was after that incident that he finally sought out some advice.
Sam was eating breakfast when Cas found him in the War Room, a bowl of cereal in front of him as he read the local newspaper that was full of articles about the upcoming craft fair and various other events in the area. Without preamble, Cas sat down across from him and asked, “May I talk to you for a moment, Sam?”
Sam looked at him over the top of his newspaper, pausing in the middle of raising a spoonful of Special K to his mouth. Setting down the paper and his spoon, he nodded, agreeing, “Yeah, sure, Cas.”
“Have you noticed any strange occurrences lately?” Cas questioned. He folded his hands on the table the way he had seen Sam do several times. “Because I’ve been experiencing some strange phenomena in the past week.”
“Phenomena? What, like a ghost?” Sam asked in turn, frowning as his forehead wrinkled. He leaned forward, clearly intrigued.
Cas shook his head. If it was something spectral, he would have already known, lost souls detectable to angels. Sighing, he murmured, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, what’s been going on?” Sam pressed, his eyes straying to the large wet spot on the front of Cas’ shirt. He met Cas’ eyes again with a raised brow, an amused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Cas succinctly explained his weird experiences from the dye on his toothbrush to the balloons in his pillow case to the incident in the kitchen. By the time he was done, Sam had a knowing grin plastered on his face as he laughed, shaking his head.
“Dude, it’s Dean,” Sam claimed. At Cas’ thoroughly confused expression, he elaborated, “He’s pranking you. Y'know, practical jokes?”
Cas frowned, his eyebrows drawing together as he wracked his brain for the definition of a prank. He finally did when he recalled a conversation between Sam and Dean concerning their last ‘prank war’, nodding to himself as applied the context to his experiences.
“Why is Dean pranking me?” He wondered aloud, looking to Sam in hopes that he had the answer. He had done nothing to deserve Dean’s ire. Nothing he could recall, at least. “Have I done something wrong?”
“What? No,” Sam rushed to assure him, shaking his head fervently enough that his hair waved back and forth. “No, it’s uh… It’s a sign of affection.”
“Oh…” Cas mumbled, nodding to himself as he squinted down at the table, visually tracing the outline of southern Africa. He wondered if the pranks were going to continue.
Before he could ask, Sam smirked widely and offered, “Want me to help you get him back?”
“Who the hell put my car keys in jello?!” Dean roared as he stormed into the War Room, slamming down the plate of bright red jello that he had found in the fridge. The gelatinous blob jiggled, his car keys floating in the center, the outline of them mocking him.
He had just been looking for an afternoon snack when he had found the red jello, at first overlooking it completely. Until he noticed that there was a familiar shape suspended in the jello, immediately recognizing it as the keys to his baby.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
A few days prior, he had returned to his room after breakfast only to jump three feet in the air when he heard the jarring blare of an air horn. He had glanced around, trying to find the source of the noise, until he found an air horn duct taped to the wall behind his door, the knob hitting the trigger when he opened the door.
The day after that, he was getting ready in his room, applying some deodorant when he abruptly caught a whiff of something that he definitely shouldn’t be smelling in his bedroom: cream cheese. With a groan, he had checked his tube of deodorant, confirming that it had indeed been replaced with cream cheese. Cream cheese that he had just smeared under his arms.
He had stomped off to the bathroom for a shower, intent on scrubbing his armpits clean before kicking his little brother’s ass. Grabbing the bar of soap, he had quickly scrubbed his pits, only to find that the damn soap wouldn’t lather. With another groan, he had curiously sniffed the bar of soap, detecting the scent of nail polish immediately.
And now his brother was fucking with his car keys. Not okay. Not at all. That was going way too far.
“Sam!” Dean yelled, his voice echoing through the Bunker, Cas wincing in his seat at the table. Picking up the plate of jello, Dean called again, “Sam! Where the hell are you?!”
“I’m in the garage!” Sam’s voice was faint and far away as he responded. His answer made Dean’s blood run cold.
The garage? That was where he kept his baby. If Sam had already fucked with the keys to the Impala, what was stopping him from fucking with the car itself?
“If you touch my car, I’ll rip your fucking nuts off!” Dean practically roared as he ran through the Bunker to the garage. He barely noticed that Cas followed him.
He dropped the plate of jello the second he saw his car, the plate shattering while the blob of jello retained its shape, jiggling mockingly. He didn’t even care at that point, his eyes fixed on his car as his jaw dropped.
Because his car was pink. His baby, the car he had considered his home for the past thirty plus years, was bright pink.
Sam was doubled over laughing, a hand clamped over his mouth as his shoulders shook. Dean had never wanted to kick his ass so much.
“What the fuck did you do to my car?!” Dean demanded, rounding on his brother, his lip curled up in a vicious snarl. If anything, it just made Sam laugh harder. Oh Chuck, he was really asking for it.
Dean stalked closer to his brother, balling his hand up into a fist so he could knock the living daylights out of him. Show him why messing with a man’s car was a death sentence.
Before he could sock Sam in the jaw for having the nerve, the audacity, the balls to fuck with his precious baby, Cas spoke. His voice even, he announced, “Sam wasn’t the one who repainted your car.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dean hissed, turning on his heel to glare at Cas instead. Shouldn’t Cas be on his side? What the hell! Throwing up his hands, he implored, “Then who did, Sherlock?”
“I did,” Cas said, infuriatingly calm as he unflinchingly met Dean’s eyes. Dean was the furthest thing from calm.
He dropped his arms, gaping at Cas with eyes as wide as the pastel pink Impala’s rims. He was aghast, blinking rapidly as he tried to decipher just why exactly Cas would do such a horrible thing. Then it clicked.
“Is this payback for me pranking you?!” Dean practically whimpered. Cas just nodded. “C'mon, man! You don’t mess with a man’s car! That’s just wrong!”
He turned to his car, feeling another whine bubble up and out of his throat at the mere sight of the pink paint job. Cas was supposed to be his best friend, damn it!
Then, before his very eyes, the pink vanished to reveal his baby in all her glory, black paint glistening under the lights in the garage. The sound of someone snapping their fingers echoed throughout the room.
He whipped his head around to look at Cas whose hand was still raised, fingers poised to snap. The angel was smirking, the corner of his lips quirked up in blatant amusement.
“You…” Dean began. “You asshole!”
He pointed an accusatory finger at Cas’ chest as he stepped closer, feeling beyond scandalized. He would expect this kind of angelic fuckery from Gabriel, not Cas.
Cas met him halfway, leaning in to peck Dean on his slack lips, ignoring the fact his kiss wasn’t reciprocated. Smiling as Sam continued to laugh his ass off, Cas beamed at Dean and informed him, “Prank me again and I’ll make it permanent—” he paused, then added, “—babe.”
Without another word, Cas turned and walked out of the garage, the sound of his footsteps fading after a moment. Dean was left to gawk at his boyfriend’s retreating form, feeling both ecstatic and terrified, wondering if that was what being in love felt like.
Based on this prompt I said I’d fill a few days ago:
boss: “know why I called you in here?”
me: “because I accidentally sent you a dick pic”
boss: “accidentally?”
yup.
(on ao3)
“You need to stop pining after people you haven’t even spoken to,” Lydia says one day, probably because Derek—er, Mr. Hale, their boss—has just stepped through the front door of the cafe where they’re having lunch, and Stiles has trailed off mid-word to watch him walk up to the counter. In Stiles’ defense, he’s never seen Mr. Hale outside of the office before, let alone Mr. Hale wearing a leather jacket over his dress shirt. God, and Stiles thought the tailored suits were bad enough…
Anyway.
“Uh, I have too spoken to him,” Stiles says indignantly, tearing his eyes away from Derek’s broad back across the room. “One day I was coming out of the break room and I almost walked right into him and he said, ‘Excuse me,’ so then I said, ‘Oops,’ and he smiled at me. Kind of. A little bit. I mean, I interpreted it as a smile. There was some prolonged eye contact.”
Lydia abruptly stops stirring her fat-free latte to stare at him—one of those Oh god, it’s worse than I thought kind of looks. “That’s it?”
“No. I wasn’t finished,” Stiles says. “We also ate lunch together last Monday. I forgot to bring my lunch, so I was just eating a bag of chips from the vending machine and he offered me half his tuna sandwich.”
It had been one of the nicest office lunch breaks he’d ever had, actually. Stiles was sitting on the low brick wall at the edge of the picnic area, and to his surprise, Derek sat down there, too, in his probably-thousand-dollar suit, while Stiles gaped at him a little for doing it.
Derek had then continued to sit there even after giving away the sandwich. It had been clear from the way he kept glancing at Stiles that he didn’t know what to say but he wanted to say something, so Stiles had prompted, “Got any weekend plans?” and Derek had said he didn’t have any, so Stiles had rambled for a while about his weekend plans, which involved going down to San Francisco for the weekend for a Bastille concert. Derek sat there and listened attentively the whole time, which, in Stiles’ experience, not many people would do. He also said he didn’t know who Bastille was. That was a little surprising, but then again, Stiles supposed Derek didn’t have a lot of time to absorb pop culture, what with running the foundation and owning a dog and all.
He’d obviously had a bit of time at that moment, though, so Stiles had pulled out his phone and played Derek some of their songs, and Derek had nodded his head subtly to the beat and smiled a little and instantly made Stiles’ crush on him a whole lot more intense.
“And that’s it,” he concludes now. “So do you think he’s into me at all?“
"How should I know? I’m not a mind reader.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Stiles mutters, thinking about all the times she’s guessed ahead of time what he was going to get her for her birthday and all the times she’s taken one look at him and known with an uncanny certainty that he’s just gotten laid or, more commonly, that he’s just spent the whole night playing video games and ignoring life’s responsibilities.
Now Lydia sighs. “Look, all I know is, office romances are tricky. Even if he is interested, he’d probably feel like he can’t ask you out because of the power dynamic. You’ll have to make the first move.”
“Yeah, right,” Stiles snorts.
Lydia raises her eyebrows like, I thought so. “Stiles…” she says, “as your friend who’s concerned for your happiness, I’m going to ask you something: Have you gone on a single date in the last month? The last six months?”
Stiles resists the urge to squirm under her knowing gaze. She could be a world-class interrogator if she ever wanted a career change. “Okay, but… I’ve been busy, okay? It has nothing to do with Der— Mr. Hale. As if. That’s ridiculous. Totally ludicrous.”
“I see,” Lydia says, unimpressed.
The next thing he knows, she’s installing a dating app on his phone and filling in a profile that’s a hundred times more charming and put-together than anything Stiles could’ve come up with on his own and finagling a promise out of him that he’ll at least give it a decent try.
Stiles gives his word, but privately he wonders if he can keep it.
It was actually Derek who inspired Stiles to apply to work at the Howls for Change Foundation to begin with. The local newspaper interviewed him a couple of years ago about the foundation, back when it was just starting up. Stiles had been just skimming, not planning to sit down and read the paper for half an hour, but that’s just what he ended up doing, drawn in by Derek’s interview—his enthusiasm and love for wolves, his eloquence in replying to the journalist’s questions, the accompanying picture of him… He was in jogging clothes, crouched on a trail out in the woods somewhere and hugging his German Shepherd while flashing the camera a rare, genuine smile so bright it made Stiles feel warm all over, and yeah, Stiles applied to this job about 75% because he loved wildlife conservation and about 25% because he wanted to see Derek Hale smile like that again, and possibly be the one to make him do it.
The feeling has only gotten stronger since then.
Derek likes to act like he’s just one of the employees, even though he’s not only the boss but also the organization’s founder. He has his own corner office, but he mainly just uses it for meeting with local policymakers and other bigwigs. The rest of the time, he has a cubicle where he plugs away on his laptop or just sits contemplatively, eating an apple or listening to music on an old CD player he keeps in the top drawer. He eats lunch outside in the picnic area with his employees, too, when it’s nice out. He brings bag lunches from home, which Stiles finds oddly charming.
Still, Stiles can see Derek is set apart. No matter how much he acts like he’s just an employee, no one ever forgets he’s the boss. When he walks into the break room, a hush always falls, and if they were talking about something gossipy or off-color before he walked in, they always hastily change the subject to something more workplace-appropriate and bland, like the weather or what’s for lunch, and Derek nods politely at them, gets his coffee, and leaves without a word. Stiles thinks he looks kind of lonely. He always comes off as hardworking and unpretentious, but he also doesn’t seem that fond of small talk or smiling, and it clearly makes a lot of people feel awkward around him.
For all the great work Derek is doing in the conservation world, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends.
Even so, the thought of Stiles asking him out and Derek actually saying yes… Well. It’s laughable, really.
So Lydia says, “Promise me you’ll at least try the app?” and Stiles says he will.
*
Two weeks and several mediocre first dates later, Stiles is sitting in a budget meeting at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, poking at his phone under the table. He doesn’t make any attempt to stay on task first; whenever Greenberg starts talking in these meetings, like clockwork Stiles always gets this unbearable itch to look at his phone or pick at his nails or even just stare blankly out the window, anything but listen to him.
He deletes a dozen spam emails and replies to a couple punny texts from Scott from last night before he finally, reluctantly thumbs over to his unread messages on the dating app. By this point he’s not very optimistic. Turns out he was right to be, because someone has sent him an unsolicited dick pic.
Instinctively he sinks down a little lower in his seat. It turns out to be an unnecessary precaution, though. One glance around confirms it: the woman to his left is absorbed in doodling Power Rangers on her notepad, and the man to his right is gazing straight ahead into space, so zoned out he’s practically comatose.
Stiles looks back down at his phone.
It’s a nice dick pic, objectively. Very artistic, very tasteful. The guy, whose head is cropped out of the photo, is sprawled on his back on a turquoise sheet, soft sunlight falling on his naked torso, one long-fingered hand curled lazily around his erection. A+ for aesthetics.
Still, Stiles did not wake up this morning after only three hours of sleep (what can he say, he got distracted by Wikipedia again) just so he could see a complete stranger’s junk.
The sad thing is, this isn’t even the first time this has happened, or the third, or the fifth… Would it kill these guys to say hello first?
Stiles screenshots it, then pastes it into a new email to Lydia (he’s been keeping her apprised of his dating app adventures, at her insistence). He captions it with a grumpy, “guess how my morning is going.”
She’s the one who thought this app would be such a great idea in the first place. Maybe now, face-to-face with what Stiles has had to put up with on a daily basis for the past two weeks, she’ll finally admit the whole online dating thing was a bad idea and stop shooting him pitying looks whenever the subject of Derek Hale comes up.
After that, he blocks the dick-pic-sender and puts his phone away. Greenberg is still talking, still meticulously going over lots of hard-to-read charts, and Stiles’ gaze inevitably wanders to fall on Derek instead. Derek, who’s sitting at the head of the table, looking at something on his phone and not even trying to hide it.
Stiles supposes if you’re the founder of the company, you don’t have to pretend to be paying attention while Greenberg talks.
Derek’s phone buzzes in his hand; Stiles can just barely hear it. Derek taps at the screen while lifting his glass of water to his mouth, and then he must read something shocking because he simultaneously spits out his water all over his notes and starts coughing furiously, doubling over like he’s dying, his phone clattering to the table.
Greenberg momentarily stops his monotone speech, hovering like he’s not sure what to do, while pretty much everyone around the table freezes up except for the vice president, Boyd, who’s sitting next to him and never seems even remotely fazed by anything. He pounds Derek heartily on the back a couple times.
It seems to help. After a long half minute, the coughing fit passes. Derek looks up, red-faced, and rasps, “I’m okay.”
Hesitantly, Greenberg starts talking again. Derek straightens his tie and puts his phone away, and Stiles’ fellow employees go back to slumping in their seats with blank, I’m-bored-out-of-my-mind expressions on their faces, and that’s that.
Stiles can’t help wondering what it was Derek saw that got such a reaction out of him. Whatever it was, it’s guaranteed to be more interesting than this meeting.
Ah, well. Stiles will probably never know.
Or so he thinks until about half an hour later, when his phone buzzes with a new email from Derek—the only email he’s ever gotten from Derek, not counting the company-wide newsletters and memos.
It’s a good thing Stiles finishes pouring his coffee before taking a look at it, because otherwise he probably would have scalded the skin of his hand off and spilled coffee all over his shoes and the break room floor in the process.
The subject line reads, “re: guess how my morning is going.”
Stiles freezes.
Blinks.
Closes out of his email app and opens it again.
The email is still there. It’s still titled "re: guess how my morning is going.” Stiles didn’t misread it.
He’s pretty sure he doesn’t breathe for a solid five minutes while he lets the mingled surges of horror and adrenaline wash over him. It’s like one of those nightmares he used to have in high school where he’d stand up in class to give a presentation, only to look down and realize he was inexplicably buck-ass naked and everyone was laughing at him.
Finally he sucks in enough air to gasp, "Oh god. I’m dead. I’m so dead.” There’s no one else in the break room, but he still says it. It seems like the kind of momentous occasion that needs stating out loud to the universe.
Then he chugs his entire mug of coffee and speed-walks as casually as possible down the hall. A few people glance at him curiously from their cubicles, probably because he’s blushing so hard he looks like a tomato on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or possibly because no one runs in this office, anywhere, for any reason. Dignity is the name of the game. Stiles has none.
Stiles ignores them all in favor of diving into Lydia’s office and slamming the door shut behind him. He doesn’t care what work she might be doing; this is more important. This is a crisis.
She must get some sense of that from the look on his face, or maybe from the way he’s slumped back against the door and panting, because she doesn’t snap at him or even look that annoyed.
Stiles waves his phone at her and tries, in a rambling and adrenaline-fueled outburst, to explain. He’s not sure how much of it is actually anything bordering on English, but he thinks he ultimately conveys the important bits.
While he talks, Lydia rests her elbows on her desk, steepling her fingers, and looks intrigued. “So,” she says when he finally runs out of breath, “what did Derek actually say?”
“I don’t know!” Stiles says, only a little hysterically.
“You didn’t read the email?“
Stiles shakes his head, sheepish. She’s undoubtedly judging him so hard right now, and he knows, okay. He knows.
Lydia lets out one of her trademark "why am I surrounded by incompetence” sighs and holds out her hand for his phone. Stiles meekly hands it over.
Lydia unlocks it without asking him for the passcode, which suggests either that Stiles needs to make his passwords stronger or that they spend entirely too much time together. Then she reads, and Stiles chews on his thumbnail and practices the breathing exercises his therapist taught him.
Lydia hands his phone back after only half a minute, her expression softening to something almost sympathetic. That’s when Stiles truly comprehends how truly, apocalyptically bad this is. Lydia never looks sympathetic.
“Well?” Stiles croaks.
“It just says he’d like you to come see him in his office as soon as you get a chance.”
Stiles has never heard anything so ominous.
“You shouldn’t keep him waiting,” she says gently. “Go get it over with, and while you’re doing that, I’ll write you a glowing recommendation letter.”
A recommendation letter. To take with him when he gets fired. Oh god.
*
When Stiles edges into Derek’s office, Derek is standing over by the window. He looks stunning as usual, tailored suit perfectly accenting the powerful lines of his body, but his ears are kind of pink. He’s got out a bottle of wine and two glasses on a little trolley table; he must have an important meeting with a big client later today. Stiles will probably never find out about it, though, seeing as he’s about to get fired and all.
“Stiles,” Derek nods.
Stiles would reply, but he’s afraid nothing will come out but an unmanly squeak, so instead he just focuses on perching on the edge of the nearest chair. He’s never actually been in Derek’s office before. It’s very Derek; it reminds him of the woods, lots of earth tones and accents of green. If not for the circumstances, Stiles would probably find it calming. As it is, he’s not sure he would find anything calming right now, except maybe a Xanax.
“Do you know why I called you in here?“ Derek asks.
Oh god, does he have to say it out loud? It’s not like they don’t both know already. Stiles opens his mouth, and no words come out. His mind is one long internal scream. All he can do is clutch the arms of his chair and watch as Derek uncorks the wine and starts pouring it into the first glass with intimidating casualness. He looks like he’s not mad at all. It’s terrifying.
Finally Stiles manages to force the words out. “Because I accidentally sent you a dick pic.”
Derek stops pouring wine into the second glass. “Accidentally?”
“Yes!” Stiles says, latching onto that word like a lifeline. Is it even legal to fire someone for an accident? Well. Probably yes, if it results in somebody’s arm getting lopped off or something, but a dick pic isn’t quite on that level. Stiles hopes so, anyway. “And it wasn’t even my dick!”
Derek puts down the bottle of wine completely. “So… your boyfriend’s…?”
Stiles shakes his head. “Don’t have one.”
“So you’re saying you sent me porn.”
Stiles groans and drops his head to his hands. He can’t look at Derek right now; he’s already reached maximum mortification levels. “No, I, um, so the thing is, I have Lydia Martin down in my email contacts as ‘Divine Goddess,’ which alphabetically puts her next to you, so I accidentally emailed the dick pic to you when I meant to email it to her, and before you say anything, I know I’m not supposed to send explicit materials over the company email and I swear it won’t happen again.” Assuming Stiles ever gets another chance to use his company email, that is, but he’s not going to be the one to point that out.
There’s a long silence, and Stiles risks a peek up through his fingers. Derek is frowning at him, but not like he’s angry. More like he’s confused. “Isn’t Lydia married? To a woman?”
That makes Stiles forget for a moment about being embarrassed. He sits up straight, flailing his hands in a chopping motion. “Whoa, no, it’s definitely not like that. It’s not a flirting thing. We’re just friends, and you’re right, she and Allison are very happily married and I’d never do anything to get between that. Ever. It’s just, she set me up for an online dating profile recently and I kind of hate it because I keep getting dick pics, so that pic you saw was like, like a status update. Like, 'Look how terribly this is going, I hate all of these dudes sending me dick pics because none of them are you'—”
Shit. He bites his tongue so hard he’s surprised he doesn’t taste blood, because nope, what the fuck, that was not supposed to be a part of this conversation, and now Derek’s grip on the neck of the wine bottle has gone white-knuckled and he’s just staring at Stiles, all deer-in-the-headlights.
Not for the first time in his life, or even the hundredth, Stiles wishes he had the power to rewind the last ten or so seconds of what just happened and start over. Unfortunately, no such luck.
“Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to imply that I want you to send me a pic of your dick,” Stiles blurts. “I just meant in a, um, a purely romantic sense, no one on that app is as good as… yeah.” Stiles trails off because Derek’s eyes are continuing to widen, and that’s probably not good. “Oh god, I’m making this worse. I shouldn’t be allowed to talk.”
Derek still doesn’t say anything. Maybe it’s an interrogation tactic or maybe (probably) he’s just in shock.
Either way, Stiles feels compelled to break the silence. “Are you going to fire me?” he asks tentatively, after what feels like the longest and most awkward minute of his life to date.
Derek finally blinks and relaxes his death-grip on the wine bottle. “I’d be crazy to fire you. You’re one of my best employees.”
“Except for the whole dick pic thing,” Stiles points out, risking a smile, and Derek smiles back. Stiles feels a little of the oh-god-I’m-about-to-get-fired tension leave him, and in its place the usual oh-god-I’m-in-the-presence-of-Derek-Hale tension starts creeping back in. That’s a lot more familiar, and a lot more exciting.
“Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t…” Derek starts, looking away out the window and then nervously meeting Stiles’ eyes. “I didn’t mind the dick pic thing so much. Not when it was from you.”
It’s Stiles’ turn to stare in shock.
Derek spins jerkily on his heel and picks up one of the wine glasses and starts chugging it down, and okay. Maybe Stiles isn’t the only one who’s pretty nervous right now. That thought makes Stiles a whole lot less nervous, and he stands up and moves around the desk while it lasts. Derek turns his head a little. Stiles reaches up and takes the glass away and sets it down on the table.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have— It’s not professional—” Derek starts.
“I would send you a picture of my dick if you asked,” Stiles blurts, and it feels like one of the bravest and most romantic things he’s ever said.
“I would send you one, too,” Derek says, blushing furiously.
That basically shreds the last bit of Stiles’ self-control. He grabs Derek’s fancy silk tie and tugs, and, before he can second-guess it, kisses Derek Hale the way he deserves to be kissed, thoroughly and so enthusiastically that Derek ends up sinking back to lean against his desk like his knees just won’t hold him up anymore.
“So, just to clarify,” Stiles pants, resting a hand on Derek’s chest and thrilling that he can do that now, “I’m definitely not fired.”
*breaks into your room* You *trows glitter and confetti* are an amazing soul with full of talent and power and love and you deserve the world, never forget it *closes the door gently and goes away*
((OOC: shit now I gotta clean up all this glitter))
