Merry Christmas, @snazzysterek!
I hope you enjoy this!
Read on AO3
*****
ready to start
“Goddammit,” Stiles said, and kicked back on his wheelie chair, banging into the wall of his shared office.
“What,” Isaac said, not even bothering to lift his head up from where he had it cradled on his arms, as he clicked through the latest issue of PNAS.
“R is not cooperating and I just need to get this analysis done before I can go home for the weekend,” Stiles whined, turning his chair around and poking Isaac’s head. “I need your R skills, man, help me out.”
“It’s 4:45 on a Friday,” Isaac said, shaking his head and dislodging Stiles’ hand. “My brain’s already offline. Why don’t you go get a drink and start the weekend early?”
“Ugh, but I just want to get this done,” Stiles said, and stared at his computer, willing R to just automatically glean what he wanted to do and put pretty graphs on his screen. “Finstock’s gonna kill me if I tell him that I’m still analyzing my data for the third week in a row.”
“Finstock’s out next week, remember? He’s going to that conference in England.”
Stiles…had completely forgotten.
“I love you, Isaac,” he said, patting Isaac’s curls even as Isaac snapped at his fingers like an overgrown puppy, and speedwalked out of the office, heading over to the shared cold room on the other side of the floor.
Technically, the cold room was only supposed to hold actual biological samples. Practically, however, it also held a stash of various beers and ciders and other drinks that was routinely restocked by the grad students and side-eyed by the undergrads. There was also a protocol in place for whenever Environmental Health and Safety decided to pop in for a surprise visit – the beer bottles would go in the drawers next to Isaac’s desk, the ciders in Stiles’ drawers, and the beer cans in Harley’s desk in the office she shared with Erica down the hall. So far, it had never failed them. The only time they’d gotten a warning from EHS was when someone (read: Isaac) had left a half-full can of beer on the very back of one of the shelves, which had started collecting some unknown mold, and no one had wanted to touch it so it had stayed there, growing more and more sentient with each passing day until EHS made them take it out. A pity, because Harley had been ready to take it away and figure out what species it actually was.
The point was, there were drinks in the cold room, and they were good. Perfect way to start off a Friday evening, or alternatively, drown your sorrows when your paper got rejected for the nth time. Not that Stiles was speaking from personal experience or anything!
Anyway, Stiles was really looking forward to trying some of the green apple cider Harley had brought earlier this week, and the thought propelled him forward to the cold room. He hummed tonelessly under his breath, ready to think about everything else other than his research for the night, but then he opened the door to the cold room, flipped on the lights, and froze in sheer horror.
The shelves which usually held the drinks were completely empty, except for two measly cans of PBR. There was absolutely no sign of any of the other drinks, not even the half-empty thing of boxed wine that had been sitting there for half a month and was probably undrinkable by now.
“What,” Stiles said, “the fuck.”
He took in the scene with narrowed eyes, and then turned on his heel and stomped out. It was time to investigate.
It being Friday evening, the hallways were fairly deserted, and Stiles was pretty sure the weedy undergrads he saw comparing notes on some exam or the other weren’t the culprits. For one, their backpacks were definitely not big enough to hide a whole bunch of cider in, let alone the beer.
He stalked past them, ignoring their wide eyes and furrowed brows, and slammed open the door to his office (then closed it gently because probably the undergrads should not be privy to this conversation).
“Isaac!” he snapped. “What the hell happened to the drinks?”
“The drinks in the cold room?” Isaac said, spinning around on his chair, making the perfect impression of the surprised Pikachu face. “I haven’t done anything to them. Are they not there?”
“No!” Stiles resolutely did not wail. “Everything’s gone, even that gross old boxed wine!”
Isaac switched from surprised Pikachu face to his favorite grimace. Stiles sighed, and reminded himself to finally print out that “No Emotional Journeys!” sign and pin it up on his desk.
“Okay, well, there’s two PBRs left but we all know PBR is the drink of the devil,” Stiles amended, and Isaac waggled his eyebrows at him.
“A drink’s a drink, dude,” he said. “We can figure out where the rest of the drinks went later, just go get yourself one before those disappear too.”
Stiles groaned and gave in, heading back to the cold room. The undergrads had migrated to right across the office door, but Stiles didn’t care if they’d been eavesdropping. This was a serious problem! Pesky undergrads could shove it until he had an awful, awful beer in his hand…awful beers that had also disappeared from the cold room in the few minutes he’d been gone.
He resisted the urge to rattle the shelves. He was an adult, he was a graduate student, he was not going to whine about a missing PBR of all things. He slunk out of the room, debating whether to go see if the mice labs two floors down had any drinks hidden away, or if it was wiser just to give up and go home.
Going down to the mice labs had mostly won out when Stiles spotted two figures that had just turned the corner and were walking down the hallway, away from him. He recognized Scott’s end-of-the-day rumpled hair immediately, and was ready to go complain to him when he also registered the can he was holding, hidden in a violently red koozie, but definitely the same size as the missing PBRs. Stiles didn’t recognize the other person with him, but they also had a koozie in their hand – two cans. He couldn’t believe it, but it must be true – Scott had taken the PBRs from the cold room. The outrage!
“Scott!” Stiles yelled. Scott turned around, classic goofy grin on his face, but it faded as he saw Stiles barreling down the hallway towards him.
“What—,” he managed to get out before Stiles ran into him and started tugging on his drink.
“Scott, how could you do this to me! I thought we were bros!” Stiles said, knowing he was coming off as very strange but at this point, he was too far gone to care. “You pillaged the last drink!”
Scott tugged his drink back but Stiles refused to let go, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scott’s mysterious companion take a slow step back.
“And!” he said, letting the drink go abruptly in favor of using his hands to gesture at the Mysterious Companion, while still keeping his gaze on Scott’s startled face. “And you bring this random person in and give them a drink instead of saving it for me?? You’re flagrantly violating the rules of our friendship, man!”
Scott stumbled back a couple steps and then raised his hands. “Stiles, I think you’ve got the wrong idea, dude.”
“I’d like to see you explain your way out of this!” Stiles said, agitatedly bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“The hell, Stiles, you know I stopped drinking like a year ago! This is just a La Croix!”
“Oh,” Stiles said, pausing. “Oh, yeah. I did know that.”
“Yeah, oh. I think you need to explain to me what exactly is happening and why you’re freaking out.”
“Uh, so,” Stiles began, glancing around as he finally let his brain slow down a little. The undergrads from earlier were huddled in a corner, and he was sure he saw one of them rapidly typing away on his phone. Probably live-tweeting his breakdown, titled “saw my TA having a breakdown, just another day in college.”
“So?” Scott said.
“Okay, so Isaac made me go to the cold room for drinks but there were no drinks! Like none, Scott, everything was gone except for these two cans of PBR and I went back to check with Isaac if he knew what had happened, and he said he didn’t, but by the time I came back to get the PBRs they were gone anyway!” Stiles blurted out, hands moving everywhere to emphasize the dire straits he was in. “The entire stash is gone without a trace, Scott, it’s so bad!”
He took a breath and then added, “Also, what the hell, you’re drinking La Croix? At least get a Coke or something man, you know La Croix tastes like someone vaguely described fruit to an alien.”
Scott rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but we got them at this vet school mixer thing we were at and free stuff is free stuff. But okay – I see why you’re so stressed, but don’t worry, we’re here, we’re going to solve this mystery!”
Stiles grinned as they both fistbumped. Scott always came through.
A polite cough interrupted them and Stiles whirled around, remembering the Mysterious Companion.
“Oh!” Scott said. “This is Derek! He’s a PhD student in like the history department, and he was at the mixer because he wanted to talk to some vets about canines but anyway—” Scott waved his hand in the air. “Long story. Point is, he’s cool! Derek, this is Stiles! You know how I study gut microbiota? Stiles’ advisor is actually my co-advisor, that’s how we became friends!”
Some tiny part of Stiles’ brain noted that Scott was grinning and still prattling on about how he and Stiles became best bros for life, but the rest of it was focused mostly on Mysterious Companion Derek, and his green eyes and glasses and dark hair and solid body and the hint of a smile on his face, and the shirt that made a stupid joke about Shakespeare and also made his arms look very nice. Then he had the abrupt realization that he had just massively embarrassed himself in front of this very beautiful man and his stomach turned itself into a pretzel.
“Okay very nice to meet you but I just remembered I have a thing. In lab. That I have to do like immediately. Sorry see you later!” Stiles said, turned on his heel, and zoomed down to his office, even as Scott called his name. He could feel the heat coming off his face. It was time to die in a ditch.
“It is time to die in a ditch,” he said as soon as he was securely in the office and safe from eavesdropping undergrads and grads. He had his face to the door in the hopes that it would cool him down, but when he got no response from Isaac, he turned around to face an empty office.
“Dammit,” he said, and saw the bright yellow post-it on Isaac’s old Dell. Erica says she’s going to get drinks from somewhere (don’t ask), see you in the lounge at 5:30!! it read, and Stiles sighed. At least he could now successfully drown his sorrows in a drink, even if it wasn’t the green apple cider he had been looking forward to.
At 5:35, he was in the lounge with a non-PBR beer in his hand, and retelling his extremely embarrassing experience to Isaac.
“In conclusion, it is time to die in a ditch,” he said, winding up his story. Isaac just laughed at him, stuck another beer in his hand, and then pushed him towards Erica and Harley who had probably overheard most of Stiles’ sorry story.
“They’re having another argument about what the best model organism is,” he said. “Why don’t you go join in, it’ll make you feel better.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Stiles mumbled, but his heart wasn’t in it. Damn Isaac for knowing him too well. The argument would make him feel better. He drained his beer and went to preach the awesomeness of Drosophila to the plebes who hadn’t seen the light yet.
Two beers later, Stiles was flushed red again, but for a much better reason this time.
“C’mon, Drosophila have such a large suite of genetic tools! Can you even get optogenetic strains in zebrafish? I bet you can’t, they’re just transparent little fish!” he said, waving his pile of peeled off beer labels and scattering the pieces everywhere.
“You don’t even use optogenetic strains!” Erica said, swinging her own bottle of beer around. “That’s an invalid argument!”
“I don’t now, but I might in the future! What if I want to do like, optogenetic strains of gut bacteria—” Stiles said, blatantly making up stuff, and then stopped as his hand smacked against a solid object and dropped even more bits of paper everywhere.
He looked up and gulped. The solid object was Derek’s chest, clad in that Shakespeare shirt, and attached to the rest of his body. Derek, who he’d been avoiding ever since he saw him enter the lounge with Scott (which by extension meant avoiding Scott too, but sacrifices had to be made). Derek, who had seen Stiles make an absolute fool of himself not even an hour ago, and who now had paper bits on his shoes.
“Sorry, uh, hi,” he said, trying his best not to sound like an idiot who had been ranting about zebrafish. He could feel the flush climbing up his cheeks, and not for the first time, cursed his unbelievably pale skin.
“No, I’m sorry – am I interrupting?” Derek said, sounding almost shy. He was holding onto the can of La Croix he was still nursing with a white-knuckled grip.
“Oh, you’re not at all,” Harley’s cheerful, conniving voice chimed in before Stiles could say anything. He turned to her with a betrayed look, in time to see her wink at him and grab Erica’s arm. “You and Erica are both wrong, by the way. Obviously the best model organism is C. elegans. Bow down to the worm, dude. Also, we have to go now, have fun!”
Stiles gaped as she and Erica walked away giggling, abandoning him in his time of need. He was about to chase after them with a half-assed excuse when Derek reached out and lightly touched his shoulder. It felt like a static shock to Stiles’ entire system, but in a good way, and he swung his gaze to Derek’s equally startled face.
“So,” Derek said. “We didn’t really get time to introduce ourselves or talk earlier…”
“Yeah, haha,” Stiles said automatically, manners kicking in. “I’m Stiles, but you already knew that.”
Derek smiled at him without rancor and Stiles’ heart legitimately skipped a beat. “And I’m Derek, but you knew that too. So…” he said again, and trailed off.
Stiles’ tongue felt like it was tied into a hundred knots and he desperately wanted to say something so charming that the conversation would start flowing immediately, or alternatively, a perfectly timed excuse to leave. He caught Scott’s eye over Derek’s shoulder and Scott, the traitor, immediately turned around and started talking to Isaac.
He was so caught up in wallowing in the callousness of everyone around him that he almost missed Derek saying, “…what’s a model organism, really?”
“Oh man,” he blurted out and resisted the urge to smack his mouth shut. “Do you really want to get into this right now?”
“Hit me,” Derek said, and his smile tilted up into a smirk. Stiles grinned back, feeling warmth kindle in his chest, and launched into his love for fruit flies.
One empty can of La Croix and another beer bottle later, they were still talking, the conversation flowing easier and in a much stranger direction than Stiles could have ever imagined.
“Okay, but vampires could totally be real, just think about it,” Derek was saying. “You’re a biologist, you know vampire bats are a thing, why not actual vampires?”
“…fair,” Stiles said. “Plus I guess the whole thing with people drinking other people’s blood to stay young. Humans are a strange species. But I still disagree with you on werewolves. No way could werewolves be a thing – where the hell would all the mass go? Wolves are freaking huge!”
Derek slashed his hand through the air in a dismissive gesture, but Stiles saw the smile twinkling in his eyes. “Just attribute it to the magic! You can buy into the shapeshifting concept but you draw a line at conservation of mass?”
“Shapeshifting is fine if you’re still the same mass afterwards, so humans could turn into like, I don’t know, a giant were-sun bear. I would be totally fine with that!”
Derek snorted, and then started chuckling outright. “Sorry I just – a giant were-sun bear? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The warmth in Stiles’ chest, that had been growing through the entire conversation, sparked up even more at the sound of Derek’s genuine laughter. He stared, grinning like an idiot, and as Derek’s laughter calmed down, they both just looked at each other, smiles in their eyes and on their mouths.
A careful cough finally tore their gazes away from each other. Scott gave them a sheepish look.
“I didn’t want to interrupt, but it’s almost 8,” he said, and Stiles’ eyes widened. He surreptitiously checked his phone and yup, Scott was right, it was a quarter to 8. He’d been talking to Derek for nearly two hours. “Maybe you guys should….go somewhere else?”
He grinned at Stiles, mischief in his eyes, and Stiles tried his best to not roll his eyes back. Scott was a bro but he was also not subtle.
“There’s this Thai restaurant I really like,” Derek said, reaching out to get Stiles’ attention back. The same jolt of energy ran through both of them at the contact, leaving Stiles mildly breathless again, and he looked up into Derek’s hopeful eyes. “We could continue this there?”
Stiles smiled, and said, “Hell yeah, dude. I still have to convert you to the fruit fly side, after all.”
Derek beamed. “Oh, I don’t doubt that. I still have to convert you to the werewolf side, too.”
Stiles laughed, and grabbed Derek’s hand impulsively, pulling him to the exit. Scott gave him a huge thumbs-up (that Derek definitely saw) but Stiles just smiled again, his chest warm and light, and let himself soak in the way Derek easily followed him.
