Archive of Our Own

It was with both a sense of accomplishment and terror that he set the final box down in the far corner of the open space. Straightening while wiping sweat from his brow, he looked around at the disaster area that was his new home and couldn’t help feeling excited despite how much work there still was to be done. 

With it being already almost quarter-after-four, he anticipated being busy until well into late evening, though knew he’d have to cut back on what he did when the By-Law quiet hours came into effect at eleven. He supposed the best course of action right now would be to build all the furniture that required re-assembling and then he could deal with the unpacking of various items later. 

He was still standing in the corner of his new apartment’s living room when another individual walked leisurely through the open door, hands in the pockets of his work pants and eyes inspecting the area slowly. 

“Looks like you’re all set.” 

“I mean, barring the fact that my place is a disaster, sure.” Stiles Stilinski grinned excitedly at his father while the two of them continued to look around at the disaster area that was his new apartment. 

That was okay though. Stiles knew he’d have it all set up in no time, because he was so fucking excited about it that he was going to work hard to finish unpacking by no later than the end of the day tomorrow. The apartment would never be devoid of clutter—Stiles knew himself well enough to confidently say his apartment would always be a mess—but everything would at least be in its place. 

Wiping more sweat off his brow, and wishing he’d moved in the winter as opposed to the devil’s armpit hour of summer, he double-checked that all the windows were open—they were—and then turned back to his dad. The man had to head out to work in a minute, but Stiles knew he’d only come by to make sure everything had gone off without a hitch. 

His dad had started the morning helping out, but with work looming he’d taken off to wash up and get changed. Stiles appreciated the help, not only from him, but from a lot of guys on the force. He hadn’t had to hire a moving company because all his coworkers had agreed to help out. That was why Stiles had chosen to move the big items first, because at least the boxes of shit he had lying around he could move on his own. 

“You need any help while I wait on Parrish?” Noah John Stilinski asked, moving to look into one of the boxes on the kitchen counter. 

“Sure, if you want to unpack some of the dishes.” Stiles knew his dad had a bad back, so asking for help making the bed was a no-go. Besides, he’d just showered, and building the frame would undoubtedly make the man sweat.

Stiles mentioned it was the devil’s armpit hour of summer, right? 

Nodding his agreement, John set one of the boxes on the floor and asked about which cupboards Stiles wanted his things in. Stiles insisted to just surprise him while he found his toolbox and moved into the relatively large bedroom to start building up his bedframe. 

It would be difficult by himself, but he was pretty good at things like this, so he knew he could do it. He’d taken it apart on his own, after all. Building it would require the same level of skill, so he didn’t really worry about it too much. 

He set his phone down on the nightstand he’d shoved into the walk-through closet that led into the bathroom and cranked up the volume, beginning to play one of his random playlists. He hadn’t actually checked which one he hit—Stiles was a firm believer of only having music he liked on his phone, so any playlist would always be a good playlist—but when the music started, he grinned at the realization that it was his Disney playlist. 

Humming to himself under his breath along to Mulan’s ‘I’ll make a man out of you,’ Stiles began to work on getting his bedframe put together. As expected, it was difficult, but he managed to get the outside frame set up without calling out for help. His dad seemed to be making good time with the dishes, since Stiles heard him move from clinking plates together to stocking food into his pantry. 

Stiles had just finished up pushing the mattress onto his bed when he heard a knock at his still-open door. He’d have to remember this wasn’t university—or his house. This was an apartment building, he shouldn’t just leave his front door propped open like that, though he also wasn’t worried. 

There were two cops in the apartment after all, and the person who’d wandered in was a third one, so the chances of anyone running in to steal his shit were very slim. 

“Wow, I was only gone for fifteen minutes,” Jordan Parrish said, leaning against the doorframe of Stiles’ new bedroom. He was freshly showered, hair still damp and the collar of his beige uniform a little wet because of it. “You gonna be okay finishing up?” 

“Yeah, I’m good.” Stiles grinned. “Scott was gonna drop in later to help out, but I think something came up at work. I should be fine though, just gonna get all the big, loud stuff out of the way.” 

Parrish nodded his agreement. “Good call. People are fairly understanding, but I think if you’re hammering away at your bookshelf at two in the morning, even I’ll get annoyed.”

“It’s gonna be an adjustment, that’s for sure.” Stiles laughed, turning back to look at his bed. He’d never lived in an apartment building before, he’d grown up in a house. Being loud in a house was fine because no one but the other occupants could hear him, and with his dad always working and his mother having passed away when he was young, the only times he got any complaints was the few times he’d thrown house parties while in high school. 

Now, he was in a building full of other people. Any noise he made was going to impact those around him, and while he knew that everyone would be understanding and most had lived in buildings like this before, he didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by pissing people off his first day there. 

“Thanks Parrish,” Stiles said, turning back to the other man. “For everything. I really appreciate it.” 

He got a genuine smile and a nod in return, which made him really thankful to have such amazing friends and co-workers. 

John walked up behind Parrish then, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “Ready to go?” 

“Yes sir, sheriff.” 

Nodding, John turned to his son. “Good luck with the unpacking. Let me know if you need some help tomorrow and I can drop in before my shift.” 

“Thanks dad. I’ll see how much I can get done today and go from there.” 

John nodded again, then he and Parrish bid him a good evening, Stiles following them to the door and closing it behind them. He walked away without bothering to lock it, mostly out of habit, but also because he was home. If someone walked in while he was home, well, that would be their bad luck. 

When he headed back for the bedroom, he realized he didn’t really have anything else to do in there that might be considered overly loud, though he wanted to get it set up as much as possible. 

Grabbing the two nightstands from inside the walk-through closet, he positioned one on each side of the bed, then went to get his TV and DVD player from the kitchen counter. The TV was old, and small, but it was the perfect size to fit on his nightstand so he could watch the news or something less depressing while trying to fall asleep. Or early morning, depending on how he felt. 

His dresser was still in one piece and currently in the middle of his bathroom since he’d wanted to put it in the walk-through closet that had previously been commandeered by the nightstands and bags of clothes. Kicking the bags out into his bedroom instead, and kind of happy about the ability to walk through his closet between his bathroom and his bedroom, he went back into the other room and started working to move his dresser into the walk-through closet. There was a space on the left side with no racks for clothes and while it was a tight fit, the dresser did fit so he grinned to himself for his expert planning. 

Not that he had anything to do with the size of his dresser or where the racks in the closet were, but that wasn’t the point! The point was, he was a genius. 

He kicked the bags of clothes back into the closet to be dealt with later and went back into his living room, looking around. The music from his phone was somewhat muted now, given it was still in his bedroom and he was out in the living room, but he was trying to figure out what to do next. Deciding the best course of action would be to order food—pizza, probably, he was an adult living alone, he could eat what he wanted!—he went back to grab his phone from his bedroom. Pausing the music, he called in for a delivery at his favourite pizza joint, grinning like an idiot when he realized he had to give them his brand new address. 

When they asked for his buzzer number, he realized he didn’t know it and they said they’d call him when they arrived so he could head down to grab it. Stiles made a mental note to ask the building manager what his buzzer number was while dropping his phone onto his kitchen counter and unpausing the playlist. 

He got to work building his bookshelves and his entertainment shelving unit next, finishing both of them up before taking a break just in time for his pizza to arrive. He went down to get it, chatting excitedly with the delivery guy since Stiles ordered an embarrassingly large amount of pizza and knew all of them by name—this one was Matt, he was about to go into his final year of university in the fall, and had a crush on one of Stiles’ best friends’ wife. 

Once he was back in his apartment, he sat on his couch in the living room, munching on pizza straight from the box while scrolling through Reddit on his phone. His TV wasn’t set up yet and he didn’t want to delay food trying to get something to watch on. Besides, if he started watching TV, he’d get distracted and probably spend the night sitting on the couch and get nothing done. He still had a desk and two more shelves to set up in the den, so he didn’t want to take too much time off. 

He only allowed himself enough of a break to get through four pieces of pizza before closing out of Reddit—it was hard, but still safer than him and YouTube—and then restarted his Disney playlist while moving into the den. He’d forgotten that they’d been shoving all the boxes of books and movies he had into the den so it was kind of a mess and he spent a good ten minutes pushing boxes out of the small room so he had enough space to build the desk up in the corner. 

Once that and the final two shelves were completely set up, he thrust his fists in the air because now it was all just a matter of putting shit away. That would go much faster, considering he didn’t honestly have much of it. More than he’d thought, but it was mostly books and movies and he wasn’t particular about how he set them all up. 

He didn’t have the patience to alphabetize them or anything so it was easy opening the various boxes and then moving back and forth between the living room and the den depending on what was in them. Movies went into the shelves in the living room. Books went into the shelves in the den. 

He was actually surprised how quickly he was managing to get on. He’d been positive he’d have tons of stuff left to do the following day, but by the time he decided to call it quits, all he really had left was his wall art, his sheets and towels, and his clothes. If he really pushed it, he could’ve honestly finished all of that barring the art tonight, but it was getting close to eleven and he thought it might be best he just shower and call it a night. 

The next day was booked off from work, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t finish up first thing in the morning and then spend the rest of the day exploring the area. He’d done a bit of it the past few days before the official move, but he was looking forward to getting a good look around. 

Moving to his bathroom so he could get ready for bed—and finally thinking to lock his door on the way by—Stiles dug through some bags until he found one of his towels and then took a quick shower to wash off the day’s sweat and grime, singing the last Disney song he’d heard before turning off his music. Brushing his teeth once he was dried off and ready for sleep, he walked into his room to realize he didn’t have his clothes put away or any sheets on his bed. 

It took a while to find his pyjamas, because he’d buried them at the bottom of a bag full of other clothes, but he eventually yanked them on and then found some sheets. His pillow and blanket were both in the same bag and he threw them onto his bed, plugged his phone into the charger—he’d had the forethought to know exactly where that was when packing things away—and then turned off his light. 

Falling face first onto his bed overtop the covers since it was still hot as fucking hell and he’d forgotten to bring a fan, he closed his eyes and couldn’t help the smile on his face when he heard the sounds of the wind outside and the creaking of the building. His upstairs neighbour seemed to be snoring, and his downstairs neighbour had some kind of white noise machine going.

Stiles didn’t care. He loved every second of it and was pretty sure the smile was still on his face when he eventually fell asleep. 

When Stiles Stilinski had gone off to university, bright-eyed and eager for the world ahead, he honestly hadn’t really known what he wanted to do in life. He had so many ambitions, so many paths he wanted to follow. There was just so much he felt he could do, and so many things he wanted to explore. 

It had been a good first year, honestly. He’d kind of stuck his hand into a few different pies to get a feel for his realistic options, and had found he liked a lot of his courses. Still no clear direction, but at least he had a general idea. 

He knew most people tended to use the first year to do the courses they wanted and the second for actual exploration of what they were planning on majoring in, but Stiles did the opposite. He went through a few different courses in his first year to get a feel for things, and then used the second year to take a few that were of interest but still in his general field of study. 

When his third year came around, he honestly hadn’t had much progress in where he wanted to go in life. He liked computer programming, but it wasn’t something he felt like he could do as a job. He knew himself enough to know he would find it boring doing that day after day. All of the things he’d been studying his first year and moved into a bit more in his second, while interesting, weren’t his calling. 

He wanted to help people. He’d always wanted to help people, ever since he was a kid. He knew he didn’t have the stomach for anything in the medical field—vomit immediately made him feel like he would vomit, and blood and gore was really only something he liked in movies—but he didn’t think he’d do well in law enforcement, either. 

After four years of university with a double major in History and Computer Sciences—the former for pleasure, the latter for actual employment opportunities—he went back home for a year off before honestly going out in the world to find a job. 

It wasn’t long before he realized he really had no fucking idea what he wanted to do with his life, and after four years of university, that was kind of a slap in the face. He wanted to be like those people who just knew, but he wasn’t. 

When one year turned into two years of camping out at his dad’s and working odd jobs around town, he knew he had to make a change. After sitting down with his dad for an open and honest conversation, the sheriff suggested Stiles just try going to the police academy. Stiles had always been really good about reading his father’s cases and nudging him in the right direction, and while he knew Stiles didn’t like blood and gore outside of movies, Beacon Hills wasn’t exactly a murder-a-day sort of place. 

Thinking on it for a few weeks, Stiles finally conceded defeat and applied to the police academy. He headed out to complete the six month course, finding it to have been tough, but not as impossible as he’d originally thought it would be. 

Fast-forward about a month, and he was officially working at the Beacon Hills County Sheriff’s office. Of course, he had to get partnered up and wasn’t really a full-fledged officer yet, but he wasn’t worried about that. He’d basically grown up with the men and women who worked there given his father was sheriff and his mother had passed early in his life. His father couldn’t afford a babysitter so more often than not, Stiles was sitting in his dad’s office doing homework and playing games or reading. 

He knew the people who worked there as well as he knew his closest friends, so it was a bit like working with all of his older siblings in a way. They joked around with him, razzed him, encouraged him, taught him everything he needed to know—and some things he really shouldn’t. Overall, it was a fun experience. 

And now, years later, Stiles was glad for that sit-down he’d had with his father. He was happy where he was, and didn’t even need a partner with him anymore. Nothing really bad happened on the regular in Beacon Hills—speeding was the top crime in the county, with breaking and entering a far away second—so while the job wasn’t necessarily exciting, it was perfect for Stiles. He woke up happy to go to work every day, regardless of the shift he was on. He actually did really well on the graveyard shift, but he wasn’t picky about which one he got. 

He’d often thought working for his dad would make things weird—or worse, that he wouldn’t be allowed to—and while it wasn’t really the norm for a sheriff to hire his son as one of his deputies, apparently it had gone ‘upstairs’ and been approved because of the sheriff’s impeccable track record and continuous votes into office. Stiles wasn’t going to sully his father’s good name, so he’d worked hard to be the best he could be and live up to his father’s legacy. 

But, at the age of twenty-nine, he’d started to feel a little... not weird, more uncomfortable with the fact that he still lived at home with his father. Not to be mistaken with embarrassment, because there was nothing embarrassing about not having to pay rent and getting free food and cable. Stiles knew some people thought it made him look like a loser, but he didn’t see it that way, and he didn’t care what they thought. After all, it had only ever been him and his dad for twenty years, and he didn’t want to leave his old man alone. 

The problem was, Stiles had dated a lot in the past three years, and it was always a little awkward bringing his girlfriends or boyfriends home for a fun night in the sack, only to either have his dad come home unexpectedly, or have him around to make them breakfast the next morning. Stiles didn’t care that his dad was there, it was his house, but it got a little uncomfortable after a while. 

He didn’t want to move out, but he also knew he couldn’t live at home forever. His dad never wanted him to go, but Stiles was starting to feel like he was taking advantage of the older man and mooching off him. That didn’t sit right with him. 

One of the days he and Parrish were on patrol together, he’d mentioned it to him kind of as a means to get some advice on what to do, and had found out Parrish lived in a really nice, affordable five-storey apartment building on the edge of town. He and Parrish had always been friends, but because Parrish and his father had been working together for years, any time hangouts happened outside of work, it was either at a bar or the Stilinski household. Stiles had never actually been to Parrish’s place before. 

They changed that after their shift, Stiles following Parrish’s very nice Mazda all the way to his apartment building and parking in one of the visitor slots. It wasn’t breathtaking or anything, but it was a nicely built building, and Parrish said it was only three years old. He’d bought his apartment during the development stage and didn’t regret that decision for a second. 

There was a media room, a gym, and an events room all available for people to use. Parrish showed him around the outside first, including those awesome amenities—though through windows for two of them since they had to be booked to gain access—and then brought him inside. The lobby was large and spacious, and while there was only one elevator, it wasn’t much of a hassle using the stairs if it was slow because the place only had five floors. 

Parrish lived on the fourth, with the fifth reserved for four separate penthouses given the size of the building. His place was nice, homey, and perfectly comfortable for one person—or two, if Parrish ever got off his ass and asked the love of his life out instead of pining from afar. 

Stiles had kind of sort of been in love with the place, and he and Parrish ended up going down the street to a pub for dinner so they could talk about the place more. Apparently the insulation was good in terms of weather, but the soundproofing had missed the mark pretty badly. Parrish could hear when his neighbours on the left were fighting and was positive they were on the verge of a divorce. He knew that the neighbours in the penthouse upstairs liked either smoothies or Margaritas because the blender seemed to constantly be going off, and the guy below him was learning how to play the piano—very poorly. 

It was something that was disclosed to anyone who moved in, because even the assholes who sold without saying anything always got bit in the ass when the potential buyers or their real estate agents spoke to any of the neighbours. For the most part, the people who lived in the building were understanding and reasonable. Everyone had to be conscious of the level of noise and the lack of soundproofing and so far, they had a good group of people living there. 

The lack of soundproofing was the reason their By-Laws had specific quiet hours. From eleven at night to eight in the morning, while people were allowed to do as they pleased in their own units, it was advertised as ‘quiet hours,’ meaning anything considered to be loud or excessive was not permitted. People still had parties, but when eleven hit, they had to turn down the music, and take things off their patios and try to keep their voices down. Parrish said most people who wanted to have big events or get-togethers tended to just rent out the events room or the media room so they could be as loud as they wanted given they were part of the building, but not actually attached to it. 

There were all sorts of people who lived in the place. There was a doctor on Parrish’s floor—Alex Geyer, who worked with one of Stiles’ best friends’ mother—as well as a personal chef, a teacher, and a lawyer. He knew quite a few people in the building, with the president of their homeowner’s association being a businessman who was the number two of a successful hotel chain worldwide. He apparently lived in one of the penthouses on the fifth floor with a yoga instructor. There was also a welder, a construction worker, an electrician, and a general contractor in the building, plus Parrish being a cop. 

He said it was the best place to live because, despite the horrible soundproofing, they were like a big community. They helped each other out a lot. When someone had a problem, they went to the building manager, who took their case to the homeowner’s association. If the problem related to a person’s unit—broken stove, busted pipe, cracked foundation, whatever—the homeowner’s association would reach out to someone in the building itself in that specific field to see if they could help at a discounted price. 

Parrish himself had been called a few times by the president of the homeowner’s association because of disputes that were becoming violent, or someone whose unit got broken into. They were a great group of people, and Parrish was still getting to know a few of the newer ones who’d moved in recently. 

Stiles had loved hearing about his awesome experience. While the soundproofing seemed to be a bit of a bummer, it sounded like everyone had kind of gotten used to it and those who could handle it just dealt with it, while those who couldn’t moved out. Noise was common and not a problem during the day, so everyone was very tolerant of that in general. It was only during the night that there was a bit more strictness, and with good reason. 

That wasn’t really a problem for Stiles, because while he knew he was a loud person, he also respected his dad and his neighbours back home. He had headphones when he listened to loud music or played video games on his computer. He always had subtitles on for movies and console games so he didn’t have to have the volume excessively high. He didn’t make it a habit of wandering around his house in shoes or stomping around. 

Really the place sounded like it had more pros than cons, and Stiles was actually kind of sad learning about it from Parrish because the chances of him being able to buy were already slim to none, given he wasn’t rolling in money, but also because they didn’t have any units for sale. Even when they did, Parrish said they were snatched up immediately because everyone who’d heard of the place wanted in.

Who didn’t want to live in an apartment building that was like its own little community? It sounded like a university dorm, except with more adults and less parties. Stiles was cool with that. 

He’d gone home that night kind of upset, and slightly annoyed Parrish had given him such a nice view of a life he would probably never have. Still, he had a goal at least. He just had to find a place that was at least half of what Parrish’s building was like. He was sure there were other places around that were similar. Beacon Hills wasn’t a big place, so he had high hopes. 

Two weeks later, Stiles was stepping out of the shower after a long night shift when his phone rang. It was an unknown number, but he answered anyway. A woman was on the other end, saying she’d gotten his number from Parrish. She was a resident of his building, and happened to be the realtor everyone touched base with when they wanted to sell their units. She always gave the sellers in their building a discount since it guaranteed her more business in the area in general. 

Apparently after Stiles had shown his interest, Parrish had called her to let her know someone good, honest, and trustworthy wanted to get a place in the building and to let him know when something came up. Parrish’s neighbours on the left seemed to have officially filed for divorce and decided to sell their unit. She’d called Parrish, who’d immediately given her Stiles’ number since the angry couple didn’t seem too fussed on the price, they just wanted it sold so they could split the proceeds and be done with each other. 

The asking price was reasonable, and since they were in a hurry to get it off their hands, the realtor thought if Stiles was available to come by and take a look—and if he was still interested—maybe they could close this sale before she even had to put it on the market. 

Despite his exhaustion, Stiles had thrown on clothes and raced out of the house. He was sure his arrival in his mother’s old Jeep that was years older than Stiles was didn’t instill a lot of confidence in the woman waiting outside for him, but she didn’t say anything and led him up to the unit. 

Her name was Lenore McNally. She was older than Stiles had expected her to be given their conversation on the phone, but despite her no-nonsense appearance, she was actually very kind. She lived on the first floor, and chatted a bit about the building as a whole, since she knew a lot more about it than Parrish did given her profession. 

They both discussed the soundproofing issue, and she admitted that while it could get frustrating sometimes, a lot of the tenants had found ways to overcome that particular obstacle. The people who’d bought into the building had thought about suing the developer, but there were three lawyers who lived there and all of them insisted it would cost them more money to sue than they would ever get back so they’d decided against it. 

When Stiles entered the apartment, he was already in love. It was a mirror image of Parrish’s, with a den on the right when he walked in, and the bathroom on the left. Walking further into the unit showed him a kitchen and living room, with a bar-top counter separating the two. The appliances were still brand new since the building was only three years old, and he could’ve cried at the sight of the dishwasher. The bedroom was off the living room, with a walk-through closet leading into the bathroom, so that it had two doors: one from the bedroom, and one from the corridor. 

It was the perfect size for one person, and Stiles was almost too scared to ask for the price. Shockingly, what she’d said on the phone was true. The couple had bought it while it was still being developed, so they’d gotten a steal of a price. They were only asking for about fifty grand above what they’d originally paid for. Stiles had some money saved up from his years living with his dad—not hundreds of thousands or anything, but a good chunk of change. He was pretty sure he could afford the full down payment, and given his good credit history, he likely wouldn’t have trouble getting financing from the bank. 

When he confirmed he was interested, the realtor said she’d call the ex-couple to let them know there was a potential buyer before she’d even listed the place. If they agreed to get the sale over with sooner rather than later, and Stiles could get financing and removal of subjects done quickly, the place could be his by the end of the week. 

Still exhausted from his long night of working, Stiles didn’t dare waste any time and headed straight to the bank. His dad took his lunch break to go with him, not that he needed him there but he wanted him there. It was something Stiles had never done before, and having his dad with him made him feel a bit calmer at the realization that he was potentially about to buy a fucking apartment. 

Seriously! Him! He was about to be a homeowner! Apartmentowner? Whatever. 

His approval for financing took almost thirty-six hours, which stressed the shit out of him because he worried the ex-couple were going to change their mind about him. Apparently they were ready to just take asking price without listing just to have it over and done with. 

Lenore and Parrish were amazing in helping him get the people he needed for the subject removals, all of whom barring one lived in the building. Once financing was approved, he immediately called Lenore, who got to work with getting the people he needed together for the rest of the subjects. 

Two days later, the final papers were signed with the lawyer—also from the building, seriously, this place had everything—and Stiles was officially an owner. His possession date was for the middle of the month since the current owners still had a lot to do on their end, but that didn’t matter to him. All that mattered was that he was a homeowner! 

He and his dad had gone to buy a few things for his new place. Not much since he’d be taking some stuff from home, but he desperately needed a new mattress and while they had two couches, with how often the guys at the precinct came over, Stiles didn’t feel comfortable taking one, despite his father insisting he should. 

And then, finally, the possession date hit. Stiles got his keys. He was almost all packed and ready to go. He and his dad went over that very day to do some cleaning, with one of his best friends Scott McCall and his mother, Melissa. It only took them two hours to clean the place top to bottom, mostly because it was left in really good condition, but also because it was only about seven-hundred square feet. 

The following day was the move, and now, Stiles was there. He was finally there, living in his own apartment in a building full of people who already seemed amazing based on who he’d met so far. 

This was going to be a great place to live, he could feel it already. 

Stiles was so, so excited. 

Jerking awake and blindly reaching for his nightstand, it took Stiles a few seconds to realize where he was and calm himself down so that his heart didn’t beat itself right out of his chest. His service weapon was locked in the small safe he had imbedded in the bottom drawer of his nightstand, and despite the location of it not having changed, the scenery had thrown him for a second and he thought it wouldn’t be there. 

When he could hear footsteps overhead, he finally recognized why he’d woken up. It sounded like the person upstairs had either tripped or lost their balance, based on the loud thump that had woken him. Rolling onto his back and rubbing at his face with both hands, Stiles inhaled deeply before turning back to grab his phone, squinting at the time. It was half-past nine, so well outside quiet hours by now. Besides, he could tell his neighbour hadn’t been loud on purpose, it legitimately seemed like they’d tripped. 

He strained to hear, since he knew he’d heard snoring last night from upstairs, but that was at night when ambient noise from outside wasn’t really a thing. Right now, there was traffic and people chatting and whatnot so he couldn’t hear anything else from upstairs. 

Sighing and figuring he might as well get up, Stiles threw his covers off himself and crawled out of bed. He grinned sleepily while walking through his closet into his bathroom, still kind of unable to believe he owned this place. He still had a few things to unpack, but he wanted to explore the area a bit more. He’d done some exploring with Parrish after he’d signed all the paperwork with the lawyer, but he had the day off and wanted to take a good look around. 

He got himself organized in the bathroom relatively quickly, then headed out into the kitchen area in his pyjamas, opening his fridge and pantry to see about breakfast. He knew there was an independent grocery store down the road, plus the larger one in the middle of town, but he didn’t really feel like making something today. He kind of wanted to eat out, try some of the little restaurants or hole-in-the-wall places in the immediate area. 

Leaning against his counter with his phone, he Googled the area for restaurants and found a small, independently owned place about five minutes away. It was in a kind of outlet of restaurants and shops, so there was lots of parking available, and their prices sounded pretty reasonable. 

He allowed himself a few seconds to think on his life choices, then decided screw it. He was celebrating being a homeowner, and if he wanted to eat out to try a few places in the area over the next couple of weeks, he was allowed. Besides, without his dad around, Stiles could eat whatever he wanted. 

His dad having a medical condition that restricted a lot of his diet meant it restricted a lot of Stiles’ diet. Not because he couldn’t eat the bad stuff if he wanted to, but because it felt like a dick move not to lead by example. If Stiles sat down to eat zucchini-noodle spaghetti with a tomato-based vegetarian sauce, his dad couldn’t complain about having to eat the same thing. Honestly, Stiles was kind of worried about how his dad’s diet would fare now that he wasn’t there to keep an eye on him.

He’d have to drop in on occasion without warning to check up on his eating habits. After all, his father had insisted the house would always be his home, so Stiles could go whenever he wanted. 

Going back into his room, he dug through the garbage bags of clothes he had in his walk-through closet until he found a pair of clean jeans and a shirt. Changing out of his pyjamas, Stiles grabbed his phone and shoved it into his pocket, then found his wallet and new keys—seriously his own keys!—before heading for the door. 

It felt so weird exiting the apartment to a corridor instead of being straight outside like he was used to from living in a house his whole life, but it was still thrilling. He had no idea how long this high of being a new homeowner would last, but he didn’t see it ending any time soon! 

He hesitated while walking past Parrish’s door, wondering if he should knock. He knew the man had worked the evening shift, so he was most likely awake, but he didn’t want to assume. He figured maybe he would text him while at the restaurant and ask if he wanted him to grab anything. 

He walked the length of the long corridor towards the single elevator, knowing the stairs would be faster but they didn’t hit the underground garage. They stopped on the ground floor and he had to go through another door to a different set of stairs. He didn’t know the building well enough yet, and he was hungry, so he figured he could explore that when he got back. He’d probably take the stairs more often than not anyway. 

Pressing the button, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet while he waited, pulling his phone out and texting Scott to see if he was still alive. He hadn’t heard from him since he’d texted the night before to advise he might not be able to drop by. It reminded him he still needed the buzzer for his unit—or confirmation on how to set it up, anyway. He’d have to grab the building manager’s number from Parrish later. 

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, Stiles still texting on his phone while walking into it. He was trying to finish what he was doing before reaching for the buttons and almost threw his phone across the lift in fright at the voice beside him. 

“Going down?” 

He felt like a fucking idiot because this was an elevator! How could he have assumed he’d be alone?! 

“Oh, uh, yeah, yes.” 

“What floor?”

Stiles turned to the person standing beside the console and felt his heart stop.

Good.

Fucking.

Lord. 

He was pretty sure he’d never seen anyone more attractive in his life outside of Hollywood. Fuck, this guy was gorgeous! Dark hair styled perfectly to rival most models, a neatly trimmed beard with some speckles of grey, light eyes that were either green with a bit of brown or brown with a bit of green—it was hard to tell—all sitting atop a perfectly toned body in a fitted navy blue suit. Stiles was pretty sure he forgot how to speak just at the sight of him, and he may have been staring with his mouth hanging open. 

The guy didn’t seem to mind—or maybe notice, since he was also looking down at his phone. He had a BlackBerry, which surprised Stiles because he didn’t think they made those anymore. He knew they were supposed to be the best from a security standpoint, and the man was typing expertly one-handed, a briefcase in the other. He was scowling a little bit, as if the words he was reading were displeasing to him, but he didn’t seem angry. Just a little unhappy. 

He seemed to have finally noticed the fact that Stiles didn’t tell him what floor he needed and glanced over at him. Stiles hoped he’d managed to shut his mouth before the guy caught him drooling. 

“What floor?” he prompted again and fuck, his voice! Stiles was in love. He was in love with this man. His life was over, he was done for, it was him or nothing, no one else would ever compare! 

“Uh the—parking. Parking lot. Garage? The—where cars are.” Stop talking! Stiles’ brain supplied helpfully, because he was moving into the realm of stupid words escaping his mouth. 

“P1 or P2?” the literal God asked, reaching out to hover his finger over the buttons, phone still clutched in his hand. The lift doors had long ago closed, the elevator slowly moving down, but the P2 button was already lit up so it wasn’t like they would just be trapped in there forever. 

Man, Stiles wished though, damn! 

“P2,” he confirmed, the guy nodding and letting his hand drop. 

He stared at Stiles for a moment, giving him a slow once-over that made his toes curl. Fuck, what he wouldn’t give for this guy to be checking him out, but Stiles was pretty sure he was more trying to place him. 

Because of how long they’d already been in the elevator, the doors opened before the gorgeous man could say anything. Stiles, being closest, stepped out first and hurried to pull his keys out so he could swipe his fob over the reader. Most of the doors leading in and out of the garage from within the building were locked via fob to avoid any unwanted people breaking in. The entrance to the building also had a fob, but all the others could be opened with a building key. Stiles much preferred the fob, it was easier. 

Grabbing the door, he held it open for his new friend, the man nodding a thanks to him and frowning slightly. Stiles wondered if he was trying to place him, like he recognized him. Stiles was kind of well-known around town just because he was the sheriff’s son, but people didn’t usually automatically make that connection. 

“Have a good day,” Stiles said to the man’s retreating back. 

The man turned back to him slightly, looking a little startled, then said, “You as well.”

Stiles followed him out of the small locked alcove the elevator was in, the door slamming loudly behind him and making him jump. He hadn’t expected it to close that quickly, he’d have to remember that for next time. Parrish had been with him when he’d parked the Jeep so the crazy door was an unknown factor.

He felt completely out of sorts now, Mr. Handsome having thrown him off his game. It took a few seconds to regain his composure, Stiles following a good distance behind the guy. He walked over to a black Camaro that didn’t have a single scratch on it, and Stiles kind of hoped he left before he reached his own Jeep. 

He didn’t care that his Jeep was old and a piece of crap, he loved it to pieces because it used to belong to his mother. Still, it was kind of embarrassing now that he was heading for it with Mr. Handsome watching from behind the wheel of his expensive car. 

Now it was like the guy thought Stiles was a thief who’d broken in somehow, stolen someone’s keys, and was about to loot a bunch of vehicles. It was probably because he didn’t recognize him from around the building and since Stiles had bought from the ex-couple without their place being formally listed, it made sense he’d be suspicious. 

Sighing in defeat, Stiles moved around the side of the Jeep and unlocked it before climbing in. Mr. Handsome started up his car, the engine revving loudly, and then pulled out of his spot. He disappeared around the corner, Stiles hearing the gate begin to rumble open to allow him to exit. 

“Wow,” Stiles said to himself, exhaling harshly. He hadn’t been that turned on by someone in a long time. Seriously, damn! 

He stayed where he was for a minute or two so he could compose himself, then did a full body shake to release some of the weird tension he felt before shoving the key in the ignition and starting to car. 

When he got out of the garage, he followed the side road out to the main one and then turned left. He wasn’t overly familiar with the area, but he felt confident enough to get there without any problems. It was the advantage of having grown up in Beacon Hills. He didn’t know all the areas, but he could trust himself to find where he needed to be. 

Sure enough, six and a half minutes later, he found the small outlet with the hole-in-the-wall restaurant named Food for Thought. Parking in the closest available spot, he climbed out and flipped his keys in his hands while looking around. 

The independently-owned grocery store was also in this little complex, so he thought he might check that out after breakfast. His brain was still a little focussed on Mr. Handsome from the elevator. He’d really been so good looking. And he looked so fucking fancy with his suit and his fucking briefcase, and his gorgeous car. 

Stiles wondered if he was one of the three lawyers in the building Parrish had mentioned. A guy that attractive was definitely married. And even if he wasn’t, he was way out of Stiles’ league, nevermind that he was probably straight. 

That was the disadvantage of being bisexual: everyone was hot to him, but not everyone would want to date him depending on what equipment they favoured. There was a joke about how all the hot guys were either taken or gay, but Stiles could attest that most of the hot guys were not gay. Taken he’d concede on, but gay? Not a chance in hell. 

To be fair, Danny Mahealani from high school had been both hot and gay, and while he and Stiles had gotten along for their four year stint together, Stiles hadn’t really come out as bisexual until university. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to come out, he just hadn’t actually realized he was also into dudes until he went to a party at a frat house in his second semester, gotten really turned on by one of the half-naked dancing frat brothers, and then made out with him in the hot tub at two in the morning when almost everyone else was passed out drunk or asleep. 

Stiles hadn’t even been tipsy! It had legitimately just happened, and that was when he realized that he liked women, but he definitely also liked men. Danny was long gone by then, and while they kind of kept in touch over Facebook every now and then, he’d moved to Denver after his own four years of university and was a fairly successful journalist. Stiles was pretty sure he was married, too. His Facebook status had never been visible, but he had a ring on his finger and lots of pictures with a really cute guy and two dogs so Stiles was pretty sure that ship had sailed. 

Shaking thoughts of both Danny and Mr. Handsome off, Stiles stepped into the small restaurant and looked around. It was kind of homey, if he was honest. It was cool inside to counterbalance the blazing heat that would surely hit as noon neared, and had soft music playing on the overhead speakers. The place only had about twelve tables, all of them separated into their own two-person seating though he could tell they were moveable so that tables could be pushed together as needed for larger groups. 

There were only about four of the spots taken, likely because of the hour and day of the week, but he didn’t see a sign that said he could just sit wherever so he waited by the door while a blonde woman brought two coffees to a couple near the back. She turned then, offering him a killer smile while heading over to him.

Fuck, his day was turning into a bisexual crisis because she was also stunning. Long blonde hair made up in loose curls, dark brown eyes with light earth-tones makeup on her lids, a light pink on her lips and a very elegant outfit. She looked like someone who should be on a fucking catwalk instead of in a small little restaurant like this. 

“Good morning. Table for one?” 

“Uh, yeah, yes.” Stiles really needed to stop speaking like that around attractive people, he was starting to get a complex. 

“Have at it,” she said, motioning the seats while grabbing a menu. 

He chose one of the spots close to the other people in the place to avoid having her walking back and forth repeatedly. Once he was seated, she handed him a menu and asked if he wanted coffee. She left to grab him some when he responded in the affirmative and he perused the breakfast menu. It was quite short, but it had all the important things. Pancakes, waffles, eggs, and some kind of breakfast yogurt parfait with fruit and honey. With him here alone, and a busy day of continued unpacking ahead of him, he decided to go for pancakes. He loved pancakes. 

When the waitress came back with his coffee, he thanked her as she set it down, the woman lingering beside his table for a second before speaking. 

“You new in town?” 

He shook his head while sipping his coffee, licking his lips and setting it down. “Born and raised. Just moved into one of the buildings down the road though, so it’s my first time here.” 

“Welcome to the area. When did you move in?” 

“Just yesterday. Woke up this morning and wanted to explore a bit. Your restaurant came up as a good place to eat with reasonable prices, so I thought I’d give it a shot.” 

She grinned at him, the smile almost manic, like that was the best news she’d ever heard. He didn’t understand why until she finally spoke. 

“See, my best friend was adamant I wouldn’t do well here, but thankfully my husband had faith and now here we are, with someone brand new to the area choosing my establishment to try first.” 

He started slightly, then beamed at her. “You own this place?” 

“Yes sir.” She shifted on her feet slightly, leaning a bit against the empty table behind her. “My husband and I bought this place about four years ago when they started developing the area. It was a bit of a tough go at first, but in the past few years, business has been booming. He does all the cooking, and I man the front.” 

“It’s just the two of you?” 

She nodded. “Place is small, and we have a capacity of twenty-four people. It’s manageable as long as we keep the menu relatively short. We don’t have a lot of options to choose from, so it lets us operate comfortably without worrying about long waits.” 

“Must be long days though.” 

“It is,” she admitted. “We’re open eight to eight five days a week. Wednesdays and Sundays are off. Sometimes we’re open for holidays, depends on the demand and if we’re doing anything.” 

“That’s amazing. Seriously, congratulations! I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life after school, and you’re here owning your own business. That’s really cool.” 

“Thanks.” She beamed at him, this smile a little less manic. “I’m Erica, by the way. Erica Reyes.” She held her hand out to him and he reached out to shake it. 

“Stiles Stilinski.” 

“Sheriff’s kid?” she asked, squinting slightly. 

“That’s me,” he confirmed. 

“We went to school together,” she said, moving around the table to stand behind the chair opposite him. “I was a grade above you, so you probably don’t remember me.” 

“Sorry.” If he was honest, he didn’t remember many of the people from high school. Almost all of them had gone off elsewhere after graduating because most people didn’t stick around Beacon Hills if they could help it. Stiles wasn’t one of them, because he loved their little town. It was a great place to live.

Erica obviously thought so too, because she was still there just like he was. 

“So what’d you end up doing?” Erica asked. “After graduating, I mean. What are you up to these days?” 

“I’m a cop.” 

She hummed, smiling at him. “Like father, like son?” 

“Something like that. Didn’t know what I wanted to do at first, then my dad convinced me to go to the police academy just to see how I liked it, and now here I am.” 

“Good for you. Do you like it?” 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” He smiled at her. “And you? You like your job?” 

“Oh, I love my job. Spend all day with my husband, and I am a very social person, in case you haven’t noticed.” She winked at him. “My husband, not so much. He likes people well enough, but he’s very happy in the kitchen cooking. He used to be a chef in one of those fancy restaurants in San Francisco, but he moved back here eight years ago to take care of his grandmother. He used to go to high school with us too, Vernon Boyd?” 

“Oh yeah, he played on the lacrosse team,” Stiles said, recognizing the name. Stiles himself was on the track and basketball teams. He had really good hand-eye coordination, but apparently not when a stick was between his hands and the ball. Basketball he was good at. Lacrosse? He’d called it quits on that in Freshman year of high school. He let his two best friends be the lacrosse players, which meant he went to all the games to support them, thus he knew by extension who all the players were. Boyd had always been really nice, far as Stiles could remember. He was glad to hear that he was doing well. 

“He did,” Erica confirmed. “It’s where all those amazing muscles come from.” She winked at him again and laughed. Stiles was pretty sure she was a little bit crazy, but he didn’t mind. She seemed to be really fun, and if the food was good, he might have found his new favourite place to eat in the area. “So! What can I get for you?” 

“You know, I was going to say the pancakes, but why don’t you surprise me? Bring out your best breakfast. Convince me this is my new favourite place to eat.” 

“Oh,” Erica said with a mischievous grin. “Okay. I can do that. Any allergies?” 

“Nope.” 

“Be right back then.” She scribbled something down on her notepad, asked if he wanted more coffee, and then disappeared towards the swinging door that presumably led to the kitchen. 

Stiles pulled his phone out and texted with Scott a bit, then started browsing Reddit while he waited. He wished he’d remembered his headphones, he’d have watched some YouTube videos while eating, but he didn’t want to bother the people around him so he stuck to Reddit. 

Then again, his laughter was probably a huge bother, but nobody seemed to mind. He wondered if it was a requirement to be extremely chill to live in this general area. If so, he’d definitely lucked out. He owed Parrish big for this. 

When Erica came back over with some more coffee, she lingered a bit so they could chat before going to check on the other patrons. She was kind of fun, in a weird sort of way. Stiles wished he remembered her a bit more from high school but he hadn’t interacted much with the upperclassmen outside of the sports teams he was on. 

It only took about ten minutes for his meal to show up, and he was pretty damn happy with the sight that greeted him. 

His plate had two huge waffles on them, golden brown and crispy along the edges, with a generous drizzle of chocolate sauce, some powdered sugar, two scoops of ice cream and a plethora of whipped cream. 

“This is the best breakfast I’ve ever seen,” he informed Erica when she set it down in front of him. 

“We don’t usually put the ice cream on, but I figured we had to buy your loyalty through your stomach, so we made an exception.” She winked at him again. “Enjoy.” 

“Oh I definitely will,” he agreed as she walked away, looking damn pleased with herself. 

She had every right to, because this food looked amazing. Stiles wasn’t really sure about ice cream for breakfast, but he was a new homeowner and an adult and he could have ice cream for breakfast if he wanted to! 

Eating the waffles was an experience for him. He was used to good food, given all the places he’d eaten last minute while on shift, not to mention the places around campus when he was in university. But these waffles? He was pretty sure there was honey or something in the waffles themselves because they were that sort of sweetness that wasn’t overpowering, but still present. And who didn’t love chocolate and ice cream and powdered sugar? 

He didn’t need to eat the whole thing, but he totally did. He ate every bite. He had to refrain from licking the fucking plate. 

Erica was extremely pleased with herself when she came back to refill his coffee and take away his empty plate. He asked if they had a take-out menu, and while they didn’t deliver because of it being just her and her husband, they still did the whole take-out thing for pick-up if they weren’t too busy. Stiles read over the small paper menu when she handed him one, which included all of their meals. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, desserts and various appetizers. They had set hours for each list of food, but that was okay by him. He saw a few things he wouldn’t mind trying, and honestly felt like this place was going to be his favourite in the area. 

A few more people had started to come in since Stiles’ own arrival, and he could tell the lunch rush was going to hit soon. It was only quarter to eleven, but depending on how early people started working, it made sense they’d eat lunch early, too. He saw a bakery in the same little complex he was in, so he was positive they started at like, four in the morning. Erica confirmed that they were their best customers, but also that they had the best baked goods and he should definitely check them out. 

Stiles loved that everyone was so supportive here, and he promised he would when he left. Finishing up his coffee and asking for the bill, he tipped generously because damn if Erica and Boyd didn’t deserve it, and then headed out so it would free up his table. 

True to his word, he headed for the bakery, and while he definitely wasn’t hungry right now, he bought a six-pack of chocolate chip muffins for the mornings to come and some amazing looking pizza bread. He didn’t know what pizza bread was, but it had the words ‘pizza’ and ‘bread’ so he was all in. 

All. In.

He went to the little store next to buy a few random groceries, but didn’t think he’d be going there frequently. They were kind of over-priced, though that was likely because they were the only store around. If he was in a pinch and needed something, he’d probably stop in to grab the ingredients, but otherwise, he’d just stop at the bigger store in town on his way home from work to get groceries. 

Man, he was going to have to remember things now. Power, cable, bills of all kinds, groceries. He and his dad both did the whole groceries thing, so while Stiles knew he wasn’t liable to forget or anything, he definitely wasn’t going to remember every time. 

And now that he thought about it, he needed to call to get all those things set up and switched over into his name. He’d spent a long time out of the house already and he had work the following morning so he needed to get his shit squared away as soon as possible. 

“Being an adult is hard,” he sighed to himself while climbing back into the Jeep. 

Still, he was a homeowner. 

That excitement wasn’t going to wear off any time soon. 

Stiles was actually really proud of everything he accomplished over the course of just two days. He was fully moved in, all of his things were squared away, he had the cable guy coming on Saturday when he was off shift, everything else was all set up and ready to go. 

He felt like an accomplished adult. He was doing really well, and could now bring home his dates without feeling awkward about his dad potentially coming home and catching them. 

Then again, with the walls as thin as they were, that was probably going to be something awkward for him and everyone around him. He was sure he wasn’t the only one to have sex with people, but while he knew he wasn’t a very loud bed partner with women, he tended to get a little, er—overexcited when he was with men. Particularly when he was bottoming because thank you, it was almost always a good time.

Except that one time with the closeted dude in university, that had hurt like a bitch, he tried to block that traumatic memory from his mind as much as possible. People were allowed to perform poorly in bed on their first time, but when it hurt to such a degree Stiles had spent more of the experience trying not to bite right through his bottom lip than actually enjoying himself, that was a little much. 

With the day finally over, and an impromptu dinner at the diner by the station with his dad, Stiles went home and got ready for the following day. He had work first thing in the morning, which for him meant waking up around five am. He used to be able to wake up at closer to six, but Parrish advised because of the distance that five was usually when he got up for the morning shift. 

Stiles was not looking forward to that. He barely managed the six wake-up time, let alone the fucking five wake-up time. It was going to be hell. He was going to suffer. 

Making sure he was all set for the morning, Stiles decided to take one last shower before heading to bed to wash off the remnants of his sweaty day. It was still hot as all hell but he’d been smart enough to remember to grab one of the fans from back home after dinner, so he wouldn’t die of heatstroke in his own apartment. He was planning on buying a few more floor fans in the coming days but he wanted to know exactly how hot it could get in the unit so he didn’t overbuy. 

Climbing into the shower and shutting the glass door of the stall, Stiles stood under the spray for a few seconds, humming to himself before grabbing for the shampoo and starting in on singing Frozen’s ‘Let It Go’ song. He was a singer in the shower, it was where he performed best. And the acoustics? Fucking golden in this place. Much better than the tub and shower curtain he was used to back at his dad’s place. 

He didn’t know why he was singing Let It Go, but assumed it was because it was the last song he’d heard playing from his playlist before he’d turned it off earlier. Now it was stuck in his head, which was fine. The movie had come out long enough ago that it wasn’t going to drive him crazy like it did back when every single little girl and their mother—and father—was singing the damn thing. It had gotten old real fast back in 2013 but now, it was tolerable. Catchy, even. Stiles liked to put little spins on the way he sang certain parts, changing the chords and even adding in a little flair. 

When he realized he was using the shampoo bottle as a microphone instead of actually shampooing his hair, he remembered the purpose of his shower—namely, to get clean and go to bed—and though he continued to sing, he actually got to work lathering up his hair. Soaping himself down afterwards and then standing under the cool spray for a few seconds longer, he finally sighed, conceded defeat, and headed out of the stall. He felt hot and sticky again by the time he was done drying off, because the weather was the worst, and he hated everything. He couldn’t wait for fall to hit, at least it would be more tolerable. 

Still humming the famous and overdone song to himself, Stiles brushed his teeth, did his business, changed into his pyjamas, and then headed into his room to go to bed. It was just after nine, so he heard nothing from above or below him, which made sense because only someone who had to be up at five would be in bed at nine. 

His schedule was so wacked that it took a while for him to fall asleep. He heard the white noise machine turn on downstairs at half-past ten, but no snoring from upstairs yet. His neighbours on the left were always very quiet, he didn’t even know if anyone lived there. Parrish he never heard because their apartments were mirrored, so though he did hear him watching TV earlier that evening, their rooms were too far apart.

Which, really, was a good thing. Stiles didn’t need to hear Parrish in his bedroom, he was still pretty sure he had a hard-on for one of Stiles’ close friends and if they ever ended up together, Stiles didn’t really want to listen to them bone. That would make looking either of them in the eye impossible. 

He finally managed to pass out at close to eleven, with still nothing from upstairs. Maybe his penthouse-living neighbours were out at some fancy restaurant or exploring the world on a private jet or something. He felt like he remembered Parrish saying something about a business owner and a yoga instructor upstairs, but he didn’t remember if it was right above them or just one of the penthouse owners. Either way, even if it was above him, Stiles didn’t know how far out the penthouses extended. Evidently they were a few units across given there were twenty-four units per floor and only four penthouses, but he didn’t know if that meant he and Parrish had the same ones, or if maybe Stiles’ unit was the cutoff and he had different neighbours upstairs. 

They definitely liked their smoothies though, because they seemed to make a lot of them in their blender, and considering Stiles had only been there for two days so far, that was saying something. 

Sleeping was a bit of a challenge for him that night because he kept waking up freaking out he was late for work, only to check his phone and find about twenty minutes had passed. Sleeping in twenty-minute intervals was not fun. 

When his alarm finally did go off, it startled him so badly he almost fell out of bed, flailed like a crazy person, shushed his phone loudly while scrambling to grab it, and hastily shut it off. The entire place was eerily silent once the shrill sound cut off, and it occurred to him that he might have to find a different alarm on his phone. That one was way too loud and given what he knew about the walls, he definitely couldn’t keep it. He’d probably woken up everyone who lived around him.

“Sorry,” he whispered, still half-asleep. When he crawled out of bed, he tried really hard to tip-toe to the bathroom, figuring if he was at least somewhere other than right above his neighbour’s bedroom, he would be okay.

It was weird getting ready for work for the first time in his new place, but he’d planned well the night before—shockingly. He only spent about ten minutes in the bathroom, changed into his uniform, and then went into the kitchen to try one of the muffins he’d bought the day before at the bakery.

The muffin was delicious. And the second was just as good. He managed to refrain from eating a third one. 

While the coffee at work wasn’t the best, it was free and did the job well enough, so once he was done eating, he made sure he had everything before stepping out of his apartment and locking up. Heading down the long corridor to the elevator, it came relatively quickly given the early hour and he hit parking level two, waiting while it descended. 

He was standing right in front of the doors when they opened, not expecting anyone else to be up this early, and almost walked right into someone who was waiting on the other side. 

“Shit, sorry!” He hastily moved aside, holding the door open so that he and the other party could switch spots and froze.

It was Mr. Handsome from yesterday except—he looked like he was still wearing the same clothes. His eyes were red with deep bags beneath them, his hair was a little more mussed than it had been the last time they’d met, and yup, definitely the same clothes as yesterday. Stiles wondered if he’d really been out working this whole time, because that was insane. That was like, nineteen hours or something. 

Mr. Handsome had frozen right alongside Stiles when the doors had opened, and he gave him another slow once-over. Stiles wanted to shift a little uncomfortably, because the guy looked like he needed a nap and instead he was standing there staring at him.

He’d have thought the guy fell asleep standing up if his eyes weren’t moving up and down like they were. 

“I apologize,” he finally said after a moment, moving to enter the lift as Stiles held the door for him. 

“All good, my fault for not thinking anyone else would be up. I uh, hope you have a good day.” 

The guy grunted, but Stiles didn’t take it personally. He looked so exhausted he was worried he wouldn’t make it to his apartment. 

When the doors finally closed, Stiles reminded himself he had to get to work and hastily turned to get to the Jeep. He really wondered what Mr. Handsome did for a living, because that seemed like an impossibly long workday. Who worked a desk job for nineteen hours? Sure he knew some people in medicine did those kinds of crazy shifts, as did cops and on occasion even service industry people, but someone who dressed like that? He had to have a desk job, and Stiles couldn’t fathom what kind of desk job would have him working such long hours.

To be fair, Stiles had never worked a desk job so maybe he just didn’t know much about people who spent all day behind a desk.

Damn he was fine, though. And considering, he looked really well-built. He had to do some kind of exercise to keep that form if he spent all his time behind a desk. Stiles may spend the occasional day at the precinct or sitting in the car, but he and the people at work had really good workout regimens, and even sometimes challenged each other.

He would never forget the year he, Tara Graeme, Valerie Clark and Parrish all challenged each other to run 50 kilometres in two weeks. Stiles thought he was going to die. He was fit, and he’d done track in high school so he knew he could do it, but while working full time, pulling a few doubles, and dating someone at the time, he’d almost killed himself trying to complete it. 

They’d all managed to squeak in, but Val ended up winning by finishing first. Parrish and Tara still argued over who won second place because apparently Parrish had one kilometre to go when Tara had already run four and was on her last and he just tried to race past her to finish first. Parrish insisted he was the winner whenever Tara was around, but behind her back he admitted she was the true second place winner, he just liked riling her up. 

He’d heard that some of the others at work wanted to start a burpee challenge for next month. Ten burpees on the first of the month, going up by five daily until the last day of the month meant they’d have to do one-hundred and fifty-five. Not in a row, but all in one day. Stiles hated burpees, he didn’t think he could do it. 

Pulling out of his parking garage, he started driving down the side road towards the main one so he could head to work, brain having gone off on a tangent and completely forgetting about Mr. Handsome. 

For now, anyway. He doubted that would last long. 

Let It Go was stuck in Stiles’ head. No matter what he did, and how many songs he listened to, it was always the first thing his brain caught on whenever he was absentmindedly humming something. He didn’t mind, if he was honest, he just worried it would start to bug the people around him when he hummed it under his breath. 

He did it at home a lot too, but nobody could hear him humming. Not over how loudly Parrish listened to the TV. Honestly, he was going to go deaf at a young age with the volume level as high as it was. Stiles wondered if that was how loud his own television was, too. It was hard to tell sometimes in this place. Everything was really easy to catch from the units around him, and while he was sure other people didn’t like it so much, he actually found he loved it. 

Growing up alone in his big house made for a very lonely childhood. He had a lot of friends, and spent tons of time at the station with his dad and the other officers, but he’d also spent many, many hours alone at home. He thought maybe that was why he was a loud person, or just liked noise in general. He’d often made himself feel less lonely at home by talking to himself a lot and keeping the TV on in his room as background noise even when he wasn’t watching it. 

So honestly, living in this building was really nice. He heard so much around him that it reminded him he wasn’t alone. He had people here, and while he didn’t know them all, he was hopeful that he would get to know them as time passed. He had to give it a few more days. After all, he was only on day six of having moved in, and he already knew Lenore and Parrish, as well as Mr. Tate—the lawyer who’d helped him with his purchase—and Dr. Geyer—who he’d already kind of known because of Scott’s mother. 

Knowing four people in the building after six days and barely leaving his apartment felt like an accomplishment to him! Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to go knocking on everyone’s doors to introduce himself.

Actually, that was tempting now. He at least wanted to know his immediate neighbours, if nothing else. 

Still, it’d be creepy, so he refrained. 

On his first official day off work barring the time off he’d scheduled for his move, he decided he should probably check out the gym. He’d been eating a lot of muffins since moving out—he wasn’t proud of it, but it was happening all the same. He needed to get some exercise into his daily life, and was actually really glad that this place had a gym. 

Convincing himself it wasn’t the end of the world to get up, change out, and go for a workout was a struggle, but Stiles managed to crawl out of bed at half-past nine in the morning on a dreary-looking Wednesday and shuffled into the bathroom. He tried to find ways to talk himself out of going, but decided he was just being a whiny baby and he could reward himself with some pancakes or something from Food for Thought once he was done.

No way could he eat before his workout, he’d literally vomit. 

Changing into comfortable running gear and grabbing his phone and Airpods, Stiles headed out of his apartment after making sure he had his keys. He was so used to having his front door unlocked at home that he’d left his apartment more than once without keys. Which wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that he needed a fob or key to get back into the building. Thankfully the three—or maybe four?—times it had happened, Parrish had been home and Stiles had just called him. 

He needed to set up his buzzer so that if he ever got locked out again, he could buzz himself in on his phone. Parrish had taught him that trick, but Stiles kept forgetting to contact the building manager to ask about the buzzer. He’d get around to it eventually.

Being an adult was so hard. He wished he could be like, an adult who could forever be a kid. Like, he didn’t have to go to school or do homework, but he also didn’t have to have a job or pay taxes or remember to buy eggs and leave the house with keys in his pocket. 

Seriously, the universe was asking a bit much from him. 

Whistling Let It Go to himself while heading towards the stairs, he descended them to the main level and exited into the lobby, moving to the outer door so he could head outside. He smiled to a couple who were on their way in, holding the door for them only because he recognized them from the second floor. They had the most adorable dog ever, Stiles loved it. 

Once outside, he walked the few steps towards the entrance to their amenities, punching in the code Parrish had given him and yanking the door open. Apparently they’d had a few problems with neighbourhood kids coming around to use their gym equipment, which wouldn’t be a big deal if not for the fact that they used them in a manner they were not intended to be used. 

The media room and events room were both locked by special fob that only the building manager had, since they had to be formally booked, but the door leading up to the gym used to be open to everyone. Now with the code, it guaranteed only residents of their building could access it and while Stiles felt bad for the kids who’d just been goofing around, as a kid who used to goof around a lot in high school, that was the kind of liability no one needed. 

He’d just stepped into the empty gym—which made sense given the day of the week and the hour—when his phone rang. Checking it, he grinned to himself before quickly sticking his Airpods into his ears and answering the call. 

“Hey, are you back in town already? I was anticipating another few days of peace before your bastard ass came back ‘round.” 

“Go fuck a pineapple, Stilinski.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Stiles moved further into the gym, looking around at all the equipment appreciatively. He already knew what he was aiming for, but it never hurt to check things out. He’d never been on an elliptical before, but apparently they were good for the core, so he might try that out one day. Not today, but one day. 

“You planning on coming over to fuck me with your prickly dick? Is that what you’re saying?” 

“Why are we even friends? I fucking hate you.”

“Sure you do.” Stiles moved up to one of the treadmills, climbing onto it and pressing a few buttons to get it started up, grabbing at the automatic disconnect and clipping it to the bottom of his shirt. “How was the trip? Things go okay?” 

He knew his second oldest friend Jackson Whittemore well enough that he was positive the man had just shrugged in response, despite the fact that Stiles couldn’t see him. 

“Got laid, so it wasn’t a total bust.”

“Holy shit, someone managed to yank that stick out of your ass to shove their dick into it?” Stiles demanded with a fake gasp of shock. He grinned, able to feel the scowl from his friend as the belt on the treadmill began to move ever so slowly. Stiles was already there, so he wanted to at least get started, but he’d show Jackson some mercy and maybe just speed walk for a while until their call ended. 

“You move into that shithole apartment then? Saw your dad earlier and he told me how glad he was to finally be rid of your dumb ass.”

Stiles knew that wasn’t true, and he knew Jackson knew that he knew it wasn’t true. This was just how Jackson was. He was an asshole on the surface, but a gooey marshmallow man at his core. Seriously, sometimes Stiles didn’t understand how people missed the fact that Jackson was one of the nicest people they would ever meet. He just had a lot of barriers up and hid behind countless metal doors with lasers and barbed wire and voice, thumbprint and retinal scanners. 

Luckily for Stiles, he’d just blown a hole through the wall with dynamite and walked right on in. Once he realized Jackson was just insecure, it made their time together in high school so much more enjoyable. 

He called Jackson his second oldest friend—Scott being the first—but honestly they hadn’t even been friends until high school. Jackson had always been an asshole to him, but it wasn’t until the beginning of ninth grade that he finally clued in to what the deal was. 

Danny was one of the nicest people Stiles had ever met in his life, and he was friends with Jackson. So that was when Stiles realized that Jackson couldn’t be a bad person, and there was a reason for why he acted how he did. 

Apparently there was. He had abandonment issues, so he kept everyone at arm’s length. Danny had been his friend since preschool, so he’d always been around and Jackson hadn’t managed to push him away. Scott and Stiles had known Jackson since middle school, but they’d hated him because of his attitude. Once Stiles clued in to why he was how he was, he made more of an effort to make friendly with him.

Whether Jackson wanted to be his friend or not. Stiles was very persistent. And had dynamite to cheat his way around metal doors apparently. 

So while Jackson hadn’t always been his friend, Stiles had known him for so long and they were so close now that he just found it easier to call him his second oldest friend. He and Scott had met in diapers so they were best bros for life. 

Stiles wasn’t looking forward to his wedding, because he knew Jackson would feel slighted when Stiles chose Scott as his best man, but really, fair was fair. Stiles fully expected Jackson to ask Danny, because he knew the guy would fly back down to Beacon Hills in a heartbeat to stand at Jackson’s side. 

If Jackson ever got married. He kept insisting he was waiting for the right guy but Stiles was sure he was still just worried about being left behind. It made him sad to think of his friend always worried about being left alone. That was the main reason Stiles made such an effort to see him. 

Sure he loved Scott, but his best buddy had a wife and two kids, and a really demanding job so he wasn’t always free to hang out. Even when he was, he always looked so tired. That tended to happen with a baby and a toddler. Stiles felt like his wife Allison didn’t look much better whenever they bumped into each other in town. They both needed those kids to grow up fast so they could get some damn sleep. 

“You gonna come by to check it out?” Stiles asked, returning to the conversation at hand while beginning to speed up the belt a little bit so he was walking briskly while he spoke. “There’s a really good little hole-in-the-wall place down the street with a dinner menu I’m looking forward to trying. You can drop in to check the place out and we can grab some food.” 

“Maybe, if I have time.” That was Jackson speak for, “I’ll be there at six.” Stiles was fluent in Jacksonese. 

“Cool. I’ll run out and grab a few beers, I don’t think I have any. You can tell me about your trip.”

“Who cares about my trip?”

“I do, jackass, or I wouldn’t have asked about it. Was it all work and no play? You said you got laid, but that could’ve happened in one of the boardrooms. You’re a classy guy that way, I still remember that blowjob you got in the bathroom after prom.” 

Stiles winced when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, because it meant someone else had walked in while he was saying crude things like that. Whoops. Probably not the best first impression for whoever it was. 

He decided to avoid looking over, mostly so he could pretend he hadn’t just said that, but also because he wanted the opportunity to formally apologize for the words that had come out. Even though there was a lock, some of the building occupants had teenagers who came by the gym, and he shouldn’t be having conversations like this in public anyway. 

“The door was locked for a reason, not my fault you picked it.”

“I had to use the restroom, and you were taking too long!” Stiles argued, mock-offended. “I was wearing a suit, Jackson. I wasn’t about to ruin it because my best friend didn’t care about my bodily needs!” 

He heard beeping beside him as the controls were set, the noise loud enough to come through his headphones, and the person beside him started up a leisurely jog. Stiles needed to get to his exercising too, but he wasn’t going to hang up on Jackson, that was rude. 

“Whatever Stilinski. I’ll come by if I feel like it. Text me your address.”

“Will do. See you later.” 

Jackson hung up without bothering to wait for Stiles to say anything else. He immediately went to his text messages to send him his address, since he knew he would get an angry, aggressive series of question marks in about thirty seconds if he didn’t. Jackson was many things, but patient wasn’t one of them. 

Once that was done, he pulled one earbud out and turned to his neighbour with a wince, intent on apologizing, and wanted to fucking die. 

Of course it was Mr. Handsome. Of all the people Stiles could’ve had catching him in the middle of a crude conversation, it had to be Mr. Handsome. 

Stiles didn’t know what to do, because the guy was jogging at a steady pace with his own wired earbuds on—they looked like they were connected to his BlackBerry, so they weren’t Airpods—and wasn’t looking at him. Stiles figured he’d either lucked out and the guy hadn’t heard him, or he’d apologize when the guy looked ready to head out. He didn’t want to interrupt him when he looked so focussed on the laptop balanced in front of him.

It explained why he wasn’t running any faster, he likely couldn’t type and run at the same time. The fact that he was jogging at all while fucking using a laptop was impressive to Stiles. He wondered what he did for a living, considering the little information Stiles had, but whatever it was, it seemed really fucking intense. 

Gave him some insight on how he stayed fit, though. 

Turning back to his own treadmill controls and shoving his one earbud back into his ear, Stiles turned on one of his random playlists—metal music, nice choice randomizer—and then set his phone down in one of the slots of the treadmill. He started to increase the speed of his run, jogging to keep pace, and then pumping his legs faster as he continued to hit the ‘up’ arrow. 

The treadmill also had an incline function, so he cranked it up to the highest setting and then began to flat-out run, keeping up relatively well with the speed of the belt. It paid to be in track in high school and a cop. He’d done his fair share of chasing down perps, and he always found it funny that there was a stereotype of old, fat cops. 

Okay yes, fat cops existed, but those were almost always the ones who’d already done their time out on the road and were mostly stuck behind a desk all day due to their age. It was a stressful job, and eating was a comfort, not to mention a lot of cops he knew had marital trouble. He had a few firefighter friends in the same boat.

A lot of people didn’t want to be with someone who could go to work one day and not come back. To be fair though, that was true of any job. Just because someone sat behind a desk all day didn’t mean that they couldn’t randomly get hit by a car on their way home, or even choke on like, a piece of lettuce in their salad and die alone in their office. 

Death didn’t discriminate, if it was someone’s time to go, it was their time to go. Still, it would be nice if people didn’t automatically pass on the cops and firefighters. 

Admittedly, the hours didn’t help. People really liked stability, and that didn’t happen with those two professions. Stiles himself could work a morning shift one day, and the graveyard shift the next. It was murder on his sleep schedule, but that was the job. He kind of loved the uncertainty of it, if he was honest. It kept things interesting. 

He was starting to really build up a sweat after a few minutes, his shirt sticking to him and sweat trickling into his eyes. He just wiped his hand across his forehead and kept running. His earbuds threatened to fall out every now and then, but he just pushed them back in, used to this after years of running. He didn’t usually run on a treadmill, since his house didn’t give him access to a gym, but he was glad for it now. While running outside around the neighbourhood was better for the knees, here in the gym, he had air conditioning. It was helping him not literally die in the swealtering heat while he tried to keep his fitness up. 

Every now and then, he’d glance over at Mr. Handsome to see how he was faring. He looked to be done with his work, because the laptop was shut and he’d sped up slightly to a bit more of a run. Nothing as intense as Stiles, but the guy already knew he was a cop courtesy of the other morning, so he probably knew he could never outrun him. 

Damn he was fine, though. Stiles was jealous of anyone who got to look at that handsome face every day. Someone that attractive had to be taken, but Stiles couldn’t see a ring on his left hand. Didn’t mean he wasn’t dating anyone though because, again, someone that attractive had to be taken. 

The two of them continued their independent workouts for another twenty minutes. Stiles had to slow down after a point because he was going pretty hard, but he kept the incline of the treadmill at its maximum. He was positively drenched with sweat, but the air conditioning was making this entire thing more tolerable. He wished he’d brought some water though, but figured he’d survive the walk back to his apartment. He wasn’t planning on staying much longer. 

When he saw Mr. Handsome beside him finally move to slow the treadmill belt from a run to a jog, Stiles did the same, winding down slowly. They both moved from a jog to a brisk walk at the same time, Stiles having changed it first this time and Mr. Handsome following suit. 

Eventually, Stiles stopped the treadmill completely and turned it off, the machine slowly moving back down to its usual position from its incline. His heavy breathing had returned to some semblance of normal, but he was drenched in sweat and dying of thirst. He pulled his Airpods out, replacing them in their charging case and turned to look at his neighbour. 

The man had also stopped his machine and was drinking from a re-usable bottle, throat working while he swallowed. Stiles wanted to lick up that tanned column of flesh so bad, but he was an adult. He had impulse control! 

Kind of. 

Stiles realized the man wasn’t wearing his headphones anymore, which gave him the opportunity to apologize as soon as the bottle was lowered, a tongue coming out to catch stray drops of water from his lips while he recapped his drink. 

“Hi again,” Stiles said, wincing internally at how lame that sounded. 

Mr. Handsome’s gaze snapped up to look at him, and Stiles noticed him pause in screwing the lid back onto the bottle. 

“Hello,” he said, voice still as sinfully deep as it had been the first time he’d heard it. 

“I just wanted to apologize. For uh, whatever you may have heard when you walked into the gym before.” 

Mr. Handsome arched an impressive eyebrow, seeming to unfreeze and screw the bottle cap back on. Stiles wondered about the reaction, and thought maybe the guy was used to getting hit on and had been bracing himself for it from Stiles. 

Sure, he was gorgeous, but Stiles did not trust pretty packages. He’d dated many attractive people and they were all assholes. Not fake assholes like Jackson, but legitimate assholes. One of the women he’d dated two years ago should’ve won an award for asshole of the year. Seriously, Stiles fared better with people who weren’t runway models, they were more down to earth.

Besides, beauty faded. Personality was for life. 

“I was on a conference call,” the man said, setting his drink down on the treadmill. “Did you say something you shouldn’t have?” 

“Oh.” Shit, Stiles had just outed himself. “Yeah, I was—it was an inappropriate conversation to have with someone over the phone in a public setting. I thought I was alone when the words came out, but then saw you out of the corner of my eye. I just wanted to apologize and assure you it wouldn’t happen again, since I know there are some teens and kids around the area.” 

The man nodded, muscled arms crossed over his chest and damn, those arms. He had to do weights, too. Maybe today was leg day. Harder to lift weights while typing away on a laptop. 

“I appreciate the apology, as unnecessary as it is. But thank you for also acknowledging that you shouldn’t have those conversations in public, regardless of my having heard you or not.” 

Damn, guy spoke real fancy. Matched the suit he’d been wearing. It wasn’t that Stiles was uneducated or anything, but this guy positively screamed money. He probably owned one of the four penthouses, which made sense when Stiles thought about it, given he’d already been in the elevator when it stopped on Stiles’ floor his second day in the building. 

“Thanks. Please don’t tattle on me, I promise I’ll be more mindful.” Stiles grinned, using the collar of his shirt to wipe at his face. He caught the guy’s gaze flick back up to his face when the shirt dropped, but didn’t know what he’d been looking at. 

“You must be the new owner Isaac told me about.”

Stiles frowned. “Who?” 

“The building manager. Isaac Lahey?” That eyebrow rose once more, a smile teasing the man’s lips. “I would like to think you’d know the name of the man who locked off the elevator for you so you could move in.” 

“Oh!” Stiles felt dumb for forgetting the guy’s name. “I didn’t actually meet him, he gave the elevator key to Parrish. Er, Jordan Parrish. He’s one of my coworkers, he—”

“I know Jordan,” the man said, still looking like he was trying not to smile. 

“Oh.” Stiles didn’t know what else to say. “So uh, why did the building manager tell you about me?” 

“Because I’m the president of the homeowner’s association.” 

Oh, fucking perfect. Stiles had just admitted to doing something bad to the guy in charge of their board. Excellent. 

Fuck. 

He seemed okay about it though, so Stiles tried not to panic too much. 

“Oh.” He needed to stop saying that fucking word. “Nice to meet you.” 

“And you.” The man waited, then seemed to be holding back a smile again when he finally held one hand out. “Derek Hale.” 

“A very sweaty, I am so sorry, Stiles Stilinski,” he replied, trying to wipe sweat off his hand onto his shorts before gripping Mr. Handsome’s. 

Or Mr. Hale’s, he supposed. 

Hale. That name seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Like something he’d heard years ago and summarily forgotten. 

“Stilinski.” Derek frowned. “Like the sheriff?” 

“Yup.” Stiles was actually kind of surprised. Had his dad met this God of a man and not told him? Rude. “Sheriff Stilinski is my dad. You know him?” 

Derek suddenly looked uncomfortable and they both let their hands drop. “Met him once. It was brief. But I do know of him.” 

“Most people do,” Stiles said with a laugh, though he didn’t miss the tightness of Derek’s mouth when he’d spoken. His dad was well-liked, so if this guy didn’t like his father, well, he and Stiles weren’t going to be able to be friends. 

Or anything more, not that Stiles was thinking that. No sirree. 

“You from town?” Stiles decided to ask, because it might explain a few things. Like why his name was so freaking familiar. Hale. That name just—it was like an itch at the back of his brain. Why was it an itch at the back of his brain? 

“In a way.” Derek had crossed his arms again, and it occurred to Stiles it was a very defensive posture. Like Derek was trying to keep himself safe by closing off as best he could. Stiles wished he wasn’t so observant to things like that but well, raised by a cop, became a cop. “I was born here, but I moved away at the end of ninth grade. Came back for a visit maybe four years ago? This place was only just starting to be developed, and I missed home so I thought buying into it would be worth it. Moved back when the building was completed three years ago.” 

That explained why Stiles recognized his name. He’d probably remembered it from middle school or something since Derek looked to be a few years older than him. They wouldn’t have been in the same classes, but he must’ve heard his name around. Still, it was weird to have such a vivid recollection of this guy’s name. 

And not even really his name, just his last name. Stiles couldn’t pinpoint why. 

“So you’re the elected president of the homeowner’s association huh?” Stiles beamed at him. He seemed to recall Parrish mentioning the guy was some bigshot who was number two in a hotel chain or something, which explained why he was wearing fancy suits and working while on the treadmill. How he found time to also be president of the homeowner’s association, Stiles had no idea.

Then again, if he was so successful in business, it wasn’t a bad idea to have him be the president. Meant he was probably a good negotiator. 

“I am,” Derek confirmed. “Do you have a grievance?” 

Grievance? Couldn’t he have just asked if he had a complaint? Was he required to speak like that? Who spoke like that? Derek Hale, apparently. 

“Nope, no uh, grievances.” Stiles winced, realizing that might have come off as rude. “Guess I’m just surprised someone who seems so busy is also part of the board.” 

“It’s kind of nice, actually. I like being able to help solve problems in a fair and peaceful manner. And I seem to be doing well enough, considering I haven’t been voted out yet.” 

“How many members of the board are there?” 

“Just five. I think everyone wanted the diversity we offered in our first year because we’ve all been voted in the past few Annual General Meetings. I’m president, Henry Tate is secretary and a lawyer—” That was the man who’d helped Stiles with his purchase, so that was good to know. “—and Danielle Finch is the Treasurer, and also an accountant. The other two members are a psychologist and a general contractor, so the five of us together do fairly well for the building, in my opinion.” 

“Yeah, no. That sounds like a good group,” Stiles admitted. “You guys probably have the best chances of going to bat for us as a building if needed.” 

“We certainly try.” Derek’s half-smile made an attempted reappearance. “When we moved in, the gym didn’t actually have air conditioning.” He nodded towards the ceiling, where the central air was circulating. “We survived the first year without it, but when the door closes, it’s unbearable in here. The problem is, when the door’s open, the sound can carry and the people in the building who sleep with their windows open were being inconvenienced when the early risers or the late night workouts occurred. We managed to find a good company to install the A/C with Garrison’s help—the contractor,” he explained at Stiles’ confused look. “And once that was secured, I managed to negotiate a good price.” 

“That’s awesome.” Stiles grinned. “Out of curiosity, when’s the next AGM?” 

Derek frowned. “Why do you ask?” 

“Because you sound like you’re selling a pitch to me as the new guy and want to ensure you remain atop your throne.” 

Finally, some of that professionalism cracked and Derek actually laughed. He looked really good when he laughed, his smile was gorgeous and his eyes got all bright. 

“Not until next year, we’ve already had it this year. I just wanted to explain a bit so you’d know more about us. We’re a good group, if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to reach out.” 

“Will do.” Stiles nodded. 

“And it’ll be good for us to have another cop in the building. I’ve been requesting Parrish’s presence quite often the past three years, so sharing the load will likely be appreciated on his side.” 

“Do you call on Parrish a lot?” Stiles asked, confused. Was the building prone to crime? Parrish hadn’t made it sound like it was, and now Stiles was thinking he should lock his door more often. He had a lot of consoles, and two computers. He didn’t want anything to get stolen. 

“A fair amount, I’d say.” Derek let his head tilt from side to side. “Nothing major. Usually just parties that are getting a bit out of hand, various noise complaints where it’s evident it’s an argument that could turn violent, disputes that become physical, scenarios of that nature.” 

Stiles thought about the ex-couple whose apartment he now lived in. They lived right beside Parrish, and he had to wonder how often his friend and coworker had gone to knock on their door to make sure things weren’t getting overly violent. 

“Well, I look forward to working with you,” Stiles said honestly. 

“I think I might find enjoyment out of working with you too.” 

Seriously, everything about this guy screamed class. Stiles was anything but, though that didn’t seem to be a deterrent, at least. Derek may look and speak like a fancy-pants, but he wasn’t condescending and he seemed to like Stiles just fine. 

Still, Stiles was really glad he’d been on the phone when he’d walked in and hadn’t heard Stiles talk to Jackson about bathroom blowjobs. Embarrassing. 

“I need to head out.” Derek said after having turned to check the time on his phone. “I have to get back to the office.”

When he turned towards the far wall, Stiles noticed he was about to head over to the towels and disinfectant spray. He remembered reading about that in the By-Laws. It was a courtesy thing to wipe down equipment that was used before leaving, because other people used it too. Considering how much Stiles had sweated all over the treadmill, he was definitely going to be cleaning up after himself. 

“I can do your machine too,” Stiles insisted before Derek could take more than two steps. “If you need to head out, don’t worry about it. I have today off, and I’m the one who kept you late with a chat.” 

Derek hesitated, like he wanted to take him up on the offer, but also didn’t think he should. He checked the time on his phone again, then seemed to decide he could use the extra minute or two it’d take to wipe the machine down. 

“Thank you. I would greatly appreciate that. I hope we speak again soon, it was very nice meeting you, Officer Stilinski.” 

“Oh God no, just call me Stiles.” He waved one hand, and hoped Derek didn’t notice the sweat that flew off it. Gross. 

“Stiles,” Derek conceded. “Until next time.” 

“Yup, I’ll see you around. Hope you have a good day at work.” 

That hint of a smile was back, Derek nodding in thanks before gathering his things and heading out. Stiles waited until he’d left before letting out a slow breath and fist-pumping. He hadn’t stumbled all over himself like an idiot once in that entire conversation. It almost made up for the awkward first encounter in the elevator. 

Moving to the far wall where the wipes and disinfectant were, he headed back to both machines and started wiping them down. Derek’s wasn’t too bad considering his slower speed, but Stiles’ was almost embarrassing. He tried not to be self-conscious about it, Derek had seen his setting so it made sense he’d be sweating that much. Still, it was gross and he hoped they never met in the gym again. 

Once he was sure everything was sufficiently clean, he threw out the wipes and put the spray back, then gathered his things to head out. He bumped into a girl who was on her way in wearing leggings and a sports bra and she gave him an appreciative once-over with a small smile. He grinned back her, liking the attention, and wished her a good workout. He was pretty sure she was checking out his ass when he turned to double-check the door had latched. 

This building was literally the best. 

“If you don’t get down here in five seconds to let me in, I’m leaving.”

Stiles grinned while moving quickly to his door so he could head downstairs to open the main door for Jackson, who’d spoken those words and promptly hung up. He’d mentioned to him that he didn’t have the buzzer set up yet, but was positive he’d have to make a copy of his keys for Jackson, as well as provide him with a permanent visitor’s pass, knowing his friend. 

He’d gotten two fobs when he moved in, but one had already gone to his dad, with Stiles keeping the second. The main door allowed key access though, and Stiles was allowed to make copies for emergency contacts, so he figured he’d give a set to Jackson and maybe Scott, if his other friend wanted a pair. Scott was always busy lately with being a dad and working so Stiles didn’t know that he’d care much. 

Still, Stiles would ask. It was polite. Though he really needed to get on a few things, since he’d had to borrow a parking pass from Dr. Geyer when he realized he didn’t have one yet. Thank goodness the man had been home and kind enough to share it. He just told Stiles to slide it back under his door when Jackson left since he would be heading out to work soon. 

Though this entire experience did force him to actually get off his ass and figure a few things out. He texted Parrish for the building manager’s number, and when he sent him a message a little while ago, the man responded immediately saying that Stiles could set up his account on their website and he’d approve the request for him. Apparently he could go set up his buzzer, request parking passes—and extra fobs—as well as book the amenities room all on the website. 

Stiles had set up his account right before Jackson had called, so once his friend left, he’d get to work on the parking passes and buzzer, given the building manager knew to expect a request and would likely approve it right away. 

He felt like a real adult and everything, it was so weird. He loved it, but it was also kind of daunting at times. He felt more nervous being on his own than he did going to work every day, and considering his job, that was ridiculous. 

Taking the stairs down so that Jackson wouldn’t follow through on leaving, Stiles hit the lobby quickly and grinned at his friend through the glass door. He looked more tanned than usual, and was wearing a pair of expensive sunglasses, a polo shirt, some brown khakis and loafers that Stiles was going to mock him for endlessly. 

“Hey good-lookin’, you here to see someone specific or can I buy you for the night?” Stiles teased while pushing open the door. Jackson’s expression turned thunderous and he just snatched the parking pass from Stiles’ hand before heading back to his Porsche with it, Stiles guffawing after him. 

He waited at the entrance, watching Jackson slam the shit out of his door before stomping back over and shouldering past him hard. Oh how he’d missed his friend dearly during his absence. 

“So how was your trip?” Stiles asked again, since Jackson hadn’t really answered before, the two of them moving to the elevator and Stiles calling it. 

“Long. Frustrating. This case is going to be a shitshow.” 

Stiles winced, knowing those words meant a crankier than usual Jackson. 

His friend was a corporate lawyer, which sounded a lot less exciting than it actually was. Basically he worked for a company as their in-house legal counsel, but the company he worked for seemed to like pissing people off with hostile takeovers and crushing opposition. Jackson worked long hours and didn’t really get any time off. Even now, hanging out with Stiles, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jackson’s work phone would be going off incessantly throughout their time together and he’d be checking it constantly for updates and whether or not his input was required. 

Stiles didn’t take it personally. Wasn’t like he hadn’t been forced to run out on Jackson before when something came up at work and he was needed. Still, he hated that adulthood for both of them meant they had to prioritize their jobs over their friends. Money made the world go ‘round, and while Jackson was comfortable, as he called it, he also had expensive taste and really needed to maintain his finances. 

“Well, I grabbed some beers and have a few episodes of The Boys left to watch if you wanted to relax for a bit. But we’re going to this little restaurant for dinner whether you want to or not, it’s amazing. It’s owned by these two people who used to go to school with us.” 

“Oh yeah?” Jackson asked, sounding not at all enthusiastic. 

“Yeah. You remember Vernon Boyd? From the lacrosse team?” 

“Do I remember someone I was teammates with? No, Stilinski, why would I remember someone I spent years of my life hanging out with after school?” Jackson asked dryly. 

Stiles just grinned when the elevator doors opened, leading the way to his place while he explained the small restaurant to Jackson. His friend pretended this was boring shit, but Stiles could tell he was paying attention, and was probably a little curious about what all had gone down with his old teammate. 

When they finally reached Stiles’ apartment and he unlocked the door, he motioned Jackson in feeling a little nervous, and followed after him. It wasn’t that he thought Jackson would be a dick about it, but the place meant a lot to Stiles because he’d managed to buy it on his own and it was kind of a big deal. Jackson’s place was enormous—and also a house—but he’d gotten the downpayment from his parents as a graduation gift from law school so while Stiles didn’t begrudge him that, he also hoped Jackson would recognize Stiles had done the best with what he had. 

Wandering slowly through the apartment, Jackson ducked inside the den, then Stiles’ bedroom and walked through into the bathroom. He didn’t say anything while Stiles stood in the kitchen, waiting for him to finish his inspection. 

When he finally met up with Stiles in the small kitchen, he asked, “You have a futon?” 

“What?” 

“A pull-out or futon or something? Where the fuck am I supposed to crash if I drink too much?” He turned and wandered through the apartment again, then said, “Never mind. I forgot you got a new bed last year, we can both fit in this one.” 

Stiles gaped at him, because it seemed absurd his friend would rather spend time at Stiles’ small, shitty apartment than in his own giant house. Then again, Jackson had grown up as alone as Stiles had, so maybe that was a contributing factor. No one wanted to live alone in a huge house, so maybe this tiny little apartment felt more homey to Jackson. 

Regardless, Stiles knew he wouldn’t be hanging out as often as he wanted. Not with both of their work schedules how they were. 

“I’m gonna get you a key made, and a parking pass when I get one,” Stiles explained while Jackson continued to wander around the living room, like he was trying to take stock of what was new and what wasn’t. “The one I gave you just now belongs to a neighbour, so I need it back, but when I get an official one, I’ll give it to you.” Stiles had been told he got two passes for free, and could pay for additional ones. He figured he’d order three in total, give one to his dad, one to Jackson, and keep the third for anyone else who dropped in, like Scott. 

“You better,” was Jackson’s response before he fell down onto the couch and threw one arm across the back of it. “Well? You promised me beer and some violence, let’s get to it.” 

Stiles grinned and turned to pull the cans of beer from the fridge. They still had some time before they’d head out for dinner, so as long as they stuck to a beer each, they’d be fine to drive out there regardless of who was behind the wheel. 

Settling in while passing over one can, Stiles got the show queued up and then he and Jackson sat and watched it while they nursed their beers. Jackson’s phone went off at least eight times during the first episode, with his friend constantly pulling it out to check it, but he only replied twice, meaning the others were more updates than actually requiring his immediate attention. It went off an additional five times during their second episode, and by then Jackson was getting cranky. Despite it being relatively early, Stiles figured they could grab an early dinner and he and Jackson left his apartment to head to Food for Thought. 

Stiles was actually kind of excited about bringing in Jackson, because he wondered if Boyd would remember him and if they’d have some discussions about the good old days. Boyd seemed perfectly content where he was in life now, and even Jackson—much as he complained—truly did enjoy his job. So it would be really interesting to see if they got along now outside of high school. Stiles didn’t really remember what their relationship had been like at school. 

When they pulled up to the restaurant, Stiles’ heart sank when he saw the door shut and all the lights off. 

“No!” Stiles wailed, kicking open Jackson’s passenger-side door—and getting cussed out for it—before rushing for the restaurant. The large ‘closed’ sign across the front reminded him that it was Wednesday. They were closed Wednesday and Sunday, Erica had said. He’d just forgotten and was now extremely disappointed. 

“Ugh!” Turning around and stomping back to Jackson’s Porsche, he climbed back in and slid down with a pout. Jackson himself didn’t seem to care either way. 

“So, where to now? I’m hungry.” 

“No idea, haven’t really explored any other restaurants around here,” he admitted. 

Jackson shrugged at that and then pulled out of the small outlet, beginning to drive in a random direction. When they passed by another few restaurants of interest, Stiles just waited for Jackson to choose one that would be up to his standards and obediently followed him out. 

Dinner was good, and the company even better, but Stiles still wished he could’ve gotten Jackson into Food for Thought. He figured next time, wasn’t like Jackson would never come over again, since he’d basically already demanded a bed in his apartment before realizing Stiles’ would comfortably fit them both. 

It was nice catching up with Jackson, even if he checked his phone every ten seconds. Stiles understood, so he didn’t get annoyed about it, he just wished Jackson could get some rest every now and then. He seemed particularly tense, and Stiles refrained from asking if he needed to get laid again. 

He did ask if Jackson had gotten his new beau’s number though, and the insults and clear avoidance of answering the question made it obvious to him that Jackson had saved said individual’s number. Must’ve been one hell of a lay. 

Once dinner was done, they headed back to Stiles’ and while it was clear Jackson wanted to hang out more, the emails were coming in more frequently and Jackson needed to head home where he could get back to work on a computer instead of his phone. Stiles just bid him a good night after getting the parking pass back and told him to stop by whenever. 

With Jackson gone, it meant Stiles was alone again, and he just drank another beer while watching some more episodes of The Boys before calling it a night. He had work anyway, and he didn’t need to be making his already wacked sleep schedule any worse. 

He debated on taking another shower before heading to bed, but wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d taken one after going to the gym, for obvious reasons, and he was kind of lazy about taking another one. He knew he only wanted to because it was still hot and muggy, and being in the shower for a time would at least cool him off, so he hummed about it for a few additional seconds before finally sighing and going to grab a cool shower. 

Stripping out of his clothes and turning on the water, he brushed his teeth before stepping under the spray, silently apologizing for wasting water. He hadn’t meant to, he was just used to the water back home taking a while to adjust regardless of whether it was hot or cold and he was still getting used to not needing to do that here. 

Once under the spray, hands sliding through his wet hair, he thought about his dinner with Jackson and what a lucky son of a bitch he was to have gotten laid recently. Stiles had needs too! Mr. Righty was getting a little boring, but Stiles wasn’t in the mood to go out and find someone right now. His last relationship hadn’t exactly ended well, so he was fine being single, but he still had needs. 

Trying to take his mind off those thoughts, he started humming ‘Let It Go’ to himself again, the song having been stuck in his head for a while now. Eventually, he was singing the words loudly while shampooing his hair, resisting the urge to use the bottle as a microphone again. He couldn’t help it, he liked singing in the shower in general, but the acoustics in this place were awesome. He may not be the best singer in the world, but he wasn’t the worst either. 

After two different renditions of the famous Frozen song, he finally stepped out of the shower and dried off. He heard footsteps overhead, his neighbour obviously wandering around right above him, but didn’t pay any attention to it. 

When he was ready for bed, he headed into his room and shut out the light, climbing under the covers and getting comfortable. He could hear footsteps moving back and forth upstairs, but nothing more, his neighbour evidently not in any hurry to get to sleep. 

Stiles fell asleep about an hour later, thinking about Derek Hale, and still wondering why that name was so freaking familiar. 

If he was honest, Stiles was getting a little tired of ‘Let It Go.’ It had been stuck in his head for well over two weeks now, and he found himself constantly humming and singing it—the latter being in the shower or while he was alone in his Jeep. People at work were starting to poke fun at him about it, not that he cared, because he was perfectly fine admitting that he loved that movie, thank you very much. Still, it was getting a tad annoying and he hoped something else got stuck in there soon. 

He’d only just come off his shift and come home, ready to sit in front of the television and not move for a few hours, but he had to make dinner and do laundry. He was too lazy to even change out, so aside from putting his gun away in the safe, he stayed in his uniform while he cooked dinner. 

As he opened the trashcan to dump out some plastic wrap, he realized it was... kind of overflowing. He hadn’t taken it down in—since he moved in, actually. That was bad. With summer and all, he wouldn’t be surprised if things had started growing in there. 

“Nope,” Stiles proclaimed loudly. “Nope, mm mm. Not liking that one bit.” He instantly reached into the garbage and yanked the bag out, tying off the ends as quickly as he could and really hoping he didn’t have like, maggots and roaches in his trash. Was that a thing? Could that actually happen in his apartment? Well, he wasn’t going to find out, no thank you! 

Getting it secured and shut tightly, he grabbed his keys and exited his apartment, heading across the floor to the elevator. He tried not to think about there being a hole in the bag and maggots leaving a trail in his wake. He made a face at the mere thought and actually turned to check behind him when he got to the lift, pressing the ‘down’ button. 

No trail of maggots, so that was a win. 

He waited as patiently as he could manage for the stupidly slow elevator to finally arrive. When it dinged and the doors opened, he stepped in to find it already occupied. 

Derek was standing there holding his recycling, and he offered Stiles one of his small smiles. 

“Hey Derek,” Stiles said easily, pleased with himself for not tripping over his words. Derek was extremely attractive, and while jury was still out on if he was an attractive asshole, he seemed not to be as far as Stiles could tell. 

“Hello. We seem to have had the same idea.” Derek motioned what Stiles was holding as the doors shut and the elevator jolted once before beginning its descent. 

“Yup. Figured it was time to take the trash out.” Don’t tell him how long it’s been, don’t tell him how long it’s been, don’t tell... Stiles repeated the mantra in his head, praying to God he wasn’t going to blurt out this was his first garbage run since arriving in the building. 

That’d be embarrassing. 

“Trash I have no problem with. For me, it’s the recycling.” Derek’s lips quirked again. “I really hate taking out the recycling.” 

Stiles was about to joke that it was probably because Derek got tired having to separate out all the different items—which honestly, Stiles would be too when he did his first run—but he didn’t get the words out because Derek’s phone rang. 

He had it in his hand instantly, like it had always been there and Stiles just hadn’t noticed, and he muttered a quiet curse. 

“I need to take this, but we’ll cut out in the garage.” 

Stiles was used to acting fast, so the second Derek said those words, he reached out and jabbed the button for the first floor, which was the one they were about to hit. Derek gave him a weird look as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. 

“Go,” Stiles insisted, reaching out to grab at Derek’s recycle bin with his free hand. “Take the call, I’ll meet you on the way back up.” 

Derek hesitated, looking confused, but eventually nodded a quick thanks while answering the call and exiting the lift. 

“What happened?” he asked immediately, standing just beyond the elevator doors. Stiles watched his back while they slid shut once more and continued their descent into the depths of the building where cellphone service went to die. 

He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. Grabbed Derek’s recycle and ordered him out of the lift like that. Derek seemed to appreciate it, since it was obvious the call was important, but still! Fuck. He hoped Derek hadn’t been offended or thought Stiles was using his status as a police officer to boss him around. 

Hopefully not. It was clear he’d just been trying to help. Right? 

“Shit.” Stiles winced and hoped he hadn’t been seen as an asshole. 

When the doors opened again, he headed out into the garage so he could throw his trash out and get rid of Derek’s recycling. Moving into the applicable room, he threw his bag up into the huge dumpster, then started separating all the different plastics, papers and glass from Derek’s bin.

He seemed to eat a lot of pasta with ready-made pasta sauces, because most of the glass Stiles threw out was for pasta sauce. Either that or he’d had a massive party recently where all anyone wanted to eat was different flavours of spaghetti. 

Once he was done, he wandered back out towards the elevator, pleased when he pressed the button once back in the alcove and it opened right away. He hit the first floor button and waited while the elevator rose. He could already hear Derek through the doors as the lift approached and eventually stopped. 

“—not an acceptable compromise! You better sort this out, Harry. I don’t have time to fly out to New York every time a situation arises that you aren’t able to resolve on your own!” 

The doors opened and Derek whipped around. He looked frustrated, but not at the sight of Stiles. When he held up the recycle bin, Derek took it and mouthed ‘thank you’ while entering the elevator. Stiles hit both the fourth floor, and the fifth, since it was clear that was where Derek lived, and he got another nod of thanks while the man continued with his call. 

“Then give him an upgrade!” Derek snapped, and Stiles could tell he was struggling to keep his tone in check, like he didn’t want Stiles to think he was an asshole. “Harry, there is a reasonable solution. There was a breach of privacy, he feels wronged, and he wants compensation. Determine what that compensation is and give it to him. I have a flight to Singapore scheduled for tomorrow night, I really don’t have the luxury of getting on a flight to New York to resolve something this simple for you!” 

Yikes. Stiles was starting to feel a little thankful for his own job, because it had to be way better than whatever Jackson and Derek always had to deal with. 

When the elevator stopped on his floor, Stiles gave Derek an awkward wave. The other man nodded once more, expression tight, and Stiles wondered how bad things were. He was curious to know what hotel chain Derek worked for, so when he got back inside, he started to grab for his phone to look it up before forcing himself not to.

That was creepy. That would be totally, totally creepy. What, he was going to just internet stalk his neighbour? No. That was not a thing he was going to do, no freaking way. 

Forcing his hand not to go for his phone, he went back to work on his dinner after washing his hands, curious about what the problem had been. A breach of privacy for who, the company, or a client? It sounded like a client based on what Derek had been saying, but what kind of privacy breach could possibly exist in the hotel industry. 

Maybe he’d gotten some kind of discount for a room because the dude in question was having money problems and it had been leaked? Or maybe he hired a prostitute back to his room and the paparazzi had gotten wind of it and snapped some photos? Or worse, what if someone who was publicly homophobic had been caught in a compromising situation with—gasp!—a man?

Despite having his curiosity piqued, Stiles managed to resist looking things up online while he finished dinner. It wasn’t his business, it was just the annoying teenager in him who wanted to know everything. But it wasn’t right to use the snippets from the conversations he’d overheard from Derek to try and figure out what kind of shitstorm was going down. 

When his dinner was ready, Stiles went to sit in front of the TV to watch a movie while he ate. Mostly in an attempt to get ‘Let It Go’ out of his head, he put in Frozen in hopes of managing to remove it from his brain. He’d read somewhere once that listening to the song stuck in your head could sometimes kick it out of your head. 

No dice, because when he went to shower four hours later, he was singing the song almost loudly enough to be embarrassing while shampooing his hair. Exiting the stall while continuing to sing, he heard footsteps overhead once more, and had to wonder if maybe Derek was his neighbour. He doubted it, because he felt like he’d have heard the angry conversation continue once the man entered his home, so it was probably someone else. 

That or he’d just wandered the corridors in his anger and finished up the call before entering his house. Stiles didn’t know. Either way, he felt like it didn’t matter who lived above him. Despite their love of smoothies very early in the morning, they were actually really good neighbours. He didn’t hear anything overly loud coming from them. 

Stiles had just settled into bed with his eyes closed, ready for some sleep, when his phone went off loudly, startling at least five years off his lifespan. He grabbed for it hastily as it continued to ring, cursing and unplugging it from the charger before answering the call.

He’d only just barely managed to catch his dad’s name on the display, which didn’t bode well. 

“Hello?”

He could hear sirens going in the background and when his dad spoke, it was clear his radio was going off like crazy. 

“We need you at the station, half the force has been asked to assist with a hostage situation in Fraser county.”

“Fuck,” Stiles blurted out, throwing his covers off himself and climbing out of bed immediately. “Everything okay? Do you need help out there?” 

“Not yet, but coverage is tight. We’re calling a few people in to ensure we’re not spread too thin.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ll be right in. Be careful, dad.” 

“You too, son.” 

When his dad hung up, Stiles resisted the eyeroll he could feel coming. His dad was the one heading for a hostage situation, Stiles was just going to the station. He doubted there would be anything to worry about on his end, but he supposed he appreciated the sentiment. 

He got dressed in record time, gearing up and rushing out the door. He was in the process of locking it when Parrish’s opened as well, the other man exiting and nodding to him curtly. 

“Guess we’re both in for a long shift,” he said, since he and Stiles were both supposed to be on the morning shift later, too. Wouldn’t be the first time they pulled a double, Stiles knew if they started to flag they’d just take a powernap on the couch in the coffeeroom. 

That couch was used to people napping on it. 

“You hear about the situation in Fraser?” Stiles asked while he and Parrish headed for the lift after he’d locked up. 

“Office building. People broke in for some proprietary information, but there was a staff party going on that they weren’t aware of. Someone managed to call the cops before their phones were confiscated so word has it negotiations have been going on for about an hour.” 

“Shit,” Stiles hissed, rubbing the back of his neck. He was so used to the mundane life of Beacon Hills that sometimes he forgot things that happened in movies and on TV actually happened. Hostage situations weren’t common in a small town like Beacon Hills, but the fact that a county less than half an hour away had one going on right now meant it was possible no matter where people lived. 

Wasn’t like their own town hadn’t seen their fair share of tragedies over the years. There was the coffeshop bombing when Stiles was five—disgruntled worker, apparently—the huge arson case when he was twelve, the sacrificial murders when he was seventeen, and countless regular breaking and enterings where homeowners were actually home. 

The fire niggled at something in the back of his mind, but before he could think on it too much, Parrish pushed open the stairwell door, evidently not wanting to wait on the elevator, and Stiles followed him out just as he heard the lift doors open, like someone was exiting on their floor. 

Oh well, too late now. They’d gone too far. Besides, the stairs were always faster and now he’d finally have a clear shot on how to get to his car from the stairs if he was ever in a hurry, so it worked out. 

Once they were in the garage, Stiles called to Parrish that he’d see him there and they both headed for their respective vehicles. Parrish left first with Stiles trailing behind him, and he sighed when he realized he was going to be miserable all day tomorrow. 

He got really cranky when he didn’t get enough sleep. 

Stiles felt ready to pass out. He was dead on his feet, and the fact that he’d made it home in one piece to begin with was a miracle. 

Parrish hadn’t even attempted it. He’d gone to nap on the couch in the coffeeroom before trying to make it home for some real sleep, but Stiles wasn’t willing to risk that. He’d done that once. Once. His dad had talked him into staying for a triple when one of the other deputies called in with a family emergency. 

Stiles was never going to make that mistake ever again, so he’d snoozed in his car for literally five minutes, and then had started the drive home. It wasn’t far, and he had the window down for some fresh air the whole way, but it was still a miracle he didn’t straight up drive into a ditch. 

He was dead on his feet by the time he dragged himself to the elevator, and he hoped he didn’t look as bad as he felt. It’d be just his luck he’d run into Derek while looking like this. 

Not that it mattered, since the guy was totally taken and probably wasn’t even into dudes. Stiles had shit luck that way. 

When the elevator doors finally opened, he was pleased to find it empty. He did look like shit though, so that was nice, but he didn’t worry about it. He just turned to press the fourth floor and then leaned heavily against the wall, closing his eyes. 

As soon as the lift stopped, he exited and headed for his apartment, getting the door open and shuffling in. He almost slipped on something and glanced down, finding a folded piece of paper on the floor. With a frown, he bent down to pick it up while his door slammed loudly behind him, making him wince.

Unfolding the note, he got as far as ‘Dear neighbour’ before closing it again. If this was a complaint about how loud he’d been stumbling around last night—at quarter to ten, well outside quiet hours—he didn’t have the energy to read it right now. He just locked his front door, dropped the paper on his counter, then went to his room. 

The most he did was put his gun away and take off his utility belt. The rest he just kept where it was and fell face-first onto his bed, cuddling into his pillow and shutting his eyes, inhaling deeply. 

It didn’t take long for sweet, sweet slumber to take him. 

He had no idea how long he slept for. He kept jerking awake at loud noises from around him, given he’d gotten home late afternoon, but he didn’t let that bother him and just passed back out again. Eventually, his stomach demanded sustenance and his bladder fought for release and he finally opened his eyes, inhaling deeply and rubbing at his face. When he reached for his phone to check the time, he found it missing from his nightstand and realized it was still in his pocket. It barely had a charge left, but enough to tell him it was just after nine in the evening. 

Not a big deal, he was working the morning shift again tomorrow and he was still plenty tired, so he figured he could use the bathroom, grab some food, take a quick shower and head back to bed. 

Groaning while pushing himself up, he swung his legs over the side of his bed and plugged his phone in before stumbling through the walk-through closet to the bathroom to relieve himself. He brushed his teeth for good measure, then headed to the kitchen to find some leftovers. He didn’t have any, but he did have a box of Kraft Dinner in the cupboard so he set some water up to boil and was heading for the living room to turn on the TV when he caught sight of the note on his counter. 

Honestly, he’d completely forgotten about it until this moment, and now that he was more conscious, he felt dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t been living there long at all, and if he already had a complaint, that didn’t bode well. 

Fuck. 

Deciding to get it over with so he could apologize to whoever it was and promise to try harder, he grabbed the note, steeled himself, then flipped it open, eyes reading over the words before he felt all the blood in his body try to invade his face. 

Dear neighbour,
Just out of curiosity, do you take requests? 
Not to sound disturbing, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the walls are extremely thin in this building and sound carries. Your voice is lovely, but your soundtrack is a bit lacking. You seem to favour Disney, so would you be opposed to The Lion King? Or perhaps Aladdin? If you’re attached to the newer ones, Moana and Tangled are both good choices. 
I enjoy hearing your rendition of songs, but ‘Let It Go’ has gotten a bit tiresome. I look forward to a small change in the future. 
Regards,
Your neighbour.

“Oh. My. God.” Stiles dropped the note. “Oh my God!” People could hear him singing?! 

What was he thinking, of course people could hear him singing! If he could hear upstairs snoring, then obviously people could hear him fucking singing! Oh God, this was the worst! This was a disaster! This was fucking embarrassing! 

Stiles had to move. He had to fucking move right now! He could sell, move back in with his dad. Hell, maybe he could convince Jackson to let him be his roommate, they could live together. Jackson wouldn’t feel so lonely anymore, and Stiles could escape the absolute horror at the realization that his awful, terrible, horrible singing voice could be heard throughout the entire fucking building! 

He was still standing beside his counter in horror when there was a light knock at his door, like whoever it was wanted to know if he was awake, but not actually wake him up if he wasn’t. 

Stiles whipped around and raced for the door, wrenching it open to find Parrish standing in front of him wearing a grey T-shirt and some jeans. 

“Hey, you’re up. You eat dinner yet? I was thinking of running down to the pub and thought you might like to come.” 

“Can you hear me singing in the shower?” Stiles blurted out, because he had to know, now. If one of his neighbours had slid that note under his door, then it meant Parrish as another neighbour could hear him, too! He had to know if this was all a huge joke and one person had walked by and overheard him and decided to fuck with him.

Or if everyone could hear him and he now had to leave the country. 

Parrish gave him a weird look at the question, but answered anyway, making Stiles’ plans to leave the country speed up in his mind. 

“Of course I can. You’re actually not bad. Though you have been singing a lot of Frozen lately, getting kind of tired of the soundtrack.” 

“Oh my God!” Stiles shouted in his face, then slapped a hand over his mouth and retreated into his apartment. Parrish was still looking at him funny, but he followed him in and shut his door, moving after him into the kitchen. 

“Stiles what’s going on?” 

“I need to leave the country,” Stiles groaned, shoving the note at Parrish before burying his face in his hands and resting his elbows on his counter. His water was boiling loudly on the stove, but he ignored it while Parrish read silently. 

Then, the motherfucker laughed! 

“Glad to know I’m not the only one getting tired of hearing ‘Let It Go’ every time you get in the shower.” 

“How could you not tell me you could hear me?!” Stiles demanded, letting his hands fall and looking up at Parrish in betrayal. “I thought the water was hiding my horrible singing! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” 

“You knew sound travelled,” Parrish argued. “I figured you just didn’t care. You don’t exactly have much shame, considering your high school life. Who’d have thought singing was the thing you were actually embarrassed about.” 

“Okay, that streak across campus was a dare,” Stiles insisted, pointing a finger at him, “and I’ll have you know I am very comfortable with my body.” 

“I mean, I’ve seen the photos, you have a lot to be proud of.” Parrish said it with such a straight face that Stiles couldn’t find words for a few seconds. 

“Did you just admit I have a big dick?” 

Parrish shrugged. “I mean, haven’t seen it lately, but it was pretty impressive in those photos from high school.” He paused, then held one hand out at Stiles. “For the record, I don’t want to see it. At all.” 

“I wasn’t about to drop trou in front of you!” 

“Never know with you,” Parrish argued, turning to eye the water on the stove. “You gonna come with, or you content with your orange plastic for dinner?” 

“KD is delicious, and you’re just jealous you don’t have any.” Stiles headed for the stove to turn off the burner. “But yes, pub food sounds way better, and given the note I just read and all the scarring words coming out of your mouth, I want to bleach my brain with an overabundance of alcohol.” 

“That’s fair.” Parrish patted his shoulder when Stiles moved past him. “Did you want to change out?” 

Frowning, Stiles looked down at himself and realized he’d been planning on showering after dinner. He was still in uniform. 

“Right. Yeah, give me a second.” 

“I’ll wait out in the corridor for you.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes at that, because clearly Parrish was now trying to make sure Stiles knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t a creeper. Stiles knew he wasn’t a creeper, they’d gone to school together and Parrish had been working with his dad for fucking years. He was like his older brother. 

Actually, that kind of made the fact that he acknowledged Stiles had a big dick a little worse... 

Shrugging the words off, because not something he wanted to think about, Stiles changed out quickly and was intent on drinking away both Parrish’s words and the ones he’d read on the note, even though he had work tomorrow. If he could work sleep-deprived, he could work hungover. 

He was never singing in the shower again. 

It was hard avoiding singing in the shower, but somehow, Stiles managed it. He just forced himself to talk incessantly about random events that happened throughout the day in a low voice as a way to avoid singing. He wanted to, so bad, but he was still so horribly embarrassed that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to sing ever again. 

Two days after he received the note about the sountrack, he woke up for work to find another note had been slipped under his door. The handwriting for this one was different, more loopy and feminine versus the more block-like letters of the first note. 

Hey!
So I’m missing the singing, it was entertaining, and I didn’t have a problem with Frozen like other people did, apparently. When is that starting up again? Seriously, your voice is good, and it was one of those awesome constants I heard every day. Kind of miss it. Don’t let people who can’t appreciate Idina Menzel stop you from singing in the shower! 
With love, 
Someone who has taste in music :)

Stiles ignored it and went to work as normal, trying not to feel embarrassed at the fact that now someone else was asking him to go back to his singing. He figured it had to be the same neighbours, who likely lived together—husband and wife or something. It made sense, considering the comment about others not liking him singing Frozen so much. 

He continued to keep his mouth shut—in the singing department, anyway—while he was in the shower for another six days. In that span of six days, he got an additional four letters slipped under his door, all with different handwriting, one of which he recognized as belonging to Parrish—because he was an asshole, apparently. 

Parrish insisted when they worked together next that he actually missed hearing him sing, and that the couple across the hall from them had asked if Stiles had moved because even though they’d never met him, they heard him singing and they’d really liked his passion and how into it he got.

That only made Stiles more embarrassed and he was trying to figure out what everyone’s game was. Why were they all trying to make him go back to singing? 

A part of him felt like it was because they could tell he seemed to like it, and with the walls so thin, he had to get over his embarrassment and just sing like he wanted to. Another part of him—a very small part of him—wondered if maybe his singing wasn’t as horrific as he thought and people legitimately didn’t mind hearing him singing as long as it wasn’t always ‘Let It Go.’ 

Which worked out, because the song had been sucked right out of his brain when the embarrassment of the whole thing started, so he didn’t have it stuck there anymore. 

When he got home from work on the sixth day at four in the morning, he had another note and almost sighed in defeat, snatching it up and closing his door quietly, locking it behind himself. Moving to the kitchen and turning on the light, he stared down at it, sighed again, then unfolded it. 

The handwriting was the same block letters from his first note, and all it said was three words. 

The Lion King.

Stiles frowned, confused. What the heck was that supposed to mean? 

Actually, he hadn’t seen that movie in a long time, and now he kind of wanted to. But not right now, it was four in the morning. Maybe when he woke up later. 

Dropping the note on the counter, he went to get ready for bed, changing out into his pyjamas and foregoing a shower until later. He had to wash his sheets anyway, it’d been a while since he’d done so. 

Passing out to the sound of upstairs snoring and downstairs’ white noise machine, he drifted off easily and actually managed to stay asleep until close to eleven. He kind of wanted to keep sleeping, but he had to work the morning shift tomorrow and he didn’t want to screw himself over.

Who decided that doctors, nurses, police officers and firefighters should have such erratic schedules? Seriously, who? It was just mean. 

Crawling out of bed, Stiles wandered into the bathroom, humming to himself under his breath while he relieved himself and then brushed his teeth. He turned on the shower before stripping, wanting to get that out of the way before breakfast or he knew he never would. He got lazy sometimes. 

Standing under the spray and spitting water out of his mouth, he slid both hands through his wet hair while he continued to hum under his breath, still trying to wake himself up. 

He was in the middle of shampooing his hair when he realized he’d literally just belted out, “Oh I just can’t wait to be king!” and immediately froze. 

Shit, he’d started singing again without noticing. Curse that neighbour! His note had gotten The Lion King stuck in his head and now he was singing in the shower again! Fuck! 

“No,” he insisted to himself. “No, I’m not doing it. I’m not.” 

He managed to finish washing his hair without incident, catching himself humming twice more before forcing himself to stop. But when he moved on to soaping himself down, the singing commenced again and he just resigned himself to his fate. 

Embarrassing as it was, he sang in the shower. It was a thing, he couldn’t help it, and trying to stop now was twenty-nine years too late. 

Well, maybe more like twenty, he didn’t think he was singing in the shower as a baby or a toddler. 

Either way, singing in the shower was going to happen whether he was embarrassed or not, whether people heard him or not, so after six days of silence, he finally thought, Fuck it.

Stiles sang ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’ the rest of the time he was in the shower. 

He actually felt better when he exited the shower. While he hadn’t been singing loudly, as everyone said, sound carried so he was sure at least a few of his neighbours had heard him. Still embarrassing, but he supposed if they were being honest about not minding, well, at least he’d switched things up for them. 

Besides, it was possible no one had heard him since it was the middle of the day on a workday. It was entirely possible that he’d been worrying about being overheard for nothing. For all he knew, the requester of The Lion King hadn’t even benefited from Stiles’ performance in the slightest. 

Not his problem, but still. 

He was in the middle of making himself an omelet, still humming under his breath—‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ now—when his phone rang in his bedroom. He turned to arch an eyebrow in its direction, as if that would answer who was calling him, but eventually moved the pan off the fire and hurried into his bedroom to snatch up his phone, checking the display. 

It wasn’t a number he recognized, and it wasn’t programmed into his phone, but he answered it anyway. 

“Hello?” 

“Hello, is this Stiles Stilinski?”

He squinted, recognizing the voice, but unable to place it. “Yes, speaking.” 

“It’s Derek Hale.”

It was who what now?

“I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

“No!” Stiles winced. “Uh, no. No, I’m-I’m good. What, uh—what can I do for you?” Great, every time he met Derek in a new medium, he was going to be weird. He wished he’d texted him instead of calling, but at the same time, Stiles didn’t even know how he’d gotten his number to call, let alone to text. 

“I hope you don’t mind, Jordan gave me your number. He was unavailable for a last minute meeting scheduled for this evening and mentioned you may be able to provide some assistance.”

Seriously, why did he talk so damn fancy? Not that Stiles minded, it was hot as fuck, but it always took him a second to figure out what Derek was saying because he was fighting off a hard-on while listening to him. 

There was nothing more attractive than a hot guy in a suit using big words, in Stiles’ mind. No sir. Derek was peak sexdom. 

“I mean, I’m free tonight, yeah. What’s going on?” He wasn’t sure what this meant, but he did remember Parrish saying something about how he got called every now and then when a cop was needed, and even Derek had mentioned it during their impromptu gym chat. 

“Nothing serious. We’ve had two neighbours at odds for quite some time now, and one of them is threatening to involve a lawyer if the matter isn’t resolved. We’d rather attempt some civility but there is a lot of bad blood between the pair and we thought it prudent to include an officer in case anything were to transpire. Sometimes having an outside party to mediate assists the owner who feels wronged recognize that the Board isn’t showing favouritism towards one over the other.” 

“Oh.” So he just wanted Stiles to show up and sit there looking sympathetic? He could do that. “Yeah, sure. I can do that. Do I need to wear my uniform?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure. Yeah, no problem. Just say when and where and I’ll be there.” 

“Thank you. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. We’ll be meeting with both parties this evening in the events room at seven. If you could arrange to be there at six-thirty, I can fill you in before the group arrives.” 

“Yup, no problem. Six-thirty at the events room. See you then.” 

“Thank you very much Stiles. See you then.”

When he hung up, Stiles stared down at his phone for a long while. 

“I have Derek’s phone number.” That felt insane. He had Derek’s number, because Derek had called Parrish, and Parrish had given it to him. He kind of wanted to send a thank you note to Parrish for this. 

Not that Parrish had done it on purpose, but still. 

Dialling up his friend and coworker, he waited while the line rang until it clicked on the other end. 

“Deputy Parrish.”

“Hey, it’s me. I uh, just got a call from Derek.” 

“I figured you wouldn’t mind me giving him your number.” The smirk he could hear in Parrish’s voice had him narrowing his eyes suspiciously. 

“What does that mean?” 

“Unfortunately for me, I’m not deaf. I hear you talking to Jackson and Scott about the hot guy in our building. He’s single, you know.”

“Excuse me, it’s bad enough you didn’t tell me you could hear me singing, how about you stay out of my love life? Don’t make me interfere with yours! I can call Lydia right now.”

“Don’t you dare!” Parrish sounded distressed now, which pleased Stiles greatly. Two could play dirty! 

“Anyway, threats aside, I just need to know about what to expect tonight. Like, when I go, what all am I supposed to do?”

“Nothing, really. Derek likes having someone different around for the complaints that have been going on for a long time, kind of like an impartial observer. He tries to go for people he thinks others view as respectable, like doctors, therapists, cops, that sort of thing. He just wants everyone involved to know that the Board isn’t playing favourites and are actually trying to have an even hand but some things are outside their control. If you’re the one complaining and not getting your way, you might not see it like that, you know?”

“Fair enough. Do I need to do anything?” 

“Not usually. Just sit there and listen attentively. If anyone starts to get loud or angry, just clear your throat slightly or remind them somehow that you’re there. It usually calms them down a little bit. No one wants to look like a violent person in front of a police officer.”

“Right. Okay.” Stiles nodded to himself. “Cool. Thanks Parrish.” 

“Don’t worry, it’s nowhere near as intimidating as your first time in an interrogation room.”

Stiles just snorted, because nothing would compare to how terrified he was the first time he was told to head in alone to interview a perp. He knew he could do it, but when it was his first time doing it on his own, he’d been a little distressed, if he was being honest. He knew it happened to everyone, the others at the station had admitted as much to him, but still. 

“Right. Thanks Parrish. See you later. Have a good shift.” 

“Thanks Stiles. Talk to you later.”

Parrish hung up and Stiles did the same, staring down at his phone before remembering his omelet and hurrying back into the kitchen. He’d moved it off the fire, but that didn’t mean he wanted to burn his place down, so he just replaced it and went back to cooking through the eggs. 

Tonight was going to be a new experience for him. Living in an apartment building was so different from living in a house. 

Stiles felt weird when he showed up in full uniform at the events room. He’d left his gun back in his safe, because that shouldn’t be needed at all for something like this, but he had his utility belt and walked with purpose towards the prescribed location. The same girl from the gym a few weeks back passed him on her way back from the gym and gave another appreciative once-over, like she loved a man in uniform. He just smiled at her and nodded once, which had her grinning almost lecherously. 

This building had too many hot people, he was starting to feel out of place, if he was honest. Even Dr. Geyer was kind of hot, for an older married man. Parrish was definitely hot. Derek was extremely hot. This girl who’d walked by was hot. 

Life just wasn’t damn fair. 

Stiles made his way to the events room, checking the time on his phone and finding he still had about seven minutes. He figured he could just wait, but when he got to the glass door, he saw Derek already inside the large room. He was pacing with his phone at his ear, and seemed in a bad mood. He was rubbing at his forehead with his free hand, expression hardened and eyes closed while he walked the length of the room, then turned to do the same all the way back. 

He seemed to be in the events room often enough to know how many steps he could take in any direction because he hadn’t opened his eyes once before turning and it was always close enough to the wall that he needed to turn, but not so close that it was just dumb luck. He also avoided all the furniture with ease, so Stiles figured this was where a lot of the meetings happened. 

Derek lifted his head then, hand falling away while he snapped something back into the phone, then his eyes cut to the side and he seemed to notice Stiles was waiting. Derek said something else into his phone, then pulled it away from his ear and hung up his call while striding quickly to the door. 

He looked amazing. He was wearing a suit, as usual when Stiles saw him. This one was light grey with a matching vest beneath the suit jacket, a navy tie and a cream shirt. He looked so fucking good, Stiles wanted to climb him like a tree.

Derek’s eyes gave him a quick once-over, like he was checking to make sure he looked presentable while he headed for the door, then pushed it open. 

“My apologies. Were you waiting long?” 

“No, all good. I just got here. You looked busy, didn’t want to interrupt.” 

“Please, interrupt.” Derek let out a small laugh, shaking his head while moving further into the large room. Stiles followed him, the door shutting automatically behind them. 

He’d never been in the events room before, it was quite nice. The far wall had a sort of bar-like feel to it, with a fridge on one end and a large counter spanning the width of the room. There was a table with twelve chairs right beside it, and on the other half of the room where he and Derek were headed, there were three large, plush couches, two armchairs, and a huge fireplace along the back wall.

This place was probably reserved for things like parties or celebrations or something. Stiles figured it was booked around Thanksgiving and Christmas for people who had small apartments like him but wanted to have a big event with friends and family. 

When Derek took a seat on one of the couches, Stiles sat across from him so they could talk more easily. He didn’t think sitting beside him during this conversation would be appropriate, even though he really wanted to. 

“Everything okay?” he asked, before he could stop himself. 

“Just work.” Derek rubbed at his face. He looked really tired, and Stiles felt bad for him being here right now. He’d probably rather be at home watching TV or something. “There have been some concerns with one of the hotels in—” he cut himself off, and Stiles thought at first that it was meant to be confidential and he’d caught himself before spilling the beans, but his next words made it clear that wasn’t it. “I shouldn’t bother you with this, I’m sorry.” 

“No, no.” Stiles waved one hand. “Seriously, it’s fine. If you need to unload, I’m totally here for you. I won’t repeat a word of it. I’m really good at keeping private conversations to myself.” He motioned Derek. “Please, if you need to vent, go for it.” 

Derek hesitated for only a moment, then seemed to feel like if he didn’t talk about it, he’d explode. He immediately started off about how one of the hotels they had in Hong Kong had been having trouble retaining their staff and it was discovered that the man who’d been left in charge had hired his two sons to run certain parts of the hotel when they weren’t qualified for it. His boss didn’t believe in nepotism, because everyone had to earn their place, and while Derek was in agreement that the sons should be removed, his boss wanted to fire the guy at the top, too. 

That was apparently going to be a problem, because they didn’t have anyone available to replace him, and that hotel was one of their most profitable. The only option would be for Derek to go and personally train a new person to head that hotel, but that could take months and while Derek admitted he’d done it before, he had something coming up in the next few weeks that he could not miss. He’d been speaking to the number three in the company when Stiles had shown up, the two of them trying to come up with a gameplan to see if someone else could go—the number three had recently had a baby and was theoretically still on maternity leave, so Derek did not want her heading out to Hong Kong. 

“We’re attempting to determine if we can pull off a reshuffle,” Derek finished, rubbing at his eyes with one hand while leaning back in his seat. “See if we can perhaps move a few people around to accommodate a less senior person taking over one of the other hotels. That isn’t ideal, as it would mean uprooting families, and some may not take kindly to being displaced at this time of the year, particularly if they’re happy where they are and don’t want to be moved. If we can convince the CEO not to fire this individual for the poor judgement, that would be the best scenario, but he seems to be rather angry.” 

Stiles was silent the whole time Derek spoke, able to tell when someone was in dire need of an outlet. He leaned back in his armchair with his arms crossed, thinking about what Derek had said. He wasn’t a businessman, so this was well outside his area of expertise, but he felt like there was one thing that he’d overlooked. 

“What if you went with someone? You know, like another higher up. You’re the number two, so really your talents should be needed elsewhere, but if you really have to go, what if they sent you with someone else who’s still high-ranking so that you guys can overlap or something? So you go for the beginning of it, then they send this other person to overlap with you for, I don’t know, a few days, then you come back for that thing you need to be here for while that other person stays in Hong Kong, and when your thing is done, you go back for another short overlap, and then they send that person home and you finish off?” 

Derek let his hands slide down his face, staring at Stiles for a moment before his eyes shunted to the side, as if in thought. Derek had seemed so torn between his work and his private life that it probably hadn’t occurred to him he could do both. Sure, it wasn’t ideal for anyone in that scenario, and Derek would still be stuck in Hong Kong for a while, but at least he’d be able to come home for whatever it was he needed to be back for. 

“Maybe,” he finally said, sitting up straighter. “Actually, that isn’t a bad idea.” He pulled his phone out. “May I?” 

“Go for it.” Stiles motioned for him to do as he needed. 

When Derek started to unlock his phone, he paused and cursed before putting it away. “I’ll call after, we only have fifteen minutes left and this was meant to be a discussion before the meeting to fill you in on what’s happened.” 

“Talk fast, I’ll keep up,” Stiles promised. 

Derek started to explain it to him quickly while they waited on the other Board members to arrive. He was still telling him the basics when the door opened, startling the shit out of Stiles since he’d thought it was locked by fob. Apparently all the Board members had universal fobs and could access the events room and media room whenever they wanted, but still had to book its use like everyone else when it was for personal use. 

Since this was an actual Board meeting, the building manager had just ensured it was free and then blocked it off that afternoon so the Board could meet without any problems. 

“Marin, this is Stiles Stilinski. He’s the new tenant Jordan told us about.” Derek looked over at him. “Stiles, this is Marin Morrell, one of our Board members.” 

“Nice to meet you,” he said, standing and shaking her hand. 

“Likewise.” She had a firm grip and sat down on one of the other couches.  

“I was just bringing Stiles up to speed.” 

“Of course. Continue.” She motioned for Derek to speak while opening a leather-bound notebook. If Stiles had to guess, he’d assume she wasn’t the general contractor, so she was probably the psychologist. He hoped she wasn’t going to psychoanalyse him. 

Derek spoke quickly as other members showed up, but he didn’t stop to introduce them, probably figuring he was short on time. The case seemed simple enough, at any rate. Two women on the first floor were having disputes about where one person’s property ended and where the other’s began with regard to the maintenance of a tree that was on both of their patios. At first, it was honestly the dumbest thing Stiles had ever heard, but the more Derek explained, the more he kind of understood what was happening. And with the threat of a lawyer being involved, the Board had to take it more seriously now, as well. 

Apparently it had been agreed that one of the women would be taking care of said tree that bordered both their property, but she hadn’t been doing so, which resulted in bees taking up residence in the tree. The woman who wasn’t in charge of pruning the tree had a dog, who’d been stung numerous times while out trying to do its business because the bees thought he was getting too close. 

The multiple stings had caused numerous visits to the animal clinic for the woman to tend to her dog, and while the Board had already made arrangements twice in the last year to have the bees removed, the lack of upkeep on the tree had them coming back because of the kind of tree it was. 

The lady with the dog wanted the tree to be taken care of as promised, and the other lady was now insisting that it was too much work and if her neighbour was so adamant it be dealt with, she should take over keeping it pruned.

Stalemate. 

Derek was in the middle of telling him that this would be the fourth meeting they had with the two women this year alone, but there was a light knock at the door and Stiles turned to see someone who wasn’t part of the Board—since they were all present—waiting outside. 

“Time’s up,” Derek said, getting to his feet before turning to Henry Tate. “Perhaps this should be discussed at the table?” 

“Agreed.” Henry groaned while standing from the couch he was seated on and everyone else followed suit, heading for the large table while Derek went to the door. 

Stiles got to meet the last Board member, Garrison Myers, while they walked to the table. He wasn’t sure where to sit, but when the members made it clear the two end seats would be taken by the two women in this argument, he sat down in a random spot with Henry on his right and Danielle Finch across from him. When Derek walked in with the first woman, he motioned the seat at the far end of the table. 

“Ms. McKnight, if you’d take a seat over there, we’re just waiting on Ms. Simmons.”

“Of course we are,” the woman said bitterly while walking towards the far seat. 

“Let me guess,” Stiles whispered to Henry. “Dog?” 

“Yup,” he confirmed. 

When she sat down and crossed her arms, she turned her gaze on Stiles, eying him slightly. She looked like she was almost the same age as him, maybe thirty or so, and her look was both appreciative and calculating. “Where’s Jordan?” 

“He was unavailable. I’m Stiles.” He reached over to shake her hand, honestly surprised when she uncrossed her arms to take his. “I’m new to the building, but I’ve worked with Parrish for years.” 

“Nice to meet you. Caitlin McKnight.” Her hand stayed in his for a long time, Stiles pressing his lips together when it started to get a bit uncomfortable, but Derek appeared beside them then and she finally released his hand. 

“Would you like something to drink while we wait?” Derek asked. 

“No thanks.” Caitlin was still watching Stiles, and he suddenly felt a bit like a piece of meat. Some girls really liked a man in uniform. 

“All right.” Derek took a seat on Stiles’ other side, which seemed to surprise a few people in the room, since Danielle gave him a weird look and Henry glanced over at her in confusion. Marin just smiled privately to herself, tapping her pen once against the pages of her open notebook before shutting it, seeming to find this interesting. 

Stiles just sat there, feeling awkward. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the second party, Kara Simmons, to show up. She was just as hostile as Caitlin had been when she’d walked in, though didn’t calm down the same way. 

The literal instant they were all seated and introductions were made—mostly for Stiles’ benefit, he was sure—the women were screaming at each other. Stiles was a little startled, because he hadn’t known what to expect, but Derek was very good at making them both calm down and speak in a civilized manner. His tone was sharp, and commanding, and was honestly super hot. Stiles could imagine him being that authoritative in the bedroom and wow was this an inappropriate time to be thinking about Derek giving orders in the bedroom. 

The conversation seemed to be something they’d all already hashed out before, based on how Derek was responding to what the women said. Kara was adamant that she’d never signed anything forcing her to keep the tree pruned. Caitlin insisted that she had a busy job that didn’t allow her to maintain the tree and keep it bee-free. 

Kara shot back that she wasn’t being inconvenienced by the bees, and Caitlin would go off about how they were on her side of the property line, so of course she wasn’t being inconvenienced! 

Stiles felt like the conversation was endless, with Board members cutting in every now and then to give their pieces about whose responsibility it was, and how to move forward since they’d been talking about this for months. 

When time began to creep into much later hours than Stiles had intended to be in this meeting, and he could tell Derek was getting impatient given he had much bigger things to worry about than whose responsibility it was to prune a damn tree, even though it wasn’t his place, he blurted out a thought. 

“Are either of you attached to the tree?” 

Everyone stopped speaking to stare at him. 

“Excuse me?” Kara asked. 

“The tree. Does it hold some kind of sentimental value to either of you?” 

“No,” Caitlin said, Kara echoing her. 

“Given neither of you are willing to prune the tree, and the bees are becoming a problem, maybe we could just—uproot the tree? Like, move it out of being in the immediate area, replant it somewhere else along the road. We could get a bush planted in its place on your property line, if you wanted something there, or it can just be left empty. That way, the tree isn’t your problem anymore since its upkeep would fall on our landscapers, and neither of you have to worry about pruning it or attracting bees.” 

Danielle’s mouth opened and then shut before she turned to look at Garrison, who was seated beside her. They both had the same expression on their faces, a clear, ‘Why the fuck didn’t we think of that?!’ 

Apparently it had never occurred to any of them to ask if they could just remove the tree. He figured all of them assumed the women wanted the tree there, but they didn’t want to have to take care of the damn thing. 

“Remove the tree,” Caitlin said. “Remove it, I don’t care, just get rid of it.” 

“No bush,” Kara cut in. “I don’t need another thing I’m being bullied into taking care of.” 

“No bush,” Caitlin agreed. “Just get rid of the tree, leave the spot open, and my dog won’t have to worry about the bees anymore.” 

“Cool.” Stiles glanced at Derek. “Uh, that’s—can we do that?” 

“We can review as a Board about the tree’s removal,” Derek agreed, looking anywhere but at Stiles. “If you’re both amenable to this outcome, we’ll speak to Isaac about it and discuss with our landscapers.” 

“Perfect.” Caitlin looked pleased as punch. “Well, then I guess we’re done here.”

“Finally,” Kara muttered, pushing herself away from the table and standing. “Can’t wait. Let me know when you need access to get rid of the damn thing. I’ll give you a key, if I have to. Just want this to be over.” 

“Me too,” Caitlin agreed, also getting to her feet. For two women who’d been dragging this entire conversation out, they now seemed eager to get the fuck out of there. “Let us know when it’ll get removed.” 

Derek stood and nodded politely to them, straightening his suit jacket and motioning the door to Caitlin, Kara already halfway to it. 

“We’ll be sure to keep you apprised. Thank you both for coming out this evening.” 

“Thanks Derek.” She looked past him and smiled. “Nice meeting you, Stiles. Hope I see you again.” 

“Nice meeting you,” he echoed, noting that Derek had shifted slightly to block Caitlin from his line of sight. Maybe he had a crush on her or something. Stiles didn’t let it bother him, he just watched Derek follow her to the door, Kara long gone by now, and then bid her a good night. 

Once she was out of the room, Derek stood at the door with his back to the table for a long while. 

Henry was the one who spoke first. “I can’t believe it didn’t occur to us to just get rid of the tree.” 

“All this time,” Danielle agreed. “We wasted so much of our free time, so many hours of poor Isaac’s time, and all we had to do was ask if they wanted the tree there or if we could just get rid of it.” 

“I mean,” Stiles said hesitantly, “based on how neither of them wanted to take responsibility with its upkeep, it seemed likely they wouldn’t mind getting rid of it entirely.” 

Derek looked almost defeated at the door, as if he should’ve thought of that himself, but considering everything going on with his work, it wasn’t a surprise he wasn’t on his game. Ever since Stiles had moved in, Derek seemed to be dealing with problem after problem at work. It would make sense his brain was in overdrive on more complicated things that something this simple kind of eluded his mediating abilities. 

“Thank you,” Derek finally said, turning to look at him, eyes burning. “You have no idea how many hours of my life you just saved.” 

“Of all our lives,” Marin cut in with a knowing smile, then looked at Derek. “I’d imagine we have nothing to discuss about its removal? We’re all in agreement?” 

“Yes,” Danielle said emphatically. “Cut the damn thing down, I don’t care. Just get it away from them so we can have some peace.” 

“I would imagine neither of them will want to pay for its removal,” Derek said, moving back towards the table and leaning against the back of his chair, hands braced on it. “Garry, would you be able to get a quote from some contacts on how much it would cost for removal? I’ll speak to Isaac about the landscapers to see how the price compares. Depending on the cost, perhaps it’s something we can pay from the reserve fund.” 

“Sure, I’ll call around tomorrow and let you know,” Garrison agreed. 

“I may be going out of town again,” Derek informed them. “If I am, we can discuss further via email, if you’re all amenable.” 

“Of course.” Marin slipped her pen between the pages of her book and stood. “Not everything requires a meeting, but I’m glad we were able to resolve this.” She checked her watch. “I have an appointment coming up with a client shortly, so I’ve got to head out. I’m glad we were able to resolve this.” She looked at Stiles and smiled slightly. “It was nice meeting you, Stiles.” 

“You too,” he agreed. 

The others murmured that they were also ready to go and they all bid each other goodnight. Derek was the only one who didn’t move, and Stiles stayed in his chair as well while everyone else filed out. As soon as the door shut behind the last of them, Derek let out a small laugh, making Stiles turn back to him.

He was still leaning forward against the chair, hands wrapped around the back of it, but his head was bowed and he was shaking it slightly while he laughed. 

“You must think we’re idiots,” he said softly. “All these people in this room, and not one of us thought to ask about removing the tree.” 

“Well, Parrish was involved too, and he didn’t think about it either,” Stiles offered, then shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess maybe because you guys have all been hearing about this for so long that you got a bit... blinded? Like, you forgot what the objective was, which was keeping them both happy as opposed to whose responsibility it was to take care of the tree. I guess I just figured I’d ask about it because I wasn’t around for the whole story from the beginning.” 

“Thank you.” Derek turned to look at him, expression soft. He looked less tired than he had even ten minutes ago. “I’m glad Jordan was busy, otherwise Lord knows how much longer this would have continued.” 

“Happy to help.” Stiles grinned and slapped the table once before getting to his feet. “I should head out too. Busy day tomorrow. You should make your call before it gets too late.” 

Derek looked startled, like he’d forgotten, and one hand left the chair to press against his pocket where his phone was. 

“I forgot that you solved two problems for me this evening. I owe you more thanks than I can express.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Stiles insisted, waving one hand. “I’m just glad I could help.” 

“I’ll repay you for this somehow, mark my words,” Derek said, smiling slightly. 

Stiles stared at him, feeling like those words were a bit... heated. Like they were a promise. He didn’t know whether to run or jump the guy. Jumping him would probably be a bad call though so he just cleared his throat and nodded once. 

“Well uh, thank you. This has been enlightening, to say the least. I’m glad I could help. Hope things go well with work and I’ll uh, I’ll see you around.” 

“You will,” Derek agreed. Stiles chose to believe he didn’t intend for it to sound as ominous as it had come out. “We should get coffee sometime.” 

Oh shit! Was this happening?! Stiles had not come prepared for this, holy fuck! “Yes!” Oh fuck, decibels. Too high. Calm down. “I mean yes, sure. Of course. That would—sounds awesome. Whenever. You’re busy, you know.” He forced himself to stop talking because he was getting weird. 

“I’ll see how Hong Kong is shaping up, and we can discuss it,” Derek promised, seeming pleased Stiles had agreed. 

Stiles tried not to think of it as a coffee date. Derek was inviting him for coffee, people went for coffee all the time. Stiles had coffee with Scott, and with Jackson, with his dad. Didn’t mean anything. It was just coffee. 

Hell, he had coffee with Parrish! It was just coffee! Nothing for his dick to get excited about! 

“Good luck. With Hong Kong, I mean.”

“Thank you. Have a good night, Stiles.” 

“Yup, you too.” Stiles had been backing away, trying to leave before something dumb and embarrassing left his mouth, but that just concluded with him walking into the door and almost tumbling out of the events room when he managed to open it without even trying. He windmilled, somehow keeping his feet, and cursed to himself before rounding back on Derek. 

The other man was chuckling to himself, like he found Stiles endearing. That wasn’t embarrassing at all. 

Waving awkwardly, Stiles hustled it back to the building and entered the lobby quickly. He took the stairs up to his apartment, disappearing inside it before shutting the door behind himself and thunking his head against it. 

“I am the lamest person on the planet,” he concluded. 

Seriously, how fucking embarrassing. 

At least Derek had never heard him sing ‘Let It Go’ in the shower so, he had that going for him. 

Small wins. He had to take the small wins. 

Honestly, Stiles was starting to wonder if he was being made fun of, because every day either when he woke up in the morning or when he got home from work—depending on which shift he was on—he found a note under his door with a new Disney movie title. It was always in the same block letters as that first note, suggesting it was the guy—Stiles felt like it was a guy—who’d asked for a change in soundtrack. 

He mostly asked for the classics, like The Lion King, and Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. Once Stiles came home three times in a row to Beauty and the Beast but he attributed that to possibly not having sung the song the guy wanted, or the guy had been out when Stiles had been in the shower. 

That was fine, he liked a lot of songs in Beauty and the Beast, especially now that the live-action remake had that dope-ass song from the Beast. He wasn’t as impressive a singer as Dan Stevens, but boy did he try! That was honestly his favourite song in the movie.

No, ‘Be Our Guest’ was his favourite song in the movie. Who didn’t love a singing candlestick feeding someone dinner? Sounded like a good time. 

Not that Stiles wanted to get trapped in a castle with cursed objects and a giant Beast! Not unless the Beast was Derek, anyway. God, that guy. He was perfect, and it was almost annoying. Stiles wanted to stick to his whole ‘pretty people are assholes’ ideals, but boy was Derek trying to prove him wrong! 

They didn’t bump into each other very often, but every time they did, they had really nice little chats. Derek was always kind to him, and everyone Stiles spoke to about him confirmed that Derek was the nicest person he would ever meet. So not only was he a hot, successful, rich businessman, he was also kind, and honest, and considerate. He was president of the homeowner’s association not because he liked being in control, but because he liked being able to help people. He wanted to ensure the best for the building as a whole, and he had no problems calling people out on their bullshit. 

He’d legitimately been voted back in every year because the people who lived there recognized he was a good person, and he knew what he was doing. He was like the perfect man, which meant Stiles had no chance in hell with him. 

Probably didn’t even like dudes. Stiles wasn’t dumb enough to assume coffee meant he was into him, and besides, he hadn’t heard about the invite since Derek had mentioned it almost two weeks ago. He knew it was because the guy was busy, but still, he’d have thought it’d at least have come up in conversation. 

Or maybe he was waiting for Stiles to bring it up? Which he wouldn’t. Ever. 

Ever. 

Yeah, he wasn’t a masochist. 

Stiles had just sat down at his desk at work, getting ready for a day of boring paperwork that he’d been putting off for—way too long, when his cellphone rang. He checked the caller ID and saw Derek’s name. While he wanted to get excited about it, he forced himself not to overreact. Derek had only ever called him the one time so far, and it was related to the building. There was no reason to think this could be anything else. 

“Hello?”

“Hello Stiles, it’s Derek Hale.”

It was cute that he always introduced himself with his full name. Probably habit. Or he thought Stiles didn’t have his number in his phone, which was adorable. 

“Hey Derek, how’s it going? Everything working out with that thing we spoke about?” 

His choice of words had Derek realizing he was at work, or at the very least somewhere public. Stiles was pretty sure Derek was at work himself, because it was pitch silent on the other end, and Stiles knew there was construction happening on the road outside their building right now and sound fucking carried in that place. 

“I apologize for bothering you, are you available?”

“For a chat, absolutely. All I’ve got waiting for me is boring paperwork.” He grinned at Tara when she gave him an exasperated sigh on her way by. He winked and settled more comfortably in his chair. “What’s up?” 

“I know this is last minute, but I just spoke to Jordan and I was hoping you would be available this evening for a brief Board meeting. Nothing serious, just yourself, Jordan and the Board. We have some matters to discuss.”

“Sure, I should be.” Stiles checked the time on his computer, even though it was still the early end of his shift. “What time?”

“Seven this evening, if you’re able to come at that time. If not, we can re-schedule for later, or earlier, depending. It’s difficult trying to accommodate people in all the lines of work involved.”

“Nope, seven works great. Events room?”

“Yes, in the events room.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you there tonight at seven.”

“Thank you, Stiles. I apologize for the short notice.”

“All good man.” Stiles smiled. “I’ll see you there. Have a good day!” 

“Thank you. You as well, be safe.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said, somewhat startled. Those words always ended up coming out every now and then from various people, but usually only people he knew well. Like Scott and Jackson and his dad—for obvious reasons. None of his partners had ever said that to him, and he certainly hadn’t expected to hear them from some guy who lived in his building. 

Shaking the feeling off, he and Derek bid one another farewell and hung up. Stiles stared down at his paperwork, kind of stuck on the fact that Derek had told him to be safe. It felt... nice. He heard it from people who cared about him and were worried about him, but he’d never really heard it from anyone else outside his friends and family. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, because it made him feel all warm and happy. 

Derek was such a keeper, whoever had him better hang on to him like their life depended on it, because Stiles was going to swoop in the moment he was single. Not that he knew he was taken right now, but like—come on! A guy that perfect had to be taken, regardless of whether or not he was gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, transsexual, demisexual, pansexual, whatever. Someone that perfect could not still be on the market, that would be ridiculous. 

Though Parrish had said he was... Then again, Parrish was a dirty betrayer of trust, so Stiles couldn’t trust that he wasn’t pulling his leg. He doubted his friend would ever do that to him, but still! The shower fiasco was still very front and centre, he wasn’t getting over that betrayal any time soon. 

It was hard to focus on work for the rest of the day, but he managed it somehow. He went out with his dad to grab a bite for dinner before heading home, realizing he was cutting it a bit close. He’d been planning on going home to change and use the bathroom before the meeting, but dinner had run a bit long and he’d just parked at five-to-seven. He didn’t want to be late, so he just headed out of the garage through the main door and went straight to the events room, jogging a little because he knew he’d be the last one there. 

Sure enough, when he reached the glass door, he saw the rest of the Board and Parrish sitting on the couches and armchairs, chatting amiably amongst each other. Parrish was in jeans and a black T-shirt that was way too tight for him. Actually, now that Stiles looked around, all of them were wearing casual clothes. The last time, they’d all come in businesswear, as if they wanted to ensure they looked professional while having that meeting with the two quarrelling women, but this time it was a lot more relaxed. 

Stiles had never seen Derek in anything other than a suit—barring that one time he was in workout gear. But today? Oh, today he was in casual clothes. He was wearing black jeans that almost looked a touch too tight, hugging his legs and accentuating powerful thighs Stiles wouldn’t mind having his head crushed by. He had a pair of black combat boots on that Stiles wanted to steal, no lie, and the softest looking green Henley that was just barely too long for him so that it covered half of his hands. The colour made his eyes pop, and he was laughing at something Danielle had just said, all of them looking at her while she gesticulated wildly. 

Honestly, he had to wonder how close these people were because they seemed so relaxed and at ease around each other. They all had stressful jobs, but they’d chosen to volunteer the little free time they had to work on the Board, and after three years of working together, it made sense they’d be so close. It was kind of nice seeing them all so comfortable. 

Danielle was still telling her story but she paused in her flailing when she noticed Stiles at the door. Derek was the first to turn and he was on his feet immediately, even though he wasn’t the closest to the door. He smiled at Stiles while approaching, pushing open the door and holding it so Stiles could slip inside. 

“Sorry about that, I was running a bit late,” he said to the room at large. 

“Your dad texted me, don’t worry about it. He said it was his fault.” Parrish offered him a smile and Stiles grinned back. 

“Jerk was trying to get dessert. I wouldn’t be surprised if he went back after I left, to be honest.” 

“Parrish was saying you’ve been watching your dad’s diet for a long time,” Marin said, and he felt like she was going into psychologist mode. Did his concerns for his dad mean he had some weird deep-rooted fears of abandonment and being left alone?

Actually, probably. His mother had passed when he was nine, his dad was all he had. 

“Yeah, he’s just—not careful.” Stiles took a seat on one of the couches beside Henry and even though Derek had been on one of the other couches with Marin and Parrish, he sat down in the empty spot beside Stiles. 

Marin was eying him with a small smile on her face, but Stiles didn’t read into it too much. He wasn’t willing to set himself up for failure. 

“Well, looks like we’re all here,” Garrison said unnecessarily. “So what’s going on?” 

“Thank you for agreeing to come on such short notice,” Derek said, suggesting he was the one who requested the meeting. “I’ve already spoken to Isaac and our property manager about this, but I wanted to ensure everyone involved would be aware.” 

“If you’re quitting the Board, I’m out,” Danielle informed him.

Derek let out a small laugh, shaking his head and leaning back in his seat. He crossed one ankle over his opposite knee and threw his arm out along the back of the couch, behind Stiles. He looked so relaxed, it was kind of nice. 

Stiles assumed things at work had calmed down, at least a little bit. 

“No, I’m not quitting the Board.” 

“Are you moving?” Henry asked, sounding just as wary as Danielle had. 

“I’m not moving, either.” Derek looked really happy that these people he’d come to know so well were concerned he was about to disappear. “As you all know, my job requires a lot of travel, and I spend a lot of time going back and forth across various countries, but I usually always return within a set timeframe. Without going into detail, as I’m not at liberty to discuss, there has been some required changes at one of our hotels and I’m needed for a lengthier period of time than usual.”

“Is everything okay?” Marin asked, frowning with concern. 

“It will be, we hope.” Derek offered her a nod of thanks for asking. “But I’m going to be away far longer than usual. Given the time difference, it will be difficult for me to attend any of the scheduled monthly Board meetings, and any urgent meetings or requests that arise. I can be reached through email, as normal, should a resolution be possible in that manner, but otherwise I’m not going to be available for any face-to-face meetings.” 

“How long will you be gone?” Danielle asked. 

“My flight leaves on Wednesday morning, and I’ll be out of the country for two weeks. I’ll be back the first week of September for a brief time for personal reasons, but then I’ll be gone again for another month or so.” 

Everyone looked sympathetic at his comment about personal reasons but Stiles didn’t know why and he wasn’t about to ask. 

“As such, I was speaking to Isaac and he advised it may be beneficial to have a temporary Board member appointed in my absence in case anything requires immediate discussion and resolution while I’m away. Reviewing the By-Laws, it is something we as a Board are permitted to vote on to add a temporary member so long as it is communicated to the building as a whole. The property manager confirmed he could draft something to send out within the next forty-eight hours if we decide to go this route.” 

That explained why Parrish was there, but not so much why Stiles was. Sure, he’d gone to one meeting, but Parrish had mentioned that they often invited others, like lawyers and Dr. Geyer and all that. It didn’t have to be a cop, and Stiles was still relatively new to the building. Sure, it’d been a couple months since he’d moved in, but still. His experience in this area was non-existent. 

“I was thinking, if you’re amenable, that Jordan might be a good substitute during my absence,” Derek said, glancing over at Parrish. 

Stiles still found it so weird that everyone called him ‘Jordan.’ He’d never been Jordan to him, he’d always been Parrish. Everyone at the precinct called him Parrish. In a situation like this, Jordan was almost like a formal way to address the guy. Like when people called his dad Noah instead of John. Sure, Noah was his given name, but he’d only ever gone by John. Only people who were first meeting him or didn’t know him well called him Noah, and even that was rare because he was almost always just ‘Sheriff.’ 

Now that Stiles thought about it, he didn’t know a lot of people who went by their legal first names. Jackson’s legal name wasn’t actually Jackson, that was the name he’d been given after he’d been adopted by the Whittemores when his biological parents had been killed in a hit and run. He’d never told Stiles his real name, and it seemed to be a sensitive topic for him so Stiles hadn’t pushed. 

And of course, Stiles himself didn’t go by his given name because yikes, what a mouthful. 

“I agree,” Marin said, jerking Stiles back into the present. “People in the building know you, they trust you. If anyone was going to be voted in temporarily by the Board, I believe you would be a good choice.” 

The other members of the Board murmured their agreement, and Stiles was again wondering why he was there. He didn’t care, he had no illusions of being the one chosen so it didn’t bother him that they picked Parrish—and it made sense to him, so he had nothing to be upset about—but it didn’t explain his presence. 

“I wouldn’t mind stepping in temporarily,” Parrish agreed, crossing his arms and leaning back in his seat, “but wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?” 

“Which is why Stiles is here.” Derek turned to him, and immediately everyone did the same. Stiles felt like a bug under a microscope. He wished he wasn’t still in full uniform, for some reason it made him feel weird when all these other people were in casual wear. Like he was trying to look more important than them, which he wasn’t! 

“Um, what?” he finally asked when no one else spoke. 

“Whenever there is a disturbance in the building, anything not constituted as a formal crime—like a breaking and entering, for example—cannot be addressed by any member of the Board of directors of the homeowner’s association unless it is requested as a meeting,” Derek explained. “If two parties are having a loud argument, if it is not violent and merely a genuine argument, having Parrish go to the door could be seen as showing either favouritism towards that particular unit for addressing their concern right away, or as him no longer being impartial if someone were to lodge a formal noise complaint.” 

“We’ve called on Parrish numerous times for items that may require a police officer in general,” Marin agreed. “Because we as Board members are not permitted to interact in a way that may be perceived as favouring one party over another.”

“If Parrish becomes a member of the Board, even temporarily, it can be viewed as a conflict of interest,” Derek continued. “As such, if we were to require an officer’s intervention for anything unrelated to a crime, you would be the one who would receive all the calls.” 

“You make it sound like there’s a lot of calls like that,” Stiles said slowly, eying them all. “Do you guys call Parrish a lot outside of meeting requests?” 

“Not generally, no,” Henry said with a sigh, crossing his arms. “But it depends. We had one month where we called him almost twice a week about two units that were constantly at odds. We could only formally speak to them about the situation in a meeting, so anything outside the meeting that had to be addressed went through Parrish.”

“As mentioned, anything related to a crime, such as domestic abuse or theft or anything of the sort would be fine for Parrish to intervene,” Derek insisted. “But anything specifically related to By-Law infractions or general complaints, he wouldn’t be permitted to interfere outside formal meetings and background emails amongst the Board members.” 

Stiles nodded slowly, thinking he understood. Basically anything that wasn’t a crime, Parrish couldn’t touch. That meant the Board members themselves were never allowed to actively deal with a complaint without the other members present. While Stiles knew the Board members didn’t always all have to be present, it seemed like this group preferred to have the full, unanimous vote and tried hard to have everyone involved present. It explained why Derek wanted to have Parrish temporarily added while he was gone, to ensure there were still five people making all the decisions.

“Okay,” Stiles said with a shrug. “I mean, it should be fine. I don’t have a problem with it, except if I’m working, obviously.” 

“That was always the case with Parrish, as well. We don’t call on you unless we have to,” Derek promised. “I just wanted to ensure everyone was in agreement before we appointed Parrish temporarily.” 

“Yeah, I’m good with it.” Stiles shrugged again. “You good with it?” he asked his friend. 

“It’s only for a few months, so I don’t have a problem. Thank you for thinking of me,” Parrish said honestly, offering Derek a nod. 

Derek just nodded back once. “Thank you for agreeing. Hopefully nothing too severe will occur while I’m away, but I’ll still be available via email, and for anything extremely urgent that you do require my attention on, you can always discuss it with Cora.” 

Cora. His girlfriend, probably. Or his wife? No, he wasn’t wearing a ring, and Parrish insisted he was single. If this was a recent girlfriend, he wouldn’t have told them she could be spoken to about any of this, so it had to be someone else. Best friend maybe? 

“I do have one question,” Parrish said, raising one hand slightly like they were in school. “How is this going to be viewed in light of Stiles and I working together? And being close friends? He’s practically my brother, so if I’m on the Board and he shows up at someone’s door, is that going to be a problem?” 

“No more than if Cora were to show up at someone’s door, or Kylie.” Derek motioned Henry. Stiles thought that might have been his daughter, if memory served. “The other owners must bear in mind that we are all human beings, with friends and family and loved ones in our lives. The fact that we as a Board have decided not to interfere outside formal meetings in general is not mandated in the By-Laws, but a choice we decided on three years ago when the homeowner’s association was formed. As such, in theory, we would have the right to interfere if we chose to, we just don’t. So if anyone has a grievance with Stiles knocking on their door because of his close friendship with you, we may have much bigger problems down the line.” 

Danielle looked confused at those words, as did Garrison, but Henry and Marin didn’t say anything. Parrish was looking between Stiles and Derek like he was piecing something together, but Stiles himself had no fucking idea what that was supposed to mean. All he cared about was that he wouldn’t fuck this up if they called on him while Derek was away. 

“If everyone is in agreement, to ensure this is done in accordance with the By-Laws,” Derek held up one hand, “I motion to appoint Jordan Parrish as temporary Board member effective immediately for a period of two months, to be extended as needed.” 

“Seconded,” Marin said, raising her hand as well. 

“All in favour?” Derek asked, and the other members of the Board raised their hands. 

He nodded once before lowering his own, then turned to look at Stiles. “As an outside party witness to this, you may be asked to confirm this with the property manager at some point before the formal notice goes out. Can I share your number and email with them?” 

“Sure, no problem.” 

Derek nodded a thanks then verbally thanked them all for their time and they all stood. When everyone went to leave, Stiles felt a hand touch his elbow and turned. 

“Do you have a moment?” 

“Sure.” Stiles waited while the others filed out, Marin giving Derek a knowing look that he ignored. When the door shut behind everyone, Derek seemed to be watching them walk away through the large glass windows before focussing on Stiles again. 

“I wanted to apologize. For putting you on the spot this evening, and also for not having followed through on my promise to buy you a coffee.” 

“Oh.” Stiles was startled, because he hadn’t been expecting that. “No, it’s totally fine. Parrish is great, I think it’s awesome that you guys trust him with this. He’ll do a great job.”

“I honestly think you would be good at this, too. This job is about conflict resolution, and as police officers, both of you seem to be fairly well versed in that.” 

“Hey now, not all cops are good at that,” Stiles insisted. “We have this one guy, Haigh? He’s a real tool. He’ll do whatever he can to actually worsen a situation, it’s really annoying. Don’t ever call him in for conflict resolution!” 

Derek let out a small laugh. “Duly noted. Still, thank you for being understanding, and for being willing to take this on while we utilize Parrish.” 

“No problem.” Stiles smiled. “Guess it’s a good thing I moved in, huh?” 

“For more reasons than one,” Derek admitted.

And Stiles’ heart didn’t do a thumpity-thump in his chest, no sirree! It sure didn’t! 

“Right,” Stiles said awkwardly, feeling like his ears were starting to burn. “Well uh, I hope everything goes well in Hong Kong. You’ll be missed around here, so make sure you finish up and come back quickly.” 

Derek let out a small laugh. Fuck were his laughs ever sexy. “As fast as I can. I’m keeping my promise on that coffee.” 

“I’ll hold you to it,” Stiles said. 

“I expect you to.” 

God, what even was happening right now?! Was he actually flirting with him? Like, that wasn’t just Stiles, right? It wasn’t wishful thinking or anything, this was definitely flirting, right? 

“I should let you get home,” Derek finally said. “I didn’t mean to make you rush.” 

And that was when Stiles remembered he had to use the bathroom. 

“Yes. Thank you. Um, I’ll maybe see you around before you head out. If not, have a safe flight, and I hope things go well in Hong Kong.” 

“Thank you.” Derek motioned the door. “Shall we?” 

Right. They lived in the same building. Which meant they could head back together. Which was what they did, the two of them walking side by side in silence to the building. Stiles swiped the fob and opened the door, holding it for Derek and then following him in. They waited for the elevator together, and when they entered, Derek hit the fourth and fifth floor buttons. 

The ride up was silent, but it felt charged somehow. Stiles didn’t know what to do, or say, or how to react. Seriously, was Derek flirting? Was this how rich, successful businessmen flirted? Stiles had no experience with this sort of thing! The only rich, successful, hot person he knew was Jackson, and no way would Jackson flirt with him. 

When they hit the fourth floor and the doors opened, Stiles turned to Derek again. “Good luck, and safe flight.” 

“Thank you. Take care while I’m gone, and stay safe.” 

Those words made warmth spread through Stiles’ chest again, and he nodded a thanks before exiting the elevator. 

When he reached his apartment and unlocked his door, Parrish opened his own to poke his head out. He didn’t say anything, but he was smirking like an asshole. Parrish didn’t often look all smug like that, it wasn’t in his nature, but he did now! 

“Shut up,” Stiles muttered, feeling his ears burn before disappearing into his apartment. 

If he sang ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ in the shower, well... no one needed to know.

Except everyone totally did because the walls were thin as shit and Parrish was never going to let him live it down. 

He didn’t get any more notes under his door for a long while. He noticed it the morning after the meeting, because he’d come home and there hadn’t been a note, but he hadn’t actually clued in to it until after he’d woken up the next morning. 

He thought maybe his soundtrack had improved somewhat so the requests would stop coming, though a part of him wondered if maybe they were away. After all, Derek was leaving in two days, so it wasn’t impossible to think other people in the building travelled, too. Besides, summer was coming to an end, so people were trying to get their travels in before the winter months. Except the retirees, who tended to go away in the winter.

Not that winter in California was anything to flee when compared to places like New York or Alaska, but still. Some people would rather spend time in Mexico, and Stiles couldn’t fault them for that. He would also like to spend time in Mexico. 

Too bad he couldn’t afford it. 

He wondered if Derek had a hotel in Mexico. He still hadn’t looked up the chain, because he didn’t want to be a creeper about it, and figured if they ever had that coffee, he could ask him about it then and honestly not know the answer. God only knew when that coffee would be though since he would be gone for a while. 

Stiles was kind of sad when he didn’t see him before his departure on Wednesday, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. It wasn’t like Derek had been thinking about how he had to say goodbye to Stiles, he had other things to worry about. 

Then again, now Stiles was confused, because even as he thought back on all the pseudo-flirting, it occurred to him that he’d mentioned someone named Cora. So didn’t that mean he was already taken? Even if Parrish had said he was single, maybe he’d been wrong? 

The name rang a bell in the back of his mind though, the same way ‘Hale’ did, but he couldn’t put his finger on it, and work was too insane today for him to really think on it too much. By the time he got home, he’d forgotten about the whole thing, because all he wanted to do was eat, shower and go to bed. 

Being an adult was hard, he felt like he had no social life. Like, at all. All he seemed to do was work and sleep. In a way, it was probably a good thing his closest friends were all too busy for him, because he was also too busy for them. 

He didn’t even know why he was so busy, because he didn’t feel like work was any different than usual, but it somehow felt busier. Or maybe it was all the backlogged paperwork he’d been putting off. He had to stay later than usual to work through some of it, but that was his own fault. 

One day when he got home, he found a note on his floor and saw the loopy handwriting of the girl who liked his Frozen singing. She was requesting he go back to it for one day because she needed some comfort and she liked the song, so he obliged and sang it later in the shower, even though it felt weird knowing his neighbours were now using him as a Disney jukebox. Whatever, at least they were all having fun with it. 

A few days after that, he was woken up after the night shift around ten in the morning to screaming coming from upstairs. He’d never really heard much from his upstairs neighbours barring the occasional heavy footed walk back and forth, the snoring and the blender, so he knew it had to be serious. 

He didn’t try to listen, but it was hard not to, and it sounded like a girl screaming, “You promised! You said they would let you! They can’t do this!” 

He had no idea what the fight was about, but it was clear the girl was more distressed than angry. Not his business though, so he didn’t dwell on it. He just tried to get back to sleep while the girl continued screaming into what he assumed was a phone since no one else seemed to be replying from within the unit itself. 

He felt like he should probably meet his upstairs neighbours at some point. And the others around him. He was curious to know who’d sent him notes about his singing, and figured it might be nice to meet them. Parrish didn’t count, he was still mad he’d actually slipped a note under his door like that. It was embarrassing enough knowing others could hear him, he didn’t need Parrish making fun of him, too! 

Stiles tried not to think about the singing too much. He just went to work, went to the gym, saw Jackson whenever their schedules met up, had dinner with Scott and Allison one night, and basically went about his days as normal. 

The fighting from upstairs started to get more desperate as the days passed, until it finally stopped. That seemed to suggest that whatever was wrong had been resolved, and Stiles was glad for it. He didn’t know what the fighting was about, but it really sounded like the girl was about to have a panic attack over it, so he was glad it seemed to have worked out. 

That ended up being entirely deceitful, because Stiles had no idea that he was going to be directly involved in that fight. Of his own doing, perhaps, but he’d honestly thought everything was fine. 

Then two nights later, things were not fine. 

Stiles jerked awake suddenly in bed, heart in his throat and hand reaching for his phone immediately. He didn’t know why he’d woken up in a panic, but assumed a loud noise had startled him into consciousness. He hated being startled awake, but acknowledged that nobody liked it. It was disorienting, and it made falling asleep so difficult when his heart was beating double time and adrenaline was coursing through him. 

Groaning while finally finding his phone, he tugged it over to check the time and saw it was just past two in the morning. Awesome. He had to be up for work in three hours, he really didn’t have time to be awake right now. Annoying. 

Dropping his phone back onto the nightstand, he rolled over onto his side, turning himself into a burrito with his blanket, and closed his eyes to try and go back to sleep. He could hear downstairs’ white noise machine, like always, but upstairs...

He frowned, because it sounded like someone was crying. He’d have thought it was impossible to hear someone crying, but before moving into this place, he’d have thought that about someone fucking snoring too, so really, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. 

When a gut-wrenching sob travelled through the thin walls of the building, Stiles realized that was what had woken him up. One of his neighbours upstairs was positively sobbing right now. It actually hurt to listen to, and Stiles felt his heart clench in his chest. Whatever was going on, it was bad. 

Lying there for a while longer, he listened to his neighbour continue to cry, hoping that maybe whatever was wrong would be resolved with a nice, good cry. It helped sometimes. Stiles remembered moments after his mother’s death where he’d just sit in a corner and cry for a few minutes, then feel better. The pain never went away, but somehow letting it out with tears helped, even if just a little. 

When the minutes continued to tick by and the sobbing didn’t stop, Stiles knew he couldn’t lie there and do nothing. He would probably be able to fall asleep again, but he couldn’t in good conscience leave whoever this was sobbing like this. It wasn’t right. It felt heartless to him, even if what he was about to do was weird. 

Throwing the covers off himself, Stiles climbed out of bed and opened his bedroom door. Grabbing his keys from their hook, he slid his feet into a random pair of sneakers at the door without bothering to tie them and exited the apartment, locking up behind him. 

He walked across the floor to the elevator, calling it, and then waited for it to arrive. It felt weird to hit the fifth floor button, and even weirder to exit the elevator on it. All the other floors had doors set equidistant to one another, because the apartments were all about the same size barring the corner units. But on the fifth floor, it was just the four penthouses so he saw one door in front of him, one door right beside the elevator, and then nothing the rest of the length of the corridor. Walking around the corner, he saw the other two doors at the far end. 

It was easy to determine which apartment belonged to the sobbing girl, because it could only be the one door on the same side of the floor as him. Walking up to it slowly, he stood outside with his hand raised for a few seconds, listening hard. He could just barely hear her crying through the door, suggesting she was far enough in the apartment that people walking by wouldn’t hear.

Not that anyone would just happen to walk by a door at the end of the hall, that was just fucking weird. 

Hesitating for a moment longer, he finally bit the bullet and knocked loudly. 

The second he did, he realized how insane this was. What the fuck, he was a cop, and he was going to knock on some random girl’s door to ask if she was okay because he could hear her crying through the fucking floor?! That was creepy! That was so, so creepy!

But he wasn’t trying to be creepy! He honestly cared, he wanted to make sure she was okay. If she told him to fuck off, he’d go back downstairs and go back to sleep. But he just wanted to at least make sure she was okay. 

He heard footsteps approaching the door, and tried not to feel like a total creeper. 

“Who is it?” a girl’s voice asked. It was thick, and he heard her sniffing, clearly trying to get herself under control. He felt bad for interrupting what was probably a cathartic cry. 

That, or he’d saved her from her debilitating agony, it was hard to tell. 

“Hey, hi.” He cleared his throat, trying to keep his voice down so as not to bother the other people across the hall. “Sorry, I’m—not trying to be weird or creepy or anything. I just—I live in the apartment beneath you—well, one of them, and I could hear you crying. And I swear I’m not being weird or anything, I just—you sound like... I was just worried. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I promise I’m not like, a serial killer or anything.” Why would you say that?! Now she totally thinks you’re a serial killer! “I don’t know why I said that,” he blurted out. “Sorry, I’m—my name is Stiles? I’m a cop. I work with Parrish. Um, Jordan. You guys... all call him Jordan. But yeah, I just—I could hear you crying, and I was concerned, and I just wanted to come and make sure you were okay and—” 

He knew he was babbling, but he couldn’t get the words to stop. He really hadn’t thought this through, he just wanted to help, and now she was probably on the other side of the door calling the cops and they’d find out it was in this building and they’d call Stiles and Parrish, except Stiles was already there so Parrish was going to be the one rushing up the stairs with his gun out trying to find the weirdo harassing someone in their unit. 

When he inhaled to continue his tirade, apologize, and turn around to go back downstairs and forget any of this had ever happened, the lock snapped loudly and the door opened. He barely had time to raise his hands in defence when the girl threw herself at him and he braced himself for the attack, except... it wasn’t an attack.

She was hugging the unholy shit out of him and sobbing loudly into his neck, gripping the back of his shirt tight enough to choke him. 

“Oh, okay. Okay, hugging is fine. I can do hugging.” He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly and rubbing one hand up and down her back. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. I’m right here, you’re okay.” 

He held her while she continued to cry, wetting the collar of his shirt and hugging him maybe a bit too hard, but he didn’t say anything. He just kept murmuring random words at her while rubbing her back because that was all he could think of to do. 

She didn’t seem to be calming down, not really, but she at least wasn’t sobbing anymore. He could tell she was still crying, because his shirt wasn’t getting any dryer, but at least the heart-clenching sobs were over for the moment. 

Eventually, she shifted to pull back and Stiles released her. She took a step back, sniffing and wiping at her eyes with both hands. 

It occurred to Stiles that he recognized her. He’d seen her around a few times, she was almost always wearing workout gear and she was the one who’d been checking out his ass when he’d left the gym the first time he’d gone and met Derek there. He felt like he recalled Parrish saying the girl who lived above him—well, them—was a yoga instructor or something, which explained why she looked so toned and lean. 

“Sorry,” she muttered, sniffing and still wiping at her face. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—and I probably woke you up, too. These walls are the worst.” 

“Hey, don’t even worry about it,” he insisted. “I was more concerned about you. Are you okay?” He cursed internally and continued before she could answer. “Obviously you’re not okay, that’s a stupid question, but I’ve been known to have a brain on occasion, I promise.” 

She snorted once at that, but it sounded wet and forced, so he didn’t think she was actually amused at his self-deprecation. “I’m sorry,” she said again. 

“Don’t be sorry. It’s totally fine, I promise.” He tried for a comforting smile. “Did you want to talk about it? We can like, go for a drive or something. Stop and get some milkshakes from the diner. I can bring my badge and everything to prove I’m a cop, you can text all your friends my picture, whatever.”

She let out another small snort of a laugh, this one sounding a bit more genuine while she wiped at her nose and glanced back into her unit. “I can’t even remember the last time I had a milkshake.” 

“Now that’s just a crime in itself,” Stiles informed her. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I just thought—if you do need someone to talk to. Someone who doesn’t know you and you can be totally objective with, I’m your guy.” 

She said nothing for a few moments, and then nodded once slowly, like she was making up her mind before saying. “Yeah. Yes. That—actually, venting and crying some more would probably help.” 

“All righty.” Stiles clapped his hands once, then winced at how loud it was. Whoops. “I’m just gonna run down and grab a hoodie and my wallet. Did you want to meet in the garage? Or I can meet you out front with the car?”

“Sure, out front is fine. Thank you.” 

“Sounds good. Meet you out front in a few.” Stiles turned and hustled it back down the corridor, doing a half-jog without actually jogging since he didn’t want his booming footsteps to echo all the way down the hallway. 

He took the stairs down instead of the lift and hustled back to his apartment, unlocking the door and rushing inside after ensuring it didn’t slam behind him. He yanked on a hoodie while hunting around for his wallet, then shoved his phone into one of the pockets of his pyjama pants. Then he thought better of it and pulled his phone out, opening a text message with Parrish. 

[Stiles]
hey the girl upstairs was sobbing like gutwrenching sobbing so i’m taking her out for milkshakes 
[Stiles]
just you know telling someone in case she screams rape or i get shanked by a yoga instructor

He started to put his phone away, expecting Parrish to be asleep since he wasn’t working, but his phone chimed and he frowned, pulling it back out. 

He had a reply from Parrish and he opened his messages to read it. 

[Parrish]
That would explain why she texted me to confirm you’re a real person and actually a cop

Stiles let out a small laugh, sent back a laughing emoji, and then shoved his phone into his pocket before heading out the door. He took the stairs down to the lobby, since he didn’t know how long he’d taken to grab his hoodie and text Parrish, then disappeared through the connecting door into the garage. 

Once behind the wheel of his trusty Jeep, he exited the lot and drove around to the front of the building. The girl was waiting in the lobby, but came out once she saw him pull up and stop. She was still sniffling and red-eyed when she climbed into the car, her hair up in a messy bun and wearing a familiar-looking Henley. 

Like, green and everything.

Oh. 

So that meant this was Derek’s girlfriend. He supposed that explained the whole ‘you promised’ thing because he was meant to be back for something personal. Maybe it was this girl’s birthday? Seemed to be crying pretty damn hard for a missed birthday though, so he felt like that couldn’t be it. 

It was while he was pulling away that he realized... That meant the one thing he had going for him, the one thing he was happy about, wasn’t true anymore.

Derek had heard him singing ‘Let It Go’ in the shower. 

Fuck. 

“So where do you wanna go?” Stiles asked to get his mind off how embarrassing his entire life was. Fuck, what if Derek was the one slipping those notes under his door?! God, he wanted to die! “We can go to the diner and get some milkshakes there. They’re made with real ice cream and super good. But if you’d rather go to like, McDonalds or Wendy’s or something, we can drive out a bit to grab that, I don’t mind.” 

“Diner’s fine,” the girl—Cora, he thought he remembered her name was—said. “You’re nice enough to drive me out there, I don’t want to inconvenience you.” 

“Don’t worry about it. All good.” Stiles offered her a smile while turning onto the main road. “Seriously, I’m down for anything. McDonalds has amazing milkshakes and awesome fries so I’m not opposed to the drive if you have a hankering for Mickey D’s.” 

She was quiet for a moment. “Could go for some nuggets,” she finally said. 

“McDick’s it is,” Stiles proclaimed, thrusting one fist in the air and beginning the trek out of town. It wasn’t far from where they lived, maybe about twenty minutes or so. Plenty of time for Cora—provided that was her name—to vent and scream and cry. “So uh, just to confirm, you are...?” 

“Cora,” she said, giving herself a shake, like she’d only just realized she’d thrown herself at him, agreed to milkshakes, and never even given him her name. “Sorry. Cora Hale. And you’re Stiles Stilinski right?” 

Wait, Cora Hale? So... not a girlfriend? But Derek didn’t have a ring so...

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and now that he was looking, he saw the resemblance. They had the same nose, and dark hair. So she was his sister. Fuck, he was an idiot for assuming someone taken would be flirting!

Then again, he still thought he was looking into it too much about the whole flirting thing. 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He realized she’d asked him a question. “Stiles Stilinski. That’s me. How did you know?” 

“We went to middle school together.” She sniffed, wiping at her nose and getting more comfortable in the seat beside him. She looked like she wanted to put her feet up on the dash, but refrained. He motioned for her to go for it, wasn’t like it would hurt the Jeep any. She offered him a small smile and stuck her feet up on the dash. 

“Sorry,” he said, once she’d gotten comfortable. “I kind of blocked out a lot of middle school, to be honest. Bad stuff happened in that time.” 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Me too. That’s... kind of why I woke you up crying.” Her voice got tight and he knew she was about to start up again. He just waited patiently for her to continue speaking, and when she did, he felt like the dumbest person on the fucking planet. “It’s today. The anniversary of the fire. Derek was supposed to be back last night around seven, but his first flight out got delayed so he missed his connection. He’s trying to make it home in time, but...” 

That was why Derek’s last name sounded familiar! That was why Cora’s name sounded familiar the first time he’d heard it. Because she was Cora Hale. And because she and Derek were the only two survivors of the fucking Hale fire! 

He was literally so fucking stupid! Everyone knew the Hales! What had happened to them was a fucking tragedy, but they’d left town when Derek was fifteen and Cora was thirteen. She was in Stiles’ grade, but in the other class so they hadn’t really interacted much in middle school and by the time high school came around, she was gone. 

Everyone knew about the Hale fire, Stiles probably more than most because of his father. It had been big news for a town this small, and was literally one of the worst things to have happened to anyone in their town. 

Talia and Michael Hale were two well-respected and kind people in the community. They always showed up for the big events, like the chili cook-off and the yearly Fourth of July barbecue. She was some kind of journalist and he was a professor at the Sacramento arm of California State University. They had three kids, Laura, Derek and Cora, all two years apart from one another. 

One of Michael’s students—who was coincidentally related to Scott’s wife though they’d had a falling out long before Allison and Scott had gotten together—had an unhealthy obsession with her professor. Kate Argent kept putting the moves on Michael, to the point where he’d discussed it with the higher ups at the school. Apparently the last time she’d tried anything with him had been the beginning of a new school year, and he’d turned her down hard. He’d insisted he was happily married and had told her he was dropping her from his class and she was no longer welcome to take any of the courses he was teaching. 

That night, the Hale house went up in smoke, with three of the five Hales inside. Kate Argent was caught trying to leave town moments after it happened, and considering she didn’t live in Beacon Hills and her car smelled like gasoline, it wasn’t exactly hard to put two and two together. It had been a big case, his father had been beside himself trying to locate the last two Hales because they didn’t know about the fire yet. 

Derek had been out with some friends—way past curfew, something his parents wouldn’t have the opportunity to ground him for—and his sister had been sleeping over at her best friend’s place. They didn’t stay in town long after it happened, his dad managed to contact their uncle Peter in New York and he showed up on the first flight to California. 

The Hales were gone after that. Stiles honestly hadn’t really given them much thought over the years, because it was such a horrible thing to happen. He’d never really thought that either sibling would return, but he supposed it made sense in some ways. This was their home, it was where they grew up, and it was where their family was buried. It made sense they’d want to come back here, same as Stiles didn’t think he could ever leave. 

“I’m really sorry,” Stiles finally said, realizing his shock had kept him silent for much too long. “I’m sure Derek’s doing everything he can to be back here.” 

“Yeah,” she whispered, but he could see tears on her cheeks out of the corner of his eye. “We’ve never... Ever since that day, we always spend the anniversary together. We’ve never been apart for it, never.” 

“And you won’t be this time, either,” Stiles insisted, reaching out and touching her knee lightly. “If there’s one thing I know about Derek, it’s that he is going to be here come hell or high water. He is going to move heaven and earth to be on a flight that lands in time to spend the day with you. Guaranteed.” 

“Yeah,” she said, letting out a small, watery laugh before sniffing and wiping at her nose with the heel of her palm again. “Fuck, I’m a mess. You probably think I’m a total loser.” 

“No way,” Stiles insisted, glancing at her briefly before facing forward again. “Trust me, I know first-hand what it feels like for an anniversary like this to come up.” 

Cora said nothing for a moment, then, “Your mom.” 

“Yeah.” He offered her a small smile. “It never stops hurting, but it gets easier every year. I have the luxury of having an additional four years on you, so while it still hurts, I’m a bit more used to it now.” He sighed and raked one hand through his hair. “Still totally sucks though, so trust me, I get it. Crying totally helps, so feel free to sob away, I definitely do it in the shower on my mom’s birthday.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. 

“Hey, hey,” he insisted, turning to look at her before facing forward again. “None of that. It’s not about me today, it’s about you. But if you’re all cried out, then you don’t have to cry anymore. Why don’t you just talk to me. Tell me about them. Your family. You had a sister, right? Laura? What was she like?” 

“A bitch,” Cora said, then laughed loudly. It still sounded a bit wet, but she seemed a lot calmer than she had back in the building. “She never let me borrow her clothes. She was—honestly, she was the coolest person I knew. And she was so nice to people all the time. She was one of those popular girls, you know? The ones people envied? But she was never mean to people. She was like, a nice popular girl. Which sounds weird to say, but it’s true.” 

“But a total bitch for not letting you borrow her clothes,” Stiles reminded her. 

“Oh, totally!” 

Stiles was glad to have her laughing, and he prompted her to keep talking about her sister and her parents the whole ride to McDonalds. When they got there, they got some milkshakes, fries, chicken nuggets and an apple pie because they were on sale, and then Stiles went to park so they could eat and chat. 

Cora admitted that she didn’t often eat junk food because of work, but she really missed it sometimes. She was apparently the culprit with the smoothies and had gotten lots of complaints originally when they’d all moved in because she used to make them as early as six in the morning when she had classes first thing. She’d started making her morning smoothies at night on the days where she had to be at the studio for an early class, so people didn’t complain about it anymore. 

He did end up asking if she could hear him singing in the shower, and she very eagerly asked if that was him, which had him want to die. Apparently she and Derek didn’t know for sure which unit the singing was coming from and Cora was the one who’d been walking around like a weirdo on the fourth floor one day while Stiles was in the shower trying to figure out whose apartment it was. They knew all the owners—well, Derek knew all the owners, Cora just knew most of them—but they didn’t actually know who lived where. It made the entire thing more mysterious since she’d bumped into Parrish in the lift once and he’d sworn up and down he wasn’t the one singing ‘Let It Go’ even though Cora knew he lived in one of the units below the penthouse. 

“Oh God.” Stiles covered his face with both hands, getting salt all over his face since his right hand had been used to grab at the salted fries. “I need to move.”

“Don’t you dare,” Cora insisted, sucking at her straw to get some chocolatey goodness. “I am enjoying the singing, and so is Derek. We seem to finally have downstairs neighbours who are tolerable. The couple before you? Man, I’m surprised Parrish managed to get any sleep. They were always yelling at each other. No one was sad to see them go.” 

“Worked out for me,” Stiles said with a grin, grabbing at some more fries. “Parrish brought me over and showed me the awesome place, and then followed up with there not being any units available, so I was pretty bummed. I’m really glad one opened up.” 

“Me too,” Cora said with a small smile. She eyed him for a second, still smiling, then poked at his thigh with her socked foot, since she was sitting almost sideways in her seat. “He likes you, you know.” 

Stiles frowned, licking salt off his fingers before reaching for his own strawberry milkshake. “Who does?” 

“Santa Claus, who do you think?” Cora rolled her eyes. “My brother.”

Stiles cocked an eyebrow at her while sucking down some soft ice cream. He got a brain freeze almost right away, but powered through it and licked his lips to catch any stray strawberry goodness from them. “What do you mean? He can’t like me, he barely knows me.” 

“He remembers you from middle school too, you know. We don’t all have shit memories like you, apparently.” She poked his thigh again. “And you’re nice. You always go out of your way for him, and you don’t stare at him with drool dripping down your chin. You treat him like a person instead of a piece of meat, and you don’t seem mad or offended when work stuff comes up.”

“I mean... why would I be mad?” Stiles asked uncertainly. “He’s got a job, and it’s not like I have any say in when he can and can’t answer his phone.”

“Other people in the building do,” Cora insisted. “He said that once you guys were in the elevator together when his phone rang, and not only did you shoo him out to take the call, but you took our recycling down. Who does that?” 

“A decent person?” Stiles offered. 

“You. No one else has ever done that before. You think you’re the first person to be in the elevator with him during a call? The last time he got a call on his way to the garage and stepped out, the woman in there with him let out an annoyed huff at the fact that he was slowing down her ability to get to her car by stopping the elevator so he could get off to take his call. People are assholes, and selfish. No one considers that my brother gives one-hundred and ten percent to everything he does, they just look at him and think he’s pretty.” 

“He is pretty,” Stiles offered with a smirk. Cora threw a fry at him and he laughed, plucking it off his shirt and popping it into his mouth. “How do you even know I’m into guys? You could be totally outing your brother to a homophobe.” 

“Marin told me you guys were making eyes at each other during the two meetings you were in together.” She licked salt off her fingers, then grabbed a nugget and popped it into her mouth without any sauce. “And Parrish told me you were bi when I asked if you were single.”

“You asked if I was single?” Stiles asked, surprised. 

“Yup.” She licked her fingers again, seemed to contemplate between another nugget or fries, then decided to go for her milkshake. “First time I saw you, I called dibs on you. Derek asked if you were the guy who was in the gym when I showed up, since he and I crossed paths when he was leaving and I was headed that way, and when I said yes, he insisted you were the cop he’d met in the elevator when he looked like shit after working an all-nighter and had, effectively, already called dibs.” 

Stiles loved that siblings just spilled each other’s secrets like this, Derek was going to kill Cora when he found out she was laying all this out. 

“So you asked Parrish if I was single?” 

“Yeah, I wanted to know if we should even bother fighting about it. I figured if you were taken, then we could both look and not touch. If you were single and straight, I got default dibs. Same if you were single and gay, Derek would get default dibs. When Parrish said you were single and bi, I conceded because Derek did see you first. Fair’s fair.” 

Stiles’ brain was tripping to catch up with her and he turned more in his seat. “Wait, wait. Wait a second.” He rubbed at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Wait a second. So you’re telling me Derek called dibs on me when he saw me in my uniform?”

“No, he called dibs when your dumb ass walked into the elevator and then couldn’t form a complete sentence.” She grinned. “First time he saw you. He said he thought you were cute, and we always call dibs on the cute ones until we find out if they’re assholes. Lo and behold, my jerk of a brother happened to call dibs on a cutie who isn’t an asshole. That’s just unfair, he gets all the luck.” 

Stiles gaped at her. “Are you serious right now?” 

“As a heart attack.” She grinned, clearly pleased to have dropped that bombshell on him. “He was pissed work kept interfering with his coffee date. He promised to hurt me if I took you out before he got back. Joke’s on him, you asked me out.” 

When Stiles’ mouth opened and closed a few times, unsure of how to respond to that since he hadn’t asked her out on a date, just as a way to get her mind off things, she snorted a laugh while chewing on her milkshake straw and nudged him with her foot again. 

“I’m kidding. I know you did it without knowing he was my brother. You had a deer in headlights look when I said my name. But I am gonna tell him about this. Just proves even more that you’re a good person.” 

“I’m not—I mean, anyone else would’ve done the same.” 

“I must’ve missed all the people outside my door when I left,” she said dryly. 

“Parrish would’ve. Especially since he knows you.” 

She shook her head while she struggled to suck more ice cream through her destroyed straw, then seemed to give up and pulled the lid off. “He wouldn’t have heard me. My room is above Parrish’s place, I think. I was in Derek’s earlier. Just... wanted to be closer to him, I guess. Since he wasn’t here.” 

Stiles’ brain short-circuited. “Derek’s room is above mine?” 

“Mmhm. I mean, I guess so. If you could hear me in your bedroom, and I was in Derek’s, then I guess it’s right above yours.” She frowned. “Why?”

“Oh—nothing. Just... I guess it’s just weird to realize the dude I could hear snoring at night was Derek.” 

Cora’s face lit up and she jerked forward suddenly, her face inches from Stiles’. He almost decked her in reflex but managed not to by sheer force of will. 

“Oh my God, you can hear him snoring?! Hah! I knew it! All these years of me insisting he snores and him insisting that he doesn’t and finally I have proof!” She thrust both arms in the air, then cursed when she almost dumped some of her open milkshake on her head. “Suck it, Derek! I have indisputable proof now!” 

Stiles let out a laugh as she continued to fist-pump, happy that she seemed to be feeling better. He knew it was probably the sugar, but he’d also done everything he could to try and help keep her mind off things while they drove and ate. He knew first hand how hard the loss of a loved one could be, and he didn’t want her to be alone. He really hoped Derek made it back for her. 

His eyes strayed to the time and he made a face when he saw it was a little past four. Shit, he had to be up soon for work, and they still had to drive back. He didn’t want to cut the night short, but unfortunately, he was an adult with a mortgage and taxes, and he needed to go home so he could get dressed and go to work.

And drink lots and lots and lots of coffee... 

“Oh my God!” Cora seemed to notice where he was looking and jerked into a normal seated position. “I’m so sorry! Shit, I have the week booked off specifically because—shit. I’m sorry, you probably have work.” 

“It’s fine, but I do need to get back.”

“Of course, yeah, shit. I’m so sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing, I promise it’s fine.” Stiles offered her a small smile and shoved his milkshake into the cup holder so he could start the car and pull out of the parking spot.

He made Cora talk to him about her favourite memories with her family to ensure she didn’t get depressed again when they got back, and she was halfway through a really embarrassing story about Derek when her phone rang. She pulled it out of her hoodie pocket and sat up straight when she saw who it was, sliding her feet off the dash. Stiles assumed that meant it was Derek, and was proven right when she answered. 

“Are you coming? Can you make it?” 

There was buzzing on the other end, and the relief that washed through Cora was palpable. She slouched in her seat, closed her eyes, and buried her face in her free hand as she listened to him speak. 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sounds good. Can’t wait.” Another short buzz of sound. “Yeah. I’ll see you soon, Der. Okay. Have a safe flight. Bye.” 

She hung up and let out a slow breath before dropping her other hand. 

“Good news?” Stiles asked with a small smile. 

“He managed to get a flight, just got on the plane,” she confirmed. “He won’t be in until closer to noon, and he has two connections once he’s State-side again, but he’s gonna make it.” 

“Hey, that’s great!” Stiles said sincerely. He was so glad Derek was going to make it back in time. “And let’s be honest, you’re gonna go home and crash, so you’ll probably still be sleeping by the time he makes it in.” He turned to wink at her and she offered him a small smile. 

“Thanks Stiles. Seriously. This was really nice, and you made the beginning of a horrible day actually tolerable.”

“I’m just happy I could help,” he said with another smile at her. 

“I’ll owe you one. You know, when it’s your turn.” She said the words softly, but he knew what she meant. 

“I’ll never say no to milkshakes,” he insisted. “But we can’t bring my dad, he has to watch his diet.” 

Cora laughed. “Deal.” She was silent for a moment. “So, you gonna go for coffee with my brother?” 

Stiles turned to her, startled, then cursed and faced forward again, not wanting to get them in an accident. There was no one on the road right now, considering where they lived and the hour, but still. Better safe than sorry. 

“What, are you trying to set me up with him?” 

“I mean, kind of. He did call dibs, and he does want that coffee.” She nudged him lightly. “Don’t worry, he likes you for your personality, not just because you’re cute.” 

“And here I was worried he only wanted me for my super hot bod.”

“And your big dick.” 

He almost did swerve off the road at that. “What the fuck! How do you know that?!” 

Cora grinned and shrugged. “I still had friends in BH during high school, you know. Can’t believe how many pictures they got of you running through the halls naked. Amazed you didn’t get expelled.” 

“Oh my God.” Stiles wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. “The internet is the worst, those pictures are never gonna die.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Please tell me your brother hasn’t seen those.” 

“Not recently, but he did back in the day when it first happened.” 

“Can we maybe not reintroduce him to those photos?” Stiles demanded, turning to give her a pleading look. “I was young and innocent!” 

“You have not been innocent one day of your entire life, Stiles Stilinski.” 

“But still young! Please, have mercy!” 

“Don’t know why you’re worried, the pictures only make you more desirable.” She winked at him saucily. “Think about it, if you were that well-endowed all those years ago, what’s ten years done to you?” 

“I really don’t want to have this conversation,” Stiles whined. 

“I’m just saying, big dicks are a good thing. Derek likes big dicks, he loves giving head.” 

“That’s an image you didn’t need to give me, and you shouldn’t be thinking about your brother giving head, either.” 

“I walked in on him enough times that it’s basically burned into my brain. I’m desensitized.” She shrugged. “Just saying, you’ve got a lot going for you. And if you don’t want Derek, I’m your automatic second dibs.”

“I never said I didn’t want Derek,” Stiles insisted. 

“Perfect.” She grinned. “Then I guess coffee’s gonna be interesting.” 

“You’re a menace.” 

“Welcome to having siblings, Stilinski.” Cora cackled. “Oh, things are definitely gonna get interesting.” 

Work was exhausting for Stiles, because he’d really only gotten about three hours of sleep and he already hated the morning shift as a general rule, so there was a lot of suffering and sleep deprivation in his day. He ended up taking a nap on the famous coffeeroom couch instead of taking a lunch break, and man, he’d do it again. It felt so nice having that short period of slumber and he was just glad he managed to replenish his battery a little bit.

The end of his shift could not come soon enough, and as soon as he got home, he just stripped and crashed, though he did set an alarm so he wouldn’t over-sleep. He had the evening shift the following day, so he wanted to make sure he slept through the night, so he only allowed himself a short four-hour nap—four hours was short, right?—before his alarm went off and he groaned. Forcing himself out of bed, he made himself some food, and then entertained himself on YouTube for a few hours. 

He didn’t hear anything from upstairs the whole time he was home and awake, and he wondered if maybe Derek and Cora had gone out. He and his dad tended to spend the day together out of the house on his mother’s birthday, and on the day she passed away. Stiles didn’t like thinking about either of those days too much, so he could imagine Cora and Derek didn’t dwell on them until they were looming. 

He was glad Derek had managed to make it home. Cora’s sobbing had been painful to listen to, and Stiles was just thankful he’d ended up going upstairs to talk to her. She’d been so distressed at the thought of spending this horrible day alone, and he could truly understand where she was coming from. It was one of those things that was better spent with family. 

In his youth, there had been times where his dad had been forced to work during one of the two horrible days, and even though Jackson and Scott had always been there for him, it wasn’t the same thing as being with someone who truly understood. 

Jackson may have lost his parents, but he was a baby when it happened. While the pain of it likely wasn’t any less than Stiles’, he hadn’t known them the way Stiles had known his mother. Perhaps to some that would be considered worse, but in Stiles’ opinion, not knowing them just meant not knowing what he was missing out on. With Stiles and his mother, he’d had nine years with her. He knew everything he was missing, and it hurt on the first day of school every single year since her passing. 

As for Scott, he still had both his parents. Sure, his dad was a drunk deadbeat who’d gotten kicked out by his mother, but he was still alive. Scott could see him if he really wanted to, it was his choice whether or not he did. 

They couldn’t understand the loss Stiles felt, not the way his father did. They’d both felt the passing of Claudia Stilinski, and Stiles honestly knew no one could understand how much it had hurt him. How much it had hurt his dad. 

He supposed maybe that was why Cora had trusted him the night before. Because while their pain was different, it was also the same. Stiles would never know how hard it was to lose family like Cora had, but he had a good idea of how much it had hurt, and how badly she needed her brother during this time. He was sure Derek needed her just as much, even if he’d likely never told her so. 

The fact that he’d brought it up during the meeting with the Board made it clear that he didn’t want to be away from her any more than she wanted him to be gone. Stiles was glad he’d managed to make it back, and hoped Cora was still sleeping when Derek walked through the door. It would mean a lot more for her to wake up and find him already in the apartment waiting for her to wake up. 

It also explained why they lived together. They’d already lost a lot, they likely wanted to stay close to each other. Stiles couldn’t help but wonder what it was like when one of them brought someone home because the walls were thin. He wasn’t looking forward to when Lydia and Parrish got together and severely hoped they hung out at Lydia’s. 

Stiles didn’t need that kind of scarring. He’d never be able to look either of them in the eye again. Especially not Lydia. 

And he didn’t care what Parrish said, it was going to happen. He could deny it all he wanted, but they were made for each other. 

Stiles didn’t stay up too late that evening, just late enough that he was exhausted and would pass out quickly once he got into bed. He didn’t have the energy to sing in the shower, so he just washed up quickly, still hearing nothing from above him, and then went back to bed, snuggling comfortably into his blanket and closing his eyes. 

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he heard a loud bang that startled him awake, followed by cursing. It sounded like Derek had tripped over something, or maybe fallen out of bed—that was honestly a funny thought, Mr. Big Shot Derek Hale falling out of bed. He didn’t dwell on it and just grumbled, rolling over and closing his eyes to go back to sleep. 

His alarm went off at five, because he’d forgotten to turn it off, and he grumbled angrily after murdering his phone over it, threw the blankets over his head, and tried to go back to sleep. It took some doing, and he ended up getting up to use the bathroom, but he managed to pass out again until closer to eight. The building was beginning to show signs of life by then, and he figured he’d slept enough so he stumbled out of bed and went to the bathroom.

Brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face, he debated going to the gym before deciding he’d been neglecting his workouts lately and figured it might be a good idea. He was too tired to go hard, but maybe today would be the day he finally tried out the elliptical. 

Though maybe not, he hadn’t tried it yet, no point in being adventurous today! 

He decided that he could reward himself with Food for Thought after his workout, so changing out, he left his apartment with his keys and a bottle of water, and made his way across the floor to the stairs. He climbed down them slowly, still half-asleep, and headed for the gym once he got outside. 

Marin was on her way back from it and he nodded a greeting to her on his way by. She just smiled at him, seeming amused by his half-conscious state, but he ignored her and just punched in the code for the gate, then headed up to the gym. 

There were three other people there, which he supposed made sense since most people hit the gym before going to work, but it looked like they were all winding down and getting ready to call it quits. Made sense, most people started work at nine, which was fast approaching, so they would probably head home, shower and leave for their various jobs. 

One of them was Lenore, and he was kind of impressed she took the time to work out given her age, though felt that was probably a rude thing to think and immediately felt bad about it. No one was too old to care about their health! Something his dad should probably take to heart. Maybe Stiles could convince him to come work out with him once a week or something. 

Not like his dad had ever joined him on jogs around the block, but who knew! Maybe he’d be into spinning or something.  

Since two of the treadmills were taken, and Stiles felt awkward moving to use the middle one between the other people working out, he bit the bullet and just went to the elliptical. It had to be at least a little worthwhile considering everyone always talked about how awesome they were. He just didn’t like having his movements dictated, which the elliptical would force because of how it worked. 

Still, he’d been avoiding trying it for ages, today was the right day to go for it. 

He set his things down in the slots, shoving his AirPods into his ears and queuing up some music. He offered the woman beside him a smile, and she smiled back at him before focussing on her stats once more. Stiles looked back at the machine and figured out how to use it before starting his workout. 

As time passed, he could see the others in the room cleaning up their machines and heading out, but he ignored them and kept at it. The elliptical actually wasn’t that bad. He was pretty sure he still preferred the treadmill though, but he could probably use the elliptical every now and then for a change. It would be killer on his arms though, he didn’t focus on them very much when compared to his legs. 

He didn’t know how long he stayed in the gym, but long enough that his stomach was bitching and complaining and threatening to mutiny against his spine, so he figured it was time to head back for a shower and get some food. 

After wiping down the equipment and drinking most of his water, he made his way back to the building, wondering how Cora was doing and whether or not Derek had left. He was only supposed to be back for the ‘personal reason’ that had passed the day before, so did that mean he’d left already? Or was he sticking around for a few days? Stiles doubted his company would’ve paid to fly him all the way back for just one day, but he couldn’t pretend to know how big corporations worked. It was entirely likely they had paid for him to come back for just the one day, who knew? 

Stiles decided to be lazy and wait for the elevator, since taking the stairs after working out seemed mean to his poor body, so he waited the agonizingly long time it took for the dumb thing to show up and then finally headed back to his floor.

He made quick work of stripping and stepping into the shower, singing ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor just for a change of pace. He liked singing Disney songs, but after the workout, he was feeling a little ‘Eye of the Tiger.’ 

Still humming to himself while drying off, he went to hunt down some clothes and had just pulled on a pair of jeans when someone knocked at his door. Hastily yanking a random shirt off a hanger—Batman shirt, nice—he did up his jeans while hurrying through his bathroom. 

“Just a sec,” he called, standing on the other side of his door and zipping up, then pulled the shirt on. Once he was relatively presentable—well, dressed, at any rate—he pulled open the door. 

Shit, he should’ve chosen a different shirt. 

Derek offered him a small smile, let out a laugh, and shook his head. “Of course it was you.” 

“What?” he asked with a frown. 

“Cora,” Derek said, as if that explained everything. Which—he supposed it kind of did. “She relayed a story about what the very kind individual on the fourth floor did for her in the early hours of yesterday morning. Apparently his bedroom is right below mine, and he lied to her and said that I snore, which I do not. But that egregious lie aside, she told me I owed him for lifting her spirits during a difficult time and that I should take him out for coffee.” 

“You did promise me a coffee,” Stiles said with a grin. “Does this mean I now get two coffees?” 

“I suppose I can afford to pay for two coffees,” Derek said with a small smirk. “I enjoyed your take on ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ by the way.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Stiles insisted, feeling heat rising up the back of his neck. Derek just laughed, but he looked so good right then that Stiles couldn’t honestly be mad at him.

He knew yesterday couldn’t have been any easier for Derek than it had been for Cora, but he looked... almost at peace. Like he’d gotten through the hard day with his sister, and now felt ready to take on another year before the day rolled around again. 

“How did you not know it was me, anyway?” Stiles asked. “Cora said you guys don’t know who lives where, but I mean, you didn’t know what unit moved out? You knew I’d just moved in on the fourth floor, and you could suddenly hear some guy singing, it didn’t occur to you?” 

“It did,” Derek said, shrugging one shoulder. “But the previous tenants used to sing in the shower as well. Perhaps not as loudly or as well as you, but I thought they’d improved. I try not to assume who lives around me, I once made the mistake of speaking to another neighbour thinking they were the ones below our kitchen and it turns out they live on the second floor. That was an embarrassment I’d prefer not to repeat. But, I will admit, as soon as Cora mentioned the kind soul who’d heard her crying and had come up to check on her, I was fairly certain it was you. You seem to be the kind of person who cares a great deal for others.” 

“S’why I wear the badge,” Stiles insisted. 

“Not everyone with a badge is worthy of it.” 

“Fair enough,” Stiles conceded, and then winced when his stomach growled exceptionally loudly. 

Derek let out another laugh and nodded his head towards the end of the corridor. “Perhaps breakfast to go with that coffee?” 

“Awesome.” Stiles grinned. “One sec let me just—shoes and stuff.” He waved Derek in until the  man stepped over the threshold, then turned to hurry to his kitchen, snatching his phone and wallet off the counter before grabbing his keys. He wasn’t wearing any shoes yet, so he pushed open his bedroom door to grab socks from the walk-through closet, and then yanked them on one foot at a time, almost falling into his dresser. 

Derek probably thought he was a fucking idiot, but well, at least that meant the guy knew what he was getting into. 

Heading back out into the main living space, Derek hadn’t moved from the doorway, keeping the door open while standing just beyond the threshold, like he didn’t want to venture any further. Which was fine by Stiles, his place was kind of a mess. Besides, they were about to head out, no point in Derek coming in to get comfortable. 

Yanking his shoes on, Stiles grabbed the closest hoodie he could find in his hall closet and started to push his arms into the sleeves before he paused. 

“You’re not taking me anywhere super fancy, are you?” he asked him. 

Derek was dressed casually, wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a navy Henley and a leather jacket overtop, but that was still classier than a pair of faded jeans, a Batman T-shirt and a red hoodie. 

“Nothing fancy,” he promised. “You’re welcome to decide where we eat.” 

“Sweet.” Stiles grinned, following through with pushing his arms into the sleeves of his hoodie and zipping up the front. “There’s this amazing little hole-in-the-wall a ways up called Food for Thought, and I—”

“Anywhere but there,” Derek amended quickly.

Stiles frowned, a little startled. “You don’t like their food?” 

“No, the food is phenomenal. It’s more...” He trailed off, like he was trying to think of the best way to word his next sentence. “I would prefer the opportunity to speak to you without my best friend hovering like an annoying gnat either cooing at how adorable we are, or reminding me of how wrong I was about her establishment.” 

Staring at him for a moment, Stiles realized what he’d just said and burst out laughing. “Oh my God! You were the doubter! You were the one who said Erica wouldn’t do well in this area!” 

Derek sighed in defeat, his entire body sagging and one hand coming up to rub at his eyes. “She has legitimately told everyone about that. The one instance in my entire life where I made a poor business call and she lords it over me for all eternity.” 

Stiles just laughed while flipping his keys in his hand, moving closer to Derek so they could exit the apartment. “Well, you told me it was my choice, and my choice is waffles made by Boyd, so that’s where I wanna go.” 

“Is there anything I can offer to make you change your mind?” Derek asked with a sigh, not moving. “Anything at all?” 

“Nope.” Stiles grinned. 

“Thought not. I suppose you’ll regret the decision on your own, given she’ll be teasing you as much as she will me.” 

Derek backed up two steps so he was out of the apartment and Stiles followed, turning to lock the door behind himself, then walking alongside Derek towards the elevator. 

“So I guess your sister admitted everything she told me, huh?” Stiles asked. When Derek gave him a weird look, he elaborated. “About the dibs?” 

“Oh, no.” Derek suddenly looked a little embarrassed, but he schooled his features quickly. Fuck, he was adorable. “No, she didn’t. I just assumed she spilled all my secrets when you opened the door. My sister likes to meddles.”

“She seems pretty great though,” Stiles insisted, stopping beside the lift and hitting the ‘down’ button. “I’m sorry I don’t remember her from middle school, but we seem to share a lot of the same humour, so I’m kind of hoping yesterday wasn’t the first and last time I’ll ever speak to her.” 

“You managed to make her laugh on the worst day of her life,” Derek said quietly. “I’m fairly certain if I don’t stake my claim before my departure tomorrow, she’s going to insist ‘finders keepers.’ She’s a true adult, my sister.” 

Stiles burst out laughing at the almost defeated look on Derek’s face, but he could tell how much he cared about Cora. It was nice, seeing how much they both meant to each other. He’d had that yesterday morning with Cora, and now today with Derek. It was cool. Siblings seemed cool, even if they threw each other under the bus. 

When the elevator arrived, they both entered and went down to the garage while Derek continued to claim his sister was going to make him regret leaving the country if he didn’t ask Stiles out for coffee now, but in a way he was glad for it because he’d been procrastinating for a while due to nerves. 

It seemed surreal to imagine someone like Derek being nervous to ask someone out, but he supposed he could understand. It didn’t matter how attractive people said you were, everyone had their insecurities. And with Derek, he probably worried anyone he asked out was only in it for the looks or the money. Stiles was glad he seemed to trust him enough to know those weren’t factors at all.

Yes, Stiles found Derek attractive, but he’d dated many attractive people, and they were all assholes. Derek actually seemed like an amazing human being, and Stiles was looking forward to getting to know him. 

When they exited the alcove into the garage, Derek asked if Stiles would mind if they took the Camaro. Stiles was all for that, because as much as he liked his Jeep, it was older than he was. It would be just his luck if they climbed in and the traitor refused to start. No, much safer to take the Camaro. 

Stiles whistled appreciatively when he slid into the passenger seat, and could understand why Cora had hesitated putting her feet up in the Jeep. If she drove around with her brother, he’d probably murder her for putting her shoes on the dash. 

“Does Cora have a car?” he asked Derek as he backed out of his spot. 

“Mercedes,” Derek said, motioning the sleek grey car parked right beside where the Camaro had just been. “It was far more expensive than it had any right to be, and I told her she should have gotten a BMW, but she had her heart set on a Mercedes and she wouldn’t let me change her mind.” 

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Stiles insisted. He was honestly surprised she’d bought it herself, considering Derek’s words suggested she had. He supposed it made sense, because Cora didn’t seem like the type to mooch off the brother. They may live together, but she had a job too. It probably didn’t pay as much as Derek’s—and by probably, it definitely didn’t—but Derek seemed to enjoy his job and if Cora could live comfortably while also doing a job she seemed to enjoy, then why not? Derek didn’t seem to resent her living with him in the penthouse, so it worked out well for both of them. 

“Thank you,” Derek said when he’d exited the garage and made his way to the main road. 

“For what?” Stiles asked, confused. 

“For not asking whether or not I bought it for her.” 

Stiles arched an eyebrow. “Do people often make assumptions about that kind of thing?”

Derek shrugged his closest shoulder, looking uncomfortable. “My sister teaches yoga. It hardly pays the same amount of money as my own job. People often assume that everything Cora owns is due to her being my sister, but they fail to recognize that she’s worked hard to afford everything we have. I may have been the one to pay for the penthouse because I had the means, but Cora and I have an agreement wherein she pays me monthly mortgage payments without interest up until she’s paid off fifty percent of the overall cost of the unit. She isn’t freeloading, she just doesn’t have the same financial stability I do, so we have a compromise in place. She bought the Mercedes because she wanted an expensive car to avoid ‘making me look bad,’ but she paid for it with her own money. She isn’t a freeloader by any means, we just both understand that I have more funds readily available than she does, so we’ve found a compromise we’re both happy with.” 

“That’s really cool of you,” Stiles said honestly. “And of her. I like that you’re helping her out without making her feel like she has to rely on you for everything. She’s standing on her own two feet, you’re just helping her keep her balance until she can hold herself up on her own.” 

Derek smiled, glancing at him. “And this is why I’ve been attracted to you since the first time we spoke. You’re a very kind person, Stiles.” 

“And you’re very blunt,” Stiles informed him. “Also, do you always talk like that?” 

“Like what?” Derek arched an eyebrow, but didn’t look away from the road. 

“You know, all big words and complex sentence structures. It’s fine if you do, no judgement, but you can be yourself with me, you know. I won’t judge if you drop the F-bomb every other word.” 

Derek laughed at that while easing to a stop at a light, tapping his fingers lightly against the steering wheel. “I suppose it never occurred to me that I speak like this in private as well as professionally. Most likely just habit.” 

“Well, either way, just laying it out there that you can speak like a hick if you want, or you can speak all posh and fancy. Just don’t want you to feel like you need to put up a front with me.” 

“I don’t ever feel like I need to put up a front with you,” Derek said, and the expression on his face was so fucking soft, Stiles wanted to smoosh his cheeks together. 

Thankfully, they pulled into the small outlet that housed Food for Thought and Stiles managed to refrain, but only just. 

Derek parked his car close to the restaurant, then he and Stiles climbed out. Derek reached the door first and held it open for Stiles, who walked in and looked around. He’d been by a few times since moving in, and it was never busy, but there were always people there. This morning was no different, having four tables of two taken, leaving only a few spots left. 

Thankfully they hadn’t missed out, Stiles would’ve been sad. 

“Well, well, well,” Erica drawled with a grin, sauntering towards the door, eyes on Derek. “Look what the cat dragged in. Mr. Doubtful. Surprised you didn’t spontaneously combust walking in here, shouldn’t a businessman of your esteem literally collapse under the sheer weight of your error?” 

“Erica,” Derek said easily. “Looking stunning, as always. Nice to see you too.” 

“Oh stop showing off, we both know you’re dying to call me a bitch and demand a table.” She winked at him, then looked at Stiles, and the grin seemed to grow even wider, as if she hadn’t noticed who was standing beside Derek at first. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the hot new guy you want to bend over every surface of your—”

“Erica,” Derek said curtly, using that tone Stiles loved so much. Seriously, if he asked Stiles to bend over a table right now in that voice, he might actually do it. 

“Fine, fine. Not like Cora hasn’t spilled the beans to him already anyway.” She winked at Derek, then looked back at Stiles. “You bring handcuffs home, right? You have bedposts those can be attached to?” 

“Erica,” Derek said again, sounding more exasperated than authoritative this time. 

“Doesn’t matter, Derek’s does. Sit wherever.” She motioned the remaining seats, and practically skipped back to the kitchen, no doubt to relay the news to Boyd. 

“Sorry,” Derek muttered, bringing one hand up to Stiles’ back, as if about to lead him to a table, before letting it drop. “Erica’s a little...” 

“Mouthy?” Stiles offered with a grin over his shoulder. 

“I was going to say annoying, but mouthy works.” Derek followed Stiles the few steps to one of the free tables and took the seat across from him after shrugging out of his jacket to hang it along the back of his chair. He didn’t pick up the menu, likely already knowing what he wanted, but Stiles checked it out anyway because he wasn’t sure what he was feeling today. He kind of wanted a hot chocolate, honestly. 

When a shadow fell over them, Stiles glanced up to find Vernon Boyd standing beside them. He looked amused, eying Stiles for a few seconds before focussing on Derek, who was resolutely keeping his gaze locked on Stiles. 

“You become a masochist overnight?” 

“Stiles wanted to eat here, for some unfathomable reason.” 

“Don’t slam my cooking because your best friend is vindictive.” 

“Just don’t let her spit in my coffee.”

“I promise nothing.” Boyd smirked, cast another quick glance at Stiles, offered him a nod in greeting, and then disappeared back towards the kitchen. 

“I mean, I’d say I’m sorry, but it would be insincere,” Stiles said with a laugh. Derek just sighed, arms crossed and muscles bulging in the sleeves of the Henley he wore. 

“So, what’ll it be today?” Erica asked, appearing beside them with her little notepad. “Coffee with a dash of saliva for the non-believer—”

“Don’t spit in my coffee,” Derek insisted with a sigh, but she continued right over him. 

“—and the best drink I can make for his adorable date.” 

Stiles let out a small laugh, shaking his head. “Actually, I was thinking of trying the hot chocolate. It’s getting cooler out, and who doesn’t like hot chocolate?” 

“A good choice,” she agreed, writing it down, even though Stiles was sure she could remember it. Probably just for show. “Do you want white chocolate, milk chocolate or dark chocolate?” 

“What?” Stiles asked, confused. 

“They make their hot chocolate with real chocolate,” Derek explained. “It’s surprisingly good, considering Erica makes it.” 

“Make that two dashes of saliva in the gentleman’s coffee,” Erica said with a look at Derek. He just stared right back at her, as if daring her to spit in his coffee. Stiles had to wonder if she’d actually done it before... 

“Oh, um... I guess milk chocolate? I’ll try all three eventually, but how about milk chocolate for my first time?” 

“Sounds good. Whipped cream?” 

“Hell yeah.” Stiles grinned. 

“And do you know what you want so Boyd can get started?” 

“Omelet,” Derek said. “The usual, please.” 

“I figured,” she said without looking at him. She really played up this insulted best friend thing, but Stiles could tell they probably chatted about as often as he and Jackson did. She was just playing right now, Stiles found it kind of funny. “And you?” 

“Honestly, I kind of want the waffles again. Ice cream and all. I’ll pay extra.” 

“Derek can pay extra,” Erica said, jotting his order down. “He can afford it, and you’re worth it.” 

“Go away,” Derek said to her, but there was a teasing lilt in his tone that made it clear he just wanted her to stop making fun of him in front of Stiles. “I won’t tip you if you hover.” 

“You’ll tip me regardless, you love me.” She winked at him, blew him a kiss, then turned to head for the counter so she could put their orders in and get started on their drinks. 

“Please tell me if she spits in my coffee,” Derek said. 

“Has she spat in it before?” 

“No, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t looking for the perfect opportunity,” Derek said with a sigh. 

Stiles laughed, shuffling the menus a bit and setting them aside on the edge of the table. “You guys seem close.” 

“We grew up together,” Derek explained. “She’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember. When I moved to New York, leaving her behind was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. Thankfully we kept in touch via phone and instant messaging, but having her across the country was a challenge. I was just glad that when I moved back here, it was like I never left. She means a great deal to me, I’m glad her restaurant is doing well, despite what she suggests.” 

“She’s just joking, even I can tell,” Stiles insisted. “I’m glad you have her, though. She seems great.” 

“She is great,” he agreed. Erica didn’t hear him because she was using the milk frother, but Stiles hoped she knew how much Derek cared about her. He seemed to care about a lot of people in his life one-hundred percent. Stiles supposed he could understand. For someone who’d lost so many people so suddenly, it made sense he’d want to hold on to those that mattered even more fiercely. 

Erica returned moments later with a black coffee for Derek, and a hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate shavings for Stiles. He could feel his body sobbing at all the sugar he was about to ingest, both in the form of his drink and his breakfast, but it would forgive him eventually, he was sure. 

Sipping at his drink, he immediately burned his tongue, but it was worth it. 

“Damn,” he said, licking whipped cream off his lips. “This is good, holy shit.” 

“Using real chocolate makes all the difference,” Derek said with a small, endearing smile. “I’ve always liked Erica’s hot chocolate, even when we were growing up. She’s really done well for herself.” 

“I’m pretty sure I’m single-handedly keeping them in business. I can’t even count how many times I’ve been here since I moved into the building.” Stiles laughed. “But they deserve it, they’re really good.” 

“They are,” Derek agreed. “Don’t tell Erica, but I actually order take-out from here a lot. Grubhub picks it up for me, so she doesn’t know.” 

“Oh, she knows!” Erica called from across the restaurant. Derek turned to give her an annoyed look, but she just cackled and went to one of the other tables with a card machine to check them out.

“Why don’t we talk about your love for this place outside this place?” Stiles offered with a laugh, taking another sip of his drink and burning himself again. He couldn’t help it, it was good! 

“Agreed,” Derek said. 

“Cool. So!” Stiles clapped his hands once. “We’ve chatted a bit over the past few weeks, but I don’t actually know that much about you. You work for a hotel chain, right? Like, a big one? What’s it called?” 

Derek paused in raising his coffee to his lips, giving Stiles a weird look before putting it back down on the table. “Are you asking which one?” 

“Yeah, like, do you have any in the US? Is it like, the Hilton or something? Though I don’t know if they’re in Hong Kong, but to be fair, I don’t know much about hotels. I was just curious what chain you worked for.” 

Derek was still staring at him strangely. “You didn’t Google me?”

Stiles shook his head, taking a bite out of the mountain of whipped cream on his drink before saying, “No, that seemed kind of creepy and stalkerish. You had mentioned coffee a while back, so I figured you’d just tell me when we grabbed a drink, and even though you left, it seemed kind of uncool to just Google your name to find out where you—why are you looking at me like that? Do I have whipped cream on my face?” 

“No,” Derek said, smiling so brightly it made his entire face light up. “I’m just—surprised. Most people who know what industry I’m in Google my name and find out fairly quickly where I work and what my title is. I suppose I was expecting you to have done the same. Even Jordan admitted to having done so when he found out how high up in the company I was.” 

Stiles shrugged. “I mean, it’s a topic of discussion, you now? Why would I rob us of that entire conversation?”

“You are a very interesting person,” Derek informed him. “I’m very glad I ran into you at the gym that day. If we hadn’t had the ability to converse, I may have missed out on this opportunity.” 

“Yeah, I’m glad I apologized for something you didn’t hear,” Stiles admitted with a half-laugh. “And since I did not Google you, I promise we don’t have to talk about your work if you don’t want to, but I am dying to know what hotel chain you work for. So...?” Stiles prompted. 

Derek laughed, and fuck was it sexy. He didn’t seem opposed to talking about his work, at least on the surface. He was fine telling Stiles what hotel chain it was, what his job consisted of, how he felt about it, things like that. But he didn’t want to talk excessively about work, and Stiles could understand. 

He was intrigued though, because Derek’s job actually sounded really interesting. He didn’t know what he was originally expecting, but while he definitely did a lot of paperwork and general running of the company, he was also in charge of ensuring that all the hotels were up to snuff. He travelled around a lot and would often show up unannounced at various hotels to see how they were operating. He’d always have a room booked, of course, but never under his name because it would alert the staff that someone important was coming. 

Sometimes he was allowed to bring guests, and he’d taken Cora to a few of them before, as well as Erica and Boyd. Apparently he’d actually gotten them free accommodations at their location in Morocco for a week as a wedding gift. While it was long hours and clearly a lot of hard work, it sounded like his boss made it worthwhile. The perks seemed worth it, and Derek knew the CEO’s greatest fear was someone poaching him because his business model was sought after by a lot of different places.

But, Derek was happy, and he was loyal. As long as his company continued to treat him right, being number two in a huge organization like this with all the bonuses he got made it easy for him to want to stick around. 

“That is actually amazing,” Stiles insisted in awe. “That sounds so fun! I mean, hard as fuck, don’t get me wrong, but it definitely sounds like you enjoy your job.”

“It’s quite nice,” Derek agreed with a laugh, leaning forward on the table with his arms crossed. Stiles hadn’t noticed at first that they’d started leaning more into each other as they spoke, it all felt very intimate, if he was honest. “The constant travel can be a bit tiresome sometimes, but it’s never usually for very long. It’s a lot of back and forth between home and another country, so while overall I travel a lot, I always have a break back here in between.” 

“Must be nice for Cora,” Stiles said with a nod. “Having you around every now and then.” 

“She insists she’d prefer I stay gone longer so she can throw house parties, but she has yet to follow through on that,” Derek said with another small laugh. “Does make it difficult to maintain a relationship though. People don’t usually like it when I’m there one second and out the door the next.” 

Stiles honestly felt like that was Derek testing the waters. Like he was putting that out there to see what he would say, considering where this entire conversation was clearly going. 

Well, he had no problems responding to that comment. “Fuck ‘em.” 

Derek looked startled, but Stiles shrugged and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. 

“You worked your ass off to get where you are, you like your job, and it keeps you and your sister financially stable after a rocky upbringing. Anyone who can’t accept that your career is important to you is an asshole. As long as you’re not telling your partner to give up their career for yours, then no one has any right to bitch you out for spending time on your job.” He figured he should explain, because Derek looked crossed between suspicious and confused. “We get that shit all the time in law enforcement. Firefighters, doctors, nurses. You can ask Dr. Geyer, he can give you a whole rundown on his divorce with his first wife. His second wife is in the same field as him, and I’m assuming you know her since you seem to know everyone in the building, but I’ll bet you had no idea he was divorced.” 

“I was not aware,” Derek confirmed slowly, like he was trying to piece Stiles’ words together into a picture that made sense. 

“His first wife used to bitch him out for the late hours, insisted he was having an affair when you could see he was dead on his feet. He works with my best friend’s mom, so while I don’t know the guy, per se, I know enough about him. Man works hard, but the hours suck, and his wife was a bitch about it. Loving your job doesn’t mean you don’t love your partner. You can love both, one of them is just more demanding sometimes. And especially for someone like you, in a higher position, you would’ve had to work your way up there, so it’s not like you’re gonna slack because you’ve hit the top. Trust me, I know what it’s like for people to get annoyed about work. My hours are messed up, half the time I don’t even know what day it is, and my sleep schedule is basically non-existent. But my job is important to me, and if someone can’t accept all of me, job obsession and all, then that’s their problem.” 

“Who are you?” Derek asked, a smile teasing the corners of his lips. “There has to be a catch.” 

Stiles thought for a moment, then said, “I sing in the shower.” 

That just had Derek laugh, because Stiles already knew that wasn’t considered a flaw. Stiles had many flaws, and he knew Derek would become well acquainted with all of them, but for now he was fine pretending to be perfect. He was well aware Derek knew that he wasn’t, so he wasn’t worried about setting unrealistic expectations. 

“You two lovebirds ready for some food?” Erica asked, appearing beside them with two plates. 

Derek immediately leaned back to give her space to set their food down. She put his omelet down first, and it looked amazing. Stiles had made many an omelet in his day, but this one actually looked fluffy and delicious. He couldn’t tell what Derek had in it barring red peppers and what he thought might be bacon, but either way, it looked delicious. 

“Thank you,” he said to her sincerely. 

“No problem. And for you,” she said, setting the second plate down in front of Stiles. “Have a nice sugar rush.” 

“Oh I plan to, thank you!” Stiles grinned at her and got to work on his waffles while Derek cut into his omelet. 

It was harder to talk while they ate, since Stiles didn’t want to just talk with his mouth full the way he would with Scott or Jackson—he had manners, even if they escaped him around his friends—but they still managed to continue their conversation between bites, for the most part. 

They kept far away from family for obvious reasons, though Derek did bring up the sheriff once or twice. Stiles was never tired of talking about his dad, because the guy was amazing, and he deserved all the recognition in the world. 

Once they were finished with their meal, they lingered for a while longer since there was no lineup, but eventually asked for the bill when it was clear the early lunch rush was going to start. Stiles tried to snatch the bill from Erica, but she just laughed at him and insisted she wouldn’t have let him pay. He still felt bad about it since he’d basically been the one to make Derek come out to breakfast, but the other man didn’t seem to mind, handing over his card for Erica to punch into the machine before she passed the entire thing back to him. 

“I could’ve paid,” Stiles insisted. 

“I wanted to take you out, it would have been ridiculous to expect you to pay,” Derek insisted. When the card beeped, he pulled it free and handed the reader back to Erica, motioning that he didn’t want a receipt. 

“See you for dinner tomorrow?” Erica asked him. 

Derek nodded once while replacing his card and tucking his wallet away. “Cora’s making her carrot cake, so you can let Boyd know he doesn’t have to worry about dessert.” 

“Nice. See you then.” She bent down to kiss his forehead, leaving behind a smear of lipstick that she immediately wiped off for him with a fond smile. 

She waved at Stiles, who offered a wave in return before she headed back to the counter. 

“Shall we?” Derek asked, getting to his feet and pulling on his jacket. Stiles wished they didn’t have to go, but he supposed it had been long enough so he obediently got to his feet and followed Derek out of the restaurant. 

“Thanks for breakfast,” he said while they walked back to the car. “You didn’t have to pay.” 

“I wanted to,” Derek said again, unlocking his car with the push of a button and opening his door. Stiles slid in beside him, but before the other man started the car, he pulled out his phone and gave Stiles an apologetic wince. “It’s been going off for the past five minutes.” 

“Hey man, no problem. Go for it.” Stiles motioned for him to do what he needed to do and pulled his own phone out, checking his messages and then logging onto Reddit. What he’d said to Derek was true, after all. As someone who loved his job, and would always give it his all, Stiles knew what it was like to want to put work above everything else. He had enough common sense to know that having a meaningful relationship was worth it too, but not at the expense of a job he was happy with. There had to be a compromise. 

He and Derek both seemed to recognize that, so really, this was probably the best possible outcome for both of them. Derek worked hours just as crazy as Stiles did, which meant neither of them would resent the other for working. While Stiles wanted to make sure they had the chance to spend time together, Derek had already made it obvious he did make time for those important to him, he just also had to make sure he balanced work properly. 

When Derek shoved his phone back into his pocket five minutes later, Stiles looked over at him. “Everything okay?” 

“Nothing that requires my immediate attention.” Derek started to turn the key, then paused and glanced at Stiles. “Are you free this afternoon?” 

“Mostly, I’m working the evening shift so I need to be at work by six.” He frowned. “Why?” 

“I thought perhaps we could continue our conversation, if you’re available. We could go to a coffeehouse or to the diner in town and just chat.” 

Stiles beamed at him. “Yeah, that would be awesome! Though fair warning,” he pointed his finger at Derek, “I’m paying for the coffee.” 

“No you’re not,” Derek said, starting the car. “I still owe you two coffees.” 

The argument Stiles had been about to spout died in his throat and he frowned, wondering why Derek had said two coffees. He’d just paid for one of them, and then some. “What do you mean? You just paid for a drink.” 

“I paid for a hot chocolate,” Derek corrected, glancing at him before pulling out of the lot and back onto the main road. “We agreed to a coffee outing. I haven’t fulfilled my end of the arrangement.” 

This guy was too fucking adorable. Stiles could even see his neck beginning to flush, like he realized how ridiculous what he’d just said sounded, but he didn’t care. 

“That right?” Stiles smirked. “So what happens if I just keep ordering something other than coffee every time we go out?” 

“Well, then I suppose we’ll be going on a lot of outings until I’ve had the opportunity to pay for your two coffees.” Derek glanced at him briefly once more, smiling slightly. 

Stiles grinned. “I think I can live with that.” 

“Good, because I’m not ready to lose you to my sister. As she would say, ‘finders keepers.’” 

The fact that he could imagine Cora literally saying that and meaning it had Stiles burst out laughing, because it was such a sibling rivalry thing to say, and he loved it. And he really, really liked that Derek was into him as much as Stiles himself was attracted to the other man. 

They bantered easily on their way to town, Stiles not really caring if they went to the diner or the Starbucks, when a thought occurred to him. 

“Hey, so not to be presumptuous, but like, I’m picking up what you’re putting down so might as well lay all our cards on the table.” 

“That being my interest in you?” Derek clarified. 

“Yeah, that.” Stiles grinned. His face was starting to hurt, but he couldn’t stop! “I like you, you like me, it’s all very pre-school, I love it. But realistically, I was just curious about how this would work.” 

“Work?” Derek arched an eyebrow. 

“Right, you’re not a mind-reader.” Stiles winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just thinking about the building. Like, you wouldn’t have to step down as President or anything, right? If you and I started getting, you know, closer?” 

Derek seemed to find that term amusing. “I wouldn’t have to step down if we were to start dating, no. It would be no different from Cora being my sister, or Henry’s wife, or even as temporary as his appointment is, Jordan’s girlfriend. Just because you’re another tenant in the building wouldn’t impact my position on the Board, and if it was deemed a conflict of interest, we would discuss it at the next Annual General Meeting. It hasn’t been a concern thus far for anyone else on the Board with a significant other, or my sister, so I don’t see why it would be in this scenario.” 

“Cool, just checking. Didn’t want you to lose out on something you seem to like doing.” 

“I appreciate it,” Derek said, offering him another smile. 

Stiles looked out the windshield, inhaling deeply and pleased with this fun development, when his brain clicked on something and he instantly turned back to Derek. “I’m sorry, whose girlfriend?” 

“Hm?” Derek asked, not looking at him since he was easing to a stop at a red light. 

“Did you say—I’m sorry, but you said even Parrish having a girlfriend didn’t impact his position on the Board, despite it being temporary?” 

“That’s right.” 

Stiles stared at him, Derek turning to arch an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m sorry, are you telling me that Parrish told you he has a girlfriend?” 

“He emailed me the day of his appointment to confirm it wouldn’t be a problem. He didn’t think it would be as she doesn’t reside in the building, but he wanted to be sure.” 

Stiles kept staring at him, Derek giving him a weird look and moving forward when the light changed. Half a block later, realization seemed to dawn on his face. 

“Ah,” he said simply. “Now that I see your expression, it does occur to me that Jordan had asked I not mention anything to you.” 

“Who is it?!” Stiles demanded, resisting the urge to grab Derek and shake him, and only because he was driving. “Is it Lydia? It’s totally Lydia. That lying motherfucker, how long have they been dating?” 

“I’m not at liberty to say.” 

“Oh my God, that means for a while! I’m gonna kill him!” Stiles had spent so long trying to plan their eventual getting together if Parrish never got off his ass to ask her, and now he found out they’d been dating all along?! Oh, Parrish was dead. He was so, so dead! 

He just didn’t want to prove Stiles right! Stiles had excellent instincts for people getting together! Not for himself, but for others. Parrish hadn’t wanted him to know he was right! Oh man, he was going to make them both pay for this. 

Jackson was going to be especially mad when he found out, he’d been listening to Lydia whine about Parrish not asking her out for months. 

Not that Lydia whined, but Jackson insisted her voice was high pitched enough that any word out of her mouth was considered a whine. He didn’t say that to her face though, he valued his balls, like any smart, reasonable man who knew Lydia would. 

“I feel as though Jordan is never going to tell me anything ever again,” Derek said with a somewhat awkward laugh. 

“Don’t worry, he won’t care. He just didn’t want me to know because I’m always right about people and their relationships and he hates it when I’m right.” 

“Is that so?” Derek pulled into the back lot of the diner and parked in one of the available spots. Once he’d pulled the key out of the ignition, he turned to Stiles. “So tell me then, Officer Stilinski. What do your instincts tell you about my next relationship?” 

“Oh, great things,” Stiles said, nodding emphatically. “Just—the best of things. Lots of understanding, and coffee, and laughs, and just a general all-around good time.” 

Derek smirked. It was the hottest thing Stiles had ever seen. “Noted. Shall we?”

“Yes!” Stiles hastily exited the Camaro, shutting the door and hurrying around it to move alongside Derek to the door.

They were seated almost immediately, because the waitresses all knew Stiles given the precinct was only about two blocks away and a growing man needed his curly fries. 

Derek was still making jokes about Stiles’ impressive relationship reader skills when a thought occurred to him. 

“So... our building. The walls are thin.” 

He got an arched eyebrow in response, Derek sipping at his coffee. Stiles had ordered a milkshake because one, he could never have too much sugar, and two, he was going to milk this whole ‘I need to take you out for coffee’ thing for all it was worth. 

He was still paying for this round, though. 

“Yes,” Derek finally said when Stiles was silent for too long. “As you’re aware, the walls in our apartment are, regrettably, very thin.” 

“So that means that like... noise carries, right?” 

“It does,” Derek confirmed, looking like he had no idea where Stiles was going with this. 

“And I live next door to a guy who’s basically my older brother. And you live in an apartment with your sister.” 

For a second, it looked like Derek wasn’t following, his mouth opening to ask what Stiles was talking about before he paused, tilted his head slightly, shifted his gaze to the side in thought, and said, “Huh.” 

“Yeah.” Stiles bit at his straw while he thought. “That’s gonna get awkward.”

“Are you implying you’re loud?” Derek asked with a smirk. 

“I’ve been known to get overly enthusiastic and praise the Lord repeatedly.” He smirked. “And I feel like you’d be the kind of guy to snore pretty hard after a good, solid workout.” 

“I don’t snore,” Derek insisted. 

“Snore a little bit.” 

“I don’t snore,” he repeated. 

Stiles decided to just let him live in denial and moved the conversation back towards the awkwardness of the situation, and how the other occupants of the building handled their sexy times. Something they were going to have to think about, he supposed, because Cora and Parrish were definitely going to get scarred. 

When they finally left the diner four hours later—having been interrupted numerous times by Derek’s phone, which was fine, Stiles had Reddit—they headed back for their apartment building and Derek parked the car in its usual spot beside Cora’s Mercedes. 

While walking back to the elevator, tentative fingers brushed against Stiles’ and he smiled to himself before closing his hand around Derek’s. It felt so lame on so many levels, but at the same time, they’d both been burned by attractive assholes, from the sounds of it. Realizing they found each other attractive and that neither of them were assholes was kind of a relief. 

“When are you heading back out?” Stiles asked while they waited for the lift. 

“I have the red eye tomorrow, so I’m going to an early dinner at Erica and Boyd’s with Cora. Then I’m on a flight back to Hong Kong.” 

“And you’re there for a month?”

“Thereabouts,” Derek confirmed. He hesitated, then said, “I have email access.” 

“I would hope so,” Stiles insisted with a laugh. “Work would be hard without it.” When Derek gave him an annoyed look, he just smirked like an asshole and held his hand out for Derek’s phone. 

He passed over his personal one after unlocking it, and Stiles found his contact before adding in his email address and handing it back.

“Don’t let my sister steal you before I get back,” Derek said, the elevator doors opening. Two people walked out, both of them greeting Derek enthusiastically. He just smiled and nodded to them politely, asking about their evening while taking Stiles’ hand once more, as if to make it clear he wasn’t in the position to chit chat. 

When the couple bid them goodbye fairly quickly, Derek led the way into the elevator and hit the fourth and fifth floor buttons. 

“I’m allowed to be her friend, right?” 

“What?” Derek asked, turning to him, confused. 

“Your sister. If she calls me up in the middle of the night for burgers or something, that’s allowed, right?” 

“If she calls you in the middle of the night for a burger, call me, because it will mean she’s lost her mind. My sister is very conscious of what she puts in her body, she doesn’t often eat junk food.” 

“Fair.” Stiles grinned. 

When the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, he turned to Derek. “Thanks for today. It was really fun, getting to know you, chatting easily like that. I had a good time.” 

“Thank you for coming. And for what you did for Cora.” 

“Any time. If I don’t see you before you go, have a safe flight.” 

“Thank you.” 

Stiles started to exit the lift, but Derek didn’t let go of his hand and pulled him back. He reached out with his free one to hold the door, then leaned down slowly, as if to be sure of his welcome, and pressed his lips to Stiles’. 

It was a chaste kiss, barely even a press of lips, but it was still one of the best first kisses Stiles had ever had. It was clear Derek just wanted to have this one little moment before his trip, like a reminder to himself that maybe he had something worthwhile to come back to. 

Like he’d come back and have his work and his sister, but maybe he’d also have something more waiting for him when he stepped off the plane. 

Pulling apart, Stiles felt like he was smiling like an idiot, but Derek looked just as happy. It was nice, seeing him smile. Seeing him eager to see where things were headed for them. 

“Have a good night, Stiles.” 

“Thanks. You too.” Stiles leaned forward to kiss him again lightly, just because he could, then turned to exit the elevator, Derek releasing the door. 

“Oh, and Stiles?” Derek called as the doors began to close. 

“What’s up?” he asked, turning and leaning sideways slightly to keep Derek in sight through the closing doors. 

“My favourite Disney movie is Oliver & Company,” he said loudly right before the doors closed. 

Stiles stared at the elevator for a good long while before sighing in defeat. 

Well, if he was going to date the guy, he was going to be hearing him sing whether Stiles wanted him to or not. 

“Why should I worry?” Stiles sang quietly to himself while walking down the corridor, flipping his keys in his hand. “Why should I ca-a-a-are. I may not have a dime, oh! But I got street savoir faire.”

Derek was a fucking enabler. 

Stiles was pretty sure he was in love with him. 

Thank goodness for thin walls, even if it meant having loud, raunchy sex was going to get super awkward later. 

Worth it. 

Worth it! 

“Thank you, Disney.” Stiles pushed open his apartment door, and shut it firmly behind himself.

END.