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Stiles wasn’t aware that kissing booths were actually a real thing. He had put them down as high school mythos perpetuated by the 80s/90s teen movie genre, and as such went in his mental bank of fetishized teenage lies, like the female slumber party and truth or dare actually being entertaining.
Problem was, his teammates hadn’t quite gotten the memo. Now, Stiles was aware of all the no good, horrible fundraising ideas that kids his age came up with, from magazine subscriptions to car washes to those terrible Valentine’s Day matchmaking bubble sheets. There was a disturbing trend towards exploitation and embarrassment there. Stiles loved his team. He loved his teammates. He hated fundraising season.
Like, seriously, who thought it was a good idea to ask people to pay to kiss Stiles? Stiles couldn’t even get people to kiss him for free. It didn’t help that he had the end-shift, he was sure that enough people would have filtered out of the school by the time he sat down that there would only be a few stragglers hovering around the booth, probably trying to work up the courage to kiss Danny or to see if whoever was next on shift was a better bet.
Ha! Joke was on them, because Stiles was next on shift.
So Stiles was decently confident he wouldn’t have to kiss too many people. He assumed that was why he was given the end slot.
Stiles wasn’t complaining.
(only, he had tried…
“It’ll be good practice,” Scott winked.
“You’ll be making a lot of people happy,” Allison assured him.
“You’re the one who complains you’ve never been kissed. Now you can add this to your dossier.”
“Dossier,” Allison echoed Scott, impressed.
Then they made out and it was gross and Stiles would have promised anything to make it stop.
Ironic.)
Only, as he approached it was obvious that enough people had gotten into line to mack on Danny but hadn’t gotten through the line yet and would either have to bail or kiss him.
He was probably going to get so many diseases from this.
Herpes. Mono. Whooping Cough. The bubonic plague.
He wouldn’t put a single one of them past his classmates.
“Hey Danny, mouth numb yet?” Stiles tried for cocky, but he was sure his tone was more worried than that. Danny paused from servicing the teenage girls of Beacon Hills and eyed Stiles speculatively.
“Here, put this on,” Danny said, pressing a tube in his hands.
“Antibacterial lip balm? Will that actually help?” Stiles questioned dubiously.
Danny shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”
“I can’t believe we have to do this,” Stiles muttered, struggling into the stupid ‘Kiss Booth’ vest the volunteers (or unwilling volunteers, as was the case with Stiles. And Danny, actually. Danny just spent 30 minutes kissing a lot of girls, so that probably really sucked for him. It was their own version of the Hunger Games) were coerced into wearing. Stiles was about 80% sure it had been a Walmart vest at some point, dyed purple and decorated with cut-out felt lips. Danny couldn’t even pull it off as a fashion choice and Stiles couldn’t see how any of these people would willingly spend a dollar to kiss someone wearing an ugly vest.
It baffled the mind.
Danny gave him a sympathetic look, which just drove home the fact that Danny was possibly the nicest person ever. If Stiles wasn’t the last person to have to go through this, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to drum up enough sympathy for his replacement beyond ‘haha it’s your turn now, sucker.’
“Pro-tip, I know it goes against your instincts, but keep your mouth closed,” Danny told him as he stood from behind the table he was situated at, giving the next girl in line a casual smile.
Stiles nodded. Keep mouth closed. Got it.
“I’m serious, Stiles,” Danny told him, dragging out his wallet. “Mouth closed and don’t hesitate to use the disinfectant wipes.”
Stiles nodded again.
“No one really wants to kiss the person in line in front of them, am I right?” Danny said cheerfully, addressing the group of people – honestly, mostly girls, but a few guys who were smirking like this was the biggest joke ever. “It’s not insulting.”
Stiles was 100% sure Danny was the first person to get away with that all day because from Danny it somehow wasn’t insulting. Awesome, Stiles was totally riding those coattails.
“And Stiles?”
“Hmmm?” Stiles hummed, distracted, because oh God he was actually going to have to kiss all those people and it was going to be terrible and he was going to be terrible and no one really wanted to kiss him so once Danny left the booth would become so empty Stiles would be left with the sound of crickets and the littering of gum wrappers on the ground and it was going to be the worst experience of his life and pictures of it would probably end up in the yearbook to haunt him until he was 30 and conveniently lost his yearbook (because who really cared about a yearbook at the age of 30?).
Danny leaned across the space between them and kissed him, his mouth firm and tasting slightly like disinfectant and really awesome.
Whoa.
Whoa, hold up. This was actually happening. Why was Danny kissing him? He had just finished kissing people for half an hour. There were actually girls at the school collecting kisses from each guy like a badge. That sounded horrible and not like something he, Danny, anybody would then willingly partake in. Why would Danny…
Was he attractive to gay guys now?
Someone, somewhere whooped. Or squealed. Or something.
At least it wasn’t him making that noise, because his mouth was a little too occupied at the moment.
“Rule number one,” Danny reminded him, using his thumb to press Stiles’ jaw upwards so his mouth closed.
“Mouth closed,” Stiles muttered.
“Mouth closed. Also don’t overthink it,” Danny finished sagely.
Well thanks Danny, that was super helpful, especially since Stiles wasn’t sure if Danny was referencing overthinking the kissing thing in general or his specifically. Stiles was king, president, autocrat of overthinking things.
With his mouth open.
Those two things actually went hand in hand, so maybe Danny knew him better than he thought.
Nervously, Stiles turned back towards the line. He could do this, he encouraged himself as he sat and realized that the line seemed far more daunting when he was looking up at it. Was this how short people felt all the time?
“Ok,” Stiles said, planting his elbow on the table and leaning forward with the opposite shoulder and feigned confidence. “Who’s first?”
“Oh God,” the first girl in line said when she saw him look at her.
Ouch. Lucky for her, the dollar only paid for 5 seconds so it wasn’t like she was committing to a lifetime of having to kiss him or anything.
The kiss lasted less than that. He counted.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
Four Mississippi.
Five Mississ—
She gave him a considering look and giggled. By the time the girl moved away and he was able to see the line up again, there were about three new people in it.
What was happening?
Stiles assumed it was because he was the last guy of the day and everyone who had procrastinated and hadn’t gotten a kiss (therefore donating to a good cause) were forced to make do with him.
Kiss 2.
This one lasted to Four Mississippis before the girl lurched back, eyes wide as she touched her mouth and stumbled into the person behind her.
Oh shit, was he that bad at this? He braced himself for Kiss 3 and promised himself that he’d do better – move his mouth a bit more, or maybe he was supposed to soften his lips?
Trial and error. He’d figure it out.
By the time Kiss 3 finished there were about 10 more people in line. Hadn’t they heard? He was terrible at this! Well, it was their money.
Kiss 4.
Kiss 5.
It was easy to get into a rhythm of accepting their donation, 5 second kiss, quick sanitation swipe, accept money, 5 second kiss, repeat. It was almost zen.
Until Kiss 6.
“I only have a twenty,” she said breathlessly.
“It’s ok, I can make change.”
“No!” she yelped. “I mean, what would twenty buy me?”
“I’m sorry, what? A dollar is five seconds and I can only take up to five dollars at a time.”
“Ok,” she answered, flustered. “But if I slip in this other fifteen dollars.” She emphasized the money by flicking it open before putting it in the donation jar. “Maybe you can slip me something too.”
“Uh…”
What?
He did not sign up for this shit, he realized as she lunged across the booth and grabbed his lapel with the weird strength of the possessed. This was some Cristo, shades of non-con weirdness happening here, he thought, struggling against the onslaught of her mouth.
This.
This was why Danny told him to keep his mouth closed.
This was really horrible.
He was flailing backwards and would probably fall on his ass if it wasn’t for the grip she had on his face, like some kind of Dementor’s Kiss, only with attempted tonguing action.
Stiles managed to wedge his fingers between their chins and use his hand as a buffer as he pushed her away, palm first. He was sure it looked hilarious to the line-up as she gave a fist pump towards them and walked away, but…
Not so hilarious to him, he realized as he wiped his mouth. He was never even blinking in Lydia’s direction again if that’s what unwanted attention felt like because grooooossssssss.
Danny was officially upgraded to saint. He had just put up with this for half an hour and he didn’t even like girls.
Like… seriously. Who came up with this idea, anyway? He was sure it was Greenberg.
And did Greenberg even have to participate? Noooo. He came down with the chicken pox last week and was strictly forbidden from showing his face in the high school, fundraising campaign or not.
Asshole.
Stiles managed to get through three more kisses before he noticed eyes watching him steadily from towards the back of the line. His mouth almost opened against Kiss 10 (or 11 or 8 or whatever, he lost count) in surprise as their gazes locked.
What the hell? What was Derek Hale doing in line? Derek was notorious for not caring about anything High School and he looked older than his reputed 17. There were theories he was a narc a la 21 Jump Street (the answer was no – Stiles checked with his dad) or had been held back in fifth grade twice (ditto on the ‘no’ – Stiles checked with the school registration office). There didn’t seem to be a reason why Derek Hale was hotter than the midday sun and made everyone else in school look like gangly adolescents, which newslash, was how they were supposed to look.
Damn Derek Hale for setting the bar so high that Stiles barely even resembled a bipedal next to him.
He lost sight of Derek for a while and assumed that he had been mistaken, and Derek was just walking by, happened to look over and stopped to stare for a moment. Their eyes met and held and it was no big deal.
No big deal, honestly, because that happened between Stiles and Derek Hale at least once a week.
“Wow, Stiles,” Allison said, handing him her dollar bill. ”I promised Scott I would support you, but wow… I thought you’d do ok, but not even I anticipated all this.”
Stiles wasn’t sure if Scott was the world’s best friend for encouraging his girlfriend to support him in a kissing booth or the world’s worst friend for putting him in a situation where he had to kiss Allison.
Stiles grimaced against her mouth.
Allison pulled away and grimaced back at him. ”Yeah. I guess I don’t blame you,” she told him, sounding oddly disappointed.
What the heck was that about?
This whole situation was really, really strange. Stiles didn’t know what to think, because ten minutes ago some freshman girl had seen him and practically screamed ‘Stiles is doing the Kissing Booth’ down the hallway, only to return five minutes ago with three friends. That did not sound like a situation where they were disappointed to see him, and he was starting to accept there might actually be people in this school who wanted to kiss him.
And how weird was that? He felt like his entire high school career was based on a lie.
Was he attractive to people? Gay people? Straight people? Indeterminate people?
Then Stiles spotted him again.
There were about fifteen people between Derek and the front of the line, and only about ten minutes left to his shift. The kissing itself didn’t take much time, but Stiles made sure to smile and greet everyone the same way. Some people insisted on thanking him afterwards, so on average he was kissing about one and a half people a minute.
He might juuuuust be able to make it. Fifteen people wasn’t that many.
Actually, holy frig. Where did all those people come from? Why did all these classmates want to kiss Stiles? Yes, apparently he was secretly awesome, but this was ridiculous.
Maybe if he rushed them, he’d be able to time Derek in at the last minute. That would be awesome. He’d give Derek the full 25 seconds even if he only paid for 5.
So of course he ran into a group of assholes.
Typically, Stiles’ routine went like this:
Stiles: *smiling* Hi.
Other Person: *approaches* Hi.
Stiles: *sanitizes mouth and wonders how dry/cracked/chemically abraded his face was going to be tomorrow* Sorry about that. Did you know (insert witty commentary about kissing to put them at ease)?
Other Person: *hands over money as Stiles talks* No!
Stiles: I read it on Wikipedia last night. I was a little nervous. But this isn’t so bad, so go ahead and kiss me.
(kissing happens)
Stiles: Awesome! Thanks for the donation!
Other Person: *giggles* No problem!
It was really great for putting people at ease and he was starting to get good at judging who to use it on and who not to.
Then he hit the captain of the cheerleading squad.
“Awesome! Thanks for the donation!” he said.
“I’ve been grading your team. Do you want to know where you stand?” It was in question form, but there was no doubt in Stiles’ mind that she wasn’t actually asking his opinion on the matter.
Stiles really didn’t want to know. Stiles just wanted to get rid of her so he could maybe kiss Derek sometime before this weird alternate universe where people were lining up to lock lips with him expired. “Err. Not really.”
“Four.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and eyed him with unnerving directness.
“Out of ten?” he asked incredulously, drawn into the conversation despite himself. He hadn’t realized he was that bad.
“Out of five. Jackson’s was wooden and he received a two. Poor Lydia. Scott gets points for enthous…”
“Why would you grade out of five?” Stiles interrupted her. “You can be a lot more discerning or critical out of ten. Or out of a hundred. Also, it would have been more helpful if you had set standards, like a check-list, or maybe different factors to grade by. Like, possibly someone can get an eight on technique but a six on sloppiness and maybe a five on…”
She turned on her heel and left.
“You should take Stats!” Stiles yelled after her. “Maybe some science classes to work on your research methodology!”
“You’re my hero,” the next person told him.
About three people later, he came face to face with one of his teammates.
Awkward.
“Grade me,” Jordan said aggressively, throwing down his dollar and then putting really slack lips against Stiles’. It was the kissing equivalent of a limp-wristed handshake, and Stiles wasn’t entirely sure how that worked because the human mouth didn’t really naturally go sponge-y like that.
“A solid five!” Stiles beamed after the time was up. Because, really, Jordan hadn’t tried to slip him tongue or drool all over him, and by this point Stiles saw that as positive attributes.
“YEAH!”
“Out of ten,” Stiles reminded him, not entirely paying attention as he eyed Derek, only a few people back now and looking vaguely discomfited in a way Stiles had never seen on him before. Paying attention to Jordan’s demands was low priority. Wow, did he not get the memo on this kiss grading thing or what? “I was being generous. You come in like a fish.”
Then he realized that maybe that was what Danny meant when he told Stiles to keep his mouth closed. Jordan was not happy to hear he was a subpar kisser. Who would be, really?
Stiles dodged the swing just by luck and ended up grabbing his money-jar (because there was no way he was leaving that unattended, he had just whored out his mouth and it wasn’t even for a great cause) and running for it. As he was bolting down the hallway, the bell rang.
Oh well, he consoled himself. He wouldn’t have made it to Derek anyway.
x.x.x.x.x.
Every day after school Stiles stopped by his locker. That didn’t make it special – every day after school most people went to their lockers except those who were lucky enough not to give a shit about carrying all their things around school (or carrying nothing, bringing home nothing, and generally giving about as many fucks about school as Stiles gave towards watching golf).
What made it special was that Derek Hale had a locker about five feet away, on the opposite side of a classroom doorway. The only time Stiles’ view of Derek was obstructed was when class let out between them or when classmates loitered in the open area.
It was nice just to have the option to watch Derek out of the corner of his eye, to organize the books he needed to bring home with him and linger over arranging his notes while watching Derek slam his locker closed.
Sometimes, he thought Derek might be doing the same. There were a few times that they both stood there, lingering in front of their lockers as classmates filtered by until the hallway was almost empty and Stiles wondered if they were playing a game of chicken. It was nice, though, the way it was just the two of them, neither saying a word and pretending that they weren’t entirely focusing on one another. At least, Stiles assumed it was a mutual thing. It had taken him almost half of the school year to get with the program and notice Derek standing there. One day just after Christmas Break, Stiles had hollered a joke down the hall at Jackson and noticed the way Derek’s mouth lifted slightly in appreciation at the humour. It had left like Stiles had been jolted by a defibrillator, the way his body coursed with an electric buzz at the attention.
It was so easy to become attuned to Derek every time they met in the hallway, until Stiles knew Derek’s schedule as it fit in with his own, and he realized that one of Derek’s habits was to pay attention back.
So he knew when Derek deviated from his schedule.
It felt different now as he stood at his locker, waiting for Derek to show up, the minutes passing by with no sign of him, and he thought about the opportunity he missed out on earlier.
Then he wondered if kissing a single person he enjoyed watching out of the corner of his eye (especially the few times Derek pulled off his sweater and the underlying t-shirt winched upwards with it) in the midst of kissing another forty of their peers actually counted as an opportunity, or if the opportunity was what he made with the knowledge that Derek Hale had stood in that line, a noticeable presence amid all the others.
If Stiles had actually taken the time to think about it, he might have realized what a monumentally bad idea it was to track Derek down after school, but he didn’t have time to think about it because it was less ‘track Derek down’ and more ‘Derek walked by on his way to his locker, Stiles reacted’. He might have realized the ideas he came up with while being impulsive, such as sarcastically muttering “oh yeah, why don’t we just have a kissing booth?” when Scott suggested a bake sale for fundraising ideas, never really turned out the way he wanted them to.
All the kissing must have gone to his head, because he had this picture of hauling Derek into a corner and kissing him and it would melt Derek’s brain so much that they would then happily walk down the hallway with their hands tucked into each other’s back pockets. Seriously, his day was enough like an episode of Glee already, so why not?
Well, for one thing Stiles had never seen Derek look happy at anything.
And for another, Beacon Hills was more American Horror Story than Glee.
And for a third, hadn’t he learned his lesson about boundaries earlier in the kissing booth?
So when he pulled Derek into the door well separating their lockers and kissed him, hands braced on Derek’s shoulders, he really should have known Derek would pull away and eye him suspiciously, almost before their mouths even touched.
Stiles wasn’t even sure he could count that as a kiss.
“Haven’t you done that enough today?” Derek asked, clearly vexed by Stiles.
“Well, I owed you one.”
Bzzzzzt.
Wrong answer.
The worst answer ever if Derek’s expression was anything to go by.
The thing was, unless one looked closely, Derek rarely showed any obvious expression changes. Stiles had always been aware of the idiom about smiles not reaching a person’s eyes, but the opposite was true with Derek. Derek’s eyes always softened between one blink and the next when they landed on Stiles. Always.
But they were regarding him coldly now.
“I mean…” Stiles backpedalled.
“Don’t,” Derek cut through Stiles’ mental flailing. “You don’t owe me anything, but now I owe you what? A dollar?”
“No!” Stiles yelped, grabbing at Derek’s hands as he went for his pocket. “No. I wanted to.”
“Okay, fine,” Derek nodded, turning and stalking down the hallway, passing his own locker without a backwards glance as though he cared more about leaving Stiles behind than he did about his homework.
That was something Stiles had never seen before. Derek almost always cared about his homework, but right now? Now Stiles had messed up and it was painfully obvious as Derek’s shoulders tensed as he walked away.
“Don’t you get it? I wanted to!” Stiles yelled after him. “Shit. Well done Stiles. Coerce the only person you actually wanted to kiss today.”
Derek paused partway down the hall. “What?”
Oh come on, there was no way he heard that. He was about to tell Derek he hadn’t said anything and wave him off, but he wasn’t a complete fool. He’d already put himself on the line once today, so why not give it another shot if Derek was giving him the chance? He couldn’t just let him walk away. “I said that you’re the only person I actually wanted to kiss today.”
Derek took a step closer to him, clearly unsure about Stiles’ confession. “You picked an odd way to go about it.”
“I’m sorry. Shit,” Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head and squinting at Derek. “I know I messed up. I was just disappointed that we missed that chance, you know? And then you weren’t at your locker and I thought if I didn’t act now… I know.” He shook his head ruefully. “I know how badly it sounded, I just... I don’t want you to start avoiding me.”
“We don’t actually talk,” Derek pointed out.
“Don’t we?” Stiles questioned with a direct gaze that actually got a reaction out of Derek, causing his eyes to widen and his mouth to purse tightly. They might not actually say words to each other, but they kind of did communicate.
He didn’t say anything to refute Stiles. Instead, he seemed thoughtful. “Why me? Everyone knows about your obsession with… you don’t notice other people.”
Stiles frowned at him. Only a fool wouldn’t notice Derek Hale. He was… and then he did… and he looked… How could Stiles express the whys of it? “I think that might take a while. Maybe I can tell you later? Like at the movies—“ abort. Abort. Abor—“Saturday?”
Derek eyed him critically. He huffed out a sigh, turning his head away from Stiles for a moment, telegraphing that he was about to walk away. Then he turned back to face Stiles, eyes carefully watching him until Stiles felt like fidgeting beneath his stare. “Yeah, ok. So long as you don’t come down with mono between now and then.”
“They’d have to quarantine me to keep me away,” Stiles assured him. “I’ve got to…”he gestured down the hall towards the gym. “Lacrosse practice.”
Sweet. This was definitely a win/win scenario. He had a date with Derek Hale. Win. He’d have to casually mention it to his dad. If his dad turned a puce colour and mumbled about needing to go into work early while touching his gun, he’d know for sure whether Derek was an undercover cop. WIN.
One theory down. Now he just needed to figure out if Derek was in witness protection or a creature of the night, because that would account for all of the rumours Stiles had accidentally started every time he opened his mouth to make inquiries about Derek Hale’s awesomely handsome face.
The awesomely handsome (but grumpy) face he was going on a date with on Saturday!