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The first time they meet is out on the basketball court near the Preserve.
Nobody ever goes there besides Stiles, and even if it’s not quite the proper flooring to practice skating, she still loves the complete isolation. It’s just such a contrast to the games she plays, when the opposing pack are trying to knock her down, and in practice, when she has Coach trying to change plays halfway through a practice bout.
But, here, it’s just her. She doesn’t listen to any music as she skates, so it’s not as hectic as when she’s on a court, she just embraces the quietness of the preserve before she returns back to the hustle and bustle of the real world.
Sometimes she only spends ten or twenty minutes skating, before she’s throwing off her skates and sitting back on the court, staring up at the sky as the sun sets. During those times she thinks about everything; what she needs to do at college, and what tattoo she’s planning on getting next.
She’d thought up the idea of her first tattoo out here on this very court, when she’d been a senior in high school and drunk off her ass in an attempt of being there for Scott after his first breakup. The portrait of a wolf on one thigh and a girl in a red hood on the other, both baring their teeth in a snarl, had influenced her derby name too, and she’d been known as Little Red, Biting Good ever since.
Other days she goes out there with the full intention of blocking everything out and just throwing herself into the feel of her rollerskates on asphalt. On those days she wears her full gear; helmet, mouth guard, elbow pads, wrist pads and knee pads, deciding that if she’s going to be angry she’ll channel that anger into something productive. Something like improving her game, so she can continue throwing hits (legally, of course, because the league has no time for players like Smashley Simpson a la Whip It) on the court rather than in the face of stupid assholes who suddenly decide she’s not worth their time because she shaved her head.
They would totally deserve it, though.
She would punch them right in their stupid –
Too wrapped up in her thoughts, she doesn’t realize that, apparently, sometimes people do wander out to the basketball court near the Preserve. People besides her, that is, because she’s 100% certain she didn’t throw a basketball at herself.
She picks herself up off the ground in a rage, albeit happy that she’d been wearing her protective gear, and stalks toward the figure standing by themselves at the other end of the court. She makes sure to grab their ball first though, because the man hasn’t even bothered to make a move to retrieve it, instead he’s just standing there with his eyes on Stiles like she was the one who got in the way of his stupid ball.
“I didn’t, I mean, you weren’t, I didn’t think you’d get in the way, but you moved,” the man says, and he can’t stick to a single sentence which should be more annoying than it is endearing.
But, Stiles never has been one for appropriate or rational reactions.
It doesn’t stop her from wanting to tear the guy apart though. If anything, it probably makes her want to do it more, like throwing rocks at the boy you like. And she does like him, at least she likes the way he looks. He stands tall in a black v-neck shirt and black and red basketball shorts, arms crossed over his chest like he’s just waiting to be called out on whatever shitty little stunt he just pulled.
She unclips her helmet and throws it to the ground, wanting to wince at the sound it makes when it hits the asphalt because that shit is expensive and needs to be in one piece to keep her brain that way too, squaring her shoulders to stand up to the guy.
The guy who doesn’t look the least bit fazed by a sweaty 5”10’ skinhead girl getting all up in his face after he knocked her to the ground. She’s close enough to him to see the way his jaw’s clenched, to see each individual hair on his chin that he decided not to shave this morning, to see the way his eyes reflect more than just one colour in the light of the sun.
For some reason, this makes her mad.
She holds the ball in one hand, and without saying anything, turns to where the court meets the tree line of the Preserve. With every bit of strength she has, which is a lot, she throws the ball as hard as she can, not bothering to get embarrassed by the scream of frustration that spits out of her mouth as she does it.
The guy is still standing there, an eyebrow raised in question but otherwise unfazed, when Stiles picks up her duffle bag from the picnic bench beside the court and leaves.
The earlier silence and tranquility of the Preserve is butchered first by Stiles’ war-cry when she threw the basketball and, second, by the speakers of the Jeep that blast Hole as soon as she turns the key in the ignition.
**
The second time they meet is in the doorway to the Stilinski household.
She hasn’t bothered to put any pants on, instead wearing just her jersey that has ‘Biting Good’ printed on the back above the number 24. When she realises that it’s not Scott at the front door, but instead the man from the basketball court – the man from the basketball court in a deputy’s uniform – she promptly slams the door shut and turns on her heel to stalk back to her bedroom.
But, of course, she’s caught by her father, because she’s twenty-three and still lives at home and still behaves like a sullen thirteen-year-old.
“Stiles,” he sighs, and it sounds like one that’s laced with exhaustion and resignation, especially when it’s paired with, “you’re twenty-three-years-old. I know I didn’t raise you to slam the door in the face of a guest.”
“Well, here I am, so obviously you did,” she rolls her eyes and makes her way up the stairs to her bedroom, ignoring the call of, “Put on some pants and come down for dinner,” that follows.
In protest, she eats a Snickers for dinner in her underwear while she edits an essay for one of her classes. When she finishes that, she stares out of her window until she hears the front door open, followed by the sound and sight of the man and her father walking down the driveway together. They stop beside a black Camaro that’s parked beside the curb, the same car that had been at the Preserve, and the Sheriff slaps the new Deputy on the shoulder as the car starts.
The man looks up to her bedroom window, and she pointedly looks away before going downstairs to make ramen.
She listens in a curious silence as the Sheriff informs her that the man she was just rude to was Deputy Derek Hale, a new officer at the department, and a person Stiles “absolutely has to invite to dinner next time she sees him if she wants to continue living in this house.”
**
The third time they meet is in the adult store Stiles works at.
She’s reading at the counter, having had no other customers ask for help or look as if they’d be willing to accept any, leaning back in her chair with her feet up beside the till when the doorbell buzzes.
She finishes the sentence she’d been on and looks up, expecting someone making eye contact with the ground as they make their way over to whatever the reason for their journey to the store had been. Instead, she sees the back of a head, but in the reflection of the glass doors she knows who it is.
“Derek!” She cries out, ignoring the horrified and startled looks of the people in the store (because everyone’s biggest fear is being called out for going to an adult store, and now it’s more than just a horror story that happened to a friend of a friend, but something that’s actually happening in the flesh).
Derek doesn’t stop, he just keeps making his way through the carpark with his head down and Stiles actually feels a little guilty about chasing him out of an adult store and screaming his name.
Really, it’s a story never to be retold. Especially not to her father, because it’ll just be too reminiscent of the time when he’d had to arrest her for public urination in her late-teens, but he’d laughed so hard she’d ended up having to handcuff herself.
She'd said, "You are a police officer, you are not supposed to be supporting this behaviour."
"I'm not supporting this behaviour, I'm laughing at how ridiculous my daughter is. You did it beside a public bathroom, kid," he'd said.
She'd just held her chin high and argued back, "I know, I was doing it to make a point. Those things are a hazard to the health of people everywhere."
Now, though, she hopes she hasn't crossed the line to where being arrested for harassment is an actual possibility.
She eventually catches up to him when he has to stop to unlock his car, and instead of apologizing or saying what she has to say she finds herself blurting out, “I shouldn’t have left the store, should I?”
She’s referring to leaving customers unattended, but by the way Derek’s posture suddenly drops she knows he’s misinterpreted her.
“So, why did you bother?” The question is blunt, and he’s still trying to unlock his door but can’t seem to quite manage getting the key into the lock.
“I wanted to apologize,” she moves her hand to run through her hair, but only feeling the spiky growth of a recently shaved head she drops them by her sides, “for the basketball court and for when you came over for dinner. I didn’t know you worked for my dad.”
“Is that the only reason why you’re apologizing?”
“No, I mean… I don’t know.”
Her voice is quieter than she’s used to, and she feels like she’s trying to prove herself more than usual as well. She hates everyone expecting her to be the irrationally angry and pissed off skater that captains the Beacon Brats and gets broken up with because she shaved her head.
Her (now) ex-boyfriend had told that she didn’t even make any sense, and only did things for attention, pointing at her lack of hair as soon as she’d first walked in through the door.
Before she had a chance to say she’d been doing it to raise money for cancer.
She hadn’t known how to bring it up with him when she had first gotten the idea, when she’d decided that it would be a way of honoring and acknowledging the struggle her mom had gone through. Of contributing to the hopeful guarantee that nobody else would have to experience the same thing.
She didn’t get a chance to even explain it, though, because it was so expected of her since, apparently, she was the type to “research nonsense to no end but to then do something drastic without any thoughts for anyone else just a few minutes later.” He finished his rant by telling her he was sick of her impulsive ways and the lack of regard she had for him.
To be honest, she wasn’t even aware that something as little as shaving her head was going to affect anyone besides herself. She didn’t even think it would affect her that much, so she didn’t understand what the freak out was about at all.
He’d broken up with her and stormed out, sticking his finger up behind him when she screamed through tears that she wasn’t his manic pixie dream girl and that he could go fuck himself.
Derek’s voice, something that had taken her off-guard since that first moment at the court when she realized it was higher than she expected, cut through her memory, “And for screaming my name and chasing me out of an adult store?”
“I guess I apologize for that too,” she answers, feeling herself smile when she realizes that Derek is too, “but if you left because you were embarrassed, you shouldn’t be.”
Derek’s finally gotten his car door open, but now he slowly inches it closed, like he’s thinking about changing his mind.
“Look, I have to get back to the store before there’s a riot with vibrators and dildos instead of pitchforks,” she says, gesturing over her shoulder, “but if you want to come back in, you should. And if I’m the problem, then that’s okay too, I can tell you my shifts so you know when not to come in if that makes you feel any more comfortable.”
He raises an eyebrow, “It’d really be okay if you were the problem?”
“Well, it might make it awkward when I ask you to come over for dinner again, this time at the request of both dad and myself, but, yeah dude, even if I completely contradicted this statement by chasing you out of an adult store, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she takes a breath, “So, dinner?”
“Do you promise not to slam a door in my face again?”
She grins, “I was in my underwear! Not even my good underwear,” then sighs, “I won’t slam the door in your face if you promise not to throw a basketball at me next time we’re on the court.”
“I think I can hold myself back.”