Chapter Text
The music shop was Stiles’ favorite place in the whole world. Days like today--days that had been terrible, rotten, no-good, very, very bad days--he just liked to go in there and take in all the gleaming instruments. The polished piano in the corner, not for sale, but for old Ms. Watts, who lived across the street and came in to play songs from her days as a chorus girl sometimes. The wall of songbooks, bright and tempting. The array of shining guitars and a few lonely banjos, of bright horns and lovely ukeleles. But Stiles’ instrument was the fiddle. Always had been; something about the way it could be sad and soft and beautiful one moment, then wild and insane the next.
On that particular day, Stiles walked in, took a whiff of wood and resin, and utterly relaxed. Coach’s insults, Scott’s dreaminess and subsequent absence, Stiles’ issues in school, his father’s increased drinking and the harsher rules that came with it: all of that just melted away. He let his fingers glide over the beloved piano, a few guitar strings, the curve of a French horn, and then he stood before the three fiddles Mr. Varo had on display. One was stained dark and a little bit wider than Stiles would like; one was a blonder wood with a light brown inlay, so delicate-looking Stiles imagined it would shatter the second a bow touched it. But that middle fiddle was perfect. Orangey-brown, the right size, it even just smelled right. Stiles reached out a pointer finger and strummed one of the strings to produce a note so clear he swore he physically felt the impact in his chest.
Stiles looked furtively over his shoulder. No one was in the shop; Mr. Varo knew him well and was happy to let customers try out the instruments, so long as they were careful. And boy, would Stiles be careful. He couldn’t afford this fiddle; hell, he couldn’t even afford the bow. So he took it off the rack as if it were made of whisper-thin glass, settling it under his chin gently. Stiles gripped the fiddle and the bow for a minute, just feeling the weight of them both. Up until this now, he’d only ever played his mother’s fiddle at home, which had been her mother’s before her. That one was great, but heavier and worn, and this one string always seemed to be just a smidgen out of tune. The fiddle in his hands was solid but not heavy, loved but untethered to the memory of a previous owner. For a second, Stiles forgot that he didn’t own it. He could hear it singing out to him, a new song that soared and plunged; so he put the bow to that fiddle and set the song free.
Stiles played like a man possessed. A man opening up his own heart and pouring it into the song. It flew high and madcap, it dashed down and swung low and sad. The fiddle seemed to know what he would do before he did it, seemed to know what he wanted to play before he himself knew. The lightest touch brought forth sounds he had only dreamed of making before. Stiles was so wrapped in this world of music that he brought forth that he forgot everything, right down to who he was. Nothing mattered but his hands and that beautiful, beautiful fiddle and those utterly perfect notes they made together.
And then it was over and Stiles was sweating a bit and he was breathing hard and someone was clapping.
Stiles spun around to take in something--someone--tall, broad, and woah handsome.
“Uh, I, um--” he stuttered, suddenly uncomfortable aware of the oil stain on his shirt, the sweat on his upper lip, and how he had completely forgotten the every word in the English language.
The hot (HOT) guy just smiled (INTERNAL SCREAMING) and shook his head a little. “Man, you are amazing! Where’d you learn that?”
“Oh,” Stiles felt his face go hot and he swiped at his upper lip. “Uh, my mom. Family thing, I guess. It just, uh, comes to me.” He winced. “That sounded pretentious, sorry, I--”
“Nah, dude,” the guy came closer, with an expression of--could it be?--awe on his (HOT) face. “Talent like that, you’ve got every right to be a little pretentious. I’m Derek, by the way. I work here, so no worries. I’m not some kind of fiddler-stalker or anything.” He grinned self-deprecatingly and Stiles almost came then and there.
“Oh! Oh. Uh. I’m Stiles. And I wasn’t worried about the, um, stalker thing. Um.” Dammit, Brain. The one time I need words and you can’t come up with some witty sarcasm here? Oh, God. Those eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. Oh Lord.
Derek was talking again. “So what do you think? You’ve got that lovestruck, puppy-eyes look musicians get in here around all the instruments. The way she fits on you--match made in heaven.” Words accompanied by a grin Stiles could swear was wicked.
Stiles shook his head, pushing away thoughts of heaven and the hot music store boys that likely frequented there. “Nah, I’ve got my mom’s old one at home. Save up enough tips from work and maybe one day. For now, I’ll just come in from time to time to sit here and drool on her.” He put the fiddle back on the rack carefully, lining the bow up next to it as if it were a sleeping child.
He could feel Derek’s eyes on his, and when he returned the gaze he found the guy looking at him thoughtfully. Derek cocked his head to the side most becomingly and shrugged. “You come in any time you want. Music like yours has gotta be played.” Derek grinned wickedly again. “Come after seven thirty, if you can. That’s when I work. I’d love to see you play again.”
“A nocturnal sort of guy, huh?”
That grin turned positively predatorial, as if Derek had a little joke all to himself. “Something like that.”
Stiles stuck out a hand to shake. “Well then. See you around, Derek.”
“See you soon, Stiles.”
Back in the Jeep, Stiles shook himself all over, trying not to freak out about how Derek wanted him to come during his shift; and about how when they shook hands goodbye, Derek held on just a little too long.