Chapter Text
Stiles and Derek met at a conference in Mexico City while working on their doctorates. They were both ridiculously in love with their projects and passionate about their work. During that strange week, it couldn’t have been said that they had much else in common, but shit, it was enough to kick off a rather intense friendship.
It helped that Stiles thought Derek’s project was just fascinating and spent the first evening of the conference plying him with questions while ordering continual refills for Derek’s drink. It didn't hurt that Stiles contacted Derek within days of returning state side to ask him yet another set of enthused questions.
As it was, somehow or another, within months of meeting Stiles, Derek found himself in almost daily conversation with him. They argued over research, waxed poetic about their respective projects, and occasionally just told each other to get some fucking sleep already. It was just nice, really, to talk to someone just as invested in the whole academic thing.
Their relationship would have likely stuck there, but as it happened, their fortunes took a curious turn after graduation. In a rather unexpected chain of events, both Derek and Stiles ended up at the same university. They had never expected when they first met that they would end up with neighboring labs.
But it happened.
And it meant that instead of spending long hours on Skype while they waited for results to process, they started spending the majority of their time together in person. It was an alarmingly easy transition.
Some people thought that meant things. Derek's family among them. Because whatever they saw in each other and however platonic their interactions, the escalation of their relationship led to some confusion on the part of Derek’s family.
The end result was that Derek's large family became convinced that Stiles was quite a bit more than a colleague.
The myriad members started asking about Stiles in every phone call. At Christmas they wanted a full description. Laura and Dani sat close and demanded “all the details,” prying from a confused Derek descriptions of Stiles' eyes and favorite color.
His father made a few muttered comments about them moving fast, that they had just started working together. But Laura swatted at him, beamed at Derek and talked about these things sometimes happening.
Derek had agreed. These things did happen. People ended up at the same university sometimes. His mother was a Dean, it wasn't like they didn't know how academia worked. Dani nodded knowingly.
Then Laura had visited Derek and told Stiles that she was “so glad Derek has someone like you.” Stiles had looked confused, slightly embarrassed, but said gamely that Derek was a great friend to him as well. When Laura was safely gone again, Stiles had slapped Derek on the back and told him that his family was intense.
Derek had shrugged. What was there to say? They were.
All in all, Derek had assumed that his family just found Stiles more interesting than his work. That they focused on Stiles in order to have something to ask. That they weren't really all that fascinated by the details of research in microbiology or environmental science. He couldn't have said it was surprising.
All said and told, it took Derek some time - months in fact - to realize that his family's intense interest stemmed from their firm (perhaps unshakable) belief that Stiles and he were partners and not just, well, partners.
The full extent of their assumptions only dawned on Derek when his mother told him it would be nice if Derek brought Stiles with him for a spring break visit. Specified that it was really long past time for the whole family to meet him. Derek wondered why, but couldn't see why not. He assured his mother that he could ask Stiles if she felt that way about it.
His mother told him that it was what she thought he would want. She knew he was introverted, but really this was all a bit much.
It occurred to Derek then that his grandfather hadn't asked him in ages the usual "when you are going to meet a nice young man. Someone to balance you out." That his nosey, loud mouth grandfather had instead started talking about Stiles. Was winking and making noises about “that friend of his.” It suddenly made so much more sense. That metaphorical lightbulb had finally - if delayed - been illuminated.
But, for all that Derek finally clued into what was going on, his family never asked outright if Derek was actually sleeping with Stiles. They never demanded a label for their relationship and Derek didn’t correct them, just let their heavy-handed innuendos keep sliding by.
Privately, oh so quietly, he thought it would be too awkward at that point. Derek was just ever so slightly embarrassed to tell them that he had not, in any sense of actual fact, been in a committed relationship for the past seven months. Following a stunted sense of self-preservation (Derek's could imagine his sisters' wailing 'why nots'), Derek kept his mouth shut around his family and didn't tell Stiles. He informed his mother Stiles had plans to visit his own dad for spring break (it was true). It didn't matter, not really.
Until it did.
Because the situation came to a head with his mother’s demand that Stiles make his appearance at Derek’s side and finally meet the family for their big anniversary party.
Which, while being only a tiny problem, put Derek into a terrible quandary. That stunted sense of self-preservation reared its ugly head and arguably led to one of the stupidest choices he had ever made.
Instead finally correcting his parents, Derek determined that Stiles would be the easier person to work with. Perhaps the choice was made because Stiles was a single individual (and right there) instead of legion.
Which was why Derek sat there on an otherwise normal Wednesday night, staring at Stiles across the tops of their laptop screens. It certainly was the reason Derek suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, asked if Stiles "would consider us friends". Not his best conversational gambit he admitted to himself with a wince.
Stiles laughed, giggled a little. Reached across the desk, succeeded in sending a couple of highlighters rolling, and patted Derek’s shoulder. Said “Yeah, Derek. You know we are.” Then added in a rather affected tone that Derek should well know that. Derek was surely aware that within certain narrowly defined perimeters, Stiles would do just about anything for him. Derek had to be cognizant of just how highly Stiles regarded him.
Derek was fairly certain that Stiles was taking the piss and glared at him for good measure. Told him in a flat voice in a bid to regain the upper hand “Given your endless regard for me, you should be willing to do me a favor.”
"Of course you want a favor" Stiles replied with a nod. He absently picked up a stray pencil and started chewing on the end. "You know you wouldn't have asked about the friends thing if you didn't. But I reserve the right to refuse if it is too ... something," Stiles gesticulated generally into the space between them. Derek raised an eyebrow "I don't know man, whatever it is might be weird. Scott asks for some strange shit."
Derek frowned. Out of the three friends Stiles had maintained since high school, he had yet to meet Scott. Nonetheless, Derek didn't feel like he particularly liked him. Stiles had a tendency to vanish when Scott was around and reappear days later with a broad smile.
Derek squashed his reflections and decided his best bet was to be forthright. "My parents think we're partners."
"I would have said colleagues, but partners works,” was Stiles immediate reply, words slightly wet around the pencil.
Derek waited, knowing that Stiles would automatically be cycling through the alternate meanings to Derek’s statement, searching for possible scenarios that might have led to this moment.
"Oh” was Stiles verbose second response. Derek smiled slightly, waited for the rest. The situation felt overwhelmingly absurd. “And you didn't tell them that we … aren’t … Huh."
Stiles got that particular light in his eyes. The one that said he had started planning something. The one that usually meant Derek was going to end up doing something he hadn't anticipated. He braced himself.
Derek was right, even if this wasn't the time to gloat .
Stiles slammed his hand down on the table, pencil still hanging from his mouth. "Alright then. I’m assuming, given your general interest in work, men, women, and dating, that you are asking me to play along."
Derek nodded, relieved that he didn't have to say it, but gritted out "I’ll owe you."
Stiles smiled evilly. It was his maniacal grin. The one that had let to that meandering meeting with a mad moose in Maine. "No, no. There will be no owing. Owing would get us both into trouble. I'd likely get drunk and ask for something stupid. And you detest asking for favors and hate owing people even more. So, I've got something better.
"I am guessing that this is going to be ongoing because once you get into this, I highly doubt you will try to untangle it. It won’t be worth the effort. It'll be too easy to just let it ride. So, here's the deal. I am going to be your partner" (Stiles eyes sparkled as he stressed the word) "for your family and in return you'll play the role of loving boyfriend for mine. We can do the family function thing, get our respective loved ones off our backs.
"Because let me tell you, my Nonna, she’s getting older. And she wants stories for her friends. It's not enough to brag that I’m a tenure track professor with his own lab, nope. Most decidedly not. Because she and her friends do not appreciate what microbes are. They do not. Although she has become very involved in her local save the pond efforts. Evidently she thinks that the pond forms a bond between us. Which is great, really, because it is always amusing to see the crones react to the fun facts I pass along for their posters.
“Also - Let me tell you, if saving the world starts at home, then I am on my way. Because grandma now only buys organic and passes on tales of the horrors of growth hormones to all her friends. And that stitch'n'bitch club is powerful back home.
"Not that anyone else has my Nonna’s skills. And she certainly doesn't think that I am going to succeed in averting humanity's continued and inevitable decline, because you know kids these days. But the shit I could tell you..."
Derek threw a paperclip at him. Derek had heard all about Stiles’ grandmother. You couldn't know Stiles long and not know who Nonna was. Because she and his dad were Stiles’ family. There were some others - a scattering of cousins and John's parents - but those two had raised him. Those two were the ones he screamed at on the phone because Nonna didn't feel like wearing her hearing aid today.
"Right, right. So 'dating'" Stiles used finger quotes "each other will generally make both of our lives easier without really having to change anything. You won't owe me and I won't owe you. It'll be a mutual arrangement with benefits." Stiles snickered "pun fully intended. But, We already know each other well enough that we won't have to pretend much. Just throw in a bit of PDA. It'll be swell."
"Swell?"
"Shut it - I like the word and stand by my analysis." Stiles paused, leaned back in his chair, two legs lifting in the air. Derek cringed as the chair legs creaked and Stiles stared back at him considering. "But what brings this on now?"
Derek let his head fall against the table.
Stiles tapped his pencil on his knee. "It's not a holiday. Summer is too far away, so that leaves either anniversaries of some kind or a death. Unless there is some strange family tradition?"
"Parents' fortieth anniversary."
"Yeah, definitely the kind of thing you do not want to show up to without an other. What with everyone thinking about the magic" the word required an excessive wiggling of fingers on Stiles' part "of successful relationships and such. Shit, the number of aunts who try to set one up." Stiles shook his head. "Well, lucky for you, you have a partner. Your one true love presumably. Everyone will think we’re perfect. A match for the romances of the century. I would say epic, but those are usually tragic. And there will be no swords, no fighting for my honor and definitely no magic potions. Because those are nasty."
Stiles rocked further back on his chair and fell to the floor with a crash.