Stamp of Approval
All soulmates share a birthmark. A angry fan of Derek Hale, movie star, pulls his shirt down and reveals his mark. In Beacon Hills, Stiles Stilinski gets on the internet and sees shady pap photos of, apparently, his soulmate. So how do you contact a famous person to tell them "Hey… I'm kinda your soulmate maybe?" when hundreds of other people are tweeting them the same thing?
...
...
Based on this prompt via unproductivepeanut's post - post/79631091470/hatteress-heathyr-au-where-all-soulmates - on tumblr
Also, FF apparently doesn't like the At symbol, so I put all twitter handles in parenthesis instead.
...
...
Stiles scratched at the skin just below his collarbone, through his shirt, and stared at his computer screen. There was a picture on the screen, a cropped image from a trashy pop news site. It was a picture of someone's Soul Stamp, the intensely private mark that everyone had that would only have one match - their soul mate.
With a sigh, Stiles pulled the shirt away from his chest and looked down as best he could at the dark brown spot that rested just below his collarbone. His soul stamp was just under two inches wide in any direction, in the shape of a vaguely uneven paw print that seemed to be reaching down toward his heart. He saw this stamp every morning when he got out of the shower and wiped the steam from the mirror. He caught glimpses of it whenever he changed his clothes. It was the reason he didn't change in the locker room unless his locker door or Scott's blocked his chest from view.
The point was, he knew this stamp intimately well. It was just odd to see it in the picture on his computer screen because the soul stamp in the photo wasn't on Stiles' chest. It belonged to a movie star named Derek Hale.
...
...
SCORNED FAN REVEALS DEREK HALE'S SOUL STAMP
Everyone knows everyone has one, but few get to see them: soul stamps! Anyone in the public eye - movie stars, politicians, athletes - go through a lot of extra trouble to ensure their stamps are never seen by a camera. Derek Hale, due out in Jailbreak this June, has always been vocal about his feelings regarding his Soul Stamp and those feelings are a big, bold Back Off. However, now Hale's secret is out - and it's impressive to look at.
FanCandies caught up with Derek last night outside a Hispanic restaurant where he was meeting with fellow actor Matt Daehler, and we weren't the only ones. Fans of both actors crowded around among the cameras of paparazzi for a chance to nab some attention. While Daehler was quick to shake hands and kiss a few cheeks, Hale only signed a few autographs before making his big escape - typical Hale style.
One fan was not prepared to let him go. Hayley Blake caught hold of the star to ask for a picture. When Hale turned her away, Blake was understandably upset (we have so many pictures to look at ourselves that we can't fault her - those muscles!). Blake then grabbed Hale's shirt - and ripped it clean off!
No one was prepared for the sight that came next: a lovely large Soul Stamp right before our eyes! That's right! Pictured here is Derek Hale's Soul Stamp! Feast your eyes!
Fitting Hale's personality, the Stamp appears to be in the shape of a dog's paw, with claws. Is that strong enough for you? For the actor who is more known for scowling than smiling in publicity shots, who has starred in hits such as Horror Scene, Last Shot, and Life Runner, we should've guessed his soul would be marked with something equally as fierce.
...
...
Derek hated paparazzi. If it weren't for them, pictures of Derek's soul stamp wouldn't be all over the internet right now. His twitter feed and facebook fan page were swamped with messages from fans. Some of them were innocent.
(DHale) Wow you're Soul Stamp is big! Mine's so tiny I forget its their!
Some were typical.
(DHale) Ur so HAWT PErfect stamp! Fits so well
But most were people taking pictures of themselves or writing essays to him describing themselves. Within days of the pictures being taken, Derek was receiving fan mail of the same. Everyone and their cousin seemed to want to convince him that their soul stamp matched his.
He had so many pictures of collar bones that he could probably put one on every page of the longest Harry Potter book and still run out of spaces to fit them. If Derek never saw another paw print in his life, he'd be happy. He had letters of people confessing feelings of love for him, of feeling they would never find the one their stamp matched and then seeing his picture and knowing he was the one, of fate and destiny and soul mates. He had messages from people as old as fifty-six and as young as eight. People were messaging him from South Africa about being his match.
It wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't been getting Soul Stamp images of Stamps that didn't even match his. It was how Derek knew they were all lying. The paw print he kept getting images of looked like the one on his chest. It was slightly uneven and had claws. But they all had four claws, and Derek's only had three. He was glad the paparazzi hadn't seen that the lowest toe of the paw was missing the claw, but he was utterly done with seeing incorrect matches to his Stamp too.
"I hate the internet."
"Be that as it may, you still need to use it to your advantage," his uncle Peter noted, sprawled lazily in one of Derek's plush armchairs. "Go on and respond to some fans."
Derek growled. "They're all talking about my soul stamp."
Peter didn't lift his eyes from the book he was reading. "Then go through and find one that isn't and reply to them. If you only respond to the not crazy ones, then maybe that'll wake the rest of your fans from this deranged fantasy they have of marrying you."
Even though he rolled his eyes at Peter's tone and the halfhearted jab at Derek's pride, Derek did do as he said. Later. After Peter wasn't there to see it.
He thanked a girl who waxed poetic about one of his films. He told someone that he would be attending a convention later in the year. He responded to a jibe from a costar in Jailbreak. He retweeted a call for him to win an award simply for the work his eyebrows did in his guest star appearance for an episode of the thriller show Checkmate. But it took him hours to do any of that because he had to wade through all the crap about his stupid soul stamp first.
You're my soul mate. It's you. It's me! OMG we match. Over and over and over again. It was like an endless cycle of typos and bad grammar and desperation.
(DHale) I'm sorry.
Derek paused. That was the whole tweet. Just two words. There was a ninety-nine percent chance it was about his soul stamp and Derek wasn't responding to those. And the person's name was WAWRZYNIEC - like they had laid on their keyboard and accepted whatever came out as their handle. He should ignore it but...
(WAWRZYNIEC) Not your fault.
Five tweets was more than Derek usually posted in a month so he stopped and logged off for the evening. He would tackle facebook tomorrow. Now, more than ever, Derek wished he'd hired someone to handle his social network profiles for him, but Laura had lectured him so thoroughly when he first mentioned it that Derek hadn't been able to do it. Besides, it would probably be best that Derek had full control over what was being posted right now - well, control tempered by his PR assistant.
...
...
(DHale) Doesnt mean it doesnt suck that ppl r so unhappy with their own lives that they have to mess with yours
WAWRZYNIEC, whose name was listed as Deputy Manbatinski, had an interesting twitter. His picture was of the Bat Signal, which was unhelpful. Under his name it said "Pancakes, waffles, french toast, curly fries. I'm not your sidekick!" So really Derek was just assuming WAWRZYNIEC was a male because he had no actual proof.
Some of Derek's favorite tweets from his page were:
Talk talk talk and they won't even book you. Trust me. You'll probably still get grounded tho. #FoughtWithTheLawAndTheLawWon
Arabian Wolf. Iranian Wolf. Mexican Gray Wolf. Good. Desert Wolf. Desert Wolf Spider. HOLY COW! WHAT IS THAT?! #nothanks
U kno that until coffee got popular, people drank beer with breakfast? U like ur liver or ur colon more? #caffeineaddiction
Turtles hide their eggs in alligator nests cause gator mommas are fierce. That's called Turtle Espionage! #NatureRocks
The human bone most broken is the collarbone. Yikes! Get more padding for your privates, Private!
Other than having a lot of fun facts that never seemed to relate to each other, usually in bursts and then not for days, WAWRZYNIEC's twitter was wildly useless in learning anything about its owner. Derek didn't even know why he'd logged back on this morning, just to click on WAWRZYNIEC's profile. Though, while he may have been disappointed in the lack of personal information on the twitter, the recent tweets were worth the trip.
(MandiMandie) Ur fake paw print tattoo is runny.
(Jebstary) Stop stalking stars and look for ur actual soul mate. That's why u HAVE a stamp in the 1st place! #rude
(caseychrisantoinne) You're literally 12. Y r u worried about your soul mate already? Slow down, enjoy life, eat fries.
NE1 see this article on the girl who committed suicide b/c a pic of her stamp was spread around her school? aol . it /32gshl Knowledge is power. Use wisely.
I S2G I'll personally punch every person who sends (DHale) a fake stamp shot
None of u would be half as willing to post pics of ur Stamp if it were real. C me posting my Stamp? No? Exactly. If it were real u wouldn't say it thru twitter.
OMG I am sooooo peeved rite now u all suck stfu! back off (DHale) and back off me! Not my problem if u can't handle ur own love life dont ruin some1 else's!
#EatTheRude
All of it had been posted in the two hours after Derek had signed off yesterday. WAWRZYNIEC kept responding to hate tweets and messages sent to him, which only seemed to make people send him more hate, yet he kept it up. So WAWRZYNIEC was stubborn but not exactly social media smart. Still, Derek was touched that WAWRZYNIEC would try to defend him, even at his own expense.
Against his better judgment, Derek sent off a private message to WAWRZYNIEC. It said "Don't fight my battles for me. It'll just cause more problems." and it wasn't until after he'd sent it that Derek considered how ungrateful he sounded. He considered sending another message but by the time he'd written and erased five attempts, Derek just gave up and shut his computer without shutting it down properly.
Cora found him with his head planted firmly against the wood of his desk fifteen minutes later. "Alright, I refuse to accept the amount of wallowing you're doing in my house."
"It's not your house," Derek said, voice muffled by the desk. "I bought it for mom and the family."
His little sister snorted. "Whatever. I live here and I can't exist in the same space as this mess," she stated firmly. "You're gonna get up and buy me a cake."
"Why would I do that?" he asked without moving.
"Because I said so."
He didn't get a chance to dissent because in two seconds flat Cora had grabbed him by the upper arm and dragged him from the room.
...
...
If the paparazzi news was anything to go by, Derek hadn't been seen in public in days - since his soul stamp was photographed and spread like wildfire over the internet. Paparazzi were practically living at Derek's house trying to get an interview or a picture or both but so far his camero hadn't moved from the garage and no one had seen the middle Hale child leave for any reason.
Stiles was glad there wasn't any new news about Derek and his stamp, but he was upset that Derek was being forced into what amounted to house arrest. The house arrest was the only reason Stiles wasn't getting too worked up over Derek's private message on twitter.
At first he'd thought he was having a heart attack, seeing a message from Derek Hale, his soul mate, untouchable movie star and glaring heartthrob. Then he'd actually read the message and he'd glared hard enough to rival Derek. Ok, maybe not that bad but close. Stiles had been pissed off at a lot of people in Derek's defense (and, ok, in his own as well. These vultures were after his man!) and Derek was just brushing him off? Telling him he was causing more harm than good?
"Well at least they're after me and not you," Stiles muttered bitterly at his computer screen.
But then he remembered what he'd found in his internet search on Derek Hale. He was best known for playing surly, angry characters with dark pasts and dark futures. He'd portrayed several villains too, well enough that Stiles had actually been afraid to see anything with Derek in it for a few months - for which Scott still picked on him about and which Stiles desperately hoped his younger friend would never bring up now that Stiles knew Derek was his soul mate. But Derek had also gotten roles in romantic dramas, where his characters had fewer lines than typical male leads in the same genre, but where his facial expressions and ability to convey everything with only his eyebrows had won him some pretty diehard fans.
Derek hated giving interviews. Or, that's what Stiles had to assume when Derek always gave the shortest answers acceptable and glared all the way through every question with every reporter and interviewer. Derek never took a date to award shows, instead escorting his mother or one of his sisters or - once - his younger brother. He never smiled in red carpet photos and rarely interacted with fans in public.
In short, he was a sour grape.
And just when Stiles had been ready to resign himself to being soul mates with a complete dick, he'd found a website hidden deep in the search results. A little league baseball championship where most of the competitors were intercity teams. The championship was funded in part by Derek and the actor was mentioned in the About section as having helped coach and sponsor half of the participating teams. From there, Stiles found evidence that Derek quietly donated money to fund new no-kill shelters and feeding the homeless and disaster relief funds. He bought a big house for his mom, and the rest of his large family, after a scandal involving one of Derek's ex-girlfriends burning down their old ancestral house in northern California.
And okay, maybe Stiles's methods in learning some of that were slightly illegal, but once he caught whiff of all these Good Deeds for Eddie McDowd, Stiles had felt compelled to know how many deeds Derek had left before he became a real boy - er, or something like that.
So, staring at this dry, huffy message from Derek, Stiles was torn. Derek was being kind of a dick, but Stiles knew he wasn't actually as much of a dick as he wanted everyone to believe. So was Derek actually being a dick with this message or did he have some other motive for his abrasive words?
When his cell phone rang, Stiles picked it up without looking at the caller I.D. and said "My soul mate is a freaking walking puzzle, man."
"...Okay?" Scott responded. "I guess figuring out who it is could be like a puzzle...but I actually wanted to ask you about-"
"Yes, Allison is as into you as you are her," Stiles interrupted. "And no, dude, that's not what I meant. I mean my actual, living, breathing soul mate is a walking puzzle."
There was a pause before the sound of a gasp came down the line. "Wait, Stiles, did you find your stamp's match?!"
Stiles rolled his eyes and looked away from his computer screen. "Dude, you would know this if you read a magazine. Or glanced at one while shopping with your mom."
"...I don't understand."
"My soul stamp is all over the freaking internet, Scott!" Stiles complained loudly, gesturing with his entire left arm toward his computer screen even though Scott couldn't see him. "Except it's not on my body! And now everyone and their damn cousin is claiming to be me. I mean, not me me, obviously, but me as in the match to the stamp in the picture. And how the hell am I supposed to claim my spot when every one of his fans is doing the exact same stupid thing? And then when he finally messages me, which is surprising in the first place because I mean come on I can't be the only person to say 'sorry' or 'shut up', he's a dick, but he also works with intercity baseball teams and donates to save the kittens, Scott. Kittens."
Scott was quiet while Stiles' brain caught up with his mouth. It was enough of a pause for Stiles to mentally run through his ramble and realize he'd left out some probably pretty crucial bits of data.
"Derek Hale," he said. "I'm talking about Derek Hale."
"..."
Stiles glanced at his phone to make sure it was still connected. It was. "Scott?" he inquired cautiously.
When Scott finally responded, it wasn't even a question. "What."
Stiles sighed. "I know. Tell me about it."
"What? No. No, you tell me about it. I'm so lost. Back up," Scott started up again. "Start from the beginning."
Great. Stiles took a deep breath and did what he did best: he rambled. He paraphrased what happened to Derek with the fan revealing his stamp and then how Stiles had been on a google binge and somehow moved from looking up how to sneak vegetables into his father's food to reading about wolf packs to seeing his soul stamp dozens of times over in an image search and finding out it belonged to infamous movie star Derek Hale. He'd gone with the easiest route of contact: twitter, but found out that everyone and their brother was either harassing Derek about his stamp or claiming to be his match (which, technically, was also harassment).
So instead of starting a conversation with "Hey, this is gonna sound insane, I know, Nobody from Beacon Hills, California who doubles as a busboy at a restaurant and a gofer for the sheriff's department and hasn't even graduated college yet versus super successful broody movie star with honest to God awards on his mantel, but we have the same soul stamp and I was wondering if maybe we should talk, maybe get to know one another since according to the universe we're meant to be." he'd instead just apologized for all the shit Derek had been getting for it.
He told Scott about how Derek had responded to his tweet and how that got Stiles all fired up, how he'd started researching whether what had happened was illegal in any way and had found horror stories of people who committed suicide or murder or ended up in psych wards due to their stamps being paraded around. Then Stiles had started tweeting links to articles, replying to dickwads on Derek's twitter with his own stoked revenge fire. He had tweeted more tweets about related subjects in three hours than he ever had ever before. Ever.
Scott got to hear all about Derek's front of dickishness that hid all the good deeds he was doing - and while Scott didn't get the Eddie McDowd reference, Stiles didn't begrudge him it, it was an old show Stiles only knew about because he was Stiles. And Stiles finished with the message Derek had sent him and how Stiles didn't know what to make of it because dick-not-dick soul mate was confusing him.
"Now do you get it?" he asked when he was done.
Scott hummed down the line. "So the guy who terrified you for months turns out to be the one person in the whole world you're meant to be with," he said, amusement thick in his voice that made Stiles roll his eyes. "But you're not sure if he's actually someone to be terrified of or if he's just a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth."
Stiles blinked at his phone. "Dude. Did you just reference Angel?"
He could practically hear the blush coating Scott's face through the phone. "My point is, Stiles," he said, "He's your soul mate but you're confused if he's a good guy or not, right?"
"Right."
"So do what you do best. Talk to him. Be yourself. If he's your soul mate, he should be totally cool, dude. You've just gotta make him see you past all the crap people are saying."
For a moment, Stiles basked in that rare moment of wisdom from his best friend. Then he said, "Sometimes, bro, you flip the scales and become my Yoda instead of the other way around."
"Hey!"
Stiles laughed. "I'm serious! That was awesome, man." And, feeling generous, he followed it up with, "So what's new with the Allison situation?"
...
...
tbc.