A/N: Another cute fluffy Sterek fic for you, rattled off in like 3 hours last night and therefore largely unedited, sorry about that.

Stiles waited until the bell rang for lunch before he made his move. He had determined that to be the optimal time, the moment of maximum exposure and emphasis. Everybody would be flooding out of their classrooms and moving toward the cafeteria in one giant horde, and Lydia would be the last one out of her AP Calculus class like she always was because she stayed back to argue with the teacher.

Stiles had been preparing for this for weeks, building himself up to it and memorizing the pièce de résistance. He glanced over his reference sheet one more time just as the bell rang, mouthing the words to himself before folding it up and stuffing it in his pocket. He might've been sweaty with nerves, but unless this went far, far better than he was expecting, Lydia wasn't likely to be close enough to tell so that was fine. Besides, he was allowed to be nervous; he was taking the final leap.

If this didn't win him Lydia's favor, nothing ever would.

As soon as that beautiful strawberry blonde hair came into sight, Stiles stepped out into the middle of the crowded hallway with a flourish of his arms.

"Lydia, my lady!" he called, loud enough that heads turned toward him from all directions. He didn't let the mildly alarmed stares deter him, not even Lydia's.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment!" he said, because they were meant to be. No one in this godforsaken school understood her like he did.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. Or bends with the remover to remove." Like that asshole Jackson, the one who made Lydia feel like she needed to be some vapid princess instead of the amazing, brilliant genius that she was. She needed someone who could accept her as she was instead of making her change.

Lydia didn't seem to be getting what he was saying just yet, but everyone else was falling back to clear the way for him so obviously they at least had some appreciation for what he was trying to do here. His love was standing outside her classroom, wide-eyed and open-mouthed with what must have been awe.

"Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark," Stiles said with all the passion he could muster—which was a lot where she was concerned, "that looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."

Lydia looked around at the crowd they'd gathered, but everyone was paying rapt attention to Stiles' performance. There were a few phones held up, probably taking video, but Stiles didn't care. This was an iconic moment! Maybe they would end up playing one of these videos at their wedding.

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come." Because Lydia's rosy lips and cheeks, as exquisite as they were, were not what he cared about most. Their connection was a deeper one, soul deep, he just knew it.

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks," he said as he approached her, with the conviction of a man who believed every word he spoke, "but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, upon me prov'd I never writ, and no man every lov'd."

That was it. That was his heart laid bear and tossed at his lady's feet, his epic declaration made in the grandest fashion he could manage. She deserved nothing less.

There was a smattering of applause from the crowd, a few catcalls and whistles, but it was Lydia's reaction that mattered. She was the only thing that mattered to him. He held his breath as he drew up in front of her, eyes never leaving her flawless face. Those eyes twinkled at him like the stars they were, and her glossed lips moved softly as she struggled to find words to express the upwelling of emotion that was surely swelling within her.

It was okay that she needed a moment. This was a lot to take in, and he would wait as long as she needed. He'd waited nine years already, and he could wait a few minutes more to hear her finally declare her love in return.

She slapped him.

Hard.

The crowd exploded with oohs and laughter and twice as much applause as before as Stiles gaped at her.

She didn't even say anything. She looked him up and down with her nose scrunched up like there was dung under it. Then she executed a precise about-face and disappeared down the hall with high heels clicking furiously, and Stiles was left to stand alone in the hall as everyone surged past him to lunch.

His face burned with the utter humiliation of it and his chest felt like someone had kicked him in the sternum. He had been rejected before, a hundred times usually by Lydia, but this one felt different. More final than the rest. Worst of all, the sinking feeling in his chest reminded him that he only had himself to blame for this.

The sound of clapping once again met Stiles' ears, slow and loud and echoing around the now empty corridor. Shaking off the overwhelming misery—enough of it to function, at least—he turned around to see Mr. Hale lounging against the door to the English classroom with a smirk on his face, just shy of condescending per usual with that guy.

"Well done, Stiles," he said heartily. "Truly, the Bard would be proud."

Normally Stiles tried his best to be respectful with all teachers except for Harris, but he was really not in the mood for being patronized and mocked by the creepy English teacher right now.

"No offense," Stiles said slowly, "and at the risk of getting myself a detention to add insult to my injury: kindly fuck off."

Mr. Hale laughed. He pushed himself off the door jamb and advanced on him, hands spread wide before him.

"Really, Stiles, I mean it," he said. "While that display of yours was ridiculous and you truly made an utter fool of yourself, the fact remains that your recitation was inspired. Foolish or not, it was a well-delivered sonnet."

"What's your point?" Stiles snapped. "Besides rubbing salt in the wound?"

"My point," Mr. Hale stressed, "is that you have shown yourself to have potential in this particular field and it would be a shame to let it go to waste."

Stiles frowned at him. "Potential?"

"Shakespeare isn't easy for most," Mr. Hale told him with a touch of haughtiness. "It takes a certain kind of person, and a deep understanding of the language, to make the the Bard's words flow and breathe as they were meant to. You managed that. That makes you special in my book."

"Look, what do you want from me?" Stiles asked, stuffing a hand in his pocket to clench around his print out of the sonnet in question. "'Cause this is kinda starting to sound like a come on, and I don't think my dad would appreciate his underage son being hit on by his middle-aged teachers."

Mr. Hale chuckled again.

"Not a come on," he said reassuringly. "More like a sales pitch, so that this whole disaster doesn't have to have been in vain."

Stiles clenched his teeth around the rude things he wanted to say because, honestly, it had been a disaster and no amount of snark would change that.

"Sales pitch for what?"

Mr. Hale produced a flyer from somewhere on his person, light blue with tasteful calligraphy on it, and Stiles snatched it out of his hand after only a moment of deliberation. It was an advertisement for the drama club, the little drama and comedy masks hanging out in the upper corners of the page, the words A Midsummer Night's Dream emblazoned in the middle, and a bunch of dates underneath. Stiles looked up at Mr. Hale with surprise and no small amount of curiosity.

"Open auditions start tomorrow," the teacher said. "Auditorium, 3:20. You could be great there, Stiles. Believe me when I say that." He began sauntering backwards toward his classroom again, not taking his eyes off of Stiles. "Unless," he said innocently, "you'd rather continue warming the bench at every lacrosse game. Choice is yours."

At least this time when Stiles was left alone in the empty hallway, he had something other than his own crushing heartbreak to keep him company. The flyer ended up in the same pocket as the sonnet and it couldn't stop fiddling with it for the rest of the day.

The auditorium was full of people Stiles barely recognized. While Stiles was far from popular, he still hung out mostly on the fringes of the popular crowd, following Scott onto the lacrosse team (technically) and always hoping he would catch Lydia's eye if he was just always there. These were the other kids, the theater geeks and choir nerds that he had just never had much contact with.

They all looked at him weird when he walked in, but everybody was looking at him weird after yesterday. He could only blame them so much for that, no matter how much he resent the constant snickering. It was only the grin Mr. Hale gave him—the actual, full on, possibly genuine smile —that kept him from turning around and walking right back out.

Stiles was nervous and jittery. He had considerable sitting still and honestly the majority of Mr. Hale's welcome speech and instructions went right over his head, but this whole thing was probably just one giant mistake anyway so what did that matter? He didn't zone back in until Mr. Hale called his name and gestured for him to stand up on the stage like all the other students had done so far.

He did so even though his knees were knocking together in a very uncomfortable fashion. The lights weren't as hot as he had expected, but he was pretty sure the real stage lights weren't actually on. At least after yesterday, having three dozen pairs of eyes on him didn't phase him much.

He barely remembered performing his monologue. It wasn't the same one as yesterday because that one probably would've gotten him laughed off the stage. It was one of the half dozen other excerpts he had half-memorized before deciding on the one he'd used. He thought it went relatively well, if only because no one was laughing. Mr. Hale was smiling again as he dismounted the stage, so maybe he even did it well.

It wasn't until he was back in his seat and coming down from the adrenaline high that Stiles realized he was smiling too.

"I got the part."

Scott looked very confused and Stiles remembered abruptly that he had never actually told Scott about the whole drama club thing.

"I kind of sort of...auditioned for the school play," Stiles said, very quickly just in case confessing embarrassing secrets to his best friend was like ripping off a bandaid. "And I got a lead role!"

Scott continued to look confused for a minute, and a little bit weirded out for another minute. Then he smiled brightly because he was a good and supportive friend like that.

"That's great!" he said. "Congratulations! Why are you doing that though?"

Stiles led the way toward the auditorium instead of heading to the parking lot like he usually did after last period, and Scott followed along agreeably.

"Creepy Hale told me I should 'cause The Incident on monday showed that I have potential as a Shakespearean actor," Stiles told him. "I kind of thought it was bullshit, but I went to the audition yesterday and the cast list is up and I got one of the biggest and most important parts in the play! And now, I mean, I can't just not drop out now, like, sorry, just kidding, or whatever. I got the part and now I have to actually do it. I gotta be in the play."

"Well, you're gonna be great," Scott said bracingly, clapping him on the shoulder. "Of course you're gonna be great! It's drama club, after all, and you are nothing if not dramatic."

Stiles whacked him in the chest, but that did actually make him feel a bit better. Scott laughed and bumped his shoulder.

"Seriously though, bro, I have every faith that in you," he said. "And so did the director if he gave you the part. He thought you could do it, I think you can do it, so obviously you can do it."

"Thanks, man."

Stiles ruffled Scott's hair, earning himself a groan and a shove, and they were both laughing when Stiles knocked into someone.

The someone in question was a stunningly gorgeous man with biceps like bowling balls and stubble so artful it looked painted on.

"Whoa, sorry, dude," Stiles said, holding up his hands in surrender.

"Don't call me 'dude'," the guy said, with a glare that could punch its way through concrete. He stalked off toward the stage before Stiles could retort. Stiles stared after him, torn between being offended by the brush-off and being appropriately appreciate of that ass.

"Who the hell was that?" Scott asked. It was probably meant to be rhetorical, but a passing guy in a matching scarf and beret stopped beside him.

"That's Peter's nephew," he said, and he clarified upon seeing their blank looks. "Mr. Hale's nephew, I mean. He's a sophomore at BHU in the theater program, and he's interning here as both assistant director and set designer."

"He's a douche," Scott said, still offended on Stiles' behalf like any good best friend would be, but scarf guy just shrugged.

"He's not that bad when you get to know him. Just kind of prickly. Hell of an actor though, and an even better director."

"Yeah, well, we probably won't have much to do with each other," Stiles muttered, hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder and trying to decide if he was glad of that fact or disappointed.

"I am that merry wanderer of the night! I jest to Oberon and make him smile, when I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, neighing in likeness of a filly foal—"

Stiles dropped his script with a groan, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck.

"This is so weird," he said, squinting against the lights to Peter where he sat in the front row of the audience. "I feel like an idiot."

At least there were only a few other people hanging around, most of them focused on learning their own lines or blocking and a few working on the sets. Peter's nephew was doing something unfairly impressive with a paintbrush.

"Not an idiot, Stiles. A fool," Peter corrected him. "A jester, jokester, trickster. Call it whatever you like, but Puck is as much a clown as he is a sage. There are moments when he's meant to be over the top. You can't fear the audience's laughter."

"Getting laughed at isn't fun."

"It is when they're meant to laugh at you." Peter sighed. "Comic relief, Stiles. Embrace it. There's no room for shame in the theater."

Stiles raised his script again, but it was like the words were mocking him. He groaned again.

"Can I take five?" he asked. He just needed to have a minute, shake off the weird yucky feeling he had going on right now, and get himself back into the groove.

Peter waved him off and Stiles fell back with a gusty sigh of relief. He almost stumbled over some kind of wooden cut-out, purpose apparently undecided, but scarf guy—whose name he now knew to be Isaac—steadied him.

"You know, you'd think you would be over shame by now," Isaac said casually. "What with the Lydia thing and all. Don't know how you can be embarrassed by this after that. "

"Thanks, pal," Stiles said through gritted teeth. "That's exactly what I needed to hear."

"Just saying."

Isaac shrugged and sauntered off, probably off to get fitted for his giant paper mache donkey head. Because he was an ass. Stiles cursed and hit himself in the face with his script a few times.

"Don't listen to him."

Stiles whirled around to see Derek kneeling on the other side of the wooden set thing, brush still in hand. Derek looked to be mostly focused on his work, but he did glance up at Stiles with much less of a glare than he wore the last time they'd interacted.

"Letting go of your inhibitions in front of a crowd isn't easy," Derek said, painting something in green. "The fear of judgment is pervasive, but it can be overcome with some work. And it has to be if you want to play a part like Puck well."

"I know," Stiles said, gripping his script tight enough to crinkle the edges. "That's just...easier said than done."

"It won't be as hard to get into character once there's costumes and brighter lights," Derek told him. "Everything feels a little unreal then. You just have to find a way to pull that feeling out earlier in the rehearsal process."

Stiles swallowed hard. "I don't know if I can do that."

"Sure you can." Derek glanced up again, and it looked like he might even have been smiling a little bit. It made him look much less unapproachable. "I may not have borne witness to whatever it is Isaac was referencing, but I did see your audition. You've got the talent. You just need to trust that the audience will recognize it."

Something warm unfurled in Stiles' stomach, pushing out a little bit of that ache that had been festering there since The Incident. He wanted to say something to Derek, to thank him for the advice and the encouragement, but Peter called for him to continue the rehearsal. Stiles waved to him, and when he looked back at Derek, the man was fully engrossed in his painting again so Stiles left him to it.

"More jovial, Stiles," Peter called out. "Remember, you're enjoying this! It may not be what you planned for, but it's good fun anyway. You and Oberon are conspiring in this, nudging the lovers this way and that. It's all a game to you."

"Right, got it."

Stiles tried to school his expression into something more jovial, whatever the hell that was supposed to translate to physically. It was a lot harder to convey emotion when he wasn't the one speaking. Words made everything so much simpler, even when the words themselves were complicated.

They made it through a few more stanzas of Erica espousing Hermia's sudden and inexplicable love of Lysander before Peter cut them off again with a frown.

"Boyd, you look bored out of your mind," he said. "You should be going for regal, not resigned. Think kingly thoughts. And Stiles, you're still coming across as very flat."

Stiles huffed in frustration.

"If I might?"

They all turned to see Derek leaning around the curtains from the backstage area. Stiles stubbornly ignored the little jump of his heart because it was stupid and unnecessary and if he didn't acknowledge the feeling then it would probably go away.

Peter waved a magnanimous hand and Derek stepped out onto the stage properly.

"Acting is as much about physicality as it is the way you say your lines," he said, his voice echoing around the space. "It's true that someone in the audience is always going to be looking at you, and you should maintain a physical presence for their sake. But a lot of budding actors don't realize how much a shift in posture can do for you. "

He approached Boyd, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"Boyd, you're playing a king," he said. "And kings embody certain traits, don't they? They're majestic, proud, larger than life. So yeah, it's not that easy for a high schooler to embody 'majestic', but if you widen your stance and throw your shoulders back, you don't have to feel it. Hold your head high and the audience will read confidence whether you feel it or not."

Boyd let Derek nudge at him, shifting under the man's hands until his chest was puffed out and he was looking down his nose at them all. Suddenly there was a little smile tugging at the corner of Boyd's mouth and a narrowing of the eyes that made him look almost calculating. It made a big difference, even if the changes were small, and Derek smiled at him approvingly.

Then he turned to Stiles.

"But you," he said, pointing at him. "Your job is both harder and easier."

"How so?" Stiles asked, unaccountably nervous now that all the man's considerable focus was on him. Derek was always kind of intense no matter what he was doing, and usually it came across as gruff and forbidding, but this was different. He seemed energized, enthused even, and Stiles could see why Isaac had been so impressed with his directing skills from the start.

"Your character isn't human," Derek told him, and he rolled his eyes when Stiles snorted at him. "Okay, neither is Oberon, but Puck is even less so. Puck can get away with being obviously not human, and that gives you a free pass to be different. To be strange."

"Strange...physically?" Stiles asked, highly dubious, but Derek nodded.

"You're a spirit! Who's to say you feel the need to stand upright all the time?" Derek posited. "You can loosen up, move freely, never stop moving. Or you can stand perfectly still in a way that's just this side of unnerving because normal people don't do that. You can think snake-like and make all your movements into a slither, or you can channel Tarzan."

"Tarzan, really?"

"The point is, you can do anything you want to make yourself not-quite-human," Derek told him, "and no one can tell you you're doing it wrong. And once you start moving that way, thinking that way—you'll start feeling it too."

Stiles was feeling something, that was for sure, but he didn't think it was what he was supposed to be breathlessness and the pounding heart and the sweaty palms were all distinctly human feelings, ones he had never associated with anyone except for Lydia, and they were probably wholly inappropriate with regards to his teacher's college-aged nephew. Even if said nephew had eyes like galaxies and so much passion for his craft that it spilled over onto everyone around him.

Peter cleared his throat at the edge of the stage and it made Stiles jump. Derek looked a little startled too and Stiles realized all of a second that they were standing closer together than the conversation probably called for. He couldn't remember which of them had stepped forward into the other's space.

"Let's take the scene from the top," Peter said, "with Derek's contributions taken into consideration. Reset."

Derek squeezed Stiles' shoulder before he left the stage and it didn't stop tingling until well after rehearsal was over.

Stiles found Derek near the end of rehearsal a few days later, halfway up a ladder as he detailed yet another stunning set piece, and was it really fair that the man was actor, director, underwear model, and artist all rolled into one?

"Hey, Derek," he called up to him, making sure not to stand directly under the painting area just in case a paint drop fell on his face. Derek stopped what he was doing to look down at him, smiling. Stiles liked that Derek smiled at him now.

"Hey, Stiles."

"Yo, I just wanted to, uh...to thank you," Stiles said. "For the coaching on the whole movement thing. That really helped a lot, and I never would've thought to do stuff like that on my own."

Derek put a final flourish on his work and started backing down the ladder, brush held in his teeth to free up his hands. He jumped the last few rungs, landing directly in front of Stiles with a much softer thump than was fair for someone of his size. He plucked the brush from his mouth and was smiling again right away, leaning against the ladder.

"What you're doing looks great," he said, and Stiles flushed pink like the giant lovestruck girl he was. "I like the crouching thing you've got going on, you know, almost sliding back and forth. The redistribution of weight looks inhuman without looking bestial, so it's a good balance."

"Yeah, but maintaining that balance is the hard part," Stiles said with a laugh. "I'm not exactly graceful by nature, in case you haven't noticed. And it's hell on my thighs."

Derek's eyes widened, the tip of his tongue poking out to wet his lips, and Stiles had the sudden urge to bash his head into something solid or possibly very pointy.

"Oh god, that came out way more sexual than I intended," he groaned.

Derek ducked his head, laughing a little bit, and fuck him for having such a nice laugh when he was already so goddamn pretty. That just wasn't fair.

"Uh no, sorry, that was—I just—"

Derek ran a hand through his hair, but the hand had a smudge of orange paint on it. It left a smear of sticky orange from his forehead back, a line of hair sticking up in its way. Derek didn't notice until Stiles completely failed at holding in his own laughter, at which point he looked at his orange hand like it had let him down greatly.

"Wow, that's not embarrassing at all," he muttered.

"Good thing you're not looking to impress anyone, right?" Stiles said brightly.

He shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid flailing them around like an idiot as he was so prone to doing when flustered. He'd knocked more than a few lunch trays out of people's hands when Lydia had flipped her curls over her shoulder, and Derek's paint-sticky hair was somehow having the same effect on him. It was bad enough that he'd developed a humongous crush on Derek, he didn't need to add on the embarrassment of accidentally knocking over the guy's carefully crafted set pieces just because he couldn't control his limbs in the face of his unrequited feelings.

But then Derek ducked his head again and said, "Who says I'm not?"

Stiles was glad he had his hands in his pockets. That way, when his hands reflexively tried to go all over the place, he only managed to knock himself over instead of the set pieces. He righted himself before he reached the ground, so he was spared at least that indignity, but still probably looked like an idiot. In front of Derek, who could not possibly have just meant what it sort of sounded like he had meant.

"I need to, um—I think I hear Isaac calling me for the—the thing, the thing that I'm supposed to be, um, doing—right now—"

The incoherent stammering would be more embarrassing if he hadn't just almost fallen flat on his ass from a stationary position. Now he flailed himself in a general backward direction, away from Derek and his casual lean and his pretty eyes and his painted hair. But before he could make it back to the main rehearsal area, Stiles gave in to the insistent fluttering in his stomach, the part of him that wondered if maybe he hadn't misinterpreted Derek's question.

"Hey, um. I'm having a little trouble with a scene," he said in a rush, before he could chicken out. "Maybe you could run it with me sometime, help me out? You could be Oberon."

Derek leaned back against the ladder more fully, paintbrush twirling in and around his talented fingers and said, "I can be whoever you want me to be."

And there was no way for Stiles to misinterpret the smirk on his face.

Opening night was even more of a blur than auditions had been, at least it was by the time it was over. Every moment felt bright and crystal clear as it happened—the heat of the lights, the itchiness of the seams in his distressingly tight costume, the drip of sweat in the small of his back, every single upturned face in the crowd—but he couldn't remember a bit of it by the end of the show.

As the curtain fell, it hit Stiles all at once that he had made it through. For a few seconds, he was left alone in the middle of the darkened stage, and all he could feel was the thrill of it all, a savage rush of pleasure that made him want to run and jump and whoop until his voice gave out.

Then his cast mates were rushing out to join him, Boyd taking his hand on one side and Erica on the other and the curtain was rising again. Stiles raised his arms high, dragging the others' with him and leading them all in one bow after another as the audience clapped and cheered and whistled. He was pretty sure he could see his dad with a camcorder in hand and he didn't even mind.

Curtain call seemed to last forever, but Stiles didn't mind. He sort of wanted to live in that moment, and the only thing that got him to leave the stage was the reminder that he would get to do it all over again the next night. There were hugs and back-slaps and hair ruffles all around as the cast members congratulated one another on jobs well done, so it took Stiles several minutes to make it out of the clump and to the wings.

Derek was waiting there, dressed in all black like the rest of the stage crew and beaming at him. At him, Stiles. Derek Hale was right there in front of him, looking at Stiles like he was something special, and it was like being under the brilliance of the spotlight all over again.

He was saying something, Stiles knew, something about how great he'd been and how far he had come since rehearsals started, but Stiles wasn't listening.

"Hey, Derek," he said, breathless and eager and somehow not nervous in the least. "If I recited a sonnet at you right now, right this second...would you kiss me?"

Derek laughed, bright and surprised. He shook his head, but it didn't look like a no at all.

"Who needs a sonnet for that?" he asked.

When he kissed Stiles, the whole cast erupted into cheers behind them. Stiles really hoped one of them had a camera, because this was definitely gonna play at their wedding.