Stiles was a serial list-maker.

It'd started when he was younger, and had first been diagnosed with ADHD. His mom had decided that the easiest way to keep her son on the right track was to give him a detailed list of things that needed to be done, so that when he inevitably got distracted he would have an easy way to remember what he should have been doing.

After she died, Stiles found that writing and following his lists to the letter was the best way to get through those first few excruciating months. If he had a sense of purpose, he didn't stay locked inside painful thoughts, and writing lists helped him feel that little bit closer to his mom.

These days, he mostly made lists when he was bored. He had branched out from to-do lists to all kinds of lists, which were usually things like 'Eight Reasons Why Harris is a Raging Douchebag' and 'Reasons Why Werewolves and Their Supernatural Bullshit Can Go to Hell' (that one didn't have a number on it yet. Stiles added to it whenever he was particularly pissy with one of the furry bastards, and at last count it was sitting at forty-three entries).

Today, though, he was back to writing a to-do list. Various wolfy shenanigans were making his school assignments take a backseat, and he was seriously running out of time to get everything done. So, rather than listen to his English teacher drone on about poetry, he was scribbling a schedule underneath the few notes he actually had taken.

The problem was, he got distracted while noting down his chemistry assignment, and started daydreaming instead. And, as they tended to do, his daydreams eventually took a pretty inappropriate slant considering the fact that he was in class.

Today's fantasy of choice? Derek Hale and his stupidly hot...everything (which, coincidentally, was also entry number twelve in 'Reasons Why Werewolves and Their Supernatural Bullshit Can Go to Hell'). Sure, Stiles was still fully planning on marrying Lydia if he got the chance; but he'd pretty much resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to get a chance. If Lydia loved Jackson enough to bring him out of his murderous lizard phase, then who was he to try and get in the middle of that?

And it didn't matter that Derek was a dude, because it's not like anything was ever going to actually happen there (he really needed to start going after people that might actually have a chance of liking him back). Stiles was holding off on the potential gay crisis until it was actually going to be, y'know, relevant to his life.

The sounds of the people around him starting to pack their books up brought him out of his daydream, and Stiles paused just before he closed his notebook. Laughing quietly to himself, he quickly grabbed his pen and scribbled two words at the top of his to-do list, in the small space between the heading and the previous first entry:

'Derek Hale'.

That night, Stiles was dicking around on the internet when his phone started vibrating on his desk. He groaned when he saw that Scott was calling him: they usually just texted each other, and so it usually meant that his best friend was having some sort of freak out when an actual call was made.

Stiles grudgingly accepted the call, and was just about to ask Scott what was up when the other boy's voice came blasting out of the speaker.

"What the goddamn fuck, Stiles?"

"Uhh..." Stiles began, "And it's great to hear from you too, buddy."

"No, seriously, Stiles. What the hell?"

It took a few seconds for Stiles to click to it, but his face started burning up when he realised what Scott was referring to.

He'd thoughtlessly lent Scott his notebook after school, because Scott was horrible at taking notes and sometimes needed to copy the basic summaries that Stiles took throughout the day. Which meant that Scott had read his notebook.

And had more than likely seen the 'Things to Do' list that Stiles had scribbled down during English.

Laughing nervously into the phone, Stiles typically began to ramble. "It's a joke! Seriously, isn't that hilarious? I mean, as if that is something that I would actually want, or that would ever happen to me, because it's him, and I'm me, and because Lydia..."

"Derek Hale, Stiles. He's the biggest goddamn jerk in that whole pack of jerky werewolves, and you want to, ugh, do him?"

Stiles immediately switched to the defensive. "Is this a homophobic thing, Scott? Because you should know that's really not cool. I thought you were better than that, man."

"No, Stiles. You know perfectly well I don't have a problem with dudes liking dudes, or you liking dudes. I have a problem with the fact that you apparently like the guy who made our lives a living hell!"

"Well, I'd say that's more Peter's fault that anything else, but..."

"Stiles, no. Pleeeeaaasseeee, anyone but him. Hey, I hear Greenberg is singl-..."

"If you ever even suggest that again, I'm going to force-feed you wolfsbane until you explode."

There were a few moments of silence before Scott sighed heavily, sounding like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Fine. Just...I don't want to hear about it, okay? Please give me that much. I can probably get over the fact that you want to have his puppies or whatever, but I can't handle you talking about him like he's your new Lydia."

"Derek's not my new...alright, whatever, it's a deal. I won't talk to you about it if you don't tell anyone about this. I don't need his cubs laughing at me for wanting to sex up their way-out-of-my-league Alpha."

Sometime during that, Scott had started repeatedly yelling, "Lalala, I don't want to hear it," while presumably covering his ears. Stiles cracked up laughing, before eventually managing to calm down and apologise.

"Alright, alright, sorry. I won't tell you about how much I want to suck Derek's di-..." The connection went silent, and Stiles looked at his phone screen to see that yes, Scott had hung up on him. Laughing again, Stiles slumped back in his chair, leaning his head over the back of it, and nearly fell to the ground in shock when he saw a dark figure skulking in front of his window.

That was when mortification set in again.

"Nope!" Stiles declared, knowing full well that Derek had at least heard the end of the conversation. "We're not doing this. All aboard the nope train to Nopeville!"

Stumbling out of the chair, Stiles made a break for the door, only to be unceremoniously wrenched back when Derek grabbed the back of his shirt and wouldn't let him leave.

"I need an adult!" Stiles screeched as he vainly tried to get free, aware that his dad was at work and wasn't about to come running upstairs. Derek let out a low growl at that, a noise which Stiles had long figured out meant, 'I'm surrounded by idiots'.

Grumbling under his breath, Stiles reluctantly stopped trying to squirm out of Derek's grip. "If you're going to kill me, make it quick. I'd rather you didn't let me slowly die out from embarrassment."

"If I was going to kill you, I would've done it before you even realised I was here."

Somehow, that didn't really fill Stiles with any real sense of relief. He wouldn't put it past Derek to make him relax, think he was safe, only to then turn around and tear out Stiles' lungs or something. So naturally, he started struggling again.

"Let me go, dammit!" Derek's grip on his shirt tightened, and then the older man's other arm wrapped around Stiles' waist, dragging him back until he was flush against Derek's chest.

"And what if I don't want to do that?" Derek's voice was low and dangerous in Stiles' ear, his hand releasing its grip on Stiles' shirt and joining the other around his waist. Stiles went still in shock, and then he scowled.

"This really isn't cool, dude. You shouldn't fuck around with me like this just because I'm a sucker for a pretty face. You don't like me? That's okay, you can just ignore me. You don't have to be such a dick about it."

Derek's arms loosened around him, and a well-placed elbow to the gut gave Stiles just enough time to slip free. He turned around to glare his disapproval at Derek, but was shocked to see the slightest bit of hurt in the man's eyes.

"You really think I'm a horrible person."

"Well, I mean, the evidence kinda points towards..." Stiles broke off, seeing Derek tense up. "Alright dude, time for real talk. You're kind of a dick sometimes, but I guess I'm...sort of into that? Look at Lydia. She was nothing but a raging bitch towards me, now that I actually think about it. But you're not always a dick. You turned your pack because you wanted to give them better lives, even if it didn't quite work out that way. And you've stopped trying to hurt me using whichever surface is closest, which is totally great, by the way."

Derek actually looked like he was embarrassed for a second there, before his face went back to neutral. "That's because you've stopped being such a little shit."

"See? Progress!" Stiles exclaimed. "But seriously, I'm really not in the mood for any serious conversations tonight. Can we agree to maybe...never mention this again?"

Derek frowned, and Stiles felt his heart drop, but then his lips curved into an evil-looking smirk. "That's a good plan if you want to stay single and a virgin forever."

And then Stiles could only watch, open-mouthed, as Derek turned and vaulted straight out the window.

"Get back here and explain yourself!" Stiles snarled as he stomped over and stuck his head out the window, suddenly furious again. He nearly fell over backwards when Derek was suddenly holding himself up to the window by his arms alone, only his head inside the house as his lips came down on Stiles'.

It was over too quickly as Derek pulled back, still smirking. "Still never want to mention this again?"

"Oh, no," Stiles managed to force out through his shock, mouth working without the permission of his brain. "Gotta get past number one on my to-do list before I can get anything else done."

Derek's look showed that he clearly had no idea what Stiles was talking about, but it disappeared as Stiles encouraged him into the house and firmly proceeded to make a start on that list.

He also had to remember to add a new number two to his 'Things to Do':

'Force Scott to hear all the details'.