Insufferable Teacher's Pet

Chapter 1

Derek Hale had been a teacher for three years. He was only 26, and the youngest out of all his coworkers. The second person closest in age was Dr. Argent, who was 33. Because of this, nobody took him seriously. When he started at this university six months ago, he was excited to not be teaching high school anymore. He'd finally gotten his master's degree and was ready to be "Professor Hale". But upon starting, he realized the professors there acted more like high schoolers than his former students. Everything was so...cliquey. He wanted to make friends, but Derek was so used to keeping everyone at arm's length his whole life. Losing your entire family in a house fire at 15 will do that to a guy.

He had one "friend": his uncle. Peter was the one who got him the job at the college; they originally didn't want to hire him without any university experience, but Peter pulled some strings. Probably blackmailed the Dean or something, who knows. He used the term friend loosely; Peter wasn't exactly a stand-up guy, and certainly not someone Derek trusted. But he was pretty much the only person Derek could talk to without worrying he'd say something overly dark and scare him off, so they'd get drinks after work sometimes.

It was the start of the second semester, and with that brought in a whole new batch of students. The first semester, his day started at 10 AM. Unfortunately, now Derek's first class of the day, English Lit, was at 8 AM. He slept through his first two alarms and woke up later than planned, so he didn't have time to stop for coffee on the way. He got to the classroom around 7:50, which didn't give him much time to prepare anything, but at least he wasn't late. It was a small room; probably only sat about 30 students. This is what an 8 AM class got him; a tiny classroom that looked straight out of a high school. He began writing his name on the board and followed with gathering up the syllabi he'd printed out last night. He was exhausted, and the lack of coffee was already making him annoyed. What was he even annoyed at? The sound of the marker squeaking on the board? The slight hum of the AC? Now his brain was just trying to find reasons to be irritated. He should've just gotten coffee and been late.

One by one the students showed up, most of them looking like zombies. Gripping their lattes like their lives depended on it. Derek could relate to that. It was strange, teaching people not much younger than him. When he taught high school, they were all teenagers. Kids. It was easier. But teaching college students was a whole different beast. The rules and formalities of high school didn't apply here. He didn't have the same type of authority that he had before. It wasn't bad, just different. And Derek wasn't the biggest fan of change.

It was a small class, only 14 students. Most were quiet, reading the syllabus and listening as Derek talked about the materials they'd be covering through the semester. No one had any questions, and he wasn't sure if half of them were even paying attention. Several students were staring at their phones under their desks, but because it was 8 AM and the first day, he didn't even really care about telling them to focus. He'd cut them some slack. However, there were two guys in the back who couldn't stop whispering to each other the entire time Derek had been talking. He'd come to know one of them as Stiles, the most frustrating student he'd ever had the misfortune of teaching.

Four weeks. Four weeks Derek had been teaching and he had never ever met a student as obstinate and obnoxious as Stiles. The guy never shut up, was always asking stupid questions that had nothing to do with the actual materials, and when he wasn't doing that he was whispering to his friend Scott about who knows what. They sat in the back and it's not like Derek had super-hearing. Were they making fun of him? Were they gossiping? He honestly didn't give a shit: he just knew he hated Stilinski. And he wasn't even gonna attempt to pronounce that first name.

As Derek clicked to the end of the PowerPoint presentation on the Romantic period and Edgar Allan Poe's influence on it, He didn't even have time to ask, "any questions?" before Stiles' hand was in the air. Derek sighed, nodding at him. "Yes, Stiles?"