Sterek Library (a03 Edition)

Sweet Dreams, Derek

By; JoMouse on a03

Stiles sat behind the counter, his textbook open in front of him, as the quiet of the coffee shop flowed around him. He’d turned the radio off earlier, the tinny-sounding muzak that the owner insisted on running for ambiance poking holes inside his brain. The bells above the door jangled startling him enough to send him off the stool and to the floor, barely managing to catch himself before he’d completely hit his ass on the tile.

He glanced up, unsurprised, to see his regular late-night visitor. The man had been coming into the coffee shop every night for the past week, looking progressively worse as each shift passed. The first night, he’d been attractive enough that Stiles had attempted flirting with him only to be rebuffed because of course someone as good looking as this man would have no interest in an awkward college student. As the nights passed, the man had become less verbal, his movements slower and the circles underneath his eyes growing darker. Even his beard had gone from artful stubble to near mountain man so rapidly that Stiles would think it was fake if he weren’t sure he’d watched it growing one night.

“The usual?” he called as he pulled himself to stand straight behind the counter. The man jumped, his shoulders tensing as his eyes met Stiles’.

“What do you mean?” he asked, the most words he’d said in the past couple of days combined. His face was pale, the bags standing out even more, and his eyes darted around before coming back to Stiles. “Who are you?”

“Stiles,” he responded, pointing to his name tag. “The barista?” he continued when there was no recognition on the man’s face. “Been here every night this week?”

The man looked about five seconds away from bolting out the door and didn’t look capable of staying upright for long so Stiles hurriedly made his regular coffee order. The whole time he was working on it, he kept one eye on the man who was pacing the length of the coffee shop, looking over his shoulder towards the door and then back towards Stiles.

“Derek?” he called, suddenly remembering the man’s name from the first night as his hand automatically scrawled it on the side of the cup. 

“How do you know my name?” Derek growled, rushing to the counter and slamming his hands down on it with enough force to shake the glass jars full of biscotti, knocking one off of the edge where it shattered against the tile.

The noise caused Derek to back up, still looking panicked as he raced out the door, pushing past Mason, Stiles’ replacement.

Without thinking, Stiles leapt over the counter. “You can have all my tips for leaving you like this,” he said, hurrying out the door after Derek.

He looked both ways and saw him darting around a corner and as he ran after him, he started to wonder what he was getting himself into and pulled his phone out to call his dad. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Stiles told him. “You know that guy I told you has been coming into the shop every night this week?” His father made a sound of acknowledgment and he heard background noise become muted and figured he must be at work and went into his office. “He came in tonight and he’s acting really weird. Like Eichen House weird and he looks like he hasn’t slept since the first time I saw him.”

“Are you running?” 

“I’m trying to follow him. He freaked out when I called his name and knocked a glass jar off the counter and when it shattered he booked it,” Stiles explained, slowing down when Derek did and ducking into an alley when he looked around him.

The noise from his father’s side of the phone got loud again. “You’re following an unstable person in the middle of the night? Have you learned nothing in your lifetime of being my son?”