Title: fifty per cent of smooth
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Derek/Stiles
Rating: PG
Length: ~1100 words
Notes: Thanks to dogeared for betaing.
Summary: So it turns out that Stiles has a France boner, which sucks.

So it turns out that Stiles has a France boner, which sucks. Not because he's one of those people who're all rah-rah, freedom fries, European socialism sucks and have you seen how small their houses are, but because it turns out that Derek Hale—that Derek Hale—majored in French literature and culture in college.

Stiles knows this because Derek is, in fact, speaking French right now. The most experience Stiles has with French accents comes from the old Pepé Le Pew cartoons he used to watch as a kid, so he has no real way of judging if Derek's accent is any good or not, but it sounds right. And hell, none of the Argent cousins are huffing or rolling their eyes at him or anything, so he has to be good enough for them to understand him—Derek's arguing back and forth with Bruno and Stéphane, their voices low and intent and focused, while Chris Argent puts together some sort of frankly terrifying-looking sniper rifle.

Stiles elbows Scott in the side and, with what he thinks is a great degree of subtlety, speaks out the corner of his mouth. "Okay, so have you noticed how when he speaks French, Derek talks with his hands more?"

"Shhh," Scott says and elbows Stiles back. He's been a little edgy since this whole group—troupe? Bevy? Passel? Stiles is vague on the collective noun—of Argents showed up in town on the trail of a rogue wendigo pack. Admittedly, this isn't a baseless edginess.

"But have you seen his hands?" Stiles asks, not looking away from the long lines of Derek's fingers, the broad span of his palms, because let's stick with the important things, here. "Those hands are instruments of sex when he's being all French-speaking. Sex, Scott. Who knew?"

"Please stop," Scott says under his breath.

"Huh," Stiles says, cocking his head in thought, "you think he's ever worn a beret? Or one of those stripey sweater things? Are those authentic?" Derek certainly seems cranky enough to be French. At least, that's what Stiles is presuming from his knowledge of France, which is drawn largely from pop culture memes and curling up on the sofa to watch old Hollywood musicals with his mom, back in the day.

"You know he can probably hear you, right?" Scott asks.

Derek looks over sharply at them at that, though he doesn't stop speaking to the Argents. Ordinarily it'd be a little disconcerting, having the patented Hale monobrow frown directed at you like that, but there's a glimmer of something in Derek's expression—tamped-down humour, Stiles thinks, like he's absolutely aware of all the ways in which this is affecting Stiles and is doing this deliberately—that makes Stiles wish suddenly, wholeheartedly, that he was the one Derek was talking to.

This is despite the fact that Stiles' French is pretty much limited to saying "hello", "thank you", and "I like this monkey who wears the amusing hat."

When the negotiations are over, and both sides have agreed to keep the property destruction to a minimum, the Argent cousins get back into their shiny, huge pick-up truck—Stiles presumes even French dudes must feel the need to overcompensate for something occasionally—and Chris Argent nods curtly at Scott and Stiles before getting into his car. Stiles is surprised to get even that much, because what with Allison gone to Paris for the summer, Mr Argent has clearly decided to pretend as much as possible that his daughter's werewolf ex and associated pack don't exist. Stiles rewards his magnanimity with a thumbs up; that gets him an eye roll, but to be fair you can only push a grown man's patience so far.

Especially when said grown man is holding a sniper rifle.

Derek walks over to them, which is a surprise. Stiles was expecting him to head straight for his excellent-gas-mileage-top-safety-rating car—overcompensation comes in all varieties—but instead he fills them in on the details of tonight's hunt. The wolves won't be needed, but Derek told the Argents that the pack would be on standby if things go wrong.

He shrugs. "If that's okay with you, Scott. I didn't want to presume, but it seemed fair."

"No, bro," Scott says, patting him on the arm, "that's cool, that makes sense. Thanks for doing your mediator thing. You guys want to stop off for pizza on the way back?"

And it's terrible, how a small amount of praise from Scott is enough to have Derek glowing like that, ducking his head to hide a tiny smile. Terrible and adorable, and ugh, discovering you have a France boner and having an emotional epiphany in one night is exhausting.

While Scott is calling Kira to see if she wants to join them, Stiles mans up or has a brain aneurysm or something because he finds himself clearing his throat and saying, "So, uh, voulez-vous coucher avec moi sometime or something?"

Both of Derek's eyebrows go up.

"That was in French," Stiles tells him, "which means it's guaranteed to be at least fifty per cent smoother than in English."

"Fifty per cent of nothing is still nothing," Derek says.

Stiles winces. "So going for the letting me down easy approach, I see." Not like it's the first time that Stiles has confused someone laughing at him for flirting.

Derek's eyebrows do something else complicated, and he lets out a little sigh. "Je n'ai pas dit ça, Stiles. Nous en parlerons demain."

"Whoa," Stiles says, feeling confused and aroused all at once, "what? Is that a—"

Derek takes a step closer to him, close enough that Stiles' fight-or-flight instincts should be kicking in but instead he finds himself wanting to bare his throat and that's probably... something. "That's me never wanting to encourage someone to use terrible pick-up lines."

Stiles swallows. "I feel like there's a 'but' here somewhere."

"But," Derek says, ducking his head, "That's not me saying no. Tomorrow, okay? We get through this hunt and then we can… talk."

"Come on, you guys!" Scott calls. "Kira's going to phone in the order, she'll meet us there."

"I have never been so certain or so excited by the fact that someone is using the word 'talk' as a euphemism," Stiles says, not able to stop a grin from spreading across his face, "because dude, I totally want to put my face all over your face. Just FYI."

Which is maybe another example of Stiles not being so smooth, but judging by the way that little smile doesn't quite fade from Derek's face, the way he stands by his car and watches until Stiles is back in the jeep and ready to head out—well, Stiles figures his meaning translates just fine.