Chapter Text
Stiles has literally been to fifteen salons today. He's been dropping off his resume and asking about hiring positions since he graduated from cosmetology school two weeks ago and still hasn't had luck. If he wanted to start making some money, and proving everyone who shit on his life choices wrong, then he had to find a job like as soon as possible.
He's tired and craving a Starbucks frappachino by the time he pulls up in front of Hale's Salon and Spa. It looks surprisingly nice for being at the end of a strip mall and Stiles takes a breath, grabs his folder of stuff and heads in. Once the big glass doors open he's greeted by a nice sized waiting room with purple leather couches on one side and a check in desk at the other. The music is a touch loud to be comfortable, and a blonde haired girl is sitting on the desk filing her nails.
She smiles when she sees him, teeth stark white against her bright red lipstick.
"Ooh, what can I do for you hun bun?" She hops down, surprisingly steady on her red high heels, and looks him up and down. He's doing the same thing, but she's not even trying to hide it. Her hair has pink streaks in it as well, her eyes are heavily made up but professionally so, and she has a stud on the left side of her nose and the right side of her lower lip. She's dressed in all black, a tight cleavagey top and leggings.
Once she's done appraising him, she sticks out a hand.
"Erica Reyes, nice to meet you."
"Stiles Stilinski, it's a pleasure."
"So Stiles," her nose wrinkles slightly as she says his name, "What can I do for you? Your hair is already perfectly styled, so what are you here for?"
Erica is about the same height as him on heels and she's extremely intimidating. He feels his face start to heat,
"Well I just wanted to drop off my resume and see if you were hiring."
Erica's smile widens and she nods eagerly,
"Oh my, yes. You would just liven up the work place, a cute little thing like you. Do you have time to stay for a bit? Laura, the manager doesn't have any clients right now and we're all just goofing around. To be honest we had a workshop this morning and everyone's just fucking about, come on." She says ignoring the fact he hasn't answered her question and grabbing his hand with a perfectly manicured one.
"Guys! We have a future worker here!" She shouts. Stiles halts behind her, his hand still clasped in hers, the red stiletto nails digging into his palm. There are six styling stations complete with floor length mirrors, counters and all of the hair supplies. There's a hallway directing to the bathrooms, on the left there is a doorway with signage for makeup and waxing and on the right there is signage for massaging. The place is awesome, with deep purple walls and white trimming, each station looking lavish.
"It's pretty nice isn't it?" A pretty red haired woman says, walking up to him. And if Stiles thought Erica was intimidating, he doesn't even know how to describe this woman. Her long cherry red hair is curled to perfection, blue eyes lined to perfection, with a big gold hoop nose ring. She's wearing a low cut black rolling stones tank top showing off her chest and sleeve tattoos. She holds out a hand for Stiles to shake, the non tattooed one he thinks until he sees she's got a diamond tattooed onto one knuckle, and a tiny pair of sheers on the other.
"Hi, I'm Laura Hale and this is my salon."
"Wow, nice to meet you. This place is amazing. The color scheme and I love the fountain in the lobby, and everything looks so shiny and new, I just wanna touch it all. I'm Stiles Stilinski by the way. "
"Flattery will get you nowhere Stiles." She says without any sign of amusement.
"Unless it's about her tits!" A voice calls from the left. Stiles looks over and sees a black haired girl sitting at a nail counter.
"Shut up Alli, you're embarrassing me!"
"You embarrass yourself!"
Laura rolls her eyes and finally turns back to Stiles, smiling.
"You sure you wanna work here?" She laughs.
"Well I guess I could give you a little tour. You already saw the lobby, our receptionist is actually out sick today sadly. She's my younger sister Cora. This right here is my station, I don't believe in managers just sitting back on their asses and not helping everyone so yeah."
She whips around, curls hitting Stiles in the face as she turns to Erica,
"You told him no clients today?"
"Yeah I did. Figured he could save us for some boredom before your dumb meeting."
Laura rolls her eyes and turns back to Stiles.
"Yeah so normally we're pretty busy but you caught us on an off day. Okay then next to me is my favorite, the lovely Braeden. " She gestures to a short black girl with black hair with purple tips and a hoop nose ring. Stiles is jealous of how sharp the wings of her eyeliner are and he smiles and waves.
"She's our expert weavologist!" The nail tech cries again from her counter.
"That is hella racist!" She cries. "Hella true, but also racist."
Laura rolls her eyes and gestures to an empty fairly clean station,
"This is for my douche of an uncle, who thank god isn't here right now."
Erica cackles,
"Oh god Peter is going to eat him for lunch."
"Then Erica's across there all by her lonesome."
"Not If Stiles works here! I'm gonna make sure he's right by me." She winks and Stiles stills, making all of them laugh. Apparently the nail tech got sick of sitting behind the counter, slightly out of view from everyone else because because she comes bouncing up.
She's pretty with pale skin, wavy black hair and blue streaks. She's got an eyebrow ring, some very well done eyelash extensions, a hoop nose ring and pale pink lips. She's wearing a white tee shirt tucked into a short black skirt and she's got a chest tattoo that seems to be written either in a difficult script or another language and a sleeve tattoo that looks similar to Laura's.
"I'm Allison, nice to meet you." Stiles shakes her hand and expects her nails, which are awesome, white stiletto tips with 3D flower decals.
"Stiles. Love the nails."
"Thanks hun, I try."
Laura leads him past Allison's station and a collection of nail polishes on the wall and into the makeup/waxing room. They're playing different more soothing music in there, there's a long counter on one side with waxing supplies; along with a waxing table and on the other side is a makeup counter and a few fancy movie set chairs. Both chairs are occupied by a girl and a boy, both on their phones.
"Ahem." Laura clears her throat. The strawberry blonde looks up and flips a curl over her shoulder,
"What?" She's wearing minimal makeup, she's got a tiny stud in her nose and Stiles thinks she's gorgeous.
"Lydia Martin, always the charmer. This is Stiles Stilinski, he's taking a tour to see if he'd really want to work here with your crazy ass. Lydia is our lead esthetics provider. And this is Isaac Lahey, he's a makeup artist as well." The curly haired boy waves shyly at Stiles and Stiles waves back.
"Awesome. This place is really cool Laura."
"Thanks! And last but not least Danny is our favorite muscley masseuse."
He doesn't get to see the massage room because Danny, who is a freaking gorgeous muscled god by the way is sitting in Braeden's chair drinking a can of Coke.
"Ooh, who's this?" He asks, smiling, and he has dimples god dammit.
"Stiles, he wants to work here."
"Ooh hire him Laura please! He's so cute!"
"I agree." Erica chimes in.
"Shush, we don't even know his skills, we haven't asked him about anything he can do."
"Anything! I can do anything! I'm good at everything." Stiles says quickly.
"We do have two empty chairs." Braeden supplies.
"Shut up you guys, I'm the manager and I make the decisions."
At that moment the door chimes open and in walks, shit Stiles doesn't know how to describe him. All he knows is that he's about to have a heart attack. The guy is built like a house, wearing a tight green v-neck and sinfully tight jeans. He's got ruffled black hair that looks in need of a cut and an out of control beard. Stiles can't see his eyes but he can see tell all eyebrows and a hard jaw. Fuck.
"Well look who decided to show up." Allison drawls.
"Shut up, you want your donuts or not?" She seems to realize he's holding a box and she skips to him.
"Yes please!"
"Hey Der." Laura says. "This is Stiles, he wants a job here."
The guy meets his eyes steadily,
"Trust me you do not."
"Oh fuck off." Laura says, "Ignore him, this is my bitter brother Derek. He does all the business shit. Cause he's boring like that."
Stiles laughs uneasily and jumps when Erica squeals,
"I have an idea!"
"Oh god." Danny mumbles.
"No this is a really good one! We want to see Stiles' skills right, and since we all already look fabulous, I say we let Stiles try on Derek!"
"No no. Fuck no." Derek says, holding his hands up.
"Yes!" Laura shouts. "Yes!"
"No. He looks like he just rolled out of bed and like he graduated from beauty school yesterday."
"Hey! First of all bed head is the style." Stiles snaps. "And I graduated two weeks ago but I had the highest test score in my class."
"Is that supposed to impress me? Wasn't that the only thing you needed to do in beauty school? Pass the test?" He asks rudely.
Stiles feels his cheeks heat, because that's hurtful and that's exactly what his dad had said when he told him the news.
"You know what, never mind. Thank you Laura, but I'm just going to go." He says, voice quieter and shoulders hunched. This was a stupid idea anyway. Who on earth would hire Stiles in an actual salon?
"Stiles wait," Laura says, "I don't want you to leave, I do want to see what you can do. Derek's just being a dick."
"He's not touching my hair." Derek says again, firmly.
"Derek, sit down and shut up. Even if I was going to take your opinion into consideration before, you just disrespected him, his skills and his career, so now you're going to sit down, shut your mouth and let him do your hair."
The salon was silent, Stiles biting his lower lip so hard he was afraid it would bleed, before Derek nodded once, curtly.
"Alright, um, Laura can you get me some clippers and scissors while I wash his hair?"
"Yeah, of course." She starts to walk away, then sees everyone still hovering over Stiles. "No one is to bother him while he's working. Find something to do!" She snaps, and everyone scatters. Danny goes back to the massage room, Allison to chat with Lydia and Isaac, Braeden goes on a coffee run and Erica and Laura busy themselves on the other side of the salon, each on their phones.
"Okay, um I'm just going to wash your hair before I start, so if you'd come over-"
Derek stares at him.
"Look, I'm just going to treat you like a regular client and someone who didn't shit on my entire life alright?"
Derek has the decency to look embarrassed,
"I'm sorry that-"
Stiles holds up a hand,
"Save it. Wait until I'm done, and if you do truly feel bad you can apologize then. Now sit down."
He secures a cape around Derek's neck, and places a towel under his neck and leans him back until his head is in the shampoo bowl. He starts the water and tests it on his wrist before he starts wetting Derek's hair,
"Is this too hot?"
"No it's fine."
"Do you use any special shampoo?"
"Um, I just need it to be sulfate free." Derek says quietly.
"Alright, lots of people have sensitive scalps."
Once Derek is thoroughly washed, and Stiles has a feel for his hair, he dries Derek's hair and wraps it in a towel, leading him over to the station Laura had set up for him. Derek sits tensely in the chair, and Stiles combs out his hair.
"Okay, your hair is pretty thick, do you like the feeling of thickness or would you like it lighter?"
"I'm not sure."
"Okay, well do you like your hair in your face or off your face?"
"I don't know."
Stiles sighs,
"You've gotta work with me here."
Derek looks apologetic for a second,
"I am, I'm sorry but I really don't know."
"Alright that's fine." Stiles moves in front of him, running his hands through Derek's hair a few times, before fluffing the front part up. "I think I'm going to cut it to spike up in the front, show off those pretty eyes okay? But if you don't gel it then it will just fall flat on your forehead? Sound good?"
Derek nods, and Stiles smiles.
"Good. Now I can take some of the length off right?" He moves his fingers to the nape of Derek's neck where his hair is starting to curl from where it's so long.
"Yeah that's fine."
"Now let's talk about this beard." Stiles runs his hands over Derek's furry cheeks which have moved on from full beard, into homeless man with no access to a razor territory.
"Do not shave it." Derek nearly growls.
"I am not going to give you a kick ass haircut and leave your beard looking like Noah just stepped off the arc."
He hears laughter and smiles to himself.
"No." Derek repeats.
"I'm just going to take off a little."
"Derek just doesn't wanna be clean shaven cause he has such a baby face." Laura teases.
"Shut up!"
"I'm shaving some of it off, end of story."
"No you're not." Derek growls.
"No one wants to kiss a face that furry Derek. I'm doing this to help you, really." Laura laughs loudly and Derek blushes. Stiles smiles at that, and sets the comb down, wetting Derek's hair again with a squirt bottle and going to work.
"What's taking so long?" Derek whines after fifteen minutes.
"The fact that it looks like you haven't had a hair cut since '04."
Laura and Erica bust out in giggles and Derek crosses his arms over his chest, but doesn't say anything else.
"I'm just gonna trim your beard and then I'll style your hair alright?"
"Not too much." He says seriously.
"I won't do too much." He promises, turning on the clippers.
About twenty minutes later, Stiles is done with Derek and he looks even hotter like this than Stiles could have imagined. His hair is nice and short and spiked slightly in the front but still soft looking and he has a thick five o'clock shadow. Stiles had turned Derek away from the mirror, because he didn't want him panicking. Laura and Erica just keep staring at each other, then Derek, then Stiles and then back at each other.
"Are you ready to see?" Stiles asks, wiping the last of the gel residue onto a towel.
"I guess." Derek grumbles.
Stiles spins him around so he can see himself in the mirror and once he's stopped, his green-grey eyes widen. He touches the slope of his hair gently, along with the back of his neck which is now bare. He feels his beard and looks from side to side, touching his hair again.
Stiles is practically bouncing on his toes, waiting to see what Derek thinks. Derek doesn't say anything, just peels off his cape and stands up, Stiles had already brushed any stray hairs off of him so he steps out of the pile of hair and turns to Stiles.
"I apologize for shitting on your life, as you so elegantly put it."