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Stiles really didn’t know how Scott became president, and he’d swear to that up, down, and sideways until the day he died.
Because Scott? Yeah. It didn’t compute.
Scott had had to repeat his sophomore year of High School, and don’t think Stiles hadn’t spent nights getting hundreds of paper cuts as he threw speech after speech away trying to come up with the perfect way to spin it so that they public didn’t think Scott was an idiot when he was getting elected to his first positions, still too poor for a publicist.
He totally wasn’t, stupid that is; a little slow on the uptake sometimes, sure, but an idiot? Not even. Plus it gave him this shiny ‘aw shucks ma’am’ charm that seemed to appeal to the masses and Stiles could work with that.
There was never any question that Stiles would run with him- after all, he’d been the one to point Scott towards politics, the dude owed him, even if there were never any checks and balances in their friendship.
Scott had been visiting Stiles in his dorm, sulking because the local community college didn’t offer any veterinarian and animal care courses, blowing his long-held dream of becoming a vet to smithereens. Interwoven with all the moping was a surprisingly intuitive diatribe about the local election.
Stiles had to hold up his hand after Scott went into lingo that even he couldn’t decipher.
“Dude. Dude. How do you even know about all this?”
Scott grinned, blushing as he ducked his head and shrugged.
“I-ah, well I don’t get cable at my new place okay? And my radio only gets these really weird stations and all they talk about are politics. Like at first I thought they were talking about dogs or something because they kept talking about racing and I was like, whoa, dogs, I can get with this. But it was about people and it’s actually really cool man, like we have power you know? We can totally change things if we have the right platform.”
Stiles had just stared at him, seen the light in Scott’s eyes that had faded since an ill-timed break-up with his forever Juliet, Allison, and he had started to plan. The plan, The Plan with a capital ‘P’ to end all plans.
“Scott, my friend, my buddy, my pal- I have an idea.”
Student governor, it would give him a chance to shine at something, and would get his mind off of all this emo crap that he had been stuck on. And that’s how it started; simple right?
Only Scott had won. And he had kept winning.
All the way up to governor of freaking California, Arnold eat your heart out.
Then one night they had been drinking in Stiles’ apartment, celebrating Scott’s fresh new week old marriage to one Allison Argent which totally hadn’t happened to swing the family votes and okay maybe a little but it would’ve happened anyways alright. Then Scott had fallen off the couch after a particularly strong shot, and he’d fisted his hand into Stiles pant leg, shaking him a bit.
“Stiles, Stiles. I should run for president man. I should totally be president.”
Stiles had laughed, grabbing his shoulder and swinging Scott up so that he could recline on the couch and covering him with a throw that had been shoved between the cushions.
“Sure buddy, you’d be the greatest.”
And you know what?
He was.
Of course Stiles had been his V.P. when they had eventually started to scrape together the first notions of their angle, they had been bros since they were like, three, and that meant a lot more at forty than it had at sixteen.
They were damn lucky Lydia was such an amazing campaign manager, because the media managing to find pictures of Scott’s naked ass in a hotel room from eons ago could’ve given them a definite hit in their popularity polls.
Interesting thing though, young people were pretty into this whole deciding their future thing, and it turns out that as much of a silver fox Scott was at 41, he was definitely a hottie at 23.
Truth was they had the best damn team around, most of their positions filled from people they used to hate and envy in equal measures in High School, interestingly enough, but Stiles wouldn’t change it for the world- and he had gotten his wish for four awesome years.
Scott and Allison went against the mold by not having children, but the media called Allison the most kick-ass first lady ever, in more P.C. terms of course, and you can believe Hilary chaffed at that tidbit. Stiles dated around, Danny surprisingly lasted the longest with two years, and a brief, whirlwind romance with Lydia for a week until they realized they were better co-conspirators than they’d ever be partners, and mostly nada, nothing. It was a bit disappointing, maybe, but Stiles was pretty content with his life, and he knew he wouldn’t want to change it for anything- they were running for another term, and they were going to win it, he could feel it.
That was, of course, before he met one Derek Hale.
God, could he any more of an asshole? And worst of all, he was a devastatingly handsome one.
Sure around the press, and when he was aiming for charm, he was all wide grins and tactic silences that the public seemed to live for- gave him an air of ‘mystery’ Stiles’ ass.
As soon as that curtain came down after their first debate and it was just him and Scott though? No holds bar man, that dude was almost growling.
“Your little shy, farmboy image doesn’t work for me McCall, for Chrissakes, you were born and raised in California.”
Scott of course, had been utterly defenseless- he never had learned that sometimes there were normal people in the world who weren’t evil, they were just mean.
Stiles shoved his way in front of his best friend, plastering on his least convincing fake grin as he stared Governor Hale down.
“Mr. Hale!” Stiles hoped he choked on that little piece of disrespect. “So nice to meet you! I’ve heard so many good things about you and your campaign, really, but the President and I have to be going right about now- the good public awaits for no man, especially their beloved Commander in Chief.”
Hale had paused, his rictus of false care falling off has face as he glared at Stiles.
It was a good look for him, unfortunately.
Before they could dig the hole any deeper, Stiles rushed Scott away, distracting him with thoughts of Allison in her upcoming archery competition when he started to get too worried about what had just happened.
Scott dealt with all the relevant issues, things Stiles knew about but wouldn’t really want to make executive decisions on, but Stiles, Stiles dealt with interpersonal issues- probably way more than a V.P. should, and what could he say? He was good.
Derek though, Derek wasn’t, and that’s what had really doomed Stiles in the end.
He had tried to find an angle, a manipulation, some hidden malice that he could politely bring up and deter him, but no go.
Sure, he was a sarcastic bastard, but that just seemed to be his personality.
The public was eating him up.
Tragic past, one that could be out of a soap opera but was depressingly true, no family to speak of, not even a wife, which was unprecedented. Buchanan didn’t count. Not only did he not have a wife, he seemed to have not had any relationship at all since he was fucking sixteen. Sixteen! Yet it didn’t hurt his ratings, in fact it seemed to bolster them, and Stiles was painfully aware that it was due to how the man looked.
Scott was attractive, Stiles was attractive, hell, their entire crew somehow managed to be unrealistically good looking, but Derek? Oh he took it to a new level entirely.
The press ate it up; Derek became the new hot thing, the best and shiniest bachelor of them all.
And while a few of his plans were misguided, his heart was there, and you couldn’t question it.
Though boy, did Stiles try.
And somehow, while feverishly looking into Derek’s past to somehow get a hold on him, it turned into Stiles wanting to get a hold on him, in the non-figurative, totally naked and sweaty horizontal way.
Stiles was fucked, so fucked, and not even in the good way.
Because Derek? He encouraged it, and as far as Stiles could tell, he wasn’t trying to be malicious. These were new times, thankfully, and Stiles had never had to hide that he was bisexual, he didn’t flaunt it, but there were no torrid secret affairs in his past, and he wouldn’t become one.
The only problem was that Derek didn’t seem to want that either.
He smiled at Stiles when he was running with his best offensive maneuvers, smirked when he stumbled but helped him when he fell. He didn’t try to lie about what was going on, in fact he didn’t say much of anything at all.
But the day he pushed Stiles into a closet after a particularly heated discussion on foreign policy and did a few unspeakable things that Scott would never be able to hear about without dying of bro-shame, yeah, that day pretty much cemented it.
Stiles wasn’t just in lust, he was in love.
Wouldn’t you just figure though, that Derek was too.
They weren’t boyfriends, they didn’t even mention what they did to anyone that they knew. Nonetheless, there was a spark, and for the first time in Stiles’ life, he had a relationship he really, really wanted to make work.
He wasn’t even going to touch the bomb that was Derek’s romantic past- one case of statutory rape and severe trauma and guilt, no thank you.
No, it was enough that he could see the almost shocked look on Derek’s face when he found himself actually liking Stiles- you couldn’t fake that kind of surprise, short, quick, naked and bracing and gone in an instant.
Yeah, Stiles kind of got under people’s skin, he was built like that.
Above all else though, they always maintained that it would never affect the race- no matter what side won, they wouldn’t let themselves get distracted, and after the dust settled? Well they’d find a way to quietly be together.
It was unspoken but known, maybe not to anyone else, but hey, they were the ones that counted.
Until one fateful conversation with Scott however, that kind of blew it out into the open.
Stiles had been rushing behind Scott on the way to a press conference, shuffling papers in his hands.
“Mr. President, we have to talk about the new bill.”
Scott had scoffed, “Stiles, I swear, stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what, Mr. President?”
“Sti-i-iles. That happened like, almost four years ago dude, and you saying it stopped being cool a week after I was sworn in.” Oh yeah, he still had it.
“What, would you like me to call Derek Mr. President? Because man that kind of defeatism just doesn’t slide with me, at the moment he’s still just a bitter rival.”
Scott had smirked, deliberately speeding up. “One you sleep with?”
Choking, Stiles dropped his papers, tripping over a corner of the rug in the hallway and pitching forward onto his hands and knees.
“Uh, what, Scott- I mean, Prez, that is totally unfounded.”
“I heard you last night. Really? The Oval Office?”
“Hey, I was just giving him a tour!” Stiles wasn’t blushing, he wasn’t.
“He’s running against me.”
“Have you seen him with his shirt off?” There had been pictures in the tabloids. High definition ones. The man was impressive, even Danny thought so and he was hard pressed to admit something like that.
“That’s my chair Stiles.”
“You know nothing.” He couldn’t, he absolutely could not.
“So did he ask you to call him the Alpha or is that just some weird smiley for President that you came up with?”
“Oh Scott buddy you’re so close.”
That reassured Stiles more than anything else, because no matter who they became, President, Vice President, fucking Mr. and Mr. Rulers of the Universe, they would always be Scott and Stiles, idiots and nerds and painfully uncool, only maybe in a good way.
They did end up winning that second term, but it turned out that Derek made a kick- ass Secretary of Homeland Security, and the presidential desk could totally be wiped down.
Yeah, life was pretty good for the Vice President, Stiles thought smugly.