Chapter Text
Stiles' phone wakes him. He squints at the too-bright display and groans as he sees Lydia's name, as well as the picture she threatened to kill him over, staring back at him. The digital clock tells him that it's just a little after 7 AM, which automatically makes Lydia the worst person in the entire universe, because it's Saturday and she knows that Stiles was up too late the night before, playing video games with Scott, to be woken up this early. He tries to ignore her, hoping that she'll end up leaving a voice mail instead, but the song (Killer Queen, for the record; Stiles is very proud over this) just keeps playing.
There are two main reasons as to why he doesn't want to answer. One, Lydia is his manager and also a part of the PR team on his show, which makes her the person that practically runs his life. Two, it's too goddamn early.
“Fine, fine,” he mutters, when she hangs up and then immediately calls him back again, and reaches out for his phone. He presses answer, then puts her on speaker, before he places the phone next to him on the pillow.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he groans as a greeting.
“I need you to do something for me,” she says immediately. There’s something in the rushed, clipped tone of her voice that makes him wake up further. This can't be good.
“If you think I'm still up for marrying you, you're wrong.”
She snorts loudly. “No, we've had an incident, Stiles. Finstock messed up. I need you at the office as soon as possible.”
“Finstock messed up? What does that even mean?” he asks, and sits up, ignoring the way his stomach lurches a little with nausea.
“I'll show you when you get in here.”
“I don't think I should be going anywhere today,” he mutters, and glares at the beer bottles still standing at his coffee table, as he makes his way into his living room. He isn't old enough to drink (but only by a few months!), so he has to keep it at home where no paparazzi can snap a picture of him. “Scott came over yesterday, and I'm pretty sure I look as hung-over as I feel.”
“Stiles,” she snaps, clearly irritated. He can't really blame her. “I don't have energy for more scandals right now.”
“It's not a scandal – I'm just breaking the law.” Stiles rolls his eyes and puts his phone next to the sink in his kitchen, filling a glass of water. “That's why I'm saying that I probably shouldn't go anywhere. Mostly because I'm in no state to drive anytime soon, either.”
“I'll pick you up then, idiot. Don't answer any calls that aren't from me, do you hear me?”
Then she hangs up and Stiles mind is suddenly re-starting in a more effective mode. Finstock messed up, and Lydia needs Stiles to do something for her. There are so many pieces missing in this, that he can't fit anything together.
Right on cue, his phone starts going off like crazy, about ten minutes after Lydia hangs up on him.
What the hell did Finstock do?
He gets ready, tries to shower away most of the evidence of his hangover. He looks mostly tired, when Lydia picks him up forty minutes later, but she still gives him the displeased look. She probably has it patented, he thinks as he hops into the car, sunglasses and cap securely in place. His phone has been ringing constantly and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
“Care to tell me what Finstock did that has my phone ringing like this?” he mutters, as she pulls away from the curb outside his apartment building.
“It's better if I show you,” she sighs, and she looks very tired, Stiles notices.
“It's that bad, huh?” he asks, and his heart sinks as she nods solemnly.
“Yep, that bad.”
“Crap.”
“You'll see, crap isn't even close to covering this.”
“Double crap.”
Half an hour later, as he sits in her office and watches a YouTube video of Finstock, he realises that not even double crap covers this. As the creator and writer of the show, in which Stiles is starring as the adorkable best friend of the lead role, Finstock has a lot of responsibility and is surprisingly un-filtered for a guy who has been in the business for years.
In the video, Finstock begins by talking a bit about the show, which has been a big hit and is on its third season, and then he suddenly says – the interviewers question has been cut out – I don't mind working with queers, and then there's another quite bad cut in the film, before he continues saying, as long as they don't touch me.
Stiles is suddenly very aware of why his phone has been going off so badly that he had to turn it off about ten minutes ago. He's out, media knows, media likes, and Finstock saying this is bound to make people want his opinion.
“You lied to me,” he says, as the video replays in slow-motion. It's a bit disturbing to see Finstock's features move this slowly on the screen. “This isn't messing up – this is so much worse than that.”
“I just wanted to keep you positive,” Lydia replies, as she gives him a glass of water and painkillers.
If he didn't have a headache before, he sure will now.
“Finstock is known for being indelicate with his wording, and and there's no question that he could have said something better than 'I don't mind working with queers'. However, as you probably see, they've cut two completely different pieces of the interview together. According to Finstock, the last part is an answer to the interviewer asking him what he thinks of his actors working while sick, and he supposedly said: I don't care as long as they don't touch me. I have no reason to not believe him, because we know Finstock, but the world doesn't. There's now a huge buzz going around, saying that the reason you're still single is because Finstock is a homophobe and that you're not allowed to date a guy if you want to keep working for him.”
“Are you kidding me?” Stiles sighs, gulping down both the painkillers and the water in one go. He doesn't have the energy for this right now. Isn't this why he has a manager and why the show has a PR team? They're supposed to fix these things for him, so he doesn't have to. “I'm going to kill Finstock.”
“Oh, don't worry, I'll take care of that for you. The thing is that the harm is already done. There's a risk we won't get signed for another season, because people don't want to watch a show where their favourite actor isn't allowed to be who he is. Everyone loves you, Stiles, and I'm pretty sure that's because they don't know you –”
“Hey!” Stiles interrupts, but she just continues.
“– but I need your help to fix it.”
Stiles sighs. Heavily. For the hundredth time in five minutes, it seems. Finstock is a complete weirdo, but he's the same weirdo towards everyone. Stiles is pretty sure that anyone who's ever been in contact with Finstock has this strange feeling of both enormous dislike and love for the guy, and he's definitely someone who speaks and acts way before thinking, but he doesn't have a problem with Stiles' sexuality. He doesn't give a crap, actually, but the outside world doesn't know that, and this badly cut interview doesn't give them a better chance of getting the message across either.
“Don't people realise that it's two pieces cut together?”
“Some. Using the word queers didn't really make our odds better. Maybe people would've been more critical if he hadn't. He basically just gave the interviewer a free scandal to make money on here. He should know better than that.” Lydia flings her hands out, like she's well aware of Finstock not really caring about media training. “We're trying to get a hold of the complete film, so that we can show the real interview in its entirety, but mostly people just like a good scandal and they have one now. It's going to take a lot to make this go down.”
“And you want me to do something for you?” Stiles doesn't like the sound of this, not even as it comes out of his own mouth. Lydia has always been a good manager: no matter how strict and mean she can be at times, she has always put a priority on his brand as an actor and value on him as a person.
“We need something that can convince the world that Finstock isn't keeping you from living your life.”
“Which is...?”
A part of him probably already knows, because when Lydia says, “Date a guy,” it doesn't even make him flinch.
“Are you crazy? You want me to have a fake relationship to save the show?”
“I want you to date someone, who just happens to be a guy, to save your job.”
“And where are you going to find a guy that's willing to do that, and not sell the story to the press as soon as it's over?” On days like these, Stiles just wishes that he never got out of bed at all. Also, an unintelligent alien must've taken over Lydia's body, because this is a bad, bad, bad idea. And not only because Stiles has never had a relationship ever before, so how's he going to be able to fake one?
She doesn't answer, but shows another YouTube video of Derek Hale, a guy who's one of those people who seems to have grown up in TV shows. They're talking about his new role, where he's going to play this heart throb surgeon.
“What does this have to do with Derek Hale?” he asks, and wonders again if she has lost her brain in her purse, because that thing is big and contains all the secrets in the world. Stiles is sure he could find a cure for cancer in it, if he just dug through it long enough.
“Oh good, you know his name.” Lydia smiles and claps her hands together, as though Finstock hasn't begun their day with completely ruining it. “Because he's the one you'll be dating.”
Stiles is pretty sure that he just died and has been transported into this weird, alternate universe where everyone is an idiot. Especially Lydia. Lydia is the biggest idiot of them all.
“He's famous. He has this huge show coming, where he's the star. Why would he agree to this?” Maybe if he asks all the tricky questions, he'll expose the pretenders and will be transported back into his real life and body.
“He is famous, yes. Which is good. Because, newsflash, so are you. However, he's a bit of a dick in interviews. Just a few days ago, he asked this adorable interviewer if she needed a brain transplant, because she asked him if he was squeamish, and he's done similar remarks before. He's getting a bad rep in media lately and his manager is worried that they're going to take him off the show, somehow, because he's bad for the PR.”
Stiles will admit that asking someone who's supposed to be a surgeon in a show if he is squeamish is a pretty dumb question, but answering it like that is even more dumb. Stiles knows that, and he's only been in the industry for a couple of years, so obviously Derek Hale of all people should know the power of the media by now.
“So I spoke to his manager this morning. I'm so sorry for not calling you first,” Lydia, continues, clearly not sorry at all. It's like she doesn't care whether Stiles is offended by this or not. She probably doesn't, come to think about it. “And we think you two would be a good set up, because media loves you, and he'd be a hot boyfriend for you.”
“This is so stupid.” Stiles thumps his head against the desk repeatedly, hoping to wake up from this horrible nightmare. On the computer screen, where Lydia is playing another clip, Derek Hale is exiting a club and getting into a car just after he flips the paparazzi off.
Yeah, dude needs to work on his charm.
Just a bit.
“It's perfect,” Lydia corrects, and then she refills his glass with water, as if this will convince him of her good-hearted nature. “Erica, his manager, and I think that it won't take much work on your behalves. You're both going to this event in a week, and we think you should be caught leaving it together. You don't have to take any pictures together, or arrive together. Actually, it's better if you don't, as if you guys are trying to hide it from the paps, so basically you just need to let him drive you home afterwards.”
“Why can't I be the one driving?” Stiles mutters, and maybe he pouts a bit, but that's just because he feels so bad for himself. “You know, my dad and Scott are going to freak when I tell them this. They so won't be okay with me faking stuff like this for fame.”
“Okay, one, you're not faking anything for fame; you're faking this for survival. Two, you can't tell anyone about this. If this comes out, if people find out, we're screwed and this will look way worse than it already does.”
“But I have to tell my dad and Scott!” Stiles protests. He might have been thinking about agreeing to this up until now, but there is no way he's lying to the most important people in his life about this.
“You can't,” Lydia says simply.
“Then I can't do this.”
She glares at him, like she thinks that he's nuts. She probably does. “You can tell them after all of this is done, okay? I imagine this won't be going on too long.”
Stiles really does have a bad feeling about this, saying that she's completely wrong. Maybe it's the hangover, or maybe it's the slideshow of a shirtless Derek Hale that's now playing on the computer screen. Maybe it's the fact that he very much wants to keep his job, but he nods. “All right. Fine.”