ONLY… STILES DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT IT. He made an offhand comment once (that Derek took to heart) about how the societal construct of a significant other has such far-reaching implications that he’s once again facing social ostracism for not having one, even in college, for god’s sake.
So can’t you just imagine Stiles’ bewilderment the first time this happens? Like, maybe Derek is visiting Stiles at college, and they’re getting ramen at that slightly disreputable-looking but hellaciously delicious place on the corner, you know the one, when Charles from Stiles PoliSci 201 class passes by.
“Hey Stiles,” he might say with a friendly smile, “who’s your friend. Haven’t seen him around campus.”
“Oh Charles, hey,” Stiles could say in return, “this is Derek-”
“I’m Stiles’ ex,” Derek mentions casually as he deftly handles his chopsticks.
“Say what now?” Stiles asks faintly.
“You’re Stiles’ ex?” Charles asks incredulously, and Derek has this guy pegged, okay? Stiles may have mentioned Charles a time or two, but Derek can tell the kind of person he is, and it’s the kind of person to gossip. So even though he’s only in town for the weekend, Derek is gonna make this good, and restore some of Stiles’ social standing while he’s here.
“Yeah,” Derek says, flicking his eyes up to Stiles who is staring at him in outright bewilderment. He injects just the right amount of wistfulness into his voice when he says, “Best year of my life.”
It works, because Charles is helpless to do anything but sink into the chair opposite Derek at the little outdoor bistro table Stiles and Derek have packed themselves into, too-long legs tangling comfortably together beneath the wrought iron.
“What happened?” Charles asks, straight as a ruler but still drawn in by Derek’s impossibly-soft watercolour eyes as he manages a sad smile.
Derek shrugs. “Life, I guess. Stiles was going off to college, and I didn’t want to be the thing that held him back.” He carefully puts his chopsticks down and looked earnestly at Charles. “He was always too good for me, anyway, so it was only a matter of time.”
From the corner of his eye Derek can see Stiles’ spine straighten indignantly, because if there’s one thing about Stiles that he’s learned over the years, it’s that he absolutely will not hear Derek talk about himself that way.
“So when he told me he wanted to end it,” Derek continues sadly, “of course I wasn’t about to argue. Stiles was always destined for bigger and better things than me.”
“Okay, first of all–” Stiles begins, but Charles cuts right across him, enthralled.
“How did you guys even meet?”
Smiling, Derek glances over at Stiles and takes a drink of his water. “I was a couple years ahead of him at school, and then went on to work with his dad. Life kept throwing us together, and I guess there was a kind of inevitability to it. To us, you know? And then one day The Lovers came to town and put on a lawn concert.” He has to tamp down on a smirk at this point, because Stiles hates indie music. “I’d overheard how much Stiles loved them, so I got us tickets and packed up Mom’s travel comforter and asked him to go with me, and it was then that I knew.”
“We never went to a lawn concert and sat on your mom’s old comforter!” Stiles exclaims, because what the fuck is even happening right now?
“It was the first time we held hands,” Derek ‘remembers’ fondly, and Charles is hooked, line and sinker.
And the conversation continues like this, in spite of Stiles refutations, for the next twenty minutes, Derek offering a heavily-sanitised version of the last five years of their life with a romantic spin and Charles listening raptly.
Somewhere along the way, the tone changes. Stiles notices that Derek’s wistfulness isn’t forced, and the way his hand brushes briefly, hesitatingly, across the back of Stiles’ hand is lingering and infinitely careful. Stiles finds himself as drawn in as Charles, wishing that it had all happened the way Derek is telling it, because of course he’s been in love with Derek for a million years but this point, and of course he wrote it off firmly in the Never Going To Happen column. But there’s something about the way Derek is speaking now, regretful and a little sad, that’s getting beneath Stiles’ skin.
“Derek,” he murmurs softly when he can’t take it any more, his heart feeling like it’s cracking apart. He needs to put a stop to this now, because he’d compartmentalised, okay? He’d managed to push all that unrequited shit down deep enough to have a real, adult friendship with Derek and now his stupid prank or whatever was threatening to dredge it all back up and Stiles just can’t, okay? He can’t do that again, because it almost destroyed him once and he’s tired…
“We had it so good, baby,” Derek says eventually, and Stiles is done.
“For fuck’s sake, we weren’t–”
“I’m so sorry I took you for granted,” Derek says simply, finally meeting Stiles’ eyes head-on. “You deserved better than me.”
Stiles might not be a werewolf, but he knows a fundamental truth when he hears one. Derek’s not pretending, not anymore; he believes every word of what he’s saying, and Stiles decides that if this is it, if this is how their friendship ends, he’s going out in a blaze of glory.
“There was never anyone better than you,” he snaps fiercely, and knows his heartbeat is steady, even if it’s racing. “And if you truly believe anything you just said, you should have never let me go.”
Derek’s expression is wide open and heartbreakingly vulnerable, because he gets it now, Stiles can tell, and it’s gone beyond a prank or a tease or whatever the hell it started as. “No,” Derek agrees quietly, eyes burning with intensity. “I shouldn’t have.”
Neither of them notice Charles leaving, wrapped up in each other and trading lingering kisses and soft, murmured apologies and promises as he goes. Derek’s only here for the weekend, after all, and they might have started this just now, but for both of them it’s been going on a lot longer and they have a lot of time to make up for.
Derek was right, too; when Stiles goes back to call he’s the subject of the best kind of rumour and speculation, but what does he care? He’s got someone who loves him enough to create for them an entire history of devotion and love before they even kissed. He always had.
@missmaladicta I AM SO HERE FOR THIS SHIT
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