Derek/Stiles | G | 920w | AO3
Summary: Standing in front of his lawyer’s office building, a thin envelope burning his hands, Stiles feels neither elated nor like a new chapter is beginning. He feels empty, defeated, and like he failed at something he should’ve been good at.
A/N: Written for the @fullmoonficlet challenge - prompt #287: divorce
Content notes: past Lydia/Stiles relationship, future fic, getting together
In the build-up to today, Stiles figured this moment would be a bit more, well, momentous.
However, standing in front of his lawyer’s office building, a thin envelope burning his hands, he feels neither elated nor like a new chapter is beginning. He feels empty, defeated, and like he failed at something he should’ve been good at.
In the end, it was no one’s fault that this didn’t work out. That they couldn’t make it work. Both of them were on paths that didn’t cross enough for their relationship to survive, too distanced from each other’s daily lives. It took a toll, which Stiles did expect it would, but he didn’t realize how big a toll that would be.
The divorce was filed as a no-fault one, with separation and irreconcilable differences both listed as the grounds for their agreement. The latter stings a little since Stiles has always associated that with discord between the two people seeking a divorce. They’re still on good terms, they still love each other, it just isn’t enough. The separation is easier to accept — they lived on different coasts for three years now, in different homes and with different daily lives around them. Of all the things they used to have in common, it’s only their old friends — the pack — that remained the same.
Stiles knows that he should move, that he should leave and go back to his life now. But it feels like it would mean ripping the final string, breaking the last piece of whatever it is that held them together. So he stands there, looking at the office building with an unfocused stare, mind running over what he could’ve done differently yet another time. Even though he knows that there was nothing that either of them could or would have done differently.
“So, you’re a free man again,” a familiar voice pulls him out of his thoughts and Stiles finally looks away from the building.
His voice is broken, weak, the reality of what happened this morning hitting him harder than he thought it would. Now, with a witness to it, Stiles finally feels the enormity of the moment, the importance of it.
It feels real when there’s someone to see it.
Stiles takes a deep breath and clenches his hand tighter around the envelope in his hands. It still surprises him how little there is, how it didn’t take much negotiation — all their assets were already separated, there wasn’t a need to divide anything besides them.
“Come on, let’s get a coffee,” Derek says and nods towards his Camaro, that’s parked right behind him.
“You and Derek are getting close again,” Lydia told him after one of the meetings with their lawyers, right at the beginning of the process of their divorce.
“Lyds, I would never—“ Stiles started, but stopped when she shook her head.
"I know,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t do anything before this is over. I’m just saying, it would be good for you. He would be good for you.”
Stiles didn’t take her words seriously then, but as time went on, he had to admit that she was right. Derek was close, not only physically now that they both lived in San Francisco, but also as a friend, as a confidant. They spent time together beyond what they needed to for work — Stiles as an agent, Derek as a consultant for the FBI — and it was simple, uncomplicated. Just friends.
Nothing more, because Stiles — as he told Lydia — would not pursue anything while he was still legally married, no matter the state of said marriage.
He’s not married anymore now, though. And Derek is here, ready to offer his shoulder for Stiles to cry on.
Derek lifts up his phone like it explains everything.
“Lydia,” Stiles says, understanding.
“She said you might need a friend,” Derek tells him. “I figured you need coffee. And someone to vent to.”
Stiles shrugs, unsure if that’s what he needs. But he’s glad that out of all the people who are here right now, it’s Derek. Lydia probably knew that too, knew who would be the best company for Stiles today.
Their divorce was never about the lack of caring about each other, which is part of why it hits Stiles so hard that their marriage didn’t work. He’d thought for so long that she was the one, but it turned out that you can’t keep a marriage alive on friendship alone, not at the kind of distance that was between them.
“Okay,” he says, then his lips quirk up as Derek lifts an eyebrow, his question unspoken. “Coffee,” Stiles adds in response to it.
Derek smiles fondly like he’s glad that Stiles agreed. For the first time, Stiles lets himself feel something about it. He’s seen the smile before, seen the way Derek sometimes looks at him with hope and longing at the same time. But until now, neither of them did anything other than what propriety dictated.
When he follows Derek to the Camaro, Stiles allows himself to let go of the past, of the restrictions he put on himself. And when Derek smiles at him again before he pulls away from the lawyer’s building, Stiles wonders if this is the new beginning today was supposed to be.
A year later, Lydia tactfully doesn’t point out that she told him so, but her knowing smile when they all gather for Thanksgiving and Stiles sits next to Derek is enough.
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