part one / part two / part three
derek’s always needed very clear instructions. otherwise, he nods, and sets off, and gets about ten steps before realizing he doesn’t actually know what he’s supposed to do.
he has an incredibly vivid memory of his second grade teacher looking at him when he came back with a million follow-up questions, like she thought he was just purposefully wasting her time.
a lot of people think that.
but by now, he’s come up with a couple of tactics to deal with it a lot more easily. basically, he just repeats exactly what he just heard as a question, like you want me to blah blah blah blah blah? which makes the other person either nod, or correct him. and that way, he can actually get started on whatever it is without having to play twenty questions first, which always makes him feel like an idiot.
apparently, laura’s decided that this means he’s on the spectrum. in all her infinite, not-in-any-way-qualified-to-diagnose-anyone wisdom, she’s got him all figured out.
she says, “mom should’ve had you in therapy years ago.”
“you want me in therapy,” derek asks, and laura says, “oh my god. where was i all this time? it's so obvious.”
“is it?” derek says. sometimes? it’s not even about having an actual question. it’s just the easiest not-actually-that-responsive response. and between going, well, this has been fun… or just standing there in awkward silence, it’s an easy decision.
“yes,” laura says. she always answers his questions incredibly definitively. it’s one of the few things she and mom had in common, alpha-wise.
actually, have. have in common. because it’s not like they ever both had the title of alpha at the same time, for obvious reasons. laura’s only the alpha now because mom…
it’s a complicated feeling. which should prove that derek’s obviously not on the spectrum, because not being emotional is the biggest cliché about it, right? that, and not understanding social cues.
no, he’s fine. unless he’s not, and it’s always been glaringly obvious to everyone else around him if they paid attention to him for more than a second. but if that’s true, then what are the chances that there’s something he can do about it? if it were his fucking baseline setting, it’d be unchangeable.
so how would it even help to put a name to it?
laura’s gonna give him a fucking complex. if he gets too caught up in this kind of stuff? he really won’t be able to interact with people. regardless of whether he’d started off that way or not, it’d be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
but laura just says things, now that she’s the alpha. two years older than him, but that doesn’t make her any less matriarchically in charge. and one’s nowhere near the normal number of betas, and they both know it. if derek wasn’t such a fucking burden to her, she’d probably have found a whole new pack by now.
but instead, she just tries to be mom, but softer. spits out a million unhelpful diagnoses, instead of just giving him one concrete thing to work on. and by the next day, she probably won’t even remember bringing this up at all.
but once it’s in derek’s head? there’s no escaping it.
he’s always had a good memory.
but it’s good to see stiles again. next to stiles? derek's unbelievably normal.
“you know what i just realized?” stiles says. “like, the second i got back in my car, i was like, wait. because i never got your name. unless it’s, like, a classified secret, and you’re just amazing at, like, being distracting… but like in a spy way. subterfuge! that’s, yeah. you’re a skilled subterfug-ist.”
“is that a word?” derek says, and stiles says, “maybe? it is now, anyway. subterfug-ist! tell your friends.”
sometimes, derek gets the feeling that stiles is performing for an invisible crowd.
“truman show syndrome,” stiles says. “um, a little bit. or maybe i just watched too many of those disney shows. you know, the ones where the kids kept smarting off to their parents for the audience? yeah, i might’ve extended the logic to being a clown in general. in the like, class clown sense, but way more… broad-ly applied. is even a little bit of this understandable?”
he’s half-laughing at himself before derek can say anything.
but honestly? it’s not that confusing.
it just takes a few seconds to think about it.
“truman show syndrome,” derek says, and stiles says, “oh, what, you’re an actual listener? and like, retainer of details.”
good memory, yeah. it’s a gift, supposedly.
“we can actually go so much weirder,” stiles says. “like, with the truman show syndrome thing alone. so, i wasn’t really raised at all religious… but my mom was. and there’s this one thing she said about it that like, infected my whole mind. which she definitely didn’t, like, mean to… she was just joking with my dad about it, she had no idea i was even listening. but the point is, there’s this like, frankly terrifying concept that your whole life is like, recorded and played back for you after you die. so like, sometimes i throw in a joke for that guy.”
“for… the future version of yourself,” derek says.
“exactly,” stiles says, and derek nods, and nods. “or not even just jokes. context, you know? no way i’m gonna remember all the reasons i had for everything back then. i can barely remember the first half of a sentence i’m still in middle of sometimes. and, oh! it took me like a million years to realize that i even do this, but i just recently realized how much i like, try to buy time to like, jog my memory. which means i’m basically saying the same thing over and over in a million different ways, which of course makes me… incredibly popular. but that’s a whole other conversation,” he says. “yeah. that was a complete tangent. and now i can’t even, like, remember… what was i even saying before this?”
“the truman show thing? that sometimes you… try to explain your thought process,” derek says. that’s what he thinks stiles meant, but it’s a relief to see him nodding instantly. “to your future self, on the off chance...”
“just in case there is a guy watching me, yeah,” stiles says. “i did say it was weird!”
but it isn’t, really. even if it is.
if stiles is weird, there’s nothing wrong with it.
