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“Oooohhhh,” Stiles says one Saturday afternoon, drawing out the word in realization. Derek looks up from where he’s chopping vegetables for their dinner tonight (vegetable stew for Lydia, the resident vegetarian, with chopped chuck roast cooked on the side for him and Stiles to add for themselves) to see Stiles sitting at the bar, staring at him with an expression of understanding. Derek raises his eyebrows in response.
“You’ve got the worst case of resting bitch face I have ever seen.”
“What.”
Derek says it flatly, not amused, but apparently Lydia finds it funny as she snorts from her place in the big armchair just a few feet away from them in the living room. She doesn’t look up from the math book she’s been studying – something for one of her classes, probably Applied Linear Algebra, Derek is pretty sure she has a test coming up in that class in the next couple days – but continues after the snort.
“You just realized that?”
“I did,” Stiles replies, still staring at Derek, head cocked to the side now and studying his face and Derek’s sure that now more than ever he has a bitch face on, but what.
“I do not,” he tells Stiles, tells them both. This time, both Stiles and Lydia snort at him, and Lydia does look up from her book. He sees her face beyond Stiles’ shoulder, single eyebrow raised, and he loves her he really does but whenever she gives him that look he feels like admitting that everything he’s ever said or done is wrong.
“You do,” Stiles speaks up before he can do any such thing, “I never really thought of it as RBF before now because – well – ”
He stops, pauses, glances at Lydia and winces. She turns her expression on him, eyebrow somehow climbing higher, and he shrinks into himself, just a little.
“Because the term is usually associated with females?” she asks, and Stiles winces again but shrugs.
“Well, yeah,” he pauses again, turns to smirk at Derek, “But you have such a resting bitch face!”
“Legit since we’ve met,” Lydia agrees, small smile playing on her own lips and it’s a testament to how much time they spend together that they’re starting to pick up each other’s language, she never used to use ‘legit’ like that. But more importantly –
“Fuck you both,” he says, and they in unison snort and he picks his knife back up, chopping vegetables with new vigor.
“Oh, c’mon babe, it’s cute,” Stiles says, and there’s a small hum of agreement from Lydia beyond him, turning back to her algebra.
“I hate you guys,” he mumbles without any conviction, and hears a soft “aww”. He looks up again, Stiles staring at him again.
“Now you’re pouting.”
And now Derek’s scowling.
“I really hate you,” he tells them, this time with a little conviction, but Lydia just chuckles from where she’s highlighting something and replies with, “No, you don’t.”
There’s a short silence, just the noise of the knife against the cutting board, and the highlighter against the page. Stiles is still watching Derek, small, content smile on his face and, well. Derek can’t help but smile back at him.
“I love you,” he eventually says, and Stiles’ face lights up. Before he can say anything back, though, Lydia’s cutting in with, “Yes, yes, we all love each other very much, now can we please shut up for a bit? I have a test in my Data Analysis class in two days and I need to study!”
Derek and Stiles meet eyes, grins on their faces, and yeah, Derek loves them both very much, no matter how much they think he has a ‘resting bitch face’. (Besides, he comforts himself with, he’s certainly got nothing on Cora’s RBF).