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Stiles and Derek are bad at this. At dating. At not-dating. At whatever the fuck it is they’re doing. It all boils down to the same thing, whatever they decide to call it: they suck at it. Scott and Kira are all in your face about how cute they are and how perfect everything is and Scott says they never fight and Stiles throws mini marshmallows at his head.
They were like the Derek and Stiles Hello Kitty version, because they’d followed the same steps and gotten to the land of rainbows and cloud fluff instead of the sub-basement level of repressed feelings and general avoidance. Scott had hooked up with Allison another two or six more times, got in this awkward thing with Isaac that was never anything more than anger and glaring and inappropriate touching that walked the line of platonic like a drunken teenager and then finally asked Kira out a year ago.
Now they’re all smiles and Stiles both hates and envies their adorablosity. He and Derek have been slogging through this whatever it is for five fucking years. Stiles thinks maybe they should break up. Again. Only he’s miserable when he and Derek break up and they inevitably get back together when one of them shows up and says, ‘Let’s fuck.’ Derek’s proven to be deterred by nothing when it comes to that, too. Even Stiles being mid-date with the attractive and boring T.A. from his Rise and Fall of Empires class.
Which had turned out to be dead on because it hadn’t stopped Stiles, at all, from attacking Derek with his mouth.
Stiles knows this is his fault. For falling for an emotionally constipated asshole, because as much as Derek’s turned over a new leaf and all – he’d still stopped talking to Stiles for a week the first and only time Stiles had told him he loved him.
He won’t be making that mistake again.
He scowls down at his coffee, watches Kira’s face light up with laughter. She’s got that thing that Scott has, that Allison has. When she laughs, like three quarters of her face is all mouth and the whole of it is happiness. Stiles isn’t sure he’s ever looked that happy.
He knows Derek hasn’t.
He has to leave before his doom and gloom starts spreading to the sugary-sweet couple across from him. The last thing he wants to do is sour that. (Okay, so he kind of does.) He offers a weak wave and shoves his hands in the pocket of his – Derek’s – jacket, the one that Stiles has had for almost six years, the one that Derek pretends to want back but always leaves behind.
It’s everyone’s bad luck that his hand closes around his phone.
Derek’s goes straight to voicemail. No personalized message, just you’ve reached the voicemail box of Derek’s number and would he like to leave a message? Stiles sure as shit would. Honestly, he’d thought he was angry until the beep. He’s not. He’s just lost, just asks the grotesquely sincere question:
“Do I even make you happy anymore? Did I ever?”
He hates himself a little because, God, does he ever sound like a melodramatic schoolgirl and like he’s trying to guilt Derek into something. He isn’t. But if they’re beating a dead horse, they should probably get some glue out of the whole dealie, say a heartfelt eulogy and bury it as deep underground as they fucking can.
He takes the long way back, walks through campus to get to his apartment, which is a little bigger than his closet in Beacon Hills. He shouldn’t be surprised that it’s locked and yet Derek is standing inside, back to Stiles and phone to his ear. He doesn’t even twitch when Stiles opens the door and Stiles’ eyes fall across the stretch of his shoulders, leather collar flipped up only on one side.
Derek angrily jabs at his phone and turns around. His stubble and eyebrows and snarl are like a throwback to the early stages of their relationship and Stiles feels his face and neck heat up appreciatively.
“You don’t think you make me happy?” he growls, and there’s anger but also concern in the tilt of his head. Like maybe he thinks Stiles was hit over the head and forgot what they are to each other. It’s a legitimate concern.
Stiles shrugs and he’s just so fucking tired. “You don’t laugh.”
Derek softens in those barely noticeable ways that Stiles has perfected seeing, snorts, grabs Stiles’ forearm and pulls him in easily. “That’s what we’re basing our three a.m. epiphanies on?”
Stiles shrugs again, this time against Derek’s chest, warm and feeling safe in a way he only ever does with Derek. “Seems as good a thing as any,” he mumbles into Derek’s shirt. “What are you doing here?”
Derek doesn’t laugh. Stiles isn’t really sure he has one. But he chuckles and it doesn’t even feel momentous. Because he does that all the time, he snorts and chuckles and chortles and he has these little Derek things that let on how pleased he is. Things that Stiles has gotten so used to because they’ve always been there that he’s discounted them entirely. “I came to be unhappy with you,” he says sardonically.
Stiles blinks up at him, mouth gaping a little. He buries his face in Derek’s neck and draws in a sharp inhale of cold air through his nose, feeling a new, better epiphany rise in his chest. “Oh.”
Derek presses his mouth to Stiles’ temple and says into his skin, “Stop hanging around Scott and Kira.”
Stiles does his own little snort-thing because he’s not much of a laughing guy either and says, “Yeah, okay.”