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It’s a bad night for Stiles. He can’t help it. He’s brought the fucking photo of them up on his laptop, tablet, and iPhone. He can’t stop staring at it. It feels like someone just stabbed him with a knife and then proceeded to drag it around his body aimlessly. He pours himself another shot.
Of course, tonight’s the night that Scott’s on his big date with both Allison and Kira. Stiles can’t exactly call him up to whine. Erica and Boyd have just left to go onto their honeymoon, but they were closer to him anyway. It wouldn’t do Stiles any good. Jackson had decided to take off with Lydia on a trip to see Ireland, so he can’t exactly afford a phone call there. Stiles needs better friends who don’t have lives so he can whine to someone. He could call Isaac but he doesn’t want to be murdered.
He takes another shot, gets up, and walks around his apartment. The truth is that he’ll always have that image in his mind. Now that he’s seen it, he’ll never be able to unsee it. Fuck, he wants to. He wants to pretend that the guy he fell in love with isn’t off dating some woman.
Stiles pours another shot.
Derek’s smiling face. How bright he looks with that gorgeous woman on his side. It’s going to haunt him every time he closes his eyes before he goes to sleep.
He sits down on the couch, but only for a few seconds, because then he’s up pacing again. Nothing’s ever been more difficult to forget. He’d stumbled upon the photo yesterday when he was casually scrolling through his news feed. He barely slept last night. Today, he almost lost his job. He’d shared some words with his boss.
He’s tired. More accurately, he’s exhausted. He’s alone. And he misses Derek.
It must be another five shots before Stiles is thumbing at his phone. Bad days like this, calling Derek would’ve been an automatic reaction. Derek would come over. Sometimes with food; sometimes with barely any clothes on. They’d fuck and talk and it would work. Stiles never failed to be in a better mood after Derek left.
He hovers over Derek’s name on his phone before he hits call.
It goes to voicemail. Of course. He’s probably with that woman, touching her in places that Stiles doesn’t want to think about. Stiles hiccups after the beep.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he starts off with. Another hiccup and then, he says, “I saw that photo of you and your new affair on Facebook. I can’t stop staring at it. You two look so good together; like you belong with one another. We never looked like that, did we? Nope because I was your dirty little secret.”
He sighs before continuing to say, “Fuck, seeing that photo…I feel like someone stomped all over me. My pillow doesn’t smell like you anymore. I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping. I miss you, Derek. I miss you and I miss your stupid face.”
Quieter now, he says, “I don’t know why I’m leaving this. I just…I didn’t want to be your dirty secret anymore.”
Stiles jumps when the voice tells him he can either save his message or record over it again. He hits a button and then turns off his phone. He tosses it onto his couch. Fuck everything.
Two more shots and then he passes out on his living room floor, curled up against the front of the couch, with a small pillow. It’s not the same. Then again, how could it ever be the same again?
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There’s a loud banging in his head, and Stiles groans. Everything hurts. By the time he opens his eyes and attempts to sit up, the banging has gotten louder and more persistent. It takes him a moment to gather his bearings to realize that someone’s at the door.
He climbs up slowly, doesn’t bother to shout that he’ll be there in a minute, and walks over his mess. Fuck, no wonder why Scott told him drinking alone is dangerous. Apparently, he’s trashed his living room.
Stiles swings the door open and a fist almost hits him in the face. He manages to duck, and he shouts, “Jesus fuck!”
He recognizes the deep frown before he registers who is standing in front of him. Stiles’ lips part but no words come out. The breath is taken away from him.
“Stiles. Good to see you’re still alive,” Derek’s deep, rumbling voice comes. Stiles rubs an eye and nods. Holy shit. Derek is here. He wants to rush forward and bury himself in Derek’s embrace. But he doesn’t move. Just yawns.
“Yeah. Why are you here?”
“I think we should talk. Your voicemail last night led me to believe that we might have ended this because of a misunderstanding,” Derek tells him. “Can I come in?”
“Can you come–yeah, of course, you can,” Stiles mumbles. He backs up to let Derek into the apartment. He forgets that the place is a mess. He shuts the door and asks, “Voice mail?”
Derek turns. “One, it looks like someone died in here. Two, yes. Voicemail. Do you need me to play it for you?”
Stiles nods, because he has no memory of a voicemail. His mouth is awfully dry, so he heads into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He’s not surprised when he turns back to see Derek tidying up. Fuck, the guy was such a neat freak. How did they ever end up being fuck buddies?
“Yeah, okay.”
Derek turns his phone onto the speaker, hits ‘1′ and the first saved message starts to play.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. I saw that photo of you and your new affair on Facebook. I can’t stop staring at it. You two look so good together; like you belong with one another. We never looked like that, did we? Nope because I was your dirty little secret. Fuck, seeing that photo…I feel like someone stomped all over me. My pillow doesn’t smell like you anymore. I can’t sleep. I haven’t been sleeping. I miss you, Derek. I miss you and I miss your stupid face. I don’t know why I’m leaving this. I just…I didn’t want to be your dirty secret anymore.”
Stiles’ ears are definitely pink by the time it’s done. He nods, and tries his best to act casual when he says, “Yep, that’ll do it, huh?”
“Do what?” Derek asks.
“Get you over here. I’m sorry. I was drinking alone, which is dangerous in itself, and then I saw that photo, and I guess…I don’t know. It sucked. It really sucked. We were fucking for what, six months, and not once did we ever go out and do normal things. Which I realize is stupid. We were fuck buddies, nothing more.” Stiles leans over his sink and closes his eyes. He’s not going to vomit; he just needs a moment to collect himself.
“The woman in the photo is Braeden.”
Stiles lifts his head to look at Derek now. “Your best friend. The one who would be your best man if you were to get married.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck me.”
“Okay,” Derek says, with one of his casual, charming grins crossing his face. Stiles lets out a breath of disbelief and Derek glances down at his phone. “Stiles, the terms and conditions to be fuck buddies were set up by you. I didn’t know you wanted–needed–anything more.”
“And if you had?” Stiles asks. He doesn’t want to look at Derek’s face when he gets rejected, so he ducks his head back down to look at the sink. Honestly, he should probably clean his sink soon too. It was nasty.
“If I had, I would’ve revised the terms and conditions,” Derek tells him. “I ended it because I couldn’t…I couldn’t stand being nothing but a fuck buddy to you anymore. I thought it would be better.”
“You–” Stiles lifts his head too fast. His stomach clenches and he takes a deep breath. Quietly, he says, “You broke it off because you wanted something more too?”
“Yeah. Do you know how hard it was for me to get up and leave before 1AM every night? I wanted to stay, but anything past 2AM was against our rules. All the times that it killed me to go hang out with my friends when I’d rather been with you? But we made it part of our rules. We had to hang out with our other friends more than we had sex. My friends are great - amazing - but they’re not you.” Derek shrugs. “I already broke the biggest rule, huh? No big declaration of love. Because, Stiles, I’m in love with you. And that’s not something that comes easily to me, but you make it so damn difficult to not fall for you.”
Stiles smiles, walking towards Derek now. “I think we can toss that rule out the window. Don’t you?”
“Sure. Why not?” Derek tells him. When they’re close, they just touch each other. Neither of them moves to immediately kiss the other. It’s not how they work. Derek asks, “Do you forgive me?”
“Do you forgive me?” Stiles echoes.
“I’m going to say that I will forgive you, once you kiss me.”
“You’re a dork.”
“And I will kiss you only after you brush your teeth. Your breath reeks,” Derek tells him lightly. Stiles laughs and runs off to the washroom.
So it’ll have to be a relationship that they’ll work on building together, but it’ll be worth it. Stiles picks up his toothbrush and twirls it. He sees Derek's toothbrush still sitting on the sink.
He realizes that he'd left a toothbrush with Derek too. He remembers the day that they'd broken that rule - but it was for convenience. Really. That's how Stiles had pitched it to Derek, anyway. It'd be efficient. It's only because they were always at each other's places.
He hadn't even tried to throw Derek's toothbrush out.
“Hey loser, at what point in our friendship did I leave my toothbrush with you?” Stiles calls out. Derek appears in the door frame, amused.
“About the same time I realized I was madly in love with the idiot who spent thirty minutes comparing toothbrushes only to buy the most basic one,” Derek responds. He steps behind Stiles to wrap his arms around his waist. “Hurry up. My forgiveness has a time limit.”
“Oh, does it now?” Stiles turns in Derek’s arms. “Maybe I should kiss you before the time runs out.”
“Not with that mouth of yours,” Derek protests. He starts laughing when Stiles leans in, fully prepared to lay one on him. Derek pulls away and Stiles chases him into the other room. They fall onto the bed, and Derek slaps a hand on his lips. He mumbles, “Don’t you dare.”
He takes one big long sniff and says, “I missed the way you smell.”
Derek laughs, unexpectedly, and drops his hand from his mouth.
Stiles leans forward as if he’s going to kiss Derek, then he swoops back and sticks the tooth brush in his mouth. Derek grins, as if he’s won, but really, Stiles doesn’t want to start their relationship off with stinky breath. He makes his way back to the bathroom, not surprised that Derek follows him again.
“You bought the toothbrushes three weeks into our non-relationship,” Derek tells him quietly. “You swore it was about efficiency, but I’m not sure it had anything to do with that.”
Stiles can’t help but agree. He was in further with Derek than he’d ever meant to be, but somehow, it seems like it’s all going to be alright now. Derek smiles at him from the door frame.
“You’re drooling.”
Stiles waves his hand up and down at Derek with a noise of protest. Look at him. Look at his boyfriend. Life is good.
“Missed my stupid face, huh?”
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