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“Why do you only own dark colors?” Laura asks. Derek hears her looking through his closet from the living room and sighs.
“To match my soul,” Derek deadpans. “Why are you looking at my stuff?”
“I need to know what my baby bro was up to while I was dead,” she says, walking back into the living room. She dumps half of his wardrobe onto the coffee table and blocks the television screen.
“Hey!” Derek protests. “I was watching that.”
“Friends with Benefits?” Laura asks, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously? Your taste in movies is awful. God knows what else you’ve been watching while I was gone.”
“I’ve been watching great movies!” Derek says indignantly.
“Uh huh,” she says. “My only hope is that Stiles didn’t let you fall completely off the deep end.”
“Since when have you and Stiles talked?” Derek asks suspiciously.
“We talk.”
“About what?”
“You, mainly,” she says, inspecting a shirt. She wrinkles her nose and throws it across the room “And movies.”
“Don’t talk to Stiles about me,” he huffs. “And, hey! That’s my favorite shirt!”
“I can talk to Stiles if I want to,” Laura says. “I like Stiles.”
Derek opens his mouth to say, “He’s mine,” but catches himself before he lets it out. Laura looks like she knows what he was going to say though, because she smirks.
“I like Scott too,” Laura says. “And the rest of them. We should all hang out!”
“How about we don’t.” That sounds like the worst idea. Ever.
“We’ll see about that.” She turns to the clothes. “We have to do something about this. Let’s go shopping!”
“No.”
“It’ll be fun!” Laura whines. “Plus, I wanna get fro-yo. I miss it. There was none of that in the afterlife.”
“Ugh, fine." The one thing that makes Derek do whatever Laura wants is when she brings up when she was dead.
=
“Try this on!” Laura says, flinging an obnoxiously orange shirt at him. They’re in a store with a name that Derek can’t pronounce.
“I think I’ve gone blind just looking at this,” Derek comments.
“Oh, shut up,” she says. “Try it on. It might look great on you!”
“It’s not like I have anybody to impress,” Derek grumbles.
Laura smirks. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes?”
“Yes, you do,” she says, annoyed. “You know that I know. Don’t play dumb.”
“This is news to me?” Derek attempts, half-heartedly.
“Nice try.”
“It was worth a shot,” hesays glumly. “Please, don’t say anything.” Derek has worked hard on becoming friends with Stiles. He doesn’t need Laura ruining that.
“What would I say?” Laura asks innocently. “He likes you, anyway,” she adds, looking through some shirts.
“No he doesn’t,” Derek says, glancing at what her choices warily.
“Uh, yeah, he does,” Laura says. “What’s the point of werewolf senses if you can’t even use them to read people, Der?”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Derek says sourly. “How do you know he likes me? He just thinks I’m attractive.”
“Do you not see the way he looks at you?” Laura asks incredulously.
“What way?”
Laura sighs. “Derek, I think you’re just telling yourself that he doesn’t like you because you think you don’t deserve him. Which is bullshit, okay? Stop beating yourself up. It’s not your fault.”
Derek is silent for a minute, and then goes to try on the shirts she picked out. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “I think I’ll go try these on now.”
“Okay,” Laura says, smiling hesitantly. Derek attempts to smile back but it probably comes out as a grimace.
=
“I’m sorry,” Laura huffs, spooning some chocolate yogurt into her mouth. They’re in the food court, sitting at a table near the corner. Derek is eating his plain vanilla with some mochi and peanut butter cups.
“What about?” Derek asks, staring down at his cup.
“You know,” Laura says. “Trying to get you to do things you don’t want.”
“It’s fine.”
Laura sighs. “No, it’s not.”
“Yeah,” Derek agrees. Then he sighs. “It’s not like I want to, I do. I’m just… not ready, I guess.”
“Okay,” Laura assents. “I can work with that. Now come on, we still have to buy more!"
Derek groans.