New Rules

It was Lydia who stopped Stiles on his way to the phone buzzing on the counter.

"No," she told him, voice imperious, chin up, eyes understanding and stern. "You're the one who put the rules into rotation for us. You don't get to ignore them, Stiles."

He groaned and dropped onto a stool at the kitchen bar, burying his face in his arms. "Lyyyyyds…" he whined, the sound muffled by the sleeves of his hoody.

As Danny stepped up behind him and wrapped both arms around his waist, hooking a chin over Stiles' shoulder, Allison and Lydia settled on the stools to either side.

Slowly sitting up, Stiles kept his eyes closed, trying to avoid the knowing looks. It was Allison, softly touching his shoulder, that finally made him glance over. While Lydia was a terrifying goddess who rarely condescended to regular mortals, and Danny was a snarky badass with better things to do than nurse someone else's broken heart, his step-sister was always kind. (To Stiles, at least. To anyone who hurt Stiles or their friends, or who said a bad word about their dads, she had perfect aim and wasn't afraid to use it.) Big brown eyes watched him carefully as she offered a sympathetic frown.

"Come on, Stiles," she prompted. "One?"

A heavy groan, but Stiles glanced over at the phone, which had started going off again, nodded, leaning back into Danny's friendly hold. "Don't pick up if he calls," he recited, thinking of Allison's jerk boyfriend from last year, who'd strung her along for months before the rest of their quartet had made the guy's life miserable, then printed out the List and put it in every notebook Allison owned. "He's only calling 'cause he's drunk, or alone and horny."

Next it was Danny, nudging his shoulder. "Two?" The List had stopped the boy's own bad series of relationships, and gotten the worst assholes out of his life with minimal fuss.

"Don't let him stop by," Stiles continued, resigned. "You'll only have to kick his ass out tomorrow, which'll be awkward for everyone."

Lydia grasped his chin and raised a brow. "And three?" Stiles remembered the last break up of the carnival hell ride that had been Lydia and Jackson's on-again, off-again relationship. He'd written out the List to stop another go round, and it had worked where nothing else succeeded.

Sighing, Stiles grabbed the hands of both girls and dropped his weight more fully against Danny. All three scooted as close as they could while he finished it. "Don't try to stay friends, you'll end up falling back into bed with him. And if you're under him, you can't get over him."

It was a silly little joke, but painfully accurate, and they'd all learned to swear by it. Stiles had simply gotten overconfident. He had never needed the List, and it made him think maybe he never would.

Catching Marcus, his first serious boyfriend, sleeping with Stiles' roommate in Stiles' bed had been messy. The dorm RA had approved a room swap, and Marcus had been banned from the building. Not that it made any difference, with how Marcus kept fucking calling or doing his best to "coincidentally" run into Stiles on campus.

But his friends and his sister had been there each time, scaring the bastard off and reminding Stiles that the rules existed for a reason. And soon, Stiles would be at the point where he could remind himself instead.

He was going to get over this jackass, and then maybe he'd finally ask out that hot guy Derek who worked at the campus library.

At that announcement, the girls high-fived and Danny laughed loudly. "I expect details."

Stiles wiggled his eyebrows shamelessly, reaching past them to his phone and finally going through the process of blocking Marcus' number. "I don't kiss and tell."

"That is a total lie," Allison giggled. "We may just be step-sibs, but I still know way too much about your sex life, bro."

At that, they all cracked up again, only for Lydia to clear her throat and announce, voice serious, "Live by the List…"

"…die by the List," the other three repeated the call back, as everyone leaned in to hug each other close.

This was what would get Stiles through the post-relationship clusterfuck - his friends and the rules.

end

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a/n: Inspired by the song and music video of the same name by Dua Lippa.