have a good day.


See, the thing is, Derek is entirely uncomfortable with how comfortable Stiles seems to be around him. It starts after they somehow end up with each other's e-mail addresses and phone numbers and then soon after, he's texting him constantly and shamelessly and Derek finds himself texting back. But it's not just that, no, it gets worse.

Because there are Sundays where Derek wakes up, leaves his bedroom and finds Stiles cooking breakfast for a pack that hadn't been there when Derek went to sleep the night before and there are Thursdays where Derek is faced with Isaac, Erica and Boyd huddled around his too-small and unstable dinner table while the smell of chicken parmesan wafts in through the door that leads to the kitchen.

And see, for a long time, Derek tries very hard to remain uncomfortable because it's easy and it's steady and it's safe to look at Stiles like he's crazy and not like he's the glue keeping this whole mess together. But the truth is, and Derek would never tell anyone this, he probably wouldn't even tell Laura if she were still here; the truth is, sometimes Derek lies awake at night because he's realized by now that the problem isn't how comfortable Stiles is with him. It's how comfortable he makes everything, how he can erase the smell of ashes that always linger in the back of Derek's mind, how he can make Derek forget what Kate's fingernails felt like as they inched into his skin and how easily he can make Derek feel like he's allowed to be happy.

The thing is, Stiles crawls forcefully into his life with ill-timed humor, packed groceries, watery coffee in paper cups and meaningful silences and Derek tries to resist, tries to scare him away with glares and sharp blows that hurt Stiles in the worst way possible. But in the end, he always comes back, with a nod of his head that doesn't say "I forgive you for being an asshole" but instead says "I understand what you're trying to do" and most of all, "but I won't let you". And so, reluctantly, with a fear so heavy it feels like his chest will concave, Derek's smiles linger a little longer and stretch a little further and sometimes, just sometimes, when it gets to be too big for his head and heart to handle, Derek will let himself be wrapped up in Stiles' arms. And in the morning, he won't feel guilty. Because if there's one thing he's learnt in the past years, it's that maybe, after all, happiness is not exclusive. Not even for him.