Apparently Dylan's allergic to something in the fake black blood he was supposed to vomit down his shirt. Good news is they got a good shot out of it, real tears in Dylan's eyes, real panic when he realized he couldn't breathe. Method acting. Dylan's a method actor. That's called dedication.
Tyler's the biggest sap ever about it, it's the sweetest thing. He's shooting in, like, Prague somewhere, but on Facetime he's all wide-eyed and concerned, like, Derek-level of tragedy, trying to reach through the phone and feel Dylan's forehead or something, put a hand on his arm. And Dylan, he's not made of stone, okay, he can't have Tyler Dereking at him without needing to fix it.
"Hey, can I tell you something?" he says.
"Of course," Tyler says, serious. His eyes are doing that super intense focused thing that tends to make Dylan go stupid and massively embarrass himself, usually on camera for infinite replay value. Just a Vine of his humiliations looping over and over in his head, but also actually on Vine. And Tumblr.
"Spoiler warning," Dylan says, as an afterthought.
Tyler blinks at him, and—when did blinking become attractive? Dylan is so broken.
"The—Not Game of Thrones," Tyler hedges.
"No, no," Dylan says hurriedly. He's not a monster, c'mon.
"Then—" Tyler's brows scrunch together. It's stupidly adorable. Dylan wants to punch himself in the face.
"Teen Wolf," Dylan says. "La lycanthrope del teen-o. Season–whatever this is."
"Eight," Tyler says, which is definitely wrong, but Dylan is pretty sure he's been purposefully getting it wrong for at least a couple of years now.
"So, Stiles dies," Dylan says.
Tyler rears back, looking like someone just stole his puppy and socked him in the stomach. "What?"
"In the—the season finale," Dylan tells him. "He begs Scott to make him a werewolf so he can—His dad's captured, and, like, tortured. and he's helpless, and he's sick of it, so he begs Scott to bite him, and, you know—black blood blues."
"Your contract's for another two years," Tyler says slowly, like he's trying to decode a complicated string of emojis. "Did you wanna leave?"
"What? No! I don't know," Dylan says, shoving a hand through his hair. "I mean, it's—it'll free me up for other stuff. Right? Whatever. It's not worth—It is what it is."
"You're the best part of the show," Tyler says, frowning, and Dylan kind of whites out from self-conscious embarrassment for a second.
"Yeah, I don't know," he says when he can speak again. "I kind of—I got too used to Jeff giving a shit about my opinions, I guess. But they just all suck now."
"Dyl," Tyler says, soft.
Dylan shakes his head, says, "No, I'm this—this entitled brat who doesn't know when to shut up on set. I ripped his writing on set, Ty. In front of Shelley and Justin and the whole freaking crew. I just—I don't know. I was single, everything was shit. And he gave away your scene, and Stiles turned into this oblivious date rapist–and my whole inner filtration system just—shut down."
"Talk to him," Tyler says. "If you don't wanna leave. Maybe he just figures that was you—asking for an out. He wouldn't just kill Stiles." His voice is quiet, but he says kill Stiles like it's heresy.
"I got fired," Dylan says. It's the first time he's actually said it. Acknowledged it. Posey tried to talk about it and Dylan brushed him off with some inane bullshit distraction until he gave in and stopped trying. "Like—bridges were burned. I screwed myself."
"You had a bad day," Tyler says reasonably. Like a dad comforting his five year old, but also like the five year old. That sure is a weird thought to have about your boyfriend, but there it is. Dylan O'Brien, weirdo prodigy.
"You're taking one down," Dylan chooses to say, rather than outing himself as the least dateable person on earth. "You sing a sad song just to turn it around."
Tyler nearly puts his back out laughing.
The first non-workday after Teen Wolf is—well, Dylan only throws up twice, but the ache in his gut stays and stays. Stiles is over. Dylan's longest-running job is over. Spending hours screwing around with his best friend and picking up a paycheck for it—over.
Dylan bets Stiles' death kicks off Scott's darkest storyline yet. Posey'll have a real chance to shine, now. That's good. That's really good. He deserves it. Scott's never really been a complicated character. This'll finally give him something to play with. Grief, and guilt, and loneliness, and finding strength again somehow, because that's what Scott is about. Maybe he'll go to college, try to live a normal life, until some mystery monster starts attacking people there and Scott has to step in, be the hero he doesn't dare let himself think he is. Or is that too obvious? Maybe he'll become the new Derek, saving people who don't trust him, who leave him for dead, and then coming in through Stiles' window, standing in his room and just soaking in his mistakes, his failures, those last horrible moments.
Dylan's got some theories, is the point. Some ideas, just percolating. He texts them to Posey offhandedly, feels kind of stupid a little later in the day. Posey's still shooting with Arden, with Holland, with Sprayberry. Next season probably won't mention Stiles at all. It's not like anyone else who left got a lot of storylines based on them. It's like Derek never existed, like Isaac was sent to live on a really nice farm, don't worry. No, you can't go visit him.
And whatever, whatever. It's just a weird thing, keeping this guy in your head since you were eighteen, and rooting for him, really feeling for him, and seeing him just die. What kind of ending is that? He should be going off to college, you know, working through the traumas he's been through, carving out a life for himself. He's a good guy, he deserves a happy ending. Deserves something. To see his mom, at least, to have her convince him it wasn't his fault or his responsibility to save her. And fuck, none of this is real or relevant to Dylan's life anymore, but here it is, rattling around in his head like a One Direction chorus.
does it ever bother you, Dylan texts Tyler. how derek's story ended?
Did it really end? Tyler replies. I think he'd go back home to help Scott & the pack
after stiles dies, Dylan sends.
Kate came back, Tyler says. Peter. Why not Stiles? Maybe Peter brings him back
and derek doesnt know if he can trust zombie stiles or not, Dylan types.
But he does, Tyler replies. and he feels responsible for how things turned out
and stiles feels defeated/powerless, Dylan taps out.
Derek could teach him to fight, Tyler offers. Train him 1-on-1. They could be a team
And yeah, yeah, that's—Dylan can see that, definitely. See it so clear he feels a sharp little pang at how he never got the chance to play the scene. Block it out with Tyler, do all his own stunts like Tyler tries to, and then shoot it, lose himself in the character, feel everything. Stiles has such a dramatic, traumatic life, he feels things on, like, a deeper level. That kiss scene that got cut? That was insane. Like, electric, like—almost too much chemistry. Like, just straddling the line between tripping and overdosing.
What Dylan has with Tyler, it's different. Sterek is different people. The worst anxieties Dylan's had are social. Tyler's never lost anyone. It's not the same desperation, or the same fear, or—It's a big thing for them, feeling safe with somebody. It's a big thing for everyone, trusting someone with their real feelings, but for Stiles, for Derek, it's literally about safety. Dylan once read this thing, there's some chemical that's triggered by near-death experiences, this, like, euphoria, and if someone's with you through it, if someone saves you, or you save them—like, that just amps up everything you already feel to eleven. And Dylan, he doesn't have that in his actual life—Thank God, right, he's not constantly literally running for his life—so he can only ever get to that through Stiles. And now that's just permanently over. The scripts he gets now, right, even when they're, like, super funny, or look really epic, the guys he's playing are so transparent you practically can't see them at all. There's, like, no deeper level, nothing under the surface. If they're mad they'll probably just say, you know, "I'm really mad right now!" And, like, what inflection do you give that to make it anything more than what it is?
Which all sounds like a bunch of entitled actor crap, doesn't it. There are probably thousands of actors his age who would kill for what he's getting handed to him. It's crazy that he ever forgets that. He's just been spoiled with Stiles right out of the gate, with getting to play a guy on all these different levels, getting to riff on things, getting his ideas actually considered. He got so used to it he got pissed when all Tyler or Posey ever got was rejection for all their ideas. He forgot how fucking lucky he was.
And he got fired for being a dick on set, tearing down the script on set. That's insane. His eighteen year old self would probably grab his shoulders and shake him till he was sick.
The regret train pauses briefly while Dylan is sick again.
Or Scott could train him, Tyler texts. Then he actually might win a fight sometimes
No, no. That's not—Scott wouldn't get it. He couldn't bring Stiles back from his total life fatigue, he wouldn't get it. He's too used to succeeding.
And Dylan can't think how to text that, how to—and he really needs to hear Tyler's voice right now, not just in his head. See his face.
Stupid, he's the most stupid—Tyler switches from wide-open and happy to level five concerned when he sees Dylan's dumb sick-pale face, his sweaty hair.
"Dylan!" he'd said, just before, smiling warm, but now it's gone. Now it's just a soft, "What's going on?"
"I think I ate some bad sushi," Dylan lies, and then, avoiding Tyler's gaze, "and uh, you know, I'm kinda... an idiot who sabotaged myself and the only thing I'm good at. So, there's that."
"You're good at lots of things," Tyler says, and a scoff bubbles up in Dylan's throat and chokes him. "You are. You could have a whole career just doing stand-up. Or getting back with your band."
The band, God. Dylan wouldn't even know where to begin restarting those relationships. He feels like a completely different person.
"But you don't need a fallback," Tyler says. "You're one of the most talented actors I know. That's not over."
"What if it is," Dylan says dully. "What if—if it's you and baseball, if I made a choice and that's it."
"I left the show too," Tyler says, generously not addressing that low blow. "I'm not Jeff's favorite person either. I'm still working."
"You didn't get fired," Dylan says.
"Didn't I?" Tyler challenges. "I wasn't playing Derek anymore. Jeff stopped writing for him. You think he wanted me around?"
"I wanted you around," Dylan says. "Your ideas. He should've—"
And there Dylan goes again, so used to having won the lottery that he's lobbying for everyone else to win it too. As if writing isn't hard enough without the whole cast turning co-writer.
"We should write something," Dylan decides suddenly. "Together."
"Put it on YouTube?" Tyler suggests. Dylan face-palms, cheeks flaming.
"No," he says, trying to remember how normal human beings speak. "Actually try to get it made. Like Good Will Hunting or something. A real movie."
"Yeah," Tyler says, nodding. "Yeah, okay."
"You were saying you wanted to write anyway," Dylan says.
"Yeah," Tyler says. "We can–yeah. Yeah, definitely." He's getting excited, slowly, Dylan can see it; it's making him want to kiss him, or just put an arm around him, lean close.
"I wanna see you," Dylan says, something thick in his throat. "Like—not through a phone."
"Yeah," Tyler says. "I have—You wanna see Vienna?"
"If you're there," Dylan says, like he's in The Notebook or something.
Tyler blushes bright.