A/N: Ugh, I suck, I'm so sorry. I was supposed to update almost a month ago but I started writing a ton and forgot I was actually supposed to be posting, too. In penance, I will also be posting the next part of A Story in Texts, my Sterek-texting-each-other series. It'll be up within an hour of this chapter. I hope you enjoy both! :)

"What are you doing this afternoon?"

Stiles glanced over at Lydia, who was putting the finishing touches on her pedicure. They'd been lounging in his room most of the morning, after he changed his sheets and threw the dirty ones in the laundry just as Lydia had promised his dad he'd do. He was reading through a book on the Cynocephalus, which he suspected of being their most recent threat. There had been reports of dog-headed men terrorizing some students, and while the others were thinking a new pack had arrived, he was convinced there was another explanation. Cynocephali were one of the more plausible ones.

He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, contemplating her question. "I want to go back to the loft," he said finally, and he could feel Lydia's gaze transfer from her feet to his face. "I still have a key. Derek didn't think to ask for it back, and afterward, I figured he'd rather I keep it than come back to him with it." The shirt was still his, too, in the back of his closet; he wore it sometimes, though he'd never told Lydia that. He suspected she knew it anyway.

"What good is that going to do?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know. Probably none. But maybe he left a clue about where he is, or when he might be coming back. A travel itinerary, a map, a note for the damn housekeeper. Or maybe there won't be anything there. Maybe he left for good and just didn't tell anyone. This is Derek we're talking about. Mysterious and unpredictable is kind of his thing." He lifted his head up and thumped it back down on the floor in frustration; the idea of Derek being gone for good tore at him painfully.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

He exhaled slowly. "I appreciate the offer, Lyds, but I think I need to do this on my own. I don't know what I'll find and I don't know how I'll react to what I do."

Lydia slid off the bed carefully, so as not to mess up her pedicure, and came to rest on her knees beside him, leaning over and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. His hand came up to tangle in the cloud of red that fell around his face like a cocoon, and he opened his mouth to her gentle exploration. After a few moments she pulled back, smiling softly. "I'll be here as soon as you need me," she promised. "Just text me when you're ready."

"God I love you," he breathed, kissing her again, harder this time. "You're pretty much the perfect girlfriend."

"I am," she agreed, grinning. "Now go. Figure out how to find your ex-boyfriend so we can make him a current one."

Stiles sat up, shaking his head. "This is seriously the most bizarre thing I've ever done, and living in a place like Beacon Hills, I've done a lot of bizarre stuff."

Lydia shrugged. "The normal rules don't apply here. It's not so bizarre that we could have a relationship that falls into that category, right?"

He blinked. "It's not," he realized slowly. He hopped to his feet, reaching down to assist Lydia to hers, smiling down at her tenderly. "Thanks, Lyds. For everything. For being you, and for loving me the way you do."

She wrinkled her nose. "I love you too, sweetie, but you're about one maudlin chord away from being a ballad. Go find Derek."

Laughing, he dropped another kiss to her forehead before grabbing his keys and heading downstairs. Stiles found himself whistling cheerfully as he climbed into the Jeep, and when he caught himself doing it he stopped in shock. He hadn't whistled in what seemed like ages. Despite his protests to Lydia that he was as happy as he could possibly be, he'd always been aware that Derek's absence had created a hole in his life that no one, not even Lydia, could fill. The prospect of finally filling it back in again, no matter how remote a chance it was, had him happier than he could remember being in a really long damn time.

The distance to the loft seemed to be both infinitesimal and infinite. The anxiety built in him until he was practically vibrating in his seat, his leg bouncing erratically. When he caught sight of the building he inhaled sharply, a tight pressure swelling in his chest so that it felt nearly impossible to breathe. As he swung the Jeep into his old usual parking spot the tension began to ease; he already felt better just by being here.

Once he'd made his way to Derek's door he pulled his keys back out, preparing to use, for the first time ever, the one Derek had given him so long ago. His hand shook slightly as he tried to insert the key in the lock, but then it was sliding open, much more smoothly than he'd expected after months of disuse.

The first thing that struck him when he stepped inside was that it was painfully different. The gorgeous, rich colors that had been prevalent before, the blacks and grays and burgundies, were all gone, like a slate that had been wiped clean. Instead, there were various hues of muted blue all around him. The pillowy burgundy couch that he had such fond memories of was gone, replaced by a boxy, utilitarian navy thing. Instead of the high-backed black leather chair, there was a low, deep blue chair with wide arms and a square ottoman in front of it. The curio cabinet was gone, the space bare where it had once stood. In fact, the room was incredibly stark, with very little furniture and virtually no personal items or decorative trinkets. There was no sign of personality or of comfort, just functionality. The dramatic difference between what he'd known and what he saw now nearly broke Stiles' heart.

He drifted over to where Derek's bed still sat, the burgundy silk sheets and gray mink blanket a thing of the past. Navy cotton sheets were covered with a plain, slate-colored comforter. Stiles let his fingers drift over the fabric, idly recognizing that it was at least comfortable, if devoid of any kind of sense of indulgence or excess. Sadness overwhelmed him. Derek had erased every trace of the time they had shared.

Sighing, Stiles realized it was time to stop living in the past and start looking for the future. He'd seen a desk in the far corner of the room; that was probably the best place to start. He turned around to go look and nearly had heart failure when he saw Derek standing in front of him, a scowl dominating his angry face.

"Holy sh-! Oh my God, Derek! What are you doing just standing there like a creeper?" Stiles demanded, trying to get his pounding heart back under control. "You couldn't have said something?"

"What are you doing in my home?" Derek growled, ignoring Stiles' questions. "You don't belong here."

"I know." Stiles lifted a shaky hand to his hair, running his fingers through it anxiously. "I, I mean we, didn't know when you were coming back. I came here to see if I could find something that would give us a hint."

"If it was any of your business, I would have told you." The tone was flat, emotionless, and Stiles winced.

"I know," he repeated, sighing. "I know." Derek continued to stare him down, arms crossed tightly over his chest, which rose and fell shallowly with his constrained breaths. Stiles got the sense he was waiting for a better explanation. "I needed to see you. To talk to you."

"There's nothing to say," came the abrupt response.

"Yes there is, Derek! God, would you listen to me?" Stiles exclaimed in frustration.

The muscles in Derek's jaw tightened and Stiles was almost surprised his teeth didn't snap under the pressure. "Why should I?" he retorted, his voice steely. "You made your decision three months ago and I respected it. I left. What, are you going to tell me now that you and Lydia broke up and you want to pick up where we left off? Fuck you, Stiles."

The barely-concealed rage vibrating through Derek's voice knocked Stiles back a step or two. He stared at the wolf, noting that he was now curling his fingertips into his palms and a trickle of red was beginning to seep from his closed fists. It alarmed him and he wasn't sure that honesty was the best policy at this point, but he pressed forward anyway.

"We didn't break up," Stiles admitted, and when Derek's eyes shuttered he realized somewhere deep inside, the other man had held out hope that Stiles had come back to tell him exactly that. When they reopened, he could see that the fiery light of anger had dimmed, and now there was just pain. "But that doesn't mean I don't still miss you."

Derek turned away and took several quick, shallow breaths. Stiles reached out a hand hesitantly, but before he made contact with Derek's skin he thought better of it and dropped his arm. He waited in trepidation, wondering if Derek would kick his ass or just tell him to get the hell out. Either one would be well-deserved. Then he turned back around and the misery in his eyes stole Stiles' breath.

"I loved you."

The words took a moment to penetrate Stiles' brain, and when he processed them he did a double-take, his jaw dropping open. "Uh, what?" he asked, certain he'd heard wrong.

Derek's head dropped and his back curved as he slumped inward on himself, and Stiles' heart ached. He wanted to wrap his arms around Derek and hold him close, to promise him he'd never hurt him like that again. Instead, he held his breath and waited Derek out, knowing that his trademark rambling would just ruin everything if he got started.

"Before you told me you slept with Lydia," Derek began, his voice halting. "I realized… I realized I loved you. I knew it wasn't just sex." He trailed off and Stiles bit his tongue to keep from interrupting. "I was going to ask if you wanted to, y'know, make things official." He winced. "That sounds stupid."

"No." Stiles' voice was soft. "It sounds perfect."

"But by the time I realized how much I wanted us to actually be together, I'd already lost." The bitterness weighed heavily in the air. "I always knew you and Lydia would end up together. I just hoped… I thought maybe you'd moved on."

Stiles couldn't stand it anymore. He took the two steps separating him and Derek and cupped the wolf's jaw in his hands, reaching up and kissing him deeply. Derek's eyes drifted closed and he sighed into Stiles' mouth, returning the kiss and sliding his hands into the younger man's hair. They clutched at each other for several long moments, neither of them willing to let go after being apart for so long. Finally Stiles stepped back, though not so far that he actually broke contact with Derek.

"I did, and I didn't," he began, knowing his explanation was bound to be clumsy. It wasn't something he'd been prepared to discuss, but there was no time like the present. "I've always loved Lydia, and I'll always love her. Even if we ever break up, she was my first love. That means something." Derek's face remained stone-still, but pain flickered through his eyes and Stiles rushed to finish. "But that doesn't mean I didn't move on. I never expected what happened with us. I didn't expect anything at all, but I definitely didn't expect how much it would matter once it did."

"Neither did I." Derek's stock stoicism had returned, and Stiles didn't know what it meant. Or how his suggestion would be received.

"Lydia knows how I feel about you," he continued, and Derek's eyes lifted, locking onto his curiously. "She knows how miserable I am without you, and she thinks we can fix it so that we're all happy."

"I don't see how that's possible," Derek replied honestly. He searched Stiles' eyes. "What does Lydia think you feel?"

"She doesn't think. She knows." Stiles inhaled a deep, steadying breath. "She knows I love you. She knows it didn't go away just because I ended things."

The joy that leapt into the wolf's eyes was short-lived, but it fueled Stiles' hope that maybe, somehow, this could work out for all of them. "And she's okay with that?"

"She loves me. She wants me to be happy. So she thinks that, uh, that if we were all, y'know, together, that we'd all get what we want."

Derek's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Together? All three of us?"

"Yeah." Stiles scratched at the back of his neck uncomfortably. "All three of us. You and me, me and her. You and her, too, I guess."

Derek's head was already shaking no and Stiles' heart sank. "You can't know what you're asking," he objected. "She can't, either. No one ever wins in that kind of scenario. Someone gets left out, jealousy takes over, everything is destroyed. I hate where we are now, but it's infinitely better than the irreparable damage something like that could cause."

"Could," Stiles repeated, pouncing on the word like it was his last salvation. "You don't know that it would. It could be exactly what we need."

"Stiles." The firm finality in his tone had Stiles stepping back, his gut twisting in sickened disappointment. "Even if I thought it might work, I wouldn't do it. I couldn't share you, not with anyone, but especially not with her."

The two fell silent when it became clear there was nothing else to be said. "I guess I should go," Stiles said finally.

"I guess you should," Derek replied quietly. Stiles took a step toward the loft's door, his feet feeling heavy. Derek's voice stopped him. "It was good to see you again. I'm glad you came by. Even though."

"Yeah. Even though." Stiles cast Derek a wistful look before escaping through the door. He slid it shut behind him, the click of it sounding like a gunshot, taking with it his last hope for a happily-ever-after.