"Wait, what?"
Stiles sighed, leaning the side of his head against the driver's-side window, his cell phone pressed to his other ear. "Yeah, he's back. He wasn't in the loft when I got there, but after I looked around for a second I turned around and there he was. Scared the hell out of me. I thought for a second he was going to break me in half."
Lydia was silent for a moment. "Did you ask him?"
Right to the point, as always. "I did. He said no."
"Then he's an idiot," she said firmly.
"Because God forbid he just not like the idea of a threesome," Stiles shot back sarcastically. "That's incomprehensible."
He could almost hear Lydia rolling her eyes. "Sweetie. This is Derek. He's sex on a stick. I'm sure it's not the idea of a threesome that actually bothers him."
Stiles snorted. "I can't argue with your assessment, but he flat-out said he would never share me with you."
"Famous last words." Her voice was serene, and Stiles almost felt bad for Derek when he realized Lydia wasn't going to take his "no" for a final answer. Almost, but not quite. There was too much relief that the door wasn't completely shut on his chance for a reconciliation with the wolf, after all.
"So what are you going to do?"
She laughed. "I'm going to prove him wrong."
"I don't doubt you are fully capable of making Derek Hale change his mind. If anyone can out-stubborn him, it's you." He checked his watch. "I think I'm going to head over to Scott's and see how he's doing. Between you and Derek, I haven't spent much time with him lately. How long do you think it'll be before you're done with Derek?"
"He'll be begging me for the chance to fuck us both in the next hour," she said sweetly, and Stiles groaned. Lydia talking dirty still hadn't lost its impact on him and he could feel himself hardening. He was tempted to skip Scott's and just wait outside the loft until Lydia had had her conversation with Derek. "Go, have fun with Scott. I'll let you know once I have Derek eating out of my hand."
An image flashed in his mind of Derek eating out of something else instead, and he had to will back his growing erection. "Sounds like a plan. Work your magic, Lyds." He disconnected and tossed the phone in the passenger seat, unable to contain his excitement. This just might have a chance at working after all.
lllll
Derek sighed when he heard the determined knocking on the door. He could smell Lydia on the other side of it and knew exactly what was about to happen. Briefly, he considered not even letting her in.
Apparently she could read minds. "Damn it, Derek, I know you're in there! Don't even think about trying to ignore me, because I'm not going away."
Making a decision, he slid the door open and stared at her insolently. "What do you want, Lydia?"
She snorted. "Right, like you don't already know. You're not stupid, Derek."
The words were like a punch to the gut, reminding him of when he'd said something similar to Stiles. She's not a stupid woman. It was only a matter of time before she figured out what she had. The moment he'd been half-hoping would never come, or at least not until Stiles was over her and had no interest in running into her arms. Unfortunately for him she'd figured it out sooner rather than later, and he'd lost everything.
"Neither are you, which is why I don't understand why you came here," he replied evenly. "I told Stiles I'll never agree to a threesome."
"I know it's unorthodox," she began carefully, but he interrupted her.
"It's insane," he retorted bluntly. "It won't work. You really think I want to watch you and Stiles together, knowing I'm just the extra entertainment in your bed? I don't."
Lydia's brows drew together in a puzzled frown. "Whatever gave you that idea? Did Stiles say that?"
He gave her a suspicious stare. "He said you thought if we were all 'together' then we'd all be happy. I'd never be satisfied with an arrangement like that."
"That's never what I intended," she sighed, shaking her head. "Stiles loves you, Derek. He's so unhappy without you, and it kills me to watch him struggle to pretend he's not. I knew before I even suggested it to him that this wouldn't just be about sex. When I said I wanted the three of us to be together, I actually meant together."
Derek had to fight not to let his jaw drop. She was even crazier than he'd thought. "How exactly did you expect that to work? You and Stiles go to the movies one night, I take him out for dinner the next? You think people wouldn't notice our bizarre little triangle?"
She bit her lip uncertainly. "I never thought you'd actually care what other people thought."
He let out a harsh bark of laughter. "I don't give a shit what anyone thinks about me, but I would never put him through that."
"Even if he didn't care, either?" she asked softly. "Even if it allowed him to be happy, truly happy?"
The thought made him hesitate. He knew how much he missed Stiles. Hell, he'd left home for almost three months because he'd needed to put distance between himself and the teen he'd inexplicably fallen head over heels in love with. It hadn't helped. He'd been just as miserable the day he drove home as he had been the day he left, ostensibly to visit Cora but really just to run away from the utter devastation Stiles had left in his wake.
Lydia saw the pause and jumped on it. "Derek, think about it. You and I both love him and he loves both of us. Having to choose between us broke his heart, and neither one of us wants that for him. If you give this a chance he gets everything he wants, and that's all that both of us want. Plus then we both get him, too. It's a win-win for everyone."
His eyebrows drew together as his face darkened. "I'd suggest not trying to manipulate me," he warned her. "I've spent half a lifetime dealing with the aftereffects of being manipulated by women who just wanted to use me and hurt me, and I won't allow you to do the same."
The surprise on her face was genuine. "Derek, I'm not trying to manipulate you." She softened, which was not an expression he had seen on her before. "I'm sorry if you think I'm acting like… her." The word Kate hung in the air between them, unsaid, and Derek was unexpectedly touched by the thoughtfulness she displayed in not actually naming the woman who had destroyed his life. "I'm only trying to keep you from rejecting my idea out-of-hand. We both want his happiness. This could be the perfect way to achieve it, for him as well as for both of us."
Derek studied her. She meant it, which surprised him. For awhile he'd thought she was proposing it because she was just trying to make Stiles feel better, not because it was what she actually wanted. It was evident to him now that she really believed this could work, and she wanted it to.
"What about us?" he asked finally.
"Us?" She wrinkled her nose in confusion and he almost smiled. Now that he wasn't so focused on hating her for being the one Stiles loved enough to choose, he was starting to see why she appealed to him. She was actually kind of adorable. Her loyalty and fierce determination to do what she thought was best for Stiles definitely won her points in his book, at any rate.
"Yeah, us," he repeated. "Do you expect that you and I will have a relationship with each other, outside of the one we share with Stiles?"
"There are no expectations on my part." Lydia eyed him speculatively. "Clearly it isn't going to be a hardship for me to have sex with you." He fought to hide a grin at her frankness. "If I didn't think I could go through with it, I never would have suggested it to Stiles in the first place."
"The feeling is mutual," he replied easily. "But we're not going to be able to sustain this for long just to make Stiles happy."
"You mean if we don't have feelings for each other beyond sexual desire," she realized. "You don't think they'd come in time?"
Derek shrugged, uncomfortable. This was a conversation he absolutely didn't want to be having. "There's no way to know. This is a situation that will breed a lot of familiarity with each other, which could grow into something more. Or it won't, and Stiles will be the one to suffer. What if one of us decides we can't do it anymore, we can't keep pretending for his sake? We're back to forcing him to make a choice that will hurt him again. He's already made that choice once. Shouldn't we just leave it at that?"
It was the most he'd ever said at one time to anyone who wasn't Stiles in longer than he could remember. He hoped Lydia would see the wisdom in his words. He absolutely meant them, but he had said them almost as much in selfishness as he had in concern for Stiles. If they tried this and he couldn't get past his jealousy of Lydia enough to accept her, to care for her, then he'd be risking having his heart broken once again. He didn't know that he could cope with it a second time around.
Lydia set her jaw stubbornly and Derek had the sinking feeling he'd already lost the argument. "He's made another one. Stiles chose to pursue my idea because this is what he wants, and if you love him the way I think you do, you'll at least try. He's done so much for all of us and he never hesitates when one of his friends needs him. Now he needs us. Are you really going to turn your back on him now?"
Glaring at her, he crossed his arms over his chest menacingly. She didn't even blink, she simply returned his stare. Eventually he sighed and let his arms drop. "Of course not," he grumbled. "But I want it understood right now how opposed I am to this. Someone is going to end up with a broken heart." Probably me.
"Objection noted," she said airily. "And for the record, I think you're wrong."
Derek made a face. "Oh, yeah, this is going to work out just perfectly." Lydia grinned a little and he scowled. "What's the grin for?"
"You sound like Stiles," she replied affectionately. "He's been a good influence on you."
He softened. "He really has." They fell silent and Derek shifted uncomfortably. "Is that it?"
"Are you that anxious to get rid of me?" she sassed. "Come on, Derek. Try to at least pretend you like me a little, otherwise it's going to be so much harder to convince yourself this will work."
"I don't want to convince myself it will work," he muttered.
"Of course you do," Lydia shot back, rolling her eyes. "Because it's for Stiles, and you love him just as much as I do."
He'd long ago become comfortable with the idea that he'd fallen in love with the teen, despite his discomfort with what it meant for him in the wake of their breakup. Hearing it from Lydia, however, was more disconcerting than he cared for. Something in his expression must have given those thoughts away, because she softened and smiled sweetly at him.
"I know how scary it is, falling in love with him," she admitted quietly. "Because he's the one who isn't going to screw things up. I mean, yeah, he'll screw things up sometimes, but they'll be little things. He's the one who will fight with his dying breath to make sure that if anyone gets hurt, it's him and not the people he loves. He's the one who won't walk away when things get rough, and falling in love with him means making a long-term commitment to not walking away, either."
Derek winced. "He walked away from me," he said, his voice a pained exhale.
"He walked away from a sexual relationship," Lydia reminded him firmly. "If you'd made it known that you were choosing him, that you wanted him for real, even I couldn't have induced him to leave you."
Her words landed in him like one of Argent's arrows and he inhaled sharply, immediately realizing she was right. His breakup with Stiles had been at least partially his own fault, because he hadn't claimed what he wanted for his own. He had given Stiles the freedom to leave, and now he had the ability to make sure it never happened again. All he had to do was share the man he loved with another woman.
Giving Lydia a look full of new awareness, he suddenly smiled, chuckling a little when she appeared taken aback. "I'll think about it," he finally acquiesced, and he felt a strange sense of satisfaction at the way her face lit up. "I didn't say yes."
"But you didn't say no," she reminded him, shrugging as if his lack of confirmation was nothing to be concerned about. "I'm already wearing you down, Hale. You'll say yes before you know it."
The twinkle of determination in her eyes told him she was very likely right.