Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf.
After third period, Stiles' hangover was fading, but the headache was turning into a migraine. "Miss, I need to be excused from class," Stiles pointed out, "I'm not feeling too good."
"Okay, Stiles, just be sure to get the notes from someone else."
Stiles nodded in agreement and immediately looked at Lydia, who sighed before nodding. Stiles went out of class and through the front doors and went to his Jeep. He leaned his head on his steering wheel for a bit until he began to fall asleep. His head ended up going farther down on the steering wheel and honked the horn and woke him up, terrified. Great, Stiles thought. Can't even sleep. He started his car and went to his house.
As he pulled into his driveway, he saw that his dad wasn't home, which was good, because he didn't want him to know he was skipping school again. He closed the car door and locked it, and went inside the house. As he turned around to lock the door, he sensed someone was there. He looked behind him and immediately jumped. "Derek, what the fuck are you doing here?"
"We need to talk," Derek moved a step closer to Stiles.
"About what?"
"Last night."
"Not much to talk about," Stiles said.
"Stiles…" Derek took another step.
"No, like, I don't remember anything."
"You don't?" Derek heard a change in his heartbeat.
"Nope," Stiles lied and Derek heard it again.
"You're lying."
"Fine, how do you want to deal with this?"
"You don't have to, but we should talk about it, at least."
"Look, I have a headache and –" Stiles was cut off.
"Let me help then," Derek moved closer and held Stiles' arm and started taking the pain away.
Stiles felt the pain go away but immediately drew his hand back, "Stop that."
"Stiles, I'm just trying to help."
"I don't need your help," Stiles shouted and Derek didn't understand, "okay?"
Derek caught him before he tried to leave to go to his room, "Stiles, I don't think you're okay to be alone right now."
"I'm just fine," Stiles said, "I promise."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Look, I just have a migraine, and what happened last night – it just happened alright? I was drunk. You said so like 10,000 times."
"So you admit you remember," Derek smiled.
"Just that we kissed," Stiles admitted, "I remember nothing after that."
"I wouldn't expect you to," Derek said. Stiles tilted his head and wondered what he'd meant. His thoughts were interrupted by what Derek said next.
"I broke up with Braeden," Derek said as he moved closer to Stiles.
"What do you mean? What the fuck did you do?"
"When we… you know," Derek gestured to both of them, "I've never felt that– Well, I don't– I'm not good with words—" Derek was interrupted by Stiles' screaming.
"Derek, what the fuck is your problem?! We made out!" Derek stepped back, feeling hurt. "I was drunk! You don't get to break up with your girlfriend because you kiss someone who's drunk! Or, whatever else we did," the thought just crossed Stiles' head, "did we –? Oh my fucking God we did. You totally fucked me when I was drunk. Is that why I felt so shitty in the morning? Did you fuck me? Did I fuck you? Because all I know is I didn't feel good in the morning. Oh my God, Derek. Classy."
"I didn't –" Derek was choked up. He couldn't tell the truth to Stiles anymore, not when he was like this. He looked at the ground.
"Derek," Stiles said with a little more sympathy, "whatever we did… it was a mistake," Derek fell silent. "I was drunk. I'm with Malia. Just because you think of one hook up, or whatever, as a start of a new relationship doesn't mean you should break up with your girlfriend." His words felt worse than all the arrows and bullets that Derek had been hit with. "Did you really expect me to do the same?"
"She under—"
"Oh, of course she did," Stiles responded, interrupting Derek's sentence once again. "I'm not going to break up with my girlfriend because of your needs and your intuitions. I'm sorry Derek," Stiles walked towards his room, "you can show yourself out."
As Stiles went into his room, he heard a loud bang from the door outside. He was startled as Derek hurried off. Was he being too heartless? No. He was just being realistic. Right? That's what he told himself. He didn't know how to feel, he just knew he regretted how he handled things.
Derek got into his Camaro and closed his door. He let himself fall into his car seat. What had he done? No, this wasn't his fault. Right? Both of the boys were freaking out, and for similar reasons; each other. They were driving each other crazy and deep down they knew they could only become worse.
It all hurt too much. For Stiles, his headache was now as strong as it had ever been. He felt like his brain was swelling up so much that his skull was going to break. For Derek, the, now-restarted, crush had been too much for him to handle and it caused more chaos and he'd regretted breaking up with Braeden. They both handled things really badly and needed to cool off before they can see each other again. Stiles studies Lydia's notes one last time before heading back to school to take the make-up test. He apologizes to his teacher and says it will never happen again.
- a week passes -
The pack decides to meet at Derek's loft, and Stiles had to follow Scott to find out more about a new unnamed villain that they were about to face. He/she has been toying with trees and a body was found with an extended tree branch impaling her stomach. Regardless, Stiles didn't want to be anywhere near Derek or his loft. Especially not right now. Things have not completely cooled down yet.
Derek wasn't alright either. He didn't like the extra questions from the pack about Braeden and where she was. He simply answered, "She's busy." Nobody has seen her in a week. They'd all grown worried.
Derek assured them that she was fine and that she was going somewhere confidential. They didn't question it knowing that she was a US marshal. Anyway, the gang had no idea what they were dealing with when they saw what this tree-affecting creature could do.
After the pack finished discussing, they realized they should try to look out for whatever this is, so they planned a schedule for multiple watches in the forest. The gang tried to spread things evenly, so, Lydia was with Allison, Kira was with Isaac, Malia was with Liam, and Scott was by himself, insisting on being alone, trying to protect the others with his alpha powers. Of course, though, that left Derek and Stiles. The two looked at each other and gave one another a fake but polite smile. And, they would have the first watch of the night.
- later that night -
Stiles brought coffee with him to the watch with Derek. He tried to be as polite as he could, knowing he was heartless the other day. Derek accepted the coffee with a small nod of thanks. Stiles kindly responded, "You're welcome." Hours passed and the two didn't say a word to each other. Stiles finally broke the silence, knowing how stubborn the wolf can be. "Can we at least try and be friends?"
"No need to try," Derek responded without looking at him, "no hard feelings, right?"
"Right," Stiles said, regrettably. He looked at his hand, and his thumbs were hitting each other like they did when he was feeling nervous. "Actually," he continued, "no. Not right. This isn't a healthy friendship right now, and I want you to know everything." Derek didn't respond. He still didn't even bother to look at Stiles.
"I'm going to tell you what I told Malia. So it's up to you if you want to listen or not," Stiles said again, trying to get Derek's attention, but failing. He sighed. "Derek, I don't know how I'm feeling right now." He waited for a response, but there was none, so he continued. "I don't know how to feel. All I know is that I'm not feeling for Malia what I feel for you. Or what I have been feeling for you…" Derek looked up at Stiles for the first time that night.
"Seriously?" Derek questioned. "That's your pathetic move to try and win my friendship back..?"
"What?" Stiles shook his head in disbelief. "Not just a friendship Derek," he put his hand on Derek's knee, "what we have… it's–"
Derek immediately pushed away his hand, "You disgust me."
"Derek," Stiles tried to understand.
"You can't just expect me to run back to you after telling you how I feel," Derek elaborated, "I told you how I felt about you. You did nothing but cause more pain." Stiles began to tear up. "Did you think I was going to wait for you to break up with her so I can have you? No. It doesn't work like that Stiles." Stiles had to open his mouth to exhale because his nose was becoming more and more stuffed. "You better try and get her back while you still can, because you regret it, I can already tell."
"But, Derek," he puts his hand on his shoulder, "I don't regret—"
"Don't touch me," Derek shouted, as he removed his hand off of him again before he stood up, "this one is just another of your mistakes, like the other night, remember?" Derek moved behind another tree about 30 feet away. Stiles was now a mess with his crying. He remembered a dark time about 7 years ago when he'd done something he regretted. He looked over at Derek and wanted to apologize really badly, but he knew that sorry wasn't going to cut it. Not this time. Derek was better at hiding his emotions. He hated having to do this, but he had to, he didn't want to feel like a rebound and he didn't like that Stiles had to wait all this time to tell him. Even though he waited a long time as well… Derek began regretting his decision and yelled, "I'm sorry." But, it was too late. He didn't get a response, and as he looked up to where Stiles last was, he saw no sign of him.
"Stiles?" Derek shouted. No answer.
Derek began running around, looking for him and shouting to no avail. He began freaking out and called Scott to tell him he couldn't find Stiles.
"Scott, I can't find him anywhere, what if this thing got to him?"
"Why did you let him out of your sight, Derek?"
"I don't know! I just lost track of him and I couldn't find him all of a sudden, I'm sorry."
"I'm not the person you should be apologizing to, Derek, what if he— Hold on," Scott responds as Derek hears a knock on the door from far away. "It's Stiles, he's alright and he looks okay, but he's been crying."
Derek closes his eyes and sighs to himself. Stupid, he thought to himself. "How does he look?"
"Shaken up, like he's about to have a panic attack without any of the pre-symptoms," Scott answered, "do you know why he's crying?"
Derek gulped, "Uh, maybe he saw the thing or maybe he was freaking out that he was all alone and got lost or something."
"Alright," Scott could hear his heart rate through the phone and could tell he was lying.
"Let me know when he's in better shape. Maybe we should stop the other watches for tonight," Derek suggested.
"Sure, I think we've seen enough," Scott agreed, "I'm gonna let him rest for a bit then I'll let you know how he's feeling. Don't do anything stupid. Go home, Derek. Don't look out for it on your own. We don't know what we're fighting."
"Okay," Derek defensively said.
"Alright," Scott said, "have a good night."
"You too."
"Stiles," Scott said as he ended the call, "are you okay? Can you hear me?"
"Was, uh," Stiles sniffled, "was that Derek?"
"Yeah," Scott was relieved that Stiles was alright, "why?"
Stiles began to cry even more, "Can you just promise me one thing?"
"Anything," Scott replied, trying to wipe away his tears.
"Um," Stiles was having trouble trying to find the words, "can you promise that you won't let Derek ever see me?"
"What?"
"Promise me that Derek," Stiles inhaled, "will never see me again."
"Stiles, what's this about?"
"It's not the time for explanations, Scott," Stiles begged, "please. Please just tell me that you won't make me see him ever again. And that you won't let him come anywhere near me. Please!"
"Okay," Scott assures him, "okay. I promise."
A/N: Well. How about that, huh…
(Don't hate me. I swear I know what I'm doing!)