So, Stiles and Derek are friends.

Really.

Like, actual friends.

A few years ago he never would've thought that that was possible. Hell, a few years ago, he wouldn't have thought Derek could have friends, let alone that he would be one of them. Well, maybe the only one, but that wasn't really saying that much either way.

The point was, they were friends.

You couldn't go through all the hell they had together and come out on the other side not being some kind of something.

Derek had saved Stiles' life, Stiles had saved Derek's…

That kind of thing built bonds, whether you wanted it to or not.

And in the end, it had kind of worked out for the best.

Especially now.

Now, when Derek's pack had practically evaporated around him, trickling away until it was just… well, really just him left.

A year and a half ago, Scott had gone off to vet school way up on the north side of the state, still a True Alpha and still happier denying all werewolf aspects of himself. Apparently that was easier when he distanced himself from Stiles in addition to the rest of their friends, the pack, Beacon Hills itself. It had started with Allison and Isaac of course, so Stiles had been half-expecting it, but it still hurt, losing him. On that front he knew exactly how Derek was feeling, but the rest though he could only guess at. Just listen, on those rare occasions when a little bit of vulnerable humanity slipped through the cracks of Derek's Iceman routine and he actually talked.

Talked, about the family he'd lost and the family that he still had, but didn't really have. A sister and an uncle who were as broken as he was in certain ways, and maybe more unable than unwilling to care about him. Cora, who was living in South America with the pack she'd grown up with. Who wrote sometimes and called once or twice a year, but hadn't visited since she'd left. Peter, who was always around but never really there, doing whatever it was that Peter did, popping up at the worst of times to be his obnoxious and sassy self and then disappearing again when you needed him. Mostly though Derek was alone, and being a beta again didn't do much to cut the sting of being essentially packless.

As such their relationship was a point of stability that they had both slowly come to count on, because it ended up working out nicely for Stiles too. College hadn't been the huge change he had always hoped it would be. He loved it, don't get him wrong. He was excelling in his World Mythologies major and his medical research writing courses, and he'd made a handful of new friends that he'd gotten fairly close with. It was just… well, he was still the same old Stiles. He felt mostly the same as he always had - still a little gangly and awkward, even if his shoulders had broadened and he'd gained some muscle, still sarcastic and prone to spells of ADHD that had him dashing around fast enough to make everyone around him dizzy. All in all, it just seemed like college felt the same as high school, instead of the jam-packed frat-boy calendar he'd once imagined.

It was fine, really.

He was having fun, at least when it wasn't finals time, and he was actually beginning to wonder if he wasn't just one of those people who was happier with a small, intimate group of relationships that just worked instead of the type who forced constant interactions even though they'd rather be home. And he was definitely an acquired taste, he knew that, so it wasn't like he expected everybody and their brother to like him.

Besides, the whole spark-who-runs-with-werewolves thing meant that he had to keep a huge chunk of his life buried safely in the closet anyway.

Although as far as closets went, Stiles had found his happy place the first year he'd spent living on campus at Berkley. It wasn't that he'd been… suppressing his orientation, but a general lack of interest from both sides hadn't left him with much room to explore it. College had given him the opportunity for more than one date, boys and girls alike, and he'd found that he liked both, at least when you were still talking about plumbing. Personalities, not so much. He'd gotten together with a real jerk halfway into his sophomore year and it hadn't turned out well. The guy had spread a couple of rumors, said some crummy things...

Anyway, that was where having Derek as a friend came in handy.

The drive from Berkley to Beacon Hills wasn't awful, which meant that when Stiles didn't come home for the weekend to check in on his dad or to spend a holiday, Derek came to him. It was easy as cake for the magically reappeared Camaro to make the drive to campus. He did it a lot too, more and more as time went by, and there were parts to that that Stiles wasn't sure he wanted to think about - like the fact that Stiles might be the only person in the entire damned world that Derek trusted - but it meant a lot, especially when he was the one that was feeling crappy.

It had been just about two months since Stiles had split with Brick (and really, with a name like that, he should've known better), but with all of the aftermath still hanging around it wasn't really over.

Sue him for still processing.

Which… was how he and Derek wound up fake-dating.

Yeeeaaah.

Apparently that was a thing that actually happened in real life, not just in crappy rom-coms.

In the end it was entirely Stiles' fault.

He could totally cop to that.

And while he and Derek had definitely had some moments over the years, moments that had involved some serious UST - at least on Stiles' part - he'd never, ever thought that he would wind up dating the guy.

Or… fake dating him.

Whatever.

His brain was a little fried right now.

Ok, he was freaking out.

Derek had come down to hang out for the weekend even though there were only two more to go before Stiles was coming home for Thanksgiving. He'd actually asked this time - usually the werewolf just showed up, tossing out a text that he was in the area and appearing at the front desk of his dorm room half an hour later. This time though Stiles had been having a really shitty week, dealing with a sudden increase in negative attention from Brick once again while still fighting his way through midterms. He'd needed some bro time to take his mind off of it all, and with Scott halfway across the state and out of the best-bro running a long time ago, Derek was his go-to guy.

It was supposed to be a chill weekend.

They'd done it before, what seemed like a hundred times.

They would wander around campus, hit a bookstore or a coffee shop, then hole up in Stiles' dorm suite to binge on takeout and Netflix. They'd drink, play Call of Duty - which Derek had become surprisingly adept at under Stiles' tutelage - and every once in a while they might smoke a little pot if there weren't any big assignments coming up. Just an easy weekend between two people who'd already seen each other at their very worst.

By all rights, it started out that way too.

Stiles had a late meeting with one of his professors on Friday afternoon - the one he'd already chosen to be his dissertation chair when he started his doctorate - so Derek picked him up in front of the Arts and Literature wing. He'd been leaning against the hood of the Camaro, illegally parked and gleaming, his face tipped up to the sunlight wearing that stupid leather jacket and those stupid aviators and Stiles had rolled his eyes, jumping down the steps with a flail that had Derek smirking, ignoring all the flirtatious and covetous looks being sent his way by the students and even some of the faculty milling around.

Part of Stiles was sick at that, wanted to tell each and every one of them to back off, because yes, ok, Derek was hot! He'd thought about that more than once, thought about drunken make-out sessions or a cheesy, stereotypical dinner-and-a-movie date because screw it, they were friends. Why couldn't they be more?

The other part of him just laughed.

Derek was out of his league, he knew that, and even if there was enough history between them to hang themselves with, enough moments of unresolved sexual tension to choke on, he'd never moved on it. Never shown overt interest.

Neither of them had.

So yeah, as much as he felt like Derek was his in some ways, he really wasn't.

They were friends, and hell, at times like these, that was usually more than enough.

They bro-hugged, another thing that Stiles had taught the reticent werewolf, the handshake that tugged the other in for a chest bump and firm claps on the back. Derek was grinning, laughing, and Stiles couldn't help but grin right back. When Stiles had first left for Berkeley, he had been just as hesitant and closed off as he'd always been, but slowly he'd become calmer and easier around him. As time went on he was more and more free with physical touches, and Stiles began to notice. He didn't read too much into it - just that Derek didn't have a pack and Stiles was a substitute for that, that no one gave him the touch the tactile werewolf needed. In a way it felt like exposure therapy, and seeing real progress was nice.

Sliding into the Camaro, they'd fallen into their banter like they'd never been apart, getting most of the teasing and crap out of the way while they drove over to park in the validated guest lot outside of Stiles' dorm. From there they'd walked back to the coffee shop Stiles loved, crossing campus and enjoying the crisp fall weather, the gorgeous colors as the trees changed and students bustled back and forth in a flurry of eager freedom as the weekend approached and the hell of midterms faded.

They hit The Daily Grind with perfect timing - the college café was super popular despite the cheesy name, and if you came in fifteen minutes on either side of the hour, you got lost in the swarm of students looking for a caffeine boost between classes. Today they were lucky; the line was almost non-existent when they came in, and the buzz of conversation from the few patrons who lingered inside was low enough that they could continue catching up without pause.

Derek was just insisting that it was his turn to pay for the grande pumpkin latte Stiles had ordered when a voice behind them made his stomach freeze and drop down to the vicinity of his shoes.

Fuck.

Brick.

"Well well well, Stiles Stilinski," he hummed, a sneering grin curling over his mouth as Stiles turned slowly on his heel, the way he might turn to face a vampire or a harpy or any other deadly thing that could kill him. "What do you think you're doing here?"

"It's a coffee shop," he said flatly, his eyes flicking past his ex to the two other young men who flanked him. Great. They had an audience. "I'm getting coffee."

"Stiles," Derek rumbled, low and quiet at his side, and Stiles felt him shift, knew without looking that will he'd moved into a subtle fighting stance.

An overreaction yes, but that was the hazard of being who they were.

Quick to neutralize what could easily become a rather bloody encounter, Stiles reached out and slid his fingertips down Derek's leather sleeve, curling them around his wrist in a loose grip that none the less held him back.

"Derek, Brick," he said by way of an introduction. "Brick, Derek."

Beside him the werewolf immediately relaxed. He knew Brick's name of course, understood Stiles' wariness as that of a spurned lover facing down their ex instead of a spark facing down a demon, but unfortunately Brick's attention only sharpened, his eyes immediately dropping to Stiles' now white-knuckled grip on Derek's wrist.

"You're Derek?" he snorted in disbelief. "This is the guy you had waiting for you?"

Shit.

He'd forgotten about that.

Or maybe repressed it.

In his defense, shouting that he could do a hell of a lot better in the heat of a nasty breakup was a totally understandable thing to do. And really, looking back, that part hadn't even come close to a lie.

The rest… eh, not so much.

He may have been a little drunk. Or a lot. After finding out that he was being cheated on left and right, who could blame him? Still, it meant that the little details of that night still escaped him, although he did remember the gist of it. And knowing the gist of it, he expected that he may have thrown Derek's name out there.

More than once.

In detail.

Shit.

"Yes, Brick, this is Derek," he replied, leaping ahead before the cart he'd set to rolling down the hill overtook him and steamrolled him flat. "As you can see, I've moved on, and since you moved on before we even split, I think it's safe to say that we're done here."

Releasing Derek's wrist, Stiles moved to leave, but unfortunately he wasn't fast enough because Brick was talking again, and this time he was talking to Derek.

"So you're the famous Derek," he mused coolly. "Heard a lot about you."

"Interesting," Derek replied in the 'I-couldn't-give-a-shit' tone that Stiles knew so well. Cocking an unimpressed eyebrow, he ran his gaze over Brick from top to bottom and cast him a smirk of dismissal. "So have I."

Stiles watched Brick's face darken and knew what was coming - he was exactly the type to get into a douchebag pissing contest and in that moment it hit Stiles hard how much he couldn't believe that he'd ever liked this guy.

"Let's just go," he hissed, quietly enough that only those with supernatural hearing could hear, and for just a second he thought he saw Derek's eyes flash.

"And you expect me to believe that you are dating him?" Brick sneered.

"No, I don't think I'd expect anything as complicated as thinking from you," Derek drawled, and Stiles felt his eyes go wide in shock.

Since when did the Sourwolf rely on words to win a fight? He'd always been dark scowls and threatening, rough manhandling and growly eyebrows.

The jerk had been holding out on him!

Brick's face had gone a deep red and his hands were fisted at his sides, his guard-gorillas stepping forward with angry faces but Derek didn't so much as shrink back, utterly confidant, and the aura of power it gave him had a sudden arousal spiking hot and dark in Stiles' gut. He saw Derek's nostrils flare but other than that the werewolf didn't let his attention waver for a moment, staring Brick down with the old Derek death-glower Stiles knew and loved so well.

"Well the sex was shit, so that's not what's keeping you around," Brick snarled through clenched teeth, and Stiles felt his cheeks heat as the people around them began to take notice of the brewing argument between their tense little group. "Is he paying you?"

Derek snorted, and then an arm was coming out and wrapping around Stiles' waist, dragging him in to Derek's side with a startled yip.

"As charming as all the stories have made you out to be," he countered with a roll of his eyes. "It's good to know you've finally stepped up in the world Stiles."

"If you do say so yourself," Stiles choked, retaliating by poking him in the ribs, the only place he knew the mighty Derek Hale to be ticklish. Grabbing the lull in the fight with both hands, he wrapped an arm of his own around Derek, who was still keeping him anchored tightly to his side, and began to pull him towards the doors. "Come on stud," he said tightly, smiling so widely it hurt his face and probably made him look like a maniac. "Let's get out of here."

"Right," Derek rumbled, rolling his eyes, and Stiles could tell just from that single word that he was going to pay for the pet name.

He knew better, sure, but right now he didn't care. His whole body was quivering with a pent-up sort of anxiety, a desperate need to get out and gasp out half a dozen what-the-hells, almost on the verge of a panic attack. If it took a few 'dudes' that's what he was going to rattle off, regardless of the actual ink-and-paper contract he and Derek had forbidding its use.

"Oh and Brick," Derek called just as they pushed the door open and Stiles froze, his hand flashing out to grab Derek by the edge of his jacket, an intense desire to just throttle the wolf and get it over with consuming him.

"If you thought the sex was shit," he purred with a wicked smirk, and Stiles' heart stopped. "You must have been doing something really wrong."