Derek came back with an enormous bowl full of chicken nuggets and fries in one arm and ketchup in the other. He set them down on the sofa in between them.

"So. First things first. Tell me what happened when you were a teenager before the fire." Stiles spoke, then put a whole nugget in his mouth.

"Well, up until Paige I was normal. Well, as normal as can be for a werewolf. I went to basketball practise, got stressed out about my grades, got peer-pressured into drinking vodka with my friends. Everything your teenage years are meant to be. Then in my sophomore year of high school, everything went south. First of all, I fell in love with Paige Krasikeva. She was so like you in many ways. Even down to the fact that she was polish."

Stiles's mind paused on the fact that Derek compared his first love him.

"Then Ennis bit her. It was by far the worst day of my life. I held her in my arms and she begged me to let her die. There was black goo coming out of her nose, mouth, ears, and even her eyes. I told her I loved her, and then I snapped her neck. She died instantly, no pain. That was how my beta eyes turned blue." Derek flashed his eyes at him.

"After about three months, I met Kate. She came up to me at a basketball game, told me how handsome I looked, etcetera, etcetera. I was so cut up over Paige's death that I was willing to go to anyone who could offer me any sort of comfort. She asked me out to a coffee shop, and I accepted.

"At the cafe she asked me questions about my family, my house, you know. All the stuff you need to know if your planning on burning the place down with everyone in it. And my stupid ass answered every single one of her questions. If I hadn't, if I had just ended it there then maybe they would all still be alive."

"No, they wouldn't. Kate would have found out another way. You are not to blame for anything she did. Understand?"

"Yeah, I know. I still can't help but feel guilty, you know?"

"I know. What happened next?"

Derek continued the story. "After the third date with Kate she suggested that we go back to her place. I couldn't really believe what was happening. I remember thinking, why is this beautiful woman going out with me, and am I really about to lose my virginity?

"So she took me back to her apartment and we had sex. I was sixteen, she was twenty-five. In the eyes of the law I am technically a rape victim." Stiles took his hand in his own.

"I had told her that my aunts, uncles, cousins, and one of my grandparents were going to be visiting, and I told her the date. I told her absolutely every piece of information she needed. The night of the fire was the one-month anniversary of the day I met Kate, and the day my world quite literally went up in flames.

"The only reason Laura and I survived was because we went for a walk in the woods. We got maybe five miles away when we smelled the smoke. We ran back as fast as we could but the house was already up in flames.

"Now, there is something I haven't told you before about Laura. She had been in a very serious relationship from ages eighteen to twenty with a man called Tobias Walsh. She became pregnant when she was nineteen, and gave birth when she was twenty."

"She had a baby?" Stiles could imagine Laura as a mother. When he was young he remembers her bossing him around, but in an affectionate, almost maternal way.

"Yes. She was an amazing mother, despite being so young. Her daughter was called Emily." Derek's voice wobbled over the child's name.

"What happened to her?"

"When we got back to the house Laura started screaming for her baby. It was horrible. She had left her with our aunt Mary who also had a baby, a boy called Mathias.

"Laura ran into the house after Emily, but I could see that the house was unstable and it would be too dangerous to run in, even for a werewolf. I followed her and pulled her back only just fast enough to avoid getting crushed by a falling wall.

"When the fire department arrived I was still gripping on to Laura's waist to stop her going back in. She was distraught. Her hands had third degree burns on them and she didn't let them heal for a week. She must have been in agony and she never even took a painkiller.

"My niece Emily Hale died, along with my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Cora must have made it out of the house before we arrived, and made a dash for it all the way to Mexico.

"Laura and I fled as soon as we had given the police our statement, and headed for New York. We stayed there for three years, and only returned because of the spirals on the deer.

"I have lost nearly everyone close to me in the last decade. I am so, so glad that now I have someone other than Peter and my sister Cora -who's barely ever here, to talk to, and to share memories with. So, what happened to you after the spell?"

Stiles tried to remember. "I think I just went to my room and cried for three days straight. I refused to eat; I didn't talk; I barely slept. My dad begged me to say something, anything, for ages. It took me weeks to be able to force out a few words.

"I got better though. By the time I got to middle school I was no longer the kid who's mom died. I was just this annoying hyperactive spaz, as you might say. I did well in some classes that interested me, and completely flunked the ones that didn't. I met Scott when he had an asthma attack during our first lacrosse match. After that we were virtually inseparable.

"I also met Lydia, who was this really hot girl that everyone wanted to be like. She completely ignored me, but I still thought I had a shot. That was when I came up with the plan to make Lydia fall in love with me. And hey, it worked. Eventually."

"How did you two break up again? I thought you were going strong." Derek asked.

"Well we dated for about a year, but then I don't know, it just got a little too boring and difficult. She was at MIT, I was training at the FBI. It was a long distance relationship, and we just couldn't make it work. We vowed to talk on the phone every night so we wouldn't lose touch, and I think that was the big mistake.

"Most of what I was doing was classified, so all I could tell her was stuff like what I ate for lunch. The stuff she was learning I didn't understand. We would sit there on the phone for a maximum of half an hour each night, grasping at things to say. We couldn't even have phone sex because we both shared a room with someone. Without the supernatural stuff going on we realised we didn't really have any common interests other than sex, and than only happened when we went back to beacon hills for one weekend a month. And I need more sex than that, I'm sorry.

"So we mutually broke up. We just said that it wasn't working, we both agreed, and stayed friends.

"Hey Derek, did you date anyone other than Paige, Kate, Jennifer, and Braeden?" Stiles stuffed another two chicken nuggets in his mouth.

Derek hesitated. "Yes, one more person. Their name was Jamie. We broke up a couple of months ago."

"What was she like?"

"Nice. Too nice. It's unrealistic to pursue a relationship with someone who doesn't know you're a werewolf, and I wasn't going to drag them down into something that could get someone killed. So I took them to a nice-ish restaurant, and told them that it wasn't going to work out between us. They started tearing up, so I practically ran away like the jerk that I am."

"You're not a jerk. And you were acting in his best interests."

"His?" Derek looked surprised.

"No-one replaces the pronoun she with they unless they want to hide the person's gender without lying."

"You caught me."

"Why did you though? There's no shame in being bi, or pan, or whatever you are." Stiles hated himself for being excited by this new information. If Derek wasn't straight, then that would mean he at least had a small chance at dating him.

"I know there isn't. But you also can't deny that being bisexual is less accepted than heterosexuality."

"I know. But hey, after I broke up with Lydia I did some experimenting myself. Now I have a semi-awkward relationship with three of the guys in my class."

"So what are you then? Bi?" Stiles swore he saw a flash of hope in his eyes.

"I prefer the term whoever-takes-my-fancy-sexual. So much easier." Derek laughed.

"What? It makes sense, and it's so much easier than anything else. I tried to fit myself into one of the normal categories, but this man just ain't your normal type of guy. I'm indefinable!"

"That you are."

Stiles realised that he had just come out to the first person who actually mattered to him. He hadn't even told Scott yet. Derek was realising that this was the first time he had come out to anyone, period.

"Do you wanna watch a movie?" Derek said.

"Yeah, why not. How does ready player one sound?"

"What's that?"

"You've never seen it?! Oh, of course you've never seen it. You're Derek." Derek swatted him over the head as he reached for the remote.

Stiles found the movie and pressed play. Then he leaned back and watched.

On the outside, he was as cool as a cucumber. On the inside, his mind was racing. Derek was bi. Derek liked guys. Derek might possibly like him. Holy shit now buried high school fantasies were rushing into his head of what sex with Derek would be like.

"Stiles, you can be very forgetful sometimes." Derek said. He picked up the bowl of junk food and put it on the floor.

"What did I forget?" Stiles asked nervously.

"That werewolves have super heightened senses."

Derek then put his hand around the back of Stiles's neck, a vice-versa of their position for most of the day. It felt hot against Stiles's skin. He felt his heart rate speed up and his thoughts turn to ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod is this actually happening?!

Derek held Stiles's face inches away from his own. From this close up Stiles could see his reflection in his childhood friend's blown pupils.

"Jestem taki zadowolony, że Cię znalazłem, Mieczysław." I'm so glad I found you, Mieczysław.

"Ja też." me too.

Derek took that for confirmation, and pressed their lips together for the first time.