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Stiles is sitting at his desk, ghosting his hands over the computer’s keyboard, staring at the screen. While he may be pretending to be working, he’s just blankly glaring at the screen, lost in internal debate. Scott coughs from behind him.
“Stiles,” Scott starts. Stiles suddenly whips around to stare at Scott, tears in his eyes.
“I-I know it’s such a stupid thing to be fighting over, Scott,” Stiles starts. Scott looks like he’s going to say something, but Stiles interrupts him. “I mean, it’s been 10 days already! In the year we’ve been together, we’ve never had a fight this bad. I don’t even know what I did, okay? I mean, most people are okay with pet names, aren’t they? Allison calls you her puppy all the time now.” Scott at least has the pride to look a little abashed at that, but Stiles continues. “I mean, yeah he’s never called me anything. Maybe I should have just known that he doesn’t like pet names? Or maybe he just doesn’t care that much about me yet. I thought, I don’t know, it’s been a year, we should be close enough to each other for pet names. Maybe it was being called babe? Maybe he thought I was making fun of him or something. Was that it?”
“Stiles,” Scott tries again, but Stiles keeps going.
“Scott, it’s just… I feel like he’s going to realize that maybe I’m not the one he wants or something. Maybe he finally got sick of me and calling him ‘babe’ just sent him over the edge. Oh my god, that’s it, isn’t it? He’s finally realized that I’m just 147 pounds of nothing but teenage annoyance. This is it, isn’t it, he’s going to dump me! Or maybe he already did, I mean it’s been 10 days and…”
“Stiles!” Scott yells out. Stiles jerks out of his monologue with tears fresh in his eyes. Scott eyes him warily, and then goes up and gives him a hug.
“S-shit, I’m acting like some teenage girl going through her first break up. I mean, yeah, it is technically my first break up, but I still just...”
“Stiles, will you shut up?” Scott asks. Stiles looks affronted, and weakly hits Scott’s arm. “Listen Stiles, you and Derek are like, made for each other or something. I mean, I know that I wasn’t the most supportive when you guys first starting going out…” Stiles snorts at the memory. Scott may have tried to ‘defend Stiles’ honor’ when he found Stiles and Derek making out behind the gym right after they started dating. It ended up with Scott flat on his back with a bloody nose and Derek making sure Stiles wasn’t hurt in the embarrassingly short time it took Derek to kick Scott’s ass. After explaining that Derek wasn’t trying to take Stiles’ innocence (well, not for long if Stiles’ had anything to say about it), Scott reluctantly agreed to not be pissed at his best friend for going out with the brooding werewolf. Scott continued to speak. “I mean, you two are great together. You, I don’t know, balance each other out? He’s gotten so much calmer and I haven’t seen him smile as much as he has in the past year since we first met him. And if he can’t realize what a catch my best friend is, we can both go put wolfsbane in his food or something.” Stiles looked at his best friend with a bit of a smile. He quickly pulled himself together.
“Deal, man! And hell, I’ll even ring his house with mountain ash or something. Teach his furry ass to dump this human!” Stiles says while gesturing wildly at himself. Scott laughs.
“Still, dude, I mean there has to be some way to explain why he freaked out about that. I mean, he definitely looks at you like you mean the world to him,” Scott says without hesitating. Stiles blushes a bit at the thought.
“Yeah, I just hope he gets over his stupid Alpha pride and tells me exactly what I did to piss him off that he has to avoid me for ten freaking days. Well, eleven days now. Look at that, it’s already 2am, Scott.” Stiles glares at the clock. He doesn’t even know how the hell it got this late already. He sighs. “Okay, I’m going to kick your ass in some Call of Duty, and then you’re getting your stupid furry self out of here.” Scott grins up at Stiles and reaches for the Xbox controller sitting by his leg.
“You’re on lover boy. You owe me a win for listening to your relationship problems with Derek. Blah.” Scott makes a gagging sound at the thought of Derek and Stiles doing anything, and then grins again.
“Psh, whatever Scott. I’ve had to deal with you and Allison for a long time now. This could totally be considered revenge for how many times I’ve had to listen to your problems.” Stiles says in retaliation. Scott just gets this kicked puppy look on his face, and turns back towards the Xbox. Stiles smirks at the win.
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It turns out Stiles finds out exactly what was happening with Derek, three days after his little conversation with Scott. And it was all because of some damn harpies. Stiles didn’t even know that harpies were real. He shouldn’t be too surprised, considering that there are werewolves. Scott and Derek basically had to come rescue Stiles after he ‘encroached on their new territory.’ Derek had a few words (and several threats) to say about the fact that they were trying to establish territory on the Hale land. The lead harpy hadn’t realized that there was another pack on the property, not knowing that Derek was back and reclaiming the Hale land as his own territory. Apologizing profusely (and releasing the ‘human pet’ they had captured: stiles was super pissed at being called that), the harpies fled quickly. Derek didn’t even look towards Stiles, leaving the clearing as Stiles got in his jeep that Scott drove over in. Scott whined a bit at the two of them as Stiles drove out of there like a bat out of hell.
Stiles basically slams his way into his room, not noticing the huff coming from the door hitting a body behind it as he swung it open. Throwing his school bag on his bed, he makes his way to his computer and turns it on. Swinging back around, Stiles suddenly found himself on his ass, feeling like he just ran into a break wall. Turns out that wall was a certain brooding Alpha, glaring down at Stiles. Stiles glares right back, but then looks away. Of course Derek would beat him home. Stupid werewolf powers. After two whole weeks and some harpies, Stiles still doesn’t even want to look at his boyfr- at Derek. He quickly breaks away and moves to go downstairs. That attempt is thwarted as Derek grabs his arm. Stiles tries to pull it out, but Derek has a vice-like grip on it. Stiles frowns.
“Okay, listen here sourwolf,” Stiles starts. Derek makes a noise at his old nickname. Stiles just glares at his and continues. “It’s been two freaking weeks since I saw you. You stormed out of here and didn’t even say why the hell calling you ‘babe’ pissed you off so much. You saved me from harpies, but didn’t even talk or spare me a glance before leaving. As far as I know, we’re not even dating anymore, so if you would please remove your hand from me-“
“Don’t.” Derek looks at Stiles with wide eyes. Stiles is startled by the hurt that is evident on Derek’s face. “I-I’m sorry. Please don’t say that we’re not dating.” Derek looks guilty now. Stiles is just gaping in shock.
“Did you just apologize to me Derek? Who are you and what have you done with my sourwolf?” Stiles jokingly asks. Derek looks hurt again, but let’s go of Stiles’ wrist.
“I-I’m sorry Stiles. I didn’t mean to get so upset over that. It’s just… You sounded like her, and…” Derek stops again, and the hurt is back on his face again. Stiles stares at him, and then jumps in realization.
“Shit. Shitshitshit. It was Kate, wasn’t it?” Stiles know the answer to that as Derek seems to flinch at her name. Oh man, he had totally screwed this up big time. Damn Derek and his emotional constipation. Not to mention fuck Kate so much for screwing him up so much. “Oh gods, I didn’t even think that this could be- She called you that before, didn’t she?” Derek nods his head.
“It was, it was one of the only things she called me. It just, it almost made be physically sick to hear someone calling me that again. All I could hear was her voice, and... God, Stiles, I’m really fucking sorry. I just stormed out of there without even explaining why I did that. I just-” Stiles stopped Derek’s ramblings by grabbing Derek’s hand in his own.
“Shit, Derek. I really didn’t know. I should be the one apologizing. It’s just…” Stiles looked a little embarrassed now, and Derek couldn’t help but wonder why. He looks at Stiles expectantly, and motions for him to go on. “I just… I’ve always wanted one of those relationships where you could just use pet names and, well, be so familiar with someone that calling them whatever didn’t matter. Just that they’re yours and you are theirs and-” Derek silenced Stiles with a kiss.
“Idiot. I thought you knew that I cared about you like that. And you are mine already, so… yeah.” Derek smirked at Stiles. Stiles couldn’t help but grin back at him, and then lean in for another kiss. “Besides,” Derek interrupted, “I thought your pet name for me was Sourwolf?” Stiles groans and then slowly collapses to the ground in embarrassment. Derek chuckled and followed him down.
Scott couldn’t help but whine out loud the next day at Stiles.
“I’m glad you two made up, but now your room just smells like the two of you and sex,” Scott whines again, fleeing Stiles’ room. Stiles just follows him with a grin.