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Derek and Stiles were not handling their separation very well. In Stiles’ opinion, one of the many flaws in the California public school system was that eighth graders had to go to an entirely separate school from the ninth graders, one all the way across town.
Okay, so the across town thing was more of a problem with Beacon Hills than California as a whole, but Stiles maintained that the separation between middle school and high school was a terrible, terrible concept, one that deserved to be dragged out back and shot, if concepts could be shot.
He and Scott were on their own, braving the trials and tribulations of middle school all on their lonesome, without the advantage of cool older friends to make them look good. Stiles found out, with much irritation, that the only thing that had been keeping Jackson from making his life a living hell was Derek and his ability to intimidate. With Derek, Boyd, Erica and Isaac off at BHHS, Jackson was free to taunt, prod, and casually slam people against lockers as he pleased.
To make matters worse, with Derek’s lacrosse practice, sometimes he came home so late that the only times Stiles saw him were in the morning, or very late at night when he slipped, tired and worn out, into bed. Derek growled in outrage and held Stiles close when he complained about Jackson, but there was only so much that the guy could do about it. Besides, Derek wasn’t Stiles’ bodyguard, and Stiles wasn’t going to make him be. He was pretty sure that this was the part of the movie where he Came of Age by Standing Up To The Bully, anyway.
But Stiles was not equipped to stand up to the bully in the normal way. He wasn’t physically fit enough to beat Jackson up by the flagpole after school, and got too nervous and awkward when Jackson started spewing insults to come up with appropriately cutting rejoinders. So Stiles decided that he needed to take the sneaky route.
“Heeeeyyy Lydia,” Stiles drawled casually, sidling up next to her on the bleachers.
She looked at him questioningly.
“Stiles.” He stuck out a hand.
Lydia shook it daintily. Her nails were painted bright red, probably with the blood of her enemies. “The same Stiles Jackson keeps talking about?”
Stiles winced. “I thought you two were off again?” If Jackson and Lydia had gotten back together, then his plan wouldn’t be able to work.
“We are. And by the way, we are not ‘off again,’ we are broken up for good. I am never going near that jackass ever again.” Lydia’s face held a wrath that could probably scare off a flock of angry geese (that was saying something, geese were nasty.) “We just still run in the same circles.” She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “He does not like you.”
“Yeah,” Stiles rubbed a hand across the back of his head nervously, “about that. I had an idea, see, and you are just perfect to help me carry it out.” Flatter the beast, flatter the terrifying, terrifying beast.
Lydia just stared at him.
“Uh, well, I was thinking, you want to get at Jackson, right? Probably, I dunno. I bet. And I want him to stop being, uh, like you said, a jackass to me, so I was thinking that we should be friends, and then he’ll feel crappy because you enjoy my company more than his, and then he’ll also start thinking that maybe I’m not such a dork after all, because I can hang out with you, and you wouldn’t go near somebody who was a dork, and does this make any sense? Because, you know, it did in my head, but now, saying it, it sounds stupid.”
“You’re right,” Lydia stated. “It’s a stupid plan.”
Stiles heart sank as Lydia continued. “What we have to do is date each other. Then Jackson will be jealous of me and I’ll have won the breakup, and you can impress him with your ability to get me to date you. He’ll think he underestimated you.”
“Uh, not that it isn’t incredibly evil in its simplicity,” Stiles said hesitantly, “but I’m sort of taken, see-”
“Oh, that Derek guy,” Lydia flapped a dismissive hand, “it’s fine. I’d want to hang onto all of that hotness too. What I’m proposing is that we pretend to date each other.”
“Alright,” Stiles agreed hesitantly. Derek still wouldn’t like the plan, but he also didn’t like the faint locker grating shaped bruises he’d found on Stiles’ ribs last week, so he’d have to deal.
“Did he graduate?” Lydia asked idly as she watched the runners in the PE class finish another lap. “Because I really enjoyed watching him walk around school.”
“Uh, yeah he did.”
Lydia sighed, “Pity. I still picture him as Edward when I read the Twilight books.”
Stiles resigned himself to the knowledge that it would be an uncomfortable next few weeks.
“Hey, why did Coach Miyagi let you come sit up here? Did you tell him you were on your period too?”
A very uncomfortable next few weeks.
“I haven’t even had my period yet,” Lydia confided cheerfully. “What? You’re gay, I can tell you these things.”
Hopefully she didn’t see Stiles look up at the sky and mouth “whhhyyyyy?” or if she did, she was biding her time before she got her revenge.
So, Stiles may have just told Derek that he was “dealing with the Jackson problem with Lydia’s help.” And that may not have been entirely truthful. Stiles didn’t like lying to Derek, didn’t like lying to anyone really, but Derek wouldn’t like to hear that Stiles was fake dating Lydia Martin even more, so Stiles engaged in some creative truth bending. It was an art, really.
Everything went swimmingly until Derek came to Lighthouse Middle School after the final bell rang, with the intention of surprising Stiles at the end of a long school day. What he found was Stiles, surrounded by a flotilla of the makeup wearing girls and the sports jersey wearing boys of the school, chief among them Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin.
The plan had actually been working quite well up to that point. Stiles had even managed to get Scott involved, which Scott had done delightedly, since Lydia’s best friend was Allison Argent, so Stiles’ Evil Plan coincided well with Scott’s Ten Year Plan to make Allison fall in love with him. It was also surprisingly easy to “date” Lydia. He sat next to her during lunch, put his arm around her shoulder most of the time, paid her compliments, and that was it. After years of being deeply involved with Derek, and the associated hormones, Stiles was surprised to find that typical middle school romances were not very tactile, or at least not in public.
On that particular afternoon, Lydia was hanging off of his arm while Stiles talked lacrosse with Jackson, who was successfully managing to hold a decent conversation while also glaring at Stiles like he wanted him to explode on the spot.
“I’m just saying,” Stiles tried to make his voice sound confident and masculine, “that you can defend all you want, but you’re never going to win a game that way. Isn’t that right, babe?”
“Mmm, you betcha,” Lydia agreed vaguely. “He’s so smart, isn’t he Jackson?”
At first, Stiles thought it was Jackson growling, until Scott’s nervous tugging on his sleeve made him turn around to find Derek, looking downright homicidal.
“Uhhh, gottagoguysbye!” Stiles squeaked before he was dragged off.
“They had a really rough breakup,” he heard Lydia say quickly, “probably going to go talk it out. Who wants frozen yogurt?” That girl could patch up social faux pas like nobody’s business.
An hour later, Derek paced the perimeter of his room, seething. “So, you’ve been fake-dating Lydia for weeks without telling me?”
“Well obviously, you aren’t dealing with the news very well,” Stiles reasoned from where he sat on the bed.
Derek groaned loudly and pulled at his hair. “She was all over you, Stiles. I mean, I thought I smelled her on you before, but I”m not very good at identifying scents yet, and I thought that I was overreacting, but apparently not, since-”
“Derek, Derek,” Stiles cut in, “we’re just friends, you know that right? Friends who are working in a joint operation to stop Jackson from attacking me.”
Sighing, Derek ceased his frantic pacing. “I know... it’s just, she’s really pretty, you know?”
“Well, so are you,” Stiles pointed out, “and you actually like me, and consider me to be more than a pawn in your elaborate revenge scheme. That’s a bonus.”
Derek directed sad puppy eyes at him. They worked better before he started growing into what was looking to be some ridiculously chiseled bone structure, but they still made Stiles feel all melty inside.
“Ah, just c’mere, big guy.” Stiles held out his arms.
Responding with some impressive enthusiasm, Derek practically tackled Stiles backwards onto the bed. Stiles was glad they’d updated from the old racecar bed, because otherwise he’d be knocking his head against the wall right about then.
“Only six more months before you graduate eighth grade,” Derek murmured into Stiles’ neck.
Stiles thought they would make it through those six months just fine, until Derek walked into Stiles’ room one day, then practically wolfed out then and there, before slamming Stiles against the wall.
“Stiles,” Derek growled, his hands shaking where they gripped Stiles’ waist, “why is there lipstick on your cheek? Stiles. Stiles. Can’t... where... all over... smelling like... no no no-”
“L-Lydia kissed my cheek, she just did,” Stiles stammered. Derek was licking at his cheek where trace amounts of Lydia’s cherry blaster lip shine had been left. It must have seriously bothered Derek if he’d retreated into his wolf brain enough that he wanted to lick the taint away, like that was rational behavior. “It was r-really fast, I couldn’t s-stop....mmmph.”
Derek kissed like he was eating beef jerky, teeth adding to their already clumsy kisses. He was trying to prove something, to himself or to Stiles, Stiles wasn’t sure, but he felt an awful lot like one of those tourists in Yellowstone that accidentally provoke a buffalo and end up getting chased down and gored. Derek being the buffalo in his situation.
He started tugging at Stiles’ pants, which wasn’t unusual, except that Derek was doing it with such desperation that his claws were coming out and tearing at the fabric, getting worryingly close to a rather important part of Stiles’ anatomy.
“Derek, man, Derek just wait! Take a step off the crazy train for a sec! What are you even-” Derek’s hands were running across every available inch of Stiles’ skin, not even groping, just touching, like he was trying to spread his scent around- “are you marking your territory?”
Stiles shoved at Derek’s shoulder, but Derek just held fast, sandwiching Stiles against the wall. “Mine.”
“Fuck no!” Stiles shoved again. “Derek Mitchell Hale, you back the fuck up!”
The mention of his full name brought Derek out of his werewolfy stupor enough to make him stumble back a few steps and withdraw his claws.
Stiles was breathing heavily, angry and confused and horny in a way that didn’t feel right. “You can’t just... I’m not yours, alright?”
Derek pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. “Is this it, then? Goddammit, I knew this Lydia thing would end badly.”
“What? No. That’s- I’m not Lydia’s either. I’m nobody’s. Because owning people is wrong. We learned that when we learned about slavery.”
Derek looked up hopefully. “So Lydia and you aren’t-”
“No. No we’re not. What are you even talking about? She’s insane. You know now she wants to get back together with Jackson? She’s probably going to fake break up with me pretty soon, anyway.”
“I’m really glad you’re going to be fake broken up with.”
“Well I’m really glad that the lacrosse team isn’t going to state, so you won’t have your stupid time consuming practices for much longer.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay.” Stiles scratched his head. “We, uh, we really suck at going to different schools.”
Derek snorted, “it’s like separation anxiety or something.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s between a mom and her kid.”
Derek looked uncomfortable for a second, and Stiles shifted around, fiddling with the shredded waistband of his jeans. “So, we were kind of doing something...”
The next week, Lydia and Jackson got back together. Stiles didn’t even bother pretending to be sad. Or surprised, because let’s face it, everyone knew it was coming. What was unexpected was that Scott and Stiles continued eating at Lydia’s lunch table. Apparently, Phase One of Scott’s Ten Year Plan had worked, and Allison was both aware of his existence, and talking to him enough that they could sit with her and it wasn’t weird.
But it didn’t really feel like everything worked out until Stiles stepped off of the auditorium stage six months later with a diploma from Lighthouse Middle School.