"I might love you."

The words poured from his lips without his consent. They didn't go 'oh hey Stiles can we admit your deepest and most well-guarded secret to the person that you're trying hardest to hide it from'. No, word vomit had no manners .it was safe to say he never wanted anything like that to come out of his mouth but now that they were out… it was like the first domino of millions and there was no stopping the shit storm that was about to occur.

"That's a lie, I do, I love you. God, I love you so much it hurts and I know everyone knows, I know that you know. That all of you are just trying to be nice by not mentioning it, which is cool, it really is. Save me mortification and all that shit. But I don't even know!" he exclaimed throwing his hands in the air.

"Do you even know how perfect you are?" he said grappling for the right thing to say and only coming up with more and more word vomit. "Like not in the conventional, gets straight A's and doesn't have a criminal record kind of way. In the ridiculously caring and stupidly wonderful and oh my god your face, like man have you seen your face? Not that it's the only reason I love you because to be honest on the list of reasons that Derek hale is like a perfect human being it's probably like two hundredth on the list. But seriously, even when you look like you want to kill me I still want to kiss that stupid glare off your face like all the fucking time!" Stiles sighed staring deliberately at Derek's feet.

His face was flushed with heat and color, heart pounding rapidly against his chest, which felt tight. Now that he thought about it everything felt tight, his shirt, his throat, his skin. It felt like it was all getting smaller on him. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself with the falsified rhythm his mother used to implement when he was a child.

"I'm sorry." He muttered turning on his heel to walk out the door behind him, "that was stupid."

"I don't love you" Derek muttered, Stiles hadn't really needed auditory conformation on that one because it was beyond painfully obvious.

"I know" he mumbled trying to blink away the hot tears threatening to spill over his face.

He laughed, more at the irony than anything else. A year ago he was so strung up over Lydia martin he couldn't breathe without waxing poetry about her perfect strawberry blonde ringlets, and now. Now he was close to tears over a man five years his senior that had enough shit in his life without adding a hyperactive spaz to the mix.

"Why would you." He said, heart feeling slightly like it was collapsing. He hadn't ever really felt like this before. Sure getting rejected by Lydia, it stung. But it happened every day and by the time it really hit him that it was never going to happen he was probably desensitized to it. This, it felt like someone had taken his heart, wrapped it in barbed wire and stomped on it with a steel toed boot. He was ready to go home and pathetically cry into his pillow for a few hours before calling Scott and evoking bro code rule # 1. Bros before Hoes, and by hoes he means wonderfully amazing hunter girlfriends who kicked ass at everything, and moody alpha werewolves with beautiful eyes and washboard abs.

"I don't hate you." Derek offered.

Stiles' mangled heard made a jump up into his throat. He laughed, partially because it was pathetic, partially because he didn't trust himself to speak yet.

"Glad you're past that, really I am, but I'm going to go now." He said running his worn sleeve over the tear tracks on his cheeks. "Sorry for intruding man."

"Stiles." Derek said and Stiles turned around, slowly. Derek looked broken, not like he usually looked. Like something deep inside just never healed right. Or like he thought everyone in the world was going to betray him. He looked, like he didn't know how to function, like Stiles broke him. "I don't love you."

Stiles laughed, sniffing slightly and running his sleeve over his cheeks again willing tears to stop. "Yeah I got that already, can I go now or do you want to reject me again?"

Derek huffed, "will you shut up."

Stiles nodded.

"I don't…" Derek shook his head, "Stiles I don't think I love anybody."

Stiles wanted desperately to speak, to respond in any way possible, but he didn't he was going to let Derek finish this.

"I hate everyone, god Stiles, I hate everything and I don't hate you!" Derek looked like his hands were shaking, like he was nervous, and as scared as Stiles had been only moments before.

Stiles took a second to wrap his head around it.

"Oh"

Stiles smiled, standing awkwardly, a few footsteps away from the door.

"Can I hug you now?"

Derek looked uncomfortable, well let me rephrase because Derek always looks uncomfortable but more than usual. He looked like he wanted to run and hide; of find a bucket to empty the contents of his stomach into but instead he nodded.

Stiles grinned like a child with candy and approached slowly, wrapping his arms around Derek's shoulders and linking them behind his neck.

It was nice; Derek had forgotten how much he liked hugs. How tactile his family had been, he hadn't been touched in a way that wasn't meant to cause him harm since Laura died.

"So are we boyfriends now?" Stiles asked, burying his head into the crook of Derek's neck. "Because I'd really like that. We can hate the world together and everything." He said smiling even wider when Derek's arms tightened around his waist.

"We'll see Stiles." Derek mumbled.

"I can work with that." Stiles replied, "hey Derek" he said pulling away to look his almost-maybe-sort-of-boyfriend in the eye.

"I don't hate you either."