Each day and each hour and each second seemed to drag. Corridors he once used to walk down with a smile on his lips, saying hello to every other person he walked past, were now corridors he walked down with a cold gaze. People had stopped making an effort with him, accepting that he was not the person he used to be, and he wasn't complaining about the matter.

"So I've got a question-" Dylan's voice came from behind him, one of the few friends he had kept after the accident.

"I meant to ask before, but It completely slipped my mind."

"Go on."

"Saw you running on the weekend, but someone was next to you. Didn't realise you had other friends Derek."

"Shut up Dylan."

"No spill the beans, who's the lucky lad that gets to run with you. It's not like you rejected me when I asked if you could help me train," he nudged Derek's shoulder as he said it, but it was clear it bothered him a little bit. He could hear it in his voice.

"Its nobody. Don't worry about it."

"That is absolutely not an answer."

"Don't push it."

"Stop being such a cock and answer my question. Geez It's not like I'm asking anything serious," the annoyance in his voice was much clearer, and Derek knew that if he didn't answer there would be unnecessary tension between the 2.

"The irritating kid from the park. He's called Stiles." Derek felt very nervous saying it, not realising that he cared so much about Dylan's reaction, or that he was so ashamed of the situation.

"What? Reaaaaallllyyy? Him? That twat? Whatever floats your boat mate."

"Don't be so rude Dylan, he's a nice kid." From ashamed he flipped to defensive, not really understanding the mixture of emotions he was feeling about the topic. He was allowed to be mean to/about Stiles. Just nobody else was.

'Kid'- he was using that word far too much. He didn't look at Stile's as though he was a child at all.

"You see him a lot?"

"I've gotten to know him. Look if you're going-" Derek was ready to begin his rant on how Dylan should just back off if he was going to be such a dick about it, however, Dylan interjected last second.

"Derek If you like him enough to spend time with him then I'm happy for you mate, I really am. You haven't really integrated yourself into society for a long time, and if he's getting past your barriers then he must be something. Only by what I remember I really don't understand what that something is."

"Oh." The words took a second to be processed.

"Yes, 'oh' you nutcase, your heartlessness hasn't rubbed off on me that much. I'll see you after class."

Derek walked into his own lesson, sitting down at his desk while other friendship groups huddled together. Their heads were all tilted towards each other, while Derek's was tilted to his phone, browsing the repetitiveness of his Facebook newsfeed.

*Revise with me today after sch00l!*

Stiles' name popped up on his screen, which surprised him because Stiles never messaged. He had expected to regret giving Stiles his number, as he assumed hundreds of memes and pointless messages were going to be sent his way. But no- nothing. In fact, think about it now, it bothered Derek how little it had impacted his life.

*I'd rather not*

It was a lie and he didn't know why he sent it.

*Plsssssssssssssssssssssss*

*Okay fine I'll be outside your school 3:30*

He hit sent before he changed his reply to no again. Derek had learned how to be good at pushing people away, even when he needed them. And maybe Stiles was what he needed right now.

"I'll take that Mr," A voice from above him said, as his phone was plucked from his hand. A student or teacher would have never done that to him, and so it must have been a supply. He looked up, and as he guessed correctly a goofy lanky looking man stood before him, in desperate need of a shave.

"I want it back," his own voice came out hard and cold, and the rest of the class seemed engrossed in listening in.

"No."

No wasn't a phrase Derek heard regularly, especially not from this school. After everything had happened, everyone seemed to go out there the way to make Derek as comfortable as possible with repeating the year. Teachers became lenient with marking and disregarded incomplete assignments, and he was pre- warned when the chemistry labs were going to using fire as part of experiments. But there was no way that a supply would have known.

"Right who's ready for some integration?"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Are you sure he's coming? He hasn't messaged you back," Scott said from beside him, and Stiles was genuinely beginning to doubt whether Derek was going to come for him or not. His 5 messages had been left unanswered, and Stiles was too nervous to send the 6th. How hard is it to message someone back like seriously?

"Yeah he said he'd be here at 3:30. trust me Scott he would have messaged if he was going to cancel," he tried to sound confident but Stiles wasn't entirely sure if Derek would message to cancel in advance or not. He just hoped he would. And he certainly didn't want to let Scott know he was having doubts.

"Are you both not just going back to yours anyway? Can't he just meet you there?"

"Scott I'm not getting in Jacksons car."

"If you insist." It was clear Scott was getting annoyed with him, and they had both been standing in he car park for 15 minutes. Derek was exactly 9 minutes late and counting. But getting in Jacksons car would be admitting that he got stood up, and that was not something Stiles was willing to do. If he was going to get stood up he at least wanted there to be no one watching him.

"Scott you go, I'm fine waiting by myself."

"No, I don't trust him Stiles."

"You don't know him."

"Because he wants nothing to do with us. Plus you've only known him for around 2 months, don't start acting like you're best friends."

"Scott I don't want to hear this now, Jacksons waiting for you in his car please just go." Jackson was waiting in the car, but with Lydia in there too he obviously wasn't having a problem with waiting.

"Okay. Call me if you need us to come back and pick you up."

"Sure," Stiles heard himself say, but in reality that was the last thing he planned on doing. He would rather walk the way home than have Scott and Jackson smugly sit in the car and say 'I told you so' or some other bullshit.

"Hang on is that him?" Stiles was ready to blow up about how that joke wasn't funny, and Scott was being the biggest arsehole right now, but he could hear a car speeding up, and it pulled up just in front of them.
A blacked out window scrolled down and Derek looked just like his knight in shining armour. Only with black shades and well black everything.

"Get in."

"See you Scott," the cockiness came back into his voice, and he opened up the passenger seat and slid in. Scott's face was mildly shocked, and Stiles didn't know whether it was because Derek actually showed or how sexy the car was. Yes, sexy was the perfect was to describe the car.

It felt pretty surreal being picked up by Derek after school, almost like it wasn't happening. It didn't excuse the fact that he was 100 fucking minutes late. Well maybe it was just 14 minutes, but it felt like 100 and that's the important part.

"You're late," Stiles was the one to break the silence, taking a glance and Derek watching the road.

"I wanted to go home and change out of my uniform."

"It was still a whole 14 and a half minutes. You could have messaged," he felt like he was whining now, and he should have just said thank you for finally arriving. It wasn't like 14 minutes was that long anyway.

"A teacher took my phone and didn't return it to me."

"Oh, what a dick. I thought you stood me up." It was a relief to hear that Derek hadn't blanked all 5 messages on purpose. And he would have messaged if he could. Getting the courage to message had been so nerve racking, and being blanked had felt even worse.

"Why on earth would I do that Stiles?" Derek had taken his eyes off the road, and turned his head to face him.

"I don't know."

"Have a little faith."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They were sitting on Stiles' bed doing homework. Well, Derek wasn't thinking about his homework, and Stiles had been staring at the same page for the last 20 minutes. Derek had no idea how he had let them reach this level of comfort with one another, but he wanted to smile every time he looked up and saw Stiles' face on concentration.

"I think I've finished my work, let's have a break," Stiles was the one to break the silence, leaning back and stretching out his arms. Derek was going to make a comment on how he hadn't even really started his, but instead decided to keep his mouth shut. A break didn't sound too bad.

"What do you wanna do?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" The question came out of nowhere, and the look of pure embarrassment and shock on Stiles' face confirmed that it defiantly wasn't an appropriate one.

"Um what? Did you...um. I... What the fuck Derek?" His cheeks had gone completely red, and he was avoiding all eye contact. Derek wished he could take it back, having no idea why he asked it in the first place, but the question had popped into his mind countless times after Stiles interest seemed to decrease. They would go running and Stiles didn't have to pretend not to look when he took his top off cause Stiles wasn't looking! The minute he had given the boy his number he had expected over a million texts to flash up on his screen, but today was the first one he got asking to come over to revise. And wasn't revision supposed to be an excuse to hang out and not actually revise? Cause they had both sat in silence for the past 20 minutes.

He shouldn't be complaining about any of this, he knew that. But the attention had faded from being annoying very quickly, and feeling wanted felt weirdly nice.

"Sorry, you don't have to answer that."

"I'm not gay Derek," the words were spoken really quietly, but it seemed like he was giving permission to talk about the subject.

"Okay."

"No seriously, like I know I kissed you and had a massive crush on you, but I've only ever fancied girls so It was seriously confusing to me. It's still seriously confusing to me, cause now I'm here like woa do I like guys now? Am I meant to try it out with other guys? I don't even know if Im comfortable in excepting I'm gay. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, Its just never been something I've had to think about before. And now I think about it all the time," Stiles rambled on, still refusing to make eye contact with Derek..."What do I do Derek?"

"Do you want to try it?"

The words made Stiles' head jolt up, and his eyes were large with even more confusion.
"Try what?"

"Being gay?"

"Oh. I don't know. You could always date me and we'll see?" Stiles added the last bit in as a joke; a desperate attempt to get rid of the thick tension that lay between them. And thank god Derek started laughing because otherwise things could of gotten realllyyyyy awkward.

"You're not really my type Stiles."

"What do you mean? I'm everybody's type. Have you looked at this face?"

"I see it far too much."

"I want you to know I'm seriously offended by that."

"Nobody cares Stiles."

Out of nowhere a pillow was hurled towards Derek's face, and he watched it in slow motion as it flung towards him- thud. It was soft, and obviously didn't hurt, but Stiles was collapsed with laughter. It wasn't that funny. The boy acted as though he was 5.

"That was funny, come on laughhhh! You're making me look bad."

"It really wasn't."

"Throw it back."

"No."

"For God sake, you're such a sour wolf. I'm gonna go back to working," Stiles said, a stupidly adorable pout laying on his lips while he opened his textbook back up. Derek stalled for a minute before opening his, looking at Stiles instead. There was a weird unnerving feeling in his stomach, which he really didn't like, but at the same time, he felt happy. Weirdly happy.

"Derek do your work."

"Okay Stiles," he said it very softly, but when he looked down at his own textbook, Stiles noticed Derek was smiling.