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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that when it comes to matters of love, Stiles is a bit of a masochist. The whole Lydia debacle spoke for itself, really, and the whole crushing-on-Danny bit didn’t really help either. Let’s not even talk about the mind-numbing two-minute relationship with Malia.
So it stands to reason that of course he’d end up developing a huge crush on Derek, his bodyguard (he has a bodyguard! Stiles Stilinski has a goddamn bodyguard!). It doesn’t help that Derek is also stupidly gorgeous, even with his not-hipster-but-totally-hipster glasses and his tendency to look annoyingly put together even when he’s just rolled out of bed. Okay, maybe Stiles also has a huge thing for the Derek who has mussed up hair and doesn’t know left from right when he’s just woken up but it’s just so adorable.
Naturally, it’d taken Stiles almost a year of flailing around and pining to do anything about it in the first place. It all came to head with a pathetically-timed burst of courage after a night of drinking to celebrate Stiles’s newest album hitting platinum in Europe and the US to finally convince Derek to give them a shot. It’d been the hardest, and longest, five minutes of Stiles’s life - just watching Derek watch him, an indescribable look on his face. It’s then that Derek had nodded, more to himself than to Stiles, and simply walked up to Stiles, taken his face in his hands, and kissed the shit out of him.
Stiles doesn’t think he’s been more happier - ever. Not even when he signed to the same record label attached to the likes of Katy Perry after being ‘discovered’ on Youtube as the kid who simply sang covers of Bastille, Taylor Swift, and Imagine Dragons with the guitar his mother bought for him shortly before she passed away.
Waking up the next morning with Derek practically wrapped around Stiles in any (and every) manner possible? Yeah, Stiles’s heart swelled so hard that morning that he was surprised it didn’t burst.
The problem is what it always is: nothing stays perfect. Stiles is well aware of this fact so he’s not really surprised when six months into their carefully-planned private relationship, it all goes to shit.
Thing is, Derek’s always been a fairly private person - that’s stupidly obvious.
Yes, he’s always in the spotlight because he’s Stiles’s bodyguard but he’s ridiculously private about his life. It took Stiles a full month to find out Derek has two sisters, Laura and Cora, who also live in New York. So it went without saying that one of Derek’s unspoken ‘rules’ was that they keep the relationship a secret for as long as possible - especially when they were still testing the waters, so to speak. Stiles wholeheartedly agreed. The word frenemies is a very apt synonym for the media. One minute, they love you and the second, they crash and burn up your life leaving nothing but ruins in the aftermath.
Okay, maybe that was a slight hyperbole but still.
It’s four months into their relationship and the line between Derek the bodyguard and Derek the boyfriend had been blurring quite a bit. They’d had numerous discussions on whether or not Stiles should just hire another bodyguard but Derek’s always been vehemently against that for two reasons: firstly, Derek doesn’t trust anyone else with Stiles and secondly, the media would eat up the change in bodyguards up like the vicious piranhas.
Why was Derek fired? If he’s fired, why is he still hanging around Stiles? Why doesn’t he have another client? What’s going on? Is there something going on between Stiles Stilinski, the media’s newest darling, and Derek Hale, his stoically protective bodyguard?
So that was off the table. Plus, let’s be real, the role-play that’s not really role-play was amazing for their sex life.
Anyways, it all goes to shit four months in, a week after Stiles’s 23rd birthday celebration. Stiles had programmed certain Google alerts into his phone - namely alerts for himself, Derek, Scott and Allison, and of course, his dad. So when his phone pings just as Stiles begins to mix the vegetables in with the spaghetti sauce for dinner, his red flags go up. He’s been super careful with everything so his hands are shaking as he finally sees who the ping had been for - Derek Hale and Stiles Stilinski.
His blood runs cold as he reads the article headline from TMZ’s website and sees the encompassing pictures.
Meet Stiles Stilinski’s New Boyfriend - Derek Hale
Fans of Stiles Stilinski, who was discovered on Youtube early last year and signed by Capitol Music Group just a few short months later, have long wondered if the singer has a love interest or not.
Well, TMZ, has found the answer. And his name is Derek Hale. You may not know the name but you definitely know him as Stiles’s incredibly hunky bodyguard.
Don’t believe us? We have pictures.
Thanks to an anonymous source, TMZ recently came across pictures of the pair holding hands and gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes as they left the party thrown for the singer’s 23rd birthday just last week by his two best friends, Scott McCall and Lydia Martin.
Don’t they just look absolutely adorable? Rumor has it, though, that the couple have been together for much longer. Stiles, you little sneak! But if we were you, we wouldn’t want to share either so we forgive you!
Stiles Stilinski is repped by the Argent Entertainment Group.
It doesn’t take long for his phone to make another ping and then another. Entertainment Weekly and Perez Hilton just seemed to have broken the same news.
Well, fuck.
Stiles rubs a hand over his face, feeling partly tired and frustrated but mostly just desperate to see Derek. He needs to know. Derek values his privacy more than anything and Stiles just knows that as soon as he gets the same alerts on his phone, their fledgeling relationship might just come to an end.
Derek had left almost an hour ago to go for a run and he was due back any second. Stiles’s mind runs through possible damage control scenarios. He can sue. Okay, maybe not.
Wait - Danny! Get the pictures taken down the old-fashioned way! Yeah, that’s a stellar plan! Stiles grins, relieved, but his smile drops when his phone pings again. People Magazine. Wonderful.
Okay so maybe that plan is out too. He’s scrolling through different travel websites, trying to find the next available flight to an obscure island near New Zealand when he hears the door open and close down the hall.
Derek finds Stiles flopped over the dining table, head in his laptop, a full glass of wine in his hand, and a near-empty bottle of ’82 Bordeaux beside the laptop. He raises his eyebrows at the scene.
“Stiles? Wanna tell me why you’re drinking by yourself?” Derek questions, wiping the layer sweat on his forehead and pushing back at the hair that’s plastered on his forehead. Stiles waves a hand at him and he moves behind Stiles, ducking down to rest his chin on Stiles’s shoulder. He frowns, when he notices the screen. “Better question, why are you looking at houses on the Tristan da Cunha island?”
Stiles stills, his hands freezing over the keyboard, before he relaxes into Derek. At once, the older man wraps his arms around Stiles, and nuzzles his neck.
“Um, we can take a vacation? Like the kind that never ends?” Stiles suggests meekly. He rolls his head to allow Derek better access to his neck. Stiles had come to realize very early on in their relationship that Derek had a thing for his neck. Coincidentally, Stiles has a thing for all of Derek’s kinks.
“Why?”
“Um, because I think it’s about time I retire from music anyways. The life is getting too much for — oh fuck, Derek!”
Derek smiles into his neck and resumes biting away at it. “Stiles, you just turned 23. Try again.”
Stiles is quiet for a while, shuddering, at the way Derek’s still going at it on his neck. He wraps his arms around himself so that they’re resting on top of Derek’s and sighs. Derek stops at once because he knows that sigh. He knows this embrace. This is Stiles feeling sad and hopeless. This is Stiles at his worst. If Derek lets go of him now, Stiles would hunch over on himself, head hanging low like he’s just been caught sneaking cookies from the cookie jar.
So he does what he knows works on Stiles the best. He loosens his arms up enough to pull Stiles up and walk him over to the couch, where he sits against the sofa arm, pulling Stiles in to his chest. His arms wind up around Stiles one more time, holding on tighter, and Derek’s head drops back on to Stiles’s shoulder like before. Stiles’s arms find their way around Derek and he lays his head on Derek’s chest, breathing in the musky scent. Derek’s still sweaty from his run but at times like this, neither of them can find it in themselves to care at all.
“What’s wrong?” He mumbles into Stiles neck. Stiles shakes his head, refusing to talk and this only encourages Derek to push more. It’s one thing for Stiles to feel sad but when he refuses to even talk and just goes silent? Yeah, that’s bad news. “You know that either you’ll tell me now or you’ll tell me in a bit. So just do it now - I want to help. But if not, then I can wait. We can wait right here and you can take as long as you want, okay?”
His words only make Stiles shudder more and Derek holds on even tighter. If he’s scared of suffocating Stiles, it doesn’t affect him as much because Stiles is holding on to him just as tight, like he’s afraid that if he lets go, Derek’s going to leave and never come back. Which, if Derek’s being honest, is the stupidest thing to think ever because fuck if Derek’s isn’t totally gone on this kid already. They haven’t even been dating for too long but Derek would only be kidding himself if he thought for one second that he can see a future with someone that’s not Stiles.
Stiles opens his mouth to say something, anything, but that’s when his phone makes another ping! sound. The phone is still sitting on the kitchen counter and Derek loosens up his arms a bit to allow Stiles to go get the phone but Stiles remains motionless. Another red flag, Derek thinks before beginning to card through Stiles’s hair with a free hand.
“Stiles? Is everything okay?” A weak nod. “Are you sure?” A head shake. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?” Nothing but eventually, a slow nod. Derek smiles and places a kiss on top of Stiles’s head. “Okay, take your time.”
Stiles tightens his arms around Derek and sighs.
“If I tell you, will you promise to not get mad?” He asks meekly, words slightly slurred from all the wine. Derek frowns over his head.
“Why would I get mad at you?”
Stiles shuffles, wanting to get up and away from Derek, almost afraid of continuing his train of thought but Derek only holds him that much tighter. Derek is very well aware of Stiles’s tendency of ignoring a problem until it goes away but whatever is making Stiles act this was isn’t just any old problem. It clearly something big and Derek isn’t planning on letting go until they have this talk.
“Stiles, nothing you can do or say will make me truly mad at you. You’re frustrating and annoying but I like you because of those qualities, not inspite of them. So please just tell me what’s going on, okay?”
Stiles takes a deep breath, steeling himself. Suddenly, the words come out like word vomit. “Someone leaked our relationship,” he mumbles finally. “There’s pictures everywhere and now everyone knows and I don’t understand why or how because I know we were always super careful and I know you like your privacy and I swear, I swear, I don’t know how this happened but it’s out there now and I can’t—“
“Stiles?”
“Yes?” Stiles doesn’t dare look up at Derek like he desperately wants to so Derek carefully maneuvers them so they’re half-sitting and half-laying on the couch. He drops a kiss on Stiles’s head and gently cups his head, moving it so Stiles is looking at him. And Derek - yeah, his heart just breaks when he takes in Stiles’s scared-as-fuck expression on his face.
“You’re an idiot,” Derek finally says, fondly, a slow smile forming on his lips. Stiles frowns and tries again to move away but Derek’s stronger than Stiles and that just means Stiles isn’t going anywhere until Derek is okay with it.
“When people break up, it’s not absolutely necessary to insult the other person, you know that right, asshole?” Stiles snarks and Derek’s smile gets even bigger.
Thank god for the snark.
“Stiles, you big idiot, I’m not going to break up with you!”
Stiles’s eyes get so big he’s afraid they’ll pop out any minute, like he can’t believe he gets to keep Derek, and this only makes Derek rolls his eyes even more. Seriously, how did Derek become the relationship fixer in this situation?
“Did you seriously think I’d break up with you just because people know about us?” Derek doesn’t get an answer but judging from Stiles’s sheepish look, yes he did. He absolutely did. Derek sighs and shakes his head in amusement. “This is why you’re an idiot.”
“Okay, can we stop with the name-calling?”
“He says after he called me an asshole,” Derek replies dryly, cocking an eyebrow at Stiles.
“So…are we good?”
Derek pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes closing briefly. “No, we’re not good, Stiles—“
“I knew it, you’re mad—“
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Stiles, shut up and listen, would you?” Stiles huffs but falls quiet nonetheless. “We’re not good because clearly you seem to think that I’d break up with you or get mad at you for all this but I won’t, okay? Nothing you can do or say will ever make me do those things to you. Yes, I’m pissed that our relationship is public knowledge now but only because it might interfere with me doing my job in keeping you safe. You get that, right?”
Derek pauses only long enough for Stiles to give a mesmerized nod and as soon as that happens, he forges on, “Stiles, I like you and I like being with you. I knew this was always going to be a distinct possibility when I agreed to go out with you and I really, really thought about it before I committed to this. So I knew this would happen eventually and I’m not sorry it did. We’re not going to be each other’s dirty little secret. Got it, Stilinski?”
Stiless mind is still numb from Derek’s speech - no but, seriously, when did Derek get all wordsy? When did he become the relationship Yoda for fuck’s sake? Stiles is about to ask just as much when Derek cuts him off with a kiss. It’s gentle and soft and everything that Stiles loves about Derek but the intent is there; the message is clear.
We’re in this together. Whatever happens, we’re in it for the long haul.
And it’s a message that Stiles has no problem reciprocating.