A Question Of Roomates

Ch. 12

"Sti!" He must have been moving quickly because he was at the end of the block by the time I caught sight of light brown hair. He didn't hear me proving my attempts at shouting to be worthless.

By the time I had reached him I had given up on shouting and tugged on his shoulder. At first he turned as if he were frightened "Derek?" He asked clutching at his chest "You scared the shit out of me babe. I thought you were hanging behind?"

"Nope. I owe you a date remember" I could see his eyes roll as if he were preparing to fight so I took initiative tugging on his shoulder.

"Where are we going?" He giggled as I pulled and tried hard not to yank his arm from its socket.

There was a orange light coming from a dim lamp in the corner of the small restaurant. It's was only a few minutes out of the way and worth it for the steaming Chinese food before us.

Stiles was eating as if it were nothing, but the comments from earlier in the night were sitting heavily upon me. Not probing for answers was one of the hardest thing I had yet to do.

"I'm sorry you had to leave you're friends" a noddle dangled from his mouth as he glanced my way.

I shrugged as if it were no big deal, leaning to press a kiss to his lips that tasted of teriyaki sauce "Eh screw em. You're more important. I've been meaning to find a new crowd anyways"

He dropped his fork slowly and stared at me with suspicion "They told you didn't they?"

My answer came quickly, there was no point in stalling. He knew I had an idea and I was going to hear everything he had to say "No. But I heard you all talking, and I didn't want to ask you about it, seemed like something you didn't want to talk about"

There was no doubt the coming story was going to be hard, especially if the way Stiles sat back in preparation was anything to go by "It's no surprise I was bullied in high school... They just so happen to be a few of them" the statement was a shocker to process. The few friends I made had not seemed like the type, but if the look in Stiles' eyes told me they had done some damage "Sophomore year I tried to join the lacrosse team, something to do so I wasn't always bored. They caught wind of this and lured me out to the pasture clamming they'd help me train. When in fact your friends just wanted to hand cuff me to the flag pole on the field. Said they couldn't have a 'spaz' like me on their state winning team. All those guys were on the team, with the exception of the girls. But they were there that night too, just watching"

"Stiles I...I can't believe it. I don't know what to-"

"Oh it gets worse" he mumbled, throwing back the small shot on the table I hadn't even realized he ordered "This was around the time I started taking adderal. I was on and off it because I was having a hard time with the side effects. That, plus the stress that came with standing for hours, I ended up puking. When someone finally found me I was shaking, barely able to stand, my lunch was dried all over me"

"They never told me that" it made sense now why Erica wanted me to switch roommates so bad, why she was shocked when she heard of our relationship. She new the truth all along.

"I blocked it out. And I guess they did too. I never told on them, I just went on through high school"

"You don't have to talk about this anymore babe"

"I won't. I just want you to know I don't mind sharing things, as long as you ask"

"So much for an awesome first date"

"I don't know. This was pretty nice, I'm with you aren't I?" The smile he sent, and his nimble hand sliding into my own was all the reassurance I needed "Plus nothing about us has been too orthodox, I'd like to keep it that way"