The Best Man (Teen Wolf)

Start your story with - When I first saw him/her

Include an insult

Include a surprise

Include a poem

"When I first saw him, Scott and I were traipsing through the woods, after going along with one of my bad ideas."

Scott grinned at him from his table, lifting his champagne glass in a salute, and Stiles returned the gesture.

The story was one they told often, joking about it because they were friends now, family, and comfortable enough with each other, "We were just trying to find Scott's inhaler when, all of a sudden, this hulking figure of a man comes out of nowhere and literally growls, 'this is private property, get off my land'. Which isn't terrifying now, because we all know he's a teddy bear, but you have to remember that we were sixteen and awkward and, well, I don't think we left a good first impression. So, if you'd told me then that I'd be Derek Hale's best man, I wouldn't have believed it, but here I am and I honestly couldn't be happier to be standing in front of all of you."

He'd gotten a laugh at the start of his speech but now the room was quiet because it was true that they'd had a hell of a journey. They'd picked people up along the way and they'd lost them, too, and, sure, there were some bad days when Stiles honestly wished he'd never gone looking for that body in the middle of the night but, staring out at the crowd now, he also couldn't imagine the past six years any differently.

This was where he was meant to be.

He cleared his throat, looking down at his notes even though he had his speech memorised, "Now, I'm supposed to use this opportunity to embarrass Derek but I'm not going to because, if I did, he'd rip my throat out—with his teeth."

Derek groaned, head in his hands, as the others laughed.

It was only pack at the wedding and following reception because Derek and Braeden hadn't needed to invite anyone else to the occasion. It was a good thing because it meant that Stiles could fulfill the most important part of his best man duty and regale them all with the best stories, completely uncensored.

"I actually had the privilege of seeing the relationship between Derek and Braeden blossom and I was the one that Derek turned to when he needed help wooing his girl. We had a few false starts, mainly with using our words which is something that doesn't come naturally to growly mountain men, but we must have done something right to end up here today. In fact, I caught up with our bride earlier and she said, what really cinched it for her, was when Derek read her his own handwritten, heartfelt poem."

Derek legitimately growled, only proving his point.

Braeden laughed, placing a hand on his, and it was amazing to watch how that simple touch could calm him down.

"Funny thing," Stiles continued, reaching into this jacket and pulling out a folded piece of paper, "I actually have it with me. Who wants to hear it?"

There were loud whoops and cheers.

"Well, I've never been one to let the crowd down before." He said, grinning wickedly, "So here we go: Roses are red, violets are blue, you could knock a man dead, can I kill with you?"

It wasn't the real poem, that one too sentimental and intimate to share even here, and it'd brought him to tears when he'd read it the first time and every time after that. This one made them cry, too, out of humour and heightened emotions and it set the theme for the rest of the night, Stiles sharing a few more anecdotes and exaggerating them for dramatic effect before he gave the stage up to Scott. As the Alpha, his words carried with them the weight of his status, and him giving them his blessing meant a lot more than it would in any other wedding.

But, even if he hadn't allowed them to get married—which would never happen, because it was Scott—they probably would've gone ahead with it anyway. Because the thing between Braeden and Derek was true love, sappy and ridiculous and so real that Stiles' heart broke for it. Because who would've thought they could find that in the mess of their lives?

It was at the end of the night, as the party wound down and the kids started to get tired, that Stiles bundled them into a sleek, black car and clapped Derek on the back, telling him to enjoy his honeymoon. Derek had grinned back, a wide, infectious smile, and Braeden had leered suggestively. They'd all watched them drive off, the tin cans trailing on the asphalt and the Just Married sign blurring as they grew smaller in the distance.

And that was that.

"Hey," Scott said, sidling up to him, "you did a really good job with the wedding, it was perfect. Kira said so."

"You didn't see what I planned for their honeymoon," he said, tired now because the past few weeks had been so emotionally draining, "they're booked in for a cabin in the woods during Italy's ski season. They'll love it, I'm sure."

"You look dead on your feet," Kira said, coming up on the other side of him with her three year old, "you should go home, we'll clear up here."

He was too exhausted to argue, "Are you sure?"

"Go to bed, it's time you got some rest."

He smiled at her, "Thanks, Kira, you're a lifesaver."

Stiles didn't go home immediately, stopping at an off licence that was still open, and then proceeding to get drunker than he'd ever been before.

And it wasn't that he wasn't happy for them, because he was, but this was shaping up to be one of those days where he wished he'd never gone looking for that body in the middle of the night. Because Stiles had faced down a lot of monsters over the years but none of them left him feeling like this: empty and broken and so fucking jealous he couldn't breathe.

He thought he was allowed one night of self-pity, considering how long he'd spent helping the man he loved woo a girl, organising their dates and acting as their third wheel and then having to watch her fall in love with him, too. Derek deserved it all, though, because he was a family man who'd had that taken away from him and Braeden was exactly what he needed—commitment and love and in it for the long haul and Stiles just somehow wasn't. So he'd sucked it up and did what was best for the pack, setting up the proposal—a dinner at home with all the others and Stiles slipping him the box after Derek had pretended to forget their anniversary—and then he'd gone to the wedding and handed him a ring again, this time his mother's resized to fit Braeden's finger. His hands had shook, for reasons no one else could know, and his heart had stopped when they said 'I do' but that was okay because no one in a room full of werewolves had noticed.

He'd gotten used to it, used to lying to everyone and himself.

So the wedding shouldn't have affected him but here he was, drinking himself into a stupor while they got on the plane for Italy, and he couldn't help but wonder where it all went wrong for him. Because he'd sworn, he'd sworn, that there was a spark between them. Sometimes, he'd catch a glimpse of something real in Derek's eyes, a hint of something more than just affection in his voice, a linger in his touch and Stiles was the master of being rejected by better people so he'd known what it looked like. It hadn't looked like Derek. And he'd thought, he'd been so sure ...

Until Braeden.

That night, he allowed himself to cry over it, even though he knew he didn't have the right to. Unlike with Lydia, he'd never made his intention public, never got the brutal rejection or the pitying looks from the rest of the school and, maybe that would've helped with closure, but he'd still pined over her for years so maybe it would've just made it worse. He didn't think he'd be able to deal with Derek trying to let him down easy or how the pack would look at him and, yeah, maybe it was better he'd never acted on his feelings. It wasn't much of a comfort, all things considered, as he sat in his empty apartment but he'd take anything he could get.

His schedule was busy for the next few months, meaning he didn't see the pack as often as he normally did, and he'd never been more grateful for pushy, antagonistic clients. Even bad things had to come to an end, though, and he found himself with a free Friday and no excuse not to when Derek and Braeden invited him out for dinner. He'd briefly contemplated making up excuses but he had to face them sometime and he knew he had to do it soon.

"Hey," he said, spotting them at their table and weaving his way over to them, "sorry I'm late, I got caught up with work."

"That's fine," Braeden said, waving off his apologies, "we've only just sat down and got our drinks."

No one had ever accused him of being slow and Stiles looked at the bottle of Coke in front of her, at Derek who was smiling like an idiot, saying hoarsely, "You're pregnant."

They didn't ask him to be the godfather because Scott was the Alpha and it was a werewolf tradition to ask him first and Stiles had never been so grateful because he couldn't deal with that. And then it turned out Braeden was having twins and they looked at Stiles and he'd said 'yes' even as he felt his heart breaking.

Because it was Derek, and Stiles would do anything for Derek, even if it meant hurting himself.

Votes and comments make me happy, if you liked this, please tell me.