The Brain and the Bass Guitarist (Sterek AU)

Chapter Seventeen

Two Months Later

"Okay,guys. That's it for today, but make sure that you have the rest of the chapter read by next week." Stiles tells his class, and they all nods their heads as they move to leave the classroom. Stiles waves to some of them as they leave, and some of them stay late to talk to him. "See you next week!" Stiles calls to one of them that gives him a goodbye. It's been a long day, and he still has to grade essays when he gets home. He works at the local community college teaching as an adjunct English professor. Stiles has one class Monday night and the other one is on Thursday night, and it pays well enough to start paying on his fine from England since he hasn't gotten a notice in the mail yet.

"Bye,Professor S!" The last student in his class calls, and Stiles waves at her while he moves to get the rest of things together to go home to grade his essays. Stiles moves to go to his car, and he hums to himself while he moves put his stuff away in his passenger seat while he yawns as he starts to drive back to his apartment with Scott.

It's been two months since he's seen Derek face to face, he's been allover the news and Stiles has been following his every move on social media religiously. He doesn't know why, he's pretty sure that he should have let him go out of his mind but he can't. Stiles tries not to think about Derek most of the time, but he thinks about all the time. Sometimes, even when he's lecturing he'll read something or one of the students will remind him of Derek. Stiles likes this job well enough, he always wanted to teach, and he's been working on making his dissertation better for next year. "Scott, I'm home!" Stiles calls, and Scott comes bounding into the room with weird look on his face.

"Uh,someone's here to see you." Scott says, and Stiles is looking through his mail. He sees a letter from his student loan company, and he doesn't get a chance to open it before he looks up to see a familiar face.

"Jackson!Hey, man. What's up?" Stiles says, moving to hug him tightly while Jackson smiles at him and Scott doesn't seem to believe that Jackson Whittemore is in his apartment whiles he watches them. "What brings you by?" Stiles asks him, and Jackson looks at him somewhat awkwardly when he moves to sit down.

"We have a concert tonight in LA, and I just wanted to make sure that you're doing okay. It's been a while since we've been together, and you haven't been answering my tweets or texts." Jackson says, and Stiles gives him an apologetic look while he moves to put his things down. "I know that you're probably busy. Scott was telling me that you work at a college now, that's awesome." Jackson adds on, and Stiles smiles at him. His job isn't the best or exactly where he wanted to teach, but he's proud about it.

"Yeah.I'm sorry, Jackson. I didn't think that you wanted anything to do with me after I left Derek in England." Stiles tells him, and Jackson shakes his head at him before he moves to sit down next to him on the couch. "I didn't mean for this to happen." Stiles tells him, and Jackson moves to look at him before he sighs at him."Why are you here?" Stiles asks him, trying to be politely but he ends up sounding too curious and a bit rude.

"Derek,uh,Derek's not doing so well. He's drink again and smoking weed, and we're all worried about him. We thought that it was just a party thing to get rid of being sad but he's been doing it for two months straight." Jackson tells him, smiling sadly at him. Stiles looks at him in surprise, he's seen that Derek hasn't been doing well but he didn't think it was as bad as Jackson was making it sound for him,and he moves to watch him. "I know that you probably don't care about Derek, but he does care about you." Jackson says, and Stiles glares at him.

"How could you think that I don't care about him? Just because I left doesn't mean that I don't care about him." Stiles tells him, and Jackson nods his head at him while he moves to run his hand through his hair. Stiles knows that he probably doesn't know why Stiles left,and Stiles sighs as he moves to get himself something to drink while Jackson follows after him with a hum.