Work Text:
Allison doesn’t notice at first, the way Stiles slides so seamlessly into her relationship and stays there, because it feels like this is the way it has always been. She and Scott have only been dating for the third time for a couple of months, and this time when she says “Tell Stiles to come too,” Scott does exactly that. And he keeps showing up, to bowling, to dinner at Allison’s house, to the premiere of the Avengers - which was really her crashing their “bro-date”, as Stiles calls them, because she grew up on the comics and wasn’t going to turn down the opportunity to geek out with Scott and Stiles afterward.
It’s only when she finds herself staring at Stiles’ fingers curled around a fork at lunch, or smiling when he knows the candy she wants the next time the three of them go to the movies together, that she finds it a bit weird. She loves Scott, is attracted to Scott, but the last two times they’ve dated didn’t include wondering how Stiles’ tongue would feel between her thighs and whether Scott would kiss him when he was done bringing her off.
Scott makes it worse, forever inviting Stiles over to hang with them at his place when she really wanted to make out with him for a while, or letting his hands trail over Stiles’ shoulders whenever one of them is sitting down for more than ten seconds. Stiles stays up late helping Derek over the phone with his latest problem, all the way over on the other side of the country, and falls asleep at the table, knocking over the restaurant’s salt and pepper shakers as his head drops down. She wonders how it would feel to wake up in the middle of the night to see Stiles sleeping next to her, Scott’s hand warm around her waist.
“You have a problem,” Lydia tells her, eyeing the way Stiles’ hand curls around Scott’s shoulders and the light in their eyes as they look at each other.
Allison sighs.
Lydia slams a book down in front of her the next morning, looking almost as tired as Allison feels, though she hides it under a bright smile and a little more makeup than usual.
“The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures,” she reads aloud, pausing to read it again. “Polyamory?”
“While you were Googling ‘what to do when you’re in love with a boy who is not your boyfriend but who your boyfriend also loves’,” she stops, raising an eyebrow at the sudden flush taking over Allison’s cheeks, which just makes her blush more, “I was looking for a more practical method.”
She refuses to admit that that was exactly what she was Googling last night; polyamory had come up on the 20th or so page of results, but it seemed like it was mostly geared towards guys who wanted a girlfriend and several girls they were sleeping with. She just wanted to be able to have sex with her boyfriend again without feeling guilty about wishing Stiles was there with them, or wondering if Scott was thinking about Stiles too.
“I don’t know, Lydia,” she says sceptically, keeping her eyes on the title so she doesn’t look at Lydia and accidentally reveal how much she wants this to work out somehow. She’s spent too long keeping her thoughts a secret; she wouldn’t have said anything if Lydia hadn’t guessed first.
“Just talk to them about it,” Lydia says, squashing any arguments she might have made.
“You are way too invested in this,” she teases, picking up the book and feeling the weight of it in her hands. It feels heavier than it looks, but maybe that’s just because of the dread settling itself in her stomach. She knows she has to talk to them about it, because they can’t keep going on like this forever. It doesn’t mean she’s looking forward to it.
“I’m just sick of all the pining, it’s bad for my skin,” Lydia responds, hides her heart like she always does.
“Who’s pining?” Stiles asks as he slides into the seat opposite Allison. “And why’re you reading The Ethical Slut?” She flushes anew, scrambling to put the book in her bag
“Research.”
“Oh, another deadly creature of the night? No offense, buddy,” Stiles says, patting Scott on the shoulder. Scott just rolls his eyes fondly, going back to his food.
“What about me? Hello, banshee here,” Lydia says, looking slightly offended.
“I always knew you were deadly, Lydia,” he says, and Lydia looks satisfied, going back to tapping something out on her phone. Allison dares to hope that that conversation is diverted enough that she can bring up the book and its contents when she’s ready.
She isn’t so lucky.
“So what do you need The Ethical Slut for? Is there some kind of sex demon in town that makes you polyamorous?” Stiles asks, leaning forward interestedly. “I don’t think it’s got what you’re looking for then, it’s more of a how-to with feelings more than anything else.”
“You’ve read it?” she asks, not quite surprised.
“He stayed up all night until he finished, and then spent all of Biology talking about it until Harris gave us both a detention,” Scott interjects, a smile tugging at his lip.
“The first of many. I think that was when Harris decided I was his least favourite student in the world,” Stiles sighs nostalgically, poking at the hard lump of spaghetti on his plate.
“What are you researching?” Scott asks, genuinely interested, threading his fingers through hers and squeezing once. She smiles, feeling stronger for his touch.
“Talk to you about it tonight?” she asks, feeling slightly sick again at his nod. “Both of you,” she says, pushing aside the doubt and looking directly at Stiles. She doesn’t want to mess anything up, but then she’s never been one to give up on something before she’s even tried. She’s stronger than that.
“Not Lydia?” Scott asks.
“I have better things to do,” Lydia says, flipping her hair over one shoulder, but as she gets up to meet Aiden her hand brushes Allison’s arm for just a second too long, and it’s comforting to know that her best friend thinks she’s going to do this right.
She and Scott and Stiles pile into her bedroom, lounging on the floor like they’ve fallen into the habit of doing, and they’re halfway through their rewatch of Batman Begins when Allison blurts out what’s been haunting her mind since they left the cafeteria.
“I want you to be my boyfriend,” she says, keeping her eyes on the flickering images but directing her words toward Stiles.
“Uh, Allison, Scott is your boyfriend,” Stiles pipes up, pressing pause so they don’t miss anything, though they’ve seen it dozens of times. They already have plans to watch the last of the trilogy when it comes out.
“Allison?” The movie’s stopped; she doesn’t have an excuse to ignore Scott’s question.
“Scott is my boyfriend,” she agrees, choosing her words carefully. “But I want you to be my boyfriend too, Stiles. And Scott’s boyfriend, if both of you want that.”
“You want the three of us to date?” Stiles repeats, looking like something heavy has recently hit him on the back of the head.
“Yeah,” she admits. She will not blush, she will not lie and say it’s nothing. She’s better than that, and now that the idea has been introduced to her, she can’t lie to herself about how much she wants it.
“I kind of thought the three of us were almost dating,” Scott admits, reaching out to stop Stiles’ fingers tapping on his knee. He leaves his hand there, and she can see the moment Stiles stiffens and looks at her, like something they have always done has been made wrong by her presence.
“No, it’s okay,” she rushes to reassure him. “I want that too.”
“You want to hold Scott’s hand?” he asks, like he’s being deliberately obtuse just to frustrate her.
“No, I want to hold yours,” she says, stares directly at him until he starts blinking so rapidly his eyes water.
There’s a long silence.
“Okay,” Stiles says, and Scott shifts so she can crawl over his legs to Stiles. She feels awkward, like she’s already doing this wrong - the book had said she should talk to her partner first before talking to the other person she wants to date, but she hadn’t known that before she invited Scott and Stiles over.
Stiles holds out his free hand, palm up, and she slides her fingers into the spaces between his, curling them until they’re palm to palm. It’s nice, Stiles’ long fingers touching the centre of the back of her hand. She can feel them trembling.
“Is this okay?” she asks him, asks Scott, asks both of them because she needs them to be okay with this.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Scott echoes, grinning sideways at Allison, his eyes crinkling, and she feels some of the tension in her shoulders dissipate.
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it first,” she whispers to him, feeling like speaking normally would break the strange kind of tension that has settled over the three of them. She’s glad her father is out.
“It’s okay. I- after lunch, I went to the library and checked out the book you were reading. I’ve had a bit of time to come to terms with it,” Scott admits, and she can see him looking at Stiles now.
“Do you want it?” Stiles speaks up suddenly, when before he had been sitting silently, clearly contemplative.
“Yes, I-“ she starts, breaks off when he shakes his head.
“Not- Scott. Do you want it- me? Us?” Stiles asks, squeezing the hand that’s holding Allison’s.
“I’ve loved you since we were eight years old and you held my hand because Jackson made fun of my asthma. And I love Allison too, but I didn’t think I could have both of you.” Scott shakes his head, seems to gather his thoughts. “But if you both want to, I want to try. It can’t be worse than Kate walking in the first time I got your bra off, right Allison?” he adds, breaking into a grin, and the mention of Kate hurts less and less every time.
“I’m pretty sure she knew exactly what I’d just been doing,” she agrees, and squeezes Stiles’ hand when he starts to look a little left out. It really isn’t going to be easy to make this work, what with all their different connections, but she thinks they can do it. She doesn’t believe in faith, but she does believe in werewolves, and if those can exist she’s pretty sure she can be in a triad relationship with one.
They sit in silence again for a while, before Allison breaks it again. She wants to make sure they’re all on the same page with this. She’s the one who introduced the idea, she should be the one responsible for making sure it’s done right.
“So the book says we should talk about what we want.”
“I want both of you,” Scott says immediately.
“I can’t even think properly right now, both of you want to date me and potentially have sex with me, I thought we were going to have to deal with another life or death situation!” Stiles sounds slightly hysterical by the end.
“Sex sounds like a good idea to me,” Scott says, raising an eyebrow at her until she giggles.
“I want to see if he talks more or less while you’re blowing him,” she ventures, watching Stiles’ face turn red.
“Don’t!” he chokes out, and she sobers. Scott looks guilty too, when she sneaks a glance at him.
“Sorry, sorry, we didn’t mean to-“
“I’m a sixteen year old virgin who’s in love with two ridiculously gorgeous people, how did you think I was going to react?” Stiles demands, but he seems more comfortable now, like her and Scott’s teasing broke the ice. Good.
“So do you want to have sex with us?” Allison asks.
“Are you really asking me that?”
“Just us?” Scott questions, sounding curious and a little worried.
“Yeah, just you. I don’t think I could handle more than that,” Stiles admits. Allison knows what he means; even though she was the one who brought it up, it’s still overwhelming, that everything she had tried to hide had bubbled to the surface and now she was getting exactly what she wanted without hurting anyone. The pure simplicity of them both wanting her, wanting each other, threatens to make her head swim.
“Just you two,” Scott confirms, and she smiles.
“Works for me,” she grins, considers. “We can talk about it again later, if we want to,” she offers, groping for one of the many pens she leaves scattered over her floor so she can write it down. She’ll be better prepared next time.
“Okay. Okay. So we’re really doing this, are we?” Stiles asks, looking like he’s going to start babbling. Again.
“Permission to kiss our boyfriend, Scott?” she asks, cocking her head theatrically at him.
“I don’t know,” Scott muses, eyes glittering with amusement. He thinks on it, drawing it out long enough that Stiles’ fingers start tapping again, despite Scott’s hand still covering them. “Stiles, what do you think?”
Stiles tilts his head towards her, but before she can lean forward, he licks his lips and starts talking again.
“Just warning you, I’ve only kissed, like, three people before, and one of them was a literal life or death situation and the other was Lydia, so I don’t know if I’m good at this or not, so sorry in advance-“
“I’m going to kiss you now,” she says firmly, pulling his head down and pressing their lips together. He’s right, he doesn’t have a lot of practice at this, but he learns how to let his lips give way under hers and when to push back, and she’s just considering opening her mouth when Scott clears his throat.
“I’ve waited eight years, Allison,” he tells her, and she grins.
“Then you can wait a bit longer,” she tosses back, kisses Stiles again. She isn’t aware that Scott has moved until she feels him pressing kisses to the column of her neck, lower and lower until he hits the spot where she’s most ticklish, making her squirm and let g of Stiles.
“Can I kiss you now?” Scott asks, mock politely, though she can feel him shaking with laughter behind her. Stiles nods, looking more tentative than he had with her. Also more silent.
Scott leans forward, and then they’re kissing over her shoulder. It seems a little awkward and stiff at first, but she can see it when they give in, start falling into familiar patterns of give and take until Stiles’ hands are clutching at her thighs.
“This is the best idea ever,” Stiles says when they break apart, looking flushed out and breathless and well kissed. She wonders what he’ll look like after they’ve been making out for a while; probably worse, and incredibly fuckable. She looks forward to finding out.
Scott starts kissing her neck again, and she puts her hand back automatically to steady herself. The blare of the television makes her jump, and she looks automatically to see Batman staring dramatically just left of the camera.
“Wanna finish the movie?” Scott asks the both of them, and she considers just giving up and making out with both of them right now until they’re all flushed and sweaty and well on their way to naked, but-
She wants to take it slow, too, so she nods, presses an awkwardly angled kiss to Scott’s lips before rearranging the three of them so they can see better. She rests her head on Stiles’ shoulder, leaning against Scott.
Stiles fake yawns, stretching his arm so it settles across her shoulders and touches Scott, his long arms reaching him easily. She giggles, kisses his jaw just because she can, and settles down to watch a movie with her boyfriends.
Her boyfriends. It sounds strange, really, like it’ll take a while to get used to, but she can feel it settling into her bones already. She really needs to thank Lydia.