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Stiles was used to getting a reaction out of people, some believed it was his goal in life to annoy every living person just enough to get a reaction before moving on to the next target. Some of the time, he ended up making a new friend but more often he ended up with another name on the roster of the “Stiles Stilinski Haters Club”.
He seemed to go through life not letting anything bother him and he would shrug off the angry looks and move on without another thought, but in reality, he would go home and wonder what he’d done wrong that time. He didn’t really want people to be annoyed by him, but he really didn’t know how else to go about making friends; it had worked so well with Scott, it had to work with everyone else, right?
After the day he’d driven Jackson Whittemore to the point of knocking him on his ass on the lacrosse field, something changed inside Stiles and everyone noticed it, but no one knew what to do about it. Scott tried to behave like nothing was different but found himself carrying the conversations more often; an easy task now that he was dating Allison Argent and wanted to do nothing more than to talk about her. Lydia Martin kept challenging him with math problems or bizarre trivia questions. Stiles would answer the questions but not in the same rambling way he’d done in the past. She’d frown as he walked away, shoulders slumped like he wanted to disappear. Even Coach noticed something and tried to talk to him in his insane way but Stiles just nodded and moved on with his suicide drills.
This new Stiles became the norm and soon everyone just let him exist, walking on eggshells around him but not trying to get a reaction any longer. He moved through his days focusing on schoolwork and his nights playing video games with Scott. Eventually, he started smiling again and even called a truce with Jackson.
Then Derek Hale came to school.
He’d been homeschooled, like his sister before him. Everyone knew about the Hales and expected Derek to start on the first day of freshman year, as his sisters and cousins before him had. Instead, he didn’t appear until junior year, the same day as his younger sister Cora started freshman year. There were a ton of rumors and Stiles’ curiosity was peaked, especially when he got a good look at Derek for the first time in years.
As luck would have it, Derek was assigned as Stiles’ chemistry partner. They exchanged greetings and then Stiles buried his nose in his book, ignoring Derek’s attempts to talk to him and ask about the school. Halfway through class, Derek gave up and muttered something under his breath about rude assholes.
That night, Stiles told his dad about Derek starting at the school and being assigned to him and his father asked if he was nice to the boy. Stiles shrugged. “I treat him like I treat everyone.”
His father frowned at him. “Son, you know he almost lost his entire family a couple of years ago,” he said and Stiles’ head jerked up, eyes wide. “The Hale fire. You snooped through the case files for weeks.”
He remembered it. The fire had destroyed the Hale property but fortunately, the family had been called out of town for a family emergency leaving the house empty. His father had discovered that the fire had been set by a woman, Kate Argent, Allison’s aunt. She’d been institutionalized after being arrested, swearing the Hales were monsters and she was trying to keep the world safe. Stiles hadn’t even put two and two together as that being the reason why Derek didn’t start freshman year at the high school.
His father watched him, watched his face go through emotions, changing from the blank expression he’d been wearing for so long and wondering if maybe this was the turning point; if this would be when he got his goofball, loving son back.
Stiles laid in bed that night staring at the ceiling, thinking over the past few years, thinking over the comments and random facts and emotions he’d kept pressed down into his stomach. He could feel them churning and twisting, fighting to come out and as he drifted off, a single tear fell down his cheek. His mind was on Derek and everything he had been through.
The next day, Stiles was sitting on his stool in chemistry when Derek walked in, hesitating before sitting down. They kept looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes and just before the bell rang, Stiles cleared his throat.
He’d been thinking all morning what he would say to Derek and had only come up with, “Hi,” but when he opened his mouth to say it, “On Good Friday in 1930, the BBC reported, ‘There is no news.’ Instead, they played piano music,” tumbled out instead and he slapped a hand out of his mouth, eyes wide and horrified.
Derek stared at him for a moment, his tongue poking out between his lips before they twisted up into a bright grin and he started to chuckle. The chuckle quickly gave way to a guffaw and he pressed one hand to the tabletop and the other to his stomach. Stiles stared back at him, something warm waking up in his stomach and flowing through him until he was spitting laughter into his own hand.
He eventually dropped his hand and let his laughter fill the room. He didn’t even notice his other classmates looking over with smiles on their faces, even Jackson seemed to give out a sigh of relief as he filmed the incident and sent it off to Scott and Lydia. It had taken years, but they got their Stiles back.