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Stiles didn’t have a middle name, but “accident prone,” could have been a good one for him. He always thought his parents must have left a vacancy there in his unfortunate name because they knew he would quickly wrack up a variety of injuries and broken objects during his life. He was like a tornado that slipped on a banana peel, a baby deer learning to walk on ice, a… well you got the picture. Even worse, he was so squeamish around blood, that every injury was just him fighting for his life.
1. Stiles passed out on his first day of Kindergarten when he tripped on his long backpack straps. He remembered his mom sending him out of the house for the day, tightening his backpack straps as tight as they could go so the bag wouldn’t drag along the ground. Stiles loved his Power Rangers backpack, and so it hurt even worse when he ran off the bus, buzzing with excitement to see his teacher and make new friends and learn new things. He couldn’t wait to see what kids had on their backpacks, and see where he could sit at lunch, and figure out what games they would play at break time, and-
And that was when Stiles stepped on that extra little piece of fabric that now hung down from his tightened straps. He tumbled forward, scraping up his knees, gravel going inside of his palms. Stiles didn’t cry, he never was one to cry. He got off his hands and knees and sat for a second, collecting his thoughts and deciding that he would go to his teacher and everything would be fine. But, then he took one look at the blood in his palms, and thought a little too hard about what would happen if all the gravel and rocks got stuck in his body forever and he passed out cold on the pavement.
When he woke up at the nurse’s office an undetermined amount of time later, his cuts all bandaged up and covered with neosporin, he looked over and saw another little kid sitting in a chair across the room, clutching a weird little tube in his hand. “What’s that?” Stiles asked, lacking tact from the very beginning.
The other boy looked at him and then back at the thing in his hands. “It’s something for my asthma. I squeeze this little button and air comes out,” the boy explained and Stiles nodded, not knowing what asthma was but not caring enough to ask.
“That’s weird. I’ve never seen that before. Wanna see my backpack?” Stiles asked, looking around for his deadly backpack and finding it next to him on the floor. “I tripped on it and that’s why I’m here.”
“I love Power Rangers!” the other boy said and Stiles grinned.
“We are best friends now. My name is Stiles.” The other boy said his name was Scott and the two of them were inseparable after that, and often rehashed that story to new friends over the years.
“Hey, being clumsy ended up being good for something,” Stiles would always say.
2. One of the first supernatural related injuries Stiles ever got was when he was doing something incredibly stupid: falling out of a tree.
He had been instructed (see: forced) by Lydia to be on lookout on this particular day. Though Stiles was the one who had created the plan to catch the rogue Kanima that had wandered its way into Beacon Hills, Lydia argued that he would do much better keeping an eye out for the Kanima Master than standing at the ready, waiting to attack. Which, she was right because she was Lydia and she was always right, but Stiles had been hoping to finally impress her with his skills. He had been trying to be a little more graceful and deadly when it came to combat.
“You always forget that your weapon of choice is wielding a baseball bat. This is not the Dodgers,” Lydia said, and that was that. Everyone had agreed with Lydia once she gave that argument, leaving Stiles to shamefully climb up the tree right next to the school.
“Oh yeah just shove Stiles to the side. Never let him live up to his full potential. I’m Lydia and I’m brilliant and beautiful and my fatal flaw is I can’t see that Stiles can handle himself and be useful,” Stiles complained out loud to himself, picking at one of the leaves on the tree. He was more versed than most at tree climbing from his years of horseplaying with Scott, which was another point for Lydia’s logic. No one factored in Stiles’ attention span however and after the initial drive to pay attention and do his job to the best of his ability wore off, he was burnt out after half an hour of waiting.
Which led to Stiles beginning to climb from branch to branch, deciding which was the best place for him to view the area around him. Most of the branches looked pretty sturdy, and he tried his best to avoid the ones that were not, but he slipped up and- snap!
Stiles went tumbling down and landed on the pavement, all of his weight slamming down on his left arm. The sickening crack sound as he landed almost made Stiles hurl. He didn’t wanna look at his arm, half expecting it to look like Harry’s did in the second Harry Potter movie. “Are you okay dude?” Scott said, jogging over to him from where he had been hiding down the road.
“Does it look like I’m fucking okay? I fell like a million stories down from the top of a big ass tree, Jesus,” Stiles got out, while rolling over onto his back.
“Do you think you can walk it off?” Derek asked, coming over from the opposite direction. Stiles felt his cheeks burn in embarrassment. At least Lydia wasn’t around either, or else it would be every hot person he had ever had embarrassing thoughts about in the immediate vicinity during one of his stupidest injuries ever.
“Walk it off- Derek have you lost your mind? You don’t know how unfair it is that I am friends with all of you super strong, super durable fuckers and I am sitting here with my vulnerable body. Running with wolves is literally the worst,” Stiles groaned, clutching his arm. “You guys suck so bad. I didn’t even want to get on that tree.”
In the end, they didn’t get the Kanima Master that night. But Stiles could add a broken arm to the list of injuries he had procured throughout his life. He just hoped he was all healed up for lacrosse season.
3. Lacrosse itself was not without injuries. Stiles knew this. Still, nothing like a ball to the eye to remind you that maybe, you should have gotten into something easier and less life threatening, like chess or dungeons and dragons or something like that. But no, he had to choose a game that required skill and dexterity and resulted in millions of injuries a year. Stiles was obviously very well known for his great choices.
“You know you’re supposed to catch the ball with your stick, right Stilinski?” Isaac teased after the game that nearly killed Stiles. The usual suspects all sat around in a diner in Beacon Hills, laughing and waiting for their plates of greasy breakfast food to arrive (thank God for all day omelettes and pancakes).
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up,” Stiles said, clutching the bag of peas to his throbbing face that Kira had so kindfully supplied after a quick run to the supermarket. “You know I literally could have lost my eye. Are none of you concerned that we were almost down one eye? We can’t afford to lose eyes around here!”
“Oh come on. It was not going to be that bad,” Malia said. “Besides, if you lost an eye it wouldn’t make much of a difference to us. You could still read and research and do.... whatever it is you do to help us out.”
“You could get a cool eye patch if you needed to,” Scott supplied and Stiles rolled his good eye at that one.
“There’s a lot I can pull off, but an eye patch is not one of them. I have so few good physical aspects about me,” Stiles complained, as the waitress came over with their plates of food, “and you want me to give up one of my eyes?”
“Oh what ever would we do without our pack heartthrob,” Lydia replied sarcastically, flipping her hair over her shoulder.
Stiles scoffed. “Hey, I am truly hurt that none of you are taking this as seriously as I am! I am easily the most expendable member of this group with the smallest chance of regeneration of body parts. What would you guys do without my charm and wits?” Stiles set down the bag of peas to begin shoveling curly fries into his mouth and everyone gasped. “Ah shit what?”
“Dude, you’re so swollen,” Scott said, his face twisted up in disgust.
“Yeah no shit I am swollen. I was attacked brutally with a ball by a player from a team that looks like they were created in a lab and bottle fed steroids since birth. Now can you all give me a little sympathy?” Stiles asked. “It’s fucking killing me and I want to eat my pancakes and fries and milkshake in peace.”
Only minimal teasing persisted after everyone realized how tragic Stiles looked with his black and blue eye, but Stiles continued to ham it up, complaining about how bad it looked and how much it hurt. He needed everyone to feel sorry for him, to soften the blow when he asked for someone to spot him for his dinner, because he realized he had totally forgotten his wallet at home. He could at least play up his pain if it meant free food.
4. The summer following Stiles’ college graduation, he spent all his time with Derek. It was a frankly embarrassing amount of time, considering they weren’t dating and Stiles had begun harboring intense feelings for Derek yet again. Welcome to hell part two but this time he was an adult and actually got to know Derek and was like actually in capital L burning love with Derek. It was not just a dumb high school crush anymore. He was convinced it was going nowhere though, even if sometimes Derek looked at him in a funny way, and not the normal irritated look he gave him when Stiles did something dumb or made a shitty joke. Stiles was not gonna trick himself into thinking anything would come from this, because Derek could do so much better than him, and it would be so embarrassing to even entertain the idea of Derek wanting to go out with him.
When Stiles wasn’t lazing around with Derek or prepping for graduate school in the fall, he was organizing a weekend trip to a nearby beach because they all needed to link up and have some time together. With everyone’s schedules, it was hard to get everyone on board with dropping responsibilities for three days, but they managed to find time the first week in August to all pack up their bags and stay in some overpriced beach house.
The house was nice, they bought enough food and liquor to feed an army, and Stiles felt really pleased about the whole endeavor. The first night went by real well, everyone alternating between drinking, smoking, playing some Mario Kart, and making some s’mores. Though they went to bed pretty late, everyone was up and at ‘em before noon for a beach day.
“How have you not gotten with that man yet?” Lydia asked Stiles, while they, the two resident pale bitches, laid under the umbrella. Stiles scoffed, but when he saw Lydia not taking her eyes off her book and only raising a judgy perfect eyebrow in his direction, he decided he would have to answer her sometime. Lydia always got the answers she wanted.
“There’s a million reasons Lydia, all of which are the same reasons that we never worked out,” Stiles said, groaning and picking at the sand, watching Isaac, Derek, Liam, and Malia engaging in an enthusiastic game of frisbee, in which it looked like everyone was trying to follow some semblance of rules except for Malia. “Resident expert on going outside of his league over here.”
Lydia put down her book and gave Stiles a look that was a mixture of pity and judgement. “Stiles, we never worked out because I am a judgemental bitch with raging daddy issues. You are too sweet for me. That man, however, would move the moon if you asked him to and it’s a shame you are not taking advantage of that. I can’t believe you managed to keep a lid on this secret all summer while I was in Rome.”
“Not much to keep a lid on when nothing’s going on. So what if I think he’s hot? You can go up to any woman on this beach and they would totally agree with me. It’s not some grand secret coming from your scheming brain Lydia,” Stiles replied. He stood up, tired of the conversation. He and Lydia were like peas in a pod, and he would consider her one of his closest friends, but he was not in the mood for the soul-baring intimacy of sharing his feelings with the girl he had a crush on for like a billion years. “I am going to go window shop and if you want to come with me I suggest you-” Stiles did not get to finish his thought because he got slammed in the chest with a frisbee with such force that it had to be thrown by a were-creature of some kind. Meaning it was launched by one of his delinquent friends.
Stiles landed backwards like he was in a cartoon or something and got the wind knocked out of him. “Which one of you fuckers did that?” Stiles managed to gasp out, getting the exact feeling he normally got when he was having a panic attack. Fuck, this hurt so bad.
“Sorry,” he heard Liam say in a quiet voice, while Isaac snickered and Malia rushed over to grab the frisbee and took off again yelling, “It’s mine!”
“Why didn’t you jump in front of the frisbee to save me? Fuck!” Stiles exclaimed as Derek walked over to him. The guy actually looked worried for him, and Stiles was happy he was incompacitated so he didn’t have to see Lydia’s reaction to this.
“I would have,” Derek mumbled before crouching down next to him. “Sit up and take deep breaths,” he instructed and Stiles tried to do so.
“Solar plexus syndrome,” Lydia commented and rubbed Stiles back as he breathed in and out.
“You guys have GOT to stop playing like such animals. I know that you are all half animal but come on. I am so fragile,” Stiles finally said and Derek gave him the slightest twitch of his lips in a smile. It made Stiles’ cheeks flush a little, and he was happy for once he was probably already pretty red from the sun and lack of breathing moments ago.
“There’s a reason I’m not the alpha anymore. Do you think I can control these kids?” Derek asked before standing up and jogging back over to catch the frisbee, blocking an unsuspecting Liam.
“Not a word,” Stiles said to Lydia, before he laid down and covered his face with his arm, trying to stop his heart from beating erratically in his chest.
“My lips are sealed. Just know I am having so many thoughts about this right now.”
5. When Stiles was 23, he moved into Derek’s second house that Derek had bought close to where Stiles was getting his doctorate in mythological studies. They had been together for a little less than a year, but it felt like they had known each other a lifetime and with the end of Stiles’ lease coming up (and him spending less and less time at his place), it only made sense to pull the metaphorical trigger and live together.
Derek was in Beacon Hills for the day, but Stiles was quickly running out of days to move his shit into Derek’s place, so Stiles loaded up his jeep and drove across town to Derek’s house and let himself in with the key Derek had given him months ago. He had only a few boxes (all of his old furniture would be going to Goodwill because Derek was an adult with oodles of money who had actually good shit to sit on and eat off of) and so the moving in process wasn’t hard.
The unpacking process was a different story. Stiles laid around on Derek’s expensive ass couch for like three hours, bouncing back and forth between playing his switch, goofing around on his phone, and napping. As the sun began setting, Stiles felt guilty enough to peel himself off the couch and begin unpacking various memorabilia, clothes, and pictures.
He slapped on his favorite playlist and bobbed along to the music, making space for all his objects and secretly swooning when he saw his Back to the Future box set sitting comfortably next to Derek’s complete collection of X Files on DVD. The way their lives were going to be meshed together made Stiles feel all types of gushy on the inside.
So gushy, he didn’t even notice the broken glass in one of the boxes (R.I.P. his Batman mug from Scott), and when he shoved his unsuspecting hand into the box, he was met with a fistfull of glass. “Ah shit,” Stiles cursed, horrified to pull his hand out of the box and look at the bloody clusterfuck he had created. He knew this was going to be a pass out moment if he had ever seen one. He was weighing his options of calling 9-1-1, calling Scott, or suffering in silence for the rest of eternity with his hand in the box, when the front door unlocked.
“Hey Der. In the kitchen,” Stiles shouted out, wondering what Derek was gonna say about this newest shenanigan.
“What did you do?” Derek said, strolling into the kitchen.
“How do you know I did something? Maybe I am just telling you where I am because I missed you and want to see my handsome boyfriend. Have you ever thought about that?” Stiles replied.
Derek snorted. “You are always up to something.” Stiles thought for a second, but honestly couldn’t come up with a good argument. Instead, he just held up his hand, still not looking at the damage. “I leave you alone for a day,” Derek grumbled in response and stomped off.
Stiles sat down at the island in the kitchen and held his hand over a napkin, not wanting to totally screw up Derek’s gorgeous grey countertops. The man in question quickly returned loaded with a pair of tweezers, some bandaids, cotton pads, and rubbing alcohol. “Oh my hero,” Stiles teased and Derek rolled his eyes.
“If not me, then who,” Derek said in response and Stiles giggled.
“Hey, being with me is just a series of cleaning up after my messes. It’s part of the contract buddy,” Stiles reminded Derek, and he rolled his eyes. However, even with his stern eyes and complaining, Derek continued working on removing the glass from Stiles’ hand. He gently held Stiles’ hand, his rough hands held steady as he plucked out glass and deposited it a safe distance away. It made Stiles’ insides twist a little. He didn’t think he would ever get over the way Derek treated him, the way he could match him quip for quip with no mercy, while also making sure that he felt cared for.
The two continued bantering while Derek worked his way through patching up Stiles. Derek talked about his day, complaining about his uncle (“You would think he could keep his hands to himself,” Derek muttered darkly when he spoke about the female bartender Peter couldn’t stop making eyes at), while Stiles gave an in depth recap of how far he had gotten in Super Mario Galaxy (“You have to watch me play some more of it dude, it is so beautiful), and once Derek had ensured that Stiles was all good to go (he used his special werewolf eyes and scanned Stiles’ hand fifty times over before he was satisfied), he sterilized the area and bandaged him up real good.
“Oh, good as new. One day I will return the favor. But not today. Let’s order some Thai food,” Stiles suggested, standing up and yawning. His hand stung a bit, but he was satisfied knowing he was glass free and had not passed out in the process. Stiles bent down and kissed the top of his boyfriend’s head. “Thank you. I’ll make sure I get an order of massaman curry just for you.”
+1- When Stiles finally returned the favor: Stiles was feeling pleased that he had weaseled his way out of cooking tonight. Both he and Derek were varying degrees of terrible at it, and so it was often an argument who would cook, no matter how infrequent it was. Stiles tried not to pull out the stops often (especially since Derek was wrapped around his finger), but all it took was a little batting of his eyelashes and Derek sighed and opened up a recipe book Kira and Scott had given them as a gift last Christmas.
Stiles dicked around in the living room for a bit, already fantasizing about the couscous and chicken that Derek was attempting to make, when Derek let out an, “Oh fuck.”
“Come on Der. How did you manage to screw this one up? It said the recipe was for beginn- oh shit,” Stiles said, stopping in shock when he saw his boyfriend standing there, a knife in one hand and the tip of his pointer finger almost hanging off on the other. He immediately felt queasy, but forced himself to stay as chill as possible about the situation.
“You really didn’t want to have to be the one to cook tonight huh,” Stiles joked, leaning against the doorway to their kitchen, looking everywhere but at Derek’s hand.
Derek shot him a nasty look and replied, “If only you would cook tonight like you said you would. Stupid carrots will be the death of me.”
“And you’ll be fine! You regenerate in like two seconds. This is not even the worst injury you’ve had this month. Remember that bullet from the assassin?” Regardless, Stiles walked away and began rummaging in the bathroom for some neosporin and band aids to stop Derek’s bleeding, not just so Stiles didn’t pass out but also so that Derek wouldn’t bleed anywhere.
“How could I forget,” Derek remarked dryly, continuing to bleed all over the carrots that they were supposed to be having with dinner.
“Come here sour wolf. I’ll patch you up,” Stiles said when he returned to the kitchen, rolling his eyes. “I feel stupid even wasting a band aid on this one. We only have three left.”
“Stiles my finger is nearly chopped off.”
“Hey, I consider this payback for all those years in which I was put in harm’s way, worrying about our band of merry wolves. And I told you already. In like three hours your finger will be healed, good as new.” Still, Stiles wrapped up Derek’s finger (with only minimal gagging, thank you), and placed it back in place as good as Stiles could. He admired his work for a second, and wrapped the finger again in some gauze he found, making sure his appendage would stay in place until it healed back into one. And, because he was feeling particularly charitable, he even finished dinner, sans carrots, making a mental note to remind Derek of this next time he tried to push the cooking onto him.
“You make a good nurse,” Derek noted when they got ready for bed five hours later, wriggling his finger that had fused back together, like Stiles had predicted. “Not even a scar.”
“Years of being a patient makes you learn a thing or two. It also helps when your patient has supernatural healing abilities,” Stiles said, kissing Derek, and admiring his handy work. “I would say there’s plenty more where that comes from, but honestly, the next person to get an injury will most likely be me.”