Chapter Text
Stiles shifts carefully on the hood of his car, wincing at the creaking noise it makes. The jeep is too old and the hood is too beaten up to comfortably support both his and Scott’s weight, but they’ve been doing this for so many years that he can’t imagine not doing things this way, driving out to the preserve late at night when the moon and stars are bright and squeezing in next to each other on the hood.
The songs haven’t changed much, either, since the time back in Stiles’ sophomore year, when he proudly announced to Scott that he had his license and the keys, officially, and that they were sneaking out with them.
(they both knew that Stiles’ dad had a late shift and wouldn’t notice Stiles being gone, so it wasn’t really sneaking, but there were some things that didn’t need to be spoken out loud. lingering, worried glances gave way to nudging shoulders and fingers tangled together and music sung just a little too loud and out of key to soothe the hurt and loneliness)
Their taste in music never overlapped very much; Stiles always liked music that was loud and abrasive and overstimulating, and Scott was just as happy to turn on a top 40 station and hum along absently.
Fall Out Boy, though, was a revelation, Stiles talking Scott’s mom into driving them to Best Buy immediately after the first time they heard heard Sugar, We’re Going Down and met eyes and knew.
They’d found the soundtrack for their teenage years.
Now, they’re 19-year-old college students home for the weekend who can’t let old habits die.
The air in the preserve has always felt cooler to Stiles than the rest of Beacon Hills, especially at night. Everything is still oppressively hot, sweat making his plaid overshirt stick to his skin, but there always seems to be a bit of a breeze rustling through the trees. He isn’t sure if he only notices it in the preserve because it’s the only place he actually sits still, or if there’s some unexplainable magic there that makes the trees whisper secrets at night.
They can’t see as many of the stars as they used to be able to. Every time Stiles comes here during the summer he feels like the trees are marking his absence by stretching their leaves slightly higher towards the sun. He has clear memories of when some were saplings, when he was a boy, clumsily stumbling over his feet to try to keep up with his healthy mother, her high, clear laughter filling the air. The trees are bigger and taller, now; not tall like the ancient oaks, but still enough to block out pinpricks of light in the sky.
The preserve has been his place for as long as he can remember. The only person he’s ever chosen to share it with is sitting next to him, legs spread as widely as he can get away with on the too-small car hood, absently singing out of key to the scratched CD playing from the Jeep.
It makes Stiles’ heart swell more than it should to hear Scott’s tuneless rendition of their favorite misheard lyrics. Most of what Scott does makes Stiles’ heart swell more than it should, but there’s something about being in the preserve at night that makes everything feel fuller.
“You sound like you’re thinking too much,” Scott says when the song ends. “There something you wanna talk about?”
Stiles almost waves him off and says it’s nothing, drops a joke about how he’s never had trouble talking. But Scott’s staring at him, face concerned and painfully earnest, and Stiles decides he deserves a more honest answer than that.
“Just thinking about us,” he says.
“Good thoughts?”
Stiles doesn’t know how he can have bad thoughts about them. Scott has been everything for him for a long time, his best friend and his brother, the only person he could always count on to be there whenever he needed him. Scott knows Stiles better than anyone, because he’s been there for every awkward, painful crisis of Stiles’ childhood and young adult life.
“Yeah,” Stiles tells him. “Just thinking about how great you are. Important to each other, and all.”
Scott nudges Stiles with his shoulder, but his grin is so warm and bright Stiles could probably see his dimples from the moon. “The most important.”
It would be so easy for Stiles to let it slip by, just one moment in a million in which the words were on the tip of his tongue and he bit them back.
“I love you,” Stiles blurts instead. He can already feel the anxiety build up. They’ve said it before, casual ‘love you, bros’ accompanying high fives and ‘I love you’s pressed into each other’s shoulders when everything was too much to take on alone.
This is different. This is an unbidden declaration of feelings, coming from a deeper place than just affection or gratitude.
“I love you, too,” Scott says simply, and Stiles can already feel the frustration starting to build up inside.
“No, I mean, like-”
“I know what you mean,” Scott says, reaching out and grabbing Stiles’ hand. “Not just friendship love, or family love.”
“Pretty sure you’re still confused,” Stiles says quickly, “or you would probably be a lot less chill about this? Because I mean like, boyfriend love? And we’ve been friends for a very long time, and I’ve been in love with you for a very long time, but you’re not freaking out about this at all?”
“Nope,” Scott says, grin growing.
“Oh my god,” Stiles says, and Scott laughs. Stiles wants to hit him, a little bit, because this is way bigger fucking news than Scott is making it seem, but he also wants to kiss Scott’s annoying, pretty face.
Scott beats him to it, pressing gently with his fingers to smooth out the frustrated wrinkles on Stiles’ forehead before sliding his hand down to cup Stiles’ cheek. He leans in slowly, giving Stiles time to back out. Stiles has never been good at waiting, though, and he’s already waited too damn long for this to do anything but shove his face forward, accidentally smushing noses with Scott and reducing them both to giggles before he gets his first, real kiss.
It takes ages for Stiles to get used to the idea of actually being Scott’s boyfriend.
He’s been aggressively single for so long that the idea of even having a boyfriend blows his mind. But he sees Scott now and can give him a hello kiss if he wants to, and he can hold Scott’s hand even when he doesn’t need comfort, just because Scott has small, smooth hands and Stiles wants to hold them.
Stiles lays awake the night he and Scott first kiss, running it over in his head, mumbling to himself, “I boyfriend love you,” embarrassed and relieved and happy.
He does dip for a long time into thinking about how terrifying it is, though. Scott was calm about it, but Stiles can’t help but consider the fact that things could go south so easily; they could not fit together quite right with the added pressure of dating, or Stiles could be the single worst boyfriend on the planet and Scott could get sick of him. Changing their relationship dynamic could complicate something that has always been easy and good for Stiles.
It could bring an end date. They could break up, and Stiles could lose the best friend he’s ever had.
But most of the time, that fades to the background, and Stiles isn’t actively thinking about himself as being in a relationship.
It doesn’t really start to sink in until Scott invites him on an actual date.
Not that he tells Stiles it is one, initially. He tries to be smooth about it, asking Stiles on the phone if he wants to grab something to eat. Stiles suggests Scott should come over so they can stay in and get takeout, like they normally would.
Scott has to tell him, “Stiles, I’m trying to ask you out,” before Stiles realizes what’s going on.
“Oh,” he says, glad he’s on the phone so Scott can’t see his cheeks pink up. “I should go shower, then, text me when you’re coming over.”
“I’ll be over in about an hour. You don’t have to get dressed up, we’ll go casual.”
“Perfect, that’s all I have in my closet here, anyway,” Stiles says. “See you then.”
The date is to the diner they always eat at, and both of them get their regular, which they share, just like they always do. Stiles thinks it should feel just like normal, just grabbing burgers and curly fries and talking with his best friend.
Stiles is a little nervous, though, and it makes him motormouth, which Scott, of course, knows means Stiles is nervous. He reaches across the table to grab one of Stiles’ hands, narrowly avoiding knocking down Stiles’ soda, but the tummy flutters Stiles gets, along with the fact that he’s trying to eat his burger with one hand, leave him dripping ketchup all over his jeans.
“We’re a disaster,” Stiles says, refusing to let go of Scott’s hand even as he dabs haphazardly at his pants with his napkin.
“We’re awesome,” Scott says.
Stiles finds that he doesn’t disagree.
Scott and Stiles go back to their shitty apartment and their shitty summer jobs. It’s only the summer after their freshman year, so neither of them has fancy internships, though Scott volunteers on the weekends at the animal clinic, and Deaton’s told him that next summer, if he’s still interested, they could hire him on. For now, they have jobs that, put together, make just enough to get the rent paid, keep something in their refrigerator, and get drunk every once in a while.
Their hours are long and changeable. Stiles always gets stuck with early morning shifts, which means dragging himself out of bed and drinking probably illegal amounts of coffee in order to be functioning, while Scott typically works afternoons and ends up staying late because his boss is an asshole. They always try to set aside one night every week, though, for date night, even if it’s just walking down the street to the burrito place at midnight or pulling up Netflix and making popcorn.
Stiles is happy.
He still gets nervous, sometimes. He can see himself spending the rest of his life with Scott, easily; but then again, he always could. It may have been easier, even, to picture that when they were just friends, because he could never imagine a future where he loses contact with Scott.
But there are parts of being with Scott that Stiles has always known would take some serious, thoughtful consideration. Stiles has known Scott is asexual since Scott started to figure it out himself, back around the time that Stiles discovered porn online. Even though he’s perfectly happy going without it for Scott, if Scott isn’t into it, Stiles also has spent large chunks of his life fixated on the idea of having sex with someone else, and it is something he wants.
Eventually, it’s something he’s going to have to talk to Scott about. He thinks Scott falls more along the lines of indifferent than sex-repulsed, but Stiles doesn’t know for certain, and he doesn’t want to make Scott feel guilty or uncomfortable, especially this early on in their relationship. Not when Stiles loves what they do have, everything feeling nice and close and intimate even without any dicks involved.
He pushes it off to deal with later.
Stiles gets bored when Scott isn’t around.
He has other friends, sure. But it’s summer, and a lot of his friends are home with their families instead of hanging out around college doing not much, and Stiles isn’t that social. He’s always preferred spending his time with Scott, when it comes down to it.
Nights are when he’s at his antsiest, too. After a long day at work, he’s irritable and understimulated, but too exhausted to actually do anything to make it better. He talks with his dad, sometimes, just to catch up and see how he’s doing. He and his dad have never been the chattiest with each other, though. There’s only so much they have to talk about.
So he goes online.
One night in early June, even just clicking around online isn’t enough, though. There are some days when he’s in the mood to hunker down and delve deep into something, to find everything he can about a subject, but this is not one of those times. He tries reading through article after article, hoping something will catch, but he’s just not really feeling it. Nothing is holding his attention, and he just ends up staring off into space, his mind wandering.
He needs to be around people, but he’s totally unwilling to leave his apartment, so he pulls up chatroulette.
The first few conversations are a wash. One of the guys hangs up the second he sees Stiles is a dude, and the next person starts rambling about football, which Stiles didn’t even know he could expect from someone on the internet.
When the next video chat starts up, though, Stiles knows it’s going to be a good one right off the bat.
“Just do it, that was the dare!” a voice in the background says, and there are loud, high-pitched giggles. There’s a brunette in front of the camera who looks conflicted; she’s biting her lip and looking out of the frame, toying with an empty shot glass. There’s a half-full bottle of vodka on the floor next to her.
“You did say the next cute one,” she says, glancing at Stiles. Stiles is hooked. A gorgeous girl calling him cute is enough to catch Stiles’ attention, mostly because it happens basically never. She sets the shot glass down and waves a goofy, finger-fluttering wave at him. “Hi there.”
Stiles can’t even respond before she’s reaching down and lifting her shirt off, a fluid, seamless motion that reveals a smooth stomach and a hot pink bra. Her face is flushed as she sets the shirt down on the ground next to her, and the others in the room get loud, giggling and tittering.
“Um…” Stiles says, trying very determinedly to look at her face and not her boobs (they’re on the smaller side, he can tell, it isn’t his fault that the color of the bra drew his attention right away). “Hi?”
She grins sheepishly, but she seems surprisingly comfortable just being in her bra. “Sorry, we’re playing truth or dare, and I picked dare when Malia was giving them out. Hers always get you to take your clothes off.”
“It sounds like you’re having fun,” Stiles says. Brown eyes, dimples. Dark brown hair. She’s very, very pretty, and Stiles is successfully convincing himself that he has plenty to look at that is not her cleavage.
“He’s trying so hard, look at him,” a vaguely nasally voice says. “He’s probably never seen boobs before.”
“Be nice,” the brunette says, looking Stiles over. “He’s trying to be sweet, aren’t you?”
Stiles’ tongue feels heavy in his head, so he nods, and there’s more tittering. The girl looks at him consideringly for a moment and then picks up the vodka. “You all refill, I’m gonna borrow the computer for a minute,” she says, holding the vodka out until a hand grabs it away. They all laugh, and Stiles thinks he hears someone make a joke about going shirtless into the bedroom with a boy, but he’s a lot more focused on the fact that when she picks up the computer to carry it, the camera’s aimed straight at her breasts.
Jesus.
Stiles feels like he should probably warn her, and he tentatively clears his throat, but there’s not much time until they’re in a bedroom, the computer on the bed and the girl leaning back against the wall.
“Sorry about that,” she says. “I love them, but they’re a bit much sometimes.”
“It’s fine,” Stiles says. “They seem like they know how to have a good time.”
“They’re very drunk,” she says, grinning. “Except Kira, who has to get up early for a gymnastics meet tomorrow and went to bed hours ago.”
She looks at Stiles and notices the way he’s still carefully avoiding ogling her. She blushes. “Whoops. I can grab a shirt?”
“That might be nice,” Stiles says. “Not that I don’t want to stare, because everything I can see is really nice, like, ten out of ten kind of nice. But I also don’t want to be rude and creepy and sit here staring at you, because-”
The girl laughs. “I don’t mind you staring,” she says lightly.
“I have a boyfriend,” Stiles blurts as she reaches onto the floor for a shirt. She stills for one, long moment, and he almost feels disappointed. He doesn’t know what’s going on exactly, besides the fact that she is really attractive and quite possibly flirting with him, but he feels like it is something he should probably feel guilty about.
“Oh,” she says, blushing as she slides her sleeves into a shirt. “I didn’t…”
“No, I… I mean, like…” Stiles starts.
“It’s totally-”
The room is silent for a second, and she starts to giggle.
“This just got a little awkward,” Stiles says, but he starts to grin, too, because there’s something about Allison’s bright, easy laughter that’s contagious. Tension and awkwardness that had been building up fizzles away, and Stiles relaxes. “Redo?”
“Sounds good to me,” she says, grinning. “I’m Allison.”
“Stiles,” he responds, “nice to meet you.”
They end up talking for almost two hours, and they only stop because a redhead (the nasally voice from earlier) comes into the room and tells Allison it’s time for them to go to bed. Stiles and Allison clicked really well, and Stiles decides he doesn’t want to stop talking to her, so they quickly exchange numbers before ending the call.
Stiles starfishes out on his bed, smiling to himself. Allison is funny and smart. She asked questions about Scott, cooing over a photo Scott’s mom took of them when they moved into their apartment at the beginning of the school year. He would’ve showed her something more recent, but it turned out that the only pictures of them both that Stiles had of them from the last few months are poorly-lit selfies from nights out with Scott’s head halfway in the frame.
They swapped roommate stories, Allison talking about her quad that she shares with her three best friends and about how roommates falling in love must be a Thing, because she could never forget the first time she came home from class to find Malia on top of Kira on the sofa in the living room.
He sends Allison a text with way too many exclamation points in it, and she responds quickly with way too many emoticons. Stiles thinks this is going to work. They’re going to make great friends, especially if they mostly communicate via text, and he doesn’t have to be reminded of how attractive she is on a regular basis.
When Scott comes home at two in the morning, Stiles is still wide awake, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom. He wriggles over to make space for Scott in the bed and to wrap his arms around him.
“You seem like you’re in a much better mood now,” Scott comments. “Have a good night?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says happily, kissing Scott on the cheek. “Tell you ‘bout it in the morning, ‘kay?”
Scott snuggles up to Stiles and wraps an arm around him. “Love you.”
Stiles is pretty sure that hearing that will always make him melt. “Love you, too.”
It’s fun telling Scott stories, because Scott is the most active listener that Stiles has ever met. He recounts his first conversation with Allison, arms flailing as he talks about how her friends had her take her shirt off and about the awkwardness before he and Allison started to actually genuinely talk to each other. Scott laughs at all the right moments, and when Stiles finishes up, he grins.
“Sounds like you made a new friend,” he comments, and Stiles enthusiastically agrees.
“I woke up to a text from her already. I know it’s not, like… we probably aren’t going to be best friends in real life or anything, but I just have a really, really good feeling about her. She’s emoji trash and she actually laughs at my Star Wars jokes because she’s seen it, and I like her a lot.”
“I’m really glad,” Scott says warmly, and Stiles is deeply relieved. He wasn’t sure how Scott would react; if Scott were someone different, he could have easily been uncomfortable with the fact that his boyfriend was so obviously into this girl right from the start, and he could’ve easily told Stiles he wasn’t sure about Stiles talking to her.
But it’s Scott, and he’s so happy that Stiles has found someone he enjoys talking to, that he has a good feeling about, that he enthusiastically supports Stiles.
It makes Stiles feel like the luckiest boy in the world. After all, he gets to call Scott McCall his boyfriend.
So they fall into a pattern. Stiles and Allison text almost as much as Stiles and Scott do. Allison sends him messages about her roommates’ adventures and about the summer classes she’s taking and about her family drama, and Stiles texts her about Scott and about how much he hates his job and about whatever Netflix show he’s binging on. Stiles likes talking to Allison, and they never seem to run out of things to talk about.
They become close friends very quickly, and it makes Stiles really happy.
Things start deviating from his original Plan to Keep Things Platonic, though, when they start sending each other snapchats, and then even more when Allison brings up the idea of facetiming. She’s gorgeous even after a long run, a black tank top on and her hair in a messy ponytail and her face sweaty. Stiles hears her talk, sees her face light up when she gets excited and feels the way the world brightens when she’s laughing.
He knows that he’s heading towards dangerous territory, and he secretly tries to justify it to himself as just physical attraction and her similarity to Scott. She’s less unapologetically good than Scott, and less earnest. A little bit sharper. But she’s got big brown eyes and dark brown hair and a smile that makes Stiles feel like he’s done everything right to put it there. Allison telling him he’s done good, even jokingly, is enough to make him feel fuzzy and warm, and Allison makes him want to try hard to be responsible and be his best.
One night, he stays up way too late to see Scott in, and he tells her that he’s worried about getting up in the morning in time for work. She wakes up promptly at 5:45 AM to call him on his phone and make sure he doesn’t sleep through his alarm, and she makes him talk to her until he’s awake enough that he can safely drive.
Half-asleep and distracted by the coffeemaker, Stiles thanks her by telling her he loves her. She doesn’t seem to notice, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, it jolts Stiles awake a little bit.
That moment is when he realizes just how much trouble he’s in.
Stiles lets it roll forward anyway. He feels a bit guilty about it. He keeps talking to Scott about things, telling him about the conversations he has with Allison, telling him when he’s excited about something she said. He keeps hoping there will be a point when Scott puts his foot down and stops Stiles, tells him no more. He knows Scott knows him better than anyone, can see the way that the feelings are spreading.
Scott has to know by now.
But Scott never says a word, and Stiles doesn’t stop. He doesn’t feel like he can, anymore, and maybe that’s why Scott never says a word. Maybe he knows just as well as Stiles that it’s too late.
He’s got feelings for Allison Argent.