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Stiles and Scott become best friends at the age of three. They meet at a grocery and investigate each other gingerly when their parents stop to speak. Scott runs his hands over Stiles shorn head, finding the sensation pleasant, and Stiles submits to having his head rubbed. Twin smiles dance on their round, chubby faces.
The initial test has been passed.
They hold hands and survey the aisles in the grocery store. In grave tones, they mention the cereals they love. Rice Krispies for Scott and Cocoa Puffs for Stiles.
The next topic of discussion is favorite foods. Cake for Stiles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Scott. And on it goes.
For the next twenty minutes, they are content to talk to each other. Their conversation is not always comprehensible to their parents but it makes sense to them and that is what matters.
They are complete strangers to each other, but feel drawn to each other like it’s natural. Their parents are amused and survey their interaction with a look of affectionate indulgence. They cannot possibly know that this is a friendship that will span the years to come, unshakeable and immutable.
When they part ways, it’s with a little reluctance. They don’t know how to tell their parents that there goes a friend, a best friend. Words are not forthcoming. Scott talks too little and Stiles talks too much.
-
The next day, a harried Claudia Stilinski shows up at Melissa McCall’s door. Her apologies are rushed and desperate. She’s so sorry but Stiles just won’t stop crying. He’s been crying from the morning. He wants to see Scott. If it’s not a problem, could Stiles spend some time here? She would be so grateful.
She doesn’t expect to see the answering relief on Melissa’s face. It turns out, Scott has been crying too. She was just about to rush over.
Claudia lets Stiles go and he rushes towards Scott. They talk at each other, a curious mixture of words, none of it remotely making sense but the undercurrent is happy. There are no more tears. Soon enough, the boys settle down on the living room floor for a cheerful, meandering game of cars.
Claudia wonders out loud at the change in her son. Stiles is finicky. Not sure about people other than his parents. Melissa is amazed at the transformation in Scott. Scott is shy. And prone to bursting into tears. He cannot adjust to daycare. He doesn’t know the adults, other children scare him and new environments worry him.
But here he is. Here they both are, playing with each other, pleased to be with each other, not even caring about anything else around them.
The women are amazed. 20 minutes was all it took for two young boys to decide that they were something to each other.
What it was that made them decide, they’ll never know. But in the years to come, they’ll thank destiny or a higher power for allowing these two children to meet.
They expect that the children will forget soon. As small children are wont to do. That the hasty visit made one cold Sunday morning would be the first and the last. They’re wrong. The bond between Scott and Stiles only grows stronger. One day runs into the next. They don’t forget. They only grow closer.
On the first day of kindergarten, the parents are relieved to drop them off in school, and watch them walk inside, arm in arm, confident of their friendship if nothing else.
They come back full of tales of school and stories of each other. And that that is how it goes. They become inseparable, joined at the hip as they are all the time.
The bond weathers so much. It weathers Scott’s father leaving. It weathers Stiles’ mother dying. It weathers the worry of seeing their remaining parents’ toil. It weathers school, it weathers bullies. It weathers crushes, teenage angst and the discovery of self.
Scott and Stiles grow up and their friendship continues to endure. It weathers all that Beacon Hills can throw at them.
It weathers all until Scott becomes a werewolf and Stiles discovers there’s a spark and a ruthless streak in him.
-
For the first time in their lives, Scott and Stiles don’t come first for each other anymore. Scott finds Allison Argent and as happy as Stiles is, he’s angry too. He fell in love Lydia Martin a while before but he never put her before Scott.
For a while, Scott seems to be blinded by Allison and Stiles finds him scrambling to help Scott and also deal with the fact that he’s no longer first.
It’s not a nice feeling. And Stiles has never been able to share well. Thankfully, his attention shifts to others things when Derek Hales starts to become a permanent fixture in their lives. And a brooding one at that.
Objectively, Stiles appreciates people. Can appreciate beauty. But it isn’t until Derek comes into his life that some of his love for Lydia begins to wane and is replaced by a marked interest in Derek.
Of course, Stiles keeps that to himself. In the grand scheme of things, his crisis of sexual identity doesn’t seem all that important.
Until it does.
Once Scott figures out how to be a werewolf, things become easier for Stiles. But the downside is that now Scott is becoming more observant.
-
Scott and Stiles have a tentative relationship with Derek. They provide him with numbers and the pack he so badly wants and he trains them and helps Scott.
All it takes for Scott to figure out that something about Stiles has changed is one chance look.
There’s sunlight and warmth. Derek is wearing nothing but a pair of basketball shorts as he sprints around a clearing in the preserve to burn energy. Scott and Stiles are sitting side by side because Stiles is exhausted from sparring and Scott is giving Stiles company.
Stiles has stopped wrestling with the knowledge that he likes boys. Once his dad caught on to it, it became easier. All his dad did was reassure him that no matter what, he would always love Stiles. Because Stiles was his son. His one and only child whose happiness mattered to him.
Derek is angry and miserable most of the time – Stiles doesn’t blame him really – but when he’s allowing himself to run or shift, those are the times when he’s the most peaceful and as a consequence, somewhat happy and contented too.
So maybe Stiles’ gaze lingers a little longer than necessary and admires the sharp planes of Derek’s body. But it’s enough for Scott who turns to him with a look of hurt betrayal.
“What?” Stiles barks, not meaning to sound harsh but doing so anyway.
“You never said anything about it!”
“Should I have walked around with a glaring neon sign? Pretty much everybody else knows. And I didn’t have to tell them.” Stiles cannot help but sound bitter.
Scott looks at him, face somber and pensive.
“I am sorry,” Scott says softly. “I know I haven’t been a good friend this year.”
Stiles sighs. “You’re good. You’re – well, you’ll always be good. I guess I’m just not good at dealing with the fact that you’ve found people other than me.”
“You are always going to be my best friend Stiles. Nothing is going to change that.” Scott says softly.
Stiles smiles at that but it doesn’t really come from his heart. Scott will always be his best friend and he Scott’s best friend but their first priorities are now beginning to change.
Change, as people say, is inevitable.
-
Things become better after that. Scott is around more and Stiles realizes that he has got to stop letting his insecurities get the better of him.
He needs to change too.
All this while, he never told his father about the supernatural because he wanted to keep him safe. But he does not want to keep him safe at the cost of losing him. So one evening he confesses. The awesome bro that he is, Scott to is there.
Through it all the sheriff has a tight expression, lips compressed as if he wants to say something but is preventing himself from doing so through sheer force of will.
Once Stiles starts talking, he finds that he cannot stop.
“So yeah, that’s about it. To recap, Scott is a werewolf, I am not, and we hang around with Derek who is a werewolf and whose family was burnt by Scott’s girlfriend’s crazy aunt and whose family also likes to hunt werewolves.”
He sounds so blithe, but everything that happened so far was closer to something out of a nightmare.
The sheriff purses his lips and pinches the space between his brows.
“And you did not tell me all of this before because?”
“Because I wanted to keep you safe?” Stiles hedges because he knows it’s not the right answer. There’s no right answer and whatever he says, his father is not going to appreciate it.
The lines around his father’s mouth grow tight.
“Jesus, kid. I get that you want to keep me safe. But there is no point in keeping me safe if I cannot keep you safe. You’re my son. I love you so much. What would I do without you? What would I do if anything happened to you?”
Tears begin to roll down Stiles’ face. This is maybe the first real conversation he’s had with his father in a while.
“It is my job to keep you safe. And it is a job I cannot do properly if you keep secrets from me Stiles! Do you know that all this while, I thought you’d gotten yourself caught up in some bad things? And every call I got made me worry that I’d find you there, dead in a ditch?”
The sheriff stands up and joins Stiles and Scott who are sitting on the couch.
Stiles is crying so hard, he can barely see in front of him. Scott is a warm line next to him, but he can barely register anything. Until he feels his feels his dad’s hand come around his shoulders in a comforting grip.
“You want to protect me. Okay, I get it. But you’ve got to let me take care of you too, son. You’re all I’ve got and I refuse to lose you. I can’t lose you.” The sheriff’s voice breaks and Stiles feels a fresh wave of tears well up and drip down his cheeks.
“I love you, Dad.” Stiles means to sound put together but in reality, he sounds watery, tired and relieved, like a small lost child who has finally found home. He turns his face into his father’s shoulders, somehow feeling lighter and freer for all that has been said. He feels Scott to lean heavily into his side, somehow knowing that he too is shedding a tear or two. This is the most comforted he’s felt in a long time.
“Now what did you say about hanging around with Derek Hale?”
-
Stiles’ dad is mostly sold on the werewolf thing, but he’s not sold on the part where Derek Hale has somehow become a permanent fixture in Stiles’ life.
Here’s the upside of trusting someone. You begin to actually like them? And not just for their physical attributes.
Derek is hotter than the sun but he also one of the surliest people Stiles knows. And he has a lot of issues that would take forever to unravel.
Sometimes Stiles thinks that if he were an empath who could feel emotions, the weight of Derek’s emotions would slice him in half.
But if you spend enough time with Derek, like Stiles inevitably ends up doing, you learn that he’s also sharp and deadpan. He can be bitingly funny, should he feel like it and responds to most things with a nonchalance that is a little too convincing which is code for the fact that he cares too intensely about everything.
With Scott, Stiles needs to dial back sometimes. He cannot throw all his thoughts at him without confusing him. With Derek, Stiles doesn’t have to filter himself. Derek is capable of keeping up with Stiles’ tangents and is never confused or baffled by the fact that Stiles is essentially a mass of barely contained impulses, the brashness of youth and the tendency to jump headlong into anything.
When research needs to be done, and Lydia is not there to help, Derek usually sits with Stiles, no matter how late or difficult things get. And there are times he comes over for no reason at all. Stiles doesn’t ask why and Derek never offers a reason. But they find something to do, be it watching a movie, playing video games or just existing in each other’s company and discussing everything under the sun.
It is how Stiles spends his time with Scott, but there’s a different undercurrent to the time he spends with Derek. It’s comfortable, it’s nice and all-consuming.
The more comfortable Stiles becomes with Derek, the more his father regards him with piercing, thoughtful eyes.
It does not help that whenever he does see him, Derek is usually slipping in through the window of his underage son’s bedroom.
And nor does it help when he figures out that Derek is the object of Stiles very secret, much hidden affections.
It makes for an awkward conversation.
“Look, kid. I want the truth.” His father says one day over a breakfast of turkey bacon and toasted wholegrain bread.
Stiles looks askance at his father. There has been no secret keeping of late. The sheriff looks pained and Stiles can’t tell if it is because he hates wholegrain bread or that Derek Hale is slipping in and out of his son’s bedroom without so much as a by your leave. It must be a combination of both.
“Are you in a relationship with Derek Hale?”
Stiles chokes on his Cocoa Puffs and begins coughing hard, so hard that his dad has to come around and clap him on the back in a grim and unforgiving manner.
“What? No Dad. We aren’t – I mean, me and Derek, that’s uh. It’s not possible?”
“Then why can’t he use the door?” His dad demands, waving around a forkful of bacon to prove his point.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s a habit for him by now. I’ve told him but Derek pretty does whatever he wants. Raised by wolves and all that.”
“Are you in love with him?” Stiles gapes at his father, mouth open and full of masticated cocoa puffs. Of all the questions to be asked, he certainly did not expect this one.
“Close your mouth, kid. That’s unattractive.” Stiles swallows and tries to come up with an answer that is not outright denial nor outright acceptance.
“I could be?”
The sheriff looks heavenwards and then looks at Stiles who colors guiltily.
“I knew it. I’ve known it rather.” He levels a stern gaze at Stiles. “I’m not going to tell you who you can and can’t love. And not that you’d listen anyway, but I want you to know that just because you love someone, you cannot allow that person to treat you like nothing. You are something. You are someone. And don’t you forget that. And you can let Derek know that I’m the Alpha of this house, and one of the rules I have is that he needs to enter through a door.”
Stiles nods meekly, a small smile playing on his lips at his father’s rousing defense of him.
-
The next evening when Derek comes home, Stiles dutifully relays his father’s message and leaves out the part where he may or may not have admitted to loving Derek. Surprisingly after that, Derek starts coming in through the front door. He also is a lot more nervous around the sheriff which Stiles thinks is dumb.
Derek has no cause to be nervous. Stiles is the one who needs to be nervous, what with hiding his feelings and trying not be so transparent about them. But no, it is Derek who goes out of his way to please the sheriff who in turn refuses to be pleased or even swayed. It’s weird and uncomfortable for Stiles and hilarious for Scott whenever he sees it happening. Stiles doesn’t know how he can find this funny. This is really stressful. When Stiles asks Scott why he’s laughing, all Scott replies with is a cryptic ‘you know why’.
And that is the problem. Stiles does not know why.
-
Stiles cannot pinpoint the exact time he fell in love with Derek. It must have been sometime between all the reluctant but mutual life saving that they did. But he probably realizes it when Derek gets hit by a stray bullet from rogue hunters who come to Beacon Hills following a rogue were coyote and went down like a pile of bricks.
By the time they get him to Deaton, he’s turned an alarming shade of white, and Stiles and Scott are close to freaking the fuck out. It takes an agonizing few hours for Deaton to get the bullet out and a few more for the wolfsbane to leave his system.
Stiles finally understands what the term – to have your heart in your throat – means. For those few agonizing hours, his heart beats so hard and fast, it literally feels like his heart is going to come jumping out of this throat and crawl to Derek’s body on the table, leaving a bloody trail of anguish behind.
This time, saving Derek will not be as simple as cutting an arm off. Deaton tells him and Scott that it is a particularly virulent strain of wolfsbane, one that he hasn’t seen before and while he’s done the best he can, they can only wait and watch.
So Stiles waits and watches, keeps vigil, eyes never looking away even for a moment because what if Derek stops breathing the moment Stiles looks away?
His dad and Scott keep vigil too. Stiles can’t focus on anything now, not even if he tries, but he appreciates their presence.
Every time minute that he waits for Derek to wake-up is agonizing. Dying of natural causes is one thing. But to die because you caught a stray bullet, not meant for you, that’s not how it’s supposed to end.
-
Stiles wakes with a start, when he feels warm sunlight shine on his face. There’s nobody else around in the room. Just him and Derek. His eyes automatically move to the table and Derek is looking right back at him. It’s a wan, thoughtful Derek who looks back at him.
“How are you?” Stiles asks hoarsely, and feels inane right after. How does anyone feel after being hit by a bullet? Not happy for sure.
“I’m okay.” He sounds tired but gruff, like he is most of the time. The Derek that Stiles knows and has come to love.
Stiles smiles tremulously and tries not to cry from sheer relief.
“Were you worried?”
Stiles debates a moment or two before answering.
“Yeah. I was.”
He gets up and walks towards Derek and stands at the edge of the table, fingers clenching and unclenching.
Slowly and steadily, Derek reaches out for Stiles’ hand, holding it in a loose grip and places it on his chest. His skin is cool to the touch, and still worryingly pale. But Stiles can feel the slow, steady pulse of his heart.
“Don’t be.”
There’s a chair near the table. Stiles pulls it closer and sits down and watches Derek’s chest rise and fall evenly, his grip firm and warm, anchoring Stiles to this place and time.
That is when Stiles knows. There’s no going back after that.
-
Knowing you love somebody is one thing. Knowing that the somebody in question likes you back or maybe even loves you is another thing.
Derek is cagey with his feelings and thoughts. He doesn’t broadcast anything wholesale except for anger. But now that Stiles is closer to him and can read him better, it’s not hard to realize that Derek is a different person with him. And that his way of caring for someone is a little off-beat.
Stiles can read Derek not through words but through the lines of his face, the hunch of his shoulders and the slight tilt of his mouth. Knows that there are some things Derek will never forgive himself for and that some wounds are too raw to be closed and therefore will always fester.
A happy Derek is soft-eyed, loose-limbed and has no hunched shoulders. A Derek who is relaxed is more prone to small smirks. An angry Derek is pinched and compressed, like a volcano steadily building up to an explosion
When Derek is with him, Stiles mostly sees him happy or relaxed. And though it happens often enough, it is still a novel experience for Stiles who never thought he could make someone happy. The little clues slowly add up one by one. But Stiles doesn’t say anything. He waits and he watches.
Now is not the time.
-
One of the things Stiles likes to do when he cannot sleep is to just lie in bed and think of the future. The scenarios may vary but the people never change. Scott is ever present. As is his dad. And then there’s Mrs. McCall. Sometimes his mother drifts in and out, as vague as a dream, always on the fringes of his thoughts. Of late, there’s also Derek.
He does not envisage grand situations and scenes. He imagines little snippets of time set in the future. He imagines growing up some more, watching his dad retire and becoming a deputy himself.
He imagines having a small little barbeque in the backyard, with the pack and their families.
He vaguely imagines moving into a tiny apartment with Derek. He imagines a vaguer future where there’s a child – nondescript but small and doted over.
He imagines many futures.
Today he imagines nothing.
Today, he touches his face, bruised and raw, and winces. His body is sore and come tomorrow; he knows he’s going to have some difficulty using his right leg. He fought off a warlock today. One amongst a group who are trying to lay claim to Beacon Hills, drawn to the power it seems to broadcast.
Warlocks are nasty and play dirty. They established a tentative truce and then promptly broke it. They caught the pack off-guard which is why Stiles has more bruises than he normally does. But Stiles gave as good as he got. Had to.
For each punch or kick the warlock gave, Stiles hit back, sometimes ineffectually, sometimes accurately.
Stiles does not have supernatural strength to protect himself or his loved ones. So he uses what he has tucked away, deep inside. Anger and cruelty. Stiles is not an angry or cruel person by nature. But he’s capable of it. And he can be pushed into it.
Stiles may be human but he has not survived this long because he’s got a bunch of supernatural friends behind him. Stiles has also survived because he’s filled with the sheer will to survive.
Stiles knows that if something happens to him, his dad will break. In more ways than one. And Stiles can’t let that happen.
And then there is Scott. Stiles knows that something would change irrevocably within Scott if he is not around anymore. He’s not being boastful. He’s stating facts. Stiles and Scott have been intertwined for so long now, that if one went, the other would wilt. They wouldn’t die but they’d become a half, no longer a whole.
And then there’s Derek. For so long, all Derek had was anger and pain. To an extent, even now, he still carries it within himself, close to his heart, to remember what he’s lost. Stiles cannot do that to Derek. Make him love someone and then lose them.
Every time Stiles is in a fight – and it’s no longer novel that it’s all the time these days because the supernatural has no concept of time or space – he keeps these things in mind and he fights.
So today, when he stabbed a warlock with a tree branch, he did not think of being merciful. Instead, he thought of himself and he thought of the ones he loved. The people who need him the most, his dad, Scott and Derek.
It is sometimes scary for others to see the lengths he’s willing to go to. It’s not scary to him. Stiles knows about himself, knows he can shove down fear and morality, and spill blood.
It’s scary to Scott however. Scott - who looked at him askance today. Eyes filled with the barest hint of shock before he turned away. Kind, loving Scott whose heart bleeds for everyone. It’s not that Scott won’t take care of the people he loves. It’s just that if there’s another way – Scott’s going to find it.
Scott had wanted to mediate with the warlocks before. And he’s troubled any time there’s a possibility blood might be spilled.
That’s where Stiles and Scott differ. They love fiercely. They protect differently.
-
For the longest time, Stiles thought there was something wrong with him. It started right after his mother’s death. Her death made him lose faith in a lot of things, including himself. There are a lot of emotions you can explain to someone. Grief is not one of those emotions.
It wasn’t that Scott wasn’t there when Claudia Stilinski passed away. Scott was around. He was around as much as he could be. He ensured Stiles ate, slept and went to school. Somebody had to do it because the sheriff was in no shape to do so. So Scott did.
Sometimes Stiles thinks that he never would have made it through those god-awful months in the aftermath without Scott. Scott pulled him through a fog of despair. But Stiles left a part of himself behind.
Grief changes you. Irrevocably. And it changed Stiles and his father. Cut them into pieces and left them to stitch themselves back together the best they could.
Scott, bless his heart, has always been able to bounce back. He makes peace with himself. But that’s not how Stiles is. And he was afraid that he would always be that way. Broken and without a way for anyone to fix him.
Until Derek came.
-
Scott and Stiles fit into each other like a puzzle, where they make up for the bits that the other lacks. What Stiles doesn’t have, Scott compensates for, and what Scott doesn’t have, Stiles compensates for.
But Derek and Stiles fit in a different way. That way is jagged and sharp but it’s perfect.
Scott gets most of Stiles. He gets it without Stiles having to explain anything. Derek gets those things too. But Derek also gets the darker parts of Stiles. He knows what it’s like to want revenge, knows what it’s like to love so fiercely that you would do anything for the ones you love.
Scott may have looked askance at him today, filed this away as one more part of Stiles he doesn’t understand, a list that continues to grow the more scars they accrue. But Derek doesn’t look askance. Derek looks grim. And understanding.
For the first time in a long time, Stiles feels whole.
-
The road to being together is not an easy one for Stiles and Derek. They are two people who are constantly their own worst enemies, undone ever so easily by their own pride and self-esteem. For every step the take forward, they regress a mile backwards. But they make it. They make it to a point where they can say ‘I love you’ to each other and where their sharp edges get smoothed away.
Stiles used to be worried about being too broken before. He’s not now. He’s got Scott. He’s got Derek. Both of them complement different parts of him.
It’s nice.