Work Text:
It’s not exactly a secret that Stiles is in love with Lydia Martin. Actually it might as well be a Beacon Hills High trivia question. It was something that older students might point out to middle school students taking a tour of the high school. Something like a fun fact.
“And over there is Stiles Stilinski and he’s crazy about her, Lydia Martin. I know, right? He doesn’t stand a chance.”
But even through all of the negativity and laughs and pitying looks, Stiles keeps trying. Because he’s been in love with her since the 8th grade and something like that isn’t going to stop. Even when he takes her to the Winter Formal and he thinks they’re having a great time, but she’s looking for Jackson. Or when they go ice skating and he’s obviously talking about the two of them when he brings up orange and blue, but she plays dumb and gushes over Scott and Allison.
He doesn’t get discouraged though, because he loves Lydia. He loves her strawberry blonde hair and her quick wit and her brain and her smile.
And even though she couldn’t care less about him, he still loves her. She’s in love with Jackson, but Stiles is in love with her and that has to count for something. Because maybe they’ll have their moment. Maybe he’ll get a chance to show her how good he is for her. He can show her that he’ll always be there for her. That he can be it for her.
Okay, maybe he’s had his fair share of chances. Like saying he’ll be back in a few minutes to comfort her while she cries, but then he gets stuck in a pool with a paralyzed werewolf for two hours. Or when he takes her to Scott’s house with Jackson and Allison to keep her safe from a psycho leather wearing werewolf pack that thinks she’s a lizard monster. He could have told her everything then. About werewolves and hunters and what really happened to her the night of the Winter Formal and how the crush he has on her isn’t a crush at all.
But maybe next time it’ll work out. He won’t get interrupted and she’ll listen intently to every sincere word coming out of his mouth. And then she’ll what? Freak out about werewolves? Yes. Magically reciprocate his feelings? No.
Eight years and he’s just now realizing that she’s stolen so much of his time.
—
It’s a secret that Derek isn’t willing to share. Because it’s the one thing he’s most ashamed of and people don’t need to know of his shame. His pack doesn’t need to know of his guilt. No one has to know and no one will know. He’ll take this secret to his grave and beyond.
Kate Argent was older and beautiful and fascinating and undeniable. And he was young and naïve and attention starved and tempted. Because growing up in a big family – a big pack – was always hard. Everyone was better at something than him. Laura was a better leader. His cousins were better with school or sports or controlling themselves during full moons. And Derek just paled so helplessly in comparison.
Being with Kate made him feel like a better version of himself. He was funnier, stronger, smarter, more charming, more handsome. With her he was everything he ever wanted to be. She made him feel invincible and that invincibility made his family vulnerable.
He knew now that she had been too curious, too smart, too beautiful. She had been too much.
The fact that she was an Argent should have made him end it. It should have made him see sense, but he was too far to see sense at that point.
Derek saw sense for the first time again when he saw the burned remains of his home. When Officer Stilinski was trying to explain to him and his sister about the signs of someone starting the fire; that this had been no accident.
Well, maybe Laura knew his secret. She never could look him in the eyes for too long after that.
It doesn’t help now that Kate Argent is dead. He thought it might, but it didn’t. Because his sister is dead too and so is his uncle. To be fair the uncle that he loved had been dead since the fire.
He didn’t show compassion to his pack because he didn’t deserve it in return. When his first shot at love had burned down around him he didn’t deserve any kind of care. He was going to remain the same forever. Until the day he died when he would bring the ghosts of his family and his guilt with him.
So, yeah, it doesn’t help that she’s dead and buried. Because she took everything that ever mattered to him. She took everything that mattered and left him with the ashes all over his hands.
—
Maybe they gravitate toward each other because of their similarities. Or maybe it’s the differences. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter.
After saving each other’s lives for the past few months they eventually start to warm up to the idea of each other. Stiles likes the idea of trying to catch Derek off guard. Derek likes the idea of getting Stiles to stop talking.
The ideas shift over the course of a few more months. Stiles starts a mental list of all the times Derek has really smiled. Not a cocky grin or a sarcastic showing of teeth, but something real and genuine. He wants it to be because he’s happy or content or because he finds something funny. Stiles started the list last week and he’s up to four times. He adds a footnote to the list that the cause of each smile or grin is because of something he says or does.
Derek starts counting the times Stiles is actually serious. Not an eye roll toward Scott or a sarcastic remark or a long train of jittery thought, but something focused and direct. Because Stiles is a brilliant thinker and he’s smarter than he gives himself credit for. So each time he says something straightforward and thought provoking and so undeniably genius, Derek finds himself smiling and placing a hand on Stiles’s shoulder. If he’s counting correctly then it’s been about four times in the past week.
They start spending time together without the connection of Scott getting in the way. It’s just them ripping up the floorboards of the Hale house or watching old episodes of Star Trek on Stiles’s laptop in his bedroom. It’s just them when they check out a lead about some witches in town or go to the new pizza place to see if their cheese-stuffed crust is really that special.
And it’s Derek, not Scott, that Stiles goes to when Lydia Martin turns him down completely. When she says so sweetly that it would never work between them and then gives a soft smile in Jackson’s direction. But she still wants Stiles to be happy and she wants to be friends and isn’t he dating Derek Hale anyway?
Derek laughs at that bit, but it’s clear by Stiles’s face that it isn’t a time for laughter. So he wraps an arm around the teen’s shoulders, lets him lean into him a bit as he plays the next episode on the laptop in front of them.
It’s only fair that Stiles is the one he tells about Kate Argent. Because Stiles is talking about the Argents and it drifts to Kate and Derek snaps. The words come spilling from his mouth before he can even think. Because damn Stiles and the way he makes Derek feel. The way he makes him want to open up and share everything.
Stiles blinks before saying something that Derek might have been waiting his entire life to hear.
“It’s not your fault.”
He doesn’t have to explain why it’s not Derek’s fault. That if he had denied Kate’s advances she would have burned the house down anyway.
Because Stiles is always so sure.
And maybe Derek would be crying if he wasn’t cupping Stiles’s face in his hands and bringing their mouths together. Maybe there would be some argument or noises of disbelief if he wasn’t lowering Stiles onto the new hardwood floor of the Hale house. Maybe the guilt would overpower sense if he wasn’t drowning in the noises he was pulling from the boy beneath him.
But Kate took everything from him and Stiles is giving it back. And Lydia wasted Stiles’s time and Derek isn’t going to waste a single precious second with him ever again.