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Love is a strange thing.
Stiles Stilinski would say that there is little he is 100% sure of anymore, what with the supernatural shit he’s went through in his twenty-six years, but he is sure of this much. Love is fickle and tricky and just when you think you understand it, love will twist itself and it will fuck with you for kicks. He has been in love for certain two times, with a scattering of crushes and infatuations.
So Stiles treats love like one would treat a stray dog, warily, and with the expectation that it’ll probably bite.
~
At first Stiles would wonder why Derek acted so cold, and stand offish with him sometimes.
Kate is a shadow that hangs over them sometimes, when Derek says something or Stiles does something to send him spiralling back to that time. Stiles knows the triggers now and avoids them without even thinking about it; calling Derek sweetie, objectification during sex, any sort of restraints during sex, those are all off the table.
He remembers Derek’s face the first time he called him ‘sweetie’ and it makes him feel sick.
~
Stiles would count his first love as being Lydia Martin.
Not at any time during high school though, no, Stiles in school was a mess. Holding it together for Scott was hard enough, he hadn’t needed to throw anyone else in to that mix.
No, he hadn’t been in love with Lydia during school, he was besotted, enthralled by, fuckin’ infatuated with her.
Then Scott got bit.
Then he met her.
His infatuation had dissipated almost overnight, probably aided by whatever Supernatural Big Bad of the week had been around then, and he’d gotten to know Lydia, quirks and all and he’d gotten to like her.
So they’d ended up going to the same college, Lydia obviously in some advanced placement program for mathematics genius, while Stiles was undeclared and considering going into something to do with Criminal justice.
He thought maybe he could be one of those cops who knew all about the supernatural side of things and helped to keep that crap flying under the radar, god knows that they could’ve used that sometimes in the past few years.
Scott had ended up going with Allison to France on a gap year, Isaac too. Stiles didn’t ask what the dynamic there was. It wasn’t his place. Boyd and Derek took off to New York, doing god knows what.
So Lydia and Stiles were the only two left in California and they bonded.
Obviously; it was inevitable.
They settled together at College, moving into a two bed apartment after first year, and an easy friendship. They didn’t single themselves out or anything of the sort, they had made friends, some wolves from the local pack and some college kids; Stiles in fact lost his virginity along the way, but they were inseparable.
Really, in hindsight Stiles could spot it coming a mile away.
So half way through Stiles’ second year, when they were both hilariously drunk, they kissed.
And kissed.
And kissed.
Then they were suddenly dating, and the small amount of time they’d spent apart before was not almost non-existent, sleeping, eating, studying all within the same four walls, to the exclusion of all of their friends. No one expected them out because all they did was make excuses and have sex.
And it was beautiful at the start, the best thing Stiles had ever had. Then the balance tipped.
And tipped.
And tipped.
~
Stiles is waiting for the twist with Derek. The catch. The punch to his gut when love fucks him over again.
He can vaguely remember his parents marriage and they’d seemed so happy and balanced, but he supposes that that’s just nostalgia talking.
Stiles had long ago come to the conclusion that all love was uneven, someone always loves more than they are loved and someone always is loved more than they loved. He’d made his peace with that, that he’d just have to find someone who that wasn’t a deal breaker for.
Fairy tales were just that for a reason; fantasies to help children sleep at night. Stiles knows that the monsters exist though, both literal and metaphorical. He knows that people didn’t just get to live happily ever after.
It was about the three month mark when he and Lydia had hit troubled waters. Coincidentally that was also the time when he told her he loved her.
Well, it’s not so much a coincidence, as it is the causality.
She said it back.
He still doesn’t know if she meant it. He doubts she does either.
The problem was that Stiles had almost regressed back into his teenage obsession with her. He’d only been 19 at the time, never been in love before, never had a girlfriend, and suddenly there was Lydia, living with him, dating him. So he loved her.
He can still remember those nights where he curled so tightly around her that he must’ve been hurting her, where he’d whispered how much he’d loved her in the dark of the room.
I love you too, she said.
She never initiated it.
Stiles can remember the constant worry and doubt about being good enough for her. He can remember when he over-analysed every fucking thing she said or did, and he can remember that hot, possessive want deep in his gut.
He feels fuckin’ embarrassed about it now; he and Lydia were really lucky that they managed to get through that with their friendship intact. Yes, being dumped by Lydia Martin was still one of the most painful things that Stiles can remember, but thank fuck she’d had the guts too.
‘Cause no matter how worried, and needy and insecure over their relationship Stiles would’ve gotten he probably never would’ve had the guts to dump her.
~
He sometimes worries that it’s happening all over again with Derek.
But then Derek presses kisses into his shoulders when he’s sitting at the kitchen table in the morning; Derek comes around to his if Stiles doesn’t stay over for two nights; Derek tells him that he loves him in the dark of the night when he thinks Stiles is sleeping.
Stiles hasn’t said it back yet.
He doesn’t know if he means it enough.
He doesn’t want to be that guy again.
~
The second love of Stiles Stilinski was also during college. During his 3rd year he’d met this girl, Kathryn her name was. He liked her, sure, and she was pretty enough. They’d kept contact over the summer as well.
Kathryn always initiated it.
So Stiles had gone back to College for his fourth and final year come the fall, and he can still remember it, bright as day. He’d been leaning against a coffee shop waiting for Kathryn to meet him when he saw her.
She spotted him, the sun had been beating down on her, and her honey brown hair was loose around her waist. He’d noticed because Kathryn barely wore her hair down, it was too long and it tangled far too easy.
She started running towards him, and fuck, Stiles realised that he was in a rom-com.
Then she lept at him, and he’d caught her, lifting her high in the air and holding her tight, before looking up and pressing a breif kiss into her smiling lips.
He’d thought; “I can do this.”
He’d thought; “This seems… smart.”
Those are not good reasons to get into a relationship with someone.
~
He finds himself watching Derek watching TV one day, and is hit with such a sickening sense of Deja Vu that he immediately gets up and goes to make himself some coffee. Derek just grunts and asks him to get him one too.
He used to watch Lydia do stuff, not like in a creepy way, but when they’d been sitting around their place he adored to watch how she took up space and how she would shift and lean in when she was watching the screen.
Stiles doesn’t want to be broken again, he doesn’t want to love someone more than they love him, but he doesn’t want to love someone less than they love him either.
He guesses he’s kind of at an impasse.
~
He knew he didn’t like Kathryn enough, he’d kind of hoped she’d grow on him though.
He’d been single for over a year.
He’d started to think there was something wrong with him.
It wasn’t like they were serious or anything, so they had one movie kiss, they were dating, it was no big deal, he didn’t have to be besotted over everyone.
Stiles stayed with Kathryn for a year and a half, in the end, which is something he feels ashamed of to this day; for how unfair he was to her, because he didn’t want to be alone.
He had loved her, she had been funny and she smiled so freely and he would sit and play with her hair for hours at night when she’d fallen asleep.
But he hadn’t loved her enough, he hadn’t loved her like she had obviously loved him.
In the exam leave he went without seeing her for two weeks. Every time she text saying that she missed him he text back; “me too :( xxx”.
But he hadn’t really. He hadn’t missed her deep down. He’d enjoyed going home, and spending time by himself, catching up on tumblr and sitting about in his underpants.
He wanted to be with someone that he didn’t have to be doing something with to enjoy their company.
Kathryn had cried when he broke up with her.
~
Stiles calls Scott that night.
Scott and Allison and Isaac moved back to Beacon Hills when they turned twenty five and Allison was pregnant. Stiles moved to New York.
He wished he could say it wasn’t for Derek but deep down he knows that’s not true.
“Scott, my man!”
Stiles can hear the wailing of a child with curly hair and pale skin. He knows what she looks like, Scott’s sent him millions of pictures of his daughter, and of Allison’s (again) rapidly swelling stomach.
“Stiles, we’ve got a skype date for Wednesday, is everything allright?”
Stiles hesitates.
Scott notices.
“I was wondering, and like, if anyone’s the person to ask, I’d say you were, what with your crazy triangle.”
“Shoot.”
“Uh, so like, how much you love Allison…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever feel like she doesn’t love you as much?”
Scott pauses, carefully considering his answer.
“No,” he says finally, before stopping again.
“Oh.”
“Does that help you at all?” Scott asks.
Stiles sighed, “Not really. Thanks anyway, I’ll talk to you on wednesday okay?”
Stiles hangs up.
~
They were lying on the sofa one night and Stiles just couldn’t keep it in anymore. Derek wans’t even doing anything, just lying with his head on Stiles’ lap, arm flung over Stiles’ knees.
He’d told Lydia he’d loved her to get her to love him.
He’d told Kathryn he’d loved her to try and believe it himself.
He tells Derek he loves him.
Just to tell him.
Because he can’t keep it in anymore.
Derek looks up at him, and tells him he loves him too.
And Stiles can’t see anything but love in his expression; no doubt, self loathing, no pity.
Maybe he did manage to find some balance.